I was so excited for Hallowe'en. Yesterday, Mummy, Daddy, Emma and me decorated the house with lots of pretend cobwebs and spiders and hung up a big sign across the kitchen saying "Happy Hallowe'en". Mummy baked a cake and decorated it with white and black icing so it looked like a spiderweb, while Daddy helped Emma and me to fill party bags.
"Can I go buy some more sweets for tomorrow?" Emma had asked, when we saw there were only a couple of packets of Haribos left in the cupboard. She wasn't usually the type of person to ask for things, so it surprised me when she said this.
Mummy didn't like the idea of her going to the shop by herself, so Daddy said I should go with her and that he'd watch us walk there to make sure we were safe. He can be very persuady sometimes, so she let us go.
"I'll give you five pounds between you," she said, handing Emma the five-pound note to put in her shoulder bag. "But that doesn't mean you have to spend it all, okay?"
We both nodded.
When we got to the shop, Emma reached into her bag and pulled out the note.
"Go buy the sweets, Luke," she instructed me, placing it in my hand. "I'll be back in a minute." Then she began to wander off.
"Wait!" I called, not understanding why she couldn't just stay with me as Mummy had told us to do. I hated going against what Mummy said.
Emma turned back to face me, holding a finger to her lips. The annoyed look on her face persuaded me not to ask what she was doing, so I let her go.
I chose the sweets – another packet of Haribos Star Mix – but Emma took forever coming back, so I went to find her. When I eventually spotted her, her light blonde hair standing out against everything, she was at the far end of the shop, on an aisle I never normally looked at. In her hands, she was holding what appeared to be a box of-
"Luke!" she hurriedly shoved it behind her back as she caught me watching her. "I told you to wait for me!"
"But you took forever," I moaned, walking up to her. "What are you hiding?"
"Nothing," she lied. She seemed angry with me again, so I just nodded and kept quiet. "Give me the sweets. I'll go pay."
Emma made me wait outside the shop whilst she paid for the sweets and the box she was hiding, then we walked home in silence.
"Where did you get the money for...that?" I asked, as the question popped into my head. I knew she hadn't used any of the five-pounds Mummy gave us to buy the box, because she gave me all the change back and there was a lot of it.
"You don't need to know!" she snapped. Then added, more softly, "It's just easier if I don't tell you, Luke. Then you won't end up in trouble like me."
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On the morning of the Hallowe'en party, I woke up at 7.30 am. As I needed to use the bathroom badly, I rushed straight there. The door was closed, but not locked, so I pushed it open, to reveal the not-so-well-hidden secret of Emma's that was clearly going to make both my parents very angry.
Our usually-white towels hanging from the drying rack were covered with dark handprints. The sink and bathtub were mucky and grey. Even the walls had been sprayed with this watery colour, and splattered across the black and white lino floor were puddles of black liquid which would stain the floor so it never looked the same again, although, to be honest, that was nothing compared to the state of the towel Emma was currently drying her hands on.
And her hair. Her hair was black.
"What have you done?" I cried, stepping back from the mess in horror. "Mummy's going to kill you!"
Everything was ruined. Last summer, our bathroom had taken months to decorate and Emma had just come along and messed up everything. In that moment, I hated her.
"Shush!" she hissed, glaring at me. Anger I had never before seen was spreading rapidly across her features, so much that it was beginning to scare me a little.
"I'm going back to bed," I said, backing further away from her. "I'm not going to be here when Mummy finds out."
"No you won't!" she snapped back. Then she reached out to grab my arm, her grip tight and painful. I didn't dare try fighting back as she was behaving so strangely, so I stumbled back into the bathroom with her. "You'll do what I say, Luke," she growled. "You'll do what I say or else you'll get hurt."
I nodded quickly, my hands beginning to shake visibly, wedged tightly between my trembling knees as soon as Emma let go of me. "W-what do you mean?"
"Go get me a knife, Luke."
"What?!" I backed as far away from her as I could again, terror building up inside me.
"Did you not hear me?!" she shouted – so loudly, I was sure it must have woken my parents up. In fact, I prayed it did. "Get me the sharpest knife you can find in the kitchen."
"N-no," I shook my head slowly. "I c-can't do that."
I tried my best to protest, but Emma would not listen. She shoved me hard against the bathroom wall and whispered in my ear "Tod doesn't like you anymore, Luke. Now, don't make him any angrier." Her face was so close to mine that I could see her eyes were red and bloodshot, as if she'd been crying for a long time. Her skin was so pale that she looked ill, a sudden contrast against her jet-black hair.
"I w-won't!" I spluttered. "I'm g-going, I'm going." After which I raced down the stairs as fast as possible, desperately trying to get away from the strange and terrifying girl in my bathroom.
I could barely think whilst I was dashing around the kitchen, jumping at every small noise. At any moment, mummy could come downstairs and find me here, or, worse still, Emma would find me again and... and hurt me.
Did I hear footsteps on the landing? Surely that was someone walking downstairs? I was so confused that my head was spinning. What had gone wrong this morning? Surely, this was a nightmare. Surely, Emma was who she had always been – my sweet, blonde-haired sister. I gripped the side of the kitchen counter as my knees began to give way. I was dreaming, I was dreaming, I was...
The next thing I knew was that I was laid on the kitchen floor with mummy looking over me. My head was still hurting, so I began to cry, tears spilling down my cheeks and drip drip dripping onto the lino.
"It's okay, honey," Mummy said, stroking my forehead. "I don't know what happened, but it's okay."
"I-I don't know," I cried. "I was just st-standing there and then I wasn't."
"Come on, Lukey, let's get you up off the floor," she said soothingly. "Then I'd better help sort Emma out."
"Where is she?" panic began to rise inside my chest again at the mention of her name.
"Don't worry, sweetie, Daddy's with her now." She put her arms around me, gently pulling me off the floor and onto her knee. "And I'm not at all angry with you. Do you know what happened exactly?"
"No."
I wanted to tell her everything, I really did, but I just didn't dare to. Firstly, because Emma might have hurt me like she had threatened to and, secondly, because, deep down, I knew the whole thing was a terrible nightmare, as it was way too scary to be true. So I kept it a secret. And Mummy always says secrets are bad.
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