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Chapter 2: Sophia and Darkslaw have a talk
          The night fell upon Canzingsvale Wood in a heartbeat and Sophia found herself in a large, pink, princess-like dress. Why? Because of a baby shower that her grandparents were proud to sponsor; at their house too. As much as she didn’t want to complain, all Sophia could do was whine about how she didn’t want to attend even though the party was going to be downstairs in the large foyer.
   “Don’t they have a house? Why does it have to be here? It’s so dumb.”
   “Please don’t say that, Sophie. They are very good friends of ours and…” the grandmother came in close to the child’s ear and whispered, “They don’t have the money to pay for the party.”
          Sophia just moaned and tried holding her tears back as her grandma pulled back her hair to create a different style; one that you create a top knot while a few hairs fall down the back. So if they need money, they mooch off of you, she thought privately.
    They were already changing for three hours and the little girl was getting frustrated with it all. She finally asked, “Tsk. Will there be any kids? Not only old people?”
Grandmother giggled lightly as she tugged on her hair, “Well…there are two boys coming over and I’m sure you’ll get to like—“
   “What? Darkslaw is coming?!”
   “No, sweetheart. They are boys who live in this house too; Slawamir and Lynus Darktrend. They are such angels.” She swooned. “Who’s Darkslaw?”
   “Never mind.”
          Sophia’s grandfather came into the light room and said excitingly, “And who’s that beautiful little princess right there? Not my Supergirl, I suppose. Haha.”
She smiled a tiny smile of pleasure but deep down Sophia felt like crap.

          “Ay! Mira que linda! Era como un princesa, Sophia!”
          “Hello! Do you remember me from when you were small?”
          “You look so adorable, I just want to eat you up!”
     Jeez, was that party for the baby or Sophia? She was like the main attraction of the gala and it annoyed her on many levels, but all she could do was smile and say “thank you” even though she didn’t mean it; it didn’t matter to her whether she looked like an angel from heaven or a hobo out of Detroit. She just wanted to go to sleep but grandma and grandpa wouldn’t let her. She had to be “very appropriate”…..whatever that meant.
The night seemed to drag on forever…and ever…and ever.
Was it the girl’s lack of patience or the clock that was getting her tense? Whatever it was, she took it in as she walked around randomly, bumping into people and trying to make her way through the maze of visitors. It was so annoying. TOO annoying.
          She got to meet the mother of the unborn child and she seemed really nice, but the problem was that she didn’t know how to stop talking. I swear, they were at it for an hour and all Sophia could do was reply, “uh-huh” and “really?” to all of the rambling. Inside she was just like “Shut up!”
          The music was slow and boring; all it consisted of was a piano playing a wannabe tune of the blues. The player looked as if he didn’t want to be there, but his job paid.
Not to mention the food there was bland; either bland or overdone, like salmon and apricot and whatever else they could find all chucked together on a stick. The second you even SMELLED that stuff, you’d go running for the hills. At least I would.
          It was hard not to fall asleep during the shower. Here Sophia thought it would be a huge party of excitement and kids to play around with (according to the past baby showers she’s been to), but it was just a bunch of adults chatting and chatting away about the baby and the gifts and the future and the blah blah blah. She lazily walked over to the small table where they served the desserts; surely they’d have something decent or sweet at the dessert table, right?
But there was nothing sweet on the table; there was nothing AT ALL.
Her curiosity sharpened until she heard some munches going on underneath the long wooden table.
She knew her grandparents didn’t have any pets, so Sophia ducked down and pulled up the cloth.
   “Oh! Whoops! Busted.”
   “WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH—“
  “Shh,” Darkslaw rasped; face stuffed with icing and an expression of curiosity looked at a mad Sophia. “There’s four hours left and no chicks; what the heck do you expect me to do, pixie?! Talk British with the bunch of aristocrats out there? I think not!”
   “That food is not yours! Put it back! Except for you, Lynus. You can have as much as you want.”
   “Hey! How come HE gets special treatment?! I’m the cutest out of us both.”
Sophia made a puny smile but reverted back to her annoyance saying, “HE’S not the weirdo around here! And you aren’t cute, Slawamir. You are a FREAK.”
   “It’s Darkslaw,” he corrected her with his mouth dripping with cookie crumbs. “And you just reminded me of something, pixie. Get under here.”
   “What? No!”
   “Fine. Earn the reputation of the cutest lil girl who talks to tables. I’ll be alright with that.”
God, she hated the feeling of defeat. When it came to dealing with that girl, you were either with her or against her. She gave in to his comment and crawled underneath the table. It was pretty spacey; sure beats walking aimlessly through the crowd of yammering guests. At least she had someone to nag at and talk to.
          “What do you want?” she demanded from him. “If they catch us like this, YOU are going to be in big trouble. Grandma will be mad at you.”
   “Ooooh. I quiver with trepidation. Look,” he handed her an M&M cookie. “I leave tomorrow, so I gotta have someone to listen in on my little tale before I leave. You happen to be the only one around here with a bit of imagination.”
After taking a munch out of the treat, Sophia looked at his eyes curiously saying, “Imagination?”
   “I can tell. You don’t have too much but it’s still there. I can see it.”
It sounded creepy the way he said it. What was this guy getting to? He came in closer to Sophia’s face while Lynus just sat behind her, eating whatever. She didn’t feel right, for some strange reason.
   “Ever heard of Decembersville?”
The whimsical word sounded familiar to her. She thought she remembered him mentioning something like that during their meeting in the afternoon, but she just shook her head in denial.
   “It’s a city. Not far. Well, I’ve only been there once but it’s pretty hard to forget about it.”
   “What are you talking about?” she asked, weirdly.
   “I’m talking about a city where certain people known as ‘freaks’ live. Yeah. I said it. And you know what, pixie? It’s…right….in….your….backyard.”
Those words felt chilling. He sounded so serious on this nonsense. Sophia wanted to call him crazy and crawl out from under the table….but she stayed. She stayed and listened. Her amusement and anxiety rose up a level.
          “What do you mean?” she asked. Her eyes widened in oddity as she looked at Darkslaw’s face. He looked as if he knew what he was talking about, which was probably the reason Sophia felt a little distant even though she barely knew the boy for a few minutes.
          “I mean,” he continued, whispering. “There is a city in the woods where freaks live. There is a snowy, zany little city hidden somewhere in the woods; deep, deep, deep, deep, DEEP in the woods. And the best part is: it only appears at night.”
The small tale sounded almost like a ghost story to the little girl. She hated them the most. Her sister (now in college) once scared her to tears with a story about a girl who got lost in the woods and was eaten by the wolves, only to haunt the place and eat whoever she could lay her eyes on. The story still kept her awake at night and on the verge of crying. Now this teen is telling her the story of a monster-infested city in the woods that randomly appears at night.
Sophia said in the calmest way she could, “So…why are you telling me this? I don’t care.”
   “Really? Okay,” Darkslaw replied more joyfully and dumb. “Then I suppose you won’t mind if we kind of took a little rendezvous tonight.”
Sophia stared at him.
   “In the woods. At night. In the misty darkness with nothing but my flashlight to keep us on track….minus the wolves and bears. Hehehehehee.”
Sophia felt her heart pound forcefully. No. She didn’t want to go. She couldn’t go. There was no way. No way at all. So she responded, “No.”
   Darkslaw instantly sighed as if he was waiting for her to answer that way. “Figures. Pixies like you are such big babies when it comes to this kind of ‘adventure’ stuff.”
That sparked some rage and stubbornness in Sophia’s spirit.
   “I’m NOT a baby! Shut up!”
   “Oh, aren’t you? Prove it.”
   “No!” she quickly added. “I’m not allowed to go out at night! I can’t even be by myself for a long time! I’m not allowed to do that stuff!”
   “And I was not allowed to steal this food off the table,” Darkslaw smiled evilly. “Yet here we are.”
Those words sounded powerful to the child. Lynus was listening as well but expressed no interest.
All Sophia could do was stare down at her crumb-covered hands. Her insides tightened.
She felt Darkslaw’s mouth near her ear as he whispered,
“I’ll pick you up at midnight…Sophia.”