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  "Mom, what do you think? D'ya like it?"

  Her tiny hand stained with red paint clasped on to her mother's. Mom screwed her eyes up at the little girl's painting. A whirlwind of thought. She twitched. Then frowned.

  "Mizuki," she instructed, "stay right here, okay? Don't move a muscle."

  "Okay!"

  And she waited. She waited until her face was tired from smiling so much. When Mom finally hurried back with Dad in hand she swept a strand of hair behind her ear like a real artist. The splotches of paint made her gray uniform bright again.

  "Look at this," Mom said. She pointed at her picture. Mizuki waited for either to smile. Neither did.

  "Mizuki," Dad said, "what is this? Why did you draw..." he put a hand to his mouth like he was going to throw up.

  The question caught her off guard. She had thought Dad in particular would have known. "It's an aura. I saw it. You know!"

  "Mizuki, you're too old to see auras. I don't know what that is, but it isn't one." He curled his fist.

  The hand covered in paint hurt very bad then. She wanted to scream but was too afraid. He grabbed her wrist and a big tear rolled down her cheek.

  "It's - it's only a painting, Dad." She squirmed as he dragged her out of the room. "My hand..."

  Her hand what? She didn't know what she meant to say. The pretty pictures whirled by as they went down the hall. The other kids'. Some were red too. Like Rapidash on a carousel.

  Dad was stone. He wouldn't slow down even though she almost tripped over her own feet as they hurried away. She blinked away dizziness.

  Then they were outside. It had been too long since the grass had been cut and little fat dew drops clung to each blade. Across the lawn some kids were playing soccer but they didn't notice her and Dad.

  He took her behind the big building to a little shack. She knew she'd been here before but she didn't know exactly when. Her hand still hurt. Her wrist. When he let go she moved to rub it and a shiver passed through her.

  "Mizuki," he said. "I don't understand. What's wrong with you?"

  She didn't answer and he pointed at the shack.

  "Mizuki, I'm going to put you in a safe place. You can be alone for the rest of the day and think about what you've done."

  He wasn't really angry with her. His eyes reminded her of Miki's when she broke her arm and the bone stuck out and she cried like she was being crucified. It made sense because his heart always cried for sinners. Him and the elders cried sometimes after the sermons. They wept for others but she cried for herself.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The cramped chamber was old and smelled of the dead but the floor was soft and padded like a mattress. Dad told her to sit down and she sat criss cross aspearsauce like they always said she had to.

  Then he closed the door and there was nothing but her. The lights turned everything a dull yellow and nausea settled in her stomach. The air slipped solidly down her throat like the pebbles Mizune had force fed her just to see what happened. The only reason she had let her do it was because she said she had a bag of star candy behind her back and would feed them to her if she closed her eyes.

  Her red hand trembled. She slapped it the way Dad had and it made a noise. But the noise was muffled like it had come from inside a paper bag. It wasn't painful. Just necessary.

  A little Spinarak weaved a web in the corner. She liked Spinaraks. The Spinarak didn't like her back though. It kneaded the web like an artist imperfect. She took a shuddering breath and the Spinarak gnashed its jaws at her.

  I'm alone here, she thought. No one's going to come for me.

  She didn't know whether she wanted anyone to. She hated washing her hands but she wanted to now. Instead she spat into one and rubbed the spit all over them. The paint bound itself to it and both dripped down her wrist onto the floor. She knew she ought to be disgusted but she wasn't at all.

  Some neighbor rapped on the door. She got up and peered through the little window slit to see the tree branches tapping against it. The door was locked. She didn't know much about locks except they kept naughty little girls inside.

  She saw a patch of browning leaf litter tracked in and she put her hand in it and traced around it with her pointer finger. Her heart kept time and she sung to its rhythm. Her voice ached from the strain but her heart was too full for her to stop. It was a prayer song from Mom and Dad's ancestral tribe. A piece of a time before truth.

  Don’t be sad, don’t be angry

  Offer only friendship to everyone

  Don’t be sad, don’t be angry

  The moon turns to blood and the sun is gone

  Almighty Sinnoh, master of all things

  Mend our broken hearts and forgive our many sins.

  Spinarak ran away from her song. It crawled up the wall and stayed there. She rubbed her cheek with the wrong hand and quieted.

  "My name's Mizuki," she told it. "I'm sorry. I don't want to be here either."

  It was true but she had to be here because something bad and sick and vile had taken root in her. Because she liked the color red like the flames licking the pit of hell. Because Mom was mad at her because she said she ate the stupid rocks herself because she didn't want Mizune to get hit. Mom strangled feeling and Mizune felt.

  She kicked the palm leaves and they scattered from her. Each kick a promise.

  "I'm bad today." She thought about kicking the forgotten web but the weavings were perfect. "But someday I'll be good. I'll make myself good. You'll be afraid of me then."

  She settled back into the center of the room which was the world. She didn't care if anyone could hear her or read her thoughts because her thoughts were the world too. It was on a string and it flashed red and white as she cupped it in her hands. She smiled.

  That morning, a group of boys paused their soccer game to investigate an odd sound coming from the other side of the field. It was impossible to ignore: the voices of multitudes upon multitudes made a contiguous sound, chanting with a fervor surpassing even that found at the services. A single word. A name?

  But all they found when they got there was an old dilapidated shack. An abandoned storage shed. Despite the fact none of them could shake the rhythm from their ears, there was nothing that possibly could have caused it.

  Yet another incident of mass delusion, the adults concluded, shaking their heads and clicking their tongues. After all, children were so prone to hysteria, weren't they? Mindless chatter turned into silly notions turned into falsehoods seen and heard. Poor little children, unable to tell reality from fantasy.

  Poor children indeed.