by Charles Reid

Created on: June 20, 2008

Once five children came to stay with their great uncle and great aunt and cousin. The children's names were Samuel, Elizabeth, Andrew, Ashley and Christopher. Samuel, the eldest, was a boy of singular build: he had light, blonde hair, was quite lean yet muscular with a childish face which yet communicated a peculiar amount of wisdom. Elizabeth, second in age, was dark in more than just her hair color. She had eyes of a perilous green; something about them seemed to indicate poison. Her smile was always merry, but it gave one an uncomfortable feeling, as if the girl was hiding something and was laughing quite jovially at the world's attempts to uncover whatever it was. Andrew was the middle child, but there was a significant age difference between him and Elizabeth. He was a happy-go-lucky child, innocent as a lamb and as full of mischief as Loki. He became such an unmitigated terror to the other children that even his parents, who loved him dearly, would shake their heads and whisper to each other, "He'll come to no good one day; poor thing, one day he'll find that the world isn't all pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce." There's a lot to be said for the predictions of loving parents, and they more often than not are revealed in the end to have the breath of truth about them. Ashley was a pretty, white-blonde girl, just a year younger than Andrew. She absolutely adored Andrew, to the point that she would share in any kind of prank he came up with in his Screwtape mind. Conversely, little Ashley was Andrew's pride and joy; they were inseparable in both mind and action. I'm sad to say that the graceful fawn was often led astray by the playful wolf cub, and it was usually she who took the blame for her brother's inventive mischief, though sometimes Andrew would be so guilty and worried that he would confess in tearful revelations of his own accord. Christopher was two years younger than Ashley and considered the baby of the family and was consequently spoiled. His parents catered to him like fussy nursemaids and all of the children played with him unceasingly. All that is, except Elizabeth. When he came up to her and begged her to play in the way little children will, imploring her with his big brown eyes, she turned her eyes of green poison down to him and met his longing gaze steadily with hers. Her dark beauty overwhelmed him every time and he ended up staring stupidly up at her face, his eyes held to hers. If the other children ever found them thus, it would often

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