Page 16 of Scary & Bright

I bolted to the bathroom like a kid in the last round of musical chairs. If the bedroom was this cool, I couldn’t wait to see the bathroom. For a brief moment, I forgot that I was sharing this castle with a murderous demon-creature and just wanted to check out what sort of design choices had been made.

I wasn’t disappointed.

The entire bathroom was similar in ambiance to the bedroom. The floor, which extended into the stand-up shower, was styled to look like river rocks. All the fixings were a brushed copper, keeping in tune with the dark, moody decor. A heavy clawfoot tub sat imposingly beside the shower, and it looked large enough for me to sink my entire body into and stretch my legs out.

“This is the one. I don’t even need to see any more,” I announced as I exited the bathroom, flicking off the light behind me. “This is perfect. All of it.”

“Great,” Tuff said, raising his good arm in the air, pantomiming a cheer. “Well, see you later.”

The luchador quickly turned around and waddled out of the room on his short, little legs. I didn’t even have the chance to thank him for his help before he was out of sight.

“Don’t mind him, Holly. He’s just a stick in the mud,” Starlight said, shaking out her rainbow mane. “But I do suppose it would be polite of me to let you get some rest. I can’t imagine how exhausted you must be, and the last thing I want to do is keep bothering you with all my yammering, like blah, blah, blah.” She let out a high-pitched giggle and began to rock backward out of the room. “I’ll give you some time to settle in, and I’ll be back soon enough. I can have a snack or a drink brought up for you if you’d like?”

“Um, I’m actually okay, thanks,” I said, knowing full well that I was not okay, but it wasn’t anything a snack or a drink would solve.

As much as I didn’t want to be alone in the castle, my eyelids were heavy, and my body felt absolutely worn out from the peaks and valleys of stress. Besides, I needed time to think, really think, about what I was going to do next, and while I appreciated the rocking horse’s constant conversation, it was going to make that process much more difficult.

“I think I’m going to try to sleep for a while,” I told her.

“Great! Honestly, love that idea for you,” Starlight said reassuringly. “If you need anything, um, just poke your head out and holler.”

“Sure thing,” I said with a smile.

Being here really was conflicting. There was no reason for me to believe that the toys weren’t in business with Krampus or had their own hands in whatever evil he partook in, but there was something about the expression in Starlight’s painted glimmering eyes that made me feel like she meant it.

“And Holly?” She glanced over her shoulder as she rocked back toward the balcony.

“Yeah?” I asked as I stepped on the heel of one of my slip-on shoes with the other, trying to get them off without leaning over.

“Thanks for being so nice,” she said with a hint of shyness that I wasn’t sure existed in the chatty wooden horse. “Honestly, I really didn’t expect you to be, and you had absolutely no reason to be with the circumstances and all, heh. I really can’t imagine how scary and strange all this must be, but you just… Thanks for letting us show you around. It’s been really nice to have someone around with a sense of humor.”

“Of course,” I responded, my eyes threatening to well up.

“All right, well, like I said, I’ll be back to check on you soon,” the horse said as she backed entirely out of my selected bedroom and nudged the door shut behind her.

And with that, I was alone for the first time since waking up in that disgusting basement. My eyes were no longer threatening to well up; rather, they were actively wet. Big fat tears began to roll down my face as all the emotional buildup erupted all at once. I had so many questions, and I really was deeply scared. This entire castle, regardless of its beauty, felt like a massive cage. A gorgeous, festive trap. I had no way out, I had no way to get home, and as I tipped over in the sunken bed and pulled a throw pillow into my chest to hold against me, I felt like the smallest, weakest prey animal in the world.

All of this because I landed myself on the Naughty List—something I had no reason to believe existed in the first place—and then went on to be so unlucky as to be selected. Amazing. As if my life of bad luck and shit circumstances couldn’t get any worse, there I was sobbing into pillows in a windowless castle occupied by fucking Krampus.

A barely-there knock sounded against my bedroom door. I only heard it because, by another stroke of perfect luck, I’d been taking a breath at the same time the delicate tapping took place. I crawled out of the sunken bed on all fours like a startled kitten and waited for the sound again, just to be sure I had really heard it.

Then there was another knock. And another. Whoever was out there was growing impatient. My brain raced with possible suspects.

Starlight? No. It was too quiet. I doubt she held the capacity to do anything so carefully.

Tuff? Doubt it. He seemed entirely over the concept of continuing to grace me with his presence. Nothing about the wrestler struck me as incredibly patient, either. If it were him, he would have likely already been yelling for my attention.

Krampus? The thought forced a heavy dread to sit in the pit of my stomach. If he really wanted to come in, he could. There was no doubt about it. If the creature was capable of magically removing every window in the entire castle, it seemed fair to assume that a simple door wouldn’t prevent him from entering a space he wanted access to.

The knock sounded again, but this time it was followed by a tiny voice.

“Excuse me, I don’t mean to bother you, but I just thought…” The voice trailed off for a moment. “I thought it would be polite to check in!”

Polite? I thought to myself. Now I definitely knew it wasn’t Krampus. The little voice was far too small to belong to that hulking creature. Deciding whoever was on the other side of the door was likely not there to flay me, I stumbled to my feet and padded my way to the door, my socks whispering across the floor.

I cracked the door open just enough to peek out, but I didn’t see anyone.

“Hullo!” There was the voice again, chipper as a spring morning. “Down here, if you please!”