Outside the Elwood House

For Cass, the holiday has gone by pretty blandly and without much fun, but she's had her family to keep her rooted and with something to do. After teasing a grass snake away with loud bursts of screams (unintentional) and scraps of meat (intentional but useless) Cass had found herself in an empty house and with not much to do. The cat now happy that it was the only predator who liked rats in the vicinity was now stalking around the house and doing nothing but look cool. Which for a cat as you can imagine was a feat to imagine.

But she needed something to do and because of this being a new phenomenon- because there was always something for her to do- she was a bit at a loss. Her mother had shooed her out of the house at one point today and then when she had disapparated she had wormed her way through a back window back into the house, but now she was thinking that maybe Mum was right the first time, and maybe she should be outside. The weather wasn't entirely uninviting anyway..

Outside. What now? No cats to taunt, no snakes to scream at, no weeds to un weed, no siblings to have water fights with, no food to eat, really. She was probably better off just going for a walk. So she turned, tied her belt extra tight (a ritual for when going walking somewhere) and locked the door, tying the key string around the belt letting it hang like some demented work belt and followed the road to the left. For a few minutes she went on without nothing much to take her away from her deliberate strides and insistance that she could catch up with her shadow (but to no avail) until she saw something black on the floor almost collide with her shadow.
"Woah!" she yelled, breaking mid stride and stepping to the back and to the side. "Sorry mister."
Doing a double take when she realised this was infact, only half a mister- because it wasn't a man it was a boy- Cass blinked a little in the vibrant sun and canted her head. "Luke?"

And then she'd remembered a little bit of that night when she'd taken out the cat and there were a bunch of rowdy people heading towards his house- or what she thought was his house. It could've been the Reverend's, because he had a fancy acquired taste. She wasn't sure. But she felt this compulsion to give him a big squeeze and everything, but instead cleared her throat and tried not to have the eye contact too intimidating. "Er, Luke. Hey. Are you okay?"

Luke tried to keep out of the house as much as possible now, he wasn't entirely sure where his father was. For all he knew those people had finally caught up with him, and had him locked away somewhere, but he hoped that he was still just away with work. He hadn't told anyone about that night, especially not his mother, she wouldn't have anything useful or even meaningful to say anyway. She would just brush it off, and tell him not to worry about it, or call him a liar and to go away. So Luke just had one more secret that he kept to himself.

Luke didn't like to admit that he now had nightmares about those people, he didn't know who they were and if they would be back. He was just glad for whomever or whatever made such a loud noise outside the house that night, that sent them all scurrying away. He would often see the dark eyes of that man, staring at him when he shut his own eyes at night.

So keeping out of the house, seemed like the best thing to do. If he was out of the house, then he was away from his mother, and also away from the place where those people had last found him.

He would just wander around the grounds, sometimes, kicking stones along the ground paying no attention to where he was heading. That was what he was doing this time, with the sun shining on his face he kept his eyes lowered to the ground, knocking the stone across the ground with the toe of his boot.

The stone disappeared into shadow, and before he could look up he found himself jumping back out of the way. He quickly glanced up fearing that they had found him, that they had come back for him. However unless they had shrunk, then he was safe. He muttered a short apology and tried to step out of the way again. Not really wanting to engage in conversation. But when the girl called his name he wasn't going to just walk off and ignore her.

"Er yeah," he furrowed his brow slightly, "Why wouldn't I be?"

They seemed to be doing an odd quickstep, but Cass didn't comment Luke on his dancing skills. Honestly, it was such an odd feeling. It was like Luke didn't remember her from school or something. Was this the way with boys? Did they forget everyone they ever met unless they were bound by blood, and as a girl who prided herself on being in the know, Cass be the only one to remember she stood on his mandrake root in Potions once and he got all antsy? Forget it, Mr Elwood.

But he does look confused... Maybe Cass had gotten the wrong end of the stick. It wouldn't even surprise her. "Ah," she said, deflated, "I thought I saw some people on the way to your house a couple of nights back and I just got the creeps. The way they were walking and stuff like that. Nevermind, they could've been going anywhere," she shrugged, her eyes glassing over and taking a quick second to imagine it all again.

About to rain... puddles in front of her... the bloody cat just wouldn't pee... unlike the rain.... and a break of water... and a foot fall louder than normal... followed by quiet patters of five or more pairs of feet... and they were running... running towards the Elwood house.