~*Chapter 3*~

Those Are Your Hands?

The staircase led to a series of hallways, and yet another stairway, this one considerably smaller. She began climbing. "I'm sorry to barge in like this, but you don't have any reason to be afraid." She said this because it seemed almost as though whoever was there was running and hiding from her.

Trying to make conversation with the person she couldn't see but knew must be there, Peg said, a little breathlessly, "Ooh! This is some huge house, isn't it? Thank goodness for those aerobics… classes." She trailed off at the end due to what lay at the top of the small stairway. It was what appeared to be an expansive attic or loft space, with a giant hole in the roof, which, along with one or two windows, let in a lot of light, except in one corner of the room, which was lost in almost complete shadow.

Stepping into the room, Peg saw an old, apparently not currently functioning, fireplace. There was what appeared to be a small bed pushed inside it. The worn mattress was covered in multiple gashes, and half the stuffing was poking through. The thin blanket was sliced to the point was there was not much left but shreds of fabric. The back of the fireplace was blocked off by a curtain, on which were young many clippings from magazines and newspapers.

The thing that most caught Peg's eye was a clipping of a news article headline: Boy born without eyes reads with his hands.

Peg stiffened. There it was again. That snipping sound. Like someone was opening and closing a pair of scissors over and over.

Peg turned and looked at the source of the sound. In the darkened corner of the room, a figure sat, holding something that shone brilliant silver when it caught whatever scant light managed permeate the corner. She couldn't make out what they looked like, or even whether it was a man or women, she only knew it was a person.

"Hello?" Peg called, in a very friendly voice, "Hello? Why are you hiding back there?"

The figure stood up, (though due to the slope of the ceiling where it was standing, it was rather hunched over) and began making its way slowly out of the corner. It seemed to be peering curiously at Peg.

As of that moment, Peg had no reason to be scared of the figure. She walked toward it, smiling and saying reassuringly, "You don't have to hide from me. I'm Peg Boggs. I'm your local Avon representative and I'm as harmless as cherry pi…"

Peg trailed off as the figure was finally able to stand completely straight. It shuffled forward at an odd gait. It seemed to be clutching handfuls of what appeared to be very sharp blades, presumably knives, what Peg had seen glinting seconds before. Images of news articles about violent psychopaths who horribly, brutally murdered their unsuspecting victims flashed through her mind.

"Oh, my," Peg breathed out. This time, it was not in wonder, but in terror. "I can see that I've disturbed you," she said, fear tightening her voice slightly as she backed away slowly, though she tried to remain calm, "How stupid of me. I'll- I'll just be going now." She quickly turned around. With any luck, she could get away, and call the police, before the figure had a chance to do anything.

But before she could turn completely, the figure quickened its pace slightly, as though to try and stop her from leaving. A soft, slightly stilted, voice pleaded, "Don't… go." It sounded almost as though the person wasn't used to speaking. The plea was followed the sound of scissors snipping.

The figure was now fully in the light. Peg saw it was a young man. The first thing she noticed was his thick, shaggy, midnight-black, fly-away hair. His clothing was some sort of single piece, black leather suit. It was covered in belts and buckles and studded with what appeared to be quite a few rivets.

His face was extremely pale. Deathly pale, in fact, white. His eyes were dark and rather sunken. His lips, darker than the rest of his complexion, being an odd shade of purple, were twisted down in a slight frown. His face held a look of innocent, childish fright. It seemed Peg had scared him as much as he had scared her.

And then, of course, there was the fact that it still looked like he was holding multiple knives in each hand.

As the man walked towards her, these blades seemed to twitch, emitting a sound like snipping scissors.

"Oh, my," Peg whispered in horror. In a bit of a louder voice, she looked the man straight in the eye and asked, a bit piteously and very curiously, "What happened to you?"

"I'm not finished," the man said, in that odd, quiet voice of his, lifting the blades towards Peg as he continued to walk closer. They twitched, snipped, and glinted menacingly.

Peg gasped and jumped a little. "Oh!" she exclaimed, still trying her best to remain calm. "Just put those down," she said, lifting a hand in a 'stop' gesture and lowering it slowly, "Don't come any closer. Just- Please…"

The man lowered his hands and stopped walking. He merely stood, roughly ten feet away, looking at Peg with a scared, melancholy, confused expression.

Now that he was closer, she saw that he had no hands. It wasn't the lack of the appendages that alarmed her, but, rather, what had replaced them. He was not clutching knives. At the ends of his arms were metal contraptions with long blades where fingers should have been. Sharp, silver, scissor blades.

She looked at them, mouth open slightly. "Those are your hands?" she said, not quite believing, "Those are your hands." The second time, it was more of a statement than a question.

The man still just stood and looked at her, that innocent, childish expression of so many emotions never wavering from his face. The scissor blades- his hands still seemed to twitch involuntarily.

"What happened to you?" Peg asked again, in a caring voice, stepping closer to the young man, "Where are your parents?" She asked this because the man looked as though he couldn't have been more than seventeen, at the most eighteen, years old. "Um… Your mother? Your father?"

The man looked at her nervously as she approached, as though he weren't sure whether to stay put or run away. At the mention of 'father', he seemed to decide it was best to stay. He looked at Peg and said simply, in a soft voice tinged only ever-so-slightly with sadness, "He didn't wake up."

Peg listened and nodded, then glanced around the room before looking back at the man. "Are you alone?" she asked, "Do you live up here all by yourself?"

The men did not reply, but his eyes widened a little. The scissor blades that made up his hands continued to twitch and snip.

Looking at his face, Peg saw that it was covered with deep scars, which were an even paler white than the rest of his face. The two most prominent scars ran along the right side of his nose, and through the left corner of his mouth. "What happened to your face?"

Peg reached out a hand to the scars, the Avon saleswoman showing as she pondered what would be the best method of concealing them. The man recoiled fearfully from her hand.

"No, I won't hurt you," Peg said soothingly. The young man now looked more like some strange mix between a small child and nervous puppy. "But at the very least," Peg said, going back into Avon-mode, "Let me give you a good astringent, and this will help to prevent infection." She even included the mannequin-like hand gestures she had rehearsed to go with each product line.

The man looked as though he hadn't understood at least half of that.

Peg set her sales suitcase down and the floor, opened it, and pulled out a bottle of something and a cotton ball. She unscrewed the bottle lid and placed the cotton ball over the mouth. Tipping it upside-down for a fraction of a second, she soaked the bit of fluff with whatever was in the bottle.

Peg stood back up and began dabbing the cotton ball over all the scars. The man was a good bit taller than her. He was probably about five foot ten inches, if not a little taller. Even given the fact that Peg was so much shorter, he flinched away from her touch. He still looked scared, just as he had the entire time. As she gently pressed the cotton ball against a scar on his cheek, Peg asked, "What's your name?"

"Edward," the man replied quietly, his eyes following the cotton ball as it moved about his face.

"Edward?" Peg asked, finishing cleaning all the scars. "I think you should just come home with me." She smiled broadly, nodded once, then bent down to gather up her sales suitcase.