Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Inferno Conscription (The Bagsy Chronicles 3)

The Young Villain

There was a doorway. It was white and blinding and Bagsy squinted her eyes as she tried to look at it, shielding her face with her hand. She was is a dark void, her feet clacking on a stone-like surface as she moved towards the entrance. She looked around, wondering where the forbidden forest had gone. Only a moment ago she'd been lunging towards Primrose, trying to stop her from drinking the potion. Now, though, there was only dark void, and a white door and through the door were the noises of talking, the clattering of cutlery, and the murmur of morning chaos.

In an instant of confusion and enlightenment, Bagsy knew she was looking at the doorway to Primrose's memories, and simultaneously had no idea how she knew that. She paused, her hand already extended to push the door fully open. Did she have a right to look? But then there was an itch to know just what it was that had produced a person like Primrose Vinski, and just what is was that was hidden beneath those blonde curls.

Bagsy pushed the door open.

The street she found herself standing on was small. It had perhaps six houses in total, yet they were all easily as big as Bagsy's. She was fairly certain each would count as a mansion in its own right, but when combined on one small, secluded street they became something else altogether. One house was a large, converted barn with added extensions, each painstakingly built with period accurate bricks. Another, the one Bagsy was standing in front of, was a Victorian house. It was many stories tall with a spire and two chimneys. Instead of bricks, its walls were made of an orange terra cotta, and its roof was a faded turquoise that caught the light in brilliant shades of green and blue. Ivy crawled up each and every wall, clinging to the wooden beams decorating the structure.

Not understanding what exactly was happening, Bagsy squeaked open the front gate. A waist high brick wall extended to her right and left, enclosing the mammoth space that composed the house's garden. Within a minute, she had reached the front door, and found it open. She heard the voices that had been drifting through the strange white door that had led her here in the first place and, following them through a winding set of lavishly decorated rooms draped in tapestries, gargantuan paintings and gold accents, found the owners of the voices in an impressive kitchen.

Waitstaff, heads bowed, were rushing around three people sitting at a dark oak table.

'Eat up already, don't be such a spoiled brat,' the eldest of them said. She was short, with blonde hair in a bun and lipstick that was as strikingly purple and unnatural as her eyes. She looked mid-thirties.

The person she was talking to, who Bagsy realised with a shock was a very young Emmeline, looked annoyed. 'I don't like this stuff,' she said glumly, pushing her bowl away from herself. The wait staff around her hesitated, as if they didn't want to be the one to collect her bowl from her. They eyed her warily, each hoping another would step forward first.

'I don't care. Eat it,' the woman snapped, clicking her fingers impatiently at Emmeline, but there was an air of caution, of fear, in her voice. She was looking at Emmeline as if she were a caged tiger, only sparing her its claws for the metal bars between itself and her.

Emmeline let out a sigh. 'Fine. Sorry, I'm a little irritable this morning.' Bagsy looked at Emmeline closely. She didn't look older than eight. It was only because she had such a distinctive snub nose, blue eyes and blonde curls that she recognised her at all.

The woman, who Bagsy realised must be Emmeline's mother, didn't look pleased with this response. 'Drop the act,' she hissed at her daughter. 'Whatever you're plotting can't be hidden behind pleasantries and politeness.'

'What is it you want me to do, then, if not be polite?' Emmeline asked in confusion. The waitstaff were taking steps backwards, halting in their activities of dusting, washing dishes or arranging cutlery to glance anxiously in Emmeline's direction.