❝ PICKET FENCE! ❞ → GRAY ✓

→ i.iii

Act One, Scene Three

→ ❝ god, I've missed you! ❞

             To say Carol wasn't nervous would be a lie. Tommy had led her into what looked to be the sitting room of a house – a small round table sat in front of a fire, and there was a soft rug that covered most of the dark wood floor. It was admittedly cosy, but Carol could tell that it wasn't as lived in as it had used to be. The inhabitants had clearly moved on to much bigger and better things.

             Tommy had exited the room less than a minute after perching Carol on an armchair in the corner and telling her to wait. From the ceaseless ticking of the clock on the wall, Carol guessed it had been about five minutes since he left and wondered what was taking so long. The unfamiliar environment was starting to panic her, and suddenly everything seemed like a bad idea.

             Her mother was right. She should never have asked her cousin for news about her fiancé, she should never have grabbed the money that she hid under the loose floorboard in her bedroom, she should never have gone to the train station, she should have never asked for a one way ticket to Small Heath Station, and she should have never come looking for Henry Johnson. She snatched her hat from her head and used it to fan herself.

             Carol jumped in surprise (dropping her hat on the floor) as the door was suddenly cracked open and an older woman with dark hair that fell around her face and shoulders in ringlets popped her head into the room. She took one look at Carol, surveying her from head to toe, and (before Carol could even think about asking a question) the woman was gone as fast as she had arrived.

             That was the final straw. Carol was sick of being treated like some sort of ornament and decided, in that moment, that she was leaving. She bent down to pick up her hat and angrily dusted it off as though the floor was covered in a thick layer of dirt. She was probably the most annoyed about having to buy another train ticket, having wasted her money for a mere hour in Small Heath – a town that she was sure she would never be returning to.

           "Who are you?" Carol could hear the confusion in the voice that broke the fragile silence of the room. As she lifted her head to see the owner, she banged her head on the small table by the chair, sending the jar on it falling to the ground. Through her blurry vision, Carol failed to see the small shard of glass that chipped off it and flew towards the window.

             Rubbing her head and wincing, she waited a second for the stars to clear from her vision. It was a tall ginger boy (he must have been a year, maybe two, younger than herself) who walked past her with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a crisp apple. An amused grin rested on his lips as he ate the fruit, watching her grimace in pain. He was the fourth man she had seen so far with the same, distinctive cropped hairstyle, and with each man she saw, the more her brain told her the hairstyle signaled danger. She shook it off, ignoring her instinct to run away screaming bloody murder.

             She cleared her throat and sat up straighter, still rubbing her head, "Carol Goodwin. Who are you?"

             The boy stopped at the door (which led back to the betting shop) and laughed. It was a hearty, immature laugh that Carol found rather charming and was one of the few pleasant things that she had heard since stepping off the train. "You're her? Brilliant, oh, brilliant." He hovered his hand over the brass doorknob before his remembered Carol's question. "I'm Finn."

             "What are you so amused about, Finn?" Carol wondered, trying her best not to sound desperate. The waiting was doing nothing for her anxiety levels and the ambiguity of the young boy's statement was enough to send it skyrocketing through the roof.