Harper Peregrine ♥ District Six

harper peregrine

age seventeen
district six
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♥ ♥ ♥

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A gaunt and lonely house stands on the hill, however it looks as though it will not stand for much longer. You can tell that once it was grand – the sheer size and intricacy of the design is something unheard of for District Six. The path is overgrown and abandoned as though not one member of the large family who dwells inside cares for their garden. The house is the same way. Even from the outside you can tell that what lies beyond the tattered door is an expanse of rooms and spiraled staircases. The house itself gives away little hints of all that live there, although they are subtle things; the kind you can only spot when you know exactly what you are looking for.

Firstly there are the slight burns that line the edges of the tiles on the highest turret – and the various scorch marks to match. The smell of burning hangs in the air like a thick blanket. Secondly, there is a distant mewing that can only be heard if you close your eyes and concentrate. If you take a few steps closer the house and up the path, you feel the wind against the back of your neck. You cannot help but shiver as a strange and eerie feeling runs down your spine. Tonight the ghosts are out to play and one of the children in the house is surely to blame. The next thing that you notice is far subtler – but of course you know exactly where to look. Nothing small or loose lays scattered around the ground, as there usually is out the front of such a household. Not a bicycle nor a scooter, nor any other shining object glitters in the moonlight. Only rusted metal hinges attach the doors and windows – the old house is the least shiny place you have ever seen. You take another step, feeling the large stones beneath your bare feet and notice, not for the first time, that the garden has also been cleared of anything sharp, including any tools that could be used to clean the tangled and overgrown garden-beds. Large piles of dirt lie around the place, as though the family owned a dog once. They don’t, and never will. Long scratches adorn the bare trees and you wonder, just for a moment, whether something more than ghosts haunt this house.

Your bare feet feel their way over the steps leading up to the grand front door. Suddenly you feel something wet all around them, and you look down in astonishment. It is as though you have stepped in a puddle, but in the faded moonlight you can see the crimson red, which indicates the presence of one of the children who live in the house before you. The things that hint at the existence of the youngest child are more subtle than the rest. Only the faintest twinge of strawberries mars with the smoky taste in the air and the smell of peeling paint. By now you have reached the front door, and you pull it open with a high creaking sound. You somehow know that nobody inside will even bother with you, and you find yourself shivering as the inside of the house is no warmer than the dark winter night.

The hall is open and empty, although the silent night has gone. Instead the hallway is filled with sounds from various wings of the manor that you cannot identify. The loudest noise comes from a long a daunting hallway to your left, but, in a dream-like state, you begin to follow the threadbare Victorian rug towards the loudest of sounds. After watching your feet to avoid the daunting site of thick spider webs for a while, you look up to see a door ajar. A faint and distant light comes from inside, as well as a thick smoke with a color you do not wish to identify. Fearlessly, you push at the door to reveal a boy hunched over a desk. He could be doing his homework – he looks around eighteen – but something if off about the boy. His eyes are alight with excitement. No, his eyes are alight with flames. The great blue orbs that are his eyes are reflecting the flickering flames he holds in his hand. The match has burned right down, however he still holds it between his fingers, letting the flames lick his hands. Gasping, you turn away. Things are lying around the room - things that look far too explosive for the bright eyes of the boy and you are pleased to get away.

You manage to pass by the hallway much faster than you came down it. You do not stop to look inside even one of the many rooms lining the dusty walkway. Instead, you pass by them without a thought – for the ghostly feeling is growing and no human noises come from there, anyway. Holding your breath, you reach the floor of the spiral staircase. You glance back at the front door, which has swung open again with the wind and wind your way up. Careful not to trip on the uneven and wobbly steps, you wonder how none of the children that live here have injured themselves. Maybe they have. You wouldn’t know.

You reach the top of the stairs in no time and move toward the window. The carpet beneath your feet is thin as though it has not been replaced in a long time. Frowning and wrapping your arms around yourself, you shudder and move toward the next room. The thing that stands out about this room is not like the last. No smoke billows from the doors, looking strange and forlorn in the moonlight. No strange and fiery light comes from the crack in the door. No, something much less frightening pushes its way through. A kitten mews at you in a startled kind of way, as though it has just seen one of the ghosts you can feel in the air. You don’t bother leaning down to pet it, and it scampers away into a corner that hasn’t been touched in years. Discarding it carelessly, you press on. The kitten is not what you came to see. You came to see the people who live in the tumbledown house on the hill. So you push open this door, too.

Nothing moves, except for what at first seems like hundreds and hundreds of cats, swarming over every piece of furniture and every inch of the floor. Although you where sure you could hear a person in here, now you are convinced that nobody is here. Only the gentle mewing of the kittens breaks the silence of the room. Only the cats move. You frown and begin to back away when a voice catches your attention. Startled, your eyes search for its source. “Hello?”
You jump as you see all at once where it is coming from. A girl is sitting in an ancient chair, cats on her lap and around her neck. Each of them looks comfortable and is purring happily. You look at her with wide eyes as you take in her bizarre appearance. She wears net over her face, her hair teased and curled so it flies out in all directions. She herself is peculiar looking – with bright, fiery red hair and wide-set blue eyes. She looks at you curiously – not at all afraid or startled to have a stranger in her bedroom. “Do you like cats?” she asks you before you can speak. She frowns to herself, before airily replying, “because the cats like you.”

Hastily you close the door, thinking that the girl is certainly very strange. Attempting to ignore the eerie feel that has haunted you ever since you entered the property, you move on to the next room, hoping to find someone slightly more normal. A boy sits in the middle of the room on a circular rug, his eyes closed. He is speaking, not noticing that you are there. You move in silently, looking around for who he is speaking to.
“Of course,” he murmurs. “No, not at all. It’s all sorted out, Sky. You don’t need to worry about it anymore. I’ve fixed it.” The boy’s voice is strange, almost empty, when you realize that he is indeed talking to nobody at all. Maybe the ghosts. Maybe himself. Either way, he is obviously as crazy as his two elder siblings. Gritting your teeth, you slide the door shut as you leave. The boy does not open his eyes.

The next room you come across is a little like the second in the sense that at first you believe you where mistaken in thinking that somebody was inside. The room is dark as the night outside, but without the moonlight. The light from the hallway streams in as you open the door, and the second before you turn around and leave as quickly as you came, you notice two great green eyes staring at you from behind a pillow. “Hello?” you ask, wondering why this person is hiding behind a pillow in a dark room. The girl does not speak, so you switch on the light. A tiny, high scream erupts from the girl’s throat but she does not move. As you take a step toward her, you realize that she is rigid with fear and unable to move. Taking a step back, you watch as the girl relaxes. Her eyes scan you as though she is an afraid animal trapped between a wall and a wild beast – calculating and trying to consider what to do once the fear dies down. It doesn’t seem to – in fact, when she sees the blood staining your feet she begins to shake so violently that you have to choice but to turn the light out once more and move on to the next room. You are so bemused by now that you have almost lost all hope of finding someone normal in the grand old house on the hill – however you haven’t yet seen the worst of its inhabitants. As you turn, you see a small boy, maybe twelve, sitting on the ground behind you.

You jump, startled, before noticing that his legs are crossed and crooked as his eyes. You lean down toward him, crouching on the floor to greet him. Suddenly he snaps out a hand and snatches away your shining necklace, his eyes wide and mesmerized. Letting out a cry of annoyance, you reach out to take the necklace back – but before you can do so the boy begins to suck at the sparkling charm before it disappears altogether. You notice the look on his face is not the kind a normal twelve year old would wear and begin to stand again. Concerned, you wonder if the boy will choke on your necklace charm, but he simply smiles and begins eyeing up your bracelet. Hastily, you turn away and head for the nearest room with a lockable door.

Leaning back against said door, you take a deep breath. You didn’t look into the room before you entered – so wrapped up were you in saving your bracelet. An even smaller boy is lying on the floor in the corner, and you take a hesitant step toward him, smiling faintly. He lets out a low growl, which at first you are not so sure came from him. Growling more loudly, he arches he back and springs toward you with the force of a wildcat, his long clawed hands out toward you. You jump backward, but he snarls and flings himself toward you once more, his eyes wild. Afraid and wising you had never entered this freak-show of a house, you leap from the room, hoping not to come across the necklace-eating child on the way out.

Thankfully, you do not. He is nowhere to be seen – probably off to find some silverware to consume. Sighing heavily and determined to find the nearest exit, you turn to see a tiny red-haired child smiling sweetly up at you. She seems relatively normal – not the kind of child about to snarl at you or eat your silverware at all. You decide she is safe enough to speak to.
“Excuse me?” you ask, smiling at her.
“Yes?” her voice is as sweet as her rosy-red cheeks and blue eyes. Relief floods you.
“Which way out?”
The girl’s smile falters, and she suddenly looks gravely sad. “No way out,” she says, pulling a knife from behind her back. Her smile returns as she steps toward you, and you begin to run, vowing not to speak to another soul.

You find a second staircase, although it is a little burnt away in places. Fleeing and filled with horror, you look in on the last room before a wide open window. Inside sit three people, each looking far more peaceful than they should be, considering that their house is filled with murderous and jewelry-eating children. The room smells like strawberries, and a baby sleeps in a cradle, sucking his thumb. His mother and father sit in chairs around a table, each cleaning something determinedly. The mother rubs at her apple as though it is filthy, despite the fact that it already shines like the sun in the moonlight streaming through the window. The man is bleaching a set of china cups, his eyes fixed on them. Slowly he begins to drift away into sleep, and you cannot help but stay and watch the strange scene for a moment longer. It is only then the mother rises from her chair and draws a knife from her own pocket, sizing it up against her husband thoughtfully. He jerks awake suddenly, and she manages to stow it beneath the babies pillow before he sees. Startled and sure you are going mad, too, you flee once and for all, never to return.

You have just survived the house of horrors.
Welcome to the peculiar house of the Peregrines.

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Life, it's ever so strange
It's so full of change
Think that you've worked it out
Then BANG
Right out of the blue
Something happens to you
To throw you off course
And then you

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People say that the first thing you notice about a person is their appearance. Personally, I take more notice of the way they react when the breeze caresses their skin and the way they move when the first splatters of rain fall from a cloudy sky. Those are the things that make a person who they are. Then again, I'm different. When I look at someone for the first time, I look for the gentle creases around their eyes, for the tone in their voice and for the position of their hands. I guess not everyone is the same. Others say that is it most important to present yourself how you wish to be viewed as a person, as your appearance is usually the first thing one sees, and first impressions count. In some ways, I agree. It is important to present yourself as who you are on the inside, for yourself if not for others. I have been called many things; queer, strange, peculiar at best. I don't care for the words of the normal people which go against who I am; that is to say I don't care for their words unless they are, in fact, true. And when it comes to what people see first, I am not entirely normal. I don't mind people staring and whispering as I walk the streets. I know my family is not everybody's idea of nuclear - I will come to them later - but we get by and function. So far, none of my siblings have died, although Myra and Rowley have both suffered burns from Crowley and Scratches from Fire. Obviously it was an accident, but Love thought otherwise.

Breakdown
Yeah you breakdown
Well don't you breakdown
Listen to me
Because

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A person's appearance is the first thing one sees and the first thing one notices. My own appearance is quite noticeable. I don't like to talk about myself so - it goes against my beliefs - but as I cannot describe the way I am without the most 'important' factor. Well, this is all based on what I have heard of the normal world, of the rest of Panem. From what I have observed. And I'm known for being a little oblivious to these things, so you must forgive me if I am wrong. Here goes. When I look in the mirror, the first thing I notice is my eyes. They are large, sapphire blue and wide-set, with long lashes and a vacant expression playing in their midsts. It kind of makes me look like one of those Blythe dolls, the ones that look at you with such a creepy and emotionless expression that it chills you to the bone. My eyebrows are high and arched - the exact same shade of red as my eyelashes. I have a look about me that nobody can really call pretty anymore than they can call me ugly. I simply look strange, different, peculiar, odd. My cheekbones are high and protruding, my forehead large. I don't have a problem with the way I look; my facial features only represent who I am, they don't shape it. My lips are small and rounded and the fringe which I cut myself sits just an inch or so too high on my pale face. My freckles are faint as though they have faded with time; seventeen years is not all that long, however it certainly feels as though it is.

Life, it's ever so strange
It's just a ride, it's just a ride
No need to run, no need to hide
It'll take you round and round
Sometimes you're up
Sometimes you're down
It's just a ride, it's just a ride
Don't be scared
Don't hide your eyes
It may feel so real inside
But don't forget it's just a ride

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Long necks are apparently sought after here in District Six, however I cannot personally see the attraction. The same goes for long legs. I am not amazingly tall for my age - although I think I may have stopped growing some time ago. My legs are simply long and slender, although a rather unpleasant shade of white. I give as much of my thought to what people think as I do to caring about my appearance - that is to say, none, however when I stand as I am doing now, and gaze into the mirror at myself, I cannot help but imagine how my life would be if I looked a little more normal. I guess I would be no less dazed and bizarre, no less eccentric or down-right peculiar. But maybe people would see me as such. That is the problem with appearances - they can be deceiving. Unlike the way the sun shines and the flowers grow, unlike the spark in someones eyes when they are given news they where hoping for. Nothing like the expressions of surprise on faces and the shocked silence I encounter everywhere I go outside of my own estranged household. To be quite honest, I don't believe that it is my eyes or my cheekbones or my complexion that sets me apart from everyone else. It is my hair. You can hardly call it that, hair. It's more like a fiery mane of curls flying off in every direction, the exact color of the flames we use to heat the Peregrine mansion in winter, gladly provided by Crowley. It is unruly and untameable, and quite taken to giving me the look of a lion. Maybe that is why cats like me so. I am one of them. The only thing is that I have more the personality of a butterfly than a lion - loopy and away with the faires, rather than fierce and cunning and brave. Drifting in the wind, thrown about by my crazy-yet-somehow-loveable family of oddities rather than prowling around, leading a pride. I don't mind.

Life, it's ever so strange
Truth, we don't wanna hear
It's too much to take
Don't like to feel out of control
So we make our plans
Ten times a day
And when they don't go
Our way we

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I hate to talk about myself. It seems like such a waste of time. I already know who I am and what I want. I guess it couldn't hurt to tell the story anyway. I am Harper Peregrine, the girl with the almost-vacant eyes who walks around as though she is in a daze. The girl who only ever really truly interacts with her cats. The girl who manages to love each and every one of her siblings, despite their peculiar differences. I am the one everyone stares at in the street, not only for being the crazy-cat-girl, but for the way she looks and who she is. Her family. Everything. I am the girl who is away in a world of her own, never really coming down to touch the ground. I'm not sure whether I would ever eat or sleep or drink or do anything remotely human if it wasn't for my weird and wondrous family, and my cats. Last time I counted, I had twenty-seven, but a couple have had kittens since, so I'm not quite sure where we stand anymore. I am easily distracted, insanely loyal, yet willing to believe the best in everyone. Crowley teases me for it - my ability to believe that no matter how many times little Myra is found leaning over River, trying to coax him to swallow something sharp and shiny (usually a knife) it is simply an accident. She honestly doesn't understand the harm she could inflict. She, like everyone else, has reason to believe that River has a stomach made of something not entirely human.

Life, it's ever so strange
Breakdown
Yeah we breakdown
Well don't you breakdown
Listen to me
Because

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My personality is strange. I have been called many things. Crazy. Peculiar. Mad. Spontaneous. Odd. Careless. In a world of my own. In its own way, each of these things are true. I'm crazy in the fact that I let my hair fly out in every angle, even though there would be nothing I could do to stop it even if I did want to. I'm peculiar in the way that he world inside my head is not entirely my own. I'm mad in the way I love my cats, care for them, let them surround me. I suppose that I am spontaneous, although I prefer to describe it as unique. I'm odd, yes. I'm not entirely sane at all, like the Mad Hatter in some twisted and real version of Alice in Wonderland. I don't like to think of myself as careless, however I tend to get carried away in my own daydreams and forget about the real world still moving around me. I don't mind what others say or do or think. I'm content with my cats in District Six, although I do wish Myra would stop accidentally stabbing them with the fire tongs. I'm quirky and eccentric and bizarre and strange. People think of me as a freak. I wonder what it would be like to be a freak who cared about the label, as Love does. I pity her, because I know how very much she is afraid of those people, those jeers and taunts. Me, I don't mind being an outsider. That is who I am, who I was born and who I always will be. When I am fifty, I will be the crazy-cat-lady of District Six. Unmarried, living alone, still a Peregrine. Love could be so much more. If only she wasn't so afraid. I guess that is the final thing that I am. Empathetic. I don't understand what goes through anybody's head, including mine. But I hope and I dream that they can be happy.

Life, it's ever so strange
It's just a ride, it's just a ride
No need to run, no need to hide
It'll take you round and round
Sometimes you're up
Sometimes you're down
It's just a ride, it's just a ride
Don't be scared
Don't hide your eyes
It may feel so real inside
But don't forget it's just a ride

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My history is certainly peculiar in many ways. It is a story, and, as with all good stories, it should be begun with now. And now I live in the Peregrine Mansion. Actually, it is one of a few Peregrine Mansions, and it is referred to as The House of Peregrine, despite the fact that it belonged to mothers fourth husband before he died. She inherited it, of course, and we moved in when I was just six years old, and even after inheriting various other places across the District, we remained here. Markle, my mothers husband, is not much of a handy-man, so we live in a constant state of disrepair - the house is tumble-down despite it's grandness, with paint peeling and the highest tower unstable. The main reason we haven't moved yet is the constant fear of Love having a heart-attack, or worse, if we where to change her home at such a time in her life. My family are as follows:
My mother, Lucida Peregrine, had a hard childhood. She now has a terrible case of OCD, but I don't mind. It's not her fault that her father whipped her at a young age, not at all. She has had six husbands to date, all of whom have passed away. The constant untimely demises are not good for my mothers health, but she manages with her rituals.
My elder brother, Crowley, has a strange obsession with explosives. He's not always able to get his hands on aerosol can or chemicals from the pharmacists, but he seems to manage with the matches he keeps in his pockets. Even without matches, there seems to be flickering flames wherever Crowley goes. He's set my hair on fire, twice, both before I was five. After that I learned to keep myself away from him unless I have a fire extinguisher on hand.
Rylee, my younger brother, is only a year younger than myself. He seems older, though, for his connection to the world of the dead has made him wise. He also claims he is able to bring inanimate objects to life, although admittedly, after living with him for sixteen years I have never seen such a thing.

Slowly, oh so very slowly
Accept that
There's no getting off
So live it, just gotta go with it
Coz this ride's, never gonna stop

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Love is my little sister, and although she is fourteen she certainly seems very little to me. She is beautiful, but she has every phobia diagnosable and a few more that are not. She spends a lot of her time in her room, alone, safely away from the wrath of her siblings. She is afraid of everyone except for me and River, although she refuses to come near me when I am holding one of my cats. She's afraid of their eyes, you see, and their fur and teeth and claws.
River is not quite right, I'm afraid to say. He is obsessed with everything shiny, and he is wide-eyed and mesmerised on a permanent basis. He often swallows anything he can get his hands on.
Fire is a little darling, although I am the only one who understands him. I think it may be from the time I have spent with my cats; he believes he is a wild animal. Most people he snarls at and attacks, but I can usually calm him before he seriously wounds me.
Myra, in my opinion, is a little angel. She is sweet, and although prone to being on the scene of many accidents and suspicious murders, she is an innocent little cherub.
Rowly is only a baby, and spends a lot of time with me due to my mothers OCD. He loves the cats, although I know he too will grow up to be peculiar. I can see it in his eyes.

Breakdown
Don't you breakdown
No need to breakdown
No need at all
Because

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My family is indeed odd, each of them original and unique. The Peregrines are something of a household name, Crowley tells me, for our own way of doing things, however it does not bother me. I sit here now, in my room, surrounded by my cats, rocking Rowly's cradle with my foot and deciding what else to write. I could tell you of each of my mothers husbands, and how every one of them left her a fortune before their untimely death, but it could surely bore you. I could explain to you how I chose my room when we moved in, liking it for it's circular window which looked in the direction of the Capitol. I could tell you so many stories of picnics out with the family - mother would be home, cleaning her candlesticks for the fifty-seventh time that morning, Crowley would be gathering firewood and I would be stroking my kitten absentmindedly. Rylee would be chatting to someone who wasn't exactly there, and Love would be howling at the top of her lungs and curled in a shuddering ball of fear. River would be chewing someones silver necklace, drooling down his front. Fire would be running around the place roaring at butterflies and attempting to attack the trees. Myra would be off somewhere, 'playing' with the bunny-rabbits while Rowly crawled around the place, frowning happily at the scenery. My family are strange, and my history began a very long time ago. I was born in the middle of winter, seventeen years ago. Now it is the middle of winter once more, and I am facing my sixth reaping with a faded frown on my face and a faraway expression in my eyes.

It's just a ride, it's just a ride
No need to run, no need to hide
It'll take you all around
Sometimes you're up
Sometimes you're down
It's just a ride, it's just a ride
Don't be scared now
Dry your eyes
It may feel so real inside
But don't forget enjoy the ride

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I am Harper Peregrine, and I will survive. Somehow.
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