This story contains blood, violence, and mild swearing.

The Zoetrope had always been fascinating for Liam. For a poor boy who lived on a farm it almost gave of a magical feeling when he spun it. The spinning picture was of a man running who then trips and falls. The paint was chipping though. As it had been bought at an old shop of used items. The end was the most torn up. As if when he hit the ground the man fell to pieces. The boy looked past it though, he loved the way it told a story, even if a brief one. He imagined it as greater than what the zoetrope portrayed, that he had been running from a monster before being torn to bits. It was a morbid idea, but in the post-antebellum year of 1910, morbid was okay.

“You sure do like that thing,” the woman in the front seat of their Model-T smiled back at the little boy. The man next to her gave a delighted chuckle. They were his father and his mother.

His father had just gotten a promotion at his job in the city in the past year and now they were going on vacation. The boy had never dreamed of leaving his hometown, let alone the country. For someone who was used to living off of rations to eat until their next paycheck, praying he didn’t get sick, this was phenomenal.

“I mean, we’ve come a long way. I think this is proof of our journey,” the boy, Liam, whom now was seventeen years of age replied. It had been several years since his mother had bought it for him and a couple years since he and his father had started working for a bigger company. The promotion had gotten their family more than enough money, whereas at the time they had barely been able to buy the zoetrope.

“You’re right about that,” his father chuckled, “Ready for Ireland?”

“Of course, I heard that the coast is much prettier than it is here, the mountain range too,” he smiled widely and looked out the window at the Appalachians in the distance.

The ride was nice, the tone was light and soon they made it to the docks. The trip felt longer than a lifetime for Liam, though anything was better to him than the stuffy life at home. Working became tiring at times. But after some time, the shore came into view and Liam excitedly waited for the ship to dock. The boy couldn’t be more elated than he was in this moment. It was a marvelous feeling to be away from home, especially when it was all he had seen for a better part of his life.

“Now Liam, you know to head straight to the inn first so you can change,” she told him while patting his hair.

“Yes, ma’am. Then you don’t mind if I explore right?” He grinned at her in hopes that his wide smile would urge her to let him do as he pleased. Though she looked like she was contemplating for a moment.

“Come on, let the boy have his fun,” his father told her with a hand on her shoulder, “He’s young, plus he can’t get too far on an island.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she nodded and smiled to the teen who cheered and went to the inn to unpack. Not even a moment later he was off though to explore the forest to the side of town. Being able to run off on his own once rather than work was thrilling to say the least. Not to mention the fact that the forests here felt more like forests than they did in industrial America.

He could actually climb the trees and float in creeks, rather than just rolling around in the grass. Long hours of the day were spent here and soon it had reached the afternoon. He swung from a tall branch, dangling by his legs as he tried to burn off all of his energy.

“You’re very silly you know?”

Liam sat up quickly when he heard a voice giggle at him. He looked around for the source of the voice but couldn’t really find anything.

“Hello?” he called, hearing no response in return. The boy reached up to hang from his hands now so that he could get a better view of his surroundings, “You think I’m silly?”

“Yes, I do,” the voice responded from behind him and he turned around, but there was still nothing there. He furrowed his brow and dropped from the tree, stumbling for a moment as his feet hit the ground. His blistered hand ran through his brown hair, pushing the curls from his eyes so that he could see better.

“How so?” he asked the voice, intrigued by it.

“Your accent is funny,” the voice called back, “And you swing in trees.”

“I think yours is funny,” he said back, “And there’s nothing wrong with having a spot of fun on vacation. That’s what it’s for anyways.”

“Vacation? You’re a foreigner?” the voice sounded more excited and childlike than he had anticipated. It held a weird and mysterious beauty to it, “We don’t get a lot of visitors here.”

“I’m American, from across the Atlantic,” he searched the nearby bushes for the source of the voice but was finding nothing. It was odd to him, she sounded so close.

“America… I see,” they giggled again and suddenly when Liam turned around there was a girl standing where he had been under the tree.

She seemed around his age with all white hair, her pale skin and white dress and scarf matched and made her look like a doll. She had bright purple eyes and a glowing grin. All of this seemed to be brought into perspective when the sunlight shone down on her through the trees. Liam felt frozen, as if she was an angel sent down to speak to him.

He took a moment and cleared his throat, “Uh… hello there,” he turned all the way around so that he was facing her, though he was a good ten feet away from where she stood, “My name is Liam.”

“Hi Liam,” she waved with a shy giggle, “My name is Katie.” She stepped closer to him while he was awestruck and smiled up at him.

“So Katie…” he looked down to the girl for a moment. She looked around his age, maybe a year younger, “What do you do for fun around here if swinging from trees is silly?”

“Well, do you mind if I show you?” she asked, turning on her heels to begin walking into the forest. Liam watched her for a moment before quickly jogging to catch up and walk next to her. The breeze felt cooler next to her as if she brought the chilly wind on through sheer will. Her hair and scarf flowed along with the wind, accompanying her already magical look.

She brought him to a beautiful field of wildflowers, “How’s this? This is where I play,” she laid in the flowers and rolled around while Liam stood to the side and watched.

“It’s pretty out here,” he admitted while looking over all the colors that surrounded the girl. He stepped over to her when he noticed that she had stopped rolling to wave at him. Katie reached up a hand to pull Liam into the flowers next to her.

Liam yelped and fell into the soft flowerbed. His nose already itching just a little because of the pollen. The sound of her laughter though brought him out of his daze as she giggled at him. He looked over with a smirk, “You think that’s funny, don’t you?” he then picked up a flower and smeared pollen on her cheeks, causing her to sneeze and giggle again.

Liam found himself laughing along with the girl for a while until the sun began to set. He looked at the sky, “I have to go now,” he grinned, “but I’ll be back tomorrow with something to show you.”

He saw her huge grin falter weirdly for a moment, and something almost flashed in his vision, but the smile came right back as if nothing had happened. He shook his head, dismissing the weird feeling before waving. She waved back as he left.

Liam went home and ate dinner with his parents. He told them about his trip to the woods and the nice local he had met. They in turn talked about the shops that they had visited and planned to take him too until dinner had finished and it was time for them to go to bed.

The brown-haired boy made it back into the woods later the next day. He looked around the flower field for the girl, and oddly enough he found her in the same exact place that he had left her yesterday, same clothing and all. He wondered if she had even budged.

“Hey Katie, I brought something to show you,” he sat next to her, and strangely found that she didn’t smell as if she had sat here all night. The girl looked over to him with a smile and dancing eyes as he pulled out his zoetrope.

“It’s called a zoetrope, have you seen one before?” he asked as he set the mechanism up to spin. He spun the wheel and lifted it up to show her the image. The man tripping and falling, then breaking to pieces.

“It looks like he lost his head,” she chuckled and poked Liam’s neck.

“It does,” he smiled back, glad she had liked his morbid sense of humor, though the touch to his neck had sent a strange chill throughout his body, and a blush had crept up on his cheeks. Not only was she beautiful, but she seemed to like his company too.

“Come on, I want to show you another place,” she took his hands and pulled him up to his feet. Her path was quick and concise as if she had lived in these woods for a lifetime and gotten to know every nook and cranny it had to hide things in.

“Here!” she broke out of the trees onto a stone outcropping that overlooked the sea. Liam could hear the waves crashing against the rocks as soon as he was out of the cover of the forest. It was a truly breathtaking view, distracting him from the fact that she was still holding his hand.

Katie led him to sit down and she sat right next to him as they listened to the waves.

“You know they use to say that if you listened closely enough to the waves here that you could hear sirens calling you out to sea,” she hummed and leaned against his arm.

Liam blushed deeply and mustered the courage to lean back on her, “Really? Did anyone fall in going after them?” he chuckled morosely.

“Mhm, many men fell victim, so they stopped building houses over here,” she mused.

“Stop teasing,” he chuckled and closed his eyes to listen to the waves. Another story he heard about this area came to mind, “The townsfolk told me that the headless horseman used to live out here. From what I heard the beast has racked up a kill count of twenty in the past 50 years.”

“Is that so?” she hummed and hugged his arm, “You’ll have to protect me then…”

“Y-yeah, of course I will,” he gulped when she held his arm and he felt his heart rate bump up drastically. For a moment he forgot that he was leaving in two weeks. He felt like he could sit here and trade stories about folklore with her forever. So that what they did until sundown.

A week went by and Liam went to visit Katie practically every day. They told stories back and forth, Liam even telling her about a few myths from America.

“Do you believe in the headless horseman, or sirens?” she asked one day after a few moments of silence between them. She was resting on his arm, playing with his hand. Liam himself had gotten used to this and found it quite endearing as he watched her.

“Hmm, I don’t think that I do,” he said matter-of-factly, “Stories about monsters are just fairy tales. Nothing more, I think.”

“I see,” she smiled and pulled a camera out of a bag that she had brought this time, “How about a picture?” She smiled and sat in his lap. He felt flustered for a mere moment before putting his arms around her softly and leaning his head on her shoulder. He smiled widely for the camera.

After the picture was taken, she turned to face him, “You silly boy,” she giggled and cupped his cheeks.

“What did I do this time?” he sighed in amusement.

“You’ve gone and saved me from being lonely,” she told him with the softest of smiles, “I had no one before I met you, Liam. You set my heart aflutter.”

Liam heard the words and felt his own heart skip a beat, for all the right reasons. He was about to respond to what she had told him, but by the time he was pulled back into reality she had already pressed a soft kiss to his lips. The poor boy’s eyes went wide as he stared at her serene face.

She parted and looked at him with a small laugh, “You look so dumbfounded, silly boy.”

“I was just kissed by the girl of my dreams,” he murmured in a daze, but his heart clenched when he remembered he was leaving soon. He looked to her with sorrow filled eyes. She didn’t seem to quite understand at first.

“Liam what’s wrong?” she asked softly as she spoke to him.

“I’ve… gotta go home in a few days,” he told her sadly.

Her entire expression shifted to one of panic, “N-no, you can’t leave me,” she said in a slightly frantic tone, “Stay here with me, we can live together you and I!”

Liam was shocked by her change in demeanor, and it broke his heart. He almost caved in… then he looked to the side at his zoetrope. The boy closed his eyes softly and turned his head back to hers. His gaze never found her eyes and stayed on the ground, “I can’t leave my family.”

The sentence was short and blunt and con eyed everything that needed to be conveyed between the two. Liam looked up and expected to see hurt… and he did. Deep insurmountable sorrow. He hugged her and she broke into a sob. He felt awful for this, but he couldn’t leave his family to the farm and the company on their own. He didn’t have any siblings to help run either.

After a while he thought she had calmed down. He definitely planned to try and visit again if he ever could. He figured they could send mail and pictures and check up on each other through the telegraph too.

He hadn’t realized how late it was when he was broken out of his thoughts by a noise in the distance.

“Liam…!” it was his mother calling him, likely worried about where he was.

“I have to go,” he told her gently, but when he looked to her face, he didn’t see sorrow or hurt. He saw pure rage, “K-kat?”

Katie stood and Liam didn’t understand where she was going or what her anger was directed at, “Katie, what’s wrong?” he took her hand, but she yanked it away before running into the forest.