Tap, tap, tap, tappity tap. Another torrent of raindrops hit the stained glass windows of the old Queen Anne's style manor. The house had peeling bright pink paint and looked like an aging turnip, with white pink skin wrinkled with age. It would have looked worse if it weren't for the almost glowing stained glass windows the bordered ever side of the house.

The glass windows depicted adventures of famous people, and story characters. They invited any observer, especially a young child to imagine the adventures without even having to open a book. Each picture was it's own marvel, there were knights and dragons, princesses calling from towers, and even a Greek gladiator holding the head of Medusa high in the air.

Rain would have made any child happy; the possibility puddles the next day and even promising rainbows. And the way the stain-glass looked wet was almost mystical. But for a certain child in the old pink house, starring at the rain was more appealing.

Staring at the rain in disgust was Eloise Lovat's idea of a good time. Well it wasn't a pleasant time, but instead a delightful fest of loathing. If she told the rain she hated it, the rain wouldn't yell back, and it wouldn't reach down a hand and whack her. It didn't have a voice that pierced her ears, and made her sob. She could loathe the rain all day and nothing would happen, she could complain about the rain and no one would care.

It was different with Patrice. If Eloise yelled at Patrice she would get slapped, yelled at and scolded all in one delightful package. Patrice had a temper that if set off would detonate a bomb of destruction throughout the house. That was the reason the woman looked like a human teakettle, whose top wasn't fastened right. She might have even looked like one if you looked closely. Same askew top, except hers were atrocious floral numbers that made a large radius around her head. Same round body, decorated with a giant flower-patterned dress that reminded Eloise of a colossal tea-cozy, with patterned stitching. The one thing you could not relate her to a teapot was the warmth. Teapots held tea and usually brought people warmth and comfort. Patrice brought neither; she was as warm as a frozen lake and as inviting as a hungry python.

Patrice was Eloise's stepmother, a nasty, cross woman with deep black hair and dark pitchy skin. She was from Louisiana, and spoke with a southern drawl which was stressed when she yelled, which happened allot. She had married Eloise's father after their own mother had past, when they were 6. "How could he have married, such a woman?" Eloise asked herself many-a-time when Patrice was in a "mood". For one thing she was the complete opposite of her own mother. Her mother had been a sweet, caring woman with a heart of tenderness that could soften the soul, and warm the spirit. She had been a professional poet and painter. And it had been her idea to paint the house such a bright color, and put in the enchanting stain-glass windows. "Things had been so serene when she was alive, she brought us so much joy." Papa would always say when she cried about her mother.

"You infernal girl, where have you put my scarf?" Eloise heard yelling down from the stair. Patrice was in one of her "moods", again. She jumped from her window seat, dashing toward the stairwell and looked down. There stood Patrice, hands on her hips with an angry pout across her face. "Well?" Questioned, Patrice giving her stepdaughter a suspecting look.

"Ask Edna maybe she knows." Eloise said, shrugging and walking back toward her room. When she was about to pass the threshold, the woman's voice boomed once more through the house. "Eloise Mercy Lovat! You come back here. I know it was you, besides Edna is terrified of me! So where is that scarf, girl?"

Eloise drummed he fingers along the door's threshold for a second.

"Which one do you mean, Patrice?" She said, unmoving from her place in the shadows of her room. "The dark blue one with the pink butterflies. I'm going to Mrs. Frank's house-warming party tonight and that scarf would match my pink gingum perfectly." Eloise bit her lip... that was her mother's scarf. "I'm not going to let that witch wear Mama's scarf." Eloise thought as she bounded toward the stair's edge and dangled her long arms over the eves.

"That was Ma's scarf, a hag like you shouldn't be able to wear it!" Eloise bellowed, taunting her stepmother. The old woman narrowed her eyes, and clenched her fist's. "I could just forget about that little comment, if you give me that scarf. Or with a lick with my leather belt have to convince you, girl?"

Eloise looked down at the woman with utter hatred. That scarf was her mother's, it was one of the only things she had left of her. She wasn't going to give it up; it would be like giving up part of Ma's soul.

There was a long moment of silence. Then suddenly, Patrice began to make her way toward Eloise's room. Seeing what was coming, Eloise scurried back to her room, and jumped up onto her large bed that she shared with her twin sister, Edna. Eloise bounded up onto the bed and reached her hand onto the large bookcase next to their bed, and grasped a small Chinese puzzle box. She plunged the box into a blue cloth shoulder bag from under the bed and slung it over her shoulder. Just as Patrice's sluggish fat legs made it to the top of the stair, Eloise leaped through the door and plunged her way down the stairs. Patrice's eyes widened and she grew another tight-lipped pout across her face. Patrice followed and grabbed at the girl's shirt collar. But she missed, only managing to slap the back of the girl's neck with a meaty hand as Eloise continued to spring down the stairs." You will not disobey your mother girl! What will your sweet Papa say?" The woman said as she neared the girl's stride.

Just as she was grasping the front door's handle she turned to face to old woman, who was desperately hobbling toward her. "You shall never be my mother, and you aren't half the woman she was! And you will never get her scarf! You can never replace her you evil witch!" Eloise bounded through the door, and down the steps of the pink house's wrap-around porch, just as the she heard the old woman's bellow fill the house once more. Raindrops volleyed her face as if the sky was crying with her. But it was her own tears that streamed down her cheeks though, as she ran through the rain running as far away from her monster of a stepmother. The wind slapped Eloise's face, and made her long thin black braids swish past her as she ran across the flat that the Lovat's owned. There was a tiny orchard on the east side of the enormous hill where the home was. The orchard was old and the trees looked as if they were on their last legs. It had been the garden her mother had nurtured and loved ever so much, like everything else in the world. But after her Ma's death it had been neglected and forgotten. There under he favorite tree was a small white marble bench whose legs were swathed with thick blackened tree roots. Even though it had been raining, and mud had gotten into her Mary Jane's, Eloise almost felt warmth overtake her when she saw the bench. It had been her mother's favorite spot to sit.

A small roll of thunder cackled about the sky as she sat there staring at the large pink turnip of a house, atop the hill. "She's probably up there plotting on how she'd going to punish me, that old hag…" Eloise thought ruefully as she sat. She looked down at her cloth bag, which was sitting there on the bench.

She unclasped the bag and took out the China box. She starred at it for a moment. The China box was made of wood and had once been an unsolved Chinese puzzle box that their father had brought back from one of his adventures. Her mother had spent an entire week fawning over its beauty and trying to crack it. Eloise remembered the day she had figured it out. It had been about midnight when she came running up the stairs and thrust to box onto the Edna and Eloise's bed. She had woken them up and hollered enthusiastically, "Girls I did it! I did it!" That night, her mother had told them, "Problems are just like puzzles, they take a little gusto and determination to solve." Eloise had always thought that, that had been the best advice she ever been given. To bad she never followed it.

Eloise unclasped the box and took out its contents and laid them softly in her lap. As she did she felt and immense shadow fell over her. Terrified it would be Patrice; she grasped her belongings in her arms as she looked behind her. But instead stood her twin sister Edna, smiling meekly behind her with a large black umbrella.

"It must be a full moon since that werewolf we live with is raging around the house so." Edna said rashly, smiling at her twin and taking a seat beside her.

"She tried to take Ma's scarf, Eddie." Eloise said with a sad timid voice.

"Yeah think I didn't hear. I was at the wharf, 'eard you all way down the hill! That woman sure has a yell to 'er."

Eloise smiled, and thought of what Patrice had said, that Edna was scared of her. But the girl was just smart enough not to get out of the way and not cause to her trouble. "I guess she has more sense than me. And she was born two minutes earlier! She thought, smiling meekly at her sister.

Edna gave her the same meek look, like a mirror was opposite of her.

The two girls looked exactly alike from the first black curl ever-hanging over their foreheads to the little point on the end of their noses. They both had their mother mystical shining black eyes, that their father said reminded him of a two black holes sucking in the planets and he glances of the people all around. They were both tall like their father and had sinewy arms, long spidery legs and long noses. The girls also shared her chocolate skin that was lighter than most and that gave a beautiful contrast to their jet-black curls. But the one thing the girls were different about was ambitions, and aspiration. While Edna wanted to be a simple poet and a mother just like her own Ma', her sister Eloise had different more adventurous intentions. Eloise had always dreamed of being a heroine, and adventurer like the woman in her mother's stories. Like Ester, Harriet Tubman and Helen of Troy, and the amazing Amelia Earhart. She wanted to get in a plane and fly around the world, to do something with her life. And most of all to go on an adventure, and maybe even write about it, to publish her stories for the entire world to see.

-&-

Eloise shook suddenly. She had heard a noise coming out of the bushes, and down the hill leading to the house. She turned to her sister, whose face was pale. "Patrice is coming!" Eloise whispered, stuffing the box back into her bag and slinging it onto her shoulder. Edna gave her a look like she understood what she was thinking. "I've gotta hide this somewhere, Eddie. Cover for me!" She said bolting across the orchard. She began to run through the trees and listen to the wind howling behind her. As Eloise ran she heard a call from behind, it was Edna yelling back at her "Just stay here Eloise! She'll punish us both if you don't stay." "Not a chance!" Eloiseyelled back as she began to cover the ground on the other side of the property, the large garden another thing her mother had loved. But amazingly still bloomed with great abundance. Her father believed it held their mother's spirit. As she did she hopped their fence and sprang into the garden, which was a beautiful place filled with pink tulips and red carnations and all kind of other plants. She had always admired it but now she admired it even more, now that it created the perfect hiding place.

"Girl I know you're hidin' out there don't think I can't hear you!" Eloise heard Patrice moan through the endings of the orchard.

She had just began to dash behind a small platform that jetted out around a field of tulips, just as she saw the woman's round teapot figure appear on the ridge. Eloise ducked down on her stomach and stayed completely still, refusing to breath. Patrice gave out a loud groan, when she couldn't see her. And to Eloise's surprise she turned back, walked back into the orchard to look for her there. As soon as the old woman was gone, Eloise took off through the garden. Her curls slapped her face once more as she ran through the troughs of flowers and around statues, but then she saw her saving grace. The woods.

The woods lay just up the small ridge, they were the perfect place to hide until her father returned and set Patrice straight. He was the only person on earth who could get her out of one of her "moods". Eloise planned to sleep in the large oak tree just up the ridge with its large branches and good sight of the house. There hoped she could see it from the trees and spot her father's old car as it came up the drive. Just as she made it up the last crest of the hill, she tripped. As she did she bent her foot the wrong way and lost her footing. It had felt like a daze the falling the tripping, even running down the ridge. Before Eloise could regain her footing she, she found herself tumbling and tripping into the old well. Its top was open, strangely for once and surrounded by small puddles of water. A second later she found her plummeting down the shaft of the old well sideways. She was falling to her doom!

Great pain filled her body as she fell for what seemed like hours hitting walls and banging what seemed every bone I her body. Eloise took in a shrill breath realizing in a daze what was about to happen, and she squeezed her entire body in trying to make herself feel smaller… in a way, which was comforting. But when she thought she would soon come to her end, and become smashed against the old bricks, nothing happened. She found herself falling in a spiral, of amazing colors and a vortex swirling its way around her.

After what seemed like a second later she found herself flying out of the well, but on what seemed like the opposite side. "But wait wells end at the bottom and have big brick floors that would have crushed me. Where am I? Am I dead?" Eloise thought urgently as she found herself strangely gently dropped onto the ground by an invisible wind. In complete amazement and shock she stood up to realize, that she was back where she had been. She was standing on the ridge looking down at the garden, and the great big mansion below. It was all the same… but strangely different. She was looking at the house the way she wished it would look; she was looking at the garden the way she wished it was like. All was the same but strangely different.

It was as if Eloise had stumbled on another world, when in fact she had stumbled on her Other world.