From the outside this house looks old, but wonderful. It has been built with white stones and has granite decorations. Small, triangular windows add to the overall look of the house and have been added to the house in a fairly symmetrical pattern.

The building is shaped like an L. The extension extends into wooden sunscreens structures reaching until the end of that side of the house. The second floor is smaller than the first, which allowed for several small balconies on one side of the house. This floor has a different style than the floor below.

The roof is low and triangular and is covered with brown wood shingles. Two small chimneys sit at the side of the house. Large, skylight windows let in plenty of light to the rooms below the roof.
The house itself is surrounded by grass, a huge tree in the center and bushes on the borders of the plot.

For Atticus, there was something about the way the house looked in the dawn’s glow that he always looked forward to when walking home after a long night working at the office. It wasn’t much, but it was what he had managed to build up for himself and his family.

Then came the scream that echoed from the upper floor, and Atticus dropped his lantern as he raced down dirt road and bounded up to the door, fumbling inside his pockets for his keys. In his haste, he dropped the keys with a loud clatter and bent down to pick them up only to realize that it was now silent.

The earlier scream had made his heart run and his fingers tremble, but the present silence seemed far, far worse.

With unexpected difficulty, he managed to unlock the door and shoved it open with a bang as he ran in.

“Arianna? Arianna?!”

The second floor. The second floor! Atticus didn’t even take off his shoes as he made for the staircase.

Up the staircase he went, his heartbeat throbbing in his ears and Atticus beheld the dark stain of blood as he came onto the second floor landing. His stomach dropped and now he could hear the water faucet in the bathroom and the dim light of a candle from within.

“Arianna?” He approached cautiously.

“Father, don’t come in yet!”

Her voice was choked up, a mixture of sobbing and fear.

“Arianna, what’s wrong?” He wanted to rush in, but as long as she was safe that was all that mattered. Atticus leaned against the wall outside as he talked to her. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, Father. I just — I woke up, and there was blood just everywhere, and — oh, I can’t get it out of my sheets!”

It was at this point Atticus took a deep breath and exhaled. Inhale, exhale. It had happened. He knew it would happen, but it was one thing to ask the neighbors about it and another to experience it.

“It’s alright, Arianna. It’s alright. We talked about this, remember? I bought some sanitary napkins from the Jones’ next door, let me go get you one. Just…hop into the bath and clean yourself. I’ll take care of the sheets.”

“But…there’s so much blood!”

“It’s normal.” At least, Atticus wouldn’t know what normal was, but it was better for them that at least one of them was acting calm. “It’s fine. Are you hurt anywhere? If you aren’t, then it’s normal.”

The answer came a moment later. “I think I’m fine.”

“Alright then, just draw yourself up a nice bath and cleanse yourself. I’ll deal with the sheets and put out a sanitary napkin for you. Then we’ll have breakfast together and then go see your mother at the cemetery, alright?”

The door to the bathroom opened and Arianna’s hand poked out, holding the bloody sheets. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

Atticus picked up the sheets and gave her hand a warm clasp. “This is normal for girls your age, Arianna. Don’t feel sorry.”

“You said it will happen every month?”

Atticus grimaced, glad she could not see him. “I hear so, yes.”

“I already hate it.” She closed the door and he could hear the bathwater turn on.

Atticus collected the sheets and went to Arianna’s room, where he pulled off the blood-soaked bedcover and quilt. Arianna had been right. There was a lot of blood. More than he expected.

After getting the cloth soaked in a tub of water, he passed by a portrait of Amelia as he went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

“You know, Amelia, just when I think it’s getting easier, things always throw me for a loop.” Atticus ran a hand through his hair as he took his glasses off to cleanse them. “Not to mention Jone’s wife Julia thinks I can’t do this. She keeps trying to set me up with her cousin, you remember uh, Marion? The one with the rather large nose and thin eyebrows. Julia says it’ll be for Arianna’s good to have a woman in the house.”

With his glasses off, Amelia’s blurry portrait seemed to smile back at him cryptically. Atticus smiled at her visage for a moment before he put on his glasses again.

“I think Arianna’s done cleaning herself. I’ll save the rest for when we go to the cemetery later.”

And off he went, to make some bacon and eggs.