Elise thought she must be rather frightening. There was always something wrong with the eyes of those who looked at her—they stayed. They stuck to her constantly, not with teeth, but with ears. She held a grace they couldn't mimic, but they flowed through a current Elise couldn't follow. That was probably why. They could spot her otherness the way wolves hone in on the weakest. Animals could always sniff out this otherness, even as they didn't know. It must be that, otherwise she wouldn't know what caused all these eyes to sour as they landed on her.
It couldn't be her mother. She wouldn't allow it to be her mother.
Elise kept the eyes outside her home. She despised them, but they were constant. Right there. Always there. You have to lock them out, or else they'll slip through the smallest crack.
Her home was absent of eyes, she made sure of that. There was only one window where the soil tucked them in. It was small, just above their round dining room table that flew when elbows were pressed into it. Elise had boarded it up, that window, with scraps of rotting wood she plucked from dumpsters. It had been broken long ago, when Elise and her mother had first moved down here. When Elise hadn't even thought about eyes. Elise had tried to climb up onto the sill to peek through that opening into the world. The latch had snapped under her weight, and they had never been able to mend it. She could still hear every step from every shoe of all those people who walked on top of her.
If she were to pry the planks from their spot she would only be able to see shoes. She may even be jealous once a leather one stepped into view. She knew that wouldn't be true, though. She'd like to be jealous of leather shoes and things she'll never have. Maybe someday, when teeth weren't primed around her throat.
She keeps the boards in place.
Elise has to leave her home sometimes. There are things to do, in town, after all. Not every day was weights and counting and routes. Her mother had written her a list in a jagged hand. Messier than the last one she had written, barely legible. She could make out a 't' in one of the words, but that was all. Elise tucked it into her waistband, although she would not look at what was written. She knew what was needed. When the letters had still been legible a month ago, they hadn't made any sense. Yet Elise always carried them around with her, tucked in her waistband, when she went into town. It was a ticket, an 'admit one' into the above world full of eyes.
Elise wrapped her threadbare shawl around her shoulders and climbed the few steps that whined under her weight leading her to solid ground, away from her home and towards them.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and stacked her vertebrae one after the other. She held her head tall, the way her mother had told her to, years ago, when her mother still told her to do things. She kept her eyes ahead, even as she felt them on her. They whispered too. She could hear them, if she tried, but she didn't. She didn't want to know what they said. She had a face to keep, and a temper quick to light.
She walked into a little shop with a loaf of bread carved into the hanging sign. The hinges squeaked when it was particularly windy. Today, though, it was quiet. Nothing to complain about, she supposed. It was a dreary day, but more beautiful than it had been in many months. She wouldn't complain either if there was an ear to listen to it.
She wished she could lay in a puddle of sunlight on a day like this even when a chill lurked around the edges, but then the eyes might sink into her. She couldn't have that. One was already too many. She needed to keep track of who would snap.
There was a little bell above the door that chimed as she entered. And the lady behind the table smiled at Elise, an empty smile that didn't mean anything. There was no reason why Elise knew this. It wasn't different in any way—but she was certain of it. It must be the eyes, something about the eyes, but Elise wouldn't look long enough to puzzle it out. She always knew these things. People were animals; they're very easy to read. She knew it all, but didn't know how.
The woman—Elise couldn't remember her name, she must have said it long ago, before Elise had known she would frequent this shop and need to remember such things—grabbed a loaf from yesterday's bake and packaged it neatly in brown paper, tying it securely with twine. Elise wished she wouldn't remember that she will always be the girl with yesterday's bread. She wished she could keep the illusion for a moment before it was shattered unkindly in front of her. She wished she didn't need this woman and her shop.
There was one thing about eyes, Elise noted as she smiled something passable and tucked the stale bread into her thinning wicker basket, they can be harmless as long as they aren't pinned on you. A rabbit can be safe amongst monsters as long as you don't catch their eye.
Elise kept the smile stretched onto her lips, held together with pins as the bell chimed once more, signaling her departure.
Animals always know when they are caught. They have instincts, skills, to survive the eyes. But rabbits, well, rabbits only know how to run.