The Scarlet Lady

Penny Rose watched as Lucif walked forward into the tree branches, the tip of it's long cat-tail disappearing into the fir branches. She felt a sense of angry loneliness and betrayal. Did it not know she was just a child? Then she realized, looking behind her, how alone she truly was, and with a great intake of breath, she parted the branches behind it, hoping she might somehow go with it at least as far as the mist. It was nowhere to be seen. She was utterly, utterly alone.
She walked into the dark trees, hands trembling. Only the little box was warmly shining near her heart, and she felt it as she walked. Golden light, she imagined, there inside her jacket. Unlike this dull gray and shadow through which she was moving. She expected, as she brushed through branches and spied trunks, that she would soon arrive at the mist. But it never seemed to come. Instead, the trees opened slightly to a strange scene. It was her town, but much smaller. And more gray, and dull. The details seemed odd. She was walking down the road. There, there was the chemist's, and there the grocery. She new Mr. Mooney at the grocery. He was a very odd man. She passed it, but the windows were all dark, though the light was midday. It was as if it was abandoned, desolate. The ringing of silence surrounded her, and seemed thick and muddy.
Then, there, in the middle of the road ahead of her, there stood a woman. The woman was not walking or doing business, but waiting for her. Waiting for her. And the woman was dressed in a costume entirely of scarlet. She was beautiful, tall, raven-haired, red-lipped, with great eyes of green and gray, and sometimes blue when Penny Rose looked harder. Her clinging gown seemed to undulate around her, but everything was still other than that, like a painting.
She was not watching Penny Rose, but waiting, and watching something else. Penny Rose approached her, timid, unsure, and though knowing this was a dream, terrified of what powers such a woman might have. The wild hair stood around the woman's face like a curling pile of snakes and fire, and the woman was directing her attention towards Penny Rose, though there was something strangely introspective about her eyes, as if Penny Rose was looking in a mirror at herself.
"What did you do?" said the voice of the woman accusingly. It was the voice of her aunt, the voice, long ago, like her mother's. "What did you do to it all?" And the woman stormed away. Penny Rose reached for her, wanting more of the voice, whatever it said, and took a piece of the woman's gown in her hand. But the gown simply started to unravel, and though Penny Rose dropped it immediately, it was as if it was stuck to her or the ground, or once started couldn't stop. The dress unraveled, and with it, the woman beneath it, as if they were one. Soon all that was left, as she walked away, was the hair that Penny Rose could see, and then that too was gone. A great feeling of bereavement hit her. It was like losing her only friend in the world. She began to cry helplessly, the sobs that only dreams can bring. She knew it was a dream but the sense of guilt and culpability was deep inside her. She couldn't move. She sat down, grasped her knees, and wept. She could go no further.