Once there was a girl who had blue plaits and black eyes, with a tiny dot of gold twinkling in them. She used those eyes to Watch.

She Watched while the child slept, covers hanging off, one leg at an unlikely angle. She Watched while the child played, making a carefully constructed mess. She Watched while the child sang to herself in her bed when she knew it was too early for anyone to come for her. The girl liked to imagine the child’s songs were meant for her, rolling somewhere around a tune and never squarely landing on it.

The girl could not remember when she had started Watching, and she didn’t know what she was Watching for, but she knew this was what she was meant to do. She could just about remember the child as a baby, and was vaguely aware that her charge was getting bigger, but the passing of time was of no real interest to her. When the child was not in her room, the girl simply waited; not impatiently, because there was no schedule. When the child came back, the girl silently Watched. At all times she wore a smile that was a slim, tight line in her face.

The girl was also vaguely aware that she must be wearing something; she had noted the child’s clothes, and how she got into special ones at night, which was quietly fascinating. But she’d never been too interested in looking at her own clothes; had she paid any attention she’d have seen a red and white striped top and yellow trousers. There were heavy blue boots that matched the colour of her thick plaits. But these were not the things she Watched.

Gradually, the girl did notice one change. It was getting harder to Watch, because the view was getting less clear. She found the girl was getting… fuzzier. Greyer. Sometimes the details of her clothes were hard to make out. Watching sleep became nearly impossible now the night-light was no longer used; the grey and the dark merged into one as if the blanket was now over the girl and not the child. Who had also moved to the other side of the room, and a bigger bed. In the morning she no longer sang and her limbs didn’t hang out of the bed like a flopping starfish. She was, the girl was fairly sure, cocooned in a roll and she didn’t bounce out of bed with as quite as much energy, though she cried much less and she dressed herself much faster.

The girl Watched as the mother came into the room with the girl one morning and started brushing something onto the walls. Patches of colour, she thought, in shades of pale purple, light green and creamy yellow. They seemed to argue a little over what they preferred, though eventually the mint shade seemed to win out. They started creating a pile of things in the corner of the room; a huge white sheet, a few fat tins – it was hard to make out the details through the dimness that wasn’t getting any better – and some blades that still managed to cast a glint of light into the girl’s black eyes.

When the sheet was laid down, the girl was Watching. When the blades were taken up, and began scraping at the wall opposite, the girl was Watching. When the child and her mother splashed water on the walls and scratched and peeled and tore and laughed, the girl was Watching. When the pair started working their way around the room in opposite directions, coming towards the girl from either side, the girl was Watching. When the child looked straight at her, and rubbed a sponge across her face, clearing the greyness just for a moment, the girl was Watching.

When the first coats of paint went on, the girl was gone.

This is the ninth attempt in a writing challenge I have set myself.