by Bella Jacobs
But Dust…
The thought of him gone, vanished along with his fantastic stories and his magical way of turning every silly schoolyard game into an adventure, hit me hard. Even though he was two years ahead of me in school, Dust was my best friend, and the only person I could talk to about Scarlett’s increasingly wild behavior and how terrifying it felt for my sister to pull away from me. Dust listened with his entire self and set about solving problems like it was his mission on earth. Even at thirteen, it was clear that he was going to grow up to be an incredible person, one that fights to keep the lights on in an increasingly dark world.
So I told George to keep his lies to himself and chose to believe that Dust was out there somewhere, hiding treasures in his pockets and making up wild stories and being the same old Dust I’d known.
Years later, when I was in college and I received a waiver for the Church of Humanity’s ban on online activity so I could pursue my degree in social work, I tried looking for him. I hoped to find a social media page with his grinning face, or some sign that he was out there, alive and happy. But there was nothing. No birth certificate, no death certificate, no adoption forms filed in the state of Washington, not even an entry in the movement’s annual member registration database.
His parents’ names were still there, but he’d been scrubbed out.
Erased.
He must have left the movement as a Hostile Faction. Only those in open opposition to the Church of Humanity, those determined to undermine our mission to unite all people, are erased when they leave. Once I’d realized that, I’d stopped looking for Dust.
No matter where he was or what he was doing, he was a H.F. and forever beyond my reach.
But I kept this coin, the one he promised me would keep me safe.
My gaze softens as I spin the coin faster and the locked doors in my mind begin to creak open. I catch flashes of Scarlett at nineteen, at seventeen, and then Scarlett on the last day of her sophomore year of high school.
We’re having a party to celebrate. Mom and Pops and all our friends are out in the backyard. Scarlett and I are inside, preparing to bring out the box of cupcakes we bought for dessert—I’m insisting I get the only red velvet—when the phone on the wall rings. Scarlett picks it up, and there’s a voice on the other end, a deep, distorted voice telling her to take her sister’s hand and run to the front door.
Run. Now, the voice says, so loud I can hear it from by the refrigerator halfway across the room. I start toward Scarlett, watching her face pale and her eyes go wide. This may be our only chance to get you out. The Frames aren’t who you think they are. You aren’t safe. If you stay, you and your sister will both die. Go. Now.
The phone falls from Scarlett’s hand, and I run to hug her, but I don’t remember what comes next…
I don’t remember…
A scratching sound on the other side of the room snaps me out of my trance, sending my heart jerking back into panic mode. Squeezing the coin in my fist, I spin to face the window.
Immediately, my gaze locks on the fat, fluffy raccoon perched on the sill outside, it’s onyx eyes sparkling in its brown mask. It’s an enormous creature with steel-gray fur shot through with white highlights and a damp black nose that wiggles up and down as it presses one eerily human hand to the window.
I shake my head, not knowing what to make of this night animal out at dusk and looking me dead in the eye with an intelligence that makes my skin crawl. But I’m glad I didn’t open the window the way the voice on the phone told me to do. If I had, that massive beastie and its teeth would be in my room.
That’s clearly what it wants.
The raccoon scratches plaintively at the glass, flinching when my Mom shouts from the kitchen, “Wren, are you okay with red sauce on your pasta? Or do you want your noodles plain with a little butter and pepper?”
“Red sauce is fine, Mom,” I call back, pulse throbbing faster in my throat as the raccoon shakes its head like it understands what we’ve said and is against red sauce.
Or against dinner.
Or against me sticking around to eat it
“Definitely option three,” I note in a trembling voice as the raccoon lifts his—her?—other hand and presses a small, square sheet of paper to the window.
Even from ten feet away I can read the bright red words on it loud and clear. There are only two of them, scrawled in thick capital letters—Run Wren.
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