A small child, he looked closer to seven than the nine- or ten-year-old I had been expecting. His dark brown hair reached his shoulders. He was pale, his skin free from the scaled glamour of the night before, with deep black bags under his eyes. He had a cut across his nose, probably from Peter’s strike, and his eyes made me inhale sharply. Those eyes were the exact same hazel as Peter’s, but larger, wider, and free from the anger in his father’s. He was his father’s child, of that I was certain, but Emmett Brannigan looked so delicate and ethereal that it was hard to believe.
He stared at me, unblinking.
I leaned forward slowly, afraid I might scare him off. “Are you okay?”
“I’m hungry.”
I leaned back, startled. His answer was so normal, so ordinary, and his voice so… childlike. I grinned. “I’ll make you breakfast. Come on into the kitchen.”
To my surprise, he gripped my hand with his little one, and my heart threatened to stop. Blinking back my emotions, I led him into the kitchen and sat him on the counter while I picked out things he might like to eat. He recognised cereal, but not eggs. He liked the look of peanut butter, but preferred the taste of jam. And he drank a cup of milk without taking a breath, letting trickles of liquid drip down his chin.
“Want some more?”
He looked so surprised that I wanted to cry again. What had he gone through?
“Let’s put on some cartoons, and you can try some food while I make some phone calls, okay?”
He didn’t respond, but he followed me into the living room, his eyes growing wide with interest when I turned on the first children’s channel I could find. I cranked up the volume hoping to drown out any awkward conversations I might have on the phone. He cocked his head to the side as he watched, the food forgotten, and I hurried back into the kitchen to call Carl.
I explained everything quickly, and he promised to do what I asked. Two hours later, Carl stood in the doorway with bags in his hands, seeming hesitant to enter.
“He’s not contagious,” I snapped.
“It’s not… I know, okay? I know. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.”
“Oh, forget it.” I grabbed the bag and pushed him out the door. “Go be as useless as Peter then!” I slammed the door and took heavy breaths until I calmed down.
I returned to the living room and sat next to Emmett, still holding the bag in my hands. “My friend got you some clothes. Maybe you should have a shower and brush your teeth, put on some clean clothes, and then we can talk. Is that okay?”
He nodded, and I blew out a sigh of relief that he actually knew what I was talking about. I didn’t know where he had been, but if he didn’t recognise eggs…
I showed him to the bathroom, turned on the shower, opened the new toothbrush Carl had bought him, laid out his new clothes, then waited in the hall.
A half-hour later, a clean, but still pale, little boy stepped out of the bathroom, swamped in clothes that were too big for him.
“Sorry,” I said. “We weren’t sure of the size.”
He nodded. “It’s fine. Thank you.”
“I’ll fix your collar.” I moved behind him to twist the collar of the large shirt. I blinked a couple of times when I caught sight of the skin on the back of his neck. Sideways S on a circle. A tattoo. Meaning what exactly?
He turned, his big eyes gazing up at me until I felt uncomfortable.
“Are you all right?” I asked, feeling awkward and unsure.
“Yes. Who are you?”
My face heated up. Of course he had questions, too. I hadn’t told him a thing, just picked him up off the street and ran away with him like a baby-snatching lunatic.
“How about I make lunch?” I asked, stalling for time. “And then we’ll chat about everything. Is that okay with you?”
He nodded, and I left him in front of the television again. It was a good thing I couldn’t have kids because I was crap at taking care of them. I contemplated asking Anka for help, but I wanted to keep his presence under wraps for as long as possible.
“Emmett,” I called out when I had finished making some sandwiches. “Let’s eat out back.” I didn’t know what possessed me to bring him outside, but I was glad I did when I saw the wonder on his face.
“It was dark all the time where I was before here,” he said. “Are you sending me back?”
“No! No, of course not. You’re never going back there.”
“Good. That’s good. I like this.”
“It’s just the sun,” I said. “Daylight.”
“I know. But I didn’t see it very often,” he said, before taking a bite of his sandwich.
“I’m Ava.”
He nodded. “My name isn’t Emmett,” he said, and my heart sank. “They called me Unit Twenty-Four last time the numbers changed. The higher you get, the worse it is. Unit Twenty-Four.”
“That’s not a name,” I said, and I gazed at his eyes. Peter’s eyes. “Your parents called you Emmett. Your name is Emmett.”
He closed his eyes and lifted his face toward the sun. “I want to be Emmett,” he whispered. “Are you my mother?”
“No. I’m nobody’s mother. Your mother died… when you were taken. Everyone thought you were dead, and your father… he’s been looking for whoever took you ever since.”
He glanced around as if excited. “Where is he?”
I sucked in a breath. “He… he’s the one who hit you.”
I watched with horror as he flinched. “He didn’t mean to,” I tried to explain. “You looked like the thing that stole you from him. He panicked. He loves you.”
“I can’t remember him,” he said after a few silent moments. “I can’t remember lots of things.”
“Where were you? Before here.”
“Somewhere dark.” He screwed up his face. “There were lots of kids. Most left when they were younger than me. I was a reject, they said. Not worth enough. But a girl took care of me there. She was a reject too. So they left me alone, mostly, except for the tests. Until now.”
“Can you remember where it was? How you got there? Who took you? Anything?”
“They made us drink the water that made us forget. I didn’t like the taste, but they made us. Ava,” he said, as if testing out the sound. “Did you buy me? Is that why I’m here?”
“No.” I began to weep. I couldn’t help myself. He patted my hand awkwardly.
“You’re safe now,” I said when I managed to pull myself together. “They won’t take you back into the darkness.”
“Good. I didn’t like the dark. What about the others? Are they still there?”
I swallowed hard and looked up at the sky. “I’m working on that, Emmett.”
That night, I slept in the spare room and let him sleep in my bed. In the middle of the night, a scream woke me.
I ran to my room, and Emmett sprang from the bed and into my arms, wrapping his own around my neck. “Make it stop. Make it stop,” he said over and over again.
“Hush, hush. I’m here. I’m here. I have you, Emmett. I have you. Everything’s okay. It’s okay.”
I rocked him to sleep, feeling my own tears slide down my cheeks at his night terrors. He was barely aware of me, only seeing the nightmare in front of him. I wished I could make it stop, erase whatever he had seen, and make his father act like a father. He might not recognise Peter, but he needed his father.
Maybe Anka was right. Maybe every child needed their real family. Maybe that was what was so wrong with me. I didn’t know how to take care of a child. I was trouble, danger, everything he didn’t need. Yet when I cradled him on my lap, I felt whole.
I left a dozen messages on Peter’s phone after I settled down his son. I highly doubted he was asleep after everything that had happened, but he didn’t answer the phone. He didn’t reply to my texts. He ignored me. He ignored his son. And I wanted to punch his face in for it.
Emmett awoke the next morning as if his nightmares had never happened. He ate bre
akfast in silence, and I wondered at the difference between him and Dita, a child who questioned constantly. Even when alone, she chatted to herself or her imaginary friends. She was vocal constantly, yet Emmett remained still and silent until I encouraged him to speak.
“How are you feeling?”
He stared at me blankly before turning back to his food. “Good.” And after a few minutes, he asked “Can we go outside again?”
“Of course. But, Emmett, we don’t want anyone to see you. Do you understand that?”
He nodded obediently, and I wondered how many other commands he had accepted without complaint.
Out in the sun, I turned to Emmett with a question I had been dying to ask. “Why did they want you? Why did they take you?”
He shrugged, suddenly looking like a normal kid. “I saw things. But not enough.”
“Like what, the future?”
He smiled, and suddenly, he was beautiful. “Like the woman with you.”
A breeze blew the back of my neck in answer. I craned around to try to see her, but as usual, I couldn’t. “You see her? Is it Maeve? What does she want? What’s Eddie doing with her?”
His face crumpled. “Her name is Maeve, but she doesn’t have long with you before… oh, she’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone where? Where is she?”
He shook his head, looking pained. “She said the bad man was taking her, then she was sucked away. I don’t like seeing things, Ava. I don’t like it.” He rocked to and fro, one hand yanking his hair
“Hey, it’s okay, kid.” I was contemplating what else I could say when a little face popped over the wall.
“Who’s your friend?” Dita asked, eyeing him curiously.
“Just someone visiting me for a while,” I said lightly.
Emmett glared at me. “For a while?”
“Hush,” I whispered back. “Secrets, remember?”
“Can your someone play with me?”
Emmett glanced at me, and I saw the eagerness in his eyes. Play. Had he done that before? Would that help him?
“Maybe, if your mother says it’s okay, you could come over for a while,” I finally responded.
“Great! She hasn’t any good stuff, so I’ll bring some over, ‘kay?” she called out cheerily to Emmett. Ten minutes later, true to her word, Dita came over with a trailer full of toys, even colours and colouring books. Real kids stuff, rather than video game hell.
“I knew you wouldn’t have anything good,” she told me as she sauntered through my home and toward the backyard.
“Wait, Dita. My friend’s name is Emmett, but you can’t tell anyone about him, okay?”
She stopped moving and stared at me solemnly.
“And he’s been in a bad place, so it’s your job to cheer him up. Not too many questions, and try to be nice to him if he doesn’t know some of the same things that you do.”
“I’ll be nice to him, Ava. Don’t worry,” she said earnestly, and I realised that I had never seen her with a friend. Maybe it would be good for her, too.
I watched them play for a while, feeling a little proud of Emmett as he jumped straight in after about thirty seconds of careful watching. Dita didn’t seem fazed by the fact he had to be told what some things were, but he had obviously seen some of them before.
After a while, afraid of him getting sunburned despite the amount of sunscreen I had plastered onto his skin, I encouraged them both to come inside for a drink, but really I wanted them to colour indoors. I was getting edgy for some reason, half-afraid someone would jump over the back wall and take Emmett back again.
Seeing him falter whenever he heard his real name only added to the ache I was already feeling.
The colouring idea went down well. Dita told us she was creating a comic book. She tried her best to influence Emmett to be her co-creator, but he had other plans. Biting his tongue, he went to work, and even Dita paused to stare at him. Under his hand, a beautifully morbid world was created. He was talented, but everything he drew held a tint of horror: dark colours, scarred faces, monstrous hands and claws creeping out from behind walls and beds. Dita gulped and glanced at me, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do. When Emmett finally stopped, he seemed relieved, as though he had drawn away some of his fear.
When Dita left, still in awe of Emmett, he was finally ready to talk to me some more.
“It was always dark. There were lights, but the shadows were so dark that sometimes it felt as though someone could be hiding there, watching us, without us ever seeing them.”
I shook my head. “What did the house look like?”
“It wasn’t a house, not like this one. It was like this.” He selected a blank page and scribbled vigorously.
“What is that, a cave?”
“I don’t know. It was big, really big, and you couldn’t go past the darkest shadow, or you never came back. Sometimes, after our food, we would all fall asleep, and when we woke up, things would be different.”
“How so?”
He pulled a hair from his already sparse eyebrows with a ferocity that scared me. I didn’t think he even realised what he was doing.
“Some kids would be gone. Or there would be new kids. Or sometimes, people were hurt.”
“Hurt?”
He waved his hand over his face. “Just purple here. Or there would be a smell, and someone would cry, but nobody ever talked about what happened.”
“Were you hurt?”
“I was okay, mostly. But I wasn’t worth anything because what I see doesn’t help anyone.”
“It helped me.”
He smiled. “Good. Ava, why am I here? What am I supposed to do?”
“They wanted to give you back,” I said after a couple of seconds. “So you’re back. But Peter—your father—thought you were dead, so he’s kind of scared right now.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want me back,” he said thoughtfully.
“That’s not true, Emmett. He wants you desperately. He’s been looking for the people who took you; he hasn’t stopped. We’re all looking. That’s why it’s important that you tell me anything you might remember.”
“It’s hard!” he shouted, making me flinch. “I don’t want to remember. I don’t like the dark.”
“Emmett, look at me.” I hesitantly reached for him. “I promise you I’ll keep you out of the dark. But I want to help those other kids, the ones who are still there. I want to stop the ones who took you from taking anyone else.”
He huddled in the corner of the sofa and stared at the floor for a while, withdrawing into himself. I sat near him, not touching, and eventually, he moved closer and leaned against me.
“The woman is back,” he said softly. “She wants you to be careful. She says it’s dangerous.”
“Ask if she’s trapped,” I said, suddenly having an odd idea.
“She can hear you,” he said.
“Are you? Are you trapped?” I asked loudly, turning to the cool presence to my left. “Is it Eddie? Is he keeping you here?”
“She says yes,” Emmett said. “He made a mistake. He’s not who he was, not since she died. And he’s going to make another mistake if you don’t stop him. But that’s dangerous, too. He took her again. It’s scary when that happens, Ava.”
He shuddered, and I wrapped my arm around him. “I’m sorry,” I said, but all I could think about was what Eddie was going to do next.
Chapter Thirteen
I waited impatiently for Emmett to wake up the next morning. Maybe it was the company, maybe the fact he was Peter’s son, but I couldn’t help feeling fond of the kid. We had a weird connection. Me and him, me and Dita, me and most of the mixed-breeds or underdogs out there shared something.
But he wasn’t mine. And I couldn’t keep him.
I called Peter again, then Carl. No answer from anybody. I was in no man’s land as far as Emmett was concerned. I was afraid Yvonne would show up and try to take him, but she didn’t answer my call either.
Dita came over
to play again. The games resulted in a little rough and tumble that somehow seemed to upset the girl. She got up, brushed herself off, and stalked away, her chin in the air.
“What was that about?” I asked Emmett.
He shrugged. “Girls aren’t fun.”
“I’m a girl.”
He grinned, which was a huge reminder of who his father was. “It’s not the same. In the dark, we were separate. Boys on one side. Girls on the other. Can I colour again?”
I nodded and followed him inside the house. He drew faces, quite human-looking faces. Although when I looked closer, I saw small details that marked them as other: tiny bumps, too sharp teeth or claws, serpent-like eyes. There were many secrets in Emmett’s pictures.
“Was there anyone there who was nice to you?” I ventured when he paused to pick up a different colour.
He shrugged. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
That afternoon, Mrs. Yaga turned up with bags of shopping. “I thought you might need a few things, seeing as his father hasn’t shown up yet.”
“He will,” I told her.
She shook her head as if she pitied me. “Food in these two bags. Little boys need a lot of food, you know. Clothes in these bags. He’s less pale today. That’s good.”
“He’s been playing with Dita a little.”
Her eyes sparkled. “That will be good for both of them. I hope he isn’t letting her boss him around.”
I laughed. “I think he’s got that covered. She walked off in a strop earlier, so he isn’t shy at getting his own way either.”
She handed Emmett a bag and told him to start putting things in the fridge. Gripping my arm and making my scars sting, she pulled me aside. “I’ve put some extra protection on the houses. I don’t think anything will come here, but in case it does…”
“We’ll be fine,” I said. “They don’t want him. They’ve no reason to come here.”
“They want you to stop poking your nose in their business,” she said. “Surely you understand this.”
“What am I supposed to do? Leave the kids in what might be hell?”
“What are you saying?” But she sucked in a gasp.
“Emmett reckons he was in the dark all of the time. Nobody can tell me where the kids are being kept, and this… what are they called? Brethni, that’s it. The brethni told Peter his son was in hell. I thought they were trying to get a rise out of him, but now I’m not so sure. And an old woman told me that the old gods abandoned her village, and that the gates opened, gates that set free creatures who stole special children. Tell me it doesn’t add up.”
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