by Amy Cross
My father and I immediately run to the front door and head outside. Spotting Taylor in the distance, we run over to him and find that he's completely alone. Barely thirty seconds ago, I swear I saw someone standing with him, but now there's no-one else to be seen.
"Hey, buddy," my father says as we reach him. He looks around. "You okay out here?"
"Who was that other person?" I ask.
Taylor stares at me.
"Was there someone else with you, Taylor?" my father says.
Taylor shakes his head.
"I saw someone," I say.
"Are you sure there was no-one here?" my father continues. "It's okay, Taylor. Just tell me the truth. You're not in trouble".
"There was no-one," Taylor says. "Just me".
"Liar," I say.
"Calm down!" my father says. He looks angry with me, as if he blames me for causing an unnecessary fuss.
"I saw someone," I insist.
"Let's go back inside," my father says, leading Taylor back toward the house. "You hungry, Taylor? You want some breakfast?"
"I'm not making stuff up," I call after them.
"This isn't funny, Annie," my father replies.
Left standing alone among the trees, I look around in the hope that I might see the mysterious stranger. Sadly, it genuinely looks as if there's no-one else out here. I wander around for a few minutes, convinced that I'll find the person, but there's nothing. Eventually I start wondering if I imagined the whole thing. After all, Taylor would have no reason to lie and I don't see how anyone could get away fast enough without us being able to see him. I swear to God there was someone here, but now there's absolutely nothing. Maybe I'm going crazy.
I start walking back toward the house, feeling like an idiot. I'm the one who keeps saying that everything's fine, yet now I'm also the one who's apparently imagining strangers in the forest. After all my attempts to persuade my father that it's time for me to move out, I've just gone and shot myself in the foot. Maybe I'm tired, or maybe there was a trick of the light. At the same time, though, I'm sure I saw Taylor looking up and talking to the stranger. I can still see it, in my mind's eye. As I reach the front door, I turn and take one more look at the forest. Everything's so calm and peaceful and still again. It's hard to believe that there could be anyone around for miles.
Whatever just happened, and even if it was all in my mind, I guess I've just found yet another example to add to the list of reasons why this new house is so fucking creepy.
Chapter Two
After lunch, it's time for the most disgusting and pointless of our family's rituals. Every day, without fail, we do exactly the same thing, and every day - again, without fail - we come up with nothing. Perhaps it was worth trying at the start, but by now it's just a sad indictment of my parents' (and in particular, my mother's) failure to come to terms with what's really been happening to us all. They can't just be happy that Taylor is back. No, they have to get to the bottom of everything, to know exactly what happened. I guess I don't blame them, but I also think they could be more subtle about it. I mean, they're pretty comprehensively fucking Taylor's mind up right now.
"Are you comfortable?" my mother asks him.
Taylor is sitting by the window, with various electrodes attached to his head. My mother is gradually 'perfecting' her plan to force the truth out of Taylor. She's completely paranoid; she's even bought a gun, which she keeps in a small box by her bed. These daily sessions with Taylor are like some kind of macabre hobby. I swear to God, it's as if she wants to open up his head and pull his brain out so she can peer deep inside, looking for clues.
Never mind that all of this might be too traumatic for Taylor, or that it might be good for him to keep it buried in his soul; no, my mother wants to know every last detail, no matter how hard she has to work in order to get to the truth. Every day, therefore, she wires Taylor up to her lie detector and tries to gently prompt him to come up with some more memories. I don't think she'll be happy until Taylor breaks down sobbing and comes up with a melodramatic account of the three days he was missing.
Still, it is kind of strange that he's kept quiet about it all so far. It's not that he's been completely silent; it's more that he seems entirely comfortable and he doesn't want to drag my parents into any kind of discussion. He sure doesn't seem like he was treated badly, and the police assigned a couple of psychiatrists who said the same thing. It's as if whatever happened, he's okay with just moving on. My mother, though, seems ready to rip his head open in order to get the information out. She's convinced that Taylor was kidnapped, and that there's some evil bastard out there who might strike again.
"Taylor," my mother says, scribbling a few things down in her notebook. The stupid bitch loves pretending to be a professional psychiatrist. "Today, I want to ask you about the moment you were taken away. Do you remember what happened?"
With his eyes closed, Taylor says nothing. It's tempting to think he's fallen asleep, in which case I wouldn't blame him at all.
"Do you remember the face of the man who took you?" my mother asks.
"There wasn't a man," Taylor says suddenly. His eyes are still closed, as if he's in a trance.
"Was it a woman?" my mother says.
Taylor shakes his head.
"You must speak," my mother reminds him, "so that the camera can pick you up".
"There was no-one," Taylor says, He's been basically saying the same thing ever since he came back. He's acting like nothing strange happened, like he just wandered out for a walk that lasted three days. He's been interviewed by police psychologists, who've unearthed nothing, and he's been examined by doctors who have found no signs of anything untoward. But there seems to be a gap in his memory, as if someone reached in and tore out three days' worth of activity. Whenever he's asked about that period, he just says that everything was 'fine'. It's the lack of specificity, as much as anything else, that's driving us all crazy. The way he acts, it's as if he just walked out the door and ceased to exist for a while. It's driving my mother crazy.
"There was someone," my mother continues. "Someone took you. Someone made you go away, and they kept you away for three days until they released you. Or maybe you escaped?"
"You're not in trouble," my father says, interrupting. "No-one's angry at you. No-one blames you. We just want to know the truth".
"That's right," my mother says. "Everything's okay. Mommy and Daddy just want to know, Taylor. We want to know where you were and what you were doing".
There's silence for a moment. With his eyes still closed, Taylor is still pretty unresponsive. "I wasn't anywhere," he says finally. "I wasn't with anyone".
"Honey, that can't be true," my mother says. I can tell from her tone of voice that she's getting close to breaking point. If Taylor doesn't spill soon, she's gonna flip out. She's been gently teasing like this for months, hoping she can finally get the information out of him. She's been reading books on psychology, and websites about post-traumatic stress disorder, and she's determined to get to the truth. But if Taylor keeps resisting, she's going to flip out. She's already been far more patient than I expected, but there's a limit. She's going to snap soon, I can tell.
"Describe a feeling," my father says. I look over and see that he's got a book open on his lap. It's one of those child psychology books that my mother ordered online. "Describe a feeling that you associate with the period you were missing," he continues. "Describe the color, or the texture". This is pathetic. He's just reading from the book.
"I wasn't missing," Taylor says. "You were missing".
"No, honey," my mother replies, "you were missing".
"No I wasn't," he insists, opening his eyes. "I was home and you were all gone".
My mother takes a deep breath. "Honey, we were at home for three days. All of us. There were police officers around too. If you were in the house, we'd have seen you".
Taylor shakes his head. "I was at home," he says. "I was watching TV and stuff. The house was empty.
You'd all gone off somewhere".
My mother looks over at me, and I can see the frustration in her eyes. She's close to tears. "There was someone with you," she says, turning back to Taylor. "There was a man, or maybe a woman, and he was being mean to you".
"No," Taylor says.
"Yes," my mother says firmly.
Taylor shakes his head.
"I'm sorry, Taylor," she replies, "but you must be creating false memories to hide what really happened. You were taken by someone".
"I was at home," he says.
"You were kidnapped!" my mother says angrily, almost shouting. "You were snatched from us by some maniac and you were taken away and he did terrible things to you, Taylor".
"Calm down," my father says, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"No!" she says, shaking with rage. "I won't calm down. Taylor, you have to see past these false memories and remember what really happened. We have to find out who took you. He could take you again, or he could take other children. The world's a dangerous place, and you're making it more dangerous by pretending something else happened!"
Taylor stares at her.
"Please," my mother says, lowering her voice a little. "Taylor, just try a little harder".
After a moment, Taylor pulls some of the wires away. "I want to go and play," he says.
My mother sighs. We all know that when Taylor says he wants to go and play, it means he's too tired to continue. "Fine," she says. "Go and play". As Taylor hurries through to the next room, my mother turns and hugs my father. They both look completely shattered, as if the mental strain of this continual quest is dragging them down. The saddest part is, this happens every fucking day and they're still no closer to finding the truth. If anything, they're getting further and further away. Taylor seems to be closing up, as if he's getting firmer with his insistence that nothing happened.
"Maybe it's time to stop all this," I say after a few silent minutes have passed. "I mean, if it's not doing any good -"
"Not doing any good?" my mother says, turning to me. "What do you mean? We're getting at the truth, Annie".
"Are we?" I reply. "Or are we just upsetting him more?"
My mother stares at me as if I've just said something completely reprehensible and horrible. "I can't believe you're even saying this," she continues. "That's your little brother. Do you really think it's acceptable to not find out what happened to him?"
"Maybe if it hurts him more to keep digging," I say. "He seems okay, right? He seems fine, except when we keep pushing him. Why not leave it out? Maybe he'll start to remember eventually, as he gets older? Or maybe he won't?"
"I think what Annie's trying to say," my father adds, "is that maybe we could slow down a little. Instead of doing this every day, we could do it once a week..."
"No!" my mother says, turning to him. "Our son was kidnapped, John! Doesn't that bother you?" She turns to me. "Doesn't it bother you that your little brother was... God knows what happened to him... Do you know that I stay awake at night, thinking about all the horrible things that he might have gone through?" She stares at me for a moment. "Hours and hours every night, just staring at the ceiling and thinking about what might have been done to him by some monster".
My father sighs. "Your mother has even started looking at websites, searching really nasty, dark parts of the internet in case she might find some kind of clue".
"That's not weird," I mutter under my breath.
"Excuse me?" my mother says.
"Nothing," I reply quickly.
"You think I'm weird?" she continues.
"I didn't say that".
"I'm going to bed," my mother says, spitting the words out as if I'm to blame. She shuffles off to her bedroom, leaving me sitting alone with my father.
"You should be more diplomatic," he tells me.
"She's losing her mind," I say.
My father sighs. He knows I'm right.
"Did you tell her about the stranger?" I ask.
"What stranger?"
"The guy I saw in the forest today with Taylor".
"No," he says. "Taylor says there was no-one. I didn't see anything. You were probably just confused. You're new to this type of life, you probably just saw a tree and thought it was a person".
I stare at him. "Yeah," I say, "that's probably it. I'm a city girl, so I can't tell the difference between a human being and a fucking tree". Giving up on this conversation, I stand up and walk over to the door, before turning back to face my father. "One month," I say.
"One month what?" he asks, sounding completely deflated.
"One month and then I'm moving to Denver. My friend Julie has a spare room opening up in her apartment. I'm gonna take it. I've got some money saved up". I've been delaying making a decision, partly because I'm worried that I'll seem so unsophisticated and innocent when I get to the big city. But waiting isn't going to fix that. I just need to make the leap, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
"Your mother -"
"Mom doesn't get to decide everything," I say, interrupting him. "Mom made us all move here. Mom made us live like this. She might have your balls in a vice, Dad, and Taylor is too young to rebel. But I'm not putting up with her crap any longer. We all have to move on".
Without waiting for him to answer, I walk through to the next room, where I find Taylor playing with his toys on the wooden floor. He looks so innocent and untroubled, like a normal child. I have no idea what happened to him while he was missing, but all credit to him: he seems to be fine with it. My mother's ghoulish desire to find out all the gory details aside, I feel as if we can all start to move on if we just follow Taylor's example. Adults complicate things too much, whereas kids just get on with their lives. My mother's clearly going to cause a lot of damage if she doesn't stop pushing.
"Why are you staring at me?" Taylor asks, not looking up.
I pause for a moment. "Was there someone in the forest with you today?" I ask.
He doesn't reply immediately. Instead, he pushes a little toy dumper truck along the floor until it crashes head-first into a little toy speedboat. "He came back to see if I'm okay," he says eventually.
"Huh," I say. "What's his name?"
Taylor shrugs.
"Where did he come from?" I ask.
He shrugs again.
"Is he the guy who took you away before?"
He shakes his head.
"I see". I figure I should probably ask something else, seeing as it seems like I'm finally getting somewhere, but I don't want to turn into my mother. One answer is enough for now. "Be careful out there," I say, "and if he comes back, come straight to me, okay?"
He nods.
Sighing, I turn and head over to the front door. I need some space, some air. I need to get out of this pressure cooker for a few minutes.
Chapter Three
I stop and turn to look back. I can still just about see the house, far away between the trees. It feels good to get a bit of distance, to find some time to be alone. I know it might sound crazy, but despite the fact that my parents have marooned our entire family out here in the wilderness, I still feel like I'm being suffocated. The new house is turning into an asylum; it's a place where my mother, my father, Taylor and I kind of rattle around, occasionally bumping into one another as we each try to eke out some space of our own. We're simultaneously isolated and cramped, cut off from the rest of the world and artificially rammed together. The house isn't particularly small, but it's all centered on the main room, which means it's hard to be there without either hanging out with everyone else, or feeling completely isolated. Seriously, I don't know how much longer I can handle this place.
There's nothing stopping me from leaving, of course. Well, there's no law stopping me from leaving. I'm old enough to make my own decisions without having to ask my parents for permission, which means I could theoretically just walk away right now. I don't even have to tell them what I'm doing. Yet I'm still here, stuck in a place created by my parents in
order to hermetically seal our family off from the outside world. Fuck the damage being done to Taylor... What about the damage being done to me? After all, I've never exactly been a dazzling socialite, but I'm pretty sure my (very few) social skills must have now completely evaporated. Great. Even when I eventually get away from here, I'll probably have no friends any more, all thanks to my parents and their misguided attempt to make sure that Taylor and I are completely safe from the monsters that lurk out there in the real world.
As I keep walking, I glance over my shoulder and see that the house is finally out of sight. I relax, feeling as if I've escaped from my mother, at least for a few minutes. It's like she's a planet and the rest of us are little moons in orbit around her, affecting the tides of her moods. Even out here in the forest, alone and quiet, I feel as if there's an invisible force keeping me attached to her. When I move to Denver, will that connection finally be broken, or will I always feel this way? Am I ever going to get away from that woman's influence? I sit down on the forest floor and take a deep breath. Whatever happened to Taylor, it has to stay in the past. If he chooses to bring it up, then maybe we can talk about it, but it's as if my mother won't rest until she's got him to admit that he was taken away and horribly abused or something like that. Hell, at this rate she's going to plant false memories in his mind. She's going to seriously fuck him up, and there's nothing I can do to help him. He's at her mercy.
"You're Annie," says a voice nearby.
Panicked, I turn to see that there's a guy standing just a few feet away, smiling at me. He's about my age, with dark hair and green eyes. Fuck knows how he managed to sneak up on me, given that the forest floor is covered with crinkly leaves. "Who are you?" I ask, trying not to let him see that he startled me.
"You're Taylor's sister," he says.
"Yeah," I say. "But who are you?"
"I live nearby," he replies. "My name's Kieran".
I stare at him for a moment. "No-one lives nearby," I say finally. "We're in the middle of nowhere. What are you doing out here?"