Once, We Were Stolen

by Courtney Symons

  “I understand your point. And I think for the most part I agree. But the thing is… Is it really our business what’s happening over there?”

  Violet leaned back to put distance between them. “Well, they’re humans too, right?”

  “No, I know it’s horrible. I don’t know how I would deal with that if it happened here,” he replied. “But think of all the people in the world. Think of how much our population is growing all the time. A baby probably just popped out right now. And right now, somewhere.”

  Violet smiled, then stopped herself.

  Jeremy kept going. “Basically, we’re just animals that are overpopulating. But when that happens in nature and there’s too much of something, some of them die off. It always happens, it has a way of regulating itself. Some of them have to go. It’s natural selection, the way things evolve, the way the world works. But whenever it’s a human, it’s an outrageous thing to suggest. Like we’re the most supreme beings of all, and that we have more right to live than any other creatures living on the planet.”

  “Whoa,” Violet said, surprised at how much he was communicating. He wasn’t apologizing, he wasn’t promising her anything or appeasing her, he was just talking. Having a discussion, an incredibly human interaction. She had never thought it possible.

  “I don’t actually think that genocides should happen,” he continued. “That’s not the way I would want the population to stay under control, not even close. A one-sided war isn’t fair.”

  “No. So how would you want it to happen, for the population to stay under control?” she asked.

  He thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t want it to be something we planned. If we just buggered off a little bit,” he immediately regretted the expression. He wasn’t British, and it was really hard to pull off otherwise, “and let things happen as they happen, we wouldn’t have to worry about it. It would worry about itself.”

  “Well basically, you’re just excusing things like genocide then, if we just stand by and let it happen!”

  “No,” he said, in the closest tone to exasperation that Violet had ever heard him use. “I meant I want all people to fuck off in terms of population control. I mean, assuming we could find a way to live without war, go back to being nomads or something, I don’t know. But if people would just let the plague take them when it came, and starve when the crops dried up, then things would even themselves out... Does that make sense?”

  She had never heard him swear before. She liked it. He seemed more human.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It makes sense.”

  They stopped talking for awhile and looked into the crackling fire instead. Sparks flew up and landed on Violet’s feet, but she knew they wouldn’t hurt her so she didn’t move. She kept them in the line of fire willingly.

  Finally, she spoke. “So, yeah,” she said far from eloquently. “I think that’s part of the reason why I want to go into journalism. I want to talk to people about this sort of thing. I want to make it obvious how stupid we can be sometimes.”

  “We, as in humans?”

  “Yeah, we as in humans.”

  Violet looked into her empty glass. She’d noticed Jeremy refilling his earlier too, and wondered if there was any left in the bottle. She reached; there was a splash.

  “Wanna split this?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No, you go ahead. I still have a bit.”

  “Thanks.” She sloshed the last of it into her glass, ran her tongue over her teeth and felt a red film. Violet remembered looking at adults with red stained mouths and wondering if they knew they looked like idiots. Here she was, one of them.

  She couldn’t wait any longer.

  “When do we get to go home, Jeremy?”

  He looked at her then, really looked at her. Violet found herself actually looking back at him too. His eyes were green; so green she could see them by the fire’s dim and tricking light. His hair looked like it was on fire; wild and chaotic. Freckles framed his face, concentrating around his nose, which was smaller than average. He looked immensely sad, and Violet wasn’t sure if that was the way he always looked or if that look was just for her, right then.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? We talked about this. Our month is up, Jeremy. It’s time for you to let us go.”

  “Violet, I know I said that. I know I told you one month, but the truth is, you caught me off guard that day. I didn’t know what to say to you, and you were so upset, and I just said a month on a whim and you seemed to be okay with it. I just didn’t want to upset you more.”

  She took in a deep breath. “Didn’t want to upset me more. So you didn’t think I’d be angry when I waited a whole month and then found out you’d only said it to appease me?” She spoke the words more calmly than she thought she was capable of. The wine had turned her voice to honey. She couldn’t raise it, couldn’t summon the right amount of anger.

  “Of course I knew you’d be upset.” He looked down at his hands. “I just didn’t know what to say and I was trying to buy myself some time.”

  “Fine.” She said. “Fine. We’ll miss Christmas. I hope it makes you happy, knowing that we won’t be able to have Christmas with our family because of you.”

  “No,” he said in an almost whisper. “That won’t make me happy.”

  “Well then tell me. You’ve bought your time, you should’ve been able to figure it out by now,” she began to find her anger. “When do we get to go home?” Each syllable was stretched through her clenched, red teeth.

  “If I told you another month, would you believe me?” he said with the trace of a smile.

  “Are you trying to be funny? Because it isn’t working. Not now.”

  “I know.” Crestfallen, again.

  “Why can’t we go now? You keep saying we can’t, as if there is some upcoming day that we need to be with you here for, so when is that day? When do you need us to stay with you until?”

  She didn’t understand, she still didn’t. He was disappointed. “It’s not a specific day. I don’t know when that day will be. It’s not that. I just… you need to be here for a while longer. Violet, you and I work differently. I’m not going to be able to explain it in a way that makes sense to you. You just have to trust that eventually, I will let you leave.”

  “How can I trust you? I trusted you to let us go in a month.”

  He wanted to say, I can’t let you go because I’m beginning to love you, and Ben too. I’m slowly starting to feel like this is a family and that we should be together. I might never feel like you and Ben should leave.

  It would sound absurd coming out of his mouth, and so he held his tongue. He wouldn’t say it, not now, not even with half a bottle of wine in him. But he knew he had to say something, so he took a deep breath.

  “Two more months.” He looked at her to gauge her response. Her eyes were surprisingly flat. “I know that sounds like a long time, but I promise there will be lots of fun things for us to do. What do you think?”

  “Jeremy,” she began slowly. “I don’t know how you can ask me what I think. What I think is that we should be at home right now, with our family, for Christmas. I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be here for two more months. I’ll never think that.”

  Violet realized she hadn’t brought Ben into the argument at all. Would it have gone differently if she pleaded with him to let a little boy have a holiday at home?

  “I’m sorry,” Jeremy said. “And I’m sorry that I’m apologizing because I know you hate when I do that.” He paused and looked up at her with big eyes. She wanted to slap him.

  “Are you going to be mad at me from now on?” he asked pathetically.

  What a little boy thing to say, she thought.

  “No,” she summoned up this bit of truth from inside her. “I mean, I’m mad right now. Really, really mad, Jeremy. It was so unfair for you to let me hope and wait for a day that wouldn’t change a thing.” She closed her eye
s. “But I won’t always be mad at you. We have two more months to live here, and it wouldn’t make it any easier on anyone if I was mad and miserable all the time.”

  Jeremy wondered if it meant she might be happy. He didn’t ask. He just smiled, cautiously. He knew he shouldn’t say too much more tonight.

  “But you have to let us go in two months,” Violet pressed. “That’s it, Jeremy. That’s all the time you get.”

  They stopped talking then, and their heads turned to the stars. The big and little dippers shone proudly, right through a gap in the trees. A shooting star leapt across the sky just then. Flicker and flame. Violet gasped.

  “Did you see that?” Jeremy pointed and looked over at Violet.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  He kept his eyes on hers and tried to draft what he wanted to say so that it came out right.

  “That star was just for us.” He’d never caught a shooting star with anyone before.

  Violet looked at him with an immense sadness in her eyes. She simply nodded at him, then looked back up at the stars.

  She would never again catch a shooting star, and neither would he. No more flicker and flame.

  19

  I didn’t realize it right away, but I was screaming. Really loud too, and kinda squeaky. I thought it was someone else at first, but it was me.

  I opened my eyes. I was in my bed. My body felt okay. I wiggled my toes. I lifted my hands in front of my face; all ten fingers waved back at me.

  Jeremy was in my doorway all of a sudden. The door flew open and he ran in, but not really ran, just took really quick steps and was beside my bed faster than I’d ever seen him move.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, and I think he really wanted to know. His eyes were all red and bulgy and his mouth was hanging open.

  “Yeah,” I said, because I was, but my voice came out all soft and wimpy and I didn’t know if he would believe me.

  “Did you have a bad dream?”

  I guess I did. I don’t normally get that scared anymore at night because I’m getting bigger, and even when I do have bad dreams, I can usually remember them.

  I used to have this nightmare all the time where Frankenstein was pounding on the front door of my house, and I was scared in my bed hoping he wouldn’t be able to get in. But he always found a way to open the door, and then I would hear his footsteps on the stairs, one by one, and then he pounded on my bedroom door, and he’d open it, and he’d walk towards my bed and fall right on top of me. I’d always wake up then, and there was no Frankenstein. But my tummy would feel like there was all kinds of air in it and I wouldn’t be able to breathe right. I haven’t had that one in a long time, and I don’t think I had it just now.

  I don’t think I’ve ever screamed like that.

  “I guess so,” I answered Jeremy, “but I don’t remember what I was dreaming about.”

  “I know that kind,” Jeremy said, and he sat down on the bed beside me. I moved away from him a little and I hope he saw. I don’t think he’s supposed to sit down on the bed with me.

  “I used to shout things in my sleep, and I would wake myself up with my voice, but I’d have no idea what I was saying or why,” he told me.

  “Was I saying anything?” I was curious.

  “No, just making noises.”

  “Oh.” I wish I’d been shouting some secret message or something, maybe a password.

  “How are your friends doing?” he asked me. I knew he was talking about Deedee and Dodo, but I didn’t want to make it easy for him.

  “What friends?”

  “You know, your friends you play with when you’re outside.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Maybe he was making fun of me, because I know I’m kinda old to have friends that most people can’t see. But I guess I was sleepy and didn’t really think about it too much because I said, “They’re good.”

  “Why don’t they ever come inside? You could invite them to dinner if you wanted.”

  I gave him a good long look. That sounded like being made fun of. I’d been thinking lately about how it might be nice to have them around more often, not just when I’m outside and in the mood to play. Sometimes I just like to stay in my room, and it might be nice if they came in too. But I’d never really invited them, I guess. They always just went home to the forest.

  “Well… I don’t know if they eat the same stuff as we do.” They might not even eat.

  “I could make whatever they want. Or, I could just put out plates for them and they could bring some food from home.”

  Thankfully, Jeremy wasn’t moving any closer to me. He was still on the edge of the bed, and I didn’t mind it too much as long as he stayed there. So far, he was okay.

  “Yeah, I think that would be alright. I’ll have to ask them, though.”

  Jeremy nodded. “Sure. Well if you see them tomorrow, let them know they’re invited for dinner.”

  I nodded, too. “Okay. I will.”

  He got up but stood near the bottom of my bed for longer than he needed to. “Goodnight, Ben. I hope you have a bit of an easier sleep now. You can come get me if you get scared again.”

  I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t been scared, not really. I’d been as surprised as he was by my yelling. But nodding was easier, so I did that instead. He left my room.

  Vi didn’t come in to see if I was okay. She was probably just in a deep sleep. When I was little, I would walk into her room and jump around, and she would just lie there, her face all squashed up against the pillow and her mouth open. Sometimes she would drool.

  We used to have penny sales, me and Vi. That’s where you take some of your stuff that you don’t want anymore, and you arrange it on your bed, and someone comes in to look at it and finds the things they want, and they ask you, “How much?” and you have to answer them, but it can only be in pennies. Most of the things we put in penny sales were only three or four cents. And if you sold something that you thought Darn, I still wanted that after it was gone, sometimes it would show up again in another sale and you could get it back.

  Sometimes, I’d sneak into Vi’s room when she was sleeping and set up a sale on her floor so she’d see it in the morning. She never woke up while I did it.

  I guess she was just in one of her deep sleeps and didn’t hear me. It’s a good thing Jeremy doesn’t sleep like that.

  I can’t wait to invite Deedee and Dodo to dinner. It was nice of Jeremy to ask me that. They don’t pay a lot of attention to me anymore, Vi and Jeremy. Vi is always screaming at him about something, and I don’t say a word.

  When I’m quiet, they don’t bother me. Jeremy doesn’t talk to me much, and Vi doesn’t try to be like Mom and touch me on the head anymore, mostly. Being outside a lot of the time helps, too. Sometimes I get back and Vi will lift her head up from her book and say something like, Oh! Where did you come from?, like she forgot she even had a brother at all.

  We’ve been here a long time. I don’t know how long, but it’s starting to get cold, and the ads on TV are for Christmas. I think it’s getting close, and I think it might be a big surprise that we get to go home for the holidays, but I’m not sure. By now, I’ve usually sent off a letter to Santa Claus asking him for a present, but I think it’s too late. Plus, I don’t really want him to bring me anything here. I think my present would be for him to get me home, but he has an awful lot of kids to worry about so I don’t think he would have time to pick me up, Vi too, and fly us back.

  Anyways, I’m still here and Vi is still here and I think we’re stuck. But it’s weird. I can still move around all I want, I just can’t pass the fences. So it’s like we’re not really stuck, but we’re stuck.

  I really miss my mom sometimes. Like the other day, I fell and scraped my knee and started to cry, just quietly though, but I was yelling, “Ow, OW!” out loud. My mom used to hear things like that, and she’d come find me and grab me and clean me up and put on a bandage. Sometimes even ones in really neat colours. And she’d kiss it, whic
h was the part that really made it feel better. No one does that for me here, though. I just sat, holding my knee and yelling “Ow, OW!” but no one heard me.

  Maybe it means I’m supposed to be grown up. I mean, I’m six, so I guess that’s kinda old. I’m not a little kid anymore, but I thought I was still a big kid. Maybe being a kid is done now. Does that make me an adult? I don’t think that’s right. Maybe a young person? My mom used to say that when she watched the news at night; she always talked about young people and how they did things and talked in ways they shouldn’t and wore fewer clothes and had less respect than they should.

  I didn’t really ever understand, but maybe I’m now what she meant then. Young people. Maybe yelling ow was talking in ways I shouldn’t anymore. Next time, I’ll bite my tongue and suck in my cheeks and pinch my arm so that whatever I’ve hurt doesn’t hurt so much, and I won’t have to make a sound.

  20

  Violet was helping Jeremy in the kitchen. They had made a habit of cooking together. Everything went faster that way, and there was no remembering or reminding who had cooked the night before and whose turn it was next. It wasn’t as if they could go out to dinner, so someone had to cook.

  Ever since they’d shared that bottle of wine, Jeremy made sure there was always some in the house, red and white.

  She had tested a theory the other day when hit with an irresistible urge for ice cream. Chocolate chip cookie dough, the most clichéd flavour for a reason. Violet found a way to casually mention her craving to Jeremy, casting it like bait.

  Sure enough, not two days went by before there was a tub in the freezer.

  Violet felt a silent satisfaction. She knew it wasn’t much power, but it was something she had and would wield.

  There they were in the kitchen, Violet and Jeremy, preparing dinner as usual. Except this time, Jeremy set the table for five.

  Violet’s heart began to pump in double time.

  “Who else is coming to dinner?” she asked in her fake casual voice.