Hush

by Kay Botha

  She doesn't expect a reply, but to her surprise Jane looks back at her.

  "How do you not cry at all?"

  She digs Ty's small bag out of the pile of luggage, sprinkles two or three peanut crumbs in amongst his clothes. She wonders if Jane can smell it, but the girl doesn't say anything more.

  Then she nestles by the window, packet clenched in her hand, and waits for the familiar headlights to blind her.

  When the door opens, she smells the food instantly. Hot, fresh take-out, that makes her nostrils flare in anticipation. It's a pity, she thinks, that this can't wait.

  It can't.

  "Daddy?" She ignores the sickening taste the word leaves in her mouth. She must win over a bear with honey, making her way through the stinging bees.

  "Hey, baby girl," Red grins down at her, a paper bag in his hand. He notices the look on her face.

  "What's the matter?" His eyes instantly go to Jane and, finding her safe and sound and breathing, swivel back to Rosie.

  She doesn't say anything, just holds out her arm, and watches his face fall.

  The peanut packet is unmistakable in the bright motel light.

  "I'm sorry," she feels the practised tears brim in her eyes. "I didn't know what to do."

  His voice is low, dangerous.

  "Where did you get that, Rosie?"

  She looks past him, at Ty's pale figure, frozen in place. I'm sorry, she thinks.

  "They were in Ty's bag."

  But it's either you or me.

  ***

  If she stands in the bathroom, braced against the closed door, she can only hear muffled sounds. Jane sits on the toilet seat, her head tucked between her skinny knob-knees, hands clasped over ears.

  But not Rosie- Rosie wants to hear everything.

  Red is clever. Even if he is enraged, he knows they have neighbours.

  "I didn't, I didn't!" but Ty is not clever. Ty is desperate.

  "You were going to poison her?"

  "No, I swear! Rosie's lying, she's-"

  There's a sudden thump that makes her jump. She presses her head against the thin wood.

  "Rosie..."

  She holds a finger out to Jane. "Shh," listening for Red's voice.

  Someone shuffles in the other room, grunts so low she can barely make it out.

  "Rosie?"

  She jumps again.

  "Come out," he says, his voice composed, sickly-sweet honey dripping from his tongue. "Leave Jane in the bathroom."

  She turns the icy handle, cracking the door open.

  The room is shrouded in darkness, but she can see the shiny, flaxen shade of Red's hair. She tiptoes towards him, her pinched shoes leaving a residue of peanut powder on the carpet.

  "Where's Ty?"

  As her eyes adjust, Rosie can see the shape of Red's kneeling figure, and something beneath him.

  "I need you to be a good girl, Rosie. Can you do that?"

  She nods. "Yes, I'll be good."

  "No screaming," he whispers. "Understand?"

  "Yes."

  He moves aside, tugs the hem of her dress and she falls to her knees beside him.

  "I can't see anything."

  He takes her hand in his, and guides it down, until it's pressed against chilled skin.

  She feels up the arm, contacting denim, softer material, a button, collarbone sharp against her fingertips.

  "Is he-" Rosie feels one last thing, something soft and cool. A pillow. A pillow over his face. "-Is he dead?"

  "Yes, sunshine."

  He says it so casually it makes her shiver. She had told Ty that Red would replace them one day.

  When he looks down at her, his eyes glazed but blank, she knows she was right.

  "Rosie, I need to ask you something."

  She flinches when he touches her cheek.

  "Did you ask your brother to get the peanuts?"

  "No," she has practised this lie in the mirror more times than she can count. Red is clever, but she is smart. "I swear."

  Red sighs, "It's such a shame," he pats a hand against the pillow.

  "Ty was always jealous of Jane," she pushes aside the instinct to run, wraps her arms around his midsection like a child and cuddles into him. It's revolting, every piece of her body is repulsed, but she must see this through. "I'm sorry."

  "It's not your fault, sunshine. You did the right thing by telling me."

  "What're we going to do now?"

  Red grins again. "I'll just have to get you a new brother, won't I?"

  Rosie returns his smile coldly. In her mind, she imagines taking Ty's place, walking up to a low-built fence, picking up a screaming little boy, putting the drugged cloth to his nose while Red waits down the street, waits for the signal to drive up next to her, to lean over and open the door. She will climb in with a dead weight on her lap, and the boy will hear Red's voice, the same way she did all those years ago, before he falls into sleep.

  You're mine now, forever...

  Rosie doesn't know her birthday. She doesn't know her last name, or her height, or what she'll do with the rest of her life. In this moment, facing her kidnapper, Rosie only knows one thing for sure: She will kill him.

  ***

  As she helps load Ty's heavy, still body into the van, Rosie reminds herself this is how it has to be. Ty never wanted to be free, neither does Jane, but it's not too late for her. While she's still herself, while she's still strong, still Madison somewhere deep down where Red can't get to, she has to escape.

  "Be a good girl," he repeats the mantra as he climbs into the driver's seat, utterly collected. "I'll be back soon." As if he isn't preparing to go dump the body of a boy he'd held captive for almost twenty years.

  "I will," she says back, calmly, as if she doesn't feel the peanuts hidden in her jacket pocket.

  She shuts herself back into the motel room, the smell of death lingering around the pillow on the floor. She picks it up and puts it on the chair, her eyes darting to Jane's sleeping form.

  Rosie knows he'll be quick with the burial. If anything, Red is always precise about time. If she is going to leave tonight, she has to place the last piece on the chessboard.

  "Jane?"

  The girl doesn't stir beneath the blanket.

  "Are you awake, Jane?" Rosie edges around the bed, her hand poised over the blanket. "Jane?"

  She feels in her pocket for the peanuts, praying they are enough. Enough to save her. Enough to save them both.

  Jane flinches, so softly she doesn't notice it at first.

  "Jane?"

  Jane pulls herself up against the cheap headboard, her hair a haloed mess around her small face.

  "Tired, Rosie..." Her voice is rough with sleep. "So tired."

  Rosie opens her palm, the peanuts sticky with sweat and salt and promises.

  "Then sleep."

  She wastes a moment in memory, as Jane slips one into her mouth.

  Rosie is eight years old, and Jane is dying.

  "What's wrong with her?" Ty keeps asking, as Red presses a needle into Jane's skin.

  "She must've gotten a hold of peanuts somehow."

  Rosie watches from her dark corner, still a terrified little girl, just the way Red likes her.

  "She did it on purpose?"

  But Red doesn't answer him. Instead, he grabs the girl by the shoulders and whips her through the air, backwards and forwards so violently Rosie looks away.

  "Please don't leave me, Janie," he sobs into her shuddering chest. "You don't want to leave me!"

  Jane pushes the last of the peanuts into her mouth. She bites loudly, savouring them like a dying man savours water.

  She glances up at Rosie, unblinking eyes and chewed lips, wondering if this is all a trick.

  "Swallow," Rosie says, because it's not.

  ***

  "Leave Rosie, get out."

  "How? How do I get out? Ty or Red or both of them will only drag me back again."

  "Kill Ty," her voice does
not waver. "Kill me, and when he's distracted, kill him."

  "Don't you want to leave, Jane? Don't you want to get out, too?"

  Her eyes flutter closed. "I'm tired Rosie. I'm so tired."

  ***

  "You'll sleep now," she wraps her fingers around Jane's hand.

  "Don't leave yet."

  "I won't, I promise."

  Rosie holds onto her as she dies, ugly and terrifying, her body wracked with tremors. When the shaking stops, she peels her hand away and tucks the blanket tight. There are no tears shed for the dead girl. In this place, Rosie knows they're all leaving as ghosts.

  The wait for Red is shorter than she'd hoped. She shuffles around the room in her pinched shoes, stuffing things she thinks she'll need into an empty duffel bag. When she gets to the pile of neatly folded princess dresses, Rosie packs them all. For some reason, the thought of leaving anything of hers behind in this room is enough to stir her nausea awake.

  She finds the discarded packet of take-out, gnaws uneasily at a dry, cold hamburger. She tastes the added pickles and realizes it was supposed to be Jane's.

  Rosie finds herself looking at the bed, at Jane's frozen body. Her eyes are closed, her lips parted, still pale, still lifeless, still cold; and Rosie thinks to herself, death hasn't changed Jane at all.

  Headlights flash through the motel windows like two cheap moons, and Rosie fills her lungs with dusty air.

  She's known fear her entire life. This emotion is something different. It settles to the bottom of her belly like a heavy rock, anchoring her to the chair. She feels her throat constrict as a key slides into the door. It unlocks, and groans open.

  "Rosie?"

  His flaxen head peers through the doorway first, illuminated. A halo for a demon, she thinks ironically.

  "I'm here."

  "Why are the lights off? I can barely see anything."

  But Rosie sees just fine. She watches him feel for the light switch. He flicks it and the breath she is holding releases through her teeth like a painful whistle.

  Red is covered in something dark. For a moment, she wonders if it's blood, and then realizes he is caked in dirt. He buried Ty then, didn't dump him in a river or on the side of the road.

  "Jane," he coos softly, floating around the bed to her side. "Janie, wake up, we need to go soon."

  She watches them, the kidnapper and the dead girl; slides off her chair to get a better look. She waits behind him, her eyes on the gun tucked inside the waistband of his jeans.

  "Jane?"

  Red puts his hands on the girl's cold shoulders, and Rosie is little again, watching him shake her to pieces.

  "Jane!"

  She knows she must fill her eyes with tears again, knows the show must go on, but Rosie is tired, too.

  He rounds on her, his face the colour of his name.

  "What's happened to Jane? What did you do?"

  "She started shaking," she replies calmly. "And then she died."

  His face falls. "He snuck it into her food. He got her," he hurls himself back onto the bed, searching franticly for a pulse.

  "No! You can't leave me, you can't leave!"

  Rosie crosses the space between them, wraps her fingers around the cool butt of the pistol, and pulls it away.

  Red stills. She watches the muscles in his back tense as she raises the gun.

  Months and months of studying him, studying the gun, has shown her what to do. She easily switches the safety off, her eyes never once leaving him.

  "Rosie?" His voice is trembling. He swivels around slowly, never leaving the bed. "Rosie?"

  His wet eyes peer up at her from beneath the mop of blond hair.

  "Sunshine, put the gun down."

  She shakes her head slowly.

  "Let's go, lets get outta here. Just me and you now, Rosie, it can be just us two."

  She smiles. This moment is everything she's waited for. Red, below her, begging.

  "We'll go to the sea. We'll go to Mexico, wherever you want. Put the gun down... Rosie?"

  She cocks her head to the side, the barrel aimed at his chest, and feels a revelation take hold of her.

  He pleads softly. "Please Rosie, come on, put the gun down. Rosie-"

  But she is not a little girl anymore, and-

  "My name is not Rosie."

  She shoots him in the chest on purpose, so she can see the fear in his eyes, the fear she felt the day he took her from her home, from her life.

  Red collapses back against the bed. He clutches a hand to his chest, already sticky with blood.

  She could've had a good life. She still can.

  Rosie presses the hot barrel against his forehead.

  "No! Please, I'm sorry Rosie, please!"

  "Night, night, Rosie."

  "Night, night, Red."

  ***

  She digs the van keys out of his pocket, throws the duffel bag over her shoulder and leaves. Outside, the wind is blowing. She closes her eyes as a gust rocks her body.

  She is free. She is alone, and she is free.

  She slides into the driver's seat. When she was younger, Ty would let her drive on some of the back roads when they were sent on errands. She remembers the gear changes, the clutch, the turn signals. The tank has been filled up, and she doesn't know how far it will take her, only that it will take her far enough.

  Madison starts the engine, and pulls out of the parking space with an un-practiced jerk of the steering wheel.

  There's a map beneath her seat. Later, she will pull over, and mark down the closest route to Abilene, Texas. To her parents little two-storey, picket-fenced home.

  She spares one last glance at their motel door, and pictures the bodies inside.

  "Not all ghosts are dead," she tells herself.

  And as she presses the accelerator down, her body thrumming to life, Madison decides to believe it.

  About the Author

  Besides drinking Roma Espresso and sharing her bed with two Great Danes, Kay Botha's passion lies within books. She has dipped her toes in many pools of genres, including Mystery, Fantasy, Romance and Dystopia, and hopes to plunge into more exciting adventures in the future.

  If you would like to contact Kay, or simply show your support, you can like her Facebook page or show your love on her Goodreads account. Like most authors, Kay is ever grateful to her fan base, and reviews are amongst her most cherished possessions.

  Kay is currently enjoying a peaceful life with her many animals while she wraps up a series of fantasy short stories.

  Coming Soon

  In the Dystopian wilderness of the New World, a dispirited teenager learns to live, and love, through a wild horse.

  In the peaceful respite that follows the third World War, Seventeen year old Anya lives a quiet life with her grandmother in one of the many forests that now encompass the earth. Anya's heart longs for excitement, and for a moment she thinks she's found it when she discovers a wild horse in the forest. But along with the hoof tracks, there are footprints of Outsiders, hunting both animal and human.

  Anya is found and captured, taken to labour in their colony until she breaks.

  The only thing keeping her sane is her connection to the wild horse imprisoned beside her, and when the Outsiders' whips threaten to destroy its spirit, Anya must dig deep to find her own, and save them both before they are lost forever.

  Wind Chaser