“Why do you look happy?”
“I made it.”
“What?”
“I found us. Others. Just like I knew there always were. And I made it. We made it. And I’m taking you there now.”
For a moment I didn’t know what to think. I sat there breathing in and out, amazed I was able to do even that.
Fai went on. “It’s not a utopia. We’re building. We’re learning. But there’s a foundation.”
The earth flashed by beneath us. We were over the dust fields mid-landmass, the great expanses of nothing left by the Final Illness, where we used to go and dream of this place that Fai had made real.
I looked up. The stars were not supernovas. They were not that bright. But they were blaring out of the sky above us. And we were heading towards what awaited us.
By Cynthia Pelayo
“Of course the Neverland had been make-believe in those days, but it was real now, and there were no night-lights, and it was getting darker every moment…” - J.M. Barrie
Before Mother and Father went to sleep, they made sure that the nightlights above their children’s beds burned brightly, just in case.
“Just in case,” Mother whispered softly to Daughter shortly before the fall. “Turn these nightlights on every night. Just in case.”
Daughter believed that Just In Case was meant to happen someday, any day soon. She just did not know when. Because those are the things that are kept secret from children like her, like why do we wish upon a star, and why do witches live in dark woods full of strange creatures, and why in fairy tales we never know what time exactly, and in what world those ‘Once upon a times’ take place. Yet, we just assume they are so, and just like that Daughter believed, she knew, that one day Just In Case would happen. So, each night she made sure to tell her two little brothers a story, to fill their heads with wonder.
In the large room they shared on the top floor of their house, Daughter would make sure each night to tell her little brothers a story, tuck them into their beds, give them a kiss on their foreheads and then turn on their nightlights. Just In Case. Daughter would then walk to that large bay window overlooking the once-busy street below and search the empty sidewalks, scanning across the street and beyond into the darkened windows of apartment buildings and houses as far back as she could see. She listened for once-familiar noises; a car horn, music playing from a house nearby, a baby crying, or even the long dreaded mourn of ambulance sirens, but there was nothing. Just stillness.
Daughter realized it had been just as long as she had not seen Mother and Father as she had not seen the stars. So, on this night, for the first time since the nightlights had gone up, she walked over to the twinkling strings above the beds of her brothers and above her own bed and turned them off. Daughter did not like the feel of darkness. Yet, within the darkness she hoped to find a comforting light. She moved to the window seat at the large bay window and looked out and above searching for the moon. Yet, there was no moon this night. A new moon lay above the folds of black sky. The new moon, so black that it was not visible to the eye—yet it symbolized renewal and new beginnings.
Nothing about any of this felt new. There were the long empty bags of potato chips scattered across the floor of the room. Empty plates, and crusted forks and spoons stacked against the wall. Along the floorboards she felt the sticky remnants of stale marshmallows caked into the wood. Empty cans of spaghetti and meatballs, beans and canned pineapple sat stacked in the center of the room, holding worn pencils and broken crayons. All along the room hung pictures and paintings of what their life once was. There wasn’t much paper left to draw. There wasn’t much food left to eat except one last case of water and a bottle of apple juice beneath her bed and a box of crackers and canned cheese. There was one candy bar left. She stored it safely in her pillowcase for a day like today. In the morning she would split the candy bar and give half to each of her brothers—anything to just see them smile once more.
It was then that Daughter spotted the star, brighter than any she had ever seen, lingering just above. Daughter closed her eyes and just like in the song from her favorite movie about a puppet brought to life by a blue fairy, Pinocchio, she sang:
When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true…
Daughter then searched once more in the apartment buildings, houses and streets, desperately scanning the sidewalks still illuminated by streetlights for any movement, but there was nothing. There was no one. Daughter opened the window just a crack, allowing for some fresh air to comfort them in the night. Then, she moved away from the window and turned the nightlights above her brothers’ beds on again, and then the nightlights above her bed. She turned her head back to the large window overlooking her silent city and whispered “Just In Case” before falling away to sleep.
The boy entered the same way he entered on many nights, through the large bay window. Most nights he would just rest behind the window, listening to her voice and the delicate perfection with which she weaved every story. At first, the girl told fantastic tales of shipwrecks, witches, knights, trolls, and queens. Soon however, the girl’s stories turned tragic, but even though her tales now bore such heaviness and sorrow, the way her voice wrapped around each word sounded so beautiful and soft, like the lapping of a crystal-clear ocean wave along a deserted coastline.
The boy looked to the shimmering spot in his left palm and said, “I’m going to do it today,” and with that, the shimmering spot blasted through the cracked-open window. The shock shook him so much that his insides rattled so forcefully a piece of him split away. His shadow dashed inside the room after the shimmering light.
Once inside, he was struck with various smells. The smell of wet clothes that had been left to dry in piles. The smell of tear-soaked pillowcases. And the smell of something so sad, so sickly sweet he brushed it away quickly from his mind.
He knew this room very well, the paintings and colorings on the wall of Mother and Father and of their loving dog. The dog so loved by the children, until one day someone crawled into the backyard and took the dog away. It was that day that the children did what they could do with the wood and nails and boards they had gathered in Father’s shed. The windows on the first floor were boarded up, as were the front and back doors. All throughout the house the children scattered coffee mugs, glasses and mother’s crystal bowls, in hopes that, if an intruder tried to sneak in, they would strike one of the objects and the children would have time to react. Just outside their bedroom door the children had strung up plastic water bottles filled with pennies, a final booby trap to warn them if someone had gotten too close. The boy wondered what the children planned to do if such a thing should happen, but that no longer mattered.
The life they lived before no longer mattered because he was here now. He sat on the floor just beneath the girl’s face and watched her sleep, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of gummy bears on her breath. He took her thin hand in his and it was then that he heard a soft rumble from a nearby dresser. It was then that he remembered his Fairy.
The boy scanned his flashlight across the room, settling on the two boys in their beds for a moment. They lay still in their sleep. The dresser in between their beds shook. The boy rushed to it, opening drawers, shaking out socks and shirts and turning every pocket he found inside-out.
“Fairy, where is my shadow?” He loudly whispered.
The loveliest sound of bells heard by him and only him answered, telling him that his shadow was in the large chest at the foot of the girl’s bed. He turned and saw the dark figure, blacker than any black hole, but full of as much mystery. The figure, exactly his size, stood on top of the chest at the foot of the girl’s bed, hands on its hips, mocking him. The boy dashed after his shadow, grasping it by its hands. As soon as he took hold of it, the black mass collapsed in his hold into a fine gauzy dark fabric. Then the boy, frustrated and exhausted on this adventure, fell to his knees and began to cry.
“Boy,” there was that small v
oice that had taken him to fantastic realms so many times. “Why are you crying?”
He looked at the girl in awe. The reflection of the sparkling nightlights around her bed danced in her eyes like fireflies on a cool summer’s night. Her face bright with wonder. He wanted to tell her why he was really crying, because now that he was finally so close to her he could feel her heavy, strained breath. He could feel every tear that rolled down her cheeks across so many weeks. He could hear clearly each and every one of her cries and pleas for the sickness to please go away, and for her world to return to how it once was. Nothing, he knew, would ever be the same again for her.
He did not know how to answer her, and so he asked, “What is your name?”
“I’m certainly not going to tell you that,” she said. “Who are you? How did you get in our room?” She looked at the closed door.
“I did not come that way.” He turned to the open window. The night breeze shook the nightlights, casting golden shadows across the wall.
She kicked off her bedsheets and rushed to the window, looking down and to the sides, knowing there was no way the boy could have climbed this way up. There was nothing to hold onto. The wind tossed her hair, and she closed the window.
“I don’t want them to get sick,” she cried, thinking of her brothers as she turned to face the strange boy in her room.
“What is your name?” She asked him.
“I’m certainly not going to tell you that,” he mimicked her with a smile.
“Well, then…” she noticed now his dark clothes were covered in dust and leaves. “Where do you live?”
“Second star to the right,” he said. “And straight on until morning.”
“First you lie to me about how you got in my room and now you’re lying to me about where you live.”
“No,” he shook his head. “I’m not lying. That’s where I live.”
“You’re not supposed to leave your house,” she almost shouted. “None of us are supposed to leave our houses. Wouldn’t your parents be upset that you’re not home?”
“I don’t have parents,” he said.
The girl took a deep breath and then sat down on her bed. “No parents? Is that why you were crying? Did the sickness get them?”
“No,” he raised the dark fabric in his hand up to her. “I was crying because I can’t get my shadow to stick on.”
Before the girl could say anything, he lifted the brilliant black material closer to the light. In that moment, she saw for just a brief second how the fabric escaped his hold and floated in the air on its own before he grasped it tightly again.
“It does that sometimes,” he said. “It breaks away when I am afraid.”
“Why are you afraid? I’m the one who should be afraid. You’re a stranger, after all, and we’re not allowed…”
“But I am not a stranger,” he interrupted. “I know you very well.”
“You don’t even know my name.”
He nodded. “That’s the only thing about you that I don’t know, and I would very much like to know it.”
She sat in silence, searching his face for a lie, like the lie her mother told her—that one day the scientists would find a cure for the sickness. No matter how hard she searched his face she could not find a trace of a lie, those lines of worry. The girl then reached into the top drawer of her nightstand. “I have tape,” she said.
The boy smiled and reached his shadow out to her, knowing that if anyone would handle it with good care, it would be her.
Before the girl took it in her hands, she hesitated. “How can you trust that I am not sick?”
“That’s simple,” he said. “because I cannot ever get sick. Ever.” He turned his back to her, and just like that he felt her press his shadow to his arms, and he heard the peel of the tape and felt each piece sticking to him, and when the last piece of tape was finished attaching his shadow back onto him, he felt whole again. And in that moment, and in this place full of misery and disease and destruction, he knew that if anyone could put him back together, it would be her.
“Thank you,” he smiled. “That feels much better.”
“How old are you?” She asked him, and she could immediately see that he did not like that question.
“I don’t know, and it does not matter because I am very young. When I was born I ran away. I ran away as soon as I heard my mother and father talking about the things of this world, of panic, of desperation. I did not want to live in a world with endless sirens and flashing blue and red lights that signaled so much pain. I will always be young. I will never grow old.”
“If you do not want to handle anything from this world, then why are you here?”
“Because I heard you telling your stories of enchanted castles and forests, of ogres and beasts, giants and beanstalks, and of such fierce princesses who fought and defeated death, and then one night I heard you laughing in your sleep. I thought only fairies could laugh like that.”
She had not heard of fairies in such a long time. Her mother had read to her stories about fairies, of their magical dust. She tried to hold on to those memories, of sweet stories told to her by her mother, but as the sun rose and set each day over and over, she grew to forget about fairy dust, and could only think of the ash and smoke outside her window.
“I don’t believe in fairies, or anything anymore.”
“You believe in me, and I am here, and so is my fairy.”
“There’s a fairy? In this room?”
He pressed a finger to his lips and pointed to one of the empty cans on the floor.
“Listen.”
The girl did not hear anything.
He reached into a can and pulled out a gold bracelet.
“That’s Mother’s,” she said. “She fell in the kitchen, and the snap must have broken. I helped her to bed where Father had already been for some days. Her cough was just awful, and she kept trying to sit up, but I told her I would dash back down to the kitchen and find her bracelet. I found it under the table, but by the time I got back to her room she was asleep. I told her I would hold onto it until she woke up.”
He reached into the same can again and this time produced a small shimmering bit of light. It was like a speck of sunlight in his hand. He placed it in her palm and watched as golden light filled in the dark shadows around her eyes and her sunken cheeks.
“We all grow old,” she said, “and die.”
“Not me, and now not you. Come away with me.”
“Where?”
“Where we will live forever, you and me and all my Lost Children.”
“Who are they?”
“They are the children who were left behind. They are the children who did not stop laughing. You need someone to tell your wonderful stories to. I need you to tell me your stories.”
She looked to her brothers who had been asleep far too long. She moved over to their beds and sat on the floor in between them.
“Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a house all alone, in a city all alone because one day the sickness came and took everyone whom she loved. Then one night, she made a wish, a simple wish, a Just In Case wish to be taken away to someplace happy, where there was no more sadness, no more loneliness, no more sickness and no more death. And then, her Just In Case came.”
She stood up and pulled down the bedsheet on one of the beds, revealing the long-desiccated corpse of her brother. She gave him a kiss on his forehead and turned to the next bed and did the same, whispering, “I love you.”
“They are no longer sick,” the boy said. “They are sleeping and forever alive in one of your stories.”
He took her hand and led her to the window. “And now we fly.”
“Fly?”
“I will teach you how to jump on the back of the wind and then away we will go. Just think of something happy, think of the time before the sickness when you could feel the sun on your skin. When you could hold your brother’s hands and spin and laugh in your backyard as your
dog ran around your feet.”
“What do you think of when you fly?” She asked him.“I only ever think of you.”
“But you don’t even know my name…”
“I’m Peter,” he finally said.
“I’m Wendy,” she finally offered.
And just then the window blew open and the stars burst in the heavens and like birds they flew.
Hector Acosta is an Edgar and ITW writer. His work has been featured in Shotgun Honey, Thuglit, ¡Pa’Que Tu Lo Sepas! and more. He’s also the author of Hardway, a wrestling inspired novella and continues to work on a novel. He currently resides in Houston with his wife, dog, and cats.
Scott Adlerberg is the author of four books. They include Graveyard Love (2016), a psychological thriller that takes place in the dead of winter in upstate New York, and Jack Waters (2018), a story of revenge and revolution on a Caribbean island in the early twentieth century. He contributes pieces regularly to Criminal Element, Crime Reads, and Mystery Tribune, and every summer he hosts the Word for Word Reel Talks film series in Bryant Park in Manhattan. Most recently, his essay on Chester Himes had a place in the book Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction from 1950 to 1980. He lives in Brooklyn.
Gemma Amor is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Dear Laura, Cruel Works of Nature, Til the Score is Paid, and White Pines. She is also a podcaster, illustrator and voice actor, and is based in Bristol, in the U.K. Many of her stories have been adapted into audio dramas and live performances by the wildly popular NoSleep Podcast, and her work also features on shows like Shadows at the Door, Creepy, and The Grey Rooms. She is the co-creator, writer and voice actor for horror-comedy podcast ‘Calling Darkness’, which also features TV and film star Kate Siegel. Heavily influenced by classical literature, Gothic romance, tragedy and heroism, she is most at home in front of a fire with a single malt and a dog-eared copy of anything by Angela Carter.
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