Her mother had reached the first floor. She held up her hand, and wordlessly, the little girl halted. She still heard nothing, but watched silvery dust motes swirl around her mother’s boot-clad feet.
Now the little girl could hear a noise. A rattle, followed by two thumps. The old furnace, finally registering the chill and kicking to life. After another moment, the distant thumping ceased and the midnight hush returned. The little girl looked. The little girl listened. Then, unable to determine any sign of danger, she peered up solemnly at her mother’s pale face.
Sometimes, the little girl knew, they didn’t flee in the middle of the night because of the infamous evildoers, the nameless threat lurking in the shadows.
Sometimes, they fled because training didn’t allow time for working, which didn’t allow for money to pay for rent, or heat, or food. “They” had a lot of strategies, and keeping the little girl’s family hungry, cold, and tired was the most effective of all.
At this stage of her life, the little girl could drift as soundlessly as a shadow and see as keenly as a cat in the dark. But maybe her stomach would growl, or her body would shiver. Maybe, in the end, being too hungry, too cold, and too tired was all it would take for her to give her family away.
Her mother seemed to register her thoughts. She half turned, taking the little girl’s hand.
“Be brave,” her mother whispered. “Child…”
Her mother’s voice broke. The rare and unexpected show of emotion scared the little girl far more than the dark, the cold, the too quiet house. Now she clutched her mother’s hand as tightly as her mother held hers, realizing this wasn’t a drill. They were not practicing. They were not planning.
Something had happened.
They had found them. This was the real deal.
Her mother moved. Pulled the little girl toward the small kitchen, where the bank of windows allowed the moon to pool on the floor and cast rows of finger-thin shadows around the edges.
The girl didn’t want to go anymore. She wanted to dig in her heels. Stop the madness. Rush upstairs and bury herself beneath the blankets on her bed.
Or bolt out the door. Flee from her home, the tension, her mother’s harshly lined face. She could race to the old white house on the other side of the woods. A young boy lived there. She watched him sometimes, spied on him from the sprawling oak tree. Twice, she caught him watching her back, expression thoughtful. She never said a word, though. Good girls didn’t speak to boys. Soldiers did not consort with the enemy.
SisSis. She needed her older sister. Where was SisSis?
“Everyone must die sometime,” her mother was muttering. She’d reached the middle of the kitchen, stopping abruptly. She seemed to be studying the moonlight, maybe listening for sounds of further danger.
The little girl spoke for the first time. “Mommy…”
“Hush, child! They could be right outside the kitchen. Did you think of that? Right there. Outside that window. Backs resting against that wall, listening to our every footstep. Already getting hard and hungry with the thought of what they’ll do to us.”
“Mommy…”
“We should light it on fire. Torch the wall. Listen to them yowl in fury, watch them dance in pain.”
The girl’s mother turned abruptly toward the windows. The moonlight caught her fully in the face, revealing eyes that were huge, dark pools. Then her mother smiled.
The girl shrank back, letting go of her mother’s hand, but it was too late. Her mother still clutched the little girl’s wrist. She wasn’t letting go. She was going to do something. Something horrible. Something terrible.
Something that was supposed to get Them, but that the little girl already knew, from past experience, would hurt her or her big sister instead.
The little girl whimpered. “Mommy,” she tried again, searching those too dark eyes, trying to find a flicker of familiarity.