And he brought his work home. That’s what he told her mom. I have to go in the basement and work.
Edythe didn’t know where the boy came from, or who he was, but she knew when her father said work, he really meant hurt.
The scream reached such a high pitch it hurt Edythe’s skull. Her bones vibrated.
Her teeth shook in her mouth, then like it never happened, it cut off. The house was silent.
Edythe jumped out of bed. It was time to act. She pulled her backpack out of her closet. It was packed, ready to go. Every afternoon, she made sure she had the things she needed: salt, gauze, washcloths, a needle, and thread.
Soon her father’s slow tread thumped up the stairs. Edythe pressed her ear to the door. He would never check on her—she didn’t worry about that—but she needed to be sure he went into his bedroom and locked the door. It was the sign. If she ventured out without making sure his door was locked, if she went into the basement before she was sure, it could make things worse. Linc had warned her such a thing could happen when she’d snuck down to see where the screams came from and found the most horrifying and amazing sight she’d ever seen.
Go away! If you get caught, it will be worse.
And she didn’t think Linc could survive worse.
She waited and waited, but the sound didn’t come. Her limbs trembled with nervousness. If he wasn’t locking the door, it meant her father would shower. The only reason he showered was if things were really bad, if he’d been really mean.
And her dad could be really, really mean to Linc.
“Come on,” she urged. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
Finally, the shower shut off, and her father shuffled past her bedroom and into his. Finally! The door was locked.
Edythe scurried into action. She bounded down the stairs, sliding across the kitchen floor and out the door to the backyard. The crickets chirped, and far off in the distance, she could hear the soft crash of waves. It was all so normal sounding.
She had to open the bulkhead to get in the basement, and wished she was older, bigger, stronger. She wished it every night, when Linc screamed.
But eleven year-olds could only be so big. Maybe she wasn’t the bravest, but she was smart, and she would use all her eleven-year-old smarts to save her friend.
The bulkhead was always locked with a padlock. It had only stopped Edythe for a day. She’d found her Hello Kitty notebook and wrote down the name of the lock. Then she went to the hardware store, and with her birthday money bought the exact same lock.
With the exact same key.
Tonight, it took too long for her shaking hands to turn the key. Her sweaty fingers slipped off the edge.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, her brain screamed.
“Linc,” she said under her breath, hoping he could hear her. “I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m almost there.”
She wrestled the lock, dropping it onto the grass before bracing her foot on one side of the bulkhead and lifting with all her might.
Her house was old, and the first time she’d lifted it, the bulkhead was heavy and rusted. The sound it made when opened was so loud it frightened the birds out of the trees. Edythe found the blue can of spray oil her mother used on the bedroom hinges and squirreled it to the bulkhead. She sprayed the sides, and the next day when she lifted it, it didn’t make a squeak.
“Linc!” she whisper-yelled just like she always did. “I’m almost there.”
She listened for his movement. Sometimes, he would smack the bars of his cage, or on really bad nights, he’d flop on the cold concrete floor. Edythe would hear the wet slap of his flesh against the hard surface.
Tonight, all she heard was the steady drip, drip, drip of water in the sink. She found her flashlight. Problem number three solved. It was dark in the workshop. On the first night, when she’d turned on the light, Linc screamed at the brightness. Now, Edythe flipped on her flashlight, the front taped with tissue paper so the only light was dim and blue. It was all Linc could handle, though Edythe thought maybe, when she got him out, his eyes would adjust to sunlight again.
“Linc!” she called again, becoming more and more upset. She dumped the backpack on the floor and swept the beam across the floor.
There.
He lay on the floor, a dark pool of liquid around his body, his beautiful skin ravaged by her father’s merciless scalpel. The scales that covered his chest were pried off, cut in some places, ripped in others. All of them laid around his body, as if her father couldn’t be bothered to clean up his mess.
“Oh, Linc.” Edythe’s breath caught. She hated her father, hated him! If only she was bigger, stronger. She could save him. No one would stop her.
The flashlight beam shone on his glassy, pain-filled eyes, and she realized tonight was the night. She was never, ever letting this happen again. No matter what he said, what he threatened, tonight she was dragging him out of there.