Penny! Penny! It was so desperate, so very sad.
But the girl kept running because that wasn’t her name. It never had been. And now that she was free, she allowed the sound of her own name back into her head. Her name wasn’t Penny.
And so she ran. And she would have run faster, gone downhill because that was the way to go, according to what her daddy had told her.
But then, ahead, she saw a bouncing light, small and round moving through the trees. What was it? Who was it? It was moving toward her, getting bigger. Momma was screeching and running behind her and the whispering in the trees was so loud and discordant, it filled her head.
She turned away from the light and slowed down, looking for a place to hide. She found the carved out hollow of a tree and tucked herself inside, deep into the wet, smelly wood. She was shivering—fear, exertion, cold. Footsteps, shuffling steps through the leaves. The beam of a flashlight glanced the tree in front of her; she squeezed herself far back into the hollow. Something with a lot of legs skittered across her bare foot, and she stifled a startled scream.
“New Penny.” Just a whisper. “I’ll help you get away from here. Where are you?”
Bobo. She stayed hidden. He couldn’t be trusted, not really.
“I can hear your teeth chattering.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth and realized that they had been chattering like a cartoon cold person’s teeth. She never thought that really happened. Her whole body was quaking, an involuntary palsy of cold and fear. She held her breath, waiting, willing her body to be quiet, to not betray her with whimpers and sharply exhaled breaths. Then Bobo’s face appeared in the opening of the tree, he shined his light onto her, and she covered her eyes against the beam.
“Come on,” he said. “I know the way.”
He put the flashlight on the ground and shifted off his jacket and held it out to her. It was denim with a fluffy lining, probably still warm from his body. And she was so cold. She reached for it, and as she did, he grabbed her arm, yanking her out onto the ground.
“Momma!” he yelled, his face lit with malicious glee. “Momma, she’s here!”
“Shut up, Bobo,” she said. She ran at him and started hitting hard, beating her fists at his chest and trying to cover his stupid mouth. But he just smiled, leaning back, and swatted her blows away as if he were swiping at gnats. Her little fists didn’t hurt him.
“Momma!” he bayed again, the word filling the night.
She tried to run, but he grabbed her and threw her to the ground hard and then climbed on top of her, his weight on her chest so heavy that she could hardly breathe.
“Why are you helping her?” Penny hissed. “She doesn’t love you.”
Bobo’s face was blank. “Yes, she does.”
But she heard all the notes of uncertainty and despair. She knew things about Bobo, things he didn’t tell, things she wasn’t even sure he knew about himself. That’s what it was like for her. She could look at a person and see what that person wanted her to see. But she could also see what squirmed beneath the surface, raw and pink. Like when her mommy sounded angry and was using her stern voice, but she was really just tired. Or when Sophia at school acted like she knew better than anyone, but was really just afraid that no one liked her and had to prove she was smart so that no one would make fun of her. Or how her brother pretended not to like sports but was really just ashamed of being a little clumsy, so he stuck with the things he knew he was good at, even though he secretly wanted to play soccer. All the layers were exposed to her, always had been.
“No,” she said. Cruelty was the only weapon she had now; she had no choice but to wield it. “She doesn’t. If she did, she wouldn’t spend all her time in the graveyard trying to talk to your dead sister.”
“Shut your stupid face,” he said, his eyebrows wiggling with sadness. “I’ll let them put you with the other Pennys, the bad Pennys.”
She saw a hole, then, a deep pit with no bottom. It was in a cave, with a high rocky ceiling. There was an old light burning. Where was it? It was a dream and a memory, but neither of those things. Then it was gone, and she was back in the woods with Bobo. A space opened inside her. A cold, deep abyss of fear emptied her out until she was one with the night and the cold. She went quiet, all her power, all her speed, all her strength leaving her. That was why, she knew with a clarity she didn’t quite understand. That hole was why they had all been brought here. Not for Momma. Not for Real Penny. The girls that had come before her, they would never go home, and neither would she. They would all disappear into the maw where the voice lived, and they would be there forever.
But this is your home. It always has been.
“Don’t,” she whispered. And Bobo looked down at her, seeing her, she thought, for the first time. Not New Penny. “Please. I don’t belong here.”