Unhooked(9)

And now I’m stuck in this stupid room, with these stupid fairies, because she can’t handle them. My anger lurches dark and sharp inside me.

My eyes go to the gaslight. What could it really hurt? I wonder.

Nothing. The answer comes as quickly as my panic did in the street. It won’t hurt anything at all. Because my mom’s fears are unfounded. Because the monsters aren’t real. Her superstitions have always been just that. None of her little rituals actually do anything. They definitely don’t protect us.

And she doesn’t even have to know. I can wake up early and fix the lamp before anyone even realizes I’ve touched it.

A strange sureness settles in me. This is a good plan. A sane plan.

I stand on my bed and examine the lamp. There’s a small wheel on the side, which I figure must control the flow of gas. Maybe I’ll just turn it down a bit. I only need to dim the room so I don’t have to contend with the shadows and the damn dancing fairies with their too-knowing eyes.

I just want to find some sleep. Tomorrow I can wake up refreshed and be back to my old self again. Tonight doesn’t have to be anything more than a random blip, a bad dream.

But the tiny wheel is hot when I touch it, and when I jump at the unexpected bite of heat, it moves too far and the flame goes out.





The feather was still heavy in the boy’s pocket when he found his brother at the station later that day. “I’m not going back,” the boy said, showing his brother the papers freshly signed and stamped. The other soldiers had not questioned the small lie he’d told about his age. No, they had seen him as one of their own—as brave and ready. “I’m coming with you,” he told his brother, and he could not stop the joy of it. Only when his brother’s hands began to shake did the boy begin to think something was wrong. . . .





Chapter 5


THE SOUND COMES SOFTLY AT first. It starts as a whispering scrape that scuttles dry leaves across the pavement of my dreams. But then it builds to a throbbing buzz until it finally tears me from my hard-won sleep.

When I open my eyes, our bedroom is still clad in night. The only light comes from the soft glow of the city beyond the smudged and cracked windows, but there’s enough light for me to see that nothing in the room could be making that sound.

It was just a dream, I tell myself as I nuzzle under the covers and close my eyes against the noise. If I can just slide back into the warmth of sleep, maybe it will go away.

I’ve almost drifted off again when I hear something else—a rustling that almost sounds like words in a language I don’t understand. This sound is closer, more immediate than the humming buzz. Like it is coming from inside our room.

My eyes fly open, and I realize that somehow the room has turned darker. In the corners, the shadows seem to gather and creep as though they are alive. Their dark shapes crawl up from the corners and out from under the bed, cloaking the room in darkness. In a few moments, all the light is gone, and the room is so dark, I can’t see anything. But the buzzing sound hasn’t stopped. It is still ringing in my ears, unmistakable in its warning, like the wind picking up velocity as it rustles through a forest before a storm.

I cover my ears to block out the sound, but the memory of it remains, teasing at me. Taunting me. The thought I had earlier rises again—the noise is strangely familiar. Slowly, I pull my hands from my ears, and the sound rushes in again, brushing against something deep inside me. It sets off a slow-burning fuse in my mind that throws light across the dark corners of my memories.

Something is waiting there. Something I’d forgotten.

And then, all at once, I’m overwhelmed by an image so startlingly clear, it feels as though the room has dropped away and I’ve found myself in another place. . . .

Only a thin shaft of moonlight penetrating through the trees. All around me, the forest smelling damp, half rotten. And my heart pounding in time with my running feet. Slipping on the slime of the forest undergrowth, the cadence of my heartbeats slipping as well.

I sit up in bed, shocked by the intensity of the images. It’s like I am there again, in that forest, running from—or maybe toward—someone. Or something? But I don’t know where there is. And I don’t know where that image is coming from, because I don’t remember living anywhere so cold or so damp.

A cold night. The scent of winter in the air.

I shut my eyes again and force myself to focus on what is real—the soft brush of cotton sheets, the comforting scent of lavender, the soft snores of Olivia. I focus and concentrate and—

A broad, cold hand covers my mouth before I can scream, and the weight of an intruder’s enormous body presses me into the mattress. The roughness of his damp clothing scrapes against my exposed skin.

I am not imagining this.

I know I couldn’t have imagined this, just as I know with unerring certainty that for as long as I live—however short that time may be—I will never forget how this moment feels. Like I am being pinned down by night itself.

I thrash wildly, trying to get away, but the intruder holds me easily, and then, pressing his face into the curve of my neck, he inhales—a sharp intake of breath—like an animal scenting its prey. When he exhales, his hot, fetid breath crawls against my skin.

Instinctively I jerk back, but his body cages me in, and his scent overwhelms me—he smells like the damp underside of old leaves, earthy and a little sour from decay. Like hunger and wanting. But as close as he is to my face, I can’t make him out. The room has grown so dark, there isn’t enough light for me to see him.