“No,” Regine says. “But how would we know? It can probably wait a lot longer than we can.”
“Any of these houses will do for a rest,” Seth says. “They probably all have empty beds.”
“Yeah,” she says, squinting down the road, “but they’re not my house, are they? I don’t think I’m ready to give up my house.”
“I really don’t doubt that,” Seth says, “but –”
“Oh, for the sake of heaven,” Tomasz says, standing. “My hands are hurting. I want to wash them. It is there or it is not, and if it is there, then it knows where to find us and it can do that anywhere we try to run. Besides, I am feeling cranky and over-tired.”
He marches down the street.
“Tommy!” Regine calls after him, but he keeps on going.
“He’s got a point, you know,” Seth says.
“Doesn’t he always?” Regine grumbles, but she stands and heads after Tomasz. Seth goes, too, and he can see now how right Regine was about the lights. Tomasz’s is shining in the darkness like a beacon.
What did happen? he thinks. Why did they link up? Why the sudden immersion into what was clearly the worst thing that had ever happened to Tomasz? It made no sense, but at the very least, it’s calmed down the torrent in his brain for now, all that information still bubbling but temporarily at bay.
He looks at the back of Regine’s neck. What would happen if I connected to her? he wonders.
“Tommy, wait,” Regine says as they near the front path of a dark brick house, hidden behind the same shadows of wild plants and mud. Regine looks around carefully, turning in a full circle – the same way Seth does when he’s being watchful, he notices – but there’s still nothing in the darkness that comes after them.
“I think we are fine,” Tomasz says. “For now.”
Regine breathes out a long, low sigh, still scanning the fronts of the neighboring houses. “For now,” she echoes quietly.
“Hold on,” Regine says at the front door. She pushes it open slightly, removing a small scrap of paper. “To make sure no one’s gone in before us. If this had fallen, we’d have known someone was inside.”
She disappears into the house, motioning them to wait.
“We have blacked out the windows,” Tomasz tells Seth, “to keep from being seen.”
After a moment, a light appears from deep within, as if it’s coming from around more than one corner.
“Okay,” Regine says, appearing again. “Get inside, quick.”
Tomasz waits for Seth to pass before bracing the door shut behind them with a chair stuck underneath the handle. They’re in a generous sitting room with a staircase leading up and a second doorway to a kitchen in the back.
Right in the middle of the front room sits a dusty black coffin, surrounded by the sofas and chairs as if it was a coffee table.
“Come, there is food,” Tomasz says, walking past the coffin and leading Seth to the kitchen. The light shines from there, a lantern tucked into a side cabinet that might have been a pantry. There’s a door heading out the back, its seams stuffed with blankets to keep the light from leaking out.
“We sleep upstairs,” Regine says. “There are three bedrooms, but one’s a storage room now. You can share with Tommy, if you want.”
“I usually sneak in to the floor of her room anyway,” Tomasz says in a stage whisper.
Regine lights another lantern. She calls Tomasz over to the sink to unwrap his hands. Once the blood is washed away, they look less bad than feared. A few deep cuts and some burns – which cause Tomasz to hiss every time Regine runs the water over them – but he can flex them a little.
“You’ll mend,” Regine says. Then she takes some old kitchen towels out of a drawer and wraps them around his hands. “We should scrounge up some antibiotics, though, in case they get infected.”
Tomasz still looks defiant. “I say again, you are welcome for being saved.”
Regine reaches in the cabinets for cans of food. “Nothing fancy, I’m afraid,” she says, lighting the flame on a gas camp stove similar to Seth’s.
Towel-handed Tomasz sets out some bowls while she prepares the meal. Looking for something to do, Seth pours them mugs of water from the bottles they brought back from the supermarket. No one really says much. Seth’s mind is still crammed to overloading, and if he lets it, he can slide off into paralysis, trying to make sense of it all. The effort is constant, difficult, exhausting. He stifles a yawn. Then is too tired to stifle a second.
“Tell me about it,” Regine grumbles, handing him a bowl that’s half creamed corn, half some kind of noodle-filled chili.
“Thanks,” Seth says.
Regine and Tomasz sit on small chairs in the kitchen to eat. Seth sits on the floor. There’s almost no conversation, and Seth looks up once to see Tomasz asleep, his head back against the counter, an empty bowl in his lap.
“I knew it wasn’t lightning,” Regine says, quietly enough not to wake him. “But I had no idea.”
“Me neither,” Seth answers.
“Why would you?” she says crisply.
Seth makes a frustrated sound. “What is your problem with me? I said I was sorry.”
“And I believe you,” she says, setting her own empty bowl on the counter. “Can’t we just leave it at that?”
“Clearly not.”
“And that’s actually kind of it. The way you think you have the right to know everything. That it’s all about you. I mean, even thinking me and Tommy are here to help you somehow. How self-centered is that? You ever think maybe you’re here to help us?”
He scratches his ear. “Sorry. I’ve had less time to get used to here than you.” He looks around at the lantern-lit kitchen and their ancient-can dinner. “My father said with enough time you could get used to anything.”
“My mother said that, too. And she was right.”
Regine says it so bitterly, Seth looks at her, surprised. She sighs. “She was a schoolteacher. Sciences, mostly, but she and my dad were French so she taught that too, sometimes. She was great. Strong and good and funny. And then my dad died and she kind of . . . broke. And got lost somehow.” Regine frowns. “And my stepdad, that son of a bitch, he saw how broken she was and just moved on in. And at first it’s okay, you know, not perfect, but okay, and you get used to it. Then it gets a little worse, and you get used to that, too. Then one day, you wake up and you don’t have the first freakin’ clue how it got that bad.”
“My dad broke,” Seth says gently. “I think my mum broke a little, too.”
“And you.”
“And me. People break, I guess. Everyone.”
“What finally made you break?”
“Now who’s the one who thinks everything is her business?”
She hesitates, but then gives him a look that’s almost friendly.
He yawns, which makes him wonder what memory will come tonight when he finally goes back to sleep. He hopes it’s good, even if painful. Maybe the night he first found out Gudmund felt the same way. Or maybe the time they went camping and Gudmund’s parents were in the next tent over so they couldn’t do much more than talk and it was great, greater than anything, as they planned out a future together, with college and beyond.
“We can have anything,” Gudmund had said. “We can do anything we want once we get out of here. You and me together? No one could think about stopping us.”
And Seth couldn’t even say how thrilling and frightening and true and impossible those words had seemed.
They had talked all night. They had set out the rest of their lives.
It makes his heart hurt to think about it.
“People break,” he says again. “But we got a second chance, the three of us.”
Regine laughs once. “You think this is a second chance? How shitty was your life?” She stands, reaching for Tomasz. “Come on, give me a hand here.”
They get the still half-sleeping Tomasz up to his bed, Regine lighting a candle to show their way. S
he takes some musty blankets out of a closet. “You’ll have to make do with the floor.”
“That’s okay,” Seth says, piling them up on the carpet.
“You can have his bed when he sneaks into my room,” she says. “He wasn’t kidding about that.”
Tomasz is already snoring away. Regine looks down at him in her gruffly tender way, and then turns to leave without a good night.
“Thank you for finding me,” Seth says. “And maybe try not to be such an asshole about accepting the thanks, okay?”
Regine snorts. “It’s hard here. Toughness keeps us alive.” She gives a wry smile. “I used to be a really nice person.”
Seth smiles back. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Good,” she says. “You shouldn’t.” She looks at him for a moment. “First thing, we can start looking for your brother. If it’s really that important.”
“It is. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. You’ll be doing all the work. Like, where do we even start?”
Seth shakes his head. “Something’ll come to me. It’s all there, I know it is. I’ve just got to sort it out.”
“Good,” she says, “because I’d like some answers, too.” She nods good night at him and leaves.
Seth lies down on the floor and wraps a blanket around himself. It’s quiet. Even between Tomasz’s little snores, he can’t hear the van’s engine outside, at any distance. Regine and Tomasz have hidden themselves well here, he thinks. And now they’ve hidden him here with them, too.
His brain is still overloaded with unsorted memories, but for a fleeting moment, before the endless exhaustions of the day catch up with him, he realizes he feels almost safe.
He does not dream.
“Wake up, Mr. Seth,” Tomasz says, shaking him by the shoulder. “We have survived another night.”
Groggy, Seth opens his eyes to the dim glow just barely filtering in through the blankets that cover the windows.
“There is corn and chili again for breakfast,” Tomasz says. “I am sorry for this.”
Seth opens his mouth to answer –
But he stops.
Something is different.
Something has changed.
Something –
He sits bolt upright.
“Oh shit,” he says.
“What is it?” Tomasz says, alarmed.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“It’s all there,” Seth says, looking up at Tomasz in amazement. “It’s all clear now. Falling asleep must have processed it or –”
He stops.
“What is happening now?” Tomasz says.
But what can Seth answer? What can he say? All the chaos is now making sense. What he’d forgotten –
Oh no.
He gets up, barely stopping to shove his feet into shoes before hurtling out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
“Wait!” Tomasz says, coming after him. “Where are you going?”
Seth grabs the chair lodged at the front door, but his first confused attempt only manages to stick it more tightly.
“What’s going on?” Regine says, coming in from the kitchen, holding a bowl of the horrible breakfast.
“He woke up and went all crazy,” Tomasz says.
“Again?”
“I didn’t dream,” Seth says, grappling with the chair.
“What?” Regine asks.
“I didn’t dream. I slept and I didn’t dream, not one memory, nothing.” He feels on the verge of panic now. “I woke up and everything was clear.”
The chair finally springs free under Seth’s hands and clatters into the sitting room. Seth pulls open the front door.
“Where are you going?” Regine cries, but he’s already out, already racing down the pavement, already running down the street.
Because he knows.
He remembers.
Even though this neighborhood is unfamiliar, his feet are guiding him. The large street they crossed last night is a landmark he is suddenly sure of. He runs from Regine’s house, not even listening for the van’s engine. He’s about three miles north of his own house, he thinks, and his mind is mapping out a path for him.
He knows where he’s going.
He knows.
“WAIT!” he hears, some distance behind him.
“I can’t,” he says, not nearly loud enough for them to hear. “I can’t.”
He keeps running, taking a corner with unhesitating certainty. The blocks start to fall away behind him, and he’s running effortlessly, fast, purposeful. Another corner. And another. The roads are edging downwards now, coming around in a direction that’ll take him behind the supermarket and out the other side of the small park where he saw the ducks.
“For Christ’s sake!” he hears behind him in gasped breaths.
He takes a quick glance to see Regine, pedaling away on a spare bike they must have had at the house, Tomasz clamped on behind her, his bandaged hands wrapped around her middle.
“You are running away from us!” Tomasz shouts with surprising anger. “Again!”
“I’m not,” Seth says, shaking his head, not stopping. “Please, I’m not.”
“What are you doing then?” Regine shouts.
“I remember,” he says. “I remember.”
“Then you’ll remember that we’re not exactly out of danger, are we?” Regine says, not able to keep up with how fast he’s going.
“I’m sorry,” Seth says, pulling away. “I have to, I’m sorry.”
He runs. It’s not even a feeling he can name. It’s some kind of compulsion, something making him go –
Something he can’t believe –
Something he won’t believe –
The road is angling down steeply now and he reaches the bottom of a hill, whispering, “No. No, no, no.”
He turns away from the direction of the duck pond, running up a low rise and down the other side. There are very rich houses here, behind massively overgrown hedges. The road is better too, with fewer weeds breaking through what was probably more expensive asphalt. He passes a kind of community center, then sees a church on a corner and he knows he’s near. He can hear Regine and Tomasz distantly behind him as he turns a last corner.
He slows to a stop in the middle of the road.
He’s here. He’s found it. All of a sudden, too soon. Like the short walk to the prison, this is a journey that feels as if it should have taken much longer.
But here he is.
“No,” he whispers again.
Regine and Tomasz pull up behind him. Regine is too out of breath to do much besides hunch over the handlebars, but Tomasz is already off the bike and yelling. “You cannot do this! You promised! You cannot –”
He stops as he sees how frozen Seth is.
As he sees where Seth has brought them.
“Mr. Seth?” he says, puzzled.
Seth says nothing, just steps over a low stone wall into the overgrown field. He knows where to go. He doesn’t want to know, but he does. The grass is as tall as he is, and he pushes it away in fistfuls. Tomasz follows right behind him, trying to keep up in the grass jungle. Seth isn’t sure what Regine is doing because he’s not looking back. He’s keeping his eyes forward, looking, seeking.
He lets his feet lead him.
There are paths here, hidden behind the grass, and he takes them without hesitation, turning where he needs, orienting himself with a tree and turning again –
And then he stops.
Tomasz comes up behind him. “What is happening? Mr. Seth?”
Seth hears Regine arrive, too. “Regine?” Tomasz asks her. “What does it mean?”
But Seth says nothing. His legs feel weak beneath him, and he kneels down. He reaches forward and parts a stand of grass, breaking it, clearing it away.
To what’s underneath.
He reads what he finds.
And he both knows it’s true and knows it must be a lie.
But it
isn’t a lie. It isn’t.
Because he remembers it now. He remembers it all.
“Is that –” Regine whispers. “Oh, my God.”
“What?” Tomasz says. “What?”
But Seth doesn’t look back, just keeps kneeling there, reading it.
Reading the words carved into marble.
Owen Richard Wearing.
Taken from this world, aged 4.
His Voice was Musick and his Words a Song
Which now each List’ning Angel smiling hears
Seth has brought them to a cemetery.
To a tombstone.
To the place where his brother lies buried.
It was how silent his parents were at the table across from Officer Rashadi that upset him the most. They weren’t crying or yelling or visibly distressed in any way. His father sat glassy eyed, staring unfocused at a spot somewhere over Officer Rashadi’s shoulder. His mother, head hung low, unkempt hair hiding her face, made no sound, gave no signal she knew anyone else was there.
“This will be no solace,” Officer Rashadi said, her voice low, calm, respectful, “but we have very strong reason to believe that Owen didn’t suffer. That it happened soon after the abduction and was done very quickly.” She reached forward across the table as if to take one of their hands. Neither his mother nor his father responded. “He didn’t suffer,” she said again.
His mother’s voice, raspy, quiet, said something.
“What was that?” Officer Rashadi asked.
His mother cleared her throat and looked up slightly. “I said, you’re right. It’s no solace.”
Seth was sitting on the bottom step in the hallway. Neither Officer Rashadi nor the other officer who’d come in saying that Valentine had been found was watching out for him after they’d sent him from the room. He’d snuck back down and listened.
“We’ll take you to see him,” Officer Rashadi said. “We’re just waiting for the all clear, and then we can go.”
His parents still said nothing.
“I’m so, so sorry for your loss,” Officer Rashadi said. “But we’ve caught Valentine, and he’ll pay for what he’s done, I can promise you that.”
“You’ll put him back in jail?” his mother said. “So he can read his books and do his gardening and walk right out again whenever he feels like it? Is that your idea of him paying for what he’s done?”