Demon Thief (2 page)

FUGITIVES

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EXT
thing I know, I’m on the floor of my bedroom, my baby brother Art cradled to my chest. Mom and Dad are shouting at me, crying, poking and clutching me. Dad gently takes Art from my arms. Mom crouches beside me and hugs me hard, weeping over my bald skull. She’s moaning, calling my name over and over, asking where I’ve been, what happened, if I’m all right. Dad’s staring at me like I’ve got two heads, only looking away to check on Art, his expression one of total bewilderment.

There’s no panel of blue light. No monsters. And no memory of what happened when I stepped through after the snake-hearted creature.

I learn that I’ve been missing for several days. Mom and Dad thought I’d been kidnapped, or wandered out and got lost. The police have been searching for me. They put my photo in newspapers and questioned all the people who knew me. Mom and Dad were frantic. Mom keeps weeping, saying she thought I was dead, that she’d lost another of her babies. I don’t like the way she refers to me as a baby, but this isn’t the time to correct her!

I can’t remember what happened. Up to the moment I took that step forward into the blue light — total recall. After that — nothing.

Mom and Dad don’t believe me. They think I’m lying or in shock. They ply me with hot chocolate in our kitchen and quiz me ruthlessly, sometimes gently, sometimes harshly, neither of them in complete control of themselves. They pass Art back and forth, asking me questions about how he ended up with me. I guess he must have gone missing too, after I did.

“Can I hold Art?” I ask, during a brief lull in the questioning.

Mom passes him to me, watching us suspiciously, perhaps afraid we’ll go missing again. I had a younger sister once —Annabella. She died when she was a baby. I can’t remember much about her — I was only four. But I’ll never forget Mom and Dad’s tears, the misery, the loss I sensed in the air around me. I wasn’t much more than a baby myself, but I knew something terrible had happened, and I could see how upset Mom and Dad were. I guess they never really got over that. It’s only natural that they’re more upset and worried now than most parents would be.

I bounce Art up and down on my knee, cooing to him, telling him everything’s OK. “You’re my little brother. I’ll look after you. It’s fine.” He doesn’t take much notice. He looks more sleepy than afraid. Too young to catch the bad vibes.

Mom and Dad stare at each other wordlessly, then leave us alone for a while, going out into the hallway to discuss the situation. They don’t shut the door behind them, and call out to me whenever I stop talking to Art, making sure we’re still here.

They let me go to bed at one in the morning. Their faces are strained and red. Mom tucks me in and lets Art sleep beside me. She rubs his face tenderly as she pulls the blanket up around him. Starts to cry again. Dad tugs her away, kisses me, then takes Mom back to their bedroom, leaving me and Art to sleep.

I wake in the middle of the night. Mom and Dad are arguing. I don’t know about what. Mom’s saying, “Let’s give it a few days. Watch. Wait. If nobody says anything, or looks for him . . .”

Dad shouts, “You’re crazy! We can’t! It’s wrong! What if the police . . . ?”

I drift back to sleep.

Morning. More questions. Mom sits Art on her lap and feeds him, smiling and laughing wildly every time he gurgles at her. It’s a good thing I’m not jealous of my little brother, as she hardly notices I’m here.

Dad’s upset. He keeps glaring at Mom and Art. Throws more questions at me. Tries to help me unlock my memories. Asks me to take him through the night I vanished, step by step. I tell him I was in my bedroom, I was playing, and that’s all I remember. I don’t mention the lights or the monster. The inner voice that spoke to me that night tells me not to. Says I’d only get into more trouble if I told the truth.

“Did you go to bed?” Dad asks.

“No.”

“Did someone come into the room?”

“No.”

“Was there somebody at the window?”

A pause while I think back. “No.”

“What about . . . Art? Can you remember where . . . how you got him?” “

No.”

He curses and tugs at his hair with both hands. Looks at Mom and Art again. Mom stares back at him sternly, holding Art against her like a shield. I don’t know what her look means, but I’m glad she’s not looking at me that way — her eyes are scary!

Dad phones the police and they come over. He sits with me while they ask lots of questions. Mom stays in their bedroom with Art. Dad said there was no need to talk about Art with the police. It would only complicate things. Since Art’s too young to tell them anything, they want to focus on what happened to me.

I tell the police the same things I told Mom and Dad. The police are nice. They talk softly, make jokes, tell me stories about other kids who were lost or kidnapped. They want to know if I remember anything, even the smallest detail, but my mind is a complete blank. I keep apologizing for not being able to tell them anything more, but they don’t lose patience. They’re much calmer than Mom and Dad.

I don’t go back to school. Mom and Dad keep me in. Won’t even let me go out to the park. Things feel strange and awkward. It’s like when Annabella died. Lots of crying, sorrow and uncertainty. But it’s different. There’s fear too. Mom’s especially edgy. Hardly lets go of Art. Snaps at Dad a lot of the time. I often find her shaking and crying when she doesn’t think I’ll notice.

Days pass. The police come back, but they’re not too worried. The most important thing is that I’m safe and back home. They recommend a good psychiatrist to Dad, and suggest he takes me to see her, to try and figure out what happened to me. Dad says he will, but I remember what Mom was like when Miss Tyacke suggested a psychiatrist all those years ago. I’m sure I won’t be going for counseling.

That night they have a huge fight. Mom’s screaming and cursing. I’m in my room with Art. They think we can’t hear them, but we can. I’m scared. I even cry a bit, holding Art tightly, not sure why they’re behaving this way. Art’s not bothered. He gurgles happily in my arms and tries biting a hole through the new bib that Dad bought yesterday.

Mom yells, “We’ve been given a second chance! I don’t care how it happened or who gets hurt! I’m not going to suffer the loss of a child again!”

I can’t hear Dad’s reply, but it seems to do the trick. Mom doesn’t shout after that, though I hear her crying later. I hear Dad crying too.

The next morning, Dad calls me into his study. He has Art on one knee, a picture of Annabella on his other. He’s looking from Art to the picture and back again, chewing his lower lip. He looks up when I enter and smiles — a thin, shaky smile. Tells me we’re leaving. Immediately, this very night.

“We’re going on a vacation?” I ask, excited.

“No. We’re moving.” Art tugs at Dad’s left ear. Dad ducks his head and chuckles at Art. “Your mom doesn’t like it here anymore,” Dad says quietly, not looking at me directly. “Annabella died here. You went missing. Art . . . well, she doesn’t want anything else to happen. To Art or to you. She wants to go somewhere safer. To be honest, I do too. I’m sick of city life.”

“But what about school?” It’s the first question to pop into my head.

“The hell with it,” Dad laughs. “You don’t like it that much, do you?”

“Well . . . no . . . but it’s my school.”

“We’ll find you another.” He fixes Art in his left arm, then extends his right and pulls me in close. “I know you haven’t been happy here. Mom and I have been thinking about it. We’re going to move to a place we know, a village called Paskinston. The children will be very different there. Nicer than city kids. We think you’ll be happier, maybe make some friends. And you’ll be safe. We all will. How does that sound?”

“Good. I guess. But . . .” I shrug.

“It’s for the best, Kernel,” Dad says, and hugs me tight. Art laughs and hugs me too, and that’s when I feel sure that Dad’s right. Everything’s going to be better now.

My last glimpse of the city is when I get into our car late that night. I don’t know why we don’t wait until morning —Dad hates driving at night — but I haven’t had time to ask. It’s been a rush, packing bags, going through all of my toys, books, comics, clothes, records, choosing what to bring and what to leave behind. Dad says we’ll get the rest of our belongings sent later, but I don’t want to leave anything precious behind, just in case. I bombed all of the planes in my bedroom at nine o’clock. Mom and Dad helped me. We destroyed them completely. It was cool! Even Mom enjoyed it.

As we’re getting into the car, Dad asks if I want to play a game with Art, to keep him quiet. I say sure. So he makes me sit on the floor behind Mom’s seat, with Art between my legs, and he drapes a blanket over us. “Pretend Art and you are fugitives. You’re a pair of vicious, wanted criminals, and we’re sneaking you out of the city. There are roadblocks, so you have to hide and be quiet. If you’re found, you’ll be sent to prison.”

“Children don’t get sent to prison!” I snort.

“They do in this game.” Dad laughs.

I know it’s just a way for Mom and Dad to keep Art — and me — quiet for some of the journey. But part of me thinks it’s real. The fact that we’re leaving so quickly, at night, in secrecy. . . . I hold Art tight in my arms and whisper for him to be quiet, afraid we’ll be caught by whoever’s after us. I feel like crying, but that’s because we’re leaving home. I’ve never lived anywhere else. It’s scary.

Mom checks that Art and I are OK before settling in. She lifts the cover of the blanket and peers in at us. We’re parked close to a street light, so I can see her face pretty well. She looks worried — maybe she’s sad to be leaving our old home, like me.

“Take care of your brother,” she says softly, stroking Art’s left cheek. He gazes at her quietly. “Protect him,” Mom says, her voice cracking. Then she kisses my forehead, replaces the blanket, and we set off, leaving behind everything I’ve ever known.

THE WITCH

P
ASKINSTON’S
a sleepy place, with a couple of tiny shops, a crumbling old school, a stumpy, ugly, modern church, and not much else. It’s in the middle of nowhere, miles away from any town or city. Electricity cuts are common. Television and radio reception are poor. Cars are mostly ancient wrecks. The sort of place where you expect to find loads of old people, but in fact most of the villagers are youngish parents and their children.

We’ve been here almost a year. It’s not a bad place to live. Quiet and clean. Lots of open space around the village. No pollution or crime, and people are very relaxed and friendly. A few commute to cities or towns, but most work locally. Quite a few are craftspeople and artists. We don’t get many tourists in Paskinston, but our artisans (as Dad calls them) supply a lot of tourist shops around the country. Musical instruments are the village’s specialty, traditionally carved, lovingly created and packaged, then expensively priced!

Dad’s got a job painting instruments. It doesn’t pay very well, but you don’t need much money in Paskinston. He’s happier than he ever was in the city, finally able to call himself a real artist. Mom helps out kids with learning problems, and does some teaching in the school when one of the regular teachers is sick. She’s happy too, the happiest I’ve seen her since Annabella died.

Mom and Dad never talk about the time Art and I went missing. It’s a forbidden subject. If I ever bring it up, they change the topic immediately. Once, when I pressed, Mom snapped at me, swore, and told me never to mention it again.

And me? Well, I’m OK. Dad was right. The kids here
are
nicer than in the city. They chat with me at school, include me in their games, invite me to their houses to read and play, take me on day trips into the local countryside on weekends. Nobody bullies me, says nasty things to me or tries to make me feel like I’m a freak. (Of course, it helps that I don’t mention the secret patches of light!)

But I still don’t fit in. I feel out of place. It’s hard to talk freely, to join in, to behave naturally. I always feel as though I’m acting. Most of the kids in Paskinston were born here or moved here when they were very young. This is the only world they know, and they believe it’s perfect.

I don’t agree. While I’m certainly happier now than I was in the city, I miss the movie theaters and museums. Except for not having any friends, I liked being part of a big city, where there was always something new to see or do. The village is nice, but it’s a bit boring. And although the kids are nicer to me, I still haven’t made any real friends.

But it’s not that important, because I’m not miserable anymore. I’m not sure why, but I don’t feel lonely these days. I’m happy just to be with Mom, Dad and Art. Especially Art. He might only be a baby, but I love dragging him around with me, explaining the world to him, telling him about books, television and life, trying to teach him to speak. He should have started by now, but so far not a word. Dad and Mom don’t mind. They say Einstein was older than Art is before he spoke. But I don’t think Art’s an Einstein — he likes tugging ears, biting people and burping too much to be a genius!

Art’s all I really need from the world right now. He keeps me company better than any friend ever could. As Dad once said when I was lonely and he was trying to cheer me up, “Who needs friends when you have family?”

To get to school, I have to pass the witch’s house.

The “witch” is Mrs. Egin. There are thirty-seven families and six single people in Paskinston, and everyone’s on friendly terms with everybody else. There’s a real sense of community. They all take an interest in and see a lot of each other, chat amongst themselves when they meet in the street or at church, hold big parties every few months that everyone attends.

Except Mrs. Egin. She lives by herself in a dirty old house and almost never has anything to say to anybody. She comes out for a long walk every day, and to draw water from the well. (There’s running water in Paskinston, but Mrs. Egin and a few others prefer to get theirs from an old well in the center of the village.) But otherwise we rarely see her. She spends most of her time indoors, behind thick curtains, doing whatever it is that witches do.