Scene 5
Pa told me the bird cooing outside my window every night was a mourning dove, and I guess the name fits because the song sure is sad.
I wonder if it feels like I do right now.
I stare up at the ceiling from my place on the floor against the wall.
There’s a perfectly good bed four feet away, but when my dreams get bad like this, I can’t sleep in it.
Bad things can happen in a clean, comfortable bed like that.
Bad things did.
Not in this bed, though. Pa worked really hard to build me a room and bed when he and Momma brought me home with them. He’s a good man. If I had to pick anyone to be my parents, I’d always choose them. But—good parents or not—the thought of sleeping in the bed right now makes my stomach hurt.
And I can’t stop thinking about what Pa told me.
Me and Momma are more alike than I thought.
And there’s something about her that’s so familiar, like I knew her before I met her in the cabin.
Her eyes aren’t two different colors like mine, but they’re so bright and blue that I almost remember seeing them when I was younger. She feels safe. Like a home.
I wish I’d had a home like this one all the time growing up. I think I remember having parents at one point. At least a mother who cried as she kissed me and told me to be brave before handing me off to a strange man. Or maybe I’m just making it up. I don’t really know.
My earliest memories all blur together, and they all feel alike.
Me standing on a wooden platform in a line of other people and seeing a crowd of men with money in their hands.
People took one look at me, and they were either superstitious and afraid to buy me or they were willing to pay extra just to have the boy with witch’s eyes. There wasn’t anything in between.
It was better when my owners just wanted me for labor. But other owners wanted me for other things. Like touching me in places they shouldn’t. That’s one thing I know I’m not making up.
It’s those other ones that sometimes show up in my head when I go to sleep. Which is why I’m on the floor right now and trying to forget everything. I swallow down the sudden tightness in my throat and cover my face with an arm to block out the ugly memories that make me feel dirty.
“Sully?”
“Shit.” I jolt in alarm at the short shadow that appears in my doorway, and my knuckles scrape against the wall. When I see moonlight shimmering across Emmaline’s dark hair, I get mad. But mostly at myself for not hearing her come in. “What are you doing in here?”
“Don’t say bad words like that.” She falters, pulling the heavy blanket she dragged behind her closer. The damn blanket’s bigger than she is. “I had a bad dream. Can I sleep with you?”
Guess it’s just a night for dreams to be bad.
I’m not in the best mood right now, and I almost tell her to go back to bed. But she sounds so sad, and I don’t like her being sad. Maybe I can protect her sleep if she’s close by. “All right. But no laughing or singing, you hear? It’s late and I’m tired.”
I actually don’t know if I’ll be able to fall asleep for a long while yet, but if she’s not quiet, she’ll stay awake for hours making up songs and stories. That means she’ll be grumpy tomorrow because she didn’t get enough rest.
“Okay!”
I roll onto my back and have to fight to keep my frown in place. That seems like too much excitement for someone who just had a bad dream, but there’s something about her being happy that makes me happy.
Well, happier than I was before.
While she makes a bed out of her blanket, Patches shoulders the door all the way open and stands there hopefully, tail thumping against the doorframe. I sigh and crook my fingers. “You might as well come over, too.”
He tromps over and worms his way between us with a little grumble. I don’t mind, though, even if his breath does smell like sausages. He’s warm and furry and a good dog. Once they both settle, all is quiet.
For about two minutes, that is. Before a little voice starts singing about Patches chasing a squirrel.
“Emmaline.”
It’s just her name and not even a question, but she answers anyway in a defiant whisper. “Patches wants me to sing to him.”
“No he doesn’t, because Patches can’t talk.”
“But he does. Momma says he’s getting old because of all the white on his face now, and old people like kids to sing to them. Ms. Agnes asks me to sing for her all the time.”
I had an argument ready for the first part, but when she puts it like that…well, she’s right. I guess there’s no harm in letting her sing for a little bit.
Besides, I’d rather listen to her than what’s in my head right now.
Scene 2
Sullivan, Age 17
“Go back to your room.” My eyes have long since adjusted to the darkness, but I don’t even have to turn around from facing the wall to know who’s sneaking in my room tonight.
“Why are you so grumpy?” Emmaline huffs. “And I always sleep here with you when I have a nightmare.”
Funny how her nightmares always seem to happen the same time as mine.
I wonder if she’d still have any if she didn’t hear me through the wall we share.
I leave her first question alone and answer the second.
“That’s before you had a birthday today.
Now you’re getting too old to do it. It’s not proper. ”
“But you’re my brother.”
I roll over and brace my elbow onto the hard floor just in time to see the shadow of her foot knee-high on the wall.
Is she seriously about to stamp it to make her point?
“I’m about to be eighteen, and you’ve got to grow up sometime.
Come on, Emma…do you think you’re gonna still do this when you’re married? ”
“You still have six months before your birthday, so that doesn’t even matter. Besides,” she says with a sniff. “I’m never getting married. Especially not to any boys around here.”
Her disgust is a relief to me. All these boys are pieces of shit and none of them are good enough for her. Apparently taking my silence for acceptance, she smiles triumphantly and drags her blanket over beside me.
“Nope.” I block the way and try not to notice her hurt feelings, evidenced by her quick intake of breath. “From here on out, you have to sleep in the bed.”
Emma blinks, and her pupils look so big and dark in the moonlight. “But why?”
“Because I said so.” It’s not like I can tell her the real reason.
It’s different now, and has been for a while.
Patches isn’t here anymore to be a barrier between us, and it just doesn’t feel right for her to be so close.
I can’t stop the random hard-ons in my sleep, and since I never know when one’s going to happen, the last thing I need is to accidentally get hard around my little sister.
That’d be fucking embarrassing. Besides, at least I know nothing will ever happen to her when she’s in my bed.
“And you’re still gonna stay there on the floor?”
“Yep.” I settle back into my spot. I’ll have a sore back in the morning, but better a sore back than making my family suffer through one of my black moods. It’s not their fault I can’t make myself better.
“But why?” Her arms cross. “The bed’s right here and much better.” When I don’t offer anything more, she rolls her eyes and flounces over to the bed. “Fiiine.”
And just like all the times before, I know there’s only gonna be about two minutes of silence before the singing starts up.
For someone who isn’t Pa’s kid by blood, she sure enough takes after him with all the singing they both do.
So does our little sister Cecily. Momma’s just happy that she didn’t take to Charlotte LaRue like Emma did.
“No singing.” My demand is half-hearted, and we both know it. It wouldn’t be the same if she didn’t sing for at least five minutes.
She ignores me and serenades me with some silly tune about a goose and a fish, something she probably made up then and there. I close my eyes and resist a chuckle at the nonsensical story she creates.
As I’ve gotten older, I remember more and more about the cabin where I was with stupid fucking Blackwood when he brought her and Momma there. I remember holding my hands over her ears and singing to her so she wouldn’t wake up and hear the bad things happening around her.
Maybe some part of her remembers me doing that to comfort her.
And maybe, just maybe, her songs aren’t for herself.
Maybe they’re for me.
Scene 3
Emmaline, Age 18
“I wanna go fishing, too,” eleven year old Cecily complains. I don’t blame her. Now that Sullivan’s home from his last trip for a few days, we all want to spend time with him.
Me more than most, because when he disappears for days on end, I worry that this might be the time he leaves for good. He’s always been unsettled, but it’s been worse lately. And maybe if it’s just the two of us who go fishing today, I can finally get him to talk to me.
“We want you to come with us, too,” Sullivan explains with forbearance, “but you’re still sick. And if I take you out by the water and you get even sicker, Ma and Pa will skin my hide.”
“It’s not fair.” Cecily’s sulking is broken by a harsh cough.
Sullivan raises a brow as if to prove his point, and my heart lightens to see the amusement reflected in his eyes. I’ve always thought the different colors made him extraordinary, especially when he was in full sunlight, so I was surprised to learn that it unnerved some kids and grownups in town.
Phooey on them.
They don’t matter.
I kiss Cecily’s warm forehead and tap at her scowl lines. “We’ll bring you back something special.”
“What?”
“Hmm…” I tap my lips and pretend to think. “How about the biggest, smoothest rock we can find for your collection?”
“Okay.” Cecily yawns before pointing a finger at me. “But I want three instead of one.”
“How about five?” Sullivan offers to sweeten the deal.
“Even better,” she says tiredly before shuffling back to her room.