Chapter 1 #2
She pushes to her feet with a tired sigh and comes over, standing close to the bed as she copies him, her ear to the wall and one hand pressed against the patterns of brambles and hedgehogs.
A furrow dimples his brow as he flattens himself harder against the wood in his concentration.
The fondness she feels for him then is overwhelming, and she is drowned by this need to protect him, if only from the wild things he makes up.
“Do you hear?” he whispers, his eyes round and worried.
All she hears is the rush of her own blood in her ear. “Sometimes old houses make old sounds.”
“Is the house alive?” He sounds serious. “Is that why I can hear it breathing?”
Something about the way he says it makes unease gnaw at her ribs, that staunch, childish conviction, as if any answer but his would be unreasonable.
The last thing she needs is creepy images like that lodging in her mind, and the urge to snap at him to stop is hard to ignore.
Instead, she dredges patience from the weary depths of her chest and releases a long, slow breath until no anxiety lingers in her voice.
“No. The house is just a house. It’s not scary; it only needs fixing up. ”
Jude drops to his knees to bounce on the mattress with his favorite stuffed rabbit tucked under his arm.
It’s a foul thing, the neck so loose it looks like it’s been wrung, the fur matted and ears chewed.
If she washes it, the world will end. His rabbit will feel different, smell different; it will betray him.
She puts it off, just as she hasn’t convinced him to wear better-fitting pajamas or get a haircut or visit a new playground.
Just as she hasn’t told him why she burst into tears when he slammed his heel into her stomach during one of his meltdowns.
Bren took her to the emergency room, though she told him that was an overreaction.
But her tears had scared him; she had scared herself.
“It’s not mouses. You’re wrong.” Jude scowls.
Elodie sighs. “Jude, please. It’s time for sleep.”
The nightly ritual of petting the carvings of honey badgers and foxes commences, his small fingers following all the grooves and divots in the wood with careful tenderness.
Elodie turns on the mushroom night-light and flicks off the main switch.
A cozy, warm darkness plummets across the room, the night-light glow outlining his face, his jaw, his thumb already in his mouth.
She gently pulls his hand away and he replaces it with the rabbit’s ear, chewing as he watches her with eyes turned pure black in the darkness.
“I don’t like it here,” Jude says, hushed.
What she wants is a hot shower and then to curl up under a hundred blankets with her phone, ready to scroll until her eyes drift shut.
Exhaustion owns her. She wants to fit herself against the warm shape of Bren, his body already molded to hers with intimate familiarity, though they should still feel new together.
She craves his touch like nothing else; she has been fed gentleness so infrequently that she will forever starve for it.
She keeps her voice calm. “Well, I love this house. I love that we get to live here, and have our own rooms, and do so many nice things…” She pauses. “We have so much fun as a family now, don’t we? You and me and Bren.”
His scowl deepens and he kicks the blankets. “No. Go away. Don’t want you.”
It shouldn’t affect her anymore; it should mean nothing.
She already stole a hug tonight that felt as rare as winter flowers.
All she can do is hope he doesn’t obsess over the sound of the house settling and work himself into a frenzy, hope he sleeps soundly and doesn’t wake in a thundercloud where she is to blame for every sharp and bright thing that cuts into him in unexplainable ways.
“Don’t talk to me like that.” She wants it to sound stern yet unbothered, but she thinks the weariness in her voice betrays her. Tears come too easily right now.
He turns his back to her, his arms folded in cross defiance, and she resists the urge to go to him, if only to alleviate the anxiety crawling up her throat about leaving when he is distressed.
But he doesn’t want her.
“The house doesn’t like you either.” He sounds cross and overtired. “The house is bad and it thinks Bren is bad.” A pause. “It thinks Mama is bad.”
It takes everything to not react, to blink back the sting in her eyes. “Good night, Jude.”
He ignores her, fussing about with his rabbit.
There is nothing to do but let herself flow out of the nursery as calm as a draining river, shutting the door with a soft click before leaning her forehead against the wood to wait and see if he will call out for her.
No sound comes—until there; his voice, a blurred mumble of words she can’t parse.
She bends to the keyhole to listen, unused to him talking to himself.
He is the kind of child to play in silence as he lines up his toys for hours on end.
“… can hear you, even if Mama can’t.” His voice turns to a soft mutter. “I can hear you breathing in there.”
An odd disquiet furs the back of her tongue, and it takes everything in her not to rip the door open and rush in to check if he’s alone.
Except, of course he’s alone. The house is unsettling in the dark, so of course his imagination is in overdrive.
This is all normal, really. He’s a child acting out, sullen about bedtime and exhausted from a long day at school.
Their life here is still so new, the edges not yet worn in.
But she wishes he’d cry out for her to come back and protect him, ask to snuggle into the safe crook of her arms until he falls asleep. She craves that. Sometimes she needs it so much she can’t breathe.
He is afraid of the dark.
She is afraid he doesn’t love her.