Stolen (13 page)

The next day you were waiting for me.

“Let’s go,” you said.

I followed. I was beginning to hate the silence of that house, beginning to hate the passive depression I was sinking into. But you didn’t walk toward the Separates. Instead, you went toward the outbuildings. I hung back.

“I don’t want to go in,” I said when you stopped beside the doorway you’d shoved me through before.

“Come on,” you said. “I need to show this to you.”

You opened the door and went inside. I stood on the crate step and looked in from the doorway. You walked to the far end of the room and pulled open the curtains. Sunlight flooded in, illuminating the colors in that room: all the sand and flowers and leaves and paint. It looked like a mess at first, with everything strewn everywhere. Immediately my eyes scanned for anything that could harm me. The only thing I saw was a pile of rocks in one corner. As you walked over to them, I felt myself tense, ready to run.

But you didn’t pick them up. Instead you unscrewed your hip flask and poured drops of water onto the rocks. You scraped off parts of their wet surface onto a small saucer, spitting and mixing in your saliva to make a dark brown paste.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making paint.”

There was a woven grass basket near me, containing leaves, berries, and flowers. You walked over and carefully picked out some small red berries. You ground them into a red paste. You worked quickly and methodically, taking different colored bits of the environment and turning them into paint. I could feel the sun starting to burn the back of my neck so I took a step inside the painting shed and leaned against the wall.

You sat, folding your bare legs in front of you. You took a paintbrush from behind the rocks, dipped it into a rusty-colored paste, and started painting your foot. You painted long thin lines, making your skin like the texture of tree bark. You frowned as you focused. I wasn’t scared of you with your head down, concentrating, but I still watched you carefully. Right then, I almost believed you when you’d said you wouldn’t do anything to me.

“How long are you going to keep me for?” I asked quietly.

You didn’t look up from your painting. “I’ve told you,” you said. “I’m keeping you forever.”

I didn’t believe you. How could I? If I’d let myself believe that, then I might as well have fallen down dead right then. I sighed. It was approaching the middle of the day, the time where it became impossibly hot, the time when to even walk a few feet became an Olympic event. I kept watching you.

Soon the paint on your foot stretched around your ankles and lower legs. You painted leaves on your shins and red, spiky grasses stretching up the backs of your calves. You smiled as you noticed me still watching.

“You don’t remember meeting me, do you, that first time?” you asked.

“Why should I?” I said. “It didn’t happen.”

You finished painting your spikes, then filled the space between them with black charcoal.

“It was Easter,” you began. “Spring. There was sunlight hanging in the branches. It wasn’t cold; primroses were already in the hedges. You’d gone to the park with your parents.”

“What park?”

“Prince’s Park. The one at the end of your street.”

I slid down the wall, once again shocked by what you knew about me. Your eyes were searching into mine, refusing to believe that I couldn’t remember. You spoke slowly, as if by doing so you were forcing the memory into my head.

“Your parents were reading papers on a bench, in front of the rhododendrons. They’d brought a scooter for you to play with, but you left it lying on the grass. Instead you went into the flower beds nearby. I could hear you, talking to the daffodils and tulips, whispering to the fairies that lived inside their petals. Each separate flower had a different family inside it.”

I hugged my legs tight to me. No one knew this. I hadn’t even told Anna about these games. You noticed my shock, and looked a little smug when you continued.

“You walked carefully through the flower bed, greeting each flower family … Moses, Patel, Smith. I found out later they were surnames from kids in your school. Anyway, you walked right through until you ducked under the heavy rhododendron buds and came into the bushes …
my
bushes. You found me there, curled up with my swag and half a bottle of booze, half-wasted, probably. But I’d been watching you, listening. I’d liked your little tales.” You smiled, remembering. “You asked me if I was looking for Easter eggs. We talked—you told me about your fairies and their flower houses. I told you about the Min Mins: the spirits who live in the trees around here and try to steal lost children. And you weren’t scared, like most people were of me back then…. You just looked at me like a regular person. I liked that.”

You were quiet as you drew an egg shape onto your thigh, then put little dots of brown paint in the middle.

“The robin’s egg I gave you,” you said, pointing at it. “I’d found it under an oak tree. It had a hole at the top where I’d sucked the yolk through earlier that day. I don’t know why I’d been keeping it … keeping it for you, I guess.” While I watched, you colored in the egg shape with a light sandstone color. “Fierce birds, robins,” you said. “They’ll defend their home to the death.”

I could feel my heart racing. I knew this memory. Of course I did. But how did you?

“That was a tramp in those bushes,” I said. “It was somebody thin and old and hairy and probably deranged. It wasn’t you.”

You smiled. “You said my roof of pink flowers was the nicest ceiling you’d ever seen.”

“No! That was just a tramp I stumbled across. Not you. You’ve got it wrong.”

You chewed on the corner of your thumb. “It’s amazing what living on the streets in a city can do.” You bit off a piece of your nail and spat it aside. “Anyway, you were a child then; I’d look old to you regardless, even if I was barely an adult myself.”

I wiped my palms over my T-shirt. Every part of me felt clammy. You noticed, but you kept going anyway, enjoying my confusion.

“You said it was the best Easter egg you’d ever found. You carried it in your hand like it was the most precious thing. It reminded me of what I used to be like, when I lived out here…. It reminded me of finding something wild and knowing it was important somehow, to something.” You drew another circle over your knee, then filled it in with specks. “It made me realize where I belonged … not in a city park with cheap store-bought spirits, but out here in the land I knew, with the real ones.” You covered your kneecap with more circles, still not looking at me. “The next day I found the nest the robin’s egg had come from. It was abandoned and tattered, but I knew you’d want it. Finding that, finding you … it was a sign.”

“What do you mean ‘sign’?” My throat had become so tight it was hard to get the words out. Because I did remember a robin’s nest. I’d found it on my windowsill early one morning. I’d never known where it had come from. I tried to swallow. You were watching me, nodding slightly at something you saw in my expression.

“A sign that a person could do something different …,” you continued. “That they could be hooked by a drug more wild than alcohol. I got thinking about what I really wanted then, from life. And this is it … painting the land, living here, being free …” You swept your hand around the room. A fleck of color flicked from your paintbrush and landed somewhere. “So, meeting you … I guess it was the first step to making all this happen…. I got a job, learned to build, researched …”

A small, tight sound came out of my throat, stopping you midsentence. I clenched my fist against the floor, digging my knuckles into the wood.

“You’re sick,” I hissed. “You were obsessed with a ten-year-old girl, then abducted her six years later? What kind of freak …?”

“No.” Your mouth tightened. “That’s not how it happened. I wasn’t obsessed….” Your face was set and hard, a murderer’s face. “You don’t know the whole story.”

“I don’t want to know.”

You let the paintbrush clatter to the ground and crossed the room in three strides. I crawled back along the floor, toward the door. But you bent down and grabbed my leg.

“Let me go!”

You pulled me to you. “I’m not letting you go, and you will learn something about me.” Your voice was even and steady, your jaw tense. I could smell the sour earth scent of your breath, feel your fingers tight around me. “I’m not a monster,” you growled. “You were a child then. The moment I knew I wanted you came later.” You blinked and looked away, suddenly hesitant.

I tried again to get free. I kicked out at your kneecap. But you pressed my arms against my sides like I was some sort of bird, stopping my flight.

“I’ve watched you grow up,” you said.

I wriggled my shoulders. But you were so strong I could hardly move.

“Each day your parents pushed you into being like them,” you continued, “pushed you into a meaningless life. You didn’t want that, I know you didn’t.”

“What do you know about my parents?” I shouted.

You blinked again. “Everything.”

I gathered saliva in my mouth. I spat it at you. “You’re a liar,” I said.

Your eyes narrowed as you felt the spit slide down your cheek. Your fingers gripped tighter. They were so tight around me, I thought my ribs were about to crack. My breath came in a rasp. But you still held me there, glowering.

“I don’t lie,” you said. “It’s just the way things are.”

The spit reached your chin, and you let me go to wipe it. I was up immediately and backing toward the door. But you turned anyway, ignoring me. You picked up the paintbrush and swept quick, angry streaks onto the back of your hand. For that moment, your blue eyes looked superhuman. The intensity of them made me take another step toward the door. But I wasn’t finished yet. There was something else I needed to find out. I willed my legs to stop shaking. I clenched my fist, tightening it to control my fear.

“How do you know all this?” I glared at you, wanting you to drop dead from the power of my gaze alone. Then I turned around and slammed my fist into the wall. “You can’t know all this!”

I could feel the tears in my eyes wanting to escape. The silence hung like the heat. Then you stood and came toward me.

“I’ve watched you a long time,” you explained. “I was curious, nothing more. It was just, you were like me, when I was young … you never seemed to fit in.” You sighed and moved your hand across your eyebrows. “Can’t you remember me being there, ever?”

“Of course I can’t! It’s all just stupid lies.” I slammed my fist into the wall again, flinching as I saw how red and raw my knuckles were turning.

“Gem,” you said calmly, “I know you, I’ve seen you … every day.”

I clenched my teeth, unable to look at you. I thought about the times I’d walked around my house naked, knowing no one was home. I thought about when Matthew Rigoni came back with me after we’d got tipsy in the park.

“What did you see?” I muttered.
“How?”

You shrugged. “The oak tree near your bedroom, the window in the garage, the neighbor’s house when they were in Greece, and they were in Greece a lot … and the park, of course. It’s easier than you think.”

Your face was close. You were near enough to slap. Jesus, I wanted to. I wanted to slap and kick and punch you until you were a piece of lifeless shit on the floor. I wanted you to feel how I felt right then. But you stepped even closer to me. You reached out and moved my hand away from the wall. You ran your thumb over the sore, flapping bits of skin. My hand quivered immediately and I curled my fingers tighter.

“Don’t touch me,” I snarled.

You stepped back. “I know who you are, Gem.”

I screamed then, and rammed my fist into your stomach. Hard. I drew back and punched you again. I threw all my weight against you, over and over, bashing myself into your solid, stiff chest. I didn’t care what you did to me then. I just wanted to hurt you. But you didn’t even seem to notice. You just grabbed my arm and held it behind my back, twisting it. You put your lips so close to my ear that, if I moved, I touched them.

“I know what it was like,” you whispered, “… the nights you were in your parents’ big house all alone, your parents working so late … your friends getting smashed off their asses in the park, and you not knowing whether to join them. Josh Holmes tapping on your bedroom window at one in the morning …” You let my arm fall to my side. “Were you really happy in the city?”

“Fuck off!”

You backed off a step. “I’m only asking,” you said. “Did you really have a perfect life? Do you really miss it … your parents, your friends, any of it?”

You held my gaze. I nodded. “Course I do.” But the words sounded like a cough.

You went back to where you’d been painting. I wrapped my left hand around my sore knuckles and tried to calm down. I hadn’t realized how much I was shaking. You dipped a new brush into a saucer of green paint and started putting patterns on your toes.

“You know I’m right,” you said. “Your parents are assholes. Their main concern is making money, making their house look like something out of magazine, and getting mentioned in the society pages. They were molding you all the way, too, training you to be a little version of them. I saved you from that.”

“No!” I rammed my jaw shut, pressing my teeth into each other hard enough to break.

You shrugged at my reaction. “What? I’ve heard you say it to their face enough times.”