He cleared his throat and looked down at himself and then back toward the faint glow of the large window over the foyer. The trees outside the house shifted in the wind, and the shadows of their branches on the wall next to him moved with them. Shadows.
“Jesus, Myron. Get a grip.”
He shuffled back into the master bedroom and shut the door.
14
The Martin Family
December 5, 2012
Little Toby sat on the floor of his big-boy room, hugging his knees, waiting. Waiting for daylight or for someone to open the door. He hated his room. It was enormous and dark and cold and scary. And lonely. He’d been in there all alone for hours. Only seven years old, Toby hated being alone.
A sliver of moon hung outside his windows over the snowy backyard, peeking at him from behind the naked trees, watching. Pressing his nose to the frostbitten glass, he imagined the big oaks whispering to one another, their gnarled claws stretching out toward his window. One great gust of wind, and they’d be through the glass. Snowdrifts covered the patio furniture and bushes below in shallow graves, their ghostly forms rising and falling over the yard.
It was late. He should be sleeping.
A passing wind rattled the window sashes against the frame. The walls creaked above him, threatening to drop the ceiling on his head. The boy shivered, wishing he could find his way back home. Wherever that was.
His door was locked.
It’s just to keep you safe, sweetie, Mama Martin had explained. We can’t have you wandering this big house at night. You could get hurt.
She never said it, but he knew the real reason. Toby had tried to run away once. When he’d first come to Rawlingswood, he’d climbed down the back stairs in the middle of the night and slipped out the side door. He’d only been four at the time and couldn’t remember a thing about it except wanting to go back home to his old house.
Mama and Papa had taken to locking his room after his disappearance. I’ll be right down the hall. You know that, honey. Just call if you need me. But the enormous house swallowed up his voice whenever he woke with nightmares. Startled and clutching the sheets to his damp skin, he would sit up in the cavern of his bedroom, too terrified to call out. Terrified the monsters might hear.
Next to him, the closet door stood wide open to keep unwanted beasts from roosting inside. Brand-new clothes hung from the hangers, but none of them smelled like his. Many of them still had the tags.
He clutched an old flannel shirt to his chest—Bobo, his security blanket. He didn’t remember where Bobo had come from; he just knew it was his. It smelled of another place he didn’t remember. During the day, he kept it hidden beneath his bed. Every few weeks he’d have to rescue it from one of Mama’s hampers.
Whenever he felt scared or nervous, his fingers worried along the edges of the flannel and down the long scar that ran across his forehead. Rocking back and forth there on the floor, he rubbed the bumpy and smooth and puckered skin. He’d had it the day he’d arrived at Rawlingswood but couldn’t remember where it had come from. Just touching it sent waves of revulsion through him. It proved he wasn’t like the other boys at school.
There was something wrong with him.
Toby heard the whispers about him through walls, through closed doors, through veiled arguments around the dinner table. The harder his parents attempted to hide something, the keener his little ears became. The overheard conversations haunted him there in the dark. Will he ever be normal? Not “normal” but healthy? I mean, these nightmares. The discipline issues. I’m worried he’ll never settle in. Surely there’s something more we can do?
It was a conversation he’d overheard between Mama and a strange woman years earlier. The stranger had tried to reassure her. These things take time, Mrs. Martin. Toby has been through a lot. The best thing you can do for him is love him and give him time to adjust. Kids are very resilient, and I know you are doing a wonderful job. Here, call this number if you’d like to schedule an appointment, but don’t lose faith . . .
Toby hadn’t understood what they were saying at the time. He still didn’t understand much about it except the words Will he ever be normal? There was something terribly wrong with him, but no one would tell him what it might be. He’d met with counselors many times at the house, but none of them made him feel any more normal. The well-meaning young men would ask him stupid questions like, How are you feeling today, Toby? How are you liking school? Do you want to draw a picture of your family? Do you feel worried about anything?
I’m worried that a monster is going to come and eat me, he thought. But he never would tell them that. If he told them something like that, they would take him away someplace horrible. Of that, he was fairly certain. Boys who weren’t normal got taken away.
Determined to be more normal, he clasped his hands together the way Mama had taught him and tried to pray. “Dear God,” he whispered. “Don’t let the monsters eat me . . .”
The faint urrrick urrrick of approaching feet in the hallway silenced the prayer. A shadow moved beneath his bedroom door, and he began to shake. “Ava?” he whispered inaudibly. Is that you? Please be you.
He unfolded his hands and legs, unsure of whether to run or hide or scream or wait. The footsteps stopped, and he could feel the weight of another person on the other side of the door.
“You okay, Toby?” a voice whispered through the keyhole.
It was his sister. He released the breath he’d been holding and whispered back, “I’m okay.” He truly wished he were and wished he could see her. He had no idea how she’d gotten out but was relieved to hear her voice.
“Stay still,” she whispered back. “Don’t make a sound.”
The shush and click of metal against metal rattled the lockset gently back and forth, and he realized what she meant to do. Biting his lip, he backed away from the door, ears perked for the sound of his parents’ footsteps. Papa Martin would be furious to find either one of them out of bed.
“This is a bad idea,” he hissed under his breath, his anxiety growing with each second. We’re going to get caught. “Ava, you shouldn—”
The door clicked open before he could finish the thought. His big sister stood in the opening with a thin screwdriver and awl in her hand, grinning in triumph. She silently closed the door behind her. “I knew you’d be awake. You hungry?”
Toby was always hungry. She pulled a pack of graham crackers from the sleeve of her nightgown and clicked on the closet light. The two sat down in the yellow rectangle, munching the crackers. After several minutes, Toby began to notice something was off. His sister’s eyes and lips seemed puffy and swollen, like she’d been crying.
He stiffened in alarm. Ava hardly ever cried. He was the one who could never seem to hold himself together. The strangest things would set him off sometimes, and he’d be crying for no reason, biting on his hand, desperate to make it stop. Ava was the only one who could calm him down. She would wrap his small bones in her arms and hold him fast, singing a song in his ear. ’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free . . . She made the world stand still until he could hold on to it again.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered. “Did something bad happen?”
Ava pressed her lips together and brightened for him. “No. I’m okay. I just . . . I had a bad dream. You ever have bad dreams?”