I stared down the road for a minute, not even thinking. I just needed a few minutes to pull myself together, push down all the feelings that were battling inside of me. Going to Thanksgiving dinner wasn't up to me. It'd be up to him.
I eventually went back inside. I dropped off my coat in my bedroom and then went over to the bathroom. The door was shut like it always was, but I went inside without knocking. My brother and The Headless Dog were in the bathtub. I walked over and sat on the edge of it.
"Hey, Words. Wanna play with us? I'm lost in a swamp and Heady's a mean alligator."
"I'll just watch," I said.
They started wrestling with each other.
Boy seemed so happy that I wasn't sure I could bring up Thanksgiving just then. There was still eight days left before we needed a decision. Maybe it could wait. But without disturbing his wrestling at all, Boy said, "What did Dad want?" It sounded like he didn't really care at all.
I hesitated. "They want us to come to Thanksgiving dinner."
Boy stopped wrestling and just sat there. When The Headless Dog jumped on him, he pushed him away. The Headless Dog whined and laid across my brother's lap. I waited for him to say anything. He didn't.
"It's up to you," I finally said. "We'll do what you want."
We sat there in silence for a long time.
"You don't have to decide right now. Think about it," I said. I tried to make it sound like it wasn't a deal.
"Will it be better?"
"I don't know," I said. "They want to try." That stupid word again. Try. Saying you'd try something meant you weren't sure if you could actually do it. "It's just really hard for them. They blame themselves for what happened to us."
"Why?"
"They think if they didn't take us to the Farewell that we would still be normal. But they did take us, so they think it's their fault."
He thought for a bit. "Would we be normal if we didn't go to the Farewell?"
"I don't know. Probably."
He laid down with his back to me and hugged The Headless Dog to him. "I'll think about it."
I stood up.
"Are they?" Boy said.
"Huh?"
"Are they to blame? Mom and Dad? For what happened to us?"
I sighed. "I don't know, Boy. But it doesn't really matter. Blaming them, ourselves, The Man with the Accordion Legs—it won't change anything. The only thing that matters is what we do now."
I stood there, shocked. Had I just said that? More importantly, had I meant it? It sounded like something Kit would've said. And, thinking about it, she would've been right.
* * *
You could feel the difference in the air after a night when there were no footsteps and a night when there were. After no footsteps, the air felt clearer, cleaner, the lighting even seemed a little brighter—and not only because Light was in a better mood and glowed a bit. After a night with footsteps, though, everything felt weighted down.
There weren't any footsteps the night my dad visited or the night after that, but they came back the next night, and the next, and the next. By Monday night, we were all exhausted but too scared to let ourselves fall asleep.
In the bathtub that night, I laid on my back, one arm under Boy, and the other holding Rope against my chest. We were all tense, knowing what might happen. Even The Headless Dog was scared. He'd done his best to burrow his way into the blankets underneath us.
"Is it going to come back again tonight, Words?" It must've been the tenth time Boy had asked that in the past couple of hours. I'd stopped answering him. He didn't seem to hear my answers anyway.
If anything good could come from this, I hoped having the thing come up from the basement three nights in a row would scare Keys into locking the basement door. I knew he was terrified over the whole thing—we all were—but I didn't get a chance to talk to him with how closely my brother clung to me all day.
"Do you hear that?"
I realized my eyes were closed and opened them. I must've fallen asleep, but I was instantly awake.
The Headless Dog whined softly and tried to dig even deeper into the sheets.
"It's coming," Boy whispered. He pressed himself into my side.
There was silence for one second, two, then three. Then, there it was.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Pause.
Rope was still asleep. I didn't expect him to be for much longer.
It was still downstairs. But where? Was it in the kitchen or the parlor? Was it standing outside Mair's or Kit's and Leg's bedroom door?
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
The footsteps were getting louder. It was coming up the stairs.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Boy started to shake.
In that moment, I hated Keys. He was a coward and his selfishness hurt everyone. This had gone on long enough. In the morning, I would force him to the basement door and he would try each key in that lock.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Pause.
It was at the top of the stairs.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Pause.
It was in the center of the toy room.
"Shh!" I whispered in what I hoped was a soothing tone. I hugged my brother even tighter.
The silence went on and on. Normally, silence at night would've been great, but it wasn't when some kind of monster is right outside your door. It'd never been quiet for so long. What was it doing?
A roar shook the house. It was so loud that it felt like someone punched me in each of my ears. I screamed in pain, but I couldn't even hear myself.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
There was a crash, screaming. More crashes and more screaming. It had gone into the other boys' bedroom, the one with the twins, Light, and Keys. My heart suddenly beat as loudly as the monster's footsteps.
Rope, awake and wailing, thrashed around on top of me. His limbs flailed about and smacked me and my brother all over our bodies and faces. I pulled them in and trapped them against my body. Boy cried and screamed at the same time. The Headless Dog shook violently underneath the blankets.
Another roar. A human scream rose above all the other noises.
THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD.
The footsteps pounded across the toy room and down the stairs. They faded down the front hallway, the kitchen, and then slipped back into the basement.
It was gone, but Boy and Rope didn't stop screaming or crying.
"Boy! Take Rope! I have to go check on them!" I yelled over them.
"No!" Boy grabbed onto me, and Rope twisted his limbs around me.
"I have to go! I'll be right back!" I managed to untwist and pull off Rope's arms from around my neck. "Please, Boy, just take Rope for me. It's gone. You'll be safe."
I shoved Rope towards my brother. His arms wrapped around my brother, and my brother eagerly held him back. The legs fell off me and also wrapped around my brother.
I didn't want to leave them, but I knew I had to. "I'll be back! I promise!" I jumped out of the tub and rushed to the door.
"Words! Don't—"
I slipped out and shut the bathroom door. The muffled screaming and crying cut into me, but I needed to see what happened. I needed to see how I could help.
I turned toward the bedrooms. The doors on either end of the wall looked fine, but the middle door was gone. It looked like someone had tried to shove a giant black ball out into the toy room but had only gotten it halfway.
It was Light. I'd never seen him turn an area so dark. It sent chills through me. But if he was making the room dark then that meant he was still alive, right?
I stepped up to the edge of the darkness. A cool draft came off of it.
Footsteps thundered up the stairs. I spun around, terrified, but it was just Kit and Mair. He stopped at the top of the stairs, his eyes on the pocket of darkness. The Marionette looked grim and didn't say anything. She approached the room.
"Guys!" she shouted into the darkness. "Guys, are you okay?"
There was a crash. "Ow!" It was D-rip. "Z! Z! Where are you?"
There was a soft moan. "D-Rip? Where are you?"
"I can't see, Z! I think I've gone blind!"
"You're not blind, you idiot! Bulby's just doing his light sucking thing."
"They're alive!" Kit clapped her hands together. "Light, are you okay? Keys?"
"I'm so confused. Everything's different." D-rip said.
"I'm over here, D-Rip!" Z said. "My leg hurts really bad."
There was some scrambling and then the twins must've found each other because they both let out a happy shout.
"Come on, you big wuss! Let's get out of here."
"Just follow my voice," Kit said. There was a crash. "And be careful!"
There was more fumbling and then the twins stepped out of the black ball. Z had one arm over his brother's shoulder. His right leg was covered in blood.
"We need towels!" Kit said. She lunged and got under Z's other arm. "Mair! Towels! Water, too! Hurry!"
Mair just stared.
The Marionette sprang out of his dazed stare. "Go! Go! You heard the broad!"
Mair shook himself out of his daze and ran down the stairs.
"I think one of my pockets got ripped halfway off," Z said as he was led to the tea table in the center of the toy room. He looked down. "Sick!" He laughed a little. "I can feel it flapping!"
They helped him sit down on the table.
"Don't move," Kit said. "I can take care of this easy."
"Kit!" Legs called up the stairs. She'd never been able to get up and down without help. "Are you okay, Kit?"
"I'm fine, Legs! We're all going to be fine." She glanced over at the black spilling out of the middle bedroom. "Just go back to our room and stay there, okay?"
"Okay! Please, hurry! I'm scared!"
"What about you guys? You okay?" Kit asked, looking at D-rip and then me. "Where's everyone else?"
Just then, the girls' bedroom door opened. Evry peeked out. When she saw us, she flung open the door and ran to us. She skidded to a halt when she saw Z's bloody leg.
"He's going to be fine," I said.
She nodded, her eyes still on his leg.
"How's Eyes? Is she okay?"
Eyes came out of the bedroom, her eyelids open and the crystals in the sockets glinting in the dim light. "I'm fine," she said.
"And your brother? Rope?" Kit asked.
"Fine. They're safe in the bathroom," I said.
She nodded and then turned to Z. She carefully touched his bloodied leg and leaned in for a closer look.
Mair rushed up the stairs with a stack of towels and a bucket of water. When he reached us, some of the water splashed onto the floor and rubbed a smear of blood into a pink puddle.
"It's still bleeding, but it's not terrible," Kit said. "Someone clean it up the best you can."
D-rip jumped into action. He grabbed a towel and squeezed it. Water rushed out of his hand and made the towel wet. He started wiping his brother's leg down.
Z grunted in pain and backhanded his twin. "Careful! What are you trying to do? Rip it all the way off! Make yourself a little coin purse or something?"
"Hey! That's a good idea!" He started to wipe more gently. "But only if I can dye the leg hair purple."
While D-rip cleaned up his brother the best he could, Kit opened her palm and picked at a bit of her skin. After a moment, she dug out the end of a needle. She pinched it and pulled it all the way out. Then she held out her left arm. There were too many colored lines to count, looping and swirling in a messy but almost hypnotizing way.
She dug out a bright yellow loop of thread from her forearm with the needle, bit it in half, and then pulled on one end until she had an arm's length of thread.
"Not that color!" Z said. He winced as his brother swabbed at the large flap of skin. He'd been right, a pocket had almost been torn completely off. "I want black," he said. "And make a cool pattern, like an anchor or something."
The twins had never needed stitches before, but they'd bugged Kit to sew their skin up just so they could have "tattoos." She'd always said no and told them that she wasn't their own personal tattoo parlor. I was surprised when she nodded and said, "Sure!"
With the blood cleaned up, it only took a few minutes for her to sew the flap back into place. She added extra stitches to make the lines into an anchor.
"Look. It's clearing up," Evry said.
We turned towards the middle bedroom. The black ball was gone. It looked like someone had used a dirty eraser on the air. Everything was gray and smudgy. Even Eyes turned to look, but after she did, she closed her eyes.
Kit dipped her bloody hands into the bucket of water and dried them off on a clean towel. She threw it down and rushed over. "Oh, my gosh! I forgot! Light! Keys!"
I followed. I'd gone out there to help, but I hadn't done anything. It felt like I was dreaming. Nothing seemed real—not even me.
The door was open. Light stood just inside the bedroom, barely visible through the haze. "He's hurt," he said.
"Light, are you okay?" Kit asked.
He nodded. "I'm fine. But he's hurt." He stepped aside to let us through.
The room was a disaster. The bedframes and mattresses were all thrown into a pile near the back of the room. Clothes and sheets and blankets were everywhere. It looked like a bomb had gone off. The only things that hadn't been touched were the Tokens on the shelves.
"He's behind the mattresses," Light said.
We slipped on clothes as we circled around the pile of bedframes and mattresses.
"Keys!" Kit threw herself onto her knees next to him. "Light said you're hurt. What's wrong?"
He looked up at her, dazed. "It took my key," he said. He held up his right hand. It was covered in blood. The key that had been his thumb was gone. The knuckle was jagged with torn, bloody flesh. "It took the key that locked the basement door."