“Isn’t Mom coming, too?” the Bug asked. He gripped Tam’s hand as they walked down the wide grey steps of the police station.
“She has to stay a little while longer.” Tam swallowed, dark worry sticking in his throat. “They need to talk to her and stuff.”
It was bad news, the system noticing their family this way. They had made him talk to a family counselor before they had let him see Mom. Basically, if she didn’t get herself together in the next couple days and promise to take her meds regularly, he and the Bug would be put in one of the state-run Homes. The counselor lady had made noises about eventually being placed with a nice family, if the system decided Mom was too unpredictable to take care of them. Yeah, right. Who wanted a sick little kid and his screwed-up big brother?
Not that it mattered, since there was no way he was letting the state suck them in. Which meant he and the Bug would have go to ground for a few days, until things shook out with Mom. The only place they could do that was deeper in the Exe. At least the cops wouldn’t bother looking too hard for them.
The only problem was, how would Mom find them? Assuming they let her out. Assuming she even wanted to find them. That thought cut his chest like he’d swallowed broken glass.
Figure the rest of the day, maybe tomorrow, to find them a place to hide out, get it stocked with everything they’d need, and then disappear. Leave a note for Mom, reminding her of their old signal system. Red flag in the window - danger. Yellow - things were ok. Then he and Peter would erase themselves from the system like missing pixels, blank spaces where two boys used to be.
You can’t live like that, part of his mind insisted. What about food? What about school? What about Jennet?
One thing was clear. He sure as hell couldn’t help defeat the Dark Queen if he were stuck in a Home. But they still had time. Hiding out with the Bug - that was only temporary. Until…
Well, until whatever. Right now, he couldn’t see more than a day or two ahead. His chest ached when he thought about Mom, so he stopped.
He squeezed the Bug’s hand. “How about an adventure?”
“What kind? I wanna go home.” Peter was looking up at him with big, worried eyes. The kid was too smart for his own good.
“Yeah, home first. But then we’re going to go exploring and, uh, build a fort.”
“In the forest?” A tentative smile crossed his brother’s face. “Like, in camping stories? Can we make a big fire?”
“No.” There wasn’t a forest around Crestview. The stand of woods in the park maybe, but it wasn’t big enough for them to hide out in. Anyway, they had to stay close, in case Mom… He shook his head. “We’ll find a place in the Exe.”
“But Mom said we should never go there by ourselves.”
Tam stopped and bent down, so he was eye level with his brother. “Peter. We live in the Exe. Not in the middle of it, sure, but I go to school by myself every day after putting you on the bus. I go through the Exe all the time, and it’s fine.”
Liar. He went along the edges, like where their place was, and even there it wasn’t safe. But staying safe wasn’t an option any more. Only surviving. He’d heard stories about the Homes, and there was no way he was letting them get hold of the Bug. Or him, for that matter.
“It’s just for a little while,” he said. “We can pretend we’re camping in the woods. I’ll even get us some marshmallows.”
Sugar bribery. Good thing he had hidden some of Mom’s cash stash. He and the Bug would get through this. They had to.
# # #
It took the rest of the weekend to find them a bolt hole that wasn’t dangerously deep into the Exe, but far enough that the system would give up looking. Their hiding place was a low-slung building open on two sides, but there was a corner that was dry and out of the wind. Yeah, it was sketchy, and Tam knew it, but he couldn’t find anything better. There was some rank, weird smell coming from further down the block, and at some point rodents had taken over the building, but they were long gone now.
The hardest thing wasn’t getting their stuff there, or rigging up a couple of low-tech alarms - wires and cans filled with rocks - it was getting the Bug to keep his voice down. He was excited about their adventure.
“I want to show Mom our fort when she comes home,” Peter said from his makeshift bedroll, his voice rising. “Do you think she would let us build a fire? Hey, Tam—”
“Sh. It’s time you were asleep.”
“But we’re on holiday, you said so. I don’t have to sleep because I’m not going to school tomorrow. Can we go someplace fun? What about the park with the fountain, or the—”
“Peter, shush. We’ll talk about that tomorrow.” Another marshmallow would shut the Bug up, but it would only be a temporary fix. The sugar would keep him up even later. Tam let out his breath in a low sigh. “I’ll take you someplace fun, but only if you stop talking.”
“Ok.”
His brother lay still for a half-second. He pulled in a breath, like he was about to say something, then stopped - remembering just in time that he was supposed to be quiet. Then he started wiggling again. His feet swished back and forth under his blankets, moving like wings.
Tam snapped off the thin beam of his flashlight. It was better if they were in complete darkness, anyway. Nothing to give them away. He scooted down in his sleeping-bag, then slipped his hand under his pillow. The cool plas-handle of their longest kitchen knife was comforting against his fingers. Not the best weapon, but at least they weren’t totally unarmed.
Would his sword materialize if he needed it, the way Jennet claimed her staff had? He damned sure hoped so. Even more, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. They would spend a couple of nights here and the system would let Mom go. They liked keeping families together, didn’t they? She would come back and leave the signal that it was safe, and they would go home.
Sure. Because everything always got better in their lives.
Tam squeezed his eyes shut. No way was he giving in to that hot prickle behind his eyelids. He made his breathing soft, and listened to the Bug’s feet moving quietly back and forth under the covers. Finally the motion got slower and slower, and Peter’s breath deepened into sleep.
The Exe was quiet. Well, quiet as it ever got. Random yelling from somewhere, too far away to worry about. The low rumble of motors and machines, and behind that, the hum of the bigger, better town of Crestview, bypassing the Exe. Going about its business.
Up on the rich people’s hill, Jennet was probably going to bed, thinking she’d see him at school tomorrow. But she wouldn’t. He and his brother had to be invisible for the next couple of days. Tam didn’t even want to turn his tablet on - everyone knew you could be tracked that way. Though at some point he’d have to message Jennet again, tell her not to worry. Too much. He could do that from the middle of the park, right before they left. Yeah, that would work.
He knew she’d worry. He could practically see the frown hovering on her face, pulling her brows together above her blue eyes. She’d tuck a strand of pale hair behind her ear and press her lips together. If he were there, he could touch the softness of her hair, coax her lips back into a smile.
For now she’d just have to wait, and he was sorry for it, but there was nothing else he could do.
# # #
A low, shivering noise woke him. Keeping his eyes shut, Tam slid his fingers around the hilt of the knife. He gripped it hard, his whole body taut with listening. Was somebody there? Had their hiding spot been discovered? Nothing had tripped the alarms.
The noise came again, and this time, Tam knew what it was. There was no mistaking that low, mournful call. It turned his bones cold and made his mouth dry up. The eldritch horn of the Wild Hunt. Hell. How could the Hunt be here, in the real world?
He lay absolutely still, trying not to breathe as the sound swept over the Exe - the high yipping of dogs, the pounding of hooves through the night sky, the wild skirl of bagpipes. The sound flowed through the air, filling it with shadows and things unseen. Images flowed, unbidden, into his brain.
A menacing, horned figure silhouetted against pale trees. The impudent grin of a sprite. A woman more beautiful than midnight stars, her eyes dark as sorrow.
Finally, the sounds faded. Tam exhaled, and it felt like the whole Exe breathed out with him. They were safe.
This time.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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