Rituals (Cainsville 5)

I expected a chuckle. He'd say something like, "No, I'm always listening," and he was, even when I blathered like a toddler who'd just learned to speak. But this time, there was no answer.

"Gabriel?"

My switchblade has a penlight, and I fumbled to turn it on and then shone it down the hall. The empty hall.

I hurried back. After a few steps I heard deep, panicked breathing. I tore around the corner and there was Gabriel, his chest heaving. When the light hit him, his head jerked up, the blank look in his eyes evaporating with a blink.

"Are you okay?" I said.

"What?" Another hard blink as he pulled himself up straight. "Yes, of course. I just..."

He looked around as if he'd see an answer in neon on the wall. I caught his hand, giving it a light squeeze and saying, "Let's go--"

The room went dark, and suddenly I was crouched in a small, pitch-black space, the walls pressing in from every side. There was one single moment where I realized I'd fallen into a vision, and then that awareness evaporated and I was in the vision, thinking another's thoughts, feeling what another felt.

It's all right. It's all right. She'll be back soon.

But I couldn't hear her anymore--hadn't heard her in a long time--and I could always hear her when I was in the small place. Everything had gone quiet and stayed quiet and now my legs hurt, and I was so hungry and cold and I had to use the bathroom.

/> Maybe if I knocked--

Remember the last time.

I shivered at the memory. I'd had to go badly, so I'd knocked and been very polite about it.

I need to use the bathroom. Please may I come out?

I'd said it exactly right. I knew I had. Sometimes, when other people took care of me, they'd ask if I had to use the potty, and if my mother heard, she'd sneer and say, "My son doesn't use that baby talk." Which meant that I was not permitted to use it.

I'd made a mistake once, after my mother left me with a neighbor and her children for five days. Later, I'd called my stomach my tummy, and my mother made me sit in the corner and told me not to talk like a baby, and the man we were staying with said, "Geez, Seanna, he is a baby," and she'd said, "Then he'd better grow up fast. Because I don't have time for that shit."

After the last time, I knew not to ask to be let out of the small place. I had to wait, and when she was ready, she'd open the hatch. I could come out, and I could have anything I wanted to eat. Then we'd go to the shop down the road--the one that smelled weird--where I'd find a book that didn't have pages falling out, and she'd buy it for me.

I just had to wait. Had to be patient. That was the word. Patient.

Except I had been patient. I'd sat here, and there'd been noise and talking and laughing and then more noise, and I'd been completely quiet, even though she'd forgotten to give me a blanket and I was cold, and I was getting too big to be here without curling up and that hurt, curling up so small when I was not so small anymore.

I had just turned three years old. For my birthday, I'd gotten a special gift. First, I had to play a game, which was special, too, because my mother did not play games. Those were for babies. But this was a grown-up game. There'd been a man in the apartment--one of her friends--and when they were talking, I had to find his jacket and his wallet and take out one bill marked "20." No more than one.

If the man caught me, I could not say my mother told me to do it. That was the rule. It hadn't been easy, because the man put his jacket on the sofa, and I had to wait until he went into the kitchen and then quickly take the money. But I won, and my mother had been happy, and she'd let me buy all the books I could with a five-dollar bill. Then she bought me a candy bar and said that I could play the game every time a man came over and if I won, I'd get books and a candy bar. If I lost, though--if the man caught me--then my mother would not protect me from a beating. Those were the rules. That was fair, she said. Just like it was fair that if I waited in the small space quietly, I'd get a reward when she let me out.

Be patient.

But I had to pee so bad it hurt. Everything hurt, and I was cold. I was hungry, too, because she'd forgotten to give me lunch again, and I knew not to ask, or she'd cuff me and say she was getting to it, even though I knew she'd forgotten.

What if she'd forgotten me? I couldn't hear anything. I hadn't for a long time. For a very, very long time, and what if she'd forgotten? What if--?

"Olivia."

The room lit up, and for a second I couldn't figure out where the light was coming from or why I was standing or why someone was holding my arms and calling me Olivia. That wasn't my name. My name was--

I looked up, blinking, into Gabriel's face, felt his iron grip on my forearms. When he saw me focusing, he exhaled and slapped a hand to my forehead.

"You aren't even warm," he said, frowning--my visions usually came with fever.

No, I'm not warm. I'm cold. I'm very, very--

"It wasn't a vision," I said. "It was..."