SORROW WOODS (12 page)

I take a tentative step back. This feels wrong. This isn’t how I imagined it would be if I saw

him again. He walks past me but doesn’t look at me. The last time he was here, he never stopped

looking at me.

Once inside the living room he stands in front of the fire and shoves his hand into his pocket.

“I’ve come to show you this,” he says, shoving a shiny piece of paper into my hand, “and to explain.”

I take it from him and stare at the picture of the girl in front of me. She looks familiar. “Who is she?”

He takes a deep breath and pinches the skin in between his eyes. “That is a digital picture

called an age progression photograph.”

I look at the girl with straight blonde hair and sparkling green eyes. “A what?”

“It’s a picture,” he says.

I nod. “I can see that. Who is she?”

“She’s a girl that went missing when she was two years old. This is a picture of what she

looks like now,” he explains, looking at me cautiously.

How does a child go missing? Why has he come here to show me this? “She doesn’t look two

in this picture though. She looks about my age. Does that mean she came back?”

He shakes his head. “No, Serena. The parents of the missing girl gave the police a

photograph that was taken of her when she was two years old.”

“So she’s still missing?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“How can she still be missing if you have a photograph of her looking older?” I shake my

head, trying to figure out how to ask all of the questions that are swirling around in my head. “How does someone go missing?”

He takes a deep breath. “She was taken by someone.”

I look at the girl again and feel myself frowning.

“After she went missing,” he continues, “the police issued these age progression

photographs on every anniversary of her disappearance. They show what experts think she would

look like as each year went by, so that people could keep an eye out for her.”

“I really don’t understand.” I huff and look at the two pictures again.

“I didn’t realise this would be so difficult,” he says. “I forgot that you don’t know anything.”

“I know stuff,” I say quickly, feeling hurt.

“I’m sorry, Serena. I’ll start again.” He paces up and down the living room, making me feel

nervous. “Scientists can guess what people will look like when they’re older by using photographs that were taken of them when they were young. They can guess how their faces would change, how

their bones would grow, and things like that. People’s eyes never change and in children, the colour of the hair would not be different, unless it was dyed.”

A sick feeling starts to swarm in the pit of my stomach. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.

“So why have you come all the way out here to show me a photograph of this girl?”

He looks at my face and then down at the photo that I’m holding in my hand. “That girl was

taken from her garden when she was two. Here,” he says, handing me another picture of a very

young girl wearing a pink, flowing dress and a white sun hat. She’s wearing strappy sandals that

wrap around her chubby feet.

I stare at the little girl’s smiling face and feel a lump in my throat. “What’s her name?”

He holds my gaze for a long time, but he doesn’t answer my question. He just shakes his

head. I hold the two pictures side-by-side and compare them. She has the same eyes and same

coloured hair. It isn’t hard to believe that this was the same girl, just older.

“You keep saying she was taken or that she was stolen. Why would someone take a child that

isn’t theirs? Maybe she just wandered off and got lost or something?”

He sighs. “She was stolen. Someone climbed over the fence and shrubs in the garden and

took her away from her real parents. There are evil, messed-up people in the world, Serena, and

sometimes they do things that people don’t understand. Even if you wouldn’t dream of doing it

yourself, they would. People are capable of horrible things.”

“You tried to take me,” I remind him.

He snaps his head up and opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, but he just looks

at me with his sad eyes.

I shrug. We’ve already had this conversation, so I guess we don’t need to have it again. I look

back down at my hands. Of course there are evil people in the world. I know this. I read the

newspapers that my Mother brings back, but I’ve never read a book or a newspaper where someone

has stolen a child. I think about how my Mother would have felt if she had come back to find me

gone.

“Her real parents must have been terrified,” I whisper. I feel sorry for the girl that was taken

and her parents.

He clears his throat. “They were.”

“So they’ve never found her?” I ask, trying to figure out what all of this is about.

“No, but her parents have never stopped looking for her.” He nods towards the

photographs. “This is what they think she would look like now. They released this last May. It would have been her sixteenth birthday.”

“It’s very sad,” I say, handing them back to him, “but I don’t understand what it has to do

with me.”

“I’m sorry, Serena, but I’m not really sorry at all, if I’m honest,” he says, confusing me even

more.

Why does he talk in riddles all the time? “That doesn’t even make sense. Why are you sorry

but not sorry? What do you have to be sorry about?” I ask.

“I’m sorry because what I’m going to do will change your life.”

“Change my life?” I take a step towards him. Where is the Kaiden that spent nearly three

days here with us? “How will you do that?”

“You’ll see,” he says, “and you’ll hate me for it.”

I frown at him. “Why would I hate you?”

“If you don’t hate me for that, you’ll hate me for something else. Everyone does,” he says

unhappily.

Why is he so sad? What is going on inside his head? He isn’t like us. We just say what we’re

thinking and we say it simply. I wish he would talk to me like that. It’s hard not knowing what he’s thinking or why he seems sad. He seems vulnerable like Elodie in some ways, but in others, he seems so strong and confident. He’s unbreakable in a way that I’ve only read about. I was jealous of it before, but now I’m not so sure. What’s going on with him? What’s happened out there to make him

be this way with me?

“I am not doing this for me,” he sighs, “I’m doing it for you. I need you to remember that.”

“What is it that you’re doing then?” I ask, feeling a little panicked.

“Are you happy here?” he asks, ignoring my last question.

I’ve never questioned if I was happy here or not before, not until Kaiden showed up and

asked me that exact same question. This is what Kaiden does to me. He makes me question things

that I’ve never even considered before.

“I’m not unhappy,” I say, giving him the same answer that I gave him before because it’s the

truth. Why doesn’t he understand that everything I say is the truth? Why is he asking me this

question again?

He blinks at me. “But?”

I shrug and look away from him. “But I guess I wanna know more about the world that I live

in. You’ve seen things that I have only read about. I wanna see those things one day, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get the chance.”

“Do you know where your Mother is?” he asks.

I freeze. I don’t want him thinking bad things about my Mother, and the way he talks about

her makes me think he already doesn’t like her. I don’t know why when he doesn’t even know her.

“She’s in the city getting supplies.”

“Why do you need supplies?” he presses.

“To run the house. To eat and drink.”

He blinks. “Why do you live here? Why don’t you live in the city and go to school like normal

children?”

“We are normal children,” I say. “Don’t say that.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. “Every child in the world needs to go to

school. We have laws that say that. Your Mother is breaking those laws by not sending you to

school.”

“She can’t afford it,” I say. “She only has enough money to get supplies.”

He rolls his eyes. “School is free.”

No it isn’t. It can’t be. My Mother told me it cost an awful lot of money to go to school. Is he

calling my Mother a liar?

“Where does your Mother get the money from to buy her supplies if she lives here with you

and doesn’t work?” he demands.

I open my mouth, close it again, and shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you see how none of this makes sense?”

I shrug. “Maybe, but don’t you see that none of this makes sense to me either?” I counter.

“Yes,” he says. “I see everything. I just wish I didn’t.” He rubs his hands over his face. “I’m so sorry, Serena. I hope you can forgive me one day.”

“I might, if you tell me what it is that I’ll need to forgive you for.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t.” He looks like he is in pain. I want to comfort him and to tell him that whatever it is that’s making him sad, it’ll be okay. It’s what I would do with Elodie.

“Look,” I say, “my Mamma should have been back a few days ago. Today was Elodie’s

birthday and she’s missed it. I’m worried about her. If I let you stay tonight, will you help me look for my Mamma tomorrow?”

He sighs, sounding relieved. “Sure. Why not?” He lies down on the floor in exactly the same

spot that he slept last time. I take a deep breath and lie down next to him. He sighs and pulls me into his chest. I rest my head against him, feeling his heavy breathing and listening to the sound of his heart that thrums underneath my ear. I crane my neck and see his eyes shut tight. He’s fallen asleep.

I close my eyes and pray that my Mother doesn’t decide to come back in the middle of the night.

Thoughts about my Mother and what she does to get her money swirl around in my head. I

probably wouldn’t have even questioned it if I had never read any of those books that she brings me.

She said books are the fountain of knowledge. I can learn everything from my books. I guess she

didn’t figure that I’d also learn the things she didn’t want me to know from them.

I’m dreaming about the day my Mother brought Elodie to me when the house suddenly

begins to shake from the rumble of car engines. Bright white and blue lights shine through the

windows and light up the room. I push myself away from Kaiden and let the fear that surges through my body carry me towards my sister.

Kaiden

The noise wasn’t what woke me. It was the absence of Serena’s body heat that snapped me awake

and pulled me out of my dream.

I rub at my eyes and lean up on my elbows. I can hear car doors slamming and voices echoing

through the darkness. My eyes finally find Serena and Elodie, who are curled up on a single bed

looking more frightened than I’ve ever seen two people looking before. What have I done?

I rush over to them. “It’s going to be alright,” I say, hoping they know that I’m trying to be

their friend and not their enemy. I’m not the bad guy here. “They’re here to help you.”

“Is it Mamma?” asks Elodie.

“I don’t think so,” says Serena, looking sternly at me. “He’s brought them here.”

She points at me through the darkness. I can see the hatred in her eyes, but I can’t do

anything but nod at her. She’s right. It was me. I gave them the exact coordinates of their shack.

This is it. The life changing moment I was telling her about, except right now it doesn’t feel life changing. It feels like I’m going to destroy them.

They don’t knock or ask if they can come in. They just barge through the door and within

seconds, there are ten of them surrounding the two girls on the bed.

“Are you Kaiden Matthews?”

I turn to the police officer and nod.

“You’ll need to come down the station with us, Sir.”

I nod again. I’ve already written down everything that I know about the two girls on a piece

of paper and have it tucked into my back pocket, right next to the two photographs. I hope to God that I’m right. I’ve never prayed to Him before and probably don’t even really believe. But for some reason I find myself looking up to the stars that flood the sky with twinkling lights as I’m escorted out of their shack and beg for it to be true. I can’t have failed them.

“No! This is my home! You can’t take me from here. My Mamma won’t know where we

are!” Serena screams.

It takes three police women to drag her from the shack. I stand and lean back against the

police car, watching as they wrestle with her. She pushes and shoves them. She’s so strong that I find myself smiling. I’m not smiling at her. I’m smiling at the police women who don’t seem to be handling her very well. She’s like a little wild animal being dragged from the wilderness, her home for the last fifteen years. They keep saying that they’re here to help her and that’s she’s safe now, but she doesn’t listen to them.

“Kaiden!” she screams at me as they drag her over the dusty earth. Bits of sand and dirt flick

up, staining the white silk of her nightie with the orange and deep brown earth. “What have you

done to us?”

I want to look away. The guilt of listening to her scream is making me feel sick, but I know if I look away then I’m admitting that I know I’m wrong. She might think I’m wrong but I’m not. This is the only time in my whole life that I’m certain I’m doing the right thing, and I’m not even doing it for myself. My Father will wet himself when he finds out what I’ve done. The sound of the helicopter

circling above us drowns out my apology to her.

“Serena! Help me!” I finally look away from Serena and when I see the tears streaming down

little Elodie’s face, I feel an ache so deep in my chest that I want to take back what I’ve done. She’s too young to be able to make sense of what’s happening. When they tell Serena why they’ve been