Kitty

Bestie

THIS PART OF THE BOOK TAKES PLACE IN THE PRESENT.

"The boy, Thomas Henley, was found wandering the park after a six-day absence that terrified his parents and had law enforcement from five counties searching for him. As of this moment, we've learned only that while the child appears to be physically unharmed, he has no memory of his whereabouts during the past week other than to mention being in a cave, though a conclusive search of the park turned up nothing of the kind." Ambulance and police lights flashed behind the attractive male reporter on the screen, who appeared to be reporting from a local park. Bijou sat on the floor with Silas curled into her lap, sipping a whiskey and coke her mother herself had poured for her daughter before leaving. "Here's praying his family gets the answers they need. Back to you, Laine." The television flicked back to a woman commenting on immaterial information.

A gentle snore revealed Silas to be asleep. Bijou was glad for it yet simultaneously stumped—how could she get him off her lap without waking him? Her body ached from sitting in the same position for so long on the wood floor, but after what'd occurred earlier that day, neither of them were keen to sit on a couch. Silas hadn't even wanted to lie on a bed, and who could blame him? Bijou and her mother had managed to get him out of the cushions only because, as inexplicably as the foam squares had begun to suck him in, they'd stopped. The whole thing had been unbelievable, was still unbelievable.

After that old lady had exploded and they'd rescued Silas, all the women and children still inside had done what any reasonable people would have done and stumbled out of the house. One of them had turned on the garden hose in the front yard, and they'd taken turns frenetically rinsing the entrails off of themselves, the two women Bijou didn't know crying the whole time; if neighbors had been out and about, surely they'd have thought the party collected on the lawn was mad. What had happened or why it'd happened hadn't been explained because everyone had been too hysterical to offer coherent words. Anjulie had instead just shoved her children into the car, taken them home, and demanded they stay put until she returned. Bijou hadn't argued; she hadn't had the capacity.

And now, several hours had passed. Anjulie wasn't home, and Silas hadn't given Bijou the space to breathe. She'd had a difficult job even separating him enough from her to change them out of their wet attire. Bijou had texted her mother several times but received only terse responses about saving communication for an emergency, so she had no real idea what was happening or what time the woman would return.

Everything felt so off, so bizarre . . . sitting there trying to occupy her mind with television after what she'd seen, what'd happened. What had happened? Bijou had gone through the whole scenario non-stop for the past several hours but couldn't make any sense of it except to admit that something supernatural had occurred. As much as she'd wanted to freak out, to melt down, Silas had been absolutely a mess, and she'd owed it to him to try to play the reassuring adult. Someone needed to, and it certainly hadn't been her mother.

Anjulie had muttered something to the effect of "Why? Why now? What does it want?" before shoving Bijou a drink and hastening back to her car, clinging to the entire bottle of whiskey and taking a few swigs from it before even starting the ignition.

The doorbell rang, suddenly, jarring Bijou out of her thoughts. Who could possibly be at the door? It was eight o'clock on a Wednesday night. The lights flickered briefly, putting her even more on edge. They'd been through far too much that day, and she had no interest in speaking to anyone. Bijou recalled, too, the strange handprints she and her brother had seen outside the glass door a day or so earlier, two very definite five-fingers-around-a-palm shapes that'd somehow vanished by morning, and with all the anxiety her thoughts produced, she decided to stay put. Whoever was potentially out there on her porch could shove off! and yet in spite of her bravado, Bijou's teeth clenched. She sat dead still and waited for another knock, for whoever was out there to push their luck, to persist, but when the noise came, even though she'd expected it, Bijou was as startled as she'd been the first time. Still, she wasn't going to get the door. Silas was impeding her, anyway.