Page 31 of Requiem & Reverie

“You shouldn’t be alone right now. If you’d prefer, I can send Diane over to stay with you.”

I slam the heels of my hands into my brother’s chest, knocking him toward the door. I can’t look at him. If I look at him, I’ll hate him more than I do right now. “Get out! Get. Out! Get the fuck out of my house!”

Jonah wipes at his eyes and shakes his head. “This isn’t over, Nola. We’re going to catch this guy.”

“You sound like Dad. And guess what?” A mirthless, irrational laugh bursts from my chest. “Nobody caught him. She’s dead, and nobody caught him!”

“You don’t know that. We don’t know that.”

Stepping right up to my brother’s face, I press a finger into his chest. “I do know that.”

“How?”

“Get out of my house, Jonah. I can’t …. I can’t even look at you right now.” The disgust burns inside of me. I know it’s wrong to blame him. I know he wanted to do the responsible thing. The rational thing.

The level-headed thing.

It just happens, the right thing was the wrong answer.

10

The Sandman

The upper level of the pole barn was divided by an open kitchen, with a small, round wooden table, and two rooms meant to be sleeping quarters. The boy sat against the wall, elbows resting atop his knees, his ankle chained to a bar that ran the length of the cramped room. His unease became apparent, the moment The Sandman walked into the room, when he kicked himself back against the wall.

Without a mask, he didn’t scare the boy as much as before, and in some ways, The Sandman had grown somewhat fond of his company in the last week.

“Did you enjoy your breakfast, Oliver?” he said, lifting the empty tray from the floor. He’d prepared chocolate chip pancakes with bacon that had the whole damn pole barn smelling like pork and grease.

Disgusting scents of dirty animal meat.

Oliver gave a rather curt nod and frowned, but didn’t look up at him. That didn’t bother The Sandman, though.

As a boy himself, he’d often chosen not to look at others when answering, but it was never meant to be out of any disrespect.

Crossing the room to the window, The Sandman pushed against the bottom of it, to vent it just a bit and let some of that ungodly smell out. “The flowers are expected to bloom tonight. If you’d like, I’m happy to leave one in your room, so you might see it. It’s quite a spectacular event. The scent is … intoxicating, to say the least.”

The boy glanced to the side, eyeing him, and offered another nod.

“Oh! Before I forget.” Stepping just outside the door, The Sandman gathered a few books and the boy’s glasses, which he’d retrieved from his mother’s house for him. “Thought you’d might like to read some books. You do read, don’t you?”

As The Sandman set the books down beside him, resting his glasses atop the stack of classics, Oliver shrugged.

“I’ll also need you to take care of something for me.” Once again, he stepped outside the room and returned carrying a banker’s box. When he set it down and opened it, soft meowing from inside caught the boy’s attention, and Oliver leaned forward, peering down at the small, black kitten. The Sandman scooped him up and handed him off to the boy, who cradled the kitten in his arms.

When the kitten pawed at his fingers, Oliver chuckled.

“You see? I’m not terribly frightening.” Still, as he reached to pet the kitten, the boy flinched, drawing the small feline closer, as if to protect it.

Eyes narrowed on his, The Sandman studied the boy for a moment. “I understand you stopped talking the night your father died, is that correct?”

When he didn’t answer right away, and instead went on petting the kitten, The Sandman lurched forward, grabbed the kitten’s tail, and squeezed. The feline screeched and bit into the boy’s fingers, and clawed, as it squirmed to get loose.

Oliver dropped the kitten just enough for The Sandman to lift the animal up into the air by its tail, where it screamed and clawed more, curling over itself to get to his fingers. Slapping his hands over his ears, the boy screwed his eyes shut. “S-s-s-stop!”

And just like that, The Sandman dropped the kitten into the box, a smile stretching across his face. “He speaks.”

Chest rising and falling, Oliver opened his eyes again, cutting loose the tears gathered there, and the glower he shot back carried all the hatred The Sandman believed was bottled inside the boy. A kindred hatred he knew all too well.