Very few people had more of a reason to hate cryptids than Rebecca Essig, yet as she walked the length of the petting zoo observing the young giant—a grimy, three-foot-tall diaper-clad toddler—and the baby yeti with dirt and twigs tangled in his fur, the only real emotion she could summon was sympathy.
These weren’t the monsters who’d taken her family from her. These were children born into captivity, paying for the crimes of others with their very lives.
This was wrong.
Disgusted, Rebecca started to turn away from the pens and hurry her kids along when her focus caught on three small figures seated in the dirt, facing the back of their pen. There was no sign announcing their species, but from the back, they looked like human children.
“They’re new,” a voice said near her right shoulder, and Rebecca whirled around, startled.
“I’m sorry?”
“I said they’re new,” the petting zoo’s “nanny” told her. “The oracles. Sisters. Their whole family was apprehended last month, after passing for human their whole lives.”
“Oracles, like prophets?”
The nanny nodded. “Though at their age, they mostly just find lost things.”
Rebecca’s heart ached for the girls. For what little she could see of their scrawny arms and the vertebrae visible through the thin fabric of their gray dresses. From the back, they could have been any of her students. Or her daughter. “What happened to their parents?”
“Sold to labs. The menagerie got all three of the girls for what their father would have cost on his own. They eat less than he would have, too.”
“Doesn’t look like they eat much of anything,” Rebecca mumbled.
“No, and they don’t say much yet, either. But they’ll adjust,” the nanny said. Then something hit the ground with a crash from the other end of the petting zoo, and the nanny excused herself.
But Rebecca remained, captivated and horrified by the three painfully thin little girls. Determined, she opened her own brown bag and took out the sandwich and orange she’d packed for herself. With a glance to her right, to make sure the nanny was still occupied, she cleared her throat as loudly as she could, and the oldest of the sisters finally turned to look at her.
“Here.” Rebecca held out the sandwich. “Are you hungry?”
The child’s haunted brown eyes widened, and she touched her sister’s arm. Almost as one, the other two turned, and all three young oracles padded toward her, barefoot in the dirt.
They looked just alike—each had the same long dark hair and golden-brown eyes—but in three different sizes, like human nesting dolls.
Only they weren’t human. Not that Rebecca could tell that from looking at them.
She held the sandwich over the short fence, and the oldest girl—she couldn’t have been older than seven—snatched it and immediately took several steps back, as if she were afraid Rebecca might change her mind. Then she tore the sandwich into three roughly equal pieces and gave each of her sisters a portion.
“Here.” Rebecca held out the orange, and this time the middle child came forward, glancing nervously at the nanny, who was still occupied with a student from another group who’d knocked over the hand-washing station. The middle oracle reached for the orange, but instead of taking it, she grabbed Rebecca’s wrist, in a frighteningly strong grip.
Her eyes clouded over until her golden brown irises were no longer visible beneath a white film.
“Four little monkeys jumping on the bed.”
Chill bumps blossomed across Rebecca’s arms. Her mother used to sing that nursery rhyme to Laura and Erica when she was putting them to bed.
“Two fell down and broke their heads.”
Rebecca tried to pull her arm away, but the child’s grip was like iron.
“Two more monkeys jumping on the bed.” The whispered words flew from the oracle’s mouth in a desperate tangle of syllables. “One will fall and break her head.”
The blood drained from Rebecca’s face. She glanced back at the table where the kids were eating lunch, completely oblivious, and her gaze focused on Delilah. Rebecca and her secret sister were the last remaining little Essig monkeys.
“Which one?” She turned back to the oracle, but the child’s eyes were gold again. She let go of Rebecca’s hand and stumbled backward.
Rebecca grabbed for her, and the orange fell into the dirt. “Which one?” she whispered fiercely. “Which one of us is going to die?”
The oracle pulled free of Rebecca’s grip and knelt to pick up the orange. As she walked backward toward her sisters at the rear of the cage, her focus found Rebecca one last time. “That is up to you.”
