“I very much like your room,” I said, and Creep’s eyes fluttered at the compliment. I could have sworn the painted blush on her cheeks deepened. “Is this where your previous family’s children used to play?”
Creep lifted one small hand from the table and wiggled it in the universalkindagesture.
There was a softpop, and where my plate and cup had been, a small box now sat.
“May I open it?” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything else.
Creep nodded.
I ran my fingers over the box. It looked ancient, but well loved, and I could practically feel the hum of happy memories thrumming beneath my skin. Woven through that warmth was a familiar pang of pain and anger, the pull of a sea storm lurking just above calm waters.
The latch was delicate and stubborn beneath my comically large fingers. When it finally gave way, the hinges creaked softlyas I lifted the lid. Inside lay a bundle wrapped in pastel pink cloth, bound with a dusty rose velvet ribbon.
I tugged at the ribbon.
Magic surged around me—homey and sad all at once—as the fabric fell away and the contents spilled free. Mostly paper, with the odd trinket mixed in, they fluttered from the box and began to swirl around me in a slow, drifting orbit.
It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t just scraps of paper swirling around me, but childhood drawings, all carefully arranged by Creep.
The same figure appeared again and again. At first, it was nothing more than a crude stick figure with too many fingers and a shock of black hair, the kind of drawing made by very small hands. But with each picture, the lines grew surer, the proportions more confident, the artist unmistakably older.
By the final drawing, the figure was rendered with skill and intention.
I recognized her instantly.
Priscilla.
This was her story, drawn across the years—and Creep had arranged it like a mural, waiting for me to read it.
I glanced at Creep, but the little doll had dropped her gaze to her feet, her hands folded neatly in her lap as she waited for me to study the pictures.
With a quiet sigh, I turned back to the first drawing.
The figures were basic—stick limbs and uneven shapes—but the scene was unmistakable. A young Priscilla stood at the center, her mouth pulled into an exaggerated frown, a bright blue teardrop fixed on her cheek. Beside her loomed a sharp-angled woman, her hands raised as if in mid-strike. An odd swirl of color that looked like music notes carried on the wind came from her mother’s mouth and surrounded Priscilla.
Behind them was a squat, miserable shack, the wordhoem—presumably a misspelling ofhome—scrawled above it in large, uneven letters. On either side stood prettier houses, their windows bright, their stick-figure occupants smiling, blissfully unaware of the crying Priscilla.
The next drawing looked like an untidy kitchen. Priscilla had taken care to draw the stacks of dirty dishes and general household debris.
Four figures—shrouded in swirls and music notes that came from a dark figure looming in the background—stood hand in hand in the foreground, each of them smiling. One had bright orange hair, another black. The girl with zig-zagged brown hair wore what looked suspiciously like an attempt at overalls, and my chest gave a small, unexpected ache at the thought that this might be Caitlyn. Above their heads, written in careful but wavering letters, were four names:LEX. JEN. CAT. PRIS.
Priscilla was, presumably, the fourth figure at the end of the line, holding on to Caitlyn’s hand.
It was hard to see properly.
Her figure had been violently scribbled out.
In the bottom corner of the page, she’d been redrawn alone. Her smile was gone, a bright blue teardrop settling on her cheek once more. The page itself was warped there, faint water stains marking where real tears must have fallen as the crayon moved.
Beneath it, in uneven, misspelled letters, were the words:
Mommy asks me to trik frends so she can mak them steel but I wont do it
The next drawing was presumably at school, a jungle gym drawn in the background. Priscilla stood at the center of the page, holding the decapitated head of what I hoped was a toy wolf. The three girls were drawn in the background, crying, their mouths pulled into exaggerated wails.
Priscilla, by contrast, wore a wide, jagged grin. But inside the outline of her chest, carefully drawn and unmistakable, sat a broken heart.
The pattern continued from there.
