Page 13 of The Little Shop of Curiosities, The Music Box Part 2

My hand automatically reaches for the book tucked inside a cloth bag slung diagonally across my body. His ruby eyes follow that minute gesture and blaze for a second, then he’s gone, disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving me standing alone amidst the carnage.

There’s an unpleasant plopping sound, and as I turn to look, I notice part of a kidney stuck to the ceiling has dropped to the floor, wetly slapping at the floorboards.

My stomach begins to roil slightly, and I breathe through my mouth. It does smell a little like a charnel house in here. Lifting the skirt of my gown, I step over the pools of blood and body parts and head for the narrow hallway.

I need some air before I smoke out of here.

I’ve almost reached the front door when I hear the faintest sound, a whimper so faint I wonder if I imagined it. Pausing in the darkened corridor, I listen intently but hear nothing beyond the sound of my breath and the ticking of the grandfather clock by the narrow staircase.

Moments pass. The stench of death in the house is beginning to turn my stomach now. I take a step toward the door, but even as the floorboard squeaks under my heeled boot, the noise comes again, a little louder this time, and I spin around, my eyes searching the darkness.

Lifting my hand causes a small ball of green light to coalesce in my palm, casting the hallway into an eerie glow.

Someone is crying.

I follow the faint sobs to a door in the kitchen. It’s bolted and locked, but that doesn’t stop me. I reach out with my other hand and grasp the lock. The magic surges through my fingers and the lock disintegrates in my hand, leaving nothing more than a pile of black dust spilling to the floor.

Sliding the bolt back, I open the door to a staircase leading downward.

The cries continue, and I follow the pitiful noises. I shiver and watch as my breath is expelled as a fine mist. The freezing cold room I descend into is a small square cellar, empty except for a tiny figure huddled in the shadows. Approaching slowly, I lift the glowing orb in my hand higher so the light illuminates the dark corner.

Suddenly, a small, dirty, tear-stained face looks up at me, and my breath catches in my throat.

It’s a child.

A boy. No more than five years old, I’d say. He’s curled up on a ratty blanket, trying to make himself as small as possible. The grim smock he wears is torn in places and stained with dark patches of dirt or blood, I can’t tell which. His exposed legs and feet are skinny and filthy—he’s little more than bones. Heavy metal shackles bind both wrists and a chain anchors them to the bare brick wall. His matted hair appears to be golden, glowing pale in the light, but it’s his haunted eyes that capture me. They are a startling shade of blue and filled with so much pain and fear that I want to howl.

His gaze tracks to the ball of light in my hand and widens in terror, and he shrinks even further back into the corner.

“No!” I whisper, holding up my other hand. “I won’t hurt you.” Approaching him slowly, I sink to my knees on the cold, damp floor. My grip on the light releases, and it rises from my palm to hang suspended in the icy air above us. “It’s only magic. You have nothing to fear.”

But the boy shakes so hard that he rattles the chain anchoring him to the wall. I reach for him, ignoring the way he flinches, and grasp the two shackles binding his wrists. Once again, my magic floods my body. The iron bands disintegrate, revealing ugly, painful-looking welts on his tiny wrists. As soon as he’s free, he tries to scuttle away, but he’s so weak it doesn’t take much to stop him.

I grip his face in my hands as gently as I can, not wanting to cause him more pain, but it’s not easy. His fingers grab at my hands in an effort to free himself, but he’s so small that it has little effect. I let my magic pool in my fingertips before seeping into his skin. It flows through his tiny body identifying damage, and healing as it goes.

I close my eyes to concentrate, and after a moment, I feel him go lax, the need to fight me gone, but just healing his injuries is not enough. I know enough of Judge Maycliffe to know what he has subjected the boy to, and I cannot leave him to live with that pain.

I push my mind into his, searching through his scattered, terror-filled memories. When I find what I’m looking for, I can’t help the cry that tears from my lips. Blinding fury whips through me, and I’m tempted to use the book to raise Maycliffe from the dead just so I can kill him again. But before I can do something rash, overwhelming pain and fear crashes through me, forcing me to experience every single moment of what this child has suffered.

A sob tears from my throat, my fingers gripping him tighter but not enough to hurt. Slowly and meticulously, I draw every single one of those memories from him. My stomach heaves and my body shakes, my breaths come fast and heavy. I don’t want this. I have enough of my own terrible memories, but it’s better that I remember than he does. He’s only a baby. I already know I’m damned, but he’s not. He deserves a chance to live a life free from the memory of monsters like Maycliffe.

When I’m finally done, I release his face and cover my own as I sob. I don’t know how long I cry. For him. For me. For all the others like us. But suddenly I feel a small, tentative touch. My fingers are peeled from my face, and as my swollen eyes focus through the tears, I see the boy watching me.

The haunted look in his gaze is gone, and his blue eyes study me curiously, then a small smile tugs at the corner of his chapped lips.

“Why are you crying?” he whispers, his tiny finger tracing the tracks of my tears down one cheek. “Are you scared of dark places too?”

I sniff loudly, wipe my face on my sleeve, and draw in a shaky breath. “What’s your name?” I ask.

“Tobias.”

“Where did you come from?” Maybe he has a family out there somewhere.

“The poorhouse.”

“Your mother?”

“Dead,” he answers, no emotion in his voice. He looks around the darkened room. “Where are we?”