The Child Is Gone
"The wind stole my child," she said, her eyes as vacant as an industrial sky. "It came into her room and swept her away. It took my little Sam away."
She moved back and forth, hugging her suddenly frail body with thin arms. The policemen standing in an awkward circle around her just watched her, their arms dangling useless at their sides. There was no comfort coming from them: only an embarrassed silence and numb pity.
She kept on moving, her hands starting to claw at her arms, fingernails digging into her skin. Old skin now. And still she muttered to herself, telling the fairytale of the wind and the child.
The policemen exchanged nervous glances, all of them stepping away from this broken woman, some of them sneakily, others keeping near to the edges of her weird world in which the wind was a criminal they had to chase. She scared them. Her raw whispers and empty eyes, the small, rocking body it scared them and some of them felt their hands creeping to their guns, hovering over them in a senseless urge to protect themselves.
Suddenly she jumped up, her body a shot arrow, hard and fast. She stormed through the room and out, running right into the girl's room. And then the change ended, the metamorphosis collapsing into itself. She was on the ground, on her knees, hands clenching the blankets of her daughter's bed.
A wail escaped her mouth, a high-pitched tone, and the policemen shuddered, watching her from the door. It was the sound of something dying. Not human, not an animal: something important and untouchable. Hope vanishing; realization hitting home. Understanding.
"She's gone." It was a whisper but it could have been a scream. There was no real difference between them; the pain in her voice would have been the same. "She's gone." Her head turned to the door, staring at the policemen. "My little girl is gone." A shudder. A hollow sigh. She got up slowly, walking over to them, a zombie without destination. The scream on her face died away as she walked, like ash covering the fire and killing the heat.
When she stood in front of them they stepped aside, allowing her to leave the room. And it seemed like there was something happening again when she left her daughter's walls behind, another change, not as sudden and brutal as the last one, not so complete. But there was...something. Like the cold painting a picture at the window. Subtle, transparent and fragile - but so very cold.
So cold and indifferent, another kind of zombie now. Still no hunger in her eyes; still no hands reaching out for something. But there was death in her steps now, death and greyness. Insanity was changing, loss and grief rearranging themselves.
They stared after her, a new fear creeping up their spines. This change was as alien to them as her nightmarish tales, but now she seemed to be strong, too. Strong enough to do something. Anything.
They couldn't put their fingers on it; they couldn't describe the feelings rising up inside of them. The shudder in their stomachs, the bitter bile in their mouths. She could do something.
She walked down the hallway of her house, a ghost turned real and solid, and when she lay eyes on her son she stopped, narrowing her eyes at him. "Go to bed." Her voice was a chill, her face a mask, and the boy stumbled back, blown away by it.
"But..."There was desperation in his voice but she wiped it away with a look.
"No but. Bed."
Shaking, the boy left, looking over his shoulders at the policemen, his eyes stopping at the empty room that had been his sister's some hours ago. A ghost's room soon, dancing and singing when he'll be happy, empty-eyed with hands reaching out for nothing and everything in the rest of the time. A destiny they would share.
The woman didn't seem to notice her son's pain, or she didn't care. Eaten up by her own grief, beaten into bitterness by the image of an empty bed and empty room. She walked back into the living room and sat down, putting her hands into her lap, and she stared at the door.
Waiting.