10: Malefactor

A few days later...

“Guess what I brought today?” Ayva shouted as soon as she walked in the door. She would throw her backpack onto the couch but today she held onto it tightly.

Her mom was letting her walk over by herself now. In fact, we hadn’t seen her mom since the first week. For some reason, my aunt’s enthusiasm had made her mom feel more comfortable. I didn’t understand it. If I was her mom, I’d have taken her to a different babysitter long ago.

“What’d you bring, sweetie?” my aunt asked in that soft voice she always used to talk to Ayva. It was the same one she used on me with when my uncle was around.

To her, you stopped being “her baby” when you moved out. Ayva was so cute she apparently became “her baby” too. Seven years was a lot older than my aunt thought, but I guess to her Aya seemed younger than that age.

I had been around that old when she and my uncle got me. Maybe that’s why she was used to more mature seven-year-olds. Well, maybe not mature. I bordered on depressed back then.

Ayva didn’t answer my aunt’s question, though. She turned to me. “I said guess.”

“Um…” I thought for a minute. “Your blanket?”

“I already brought that once, silly.” She sighed with frustration, which I found adorable. “Guess again.”

“Your… teddy bear?”

She shook her head and shrugged. “I give up on you.”

I laughed and put my hands up defensively. “I don’t know what it is!” I glanced around for my aunt but she had already walked away.

Ayva slipped her arms out of the straps and set the backpack on the couch. After unzipping it, she stuck her arm in until I couldn’t see anything below her shoulder. “Hold on. It’s heavy.” She put her other arm in and finally pulled out a white, rectangular box along with two thin controllers, a little shorter than a foot.

“You brought your Wii,” I said.

She beamed at me. “Well, come on! We gotta get playing.”

“Right now?”

She put the Wii into her backpack again, hoisted it onto her back, and grabbed my hand, leading me towards the television in the other room. “Come on. You can help me set it up!’

Half an hour later, we finally managed to untangle all the cords, plug them into the right outlets, and sync the controllers. I turned on the television and saw the home screen, waiting for us to insert a game.

“Um, what games do you have?” I asked.

The first one had a pony on the front. The second was a dyslexic blend of pinks and purples and lazy animations. The third and final game was some kind of combination of the two, although I swear I saw Mickey Mouse’s head somewhere in that mess.

“Which one do you want?” she asked, laying them out on the floor where I could inspect each and every one.

I pointed to the third one.

“Too bad. We’re playing them in a certain order. I was just being polite.” She grinned and inserted the disk. “First the game with ponies then, then the …”

It would be a long day. I sighed at the thought of it, and couldn’t help but grin.

“Which pony should I be?” I asked, interrupting her tyrant on which was the best-colored one.

“Not the purple one!” Her face was deathly serious. “That’s mine!”

<><><><><>

It was nearly time for Ayva to leave. I stood up and stretched after sitting on the couch for so long. The entire day was spent in front of the television, listening to her shouting about the game and long speeches on all sorts of subjects. The topic jumped from ponies, to favorite foods, back to colors, and across to music.

“What kind do you like?” she had asked.

“I like… um, whatever’s on the radio I guess.”
“I mean if you could pick. What would you hear?”

I shrugged. “My mood changes a lot. I guess it’d depend on my mood. Just whatever I’m feeling.”

She nodded as if that was plausible. “I like ballerina music,” Ayva said, “but I could never be one.”

“Why not?”

“Only pretty girls can be ballerinas.” She looked at her shoulder and played with one of her braids. “I’m not a pretty girl.”

I kissed her hand lightly and she turned towards me with a surprised, confused look. “Why’d you kiss me?”

“That’s what you do to princesses,” I said. “You’re pretty enough. For anyone. To be a princess. Anything you want. You don’t need to be any different.”

She smiled faintly. “Thank you, Caleb. I never feel like it though.”

“This is a teenage conversation. You’re not a teenager. Why does it bother you?”

“Some kids never get to be teenagers.” Her eyes took on a darker appearance.

“You mean they grow up too fast?” I asked.

“No. I mean they never grow up at all.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “They die.”

“That’s not going to happen to you, Ayva. Our town is safe.”

“Is it?”

My aunt interrupted our conversation, shouting down from the kitchen. “Ayva! You’re staying here tonight. Guess it’ll just be us three since Jim’s away on a business trip. You can-”

“Why is she staying?” I asked, worrying that this Wii marathon would never end.

“Her mom has kidney stones. Real bad.” My aunt came into the room. “She’s in the hospital tonight to get them dealt with. Sorry, Ayva.” She shuddered “Real terrible thing to happen to somebody. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

“They’re just kidney stones!” I said with a grin. “And you don’t have enemies.”

“I don’t have kidney stones, either.”

She left and I turned to Ayva. “I guess you’re sleeping here tonight, then.”

“Can I sleep on your floor?” she asked quietly. “I’m scared.”

Earlier, I had seen her staring out of the window, but when I went to peer out there I saw nothing of interest. It worried me at first, but I figured she had been watching a dog or something. It must have run away.

“Why are you scared?” I asked.

“It’s scary.”

“What’s scary?”

She didn’t answer me. She was staring out the window again.

“How about this,” I began. “You can sleep in my bed. And I’ll take the floor.”

“Okay.” I knew she was smiling.

<><><><><>

It was a few hours later when we finally laid down and Ayva grew quiet. She was in my bed, curled up in my favorite blanket and looking somewhat sad. My bed on the floor -made of two thin blankets and a pillow- sat just beneath the light switch. I reached up from the ground to flick it off. As soon as the lights popped off, I heard a whimper from the bed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, already dozing off. She had worn me out with the Wii.

“I wanna see mommy.”

“Well, your mommy is just getting some help from some doctors. It’ll be fine. She’ll be fine. You’ll see her soon.”

There was a moment of silence. “No, I won’t.”

I sat up and tried to see her, but the blankets were pulled up to her chin and in the dark I couldn’t make out her expression. “Why not, Ayva?”

“Because she won’t get a chance.”

“What do you mean?”

I heard a giggle. It seemed so out of place when she’d been in a frightened, downcast mood since sunset. “Just kidding silly.”

“No, Ayva. What did you mean?” I asked the question with enough emotion and had repeated it so many times since meeting her that I thought she might finally answer. Instead, she rolled over.

“I’m tired.”

“I need to talk to you.”

She sighed in a very grown-up sort of way. “Have you talked to Damian lately?”

Goosebumps crawled up my arms. “Not since I talked to him with you.”

“You’re lying.” She said it flatly, with no emotion and -I assumed- no expression. “You talked to her just a few days ago.”

“Her?”

She giggled. “Him, of course. Silly mistake.”

There was another moment of silence. I knew I wouldn’t get any answers out of her, but the whole situation seemed so bizarre. For a moment, I considered the possibility that she could read my mind, see my thoughts. But that was insane.

“Ayva?” I asked tentatively.

“Mmhm?”

“Why don’t you answer my questions?”

She laughed. “I am right now.”

I didn’t laugh.

“Caleb?”

“Yes?”

“Will you tuck me in?”

Getting to my feet, I stepped to the bedside. I couldn’t help but smile as I tucked her in and kissed her forehead. I layed back down on my blanket. “Goodnight, Ayva.”

There was no answer.

“Ayva?”

The moonlight flashed in through the window and I saw her fast asleep. A tear had rolled down her cheek, and her expression was terrified. Shaken. Anxious.

“Sweet dreams, Ayva.”

<><><><><>

It was morning now, and a few hours after sunrise. I’d slept well. Hoping to see Ayva still asleep, I sat up.

The bed was empty.

“Ayva?”

She wasn’t in my room. She wasn’t in the bathroom down the hall. She wasn’t in the kitchen eating breakfast, or in the living room watching television, or somewhere with her dolls. My aunt hadn’t seen her. My uncle wasn’t back yet. There were no signs of her in the house, except for the Wii plugged into our wall and resting near the television.

Her backpack was gone.

“Maybe she left on her own? Or her mom came early and Ayva was already awake and waiting in the living room?” My aunt frantically thought of other possibilities. She refused to accept that she had lost a kid -the first kid- that she was babysitting. “I mean, I did get up later than normal.”

I nodded silently. “Maybe.”

I knew she was wrong. She knew she was wrong. Ayva would have taken the Wii. Someone had taken her. Or she had gone with someone.

A person that was very convincing, someone she knew extremely well. She either forgot about the Wii or they convinced her it wasn’t necessary. Judging from last night, that would have been nearly impossible. Maybe she thought she was coming back.

“What should we do?” I asked.

“Call the cops, I guess?”

That’s all her cop-shows can teach her.

While she went to the phone, I slumped in the chair and looked around. The Wii sat where we had left it, along with the controllers. My aunt was yelling into the phone now, hysterically urging the police to hurry.

She was losing her control. I went back to my bed.

I stuffed my face into the pillow and screamed until I couldn’t breath. Everything felt unreal, like I was watching another person worry and shout into their pillow. I wanted to sink into my covers, disappear. When I came out, I hoped everything would be okay. I slammed the pillow on top of my head and buried my face in the mattress.

I felt paper against my face.

Slamming my feet into shoes, I dashed out the door, taking the note with me. Everything made sense now. I hoped I wasn’t too late.