Welcome Home

by Eric Smith

  The voice echoed inside their heads. The voice was everywhere and nowhere. The voice was wet and poisonous and deep beyond measure.

  DO YOU WILL IT? asked the voice.

  The Patterson twins began to cry.

  “No,” said Jay. “It’s fine.”

  THEIR MINDS SHALL CRUMBLE TO SALT WITHIN THEIR SKULLS AND TORMENTS UNCEASING SHALL ASSAIL THEIR WAKING DREAMS.

  “Just be cool, Dad,” said Jay.

  THEY SHALL LIVE. FOR NOW.

  The heaving hillsides of grimy muscle retreated. The Patterson twins tripped and stumbled over each other in their rush to leave the clearing. Neither would return to the waterfront for the rest of their lives. Lucas would one day move to central Kansas where he would avoid swimming pools, bathtubs, and large bottles of water, and Marcus would come to find that even a whiff of seafood from then on would send him into a cold sweat.

  Jay stood alone on the bluff, looking into the fathomless face of the horror from the depths.

  YOU CALLED US DAD.

  Jay nodded. “It’s a thing people call their guy parents sometimes.”

  HUMAN GENDERS HAVE NO MEANING TO US. The dark, convulsing shapes that comprised the leviathan’s body wriggled constantly.

  “I guess you don’t seem like a ‘mom,’” said Jay. “Is that . . . okay?” This whole situation was still very new. Family was weird.

  TO POSSESS OUR TRUE NAME WOULD BURN YOUR MORTAL BEING APART FROM THE INSIDE OUT, said the voice. YOU MAY CALL US DAD.

  A long coil whipped through the air and snapped above Jay with a spray of salt water. Yucky Ducky landed at his feet. Jay picked it up, briny foam dripping from its little yellow tail. “Thanks.”

  THERE WERE MONSTERS IN THE DARKNESS, said the voice. THEY WERE YOUR MONSTERS. THEY WERE YOUR DARKNESS.

  Jay swallowed. The first droplet of rain hit his cheek. He nodded.

  THEY WILL NOT HURT YOU NOW. NOR EVER AGAIN. WE HAVE MADE IT SO.

  “I know.”

  THAT TRINKET. IT WAS A GIFT FROM THEM.

  Jay looked down at the soggy duck. He sighed. He had been through this conversation with enough caseworkers and counselors already. “I don’t know why I like it. I just do.”

  There was no sound but the gentle patter of rain beginning to fall in earnest before the voice spoke again. WITHIN THE DARKNESS, WITHIN THE MONSTERS, IN THE BLACKNESS OF THEIR HEARTS, THERE WAS LIGHT. THERE IS ALWAYS LIGHT, EVEN IN THE DEEPEST DARK. WE UNDERSTAND THIS. THAT TRINKET KNOWS YOUR DARKNESS. IT IS A REMINDER THAT THERE WAS A GLIMMER OF LIGHT EVEN THEN—THERE WAS LIGHT IN THE DEEPEST DARK. The nameless beast paused. IT IS GOOD.

  Jay felt a weight in the pit of his stomach lift just a fraction. It was a weight he had almost forgotten was there, a private weight he had locked away deep down inside himself. There had been happy times. He held the thought tenderly in his mind now, like a fragile bird with a broken wing. Sad memories had stained them and covered them up and crowded them out, but there had been happy times—and it was okay to remember those, too. He had been protecting them for so long he had almost forgotten what it felt like to let himself remember them. The rain fell softly around him. Beams of sunlight cut through the clouds beyond the creature, lighting up the calmer seas in the distance. This storm would pass.

  Jay looked down at Yucky Ducky, dripping onto the grass—and, in spite of himself, he smiled. It was nice to have someone else doing the protecting for once.

  THAT GLIMMER OF LIGHT IS ALSO THE REASON WE DID NOT RAZE THE TOWN IN WHICH WE FOUND YOU AND EVISCERATE EVERY MONSTROUS HUMAN THERE.

  “What was that last bit?” Jay looked up.

  NOTHING. DAD STUFF.

  William Ritter is an Oregon educator and the author of the NYT bestselling Jackaby series. He is a loving husband, a giant nerd, and a proud father to two outstanding young boys. Adoption made his family complete.

  “Adoption taught me that there are many ways to find who you’re missing, and many paths to find your way home together. Families are weird. Adoption made my weird family complete.”

  Meant to be Broken

  by Stephanie Scott

  Five years of nothing, and now this. Five years of no answers and empty Facebook search results, and then my childhood best friend Becca showed up in a box overflowing with unfiled paperwork.

  This was crazy. I was staring at a file in an adoption agency. Becca already had a family. What was her name and information doing here?

  Her name in bold font, Rebecca Sampson, marched across the top of a form with the Little Hands Adoption Agency logo. My heart stuttered, caught somewhere between exhausting itself and failing entirely. I’d been focused on logging my National Honor Society volunteer hours by sorting through boxes in the agency’s neglected storeroom. Grunt work easy enough to hand off to a student. I’d never expected to, you know, recognize anyone. A photo slipped onto my lap. A twelve-year-old Becca stared back. Stringy brown hair, a smile hinting at mischief, and tanned skin from a summer tearing up the neighborhood on our bikes. My Becca.

  A knocking sounded. I jumped nearly out of my skin and flipped the file facedown.

  Shay, the agency program director, stood in the doorway. “Everything okay, Hannah?”

  “Sure!” My voice boomed, too loud for the small room. I adjusted my glasses. “I mean, yes. Just sorting away!”

  Volunteering at a human services organization was like frosting spread on top of extra credit. At least, that’s how it should look in my portfolio: Hannah Malone, NHS Leadership Initiative Candidate, followed by a nice long list of activities. Things like caseworker meetings, visitations, and support groups. I hadn’t exactly envisioned a windowless room sorting scattered files, but here I was.

  I also hadn’t envisioned seeing Becca’s name among the files. It was so weird even thinking about Becca after five years. I couldn’t picture what she looked like beyond sixth grade. I wasn’t sure I’d recognize her if I saw her today.

  Shay’s smile was laced with sympathy. “I’m sorry we have you stuck going through these boxes, but it’s a real help for our state audit. Let me know if you need anything.”

  I nodded. After she left, I looked back at the file. The page was more like a cover sheet. What I needed was the rest of the file.

  Becca hadn’t simply moved away. She’d vanished. One day we were having a sleepover, and the next, she was gone. Becca never came back to school again. It was as if the whole family had picked up and left without a word. I’d tried to find answers. I really had tried.

  And then you stopped looking.

  The cold truth hit me square in the chest. I had stopped looking.

  I stared at Becca’s name until the letters blurred together. I may have stopped looking, but I was still in the same place. Becca never bothered to find me either.

  Back when we were friends, Becca never missed school. Even when she had to pack her own lunch and help her younger brother get ready because her mom was too tired, she made it to school. And when she was sick, she called or texted. She always contacted me.

  So when Becca hadn’t shown up to school for two days and my texts piled up with no answers, I got worried. Nobody answered her door in the morning, so I walked to the bus stop alone. Nobody was home after school either. No lights on in the house, no figures shadowed the windows. No cars in the driveway.

  No phone calls.

  “Did her family leave on vacation?” my dad had asked when I’d brought it up.

  I shook my head. Her family didn’t take vacations.

  Maybe there was an emergency, like a grandparent dying. But then why wouldn’t Becca let me know?

  I stayed behind after Earth Science, Becca’s favorite class, to ask our teacher, Mrs. Gallagher. “Do you know where Becca is?” I explained she couldn’t be sick because then she would have texted. I told her how her house looked empty.

&
nbsp; “Hannah, I’m sorry. This happens sometimes. Families move and don’t tell anyone.”

  “But this is Becca. She would have told me.” She definitely would have told me she was moving. Best friends shared everything. We shared everything.

  Mrs. Gallagher said she’d ask around. She’d said she was sorry. Sorry didn’t mean much to me. She didn’t have answers.

  I went back to my parents, but they said the same thing as Mrs. Gallagher. “Becca’s mom has been troubled for a while. Maybe they moved in with a relative. They might have needed a fresh start.”

  Troubled? “What do you mean?”

  My mom looked at my dad. “Money troubles. Becca’s older brother. It could be any of those things.”

  “That’s stupid.” So what if Becca’s family didn’t have a lot of money? That didn’t explain why Becca wasn’t calling me. And her older brother didn’t even live with them anymore. Only her younger brother and sometimes one of her mom’s boyfriends.

  The fourth day Becca didn’t show up to school, kids started talking. Some said her dad got out of prison and came for the family. Except her dad had a life sentence. He sent cards at Becca’s birthday and they were always late. Her mom would say what a waste it was, making contact, since he’d never see the outside of a cell.

  They were only rumors.

  Anytime I brought up Becca to friends at school, they’d say, “It’s so weird she disappeared!” Maybe they’d make a few guesses about what happened, but eventually, they’d go back to quoting their favorite online videos. I’d laugh with them, but the pangs of hurt never strayed far. Becca left me. She left, and I don’t know why.

  Days and weeks passed. Each day could have been the day Becca contacted me. Each day, the lights might have been on at her house, with her mom’s old truck parked in the driveway.

  Each day, my laugh grew steadier with my friends at the lunch table. These were my friends now. Anger at Becca leaving shifted to anger at myself for caring so much. If she’d wanted me to know her family was leaving, she would have told me. Each day, that truth planted itself deeper. Each day, another branch of memories withered and snapped. That’s all I had now—memories. Becca was gone.

  If everyone else could forget Becca so easily, maybe I could too.

  I was supposed to be racking up service hours, but the more I thought of Becca being connected to the adoption agency, the more I wanted to find out what happened to her. I needed the rest of her file.

  The problem? The upstairs offices with the file cabinets required a key card. I didn’t have one.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall outside the storeroom. A bearded man paced, talking on his cell phone. His badge was very much not on a lanyard, but instead clipped to his jacket. All loose and vulnerable.

  He turned the corner.

  I followed.

  This was definitely not on my day planner’s To Do list. Steal badge. Break into files! Probably no cutesy Kawaii sticker for that task.

  I wasn’t a rule-violating type of girl. I was the type to read the fine print on user agreements. Rules were my currency. I followed them and was rewarded. Well, there was that one time I shushed my British Lit class when they cracked up at Mrs. Vanwellen’s over-the-top dramatic reading of Jane Eyre. Obviously, it did nothing for my popularity.

  My shoulders sank as the man disappeared into an office. Moments later, he left again, jacketless, headed toward the restrooms.

  Every nerve in my body lit up. Now or never.

  Every step felt deliberate. I am doing something wrong. I am taking property that does not belong to me.

  It was so easy. The open door, the jacket hung on the chair back. The badge, a simple click to unclip.

  Seven Years Ago

  I wanted to run. Either run or melt into a puddle and seep into the sidewalk cracks. Anything but stand here and face Diamond Martino and her diva crew.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” Diamond, with her shiny, long dark hair and bejeweled platform sandals, stood beside the playground swings with arms crossed, flanked by three girls in our fourth-grade class.

  They’d been whispering all day. Walking the long way around my worktable, making faces at each other as they passed. Now, the impossible question. I would lose any way I answered.

  I’m not ugly! I wanted to shout. Who asked a girl why she was ugly? If I said I wasn’t, they’d call me stuck-up for thinking of myself as pretty. And I didn’t. They’d made sure I didn’t. But if I gave a reason, then I admitted I was ugly and gross. My cheeks flamed. My feet wouldn’t move, and my mouth sealed shut as if glue lined my lips.

  “You’re a loser,” Diamond said. “Ugly fake-brand jeans. Ugly face.”

  I felt like a monster. My hair and my clothes were hopelessly uncool. My glasses not trendy enough but too strong a prescription to go without. The last time I’d told the teacher on Diamond, she’d lied that it was all a misunderstanding. Then she’d posted a video to her friends how I was voted ugliest in class by secret vote. I cried for days.

  “Hey there, Sparkles,” Becca breezed in. She was supposed to be with her learning specialist this recess period. “Your pedicure can’t hide your toad toes. I can’t believe you actually wear sandals.”

  Diamond started to retort, but Becca stepped forward. “Call Hannah ugly one more time and I’ll tell everyone how you peed your pants during the Frontier Days assembly.”

  Diamond’s mouth dropped open. The girls beside her tittered. One of the recess monitors came by, too late as always, and the girls scattered.

  “I didn’t even do anything.” My tears let loose. “You shouldn’t have said that to her. Now she’ll be after you too.”

  Becca steered me away from the approaching teacher. “I already threatened to jump Diamond after school. I told her my brother and his friends would be there.”

  “You’ll get suspended if you fight!”

  “I’m not going to fight anyone. Diamond is too scared to fight. She’s afraid of me already.” Becca shrugged.

  No one seemed to scare Becca. And she was right, some kids were afraid of her. Maybe it was because of her older brother. Some kids said he sold drugs—that he was a dealer. I’d met him a bunch of times. He was nice, but tough. I didn’t believe the rumors.

  After school we walked from the bus stop to her mom’s salon. When it was warm outside, the door was propped open and people came in to talk as often as to get their hair cut or nails done.

  All day I’d felt like the word ugly was written across my skin in permanent marker. Now that we were miles from school, I relaxed. “You said Diamond had toad toes. That’s so weird.”

  “I heard her say once that she hates her feet.” Becca grinned as we sifted through the sample polish jars. “For real, though, Hannah. If she says anything to you again, let me know.”

  This hadn’t been the first time Becca stood up for me. “You can’t get into a fight. You’ll get in so much trouble.”

  She twisted shut a bottle of nail polish and gripped it in her fist. “I’ve got your back, okay? I won’t let anyone talk to you like that.”

  “I don’t know what I did to make them hate me.” Tears sprang back, hot and fast.

  Becca’s mom walked over, and Becca told her everything.

  “That’s just girls acting jealous,” her mom told us. “Mean girls. Come here. Let me style up your hair.”

  “And I’ll paint your nails with this.” Becca held out a bright pink shade my own mom would hate for sure.

  I nodded, wiping my tears. The ugly label didn’t disappear, but it faded enough. I had a friend I could count on, and that was what mattered.

  Thankfully, the agency’s upstairs offices were dim and silent since it was the end of the workday. Being the rule follower and all, I had to note I hadn’t been specifically told not to go upstairs. Only that a badge requir
ed access.

  A badge that I had not been given, but I couldn’t dwell on that now.

  I wound through the cubicles, then let out a slow breath and zeroed in on a row of cabinets. A label on the closest one read “Adoption Files.”

  Before I lost my nerve, I opened the drawer for “S” and searched the files. Nothing.

  Wait—this was good news. Just because this was an adoption agency didn’t mean Becca had actually been adopted. The file could have been for another reason, like counseling or something.

  I should just go. This was ridiculous—me standing here by a file cabinet trying to piece together a childhood mystery. I sighed and let my attention drift to the window, to the street beyond. A dash of coral sliced the horizon as night settled in. Two kids raced by on bikes. Two girls, one with a bushy ponytail, the other with her unzipped coat flapping in the wind. Tearing home before dark, just like Becca and me, back in the day.

  I stared at the closed drawer. Opened it again. My fingers flipped through the “R” section. My breath stalled. There it was—Rebecca Sampson. The file was missing the cover sheet, which I held in my hand.

  This was it. I was about to find out what happened to my friend.

  Inside: a police report. Unlicensed guns. Drugs. Illegal possession. Drug trafficking.

  No. No, no, no. This had to be wrong. I would have known. I’d been in Becca’s house so often I dreamed about it sometimes. I would have noticed these things going on.

  Her mom’s boyfriends. A stirring built up inside me so fierce I growled out loud. Some jerk brought drugs into their house and busted Becca’s family. He should be in jail!

  I skimmed the report. The only names noted were Becca’s brother and her mother. No mention of the boyfriends.

  The next page listed the name MARTINEZ in capital letters. Beds: six. Foster care placements: five. Specialization: teens, preadolescents, and emergency placements. Open to adoption. An address.

  The page blurred. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. A sick feeling churned in my gut. It didn’t make sense. Becca’s mom loved her. She wouldn’t give her away. Becca’s younger half-brother wasn’t in the file. What about him?