by Andy Lewter
Lil Bit peered through the doorway and looked over her shoulder, comically making sure they were alone, although Scout was pretty sure she wasn’t being comical on purpose. “I thought I saw soul stealers.”
Scout sat back on her heels, her eyes widening. Soul stealers were new. She’d never heard Lil Bit talk about them before. Unicorns, yes. All the time. “What are soul stealers?”
Lil Bit’s face paled, making her big brown eyes look like pits of terror in her face. “They’re monsters.”
Scout cracked a smile. “I assumed that, kiddo. What kind of monsters? Where did you see them?”
Lil Bit had been ‘seeing’ things since she was tiny. Their parents put her in a special school and had taken her to all kinds of doctors. For a while, she had quit talking completely. It hadn’t been until Scout spent three months in the hospital that Lil Bit had finally opened up — and that was only because she thought Scout was unconscious and couldn’t hear her.
“I saw them on TV, on the news. But they’re coming here. They’re coming everywhere,” Lil Bit whispered.
Who let her watch the news? Scout wondered furiously, but she didn’t say it. “What do they look like?”
“Like… like black skeleton ghosts. All hunched up. With long claw-y fingers that they use to steal souls.”
“Good grief.” Scout pulled her into a hug, wrapping her arms around Lil Bit, trying to block out all the scary things that assaulted her on a daily basis. “I’m so sorry.”
She stroked Lil Bit’s black silky hair until Lil Bit pushed her away with a grin. “You talked to Trey today.” Lil Bit had been amazing Scout with the things she knew for years, but it still surprised her every time.
“How’d you know?”
Lil Bit had loved Trey. His abandonment hurt her as much as it hurt Scout, almost. But her hurt hadn’t turned to hatred. She still waved every time she saw him outside. Lil Bit turned and skipped from the room. “I just did. What’d he want?”
Scout rose to her feet, groaning as her back shrieked in protest. Right after the accident, the doctors had told her she’d never walk again. She’d proven them wrong, but her back still liked to remind her constantly that the pain was in charge, not her.
Lil Bit paused in the living room, looking back at Scout expectantly. “We are stuck together on a science project,” Scout said as she followed her in, collapsing on the couch to pull off her shoes. Lil Bit said nothing, just continued to stare at her with those big eyes, so Scout continued, “I don’t want to work with him. I don’t want anything to do with him.” It was amazing how one could be simultaneously in love with someone and hate him at the exact same time. Only Lil Bit knew the truth, and she wouldn’t tell.
“Scout? Is that you?” Scout’s mom, Laila, called from the office. She worked from home as an office manager, which meant she could be a workaholic and an active, participating-in-their-lives kind of mom at the same time.
“Yeah Mom. Hi.” Scout waved as Laila’s head popped around the corner, still wearing the headset.
“Dad’s making chicken noodle soup,” Lil Bit whispered, and clapped her hands, bouncing on her toes. “We won’t have to eat Mom’s cooking!”
Scout laughed out loud at that one. Laila tried, she really did, but kitchen fires were more easily produced than actual food when it was her turn to cook.
“Come eat!” Travis yelled, his voice carrying through the entire house, and maybe two houses down. He peered through the doorway, motioning them with his oven mitt. Lil Bit looked just like him — silky black hair and big, round dark eyes. Scout looked like Laila, with the long, honey-brown hair, and sea-foam-green eyes. Those eyes had the ability to make Laila look deceptively mild. Scout was for-real mild, so her eyes fit her personality much better than her mom’s.
Lil Bit grabbed Scout’s hand, dragging her off the couch as she raced for the kitchen, bypassing the dining room that they only used when Grandma and Grandpa came for dinner. Travis was just setting the steaming bowls of deliciousness on the table as Scout slid into her chair.
“How was practice?” Laila asked, sitting next to her.
“Hurt quite a bit. Kamille found some stretches she’s hoping will help.” Scout said, pausing to blow on her soup before she shoved a spoonful into her mouth. Oh so good.
“You remember you have a physical therapy appointment next week, right? You’ll have to miss practice on Tuesday,” Laila said, and Scout could see the gears in her mom’s brain working as she scanned some internal calendar.
“Yep, I remember. I… have to work on a science project with Trey tomorrow at 6:30. Is that okay?” She hesitated, because both her parents disliked Trey, almost more than she did. It wasn’t the accident that upset them so much, but the way he had hurt her after. They had never forgiven him. Her family definitely knew how to hold a good grudge. Except Lil Bit. Scout smiled fondly at her across the table. Lil Bit didn’t hold a grudge. She rarely got angry even. If only we were all like you, Scout thought, and Lil Bit met her eyes across the table, breaking into a smile. Somehow, she had heard Scout. Somehow, she had always been able to.
Scout had to wait until after dinner to be able to talk to her mom alone. “Who let Lil Bit watch the news?” Scout asked, her voice low so that her sister wouldn’t hear her from the TV room.
Laila handed her another dish to dry, her hand shaking slightly. “It was on in the teachers’ lounge. She saw it through the doorway.” Clearly, Laila was upset, but Scout wasn’t sure if it was because of the incident at Lil Bit’s school, or if it was because they had to worry about incidents like this in the first place.
Lil Bit, also known as Veronica to mostly no one, was their golden child. Scout had been a surprise, coming along before Laila and Travis had even decided to get married. Oh yeah, of course they would have gotten married anyway. Or so they said.
Then they had tried for six years to get pregnant again. Doctors said it wasn’t possible. They had done all the fertility treatments, all the procedures. And when they had given up, Lil Bit finally decided to come along. So, knowing that Lil Bit was “special”, as Scout’s parents called it, upset them quite a bit. It upset Scout, too, but not for the same reason. She hated to see how being different hurt her adorable little sister. Lil Bit didn’t understand. She only knew whatever she was it was the wrong thing to be. Scout was determined to chase that thought away for good.
Scout went to bed after dinner. She was too tired and in too much pain to do her homework — the thought of sitting in her office chair made her back scream in horror. She was mostly on the sleeping side of asleep when she heard the door creak and seconds later the shuffle of rapid steps across the carpet. She forced an eye open, trying to read the clock in the darkness. It was just after midnight. She felt her bed sag and then bounce. “Are you awake?” Lil Bit asked in a tiny, frightened whisper that made Scout’s heart ache worse than her back ever could.
“Yep.” She tried not to sound like she’d been sleeping.
“Can I sleep with you?”
“Of course. Snuggle on over here, Lil Bit. But keep your cold toes to yourself.” Scout mumbled, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Lil Bit, finally taking shape in the darkness, burrowed into Scout’s side, taking care not to nudge Scout’s back in the process. Scout pulled the covers up to Lil Bit’s chin, tucking them tight. “I’ve got you now. Sleep, little one.” Scout murmured. She knew with Lil Bit in her bed that there would be no more sleeping for her, because she couldn’t lie so still for so long without her back acting up. But Lil Bit had stopped shaking, and Scout liked to believe that the terror was gone from those huge brown eyes. It was worth it.
Lil Bit escaped back to her room when Scout’s alarm went off. Scout dragged herself to her feet and headed for the shower, stopping to tuck Lil Bit back into her own bed on the way. Her parents, thankfully, didn’t get up until Scout was almost ready to leave, so they didn’t know about Lil Bit’s late night visits.
She was half-through with her sh
ower before it finally warmed up. Her teeth were still chattering when she got out, and her pick broke trying to comb through her baby fine curls.
It was going to be a long day.
