brother died on Earth. It was her choice to die here. The hissing lady broke into a million pieces of light. The nicE maN watched the hissing lady ascend to Heaven. Stars streaking across the sky. We all become the ocean. We all become the stars.
“Please, come home. You’ve done enough. Your Father misses you so much.”
The hissing lady approached her Father’s house. A grown woman freezing in the backyard. She knocked on the door and waited until He opened it. She felt the warm kitchen air. The hissing lady looked up at her Father. He opened His arms and held her.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” she said.
“I know you are. I’m sorry, too,” He said.
“I love You, Father,” she said.
“I love you, too, Eve,” He said, kissing her forehead. “Welcome home.”
Epilogue
tHe nIce Man looked through the kitchen window from the freezing backyard. hE felt so much hatred in that moment that hE thought he could break down the door and kill them both. hE ran at the door and hit it.
“leT mE iN! leT mE iN!”
Silence. hE hit the door over and over until hiS hands were bloody and broken. But no one heard hiM. hE was the tree in the middle of the forest. All hE could do was watch those shooting stars. Every star a sun. Every sun a soul. Within a moment, all of the stars were gone. The planets around earth had no more light.
And hE was alone.
The nicE maN was suddenly terrified.
hE realized hE had been here one hundred billion times.
The faces always changed, but the ending never did. God had abandoned hiM in this trap. hE had to find a way out of this torment. hE looked through the vastness of the universe and saw nothing but a 6x6 cell. hE looked around at hiS white walls, not seeing that hE alone held a string. hE would never reach up and feel the thread on hiS eyes. hE would never feel the zipper on hiS mouth.
“You are free now,” the voice said.
But hE could not hear it. hE could only sit in hiS solitary confinement. Watching the town. Looking for the next child.
hE walked through the clearing. Staring at them. The frogs were still waking up, staggering, getting sober. They looked at hiS tree house as it burned into smoke that disappeared into
Clouds.
hE knew some would dismiss this experience as a bad nightmare. Some might even force themselves to forget. But hE would always be there. In their ears. In their dreams.
“mrS. hendersoN…psst…mrS. hendersoN…”
hE whispered into the old lady’s ear so closely that she mistook hiS breath for a breeze. She scratched her ear, but she still did not hear hiM. She was too focused on her husband, who looked at the tree and found himself holding his wife’s hand. Now that the nightmare was over, all he wanted to do was take her away for a weekend trip. Luckily, she had already packed a bag.
“jennY, honeY. scotT iS stilL therE. let’S drowN hiM iN floodS.”
But Jenny could not hear hiM. She was safe in her father’s arms, being carried far away from her stepbrother. She promised herself that she would report Scott to the police because she deserved justice more than silence. What she couldn’t know was that Scott would confess to the sheriff later that night. It was the only way to make himself stop drowning in that creek. In floods.
“bradY…kilL thaT boY…listeN tO grandmA.”
Brady Collins was too busy listening to his actual grandmother to pay the voice any mind. Lynn Wilkinson apologized to her daughter for not stopping her late husband just as Mrs. Collins promised her son she would never put him in the backyard again.
“eddiE…psst…eddiE…listeN tO grandmA…”
Special Ed scratched his ear, then went right back to being showered with kisses and promises of cakes and pies and HBO and Showtime in his room forever. That night, he would put his father’s gun back in its case. He would slip himself under the covers and look at the tree outside with the branches like a smile gone sick. The tree would frighten him, and he would go to his mother’s room only to find that his mother was sleeping in the same bed as his father again. Special Ed would sleep between them that night, and when he closed his eyes, he would dream of his grandmother. His real grandmother.
“I am so proud of you, Eddie. You won the war.”
The nicE maN walked through the clearing, getting angrier