Something of a Kind - By Miranda Wheeler Page 0,5

from the exchange. Tuning them out, he held still, eyes focused on Sarah.

She swallowed repeatedly, lower lip trembling, glassy eyes brimming with tears. In the midst of summer, the day was warm, and the air conditioners wouldn’t kick on for hours. Still, she looked cold and stricken. The arms of her pink hoodie were crossed tightly as she hugged herself. As though she couldn’t look away from something horrible, like watching an accident, a spectator made a witness.

He knew the feeling.

We’re powerless.

She stiffened when John grabbed Noah’s shoulder, jerking him upright. Lee’s eyes swiped across the space above his son’s head, looking to see if there were visible wounds. As a child, they made him stay home from school, even going over stories and false explanations. After a while, Lee stopped caring about what he believed to be a fragile reputation. Noah supposed his father realized no one cared that much anyway.

At one point, Noah was the talk of the town, a change-of-life baby for the ever-blessed Locklears. Sarah was a shock three years later, but everything seemed less surprising at that point. It’s sad and cruel,they’d say, since Mar’ and Lee will be old or dead when they’re grown. But they were elders’ kids. No one worried, everyone trusted. Don’t ask and don’t tell was unspoken ritual to natives, practically religion.

Of course they knew. Elder’s respect, Elder’s secrets.

Folk gossiped well enough, but once Tony Gabriel rode into town with a backpack and a cherry coke on a Harley like an unwanted queen in her gilded chariot, rumors gave way to a series of more fascinating ploys that required a lot less guilt and inaction.

“Go on. Bed, now.” Lee sniffed, shoving Noah’s unresisting shoulder towards the cabinet.

Sarah sunk away, backing out of his peripheral.

He moved through a silent challenge between Lee and John, parting the doors and sprinting across the kitchen. As he stepped out of the building's connecting foyer, his feet hit the carpet with a thud.

His mother, Mary-Agnes, was unbothered. The tight bun that had mysteriously migrated from the nape of her neck to the crown of her skull bobbed as she rocked in the tweed recliner, rolling into a post-hangover slumber. It was almost disturbing to think he had become so desensitized, unwilling to summon human disgust.

She would sleep it off in a few hours. Sarah would open, MaryAgnes would shower with coffee and aspirin, and he would show up like a saving grace at the last minute. They’d work alone until Kennedy and Aaron would clock in, or until their mother could function with the run-down, industrialstrength appliances. He’d pray she didn’t burn the place down. They’d crack open the doors to hungry locals and starry-eyed tourists, all while wearing a plastered on smile no different than the Joker’s crayon lipstick.

His chucks seemed to be a step ahead of him as he raced up the creaking steps of the winding staircase. An unbearable desire to escape twitched in his shoes, pulling him forward as he reached his room. Slamming the door behind him, he locked the self-installed deadbolt.

Noah worried about Sarah, but it was comforting to know they shared predictable instincts. He had found her countless times hiding out in her bedroom with the faux-iPod radio she got on sale out of a book order. In the heat of summer, she draped the extra comforters rendered unnecessary over the posters of her bed. Curled into a fetal position, she would pretend she was somewhere as far away as her dreams.

It was best to leave her there untouched. No one bothered her if she was to work on time and Sarah never missed a day. If he offered to take her with him, she’d beg him not to go. It would drag her down to earth, and she had no business there. It was too dark, too frightening, shadowed and cold. She belonged in the light, with the sun thieves.

He slid the navy gym bag from beneath his bed. Tucking it under an arm, he grabbed a hoodie. His friends called it the bug-out.

They all had one. It carried clothes for work and school, a toothbrush, a comb, plus money and deodorant. He kept it light. The temptation for it being a more than temporary solution was too high and he found that it lost practicality after a few too many experimentations.

Pulling open the ceiling hatch, he tossed his haul through the opening. As he climbed the narrow ladder to the widow’s walk, Noah elbowed each broad