right, though. It wouldn’t be okay for the man to hear him talking to anyone. It would be …
“Really bad?” he whispered.
She nodded seriously.
“Where am I?” he said.
“I don’t know where you are, Jake. You’re where you are, and so that’s where I am too.”
“Because you won’t leave me?”
“I’ll never leave you. Ever.” She looked around again. “And I’ll do my best to help you, but I can’t protect you. This is a very serious situation. You know that, don’t you? It’s a long, long way from being right.”
Jake nodded. Everything was wrong, and he wasn’t safe, and it was suddenly too much.
“I want my daddy.”
Maybe that was a pathetic thing to say, but once it was out, he couldn’t stop himself. So he whispered it again and again, and then he started to cry, thinking that if you wanted something hard enough then it might come true. It wouldn’t, though. It felt like Daddy was the distance of the whole world away from him right now.
“Please try not to make any noise.” She rested her hand on his shoulder. “You have to be brave.”
“I want my daddy.”
“He’ll find you. You know he will.”
“I want my daddy.”
“Come on, Jake. Please.” Her hand tightened on him, halfway between reassuring and scared. “I need you to calm down.”
He tried to stop crying.
“That’s better.”
She moved her hand and was silent for a moment, listening.
“I think it’s okay for now. So what we need to do is find out as much as possible about where we are. Because that might tell us how we can get out. Okay?”
He nodded. He was still scared, but what she was saying made sense.
He stood up and looked around the room.
The wall on one side of the room only went up to chest height before it began sloping inward the way that roofs did, so that meant he must be in an attic. He’d never been in an attic before. He’d always pictured them as dark, dusty places with bare floorboards and cardboard boxes and spiders, but this one was neatly carpeted, and the walls had been painted bright white, with grass drawn on at the bottom, and bees and butterflies fluttering above. It might have been nice, if it hadn’t been harshly lit by a bare bulb in the ceiling, giving everything an unreal quality, as though bits of the drawings might start coming to life at any moment. There was an open chest full of soft toys against the sloping wall. A small wardrobe against another. He looked behind him. The bed was decked out in Transformers sheets that looked old and worn.
So he was in some other child’s room. Except it didn’t feel right or natural in here, as though it had never really been meant to be lived in by a real boy.
There was a door in the opposite wall. He walked across and pushed it open nervously. A small toilet and sink. There was a towel in a circular hoop and soap on the basin. He closed the door again. Turning around, he could see there was a narrow corridor leading off from one corner of the room, but it only went a little way before there was another wall. He stepped into the space and found himself at the top of a dark staircase. At the bottom, there was a closed door.
A wooden handrail along the wall …
Jake stepped back quickly before he could see the bottom of the stairs properly. He ran back into the room and over to the bed. No, no, no. The stairs were almost exactly the same as the ones in the old house. And that meant he must not see what was—
His heart was beating far too quickly now. It didn’t feel like he could breathe.
“Sit down, Jake.”
He couldn’t even do that.
“It’s okay,” the little girl said gently. “Just breathe.”
He closed his eyes and really concentrated. It was hard at first, but then the air started to get in, and his heart rate began to slow.
“Sit down.”
He did as she told him, and then she put her hand on his shoulder again, saying nothing for the moment beyond soft, reassuring hushing noises. When he was more under control again, she moved her hand, but still didn’t speak. He could tell she wanted him to go down and check the door, but there was absolutely no way he could do that. Not ever. The stairs were out of bounds. It wouldn’t matter even if—