"Can you pass me the bread?" His father asked as his hand extended out for the large bowl filled with chopped pieces of Italian bread. His father's presence was imposing, his voice deep, almost a growl. The delivery in his voice however was always soft and almost reassuring. Clive passed the bowl and played with the strands of spaghetti on his plate.

"Did you ever finish that drawing?" His father asked as he poured water from the oddly shaped pitcher into his cup.

"Which one?" Clive replied. His father snuck a glance and a smile as he placed the jug back in the center of the table. A nervous laugh followed as he scratched his head.

"You had a whole page filled with sketches of birds, with hair." Clive chuckled and shook his head in recoil from the surprise.

"You saw that?" Clive asked through the laugh.

"It was... very different," His father replied as they both laughed together in harmony.

"It wasn't bad, was it?"

"No, no. Not at all. Strange maybe, but not bad. I like that you have something that's just your own. There was one bird with long hair, was that supposed to be the girl who lived across the street? What was her name again?" his father asked.

"Alice," Clive responded. He looked down at his food trying to avoid what he thought would be an uncomfortable inquiry, but there was nothing. His father poured some shredded cheese onto his plate and met Clive's eyes with a smile.

"Is that weird," Clive inquires.

"No, I don't think so. You probably don't remember it because you were so young, but you used to have playdates together all the time, at that park your mom used to take you to. You were only two or three at the time. Quinn might not like to hear it, but she was not your first friend," he said as he laughed quietly to himself, before picking up his fork.

Clive looked up from his plate and watched his father scarf down mound after mound of spaghetti, making a mess of his beard. His father chuckled as Clive motioned his hands over his entire lower jaw, indicating the glob of tomato sauce that was on his face. His father chuckled, grabbing a paper napkin and wiping his face.

"Saving some for later?" Clive joked as he pointed to the small string of spaghetti hanging from his father's beard.

"I don't eat pretty," His father retorted as they both began to laugh. "You didn't know? I always have a midnight snack!" He said between breaths. As their laughter died down he said in a strained tone, "God, your mother used to make that joke," wiping the excess food from his face. "She was so funny, it caught you off guard. Had a hell of an imagination too. I ever tell you what she used to call the house?"

"No," Clive replied as he placed his drink back down on the table.

" 'The little blue house with the red door,' she even went as far as painting the door. She couldn't be bothered with the rest of the house though, said it was too much work," He roared in laughter, a deep bellowing sound that shook even the table.

"I still remember waking up on Saturdays to the smell of her pancakes. I'd run downstairs and she was always ready to greet me with a hug," His father stifled his laugh and adjusted his tone.

"What happened to her?"

He let them sit in it for a moment. His expression at first was focused and then confused.

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"I don't know. You might be the only person who does." His father sighs and then adjusts before continuing, "I still can't wrap my head around something you said to me around the time that it happened. You were so petrified by the ordeal, I don't think you even knew what you were saying. You told me that you went looking for your moms that day. That you wanted to find her. That you followed her into this clearing on the other side of the square. You practically dragged me there to show me. You kept saying something about a monster. That when you finally found her there, it was eating her. I've never been able to shake that."

Clive wiped his plate clean, and most of the pot was empty given his father's large appetite. Clive looked down and could see all his father's work reflected in his hands. They were rough with grime so thick on his nails that cutting them would be the only way to remove it. Clive watched his father's giant calloused fingers delicately stack the plates. Clive looked up at his father, who stood up to clear the table.

"You always did have your mother's imagination."

It was the smell that woke him up, the sweet crisp scent of buttermilk. He couldn't muster the energy to move and instead resigned himself to watching the rotating ceiling fans spin above him. Voices coming from downstairs had followed the smell up to his bedroom. Clive tried identifying the voice, Maybe it's Quinn, he thought, talking to my dad.

Then there was that laugh, it was a warm high-pitched squeal that sent a wave down his back; that he could feel in his bones. He recognized all of it, the voice, the laugh, and even the smell that had crept up to his bedroom. The touch of cinnamon should have immediately given it away.

Clive flung the blanket that was covering him. He lifted himself and followed the sound in a trance. On the top of the stairs, he stood, fighting the weight of his eyelids. He fought to contain himself as he shifted his head trying to get a visible angle on their guest. Clive could only see a shoulder, though the black shawl that hung from it was unrecognizable. He knew his father's gruff laugh anywhere, but 'who is he laughing with?' he asked himself as he maneuvered his head to get a good look.

"There he is," His father declared, pointing at Clive as he chuckled in a strange, infectious enthusiasm. A smile plastered across his face, overpowering the gruff veneer his beard usually afforded him. The mysterious woman had gone stiff from his father's announcement. She faced Clive's father and Clive could only see the back of her head.

"Martim," she said to his father as the gentle giant continued to point at Clive from where he stood. "Don't startle him, this is going to be an adjustment for all of us," she turned around. It felt like she had been preserved in time, not a day had passed according to the lines on her face. There was a single tear that escaped her eyes as she forced a smile. Clive leaped from the final step and jumped in for an immediate hug. He held onto her tight, the kind of hug only a son could give and a mother could return. An embrace that spoke to the kind of hope Clive had held on to; that everything would be normal again.

"I'm so sorry honey, I got lost and it took me a lot longer to get back to you than I hoped," She said in a voice that could only be hers.

"Where have you been?" Clive asked in almost a whisper as he fought off the streaming tears from his face. Even after all these years he still felt tiny in her embrace.

"What's important now is that we're together again," She said as she tightened her hold on Clive.

Clive looked up to see her smiling face. She laughed and sighed and then laughed again louder but with more force. The laughter changed pitch, first a sign of relief but now an unnerving shriek. The color in her face began to fade, graying at first and then rapidly decaying. Pieces of dry skin fell off like layers being peeled, dropping from her face like wilting leaves in the fall. Clive couldn't move as the laughter grew in its intensity. The room and its surroundings began to lose color, draining with the creature's vile sound. Clive had been locked in tighter as another joined the hug and Clive noticed his father holding him more steadily in their combined embrace. They began to sink, the floorboards became like quicksand and they were being enveloped by the house; descending into its depths, drowning. "Isn't this what you've always wanted?" The creature screeched. "Now we can be together forever."

Clive opened his eyes and his hands grabbed both his neck and his collar. He whimpered and moaned as he struggled for air, hyperventilating. His body reacted as though he were being suffocated; as if the air in his lungs were being sucked out directly.

'It was all a dream,' Clive uttered to himself. His heart was racing, his body trembling, shivering as if he were thrust into the cold. Clive loosened the grip on his collar, his breathing steady and the panic subsided. His hands pushed down on the mattress to brace himself and he felt the soaked bed beneath him. He was drenched, every inch and crevice of his body covered in sweat.