Sunday night came and the boy looked at his bed in crestfallen sadness. Would he dread being curled up so close to Indie forever now? Would Indie shrink away from him again tonight, like he did the night before? He felt so alone but there were people all around him, people he would do anything for, people that filled his heart to the maximum capacity. Before Jay could catch him, he tucked the rest of his money under Jay’s freshly laundered pillow along with his own baseball cards, all of them hand-me-downs from the other brothers. He gently patted the pillow in affection and crawled into his own bunk.

Sometime in the middle of the night the boy woke when a strange darkness shadowed the room. He blinked his eyes open and gasped. A spectral bleached face was inches from his, watching him. He flickered his eyelids again and it was gone. He reached for Indie.

“Indie!” Fright laced his voice, alerting his brother out of a sound sleep.

“What is it, Rat?” He sat up and looked about.

“I saw a face, just here, near my own face.” His tiny hand shook in terror as he held his hand up inches from his nose. “I swear to God, Indie. I saw a man’s face. He was awful white and had the scariest eyes. He was lookin’ at me like he wanted to climb inside me and steal me away,” sobbed the boy. The panic had disgorged itself from him and he lost control, throwing himself into Indie’s arms.

“Hey, it’s ok, buddy. It’s ok, Ratty. Shh.” Indie had been lurched awake by the real terror in the boy’s voice. “You were dreamin’,'' Indie insisted.

“No, Indie. I wish I was. I wish to God it was a dream. But I swear. You gotta believe me. It’s them that’s takin’ the people, I bet and they’re gonna take me.” His crying reached a crescendo and Indie saw Jay stir in his sleep.

“Shh, Ratty. You’ll wake Jay and we’ll be in deep shit then. Shush.” His brother pulled him tighter against his chest and he knew that Indie felt his tiny heart beating impossibly fast. His fear was real, even if what he had seen should not be possible, even if Indie did not believe him. The older brother drew him under the covers with him, tucking his face in his chest. But the boy turned back again and looked to the window with eyes so wide that they reflected light in an eerie way.

“Try to go back to sleep, Ratty. I’ll stay awake until you do so nothing will get you,” humored Indie as he stroked the boy’s hair off his forehead. An icy sweat stuck to his palm and he frowned. The boy began to tremble in his arms, shivering so much that the older boy wondered if he was having a fit.

“I c-c-can’t sleep n-n-now, Indie.” Chattered the boy, his teeth knocking together painfully. “I’m t-too scared.”

“Trade me spots, Rat. I’ll take the outside and keep watch over you.” The boy nodded and crawled over his brother’s lap to curl into a small, trembling ball near the wall. Indie slipped the covers around him and lay down facing him. “Still want me to hold you?” He offered and opened his arms. The boy’s face looked guilty and he blinked tears out of his large, bulbous frightened eyes.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“You’re not mad at me anymore?” he asked.

“I wasn’t ever mad at you, Rat. I was…I am scared.” Indie replied and motioned the boy into his arms again. As he scuttled closer to Indie he felt even sadder.

“I would never hurt you, Indie. Don’t be afraid of me.”

“I ain’t scared of you. Not really, anyway. I think it’s more afraid of…what you did. Maybe surprised would be a better word. And there’s…” His words drifted off. He rested his cheek on the boy’s soft curls. “It just seems so impossible that I can’t really make my mind see how you did it. Do you understand?”

“Like when you can’t figure out your math and Jay has to help you?” The innocent comparison made Indie scoff.

“Not quite, but sorta, I guess.” He took a deep breath, thinking aloud. “I think the best way for me to describe it is like when you see the twins drawin’ and you think ‘I know they are real good at this, but they are just like me, really, so I should be able to do it too, but where to start?’ And when you pick up a pencil all you can draw are stick figures because, of course you can’t really do what they do with pencil. They have somethin’ inside them that lets them make such beautiful art.” He stopped whispering and waited for a response. The boy thought about what he had said and decided there was nothing he could say to clarify the idea for him. So he changed tack.

“Do you want to see me get the spoon back?” Indie held his breath, still as a statue and the boy felt his skin ripple in goosebumps on his arm.

“No, Rat. No, thank you.” Then after a beat. “Where did you put it?”

“I call it my secret place. It’s cold and wet, but not icky wet. It’s more like a creek and then a dry spot under the water. But not a real creek. It’s inside my mind. I can hide a lot of things. But too many things in my secret place makes my tummy and chest hurt. Sorta like I have to pee but not down there.” Indie stopped him.

“Ok, ok, Rat. That’s enough. Let’s sleep now, ok? I’m starting to feel dizzy again.”

“I’m sorry I scared you, Indie. Thank you for believing me.” His shivering had ceased and a yawn, long and wide, broke his face in two. Indie whispered after a minute of chewing on his lip in quietude.

“Rat, do you use the same special place to see things, too?”

“Mm?” the tiny voice asked. He raised his eyebrows with his eyes closed.

“Never mind. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

“’Kay. Night.” The ball of brother in Indie’s arms relaxed and started to snore softly in the familiar way that Indie secretly treasured. He placed a tender kiss on the five-year-old’s brow and whispered to him, thinking that he could hear him no longer.

“I love you, Rat.”