I am an only child by default. Clayton, my older brother, had the audacity, and the brilliance, to die one month before my birth. He told me that one day, soon, he’ll tell me why.

     “When it’s the time for you to know —  and it is coming soon — ” he said, “I’ll explain it all. Right now, just know, Felicity, that I’ve been here so you wouldn’t be alone.”

  

* *

 

     “Stop slouching.”

 

     My grandmother’s command broke the silence at the dinner table.

 

     Mother glared at me and I pressed my shoulders back against my chair until I felt the wooden slats imprinting themselves into my skin.

 

     “I’m talking to you,” Grandmother said.

 

     I looked across the table to see her looking at my mother. I glanced at Daddy, but he was acting like he wasn’t there. I decided to do the same.

     Mother squared her shoulders.

 

     Silence came again. Minutes later, Grandmother’s eyes roamed the table inspecting everyone’s plate. Beneath her stare, I scooped up the last of my meal with my fork, careful not to scrape the plate.

 

     “How old are you now Felicity?”

 

     “Six,” I said, lifting my eyes to hers. Was she surprised at how tall I was for my age? How smart? Did she think I was a pretty girl?

 

     “And you still play with dolls?” My eyes darted to Darcy, lying by my plate.

 

     “I like dolls,” I said.

 

     “There’s nothing wrong with liking dolls,” Mother cut in.

 

     Grandmother laughed a little as she turned her attention to her daughter. “You’re going to start again, aren’t you?”

 

      “You had no right getting rid of my dolls. I loved Katie Doll —”

 

     “Are you going to cry about that doll forever?” Grandmother asked. “You were too old for it when I got rid of it and, believe me, you’re too old for it now!” She turned again to me. “You still play with dolls?”

 

     I opened my mouth, but she didn’t give me a chance to say anything.

 

     “Get that toy off my table,” she snapped.

 

     I pulled on Darcy’s leg and she slid off the table.

 

     “You are here to eat, young lady. Playtime is over.”  Grandmother pushed her chair back. She stood and came toward me. “You have no manners. I understand why, but in my house, you will follow my rules and toys are not allowed at the table. Give it to me.”

 

     I looked at Daddy. He wouldn’t look at me. I turned to Mother. She stared at her plate. Grandmother thrust her hand before me. My trembling hand held Darcy out. The hand snatched the rag doll.

 

     “You are finished with dinner,” Grandmother told me. “Go and wait for bed.”

 

     I didn’t bother to look at Daddy or Mother. I pushed my chair back, apologized for being bad like Grandmother expected, and left the room.

 

     Clayton was sitting at the foot of the stairs. “It’s safer to be sent away,” he assured me as he rose and walked with me up the stairs. “It’s always better to be out of sight.”

 

     I was lying on the bed, laughing at the shadow people Clayton was making on the ceiling when the bedroom door opened. When I saw that it was Mother, I glanced at her hands. They were empty. My heart flattened.

 

     “I don’t want you causing anymore trouble,” Mother told me as she ripped my blouse over my head. She yanked my nightgown on and twisted my arms into the sleeves. “But —” Mother’s eyes bore down on me.

 

     I nodded. I slid under the covers Mother held up. “Are you going to bring me Darcy later?”

 

     Mother turned toward the door. “No.”

 

     “But I always sleep with her!” I argued.

 

     “Not tonight,” Mother replied as she turned off the light and closed the door.

 

 

**

 

 

    “I don’t think I can stand this another day,” I told Clayton after breakfast. My brother and I were walking down to the creek.  Mother said she and Daddy were going to have an important talk with Grandmother. I was told to go outside and not return until lunch.

 

     My brother didn’t reply. He kept going, stopping occasionally to examine rocks and pebbles, pocketing those that interested him, but he’d been quiet all morning.

 

     “Three nights.  Darcy must be really scared.  I don’t understand why Mother doesn’t get her back for me. I mean, in most of the pictures of Mother as a kid, she’s holding that doll of hers.”

     “Katie Doll.”

 

     “Katie Doll.  In every picture, Mother has her.”

 

     “Until Grandmother got rid of her.”

 

     “Mother should understand how I feel.” I sighed. “She's so mean. Why did we come here to see her?”

 

     “Mother has some news for her.”

 

     “She couldn’t’ve told her over the phone? I wish we were home even though I hate it there too.”

 

     Clayton chuckled. “She’s a lot calmer than she used to be.”

 

     “You’re kidding. She was meaner than this?”

 

     Clayton was concentrating on something he’d unearthed with a stick.

 

     I trotted down the trail and squatted by him.  “Clay, was she really meaner? Tell me.”

 

     He looked up, but not at me. His voice was low. “Since Grandfather died, she’s more . . . tolerable.” He seemed lost somewhere, then he turned to me. “You would have loved Grandfather. He wasn’t nice all the time, but he was better than Grandmother. And yes, she’s mean. Very. But forget about that.” Clayton pointed to something with the twig in his hand. “Look at them.”

 

     I watched the red ants scurrying around.

 

     “I used to have an ant farm,” he told me. “I used to just watch and watch them. Mother liked that ‘cause she didn’t have to deal with me for hours.” He laughed in a funny way as he stood and started walking again.

 

     “Were you lonely, Clay? Mother almost always says ‘no’ whenever I want to bring someone over. If you hadn’t shown up, I don’t think I’d ever get to play with someone.”

 

    “I wasn’t alone, Felicity.”

 

     In the face of my curious look, he smiled. “One day, I’ll tell you about it. Promise.” He glanced at the creek nearby. “Let’s find some crawdads,” he suggested and took off running.

 

    “This ‘day’ when you explain everything to me is going to be quite a day,” I yelled out to him.

Clayton turned. He stopped. He nodded. “That day will change your life,” he told me.

 

 

**

 

 

     I sat on the back step and removed my shoes. I pulled the screen door open and went inside. Making sure my sweaty socks didn’t leave prints on Grandmother’s floor, I made my way to the staircase. Just before I lifted my foot at the first step, I heard hushed crying.

 

     I glanced into the living room. Mother was sitting on the couch, her face in her hands. Father stood by the fireplace, his hands in his pants. He was staring at the picture above the mantle. Grandmother was at the window, her arms crossed around her. She was staring outside.

 

     I was about to drop down to the floor, creep near and listen to what was going on, but Clayton didn’t let me. I felt his hand at my back, pushing me back towards the staircase.

 

     “No,” he said in a firm tone as he led me noiselessly to the room I was staying in. We lay on the floor and watched the birds in the nest on the branch near the window.

 

     “I wish I could fly,” I said.

 

     “You must get that from Grandfather. He loved birds.  He used to take me out to watch them whenever we came to visit. He knew so much about things.  Did you know part of the land across the creak was Indian land?  Once we found an arrowhead.  Grandfather had some man look at it and he said it was authentic.  Grandfather had a chance to sell it but he gave it to me.”

 

     “What happened to it?”

 

     Clayton thought.  “It has to still be in my room.  Have you ever seen it?”

 

     “I told you that I’m never allowed in your room.  Don’t you think it’s weird that Mother’s never changed it or even packed away your things?”

 

     “She’s very dramatic,” Clayton said.  “She wants . . .”

 

     “She wants what?”

 

     Clayton shook his head.  “Nothing.”

 

     The bedroom door opened.  Mother stared at me.  “Get off that floor,” she instructed as she came into the room.

 

     “Is it time for lunch?” I asked, standing.

 

     Mother went to the dresser and pulled open a drawer. I watched her take my clothes out and put them on the bed. She separated a pair of shorts and a tee shirt and gave them to me. “Change into clean clothes,” she told me as she turned and pulled my luggage from the closet.

 

     “Are we leaving?” My heart skipped with anticipated joy.

 

     “Yes,” she said as she packed my suitcase and left the room.

 

     I turned to Clayton.  We clasped hands and danced around the room.  I didn’t care that we were leaving two days early or that we would miss lunch. The car was packed and I was about to get in the car when I remembered Darcy.

 

     “I want my doll,” I said.

 

     Mother, Grandmother and Daddy turned to me. 

 

     “I’m not leaving until I get her.”

 

     “You are too old —”

 

     “You didn’t buy her,” I told Grandmother, although I feared I was asking to get hit.  “Daddy gave her to me. Daddy, make her give me the doll.  You bought it Daddy, you did.”

 

     Daddy’s face changed like he’d just learned something new.  “Give her the doll,” he said.  “Nobody else is dictating what happens to something I bought.”

 

     My heart swelled with pride, even though after Grandmother went inside, returned with Darcy and handed her to my father, he shoved the doll against my chest and said, “Now shut up.”

 

      Still, Darcy was happy to be going home!

 

    “We’re back to-ge-ther,” she sang. “La- la-la-la-la, we’re back to-ge-ther . . .” She danced on my knees.

 

     “Stop that noise,” my mother said from the front seat. “I don’t feel well and I don’t want to hear it!”

 

     But Darcy was too, too happy! She sang louder. “I won’t leave you again! Ne-ver, eeeee-veeeer! La-la-la . . .”

 

     “I SAID STOP IT!” Mother turned and over the seat, yanked Darcy away by her hair.

 

     I groped for my friend. The front passenger window came down. My head, and Clayton’s, twirled to watch out the back window as Darcy bounced across the road.

 

     My sight blurred. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

 

     Clayton put his hand on my back as he lowered his head onto the back seat cushion. “I’ve always hated these family vacations,” he said.

 

 

**

 

 

     Clayton sighed and put the dice on the game board.  “This is boring,” he said.

 

     “Well, it’s quiet.”

 

     “I want to do something different.”

 

     “As long as it’s quiet,” I said, reminding him that Mother was resting.

 

     “Let’s go in my room.” I shook my head.  I was forbidden to ever go in there.

 

     “Come on,” he said.  “I’ve got some cool things I could show you.”

 

     “Go yourself.  You’re a ghost.  Walk through the wall.”

 

     Clayton stuck his tongue out at me.  “I can’t. I only have access through you.”

 

     I thought about it.  It would be fun to see the things Clayton had.  But if Mother caught me … “We’ll do it another time.  When Mother’s out of the house.”

 

     “Now’s a good time.  If we’re real quiet, she won’t know.  Please, Felicity.  Please.”

 

     There was no way I could look in my brother’s aching eyes and tell him no.  “Okay,” I said.  “Okay.”  I opened my door and crept across the hall.  I opened the door a little and peeked in.  Mother was asleep on her bed.

 

     I pulled the door back closed.  I joined Clayton outside the door of his bedroom.  I reached for the doorknob.  I took a breath. 

 

     “Open it.”

 

     I turned the knob and pushed the door.

 

     Clayton took slow steps in.  “It’s just the way I left it.”  He stood in the room and turned around, eyeing it all. I closed the door behind us.

 

     He smiled at his poster of Spiderman.  “I forgot I had that!” he exclaimed, spying a cigar box on his dresser.  He went to it and flipped the lid up.  “My baseball cards are still here!”  He sat down and began sorting through them.

 

     I opened his closet.  Toys were piled in a cardboard box.  I started pulling them out, one-by-one.

 

      “You played with dolls?” I asked, holding up a plastic soldier.

 

     Clayton came over and grabbed it from me.  “It’s an action figure,” he said.

 

     “A doll.”  I momentarily thought of Darcy, but pushed the memory away before I began to cry.  I started going through the box again.  I heard Clayton opening drawers behind me.

 

     “Found it!” he said.

 

     I turned.  Clayton held what looked like a rusty, triangular stone in his hand.  He brought it over.  “It’s real.”

 

     I shrugged.  It just looked like an old rock.  I turned back to the toys.  Clayton was studying the treasure in his palm, then he jerked his head toward the door.  “She’s up.’”

 

      I threw the toys back in the box, trying to be quick but quiet. “Put the arrowhead back and the cards.”

 

     Clayton hurried to replace things.  I eased the door open and heard Mother in the bathroom. I tiptoed out into the hall.  Clayton grabbed my hand and pressed something into it.  The arrowhead.

 

     I shook my head.  “You’ve got to put this back!”

 

     “I can’t.  I’m here to get the things that matter.  Grandfather gave it to me, Felicity.  If I don’t get it now, I may not ever be able to.  There isn’t much time.”

 

     “What are you talking about?”

 

     “I can’t tell you . . . yet. But you have to take this out of the room. Will you?”

 

     I nodded.  The bathroom door creaked open.  I would never make it to my room.  I dropped the arrowhead among the stones in the potted plant in the hallway. I glanced back.  The door to Clayton’s room was open.  I raced back, reached for the knob.

 

    “What are you doing? Who told you, you could go in there?” My mother’s hand clamped on my shoulder, whirled me around to face her.

 

     “WHY WERE YOU IN THERE? What did you do?” She pushed the door open wider and her eyes raced through the room. She turned to me. “Did you take anything from in here? Did you?

     “Do you have anything from in there?” Mother knelt and her hands rummaged furiously through my jeans pockets.

 

     “I don’t have anything,” I said, facing her.  “I was just looking at the room.”

 

     “YOU ARE A LIAR AND A THIEF!” Mother pulled my pants down, searched my underwear.  She yanked them back up. “What did you take?” she yelled, as she smacked my thigh. “WHAT?”

 

     “I don’t have anything!”

 

     Her hand slashed across my cheek. She grabbed my hair in her fist and yanked my head about. “Don’t lie to me. DON’T!” She shoved me against the wall.

 

     I crumbled on the floor. Mother charged toward me, hand raised. I glanced down the hall. Clayton reached into the planter and pulled the arrowhead out. He slipped it into his pocket.

 

     “You lying little bitch! Where is it? What did you take?” Her hand slapped my shoulder again and again.

 

     I curled into a ball as I shook my head.

 

     “Tell the truth or it’ll be worse!” she screamed at me.

 

     I looked at Clayton. Help me, my eyes pleaded.

 

     Clayton nodded, but he never took a step toward me. Still he said, “I will Felicity. I promise I will.”

 

 

**

 

 

     The pebbles against the windowpane woke me.  I went to the window and looked out. Clayton was sitting in the tree house father had built him years ago.

 

     I opened the window.  “Where have you been?” He had disappeared the day we went into his room, four days ago.  “I thought you left me.”

 

     “No. I would never do that. “

 

     “I thought you only wanted the arrowhead.”

 

     Clayton shook his head. “The only reason I ever came back was for you.  And I’m here for you now, for good.”

 

     “What?”

 

     “I want you to come with me.”

 

     “Go with you?  And how do I do that? What do you want me to do?”

 

     “I want you to jump out the window.”

 

     “I’ll die,” I said.

 

     He nodded. “Yes,” he told me.

 

     “Will it hurt?”

 

     “Once you’re on the other side, you won’t remember.”

 

     Why was he asking me to do this?

 

     “You said you came back to help me.”

 

     “I’m here to save you, Felicity.” Sadness swept across his face.  “Mother is pregnant.”

 

     A baby! “When?”

 

     “In a few weeks. There’s something wrong; that’s why Mother’s not feeling well a lot of the time. The baby will be born early.”

 

     “It’s going to be hard for her.  Worrying and caring for two children.  And when it gets too much  — the crying, the needing, the constant attention the baby will take — she’ll take more of her frustrations out on you. And that’s why I’m here now. To save you from that.”

 

     My head swirled. There was so much I didn’t understand.

 

     “Mother wants children. And she wants to love us, Felicity — she does — but she can’t. She doesn’t know how because she closed her heart when she was a little girl. Her child soul, the part of her that would let her play with us and delight in us and protect us, isn’t inside her anymore.”

     I shook my head, growing suddenly angry. “I don’t believe you!”

 

     “Then believe her,” he said.  Clayton turned from me. His hand beckoned and my eyes moved in the direction he was looking.

 

     A little girl — the little girl in the photographs at Grandmother’s house — stepped forward, emerging from the darkness. She held Katie Doll — and Darcy! — close to her heart. She smiled at me. I bit my lip and squeezed my eyes tight.

 

     “Mother wants you to live at Grandmother’s.  That’s why you went there.  But Grandmother wouldn’t take you.   After the baby comes too soon, she’ll agree to it. But I can’t let you go there so we’re here so you can come with us.”

 

     “And what about the baby? Are we just going to leave the baby to be hurt?”

 

     Clayton shook his head. “We’ll be back. Mother won’t hurt him right away. She’ll actually try to protect the baby even more once you’re gone. It won’t last and when it’s time, we’ll be back for him.”

 

    Him? I laughed in spite of my tears. “I’m going to have to spend eternity with two brothers?”

 

    Clayton smiled at me. “I promise we won’t torture you too much.”

 

    I swiped at my cheeks. I thought on it more. Again, still, I shook my head. “I don’t want to be a kid forever Clayton.”

 

     “You won’t be always. But we’re children now, Felicity, and childhoods are supposed to be happy.”

 

     I leaned out the window, measured the distance. It was a long way down. I leaned back in, thinking.  My legs turned wobbly beneath me. My knees fell to the floor. I crossed my arms on the windowsill and buried my face in them. There was no sound other than my loud and frightened tears.

 

     “Felicity, it’s time,” Clayton said finally.  “Come with me.”

 

     His words came into my room and stood behind me. They slipped under my armpits and raised me to my feet, balanced me as I worked my way onto the sill, braced me as I stood trembling on the outside ledge.

 

     Don’t look down, I thought.  Then I leaped off and reached for my brother’s hand.