Page 2 of Butterfly Effects

Because her mother was dead. The memory flooded back with the same suddenness it always did, laced with an acidic agony that burnt her thoughts when she let herself dwell on it for too long. Her parents were dead. They had gone for a car ride, and then they died, and she’d been at a sleepover at Amy’s house, because she liked Amy and Amy’s dad made the best waffles she’d ever had, so she hadn’t been with them. She hadn’t been able to say goodbye, and now they were gone forever, and everyone who saw her tried to take her home with them, like she was a lost puppy or something.

And now she’d been kidnapped.

Fighting the urge to curl under the blankets and cry, Sarah forced her locked-up muscles to untense enough to let her sit up in the bed, clutching the covers around herself. She was wearing a nightgown she didn’t recognize, white flannel with blue flowers, and it was warm and soft and she wanted to like it, but she thought you probably shouldn’t like things kidnappers gave to you.

She slid out of the bed, toes sinking into the soft carpet, and padded soundlessly to the bedroom door. Testing the knob, she found that it was unlocked and slipped out into the hall, following the sound of voices. The children she’d met before were laugh-shrieking about something, and the heavy rumble of an adult voice rolled beneath them, tolerant and amused.

If there were children, it was probably safe for her to go there, and she didn’t want to be alone in this scary new place, not when her parents were dead and she didn’t know where her shoes were. She walked onward, taking note of the smudged wallpaper and the photographs on the walls. As always, the pictures confused her, a little. Why did people like to take pictures of other people so much? It wasn’t like you could tell who you were looking at once there wasn’t a mind behind the face to make it individual.

At least these people had a reasonable number of pictures centered on the places, not the individuals who were there. It was like a travelogue in pieces, spread out across the hallway walls.

Then she reached the kitchen doorway, and stopped dead.

The three kids she’d already met were at the table, along with the two adults from the front seat, and a new man, who was even harder to look at than the children, all of whom were a little fuzzy and hard to see properly. This man was blurry and smeared, like he was standing in a deep shadow that kept her eyes from focusing. It made her uncomfortable to look at him too directly. He turned his face toward her as she stood in the doorway, and the children stopped laughing, conversation dying out as everyone joined the new man in watching her.

The woman was the first one to react. She stood, pushing back her chair with a soft scrape against the linoleum, and moved toward the counter. “You’re awake,” she said, like Sarah might not have noticed. “Do you want something to eat? There’s V8, and I can make you some sweet tomato waffles. They’re my own recipe.”

“They’re weird,” said the fairer-haired of the two girls among the children, leaning forward and speaking in a conspiratorial tone. “Grandma makes blueberry waffles too, and they’re lots better. Tell her you want blueberry.”

Sarah bit her lip. “I like tomatoes,” she said, voice quavering.

“I know you do,” said the woman. “It’s the solanine—a chemical found in tomatoes. It’s in other things, too, but tomatoes are the easiest way for you to get it. And my tomato waffles aren’t weird, Verity, they’re just not to your taste. I candy cherry tomatoes, chop them up, and mix them with the batter the same way I would blueberries. I didn’t offer them to you.”

“Sorry, Grandma,” said Verity, shrinking down in her seat.

The new man moved then, rising from his chair and moving closer to Sarah, who flinched away. “She looks just like you, Mom,” he said.

“We’re a species with low personal variance,” said the woman. “We never needed it.”

“Can she see me? Sorry, that was rude—can you see me?” He shifted his attention to Sarah for his second question.

Sarah twitched but managed not to recoil. “I … Not very well? You’re sort of blurry, and my eyes don’t want to focus on you.”

“That’s because you don’t look at people with your eyes,” he said, and reached up, removing a chain from around his neck.

He suddenly snapped into perfect focus, becoming a normal man who looked a bit like the woman who was making her a waffle, and a bit like the man still sitting at the table with the kids. He felt like the basement back at home, cool and safe and stable, a place she could go to hide from storms, where she could be safe among the spiders.

“My name is Andrew,” he said. “Most people call me ‘Drew.’ I’m a kind of person called a bogeyman, which means I don’t like bright lights, and I’m wearing a special necklace that blocks telepathy from reaching me, which is why you can’t see me very well.”

“I can see you just fine now,” said Sarah.

“I know,” said Drew, with a complicated ripple of discomfort. “Mom, I think this one’s yours.”

“I wanted to wait,” said the waffle lady.

“I know, but she was squinting at me like I was some invisible monster, and waiting isn’t always better than honesty.” He put the chain back on and went blurry again, the feeling of cellar-safety fading away.

At least now Sarah knew what he looked like, and while she couldn’t see him properly anymore, she could track him as he moved back to his seat.

The woman popped a waffle out of her waffle maker, shaking her head, and carried it over to the table. “I have butter, syrup, and ketchup, Sarah,” she said. “Come sit, and have breakfast. Did you want some V8?”

“Yes, please,” said Sarah, suddenly shy. She moved to sit, waiting until she was settled, the waffle smelling amazing in front of her, to ask, “Are you my kidnappers?”

“No, sweetheart,” said the woman. “We’re your helpers. I’m so sorry about what happened to your parents.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“Do you have any grandparents we could call?”