❝ I am always dreaming, even when I am awake. ❞
“ then they can’t be very good dreams.”
her nightdress is too long for her, drags upon the ground & dusts floors with its hem, tangles in her feet as skinny little legs clamber up, kneel at foot of bed. eyes wide as two small moons gaze at brother, luminous. (when she speaks she speaks in just a whisper, cannot wake mary-lou, nor chastity, can’t wake anyone at all, she’s begun to think she’ll ALWAYS have to whisper).
- - - not very good dreams at all, if they all look like this, like chapel and new salem pamphlets, like mary lou and kids with soup bowls, like dreary rooms, and she’ll only say things like this with CREDENCE, where she’s SAFE, where the truth doesn’t hit like a belt-snap.
“it’s alright, you didn’t wake me. i couldn’t sleep. i think there’s a BAT in the attic, again. i could hear it flapping.” and so she’d wandered, tiptoed, heard him say something, thought he must be dreaming, came to find him here. “so you didn’t wake anyone else, either.”
it’s so LONELY here, all day, even with the other children, sometimes there’s only HER and sometimes - - well, sometimes ONLY HER feels much too big, like there are seams in her skin and she’s bursting through them, like there’s something she can’t-quite control, and those days she sings more than ever, witch’s awful fates a chant to chase it all away.
“don’t make me go back, yet? please? i’ll be very quiet, and i’ll only whisper. promise.”