Little Emmett Read online

  “Can I come?” Emmett asked, suddenly uncomfortably alone on the ground. “I think I’m ready to go, too.”

  Tobie, having picked up a shovel to resume digging, dropped it back on the ground.

  “So you’re all leaving?” he said. “Well, fine. Tyler and I will stay and dig the fort all by ourselves, then. Huh, Tyler?”

  Tyler, reclining on his rock, answered, “Sure.”

  Tobie turned his back on the others as they turned their backs on him and, fueled by his embarrassment, stuck his shovel deep into the ground.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Sorry my brother can be such an idiot. He didn’t use to be like this. I don’t know why he acts like he does. Probably for attention or something.”

  They followed the creek upstream in the direction of home, Emmett’s and Clark’s hands in their pockets, eyes to the ground while Jackie talked on endlessly.

  “It probably has something to do with our brother. I mean, Tobie’s been different ever since we got here, but it probably started before that, too. I know it changed me, when our brother started losing it. Now he’s in an asylum, and our parents probably, too. Tobie thinks they’re all dead, but… I think he’s just trying to be tough when he says that. It’s harder to wonder. I don’t know, though. It’s like… sooner or later, the whole world is going to be in an asylum. How do they even know when someone is crazy? I mean, yeah, our brother was definitely crazy. He thought people were talking to him who weren’t there. I even heard him talking to himself once. Then he tried to kill himself…”

  Emmett and Clark exchanged bewildered glances.

  Before much longer, the house was in sight. As they approached the house, coming around the side toward the front, Emmett felt the first sprinkle of rain on his face. They climbed the porch steps together, each of them moaning exaggeratively each step, harder and harder to walk the closer they were to home.

  “I feel rain!” Jackie said, as Clark opened the front door.

  Inside, they closed the door and kicked their shoes off. Mrs. Holmes emerged from the kitchen upon their arrival, happy to see them. Bailey sat at the kitchen table, coloring or making something crafty there.

  “Where are the other two?” Mrs. Holmes asked.

  “They wanted to stay longer,” Jackie said. “But I bet they’ll be back soon. It just started raining.”

  “Did it?” Mrs. Holmes pulled back one of the curtains, peeking out. She looked somber for a moment. She let the curtain fall back into place. Then, summoning one of her gentle smiles, she asked, “Is anyone hungry for lunch?”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  After lunch, Emmett slipped privately into their bedroom upstairs. The rain was coming down, blurring the window with its streaks. The room sat in a quiet, gray gloom. He knelt on the floor beside his bed, unzipped his bag, and removed his mother’s trinket. He turned it over thoughtfully in both hands.

  “Please be alive, please be alive, please be alive,” he whispered.

  He held it to his lips and kissed it. Then he climbed into bed, the trinket gripped in his fist, and closed his eyes until he forgot everything about anything.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  He didn’t nap long.

  The bedroom door opened and a sopping Tobie entered, rubbing a bath towel around his head. Emmett, awakening, checked that the trinket still lay in his hand. He rolled in bed and stuffed it quickly inside his bag. Tobie regarded this skeptically as he crossed to his own bed.

  “It’s just me,” he said, grimacing.

  Emmett rubbed his eyes. The window was still running with rain.

  “Did you just get back?”

  “Yep. It’s pouring outside. I tried to dig as much as I could, but… it got really muddy and heavy and… Tyler doesn’t help much. He wanted to leave.”

  “Mrs. Holmes was worried about you.”

  “Yeah, she wasn’t happy with us. Lucky for me Tyler gets most of the blame since he’s oldest. Serves him right…”

  To Emmett’s initial discomfort, Tobie stripped naked. Frantically trying to look anywhere else, Emmett lay back and stared at the ceiling.

  “I don’t know why he doesn’t run away if he hates it here so much.”

  Emmett took a careful glance as he heard Tobie collapse into bed, ready for a nap himself. Not feeling like getting out of bed yet, Emmett pulled his blankets over his body again. Then, before putting his head down, he considered his bag on the floor. Quietly, discreetly, he slid it underneath his cot, keeping it safe.

  He lay back and closed his eyes for a while longer.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Mrs. Holmes was in the kitchen setting up to start cooking when both the dogs jumped to their feet and hurried toward the front door. Jackie looked outside and noticed a car pull up. Tobie and Clark and Bailey went to the window to see for themselves, and Tobie announced, “Oh, it’s Eileen.”

  “Eileen?” Mrs. Holmes called from the kitchen. “Will one of you help her? She’s brought some things for dinner tonight.”

  As she asked this, Tyler was already at the front door, heading out. Tobie turned to his sister with a devilish smirk.

  “He can’t wait to see his girlfriend.”

  “She’s not his girlfriend,” Jackie said. “Not even close.”

  Emmett watched as Tyler returned inside with three full grocery bags in each hand, bulging and threatening to split all over the floor any second. Clark offered to help as Tyler waddled in, his skinny arms flexing what little muscle they had.

  “NothanksI’vegotit,” he spat.

  Not far behind him, a young woman followed with only two bags in hand. She closed the door behind herself. Both the dogs approached her, tails wagging, and she dodged around them with the groceries. When her eyes met Emmett’s, she smiled briefly, identifying him as a newcomer. His heart leapt into his throat. Immediately he saw how similarly she looked to her mother, and it was a startling revelation.

  “I’m here!” Eileen called to her mother.

  Irene hovered as her daughter set the grocery bags with the rest on the kitchen counter. Once her hands were free, they exchanged a long, tight hug. Tobie leaned in next to Emmett.

  “Watch Tyler,” he said, stifling his laughter.

  Sure enough, Tyler couldn’t take his eyes off Eileen. Leaning against the kitchen counter, he must have changed position eight or more times as Irene and Eileen greeted each other. As soon as they parted, he inquired what he might help with.

  Tobie plopped down next to Jackie, threw an arm around her shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “In three years, you’ll be fifteen, too, and you’ll still be too young for Tyler.”

  Jackie elbowed her brother in the ribs.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  It was lasagna for dinner that night. Emmett couldn’t believe how much of it they’d made, or better yet how delicious the whole house smelled.

  They sat and waited hungrily as Irene went upstairs to fetch Lionel. As she guided him into the kitchen, he regarded the room with the most frightening look of confusion Emmett thought he’d ever seen. Eileen stood from the table and opened her arms to her father.

  “Hey, dad.”

  All at once he didn’t look the least bit confused. He smiled so wide that his eyes were shut. They embraced for a long moment, Eileen whispering something which caused him to smile wider still. Once they were both seated beside each other, Irene began serving dinner.

  “Lasagna, lasagna, lasagna,” Bailey exclaimed, kicking her legs excitedly under the table.

  They ate and talked comfortably and Emmett listened, happy just to be in the background. A couple times Lionel abruptly started speaking about nothing in particular, interrupting any current conversation.

  “Oh yes, I’ve read that book!” he exclaimed at one point, and the table grew silent around him.

  “What book, again?” Eileen asked, and before anyone could think much of it, the entire table was shifted to a new topic.

  The funniest part, to
Emmett, was that after these outbursts and changes of subject, Lionel almost immediately lost interest, anyway.

  One person, however, was not amused. As Emmett peered across the table at Irene instead of Lionel like the others, he saw a terribly dark shroud around her, her eyes empty and far away.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  When dinner was finished, everyone stretched their arms over their heads and announced their satisfaction. All but Mrs. Holmes. She pushed herself away from the table and made an announcement.

  “I’m so sorry, everyone, but there won’t be any story reading tonight. I’m very tired. It’s been a long day…”

  Tobie and Jackie and Clark and Bailey all groaned in unison. Irene appeared both pleased and sorry to hear it. For a moment, Emmett thought she might change her mind.

  “I know, I know. Tomorrow, though, for sure. Tonight, I need my rest.”

  And with that, she excused both Lionel and herself and escorted him upstairs, the dogs close behind. The children remained at the table for a minute, slouching in their seats, resting their pouting faces in their hands.

  Now it was Eileen who stood. She pressed her lips tightly together, thinking as the others watched.

  “What if…” she said, a slyness to her raised brow, “I read something, instead? Something different, though, since I don’t want to steal my mom’s story from her.”

  This got everyone’s interest, as they sat up from their slouching.

  “Like what?” Bailey asked.

  “Well… we’ll have to take a look and see what else there is. Something we can finish in one go, though.”

  The others were grinning now, intrigued, their excitement restored. Tyler grinned, too, though his eyes betrayed a different reason altogether. Admiringly, he looked her over from head to toe while she paid him no attention at all.

  “But first…” She paused, passed her eyes over all their enraptured faces. “Who wants to help me clean up? And don’t forget! The faster the kitchen is cleaned, the sooner we can read something.”

  Emmett and the others had to admit—her argument was sound.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Thunder broke out, rolled over their heads as they pooled into the reading room. They stopped for a moment to listen. Big-eyed, Eileen looked directly at Bailey as the thunder receded.

  “Woah,” Eileen said. “Did you hear that?”

  Bailey nodded, mouth agape.

  “Pretty cool, huh?”

  Bailey, at first anxious, decided to agree that it was in fact pretty cool.

  In trying to find something they could read in a single night, Eileen found mostly children’s books. To her surprise, most everyone was fine with that.

  She was a fine reader, Emmett thought. Much like her mother, she had a talent for voices and dramatic effect. They finished the first book fairly quickly.

  “One more?” Bailey asked.

  “Can we make tea, too?” Jackie suggested.

  Eileen indulged them, and they took a quick break to make tea.

  The second story was short as well, but long enough that by the end, Bailey was sound asleep, her cup of tea as full as it started. Even when another wave of thunder bubbled across the sky, she didn’t stir.

  “We normally read for longer,” Tobie said, disappointed to already be done. “I haven’t even finished my tea, yet.”

  Eileen sighed, looked over her shoulder at the shelves of books, reluctant to grab another. She was a good storyteller, but she lacked her mother’s endurance, it seemed. It was unlikely she visited to babysit, after all…

  “I have an idea,” Tyler said. His voice, the deepest in the house aside from Lionel’s, always grabbed everyone’s attention. “What if we told some scary stories?”

  The room was silent. The children watched him expectantly. Their interest was piqued, but their better sense remained skeptical. It was Tobie who finally shared his thoughts.

  “Okay. Do you know any?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Tyler answered.

  Eileen frowned. “I don’t know… The last thing I need is my mom upset that I let you give everyone nightmares…”

  Tyler smirked. “Well, Bailey’s asleep, and—”

  “…unless you all think you’re brave enough to handle it,” she continued, and she wore a wicked grin, baring her teeth like a dog’s.

  Jackie shook her head disapprovingly. “Bailey’s already asleep, like Tyler said. You’re performing for the wrong crowd, I’m afraid.”

  Eileen couldn’t help being amused, even if Jackie’s attitude stemmed from a sour place.

  “You’re right, Jackie. You’re not a kid anymore, that’s so true. Any stories told from this point forward are told soberly, as they’re meant to be told. Because there’s nothing fun or funny about them.”

  Jackie sat back and pretended to take another sip from her cup, the tea therein already emptied. Tyler got up and repositioned himself next to Eileen’s chair.

  “What’s this story called?” Tobie asked.

  “Um… I don’t know if it has a name. But, for the sake of introduction, we’ll call it… The Humming Man.”

  “The Humming Man?” Jackie asked, dubious.

  “Yeah, The Humming Man. What’s wrong with that?”

  Tyler cleared his throat, eyes darting to Eileen who yawned in her mother’s reading chair. He scanned the children, swallowed once, and started.

  “Long ago, there was a man with a beautiful voice. He lived in a small village—”

  “How long ago?” Jackie asked.

  Tyler shrugged. “Like, a couple hundred years ago. Is that all right?”

  Jackie supposed it was.

  Tyler went on to tell the rest of his story. While he wasn’t the best storyteller, the story itself had most of their attention.

  It was the story of a lonely man. A man who spent all his time—whether he was working in the day as the village sweeper or alone at home late into the night—humming beautiful tunes. People often remarked on what a beautiful hum he had. Wherever he was heard, people stopped to listen. Even children paused their playing in the streets to hear him, and he was always happy to hum a tune for them.

  It wasn’t until one of those children went missing from the village that trouble started. A young boy. The village searched high and low, scouring every nook and cranny they could to find him. But they found nothing. And then, just as the village was losing hope, allowing themselves to grieve instead, the man with the beautiful hum found something terrible behind one of the village shops while sweeping one early morning. It was the boy. Dead.

  “Dead how?” Jackie asked, and her tone wasn’t skeptical or scrutinizing, but concerned.

  “Strangled,” Tyler said.

  It didn’t take long for the village to suspect the man who found the body. Suddenly, after that one fateful morning, it was as though they’d forgotten the pleasure he brought to the village with his beautiful hum. Ostracized, shunned, harassed, he was forced to withdraw into his home all day and all night, every day and every night. But that wasn’t good enough for the village. They needed a culprit. Someone to punish. And as easily as the man could conjure a pleasing tune, the village named him a murderer. One night, in a village-wide fit of panic and outrage, they burned down his house with him still inside it.

  “Wait, what? But they had no proof!” Tobie said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Tyler explained. “He found the body, so they decided he must have done it.”

  The children scoffed in unison. Tyler, grinning, continued.

  However, ever since his death, the town was plagued by a mysterious curse. Many more children began to go missing. They disappeared in the dead of night. Vanished from their beds. Some people claimed they saw strange things on those nights. A horrible, unimaginable beast wandering the alleys, peeking through the windows of their homes, creeping into their children’s bedrooms. What was even stranger, was what people claimed to have heard those nights. The distinct sound of a man humming. A man wi
th a beautiful voice.

  “And to this very day,” Tyler said, “All over the world, on nights like this, when children are taken from their beds and never heard from again… people claim to have heard his beautiful, humming voice.”

  “That’s not a true story,” Jackie said. “You didn’t tell us you were telling a true story. You made that up.”

  “I didn’t say I was telling a fake story, either.”

  “But it’s not true.”

  “I don’t know if it’s true or not,” Tyler said. “I haven’t seen or heard The Humming Man personally. But lots of people say they have. So…”

  “I’ve never met one person who knew anything about The Humming Man. Because you just now made it up.”

  Eileen stepped in before Tyler could say anything else.

  “It’s not a real story, guys,” she said. “Just for fun.”

  Looking around the room at the others—aside from Bailey, still fast asleep—Emmett didn’t think he was the only one who didn’t find the story particularly fun.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The story had been so much fun, Emmett lay awake an hour after climbing into bed still thinking about it. He dug his mother’s trinket out from his bag and lay with it held tight against his chest. He watched the corners of the room. His eyes flitted from one cot to the next, the dark spaces underneath, the other boys peacefully quiet. He tried turning his back to the room, to let his mind find sleep, but it only served to force his shoulders toward his neck as he cringed in anticipation of something creeping.

  Then, across the room, something moved. Something under the window. Emmett pulled his blanket over his mouth, smothering his heavy breathing. Whatever it was, it climbed up soundlessly, stood from Tyler’s bed…

  Because it was Tyler.

  Emmett closed his eyes—just in case—as Tyler tiptoed to the bedroom door. Once he was there, Emmett watched as Tyler gave a final look over his shoulder and crept into the hall and shut the door behind him.

  It was only a minute later that someone else climbed out of bed. Tobie. Much like Tyler, he tiptoed to the door. He stood and listened. Emmett sat up on his elbow, now curious.

  “What are you doing?” Emmett whispered.

  “None of your business.”