He turned, stared me in the eyes, the look of an expectant child waiting for you to give them the answers to every question they’ve ever had.
“What do you mean?”
I stumbled, unsure of how to answer. “I mean that… what if Andy was… too far gone? What if something… changed him?”
The grief in my father’s face deepened. “I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right. I feel like my life has been a jigsaw puzzle, and every time I move a piece, another one falls to the floor. Gone.”
“No,” I said, realizing where he was going.
“Yes,” he replied, shushing me. “If your mother had never died, Andy might not have turned out like he did.” He raised a hand to my cheek and added, “But I never would have gotten you.”
I let him cry. Let myself cry. Then I let the moment die and fall into the rearview mirror of the past. Maybe, when we were both old enough to believe in crazy things again, I’d tell him the truth. Maybe I’d get Andy to help me. Between the two of us, we might even convince him.
‘Maybe’ never came, and Dad was dead the next day. They buried him beside Mom. Three times a year I put flowers on their graves: once on each birthday, and then on their anniversary.
The shattered pieces of the snow globe flew, raining down upon the stones like springtime hail. All I could do was watch the glistening shards of glass as they tinkled to rest on the cave floor. I couldn’t quite grasp what I was seeing, and from the look on his face, neither could the Thief. Only Andy seemed in complete control of himself as he defiantly sneered at the creature, whose chest was heaving, his nostrils flaring, his mouth open and soundless. That sight – of a hopeless, desperate thing staring at the aftermath of Andy’s temper – that was what brought me back. I didn’t say a word. I only grabbed Andy’s sleeve and began dragging him back down the hall of toys.
For a moment, Andy resisted, keeping his eyes locked on the Thief, the grim, awful satisfaction of what he had done shining on his face. Then, like cutting a thread, whatever held sway over my brother released its grip, and he turned to run.
The glowing, multicolored eyes of a thousand toys stared at us as we clambered back toward the exit, while behind us, the Thief’s deep, ragged breathing was beginning to break. The sound changed, morphing into something else entirely, a whine that rose to a whistling, high-pitched scream. It reminded me of a mother bird watching her eggs being devoured. I risked a glance back, just enough to see it frantically scraping the pieces together, pulling them into a pile even as they sliced into his bare hands. It was useless of course. What Andy had done would never be fixed, and the whine broke into an insane cry of miserable pain and anger. It would be coming for us, very soon and very angry, and I knew we’d never get out of there unless we did something to slow it down. We hit the edge of the aisle, back into the gloom of the cave, and I grabbed Andy and spun him around next to me.
“Why?” I said through my teeth as I slid off my backpack. “Why? Why? Why?”
“What are you doing?” he asked as I dug frantically through my supplies.
I ignored the question and continued asking my own. “Why, Andy? Why? Why? Why, Andy?”
I kept asking it, over and over, my voice like a record stuck on a scratch. I didn’t want an answer, not yet at least. I just had to ask the question. It was as if my body were filling with pressure, a frustrated steam that could only be released through my mouth.
“I don’t know,” he said, peering back down the aisle. “I don’t know. I really wish I knew.” His voice was on the edge of breaking. “Just hurry. We have to get out of here.”
The Thief was screaming now, a wild yowling like something out of a horror movie, and I knew our time was almost up.
“What are you doing?” Andy asked, but I already had the answer in my hands, the bundle of roman candles in my left, the lighter in my right.
“No!” Andy hissed. “He’s already mad enough to kill us.” His voice was as frightened as that of a child who had broken his first rule. “If you do that—”
“You smashed it!” I barked. “If I don’t do this, we’re already dead.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but the first wick was already lit. I turned toward the stack of toys and mashed the roman candle into a hollow of board games and began to light another. This one I tossed on top of the pile. Andy had stepped to the edge of the aisle, and he grabbed me just as I lit the third.
“He’s coming!”
I turned into the aisle and aimed as the sparks began to fly. The sight of the ball of white flame flying toward it made the Thief dive instantly into the row of toys for cover. I didn’t see where he went, but I let the candle finish as I showered the path in front of me with sparks. Beside me, the first two had already burned out, but I could feel the heat as the wall of ancient toys began to catch fire.
“That’s enough,” Andy said, pulling at me. “Please, let’s go.”
I couldn’t see the Thief anywhere, but I doubted my attack would be enough. There were three more candles left, and I evaded Andy’s grasp, rushed to the right-hand stack of toys, lit them, and mashed all three candles into a pile of dried-out Beanie Babies. By the time I stepped away, the cave was glowing as the right-hand stack caught with a whoosh.
I knew how old this stuff was, knew how amazingly dry this section of the cave had been, but nothing could have prepared me for how quickly it all went up. Suddenly, we weren’t trying to stoke a fire; we were trying to escape one. I slung my backpack across my shoulders, and as one, we turned and dashed up the slope toward the exit. Pieces of old cloth, bits of paper and burlap, and flaming wisps of cotton began to rain down on our heads and shoulders. Andy was in front, and once, a withered slip of baby-doll pants landed smoldering on his shoulder. I had to slap it out.
We hit the steep slope that would lead us out, and both of us began to clamber up. That was when I heard the screams. They were no longer screams of fear or anger, but of pure anguish. They were the screams of an old man watching his childhood home burn. I turned back just long enough to see the Thief silhouetted against the blazing fire. I can’t imagine how he could stand so close to it, how it wasn’t charring the flesh from his bones, but he refused to leave. He was crying, wailing, begging for the flames to recede as his clothes caught fire. It was a purely pitiful sight, and the only thing that took my eyes away from it was the smoke. It was building up overhead, billowing across the roof above us and pressing down like a wall of black death. I swooned and coughed, threatening to pass out on the spot, but I refocused on the climb, reaching for a solid handhold as Andy caught the lip of the tunnel overhead. He was able to pull himself up, and then, after balancing on one foot, I caught his outstretched hand. As he dragged me to the relative safety above, I heard a deep breath of air from behind me, and I dipped my head to see both of the giant stacks tumbling into a flaming heap where the Thief had been standing. I didn’t see the body get swallowed up in the wreckage, but I felt certain that it had been.
We fell on top of each other in the tunnel, faces slick and black with soot as the thunder rolled outside and within. Neither of us had the energy to move for a moment or two, but the growing stench of burning toys finally got us on our feet.
“You okay to walk?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I gasped. “You?”
He nodded. I wanted to ask him what had happened down there, why he had acted the way he did, what the last twelve hours had been like. But that was a conversation for another time.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
“Yeah. Dad’s waiting for you,” I felt compelled to add.