The Mouth of the Dark by Tim Waggoner

Author:Tim Waggoner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, fantasy
Publisher: Flame Tree Press
Published: 2018-08-12T23:38:57+00:00

Chapter Nine

Jayce knocks softly on Emory’s bedroom door. She doesn’t answer, but he can hear her crying inside. The sound is muffled, and he imagines her lying on her bed, her face buried in her pillow. He knocks again, a bit louder this time.

“Emory? Sweetie? Can I come in?”

Again, no answer. He tries the knob, finds it unlocked, so he turns it, opens the door, and steps inside. He debates whether to close it behind him, and he decides that Emory might feel more comfortable talking if the door’s shut. And he doesn’t want Mackenzie coming by, noticing them talking, and deciding to intrude on their conversation. He closes the door, almost locking it to keep Mackenzie from entering, but he doesn’t. If she tries to enter and finds the door locked, she’ll get angry, probably yell at him and pound on the door. Emory doesn’t need that kind of stress right now, and honestly, neither does he.

Emory is thirteen, the same age he was when…when.… The memory refuses to coalesce and it fades before fully being born. He lets it go. Whatever it is, it isn’t important right now. All that matters is Emory.

She is indeed lying facedown on her bed – the same one she’s had since she was a little girl. She’s tall enough now that her feet almost hang over the edge, and he marvels at how fast the time’s gone. He knows this is a cliché, that all parents think the same thing as their children age, but that doesn’t make what he feels any less powerful.

She’s wearing a pair of purple pajama pants and a black T-shirt. He can’t see it the way she’s lying, but there’s a cross-eyed cartoon monkey on the front, below it the words I’m Bananas! It’s one of her favorite shirts. He wonders if she’ll come to associate it with tonight, and if so, if she’ll ever wear it again.

The walls and ceiling of her room are painted blue, and covering them are cute ocean creatures – an octopus, a stingray, a shark – all painted bright colors and sporting smiling faces. Jayce drew and painted them. He knows he’s not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, but he thinks they turned out all right. Even though their expressions are unvaryingly pleasant, he imagines they’re looking at him accusingly, as if they’re thinking, How could you do this to her?

It’s a question he’s been asking himself.

Not all of the happy sea creatures he painted are visible now. Emory’s taped up several posters of boy bands on the walls, covering some of her aquatic friends. More signs of how fast she’s growing up. The boys all look somewhat feminine and harmless, but they’re male and that makes them a threat, at least in Jayce’s eyes. She has a bookshelf against one wall filled with her favorite series – Narnia, Oz, Warriors, American Girl – and next to it is an open chest filled with stuffed animals that she no longer sleeps with but which she can’t bring herself to get rid of.

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