Page 85 of Goldilocks

“If you promise not to burn down my boat.”

That hope flared, his entire expression changing. Brightening. His lips curled up. A smile. An honest-to-Godsmile.

“Promise,” Austin said.

Chapter Thirty

Sam stopped his car at the end of the driveway, parallel to the road, so he could pull out at a moment’s notice. The curtains hung shut, the glass so dirty that even if they’d been open, Sam doubted anything within would have been visible. Potholes littered the driveway on the way to the house, and Sam stared at it, confirming to himself what he’d already decided.

His dad wasn’t coming back here.

Sam couldn’t make him. Not to a place that made his gut clench with unease and fear just to look at. It didn’t matter if this was the home where Sam had grown up. The home where the only fleeting memories of his mother were set: a warm hand brushing back his hair, soothing him with gentle words as Sam cried because he’d slipped on a wet garden stone and hit his head on a planter.

Sam had been more upset by the broken planter than his hurt head. He’d hardly registered the ache at all, distraught that the planter he’d painted for his dad’s birthday was destroyed before he could gift it. Sam shut his eyes, focusing on the warm hand. The voice. And he realised with a throb in his head, as if he’d hit it once more, that the voice was male; it wasn’t his mom soothing him.

It was Eric reassuring him that it was okay, that they’d get him another one for Sam to paint and not to worry. Eric had cried too, upset that Sam was upset, though he was trying his best to be a strong older brother for him.

Even as the headache bloomed larger in Sam’s head, he dug out his phone and tapped through the icons, found his way to Eric. Not by reading. He’d not been able to read a word for days now. But Eric was the second last person he’d called, thanks to Mary, and Sam knew that his name was at second on the list. He hit the call button.

“Hey,” Eric answered on the first ring. “Hey. Thanks for calling me back. Everything kept going straight to voicemail. I was worried.”

“I was out of signal range. Sorry about that.”

“No worries. I just wanted to double-check what time you wanted to meet tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. We said afternoon, but does that mean twelve, or closer to lunch?”

Eric didn’t forget, Sam realised abruptly. He didn’t make plans he had no intention of seeing through.

“Do you remember when we were younger that we got Dad a planter for his birthday? I painted it, and then I accidentally broke it?”

A pained groan crackled through the speaker. “Do I remember you splitting your head open? I’ll never forget that, Sam. It still keeps me up at night. Seriously. I get stress dreams about it. Just ask Ivan – wait, you remember?”

“I thought it was Mom I remembered helping me,” Sam said. “But thinking about it, I realised it was you.” She’d died when he was four. He wasn’t carrying around a large planter pot at that age.

“Can you remember nice things about me too?” The hopeful note in Eric’s voice brought to mind Austin’s smile.

“You used to cut the crust off my sandwiches.” In Sam’s memories, that was his mom, but the memory morphed into a male figure. A doting brother.

“Yeah.”

“And you’d hum me to sleep when I’d come and bother you at night.” The image of his mom dissipated, and it was Eric. Eric rousing with a sleepy‘Come here’and making room for Sam next to him in his bed.

“I wouldn’t say you bothered me.”

Sam dug in deeper. Into every recollection he had of his mom and found with each internal prod that the image of his mom dissipated and it was Eric. Scattered memories of Eric disguised as recollections of his mom.

Hidden, so that they couldn’t be stolen.

Sam opened his eyes, a sense of something lurking washing over him. He looked to the window. To the curtain that was pulled back, and the grey shape standing half-concealed. Sam’s heart thudded hard in his chest. For a moment, he thought it was about to give out, but the muscle endured, pulsing fear and adrenaline through his system beat by painful beat.

Fear loomed over him like a great ferocious wave, cresting high and insurmountable.

“I was wondering if you wanted to come visit up here next weekend?” Eric asked.

Sam dragged in a ragged, unstable breath. He knew, didn’t he? That’s why he came here and parked at a distance. Far enough away that he could start the engine and drive away if he needed. Why he’d let Jasper come with him to this world with his sword. He reached for the golden knife, touching the warm metal resting against the hollow of his throat.