World 19F: Numbers
The little house with its fenced in yard and garden spot stood on its own with no other signs of habitation in sight. There was a dirt path that led out of a gate and across an open area of meadow and disappeared into a grove of trees. It was meant to be apart (even though it wasn’t nearly as apart as it looked). It was either cleverly hidden from what surrounded it beyond the tree line, or what surrounded it was cleverly hidden from it. It was an oasis designed for two, but only one of the two knew that that was the case. For the little girl who had spent nearly all of her nine years in the little house in the clearing, that was all that it was -- a little house in a clearing that was her home.
She didn’t know that what she had was special or unusual in any way. She didn’t know of the arguments and council meetings that had taken place over her living arrangements. She didn’t know of the dispensations that had been granted to allow them to be. The little house in the clearing was all that she knew; it was all that she had ever known. The woman who shared the home with her had given up much to keep it that way. There had been bargains struck and sacrifices made and risks taken. There had been lives given up and senses of self left behind, but the little girl knew none of these things. She knew the house with the yard and the garden. She knew the aunt who loved her, and nothing else mattered to her.
There were other little girls closer by than the little girl ever dreamed, but they didn’t have yards with fences. They didn’t have comfortable houses with their own bedrooms. They didn’t have doting aunts who tucked them in to bed and told them stories of wonderful things that reappeared in their dreams over the course of the night. They led very different lives -- lives that the people around them deemed better and safer and the proper way to be. The woman in the house with the little girl disagreed. She had something that the others wanted, and she traded it for what she wanted in turn -- the life apart in the clearing for the little girl under her care.
The dirt path was well traveled but never by the girl. The visitors who came and went on a daily basis had packed the ground well. The bargains that had been struck required that they travel back and forth as ambassadors between the world of the clearing and the world outside. Nothing of the clearing, however, could be seen very well at the moment. Dark had settled, and the glow of candles in the windows that usually appeared after the sun had gone down was not in evidence. The contented harmony of the two occupants was likewise absent -- likely because one of the normal occupants had been taken away only to be replaced by a new adult that the little girl didn’t know if she could trust.
“I know this is hard for you,” a male voice was saying. “I know you don’t understand, but I need you to think. We need to get out of here as quick as we can, but I need those numbers. She’s worked for this for too long to have left things to chance. Bette wasn’t that careless. She would have had a backup plan. She would have told it to you somehow so that you didn’t know what it was. Think about it. Was there something she said a lot? Was there something that she repeated for you -- a riddle or a joke or a bedtime story that was about numbers? Anything?” He looked at her expectantly, but Laurie had nothing to say to him. She didn’t want to say anything to him.
How was she supposed to be thinking? Her whole world had gone upside down. She didn’t even know this man in front of her who was demanding that she tell him things so that he could take her away. They had come and taken Aunt Bette away. They were always threatening to take someone away. They had always threatened to take her away. Those were some of her earliest memories, but they hadn’t taken her. They had taken Aunt Bette instead. She had never thought that they would take away Aunt Bette. They had all seemed so in awe of Aunt Bette somehow.
Well, most of them had. She could still remember the first time that she had seen the tall man with the stripes across the shoulder of his gray uniform. She thought she had been five. Mostly, she remembered the terror she had felt as the man’s hand had struck the side of her aunt’s face. The others had hustled the man out of the room, but he had been shouting as he went.
“Power shifts,” he had said. “Those that choose to coddle you won’t be in control forever.” She hadn’t known what it meant. She still didn’t know what it meant. She had just been happy that he had been gone. Others with the stripes on their shoulders appeared from time to time; none of them spoke directly to Aunt Bette. They just looked around and left again. They had been periodic, unimportant interruptions in their otherwise routine lives -- until today. The routine had all been broken today.
The man from her memories had returned this afternoon. He hadn’t been shouting this time. He hadn’t hit Aunt Bette again. He had simply stood there looking pleased with himself as the others tied Aunt Bette’s wrists together behind her back and marched her out the door. It had happened quickly, and it had happened quietly. No one had acknowledged the confused little girl in the corner. Aunt Bette had wanted her to keep quiet, so quiet she had remained even though she wanted to yell at them and kick them and make them stop. They had taken Aunt Bette, and they had left her alone.
She hadn’t known what to do. She had never been alone before. She had never been without Aunt Bette. She didn’t know whether they would remember that she was there or not. She didn’t know if one of them would come back and tie her wrists together like they had Aunt Bette’s. She wondered if she would be left in the little house that felt too big and too empty now that she was the only one there. She didn’t know what to do except to wait. She had curled herself up in the comfy chair in the corner -- the one her Aunt Bette called the rainy day book reading chair. She had waited, but she hadn’t known why she was waiting. There was nothing else that she could think of to do.
It had gotten dark outside when she had jumped at the sound of the door to the house swinging open with the creaking sound that it always made. Aunt Bette had always liked the creak. She said it helped stop people from trying to be sneaky. Laurie thought maybe she had fallen asleep for a while curled up there in the chair, but she didn’t know for sure. All she had known was that there was a man she had never seen before standing in front of her. He wasn’t dressed in the gray uniform that everyone that had ever visited their home before had worn. It was too dark to see colors, but she could make out buttons trailing down the front of the shirt. None of the visitors ever had buttons. They all wore the same gray pullover shirts -- some with stripes and some without. Only Aunt Bette’s clothes had buttons.
It was enough for her to notice, but she didn’t have time to wonder why that was. It didn’t matter that his shirt had buttons. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t in a uniform like all of the others that she had ever seen. There was only one thing that mattered. He was a stranger, and she wasn’t to trust strangers. Aunt Bette had made that very clear. She wasn’t even to trust people who weren’t strangers. She saw someone every day when they came to bring papers to Aunt Bette. Sometimes, it was the same person for months at a time, but she was still not to trust them. She was only to trust Aunt Bette. Aunt Bette was the only person who was safe.
A clicking sound had caught her attention an instant before a pool of light appeared on the floor in front of her. She had blinked at the brightness and noticed that the light was coming from a sort of stick that the man in front of her was holding in his hand. It made whatever was in its path easier to see, but it left shadows over everything that remained outside of the little circle of light -- like the man’s face.
“Flashlight.” Her mind had supplied the word for the object that he was using even though she had never seen one before. Aunt Bette had explained them to her because they were mentioned in stories. They ran on something called batteries she remembered (because remembering things was easier than thinking about how she was scared), and Aunt Bette had said that they couldn’t get batteries. She looked at the flashlight and the way that the light spread out in front of it. The idea of the
m that she had had in her head had been close, but it wasn’t exactly the same as seeing one for real.
“It’s uncanny how much you look like your mother at that age, Laurie,” a voice had spoken drawing her attention away from the flashlight and back to the man who was holding it. “I’m James,” he’d continued as if there was nothing strange about someone appearing in her house in the middle of the night holding something that she had thought didn’t exist in the real world. She continued to stare, and his voice sounded a little bit unsure. “Bette did tell you about me, didn’t she?”
She had nodded (because Aunt Bette had), and he had seemed to take that as a reason to jump into a series of statements and questions. Laurie had processed very little of it. She was scared, she was confused, and she just wanted them to bring her Aunt Bette back to her. None of that left her ready to deal with a stranger (even if he might not be a stranger because he might be someone that Aunt Bette had told her was safe). Bits and pieces of what he said managed to break through the confusion in her head. He was going to take her away. He needed something that Aunt Bette left for him. She needed to tell him some numbers so that they could go. She didn’t know any numbers. Aunt Bette hadn’t told her any numbers. Even if she had, she didn’t know if she could tell them to the man standing in front of her. They weren’t getting anywhere. He was asking questions, and she wasn’t answering. She was just staring while she tried to make some sort of sense of everything that the day had brought her.
Aunt Bette had told her about James. James was her uncle like Bette was her aunt. He went far away, but James was going to come for them someday. Aunt Bette had always told her that Uncle James would come for them someday. There was something Aunt Bette had to finish. Then, Uncle James would take them both away -- both of them. Aunt Bette had always said that Uncle James would come and take away both of them. She had never said anything about Uncle James only coming for her. Why was he here now? Why had he come too late for Aunt Bette?
“Laurie Selene!”
She blinked up at him as she was brought forcefully out of her wool gathering and back into the moment. Aunt Bette hardly ever used her middle name. It was for when something was very important; it was for when she had to be sure that Laurie was listening.
“We only have so long before they remember that they need to send someone to collect you,” James chided. “You can be as angry as you like at me after I get you out of here, but we can’t go until I get those numbers. Bette didn’t give up years of her life to do this just for you to ruin it because you’re sulking. Think!”
There were no numbers. She wanted to scream that at him. Their riddles were never about numbers. Aunt Bette didn’t really tell jokes. There were no stories with numbers that Aunt Bette told her any more often than the others. There wasn’t anything. Except . . . James had said something earlier about things that got repeated. There were things that got repeated. There were things that got repeated all the time, and they sort of had to do with numbers.
“Don’t ask questions -- that’s the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.” She whispered to herself, but James heard her.
“What did you say?” He demanded.
“Don’t ask questions -- that’s the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.” She repeated looking up at him as she did so, but her mind was far away. How many times had she heard that over the years? How many times had Aunt Bette said that to her in that meant to be overheard, over exaggerated whisper that always made the paper deliverers huff at them before they turned to leave.
She thought that she remembered the first time that it had happened. She had been bored because Aunt Bette was busy with one of the math problems that she was always doing after someone brought a stack of papers to the house. (It used to make her antsy back then when the visitors came because they always looked at her so strangely.) Aunt Bette had been telling her a story about someone who had had to face his fears, so she had thought it would be a good idea to try to talk to the woman who had been delivering that day. She couldn’t even remember what it was that she had tried to ask the woman. She just remembered that the woman had gotten so angry that she was yelling in Laurie’s face -- something about brats that needed to be taught to keep their mouths shut.
Then, Aunt Bette had been there -- just like she always had been when Laurie had needed her. She had been standing between them, but she was facing Laurie instead of the incensed woman. “Shhh,” she had said with her finger to her lips. “Shhh! Don’t ask questions -- that’s the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.”
Then, she had laughed -- that unsettling laugh that Aunt Bette always used when there were visitors in the house (the laugh that made them look nervous and find excuses to leave as quickly as they could). Laurie didn’t like that laugh. She liked Aunt Bette’s other laugh (the one she used when it was only the two of them) better. The laugh for the visitors always made Laurie a little bit afraid (even though she knew that Aunt Bette would never, ever hurt her). The laugh didn’t sound like her Aunt. Aunt Bette didn’t feel like Aunt Bette when she was laughing like that.
The laugh had worked that day (just as it always did), and the paper deliverer had stopped her yelling and started muttering words like “unhinged” while showing herself out the door. Aunt Bette had said the words often after that. Any time that Laurie looked like she might try to start up a conversation with one of the visitors, Aunt Bette had reminded her. “Don’t ask questions -- that’s the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.”
Laurie had learned the lesson she was being taught. She didn’t try to talk to the others (although some of them had tried sometimes to talk to her). Even after Laurie had stopped, Aunt Bette still used the words. It seemed to work on the visitors the same way that the laughter that wasn’t really her laughter did. Aunt Bette was always finding ways to get the visitors to leave without ever asking them to go.
James didn’t look like he thought the words she had given him were the right answer to the question that she didn’t really understand. He was repeating them to himself quietly saying different words louder than the others each time. He sighed. “Laurie, I don’t think . . . .”
His face changed, and he looked excited. “Brilliant!” He exhaled as he hurried to the far wall and began to run the light from the flashlight across the bookshelf. His free hand traced the bindings as if he was looking for something specific. He grasped one of them and yanked it off the shelf. If Laurie had been in a different mood (not so angry and upset and confused), she would have giggled at the sight the man made cradling the flashlight under his chin as he flipped the pages of the book back and forth. He settled on one, and his eyes moved back and forth across the page.
“Twenty,” he declared sounding pleased.
Laurie didn’t know what he had to be pleased about. “Twenty” didn’t make any sense to her. There hadn’t been any “twenty” in what she had told him. He slid the book back into its place and returned the flashlight to his hand. He leaned toward her. She thought he was trying to smile at her, but it was difficult to tell with the way the light from the flashlight left his face in shadow.
“I know you’re confused, Laurie.” He said. “I promise that I’ll answer every question you have once I’ve got you somewhere safe. I just need you to hang in for a little longer, okay?” She nodded at him when he paused. Aunt Bette had told her that Uncle James would come, and he had -- even if he hadn’t come for Aunt Bette. She was mad at him, but she would do what Aunt Bette had told her to do. She would trust James.
“What else does Aunt Bette say to you a lot?” He questioned her. “Is there anything about a second thing?”
“Book Second -- Eponine,” the words poured out of her before she even thought about it. That was always Aunt Bette’s answer whenever Laurie asked her what she was reading. Laurie had always thought that she was just being silly, but all of these
things seemed to mean something to the man who was searching the bookshelf once again.
“She would pick that one,” he was saying. Laurie didn’t know whether he was saying it to her or to himself. “It’s a good thing she picked a chapter title because I’d never find a reference in that mess. It’s like the longest book ever. Seven hundred twenty four. Twenty seven hundred twenty four. We’re almost finished, Laurie. Just one more. What does Aunt Bette say about something that’s third?”
Laurie thought about it (determined not to be so ready to dismiss his questions as she had been when he had first started them). He had, after all, apparently been right about there being numbers. She couldn’t think of anything. There was nothing with a third; she told him so.
“Nothing?” He leaned closer to her again. “There’s got to be something.”
“There’s no third,” she insisted crossing her arms in front of her. “Aunt Bette doesn’t say anything about a third.” Her voice sounded cross. Aunt Bette would tell her that that meant that she needed to go to bed, but Aunt Bette wasn’t there.
“Okay,” he told her soothingly. “No third. What about a three?”
“Snap,” she told him after thinking about it for a moment.
“Snap?” He asked. She nodded her head confidently. That had to be it. She couldn’t think of anything else with a three.
“When we snap our fingers we say ‘District 3,’” Laurie explained showing him for good measure. She lifted a hand and snapped her fingers. “District 3.”
“Okay,” James said sounding as if he was trying to work it out. “I know which book it is, but I’m not getting the ‘snap’ part. Let me think.” He pulled another book from the shelf and let the pages slide by his thumb. “Snap,” he repeated. “District 3. That was the mine kid. Neck. He snapped his neck. That was reaching, Bette.” He said as if her Aunt was there to hear it. “Still completely brilliant to do it that way, but that one was definitely reaching.” He turned to Laurie. “This one is going to take me a couple of minutes to find. Can you do something for me?”
She just looked at him. Hadn’t she been doing something for him already by answering all of his weird questions about numbers? He ignored her lack of response.
“I need you to think hard about whether or not there is anything in this house that you absolutely can’t do without.” He shrugged his shoulders and straps slid down them revealing an oddly shaped object that he held out to her. “Put some of your clothes and anything that you don’t want to leave behind in that bag. Do it fast and come back here. I’ll have found the page by then, and we can get out of here.”
“What about Aunt Bette?”
“I’m sorry, baby. Bette isn’t going to be able to come with us right now. Just do as I said, okay? They can’t forget you’re out here forever. We don’t want them to get hold of you again.”
“I don’t want them to have Aunt Bette.”
“Neither do I, Laurie, but there’s not much I can do about that at the moment. Bette’s always taken care of you first, and that doesn’t change just because things didn’t work out the way we planned. Trust me?”
“Only because Aunt Bette said so.”
“No better reason than that.” He told her giving her a smile that she could see clearly because of the angle at which the flashlight was currently pointed. It was Aunt Bette’s smile. It made her feel better, safer somehow even though James kept reminding her that someone might be coming to try to take her away. He and Aunt Bette shared the same smile.
They were maybe going to be okay.
Dawn was breaking when a small cluster of figures made their way over the well-worn path that led to the little house in the fenced in yard in the middle of the clearing. The three of them moved quietly as they crossed the meadow and entered the gate. They entered the home without knocking and proceeded to look for the little girl that they had been told they would find in this place. None of the three had ever been there before, so they stumbled about over the layout of the house before they realized that there was no child in any of the obvious places (to them at least) that a child of nine years would be. They began to systematically search the house (tear apart really) as they explored every possible option for someone small and flexible to squeeze herself into in order to hide. They didn’t know it yet, but they would be searching in vain for a very long time because the house was already empty. The child they had come to collect was gone.