IT WASN’T SAFE at Marshes for little Skog. The other children lumbered like monsters, their movements wild and exaggerated. Half of them yelled and the other half growled or looked out from suspicious eyes, ready to bite. Savages, all. Even the way they laughed was barbaric, shrill like a fire alarm. She wanted him with her every minute of every day, but she feared for him, so delicate and defenseless. When she had to leave her room—for school or therapy or meals or playing—she left him nestled between her pillow and the wall so he would be hidden but could still see what was going on. No other children ever came into her room because of The Rules, and the adults were respectful of everyone’s Personal Items, so he was safe, in theory. At night, they whispered together. Sometimes he dried her tears with his felted hand. He told her what she already knew: She’d messed up with Mommy’s spell; Marshes was Mommy’s revenge.
Hanna spent most mornings with a woman whose clothing often matched her orange hair. Her name started with a T so Hanna called her Tangerine. She made a lot of statements like “It makes me sad when I see someone crying.” Hanna was supposed to slap one of the cards on the table in front of her—the True card or the False card. Most of the time she needed a third option, a What Does This Have to Do With Anything card. So she smacked the False card.
I feel happy when my mother gives me a hug. False.
I feel sad a lot of the time. True. False. True.
I like myself. True.
I make friends easily. False. True—if Skog counted. But she knew how adults thought. They liked what they could see right in front of them, solid things. They encouraged imagination but hated anything imaginary. Hanna knew they didn’t understand how reality was malleable. It flowed on a wave in front of Hanna’s eyes, and she could choose to be outside or within it. Parents and schools wanted her to be within it, because it was easier for them and they’d forgotten how to swim to other planes. That’s why she was sent away. She didn’t think her actions strayed so far from okay-normal-enough. But now she understood that everyone else disagreed.
Still. Marshes seemed like an unfair punishment.
So much for her fairy godmother, Beatrix. Wicked witch after all.
At playtime, she liked to see how far she could wander from whoever was in charge of watching her. One day, while Brown Teeth was distracted helping another aide with an angry boy, Hanna slipped past the play yard and down a hill. She considered running past the wooded area, across the meadow and all the way to the road—maybe she could run all the way home. But she couldn’t leave without Skog. And at least the trees gave her something to hide behind. A fat black trunk loomed in front of her, and she ducked behind it to catch her breath and decide what to do next. But she found an older girl sitting there, her face like a pug’s, and her arms starred and striped with pale scars.
Pug Face jumped to her feet, grabbed Hanna by the arm—harder than Mommy ever did—and spun her back in the direction of the play yard. Hanna hesitated, intrigued by the puckers and lines on her arms, and their shared desire for privacy.
“Did your parents do that?” Pug Face asked, jutting her chin toward Hanna’s still-bundled wrist.
Hanna touched the stretchy bandage, now raggedy and blackened by time. Is that what everyone thought? She’d never ratted on Daddy; she kept it only because she liked it. But maybe they wouldn’t let her go home until …
Pug Face pushed her again, then punched her shoulder blade. “Probably deserved it. Now get going, twat!”
Hanna ran away, back up the hill, her shoulder a bloom of pain. She unwound the filthy bandage and tossed it away. It flagged on the spindly branches of a dying tree. She tried to reach the sore spot on her back to rub it. It made her think of Skog and tears rushed to her eyes. Was he really safe? Would Pug Face or another brute find him eventually? They’d rip his arms off. Pull out his eyes. Stab him in the belly so his beans spilled out. It would be even worse than what Mommy did to the potato because Skog was a really real friend, and she couldn’t survive Marshes without him.
She needed to get him someplace safer, but where? If she kept him with her she might accidentally leave him somewhere, or he might fall from her bag, or tumble out of her shirt if she tried to keep him tucked against her body. The monsters would see him only as something to destroy. Children know where other children are vulnerable; the more she loved him, the greater his peril.
Maybe it was already too late.
Maybe, in her absence, they’d already seized him.
She ran as fast as she could, determined to rescue him.
Panicked and bawling, she ran across the play yard, indifferent to the shouts of protest as she plowed through a game of kickball. All she could see were Skog’s amputated hands and feet, his black-bean organs and blood scattered irreparably all over her floor. As she raced for the dormitory, Brown Teeth chased after her.
“Hanna, wait! Little bear, what’s wrong?”
Hanna shoved open the doors and charged up the stairs.
Brown Teeth caught up with her on the landing. She scooted in front of her and got to her knees, holding Hanna’s arms.
“I have to make sure you’re okay. Are you hurt? Did something happen? Is your wrist okay?” She caressed Hanna’s bare skin, now exposed by the removal of the bandage.
Hanna wailed and pointed toward her room.
“Okay, we’ll go to your room. And we’ll make sure everything’s all right.”
Brown Teeth wanted to hold her hand but Hanna couldn’t slow down for her. She burst into her room, crying and breathless, and flung herself onto the bed.
There was Skog, unharmed, right where she’d left him. She clutched him to her heart and couldn’t stop crying.
“Oh, little one…” Brown Teeth sat beside her, rubbing circles into her back. Hanna flinched when she touched the new bruise. “I wish you could tell me why you’re so upset. I’m sorry you’re having such a hard day.”
Skog told her again and again that he was okay. But the terror wouldn’t leave her, now that she’d imagined the worst. He would die here, and she couldn’t live without him.
She told him in her anguished cries how she missed everything. Her room and her comfy bed. Her bins of colorful treasure. The big glass wall that fed her sunshine. Daddy’s study and crawling around on his feathery carpet. The squishy couch in the living room that held her like a hug. The refrigerator where she could get her favorite snacks, whenever she wanted. Watching TV by herself, or Star Trek with Daddy. Daddy reading her bedtime stories. Daddy hugging her, talking to her, playing with her. She even missed …
It was true, she even missed Mommy. Well, not Mommy exactly.
Mommy made her food just how she liked it; she knew what Hanna liked and didn’t like. Mommy sometimes gave her space, unlike the flying gnats of Marshes who were always up her nose, down her throat, dive-bombing into her eyes. They never left her alone no matter how much she swatted them away. And worse worst worstest of all: no one understood her. Daddy always knew what she was saying—even Mommy wasn’t clueless all the time—but the people at Marshes were stupid and wanted to use their ears when their eyes were just as good. Even now, Brown Teeth, the nicest of the people, didn’t grasp anything about the danger she and Skog were in.
Her face swelled up, puffy and tight, and it started to get too hard to cry. She snuffled and breathed through her mouth. Brown Teeth brought her a tissue and wiped her nose and told her to blow. As she slipped off her Keds and set them on the ugly floor, Hanna curled up on her side, face to the wall.
“I know it’s hard, little bear. I know…”
Hanna felt the hand on her arm, her back, drawing circles in an empty universe, warm circles like good planets full of growing things. She drifted toward sleep. How long had it been since she slept through the night? Maybe maybe it was all a bad dream and she would wake up at home, in her own bed.
“You could be better if you tried,” Skog told her.
She agreed. If she couldn’t dream away Mommy, maybe she could dream away Marshes. Dream it away and maybe everything would get back to normal.
* * *
“Okay,” said Brown Teeth, reading her note. “We can do that.”
Hanna was in her robot pajamas. Brown Teeth told her to put something on her feet so she put on three pairs of socks. Brown Teeth waited patiently, her mouth a moon of amusement, then held out her hand. Hanna took it after getting Skog settled in on her pillow.
They walked past silent rooms and Hanna hoped everyone was dead, but knew the younger children were probably just sleeping. Brown Teeth led her to an office and turned on the light, which made them both blink blink their startled eyes. She sat behind the desk and dug out a file while Hanna waited beside it.
“Here it is,” she said, scrolling her finger down a list. “Daddy’s number?”
Hanna nodded.
Brown Teeth picked up the phone and dialed.