It really did seem like it was Kanariās idea. Every so often, Drewās prickliness hit the mark, and the idea was only confirmed when Ri admitted as much. He frowned, though it had nothing to do with children dying at an amusement park; he frowned because he realized he had just felt a teensy, tiny, miniscule pang of jealousy. He knew that Olly and Ri spent a lot of time together, time apart from the rest of them, and apparently they spent that time planning meetings and filling them with ideas that Ri would enjoy. The monster that Olly would go on to describe a few minutes later probably would have enjoyed feasting on what Cass was feeling right then very much, but after a few seconds of fuming, the blind boy only felt guilty for getting so cross about his friendsā friendship. It was only friendship, right?
He tuned back in. Understandably, Cassius was a listener par excellence. If anyone bothered giving out awards for being a listener, he would have swept the competition every year. He had to be good at it. He couldnāt tell what sort of looks people were giving, how they were standing or sitting, whether their arms were folded across their chests or hanging at their sides. All the little visual cues that made up the very diverse catalogue of human body language were almost entirely lost to him, so he had only words, tone of voice, and the occasional interaction with the environment to go by.
Riās story wasnāt really all that scary, not to him. He never would have said as much (despite, just a moment before, feeling not-so-kind regarding Ri), butā¦ well, heād never been to an amusement park. Heād never ride a roller coaster in his life, especially not the one Ri was talking about.
The step that Pandora took caused Cass to give his attention that way. The mysterious boyās story was even less scary than Riās. Killer curtains? And the girl whoād gone and bought them like a dummy had survived thanks to the police. Her entire family had been killed by her stupidity, though, so maybe that was worse than being choked to death by curtains anyway. Besides, where they were didnāt even have windows, so death by curtain was pretty much the last thing heād lose sleep over.
He started thinking up his own story, one that he was making up in his head without even realizing it. It was a story about a boy whose parents hated him. When he squalled, they decided to sew his mouth shut so that he couldnāt wake them with his crying. When he grew older and got upset at the nasty things they said about him, they plugged up his ears with wax. When he picked out the wax, they bound his hands behind his back with scratchy twine and sealed up his ears again. When he cried silently and they got tired of seeing his tears, they got a spoon and used it to scoop out hisā¦
His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of shuffling foot-steps coming closer to him. He wasnāt sure who it was, and he braced himself for something. A tap on the shoulder, a nudge, or even a random hug like the sort Kanari was so fond of giving him. He was glad it wasnāt any of those things, particularly the lattermost. When he heard Ollyās voice, so close, he realized that the bigger boy, their leader, was the one who had come near. He couldnāt help the shy smile that tugged at his lips, the faint crimson that touched his cheeks. Something inside him wanted him to reach out and take Ollyās hand, but he couldnāt. Heād be groping through the air for it, probably look very foolish, and make Olly look foolish and weakā¦ so, no, that was out of the question.
He listened to their leaderās contribution to the non-existent campfire, and began to frown. The creature he was describingā¦ now that was scary. No, not just scary. There was a better word from it, a word that Cassius knew because of all the books heād listen to or read with the tips of his fingers. Insidious. That was the word for this nightmare thing that Ollyās voice seemed to conjure. Something that didnāt strangle you or stab you or bite out your liver. Instead it drove you crazy. Insanity was something that scared someone who spent as much time just thinking as Cassius did quite a lot. He could imagine such a monster moving things around in his room. He could imagine it leaving him little bits of paper with raised bumps on them that said terrible things.
He swallowed, and his lower lip became caught in his teeth while he pondered about the shadow-sewn horror. The really scary thing about it, he decided, was that it didnāt really need to exist at all. He might just forget where he put something, but now that heād heard thisā¦ well, what if it was some extra-dimensional thing that fed on negativity? What if someone said something that hurt his feelings (which happened quite a lot), and he decided that it might be because they were having weird stuff happen to them to? Ollyās monster was a perfect metaphor for the fear that affected him most acutely of all: the fear that he might one day be very alone, even with his captive friends still around.
Olly interrupted his thinking again when he abruptly put an end to the story that wasnāt a story so much as a description and the meeting in one stroke. He heard him move away, and sank even lower in his seat. He didnāt want Olly to go away right now, especially not to bed, because that meantā¦ No way, shadow-monster. If you are real, youāre not getting to eat any jealousy tonight. āGood night, Oliver,ā he called lamely after the departing boy. He remained sitting, waiting for the others to say something or depart as well. He needed to wait, or else he might walk right into someone, and reallyā¦ he didnāt want to be alone right now. The story session had unsettled him. He sat very still, very silent, listening for footsteps and hoping, for once, that someone might offer to help him to his room. He laid his hands on his CD player, his head phones, making sure they were still where he thought they were, and waited.