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five.
They build a fort out of spare sheets and cushions in the corner of the library everyone knows to be Ray’s—Emma’s idea, of course, after she’s read a storybook about lost children, secret hideouts and adventures in lost, magical lands she can only dream of. She spends the day gathering every free sheet and unclaimed pillow before dragging Ray and Norman from the hand despite the former’s endless complains and the latter’s silent amusement.
“It’ll be fun,” she says at Ray’s obvious skepticism. “Come on, it won’t take long.”
He sweeps one long look at the bundle of objects at her feet and sighs.
“How’re you going to hold the sheets up?” he asks. He watches her sputter, gaze wildly switching between him and the items, and Ray holds the farming book he’s been carrying around the whole month tighter in his hands. “See? No point.”
“We can use chairs,” Norman peeps up from besides them. “Drape the sheets over them.”
“Yes!” Emma yells before quickly springing towards the nearest library desk. “Let’s do that!”
Ray brow creases into a scowl loud enough to make the question heard: ‘why are you playing along?’ to which Norman simply shrugs, smiling apologetically.
“It could be fun,” he says.
Ray groans. He watches them go with the petulance only a five-year-old can muster and only moves when he realizes there is no going back. For all her easy smiles and sunny disposition, Emma could easily be the most authoritative out of them whenever she fancied to. He’s learnt long ago that whenever she set to something, no amount of scolding could stop her—at best, it only ever slows her down.
They work, noisily, because dragging chairs across wooden floor rattles more than any of them expected—they attract the attention of three older sibling who exasperatedly smile at them before leaving—, and Norman ends up wheezing through half way of tugging his one single chair. They proceed to discuss about interior design for half an hour (“No, the pillows to the side”, “You can’t, Emma”, “Why?!”) before finishing a half-crooked, oddly mismatched blanketfort that would, by all chances, fall on them the second they entered it.
“It’s ugly,” Ray blurts out, critically eying the smudges on white sheets. “Don’t we have other blankets?”
“Nope,” Emma answers as she holds onto their hands. “Those are all Mama gave me.”
Ray twitches at the answer. His eyes slide towards the books he’s abandoned at the beginning of the endeavor. Emma, though, is already guiding them inside the makeshift fort and his thoughts have no chance to wonder nor wander. Once they huddle inside, silently inspecting their handiwork in varying degrees of amusement, annoyance and amazement, it’s Norman who leans into him.
“Feeling better?” he asks.
Ray blinks owlishly. “What?”
“You’ve been fighting with Mama, right?” he says with a soft smile. “You’ve been avoiding her.”
“And you’re being moody and mean,” Emma chirps in, pauses for a second, and adds, “Meaner.”
Ray stills. His mind reels. “I—”
“So, now, do you feel better?” Emma prods as she fits into the circle he and Norman’ve created.
“You can ask for our help,” Norma continues.
They lean in into him—too close to flee; close enough to see the concern reflected in their eyes.
Ray shallows the spit. He swallows the words about to burst. He grits away the foolish part of him, the scared part he promised to expunge. His gaze is steady, cold, as he observes the only two people he can hope for. The steely, artic presence of the butcherer whom he knows to be his mother somewhere in the house is a good reminder, too, so there is no effort in what he’s about to do.
He holds his tongue. He holds his mania. He wears a thin smile that would have made Mama proud.
And yet—
He watches them watch him.
For all the lies he will tell them he can, at least, tell as many truths.
“I guess,” he says slowly. He manages a smirk that is more honest than forged and nudges Emma’s shoulder playfully. “It could be better, but guess I shouldn’t expect better from you.”
Emma’s pout and Norman’s chuckle are worth well the effort, and Ray finds himself not complaining much when he is bullied into laying down on a pile of dirty pillows with them. He snickers when Norman’s face flushes red as Emma throws herself across them under a fragile fort made of stained covers and good intentions. He won’t fail.
seven.
Norman knows every crook and crack of the infirmary the same way he’s familiar with the one creaking floorboard of his bedroom—the one between Nat and Alexandra’s bed. He has also learnt that the echoing silence of the room can be all the more deafening at night. Some nights, though, the silence is shattered with scantly concealed whispers and hisses.
He listens to the sound of nearing steps, of a door opening and closing, of a softly whispered ‘Norman, are you awake?’, and he finds himself smiling as much as worrying.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he murmurs once Emma’s face clears up at the light of the window. “I’m sick.”
“Already told her that,” Ray says behind her. Even in the darkness Norman can sense the motion of his eyes rolling.
Emma pretends to not hear any of it and asks, “Don’t you feel lonely?”
Norman holds the bedsheet tighter. His expression might betray something yet because Emma draws closer still, Ray not far from her. “Mama will discover you aren’t in bed,” he manages weakly.
It’s not a no. It will never be a no, most likely. If the way Emma’s eyes light up and Ray scoffs to the side are any indicators, they are aware of it too. They nestle themselves into the empty vastness of the infirmary bed like they’re wont to.
“She won’t,” Ray says. He stretches long, almost catlike, across the sheets at Norman’s feet. “Took precautions. I did, anyway.”
Emma sits beside him, naked feet swinging over the corner of the bed. “We made pillow dummies,” she explains happily. “It looks like we’re sleeping in our beds.”
Norman bits his tongue only so he can hide the blooming upward curl of his lips from them. “Just for a bit,” he says. “You’re going back—”
He freezes. His tentative smile bleeds out from him.
They hear steps coming.
The three of them share a panicked look before Norman hisses ‘she’s coming to check!’ and points at the window. Ray nods, quickly pulls the curtains until the room is swallowed by shadows rather than light, and Emma ushers them to get under the sheets, out of sight. They made themselves small. They latch onto each other until they look to be one instead of three.
The door opens and from it Norman can glimpse Mama’s silhouette haloed by the light of the candle in her hand. He attempts to steady his breath while feeling Emma’s arm tighten around his torso, Ray’s feet intertwine with his. A moment passes. Then another.
Mama sighs. The candlelight flickers, gleams and steadies.
“Just for this one,” Mama says into the dark. “Understood? Sleep, now.”
She doesn’t wait for an answer before closing the door, leaving them in a world gone quiet.
They wait for a whole minute before Emma and Ray’s head pop up from under the sheets. Norman can still sense the harsh pounding of his heartbeat against his ribcage, his nerves frayed and his vision dizzy. He blushes to his ears when he notices their proximity—there’s a barely breath wider than a papersheet between him and them—and the beating in his chest refuses to calm down.
Ray heaves an exhalation that is drawn as much as it is relieved, wearily eying where once Mama stood. “That went better than expected,” he says. Then he turns to Norman and adds, “You heard her. Hope you don’t mind sharing bed.”
“Sleepover!” Emma chirps to the left.
She snuggles into his side without second thought and Norman can say little to that so he follows her example. “It’s already late, too,” he says.
Ray and Emma make themselves at home, limbs and ribs chafing against each other in the limited space of the bed, until they find the position that lets the three of them rest. It’s weird and it’s unfamiliar, but still comfortable, somehow, to sleep together like that, and when minutes pass, Norman feels his lids heavy and his body giving in.
Then Emma moves, her shoulder brushing against his, and he finds his attention flaring up again from the confines of drowsiness.
“It’s nice,” she whispers into the night. “We should do this again.”
“Only if you wanna be scolded by Mama,” Ray slurs already half-passed out.
Norman smiles secretly. He can sense Emma’s warm presence at one side and Ray’s steady breathing at the other. “We could try,” he says. “Make better plans so she doesn’t catch us.”
Ray snorts, and Emma giggles, and Norman knows he’s making a fool of himself when few instant ago he was the one against the idea. It doesn’t matter. Sleep comes easy and by next day he finds himself all healed up.
nine.
The orphanage is never quite silent. Noise always break whatever illusion of quietness there might have been in a house inhabited by forty children. There are times, however, where a thick blanket covers the house—it makes everything mute, strained; a world where sounds travels in fragments rather than echoes.
Those are the days where one of their siblings leave to a new world of possibilities.
Those are the days Emma doesn’t know how to feel.
“Aren’t you going to help Alex preparing her stuff?”
Emma clutches onto the glass she’s been cleaning before meeting Ray’s even stare at the kitchen door. He looks unruffled. He looks disinterested. He looks as if one of their siblings wasn’t about to go from a home that has seen them grow up. He always does. Norman’s been no different next to her while drying the cutlery: expression calm, eyes gentle, silent out of concern rather than melancholy. She pouts, partly angry and partly envious at their impassiveness.
“Dorothy’s doing that,” she says as she scrubs away the dirt with grit.
“You could go still,” Norman says. “Ray and I can do the rest of cleaning.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ray grunts, although he still stays, still watches sharply as she shakes her head and says, “It’s alright.”
He sighs, sits in the dinner table, opens the book in his hands and reads while Norman nudges her in comfort. Outside, the winter sun is setting on the horizon; Emma watches as the shadows extend, expand, slowly but unrelenting. Soon it will be nighttime and they all will be saying their goodbyes.
Her hands slowdown in the task—a childish, pointless attempt at postponing the inevitable—, her brow ceases into a frown, and yet they finish sooner rather than later. They heard the rest of their siblings gathering in the hall. They heard their older sister calling for them. They heard the sound of luggage being dragged across wooden floor.
The three of them make quick work at cleaning the rest. They reunite with the rest of their siblings. Emma makes sure to smooth out the wrinkles of her concern, to drink from Norman’s calm presence of Norman at her side as he places a steady hand on her shoulder.
“Lighten up. With such dark expression,” Ray says as he pinches her cheek, “you’re going to worry Alex.”
“Yeah,” she admits. As Alex comes down from the stair she rubs the assaulted cheek and paints a smile that is shaky at best. “Let’s do that.”
Later, as they watch together their sister and Mama go out of the door and into the dark world outside, Emma imagines Alex’s slim shoulder to be broader, her fair hair a bit whiter than the blinding blond, or, otherwise, her big green eyes turn sharper and stormy gray. She purses her lips into a pucker that is unbecoming of her.
She’s nine already. So are Norman and Ray.
Someday soon, that’s going to be them.
"Even when we leave the house,” she wonders uncertainly as they head to their rooms, “you think we can still be together? Meet up and send letters to each other?”
“That came out of nowhere,” Ray drawls. “What brought that in?”
“It’s just—our siblings never send word back!” she exclaims, arms wildly swaying at her sides. “It’s like they forgot about us, or don’t care anymore!”
Norman chuckles, his body leans back as her hand grazes him. “They might be busy or too far away,” he says. “Or they might have problems contacting. I don’t think they just forgot.”
“But...” A pause. She chews on her lower lip. Then, “That won’t happen to us, right? We’ll try our best, right?”
Norman’s gaze is soft while taking her hand between soft fingers and promises, “It won’t.”
Emma presses forward until his ears turn red, “Really?”
“Really,” Norman assures and both of them turn to their third member, “Ray?”
He looks at them grimly, darkly in what Emma thinks to be annoyance, before tipping his head back and exhaling noisily.
“Sure,” Ray says at last, ever looking forward, and Emma smiles, not as widely and brightly as she’s used to, but more gently than is common of her.
The sting of uncertainty doesn’t quite ease nor leave, a thorn inside her, but something else settles in her heart, a weight that is familiar in its heaviness, and that feeling of rightness thrums a beat that blends into her bones.
She holds the hands of her two boys and squeezes tight.
“It’s a promise,” she says.