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“So, you’re taking a break,” Malin said, and he heard the skepticism in his own voice.
“To figure some things out.”
"Is that how Mami said it? Wow, she's starting to treat you like a big boy.” Marion turned from where he was sitting on the barn roof, legs dangling over the edge and fingers pressed into the moss covered grain of the roofing to flash a teasing grin. “And at just fourteen. You allowed to say the s word yet?”
Malin's face heated up for a second; he smacked his brother in the side of the head with a huff, "Oh, shut up," even as he settled down besides the laughing figure.
"I came home, Mal," Mari said, his smile quieting. "That's all. I just…decided to come back home."
"With souvenirs," the teen egged on, giving Mari a hard stare. There had been no possible margin of doubt left to the furtive glance the blond and his brother had given each other while Marion introduced Grey, the first night they arrived. It was only Lenore's punishing grip on the back of his neck and the look of silent murder she'd sent that had stopped him from asking which one of them was going to wear the wedding dress.
He was pretty sure he knew anyway. But the conversation had turned then to the flurry of unpacking and settling in so Malin was forced to restrain his squinting assessment of the new resident to a suspicious distance.
It was alright; he'd resolved that he would have plenty of time over the next few weeks to pass his judgement, aided with sharp ears and keen observation and a pair of actual binoculars.
Marion was just laughing again, wrapping his arm around Malin’s shoulder to pull him closer in a half hug, half shake, “Hey. With family,” He insisted, “Like anyone else Mami lets in. They’ve been through enough; they need to know what family love is. They need us, Mal.”
They need you.
He kept that thought private, and rolled his eyes, “Yeah, I know. I just wish I knew why."
He glanced down at the hand thrown over his shoulder, where the rugged line of a scar stretched down over Marion’s wrist. It hadn't been there before, years ago when Marion had last been around and Malin felt sometimes that there were things that passed over his head with silent glances and the echo of past conversations he hadn't been a part of that made the secrecy maddening.
He wanted to know why he saw the same scars on Grey. Why Alex never relaxed, or left her weapon behind in her room. Why Benni jumped at noises and preferred to sit in corners and watch with her wide, solemn eyes, and why his brother wasn't supposed to drink anymore, and disappeared off to be by himself more than he had… more than he had before.
"You'll know. When and where they're ready to say, you'll know," Marion murmured, which was Marion-speak for 'mind your own business,' Malin figured.
Pressing clasped hands into his lap, he leaned forwards over the roof edge and down to the barn below, where the distant echo of voices floated up from where it was being prepared for the welcoming party.
That was alright too, he supposed. Even if he couldn’t help the uncomfortable sickness that arose in his gut when he thought too hard about the way Benni flinched or skirted around the edges of rooms or gave him haunted looks when he tried to talk about superpowers and went dead silent.
Because he- he liked Benni.
He hadn't known any of them were going to be his age, hadn't really ever known any supers his age, and it was at least a little exciting to think he could have a friend he didn't have to remember to hide his powers from, before Marion had told him to be careful when he talked about them to her. Said it was a hard topic.
She hadn't been in when the others were introduced. Malin had found her curled up in Papi's rocking chair on the back porch, arms wrapped around her knees as she watched the goat kids orbiting their mothers in the side yard.
She'd giggled when he brought a chicken over, and held it gently and carefully stroked its feathers, and Malin liked the way she’d been focused wholly on the task.
Malin had asked, bouncing from foot to foot, if she wanted to see his cat’s new litter. She’d looked up at him with widening eyes that beamed quietly while she said yes.
As the time passed, Benni had gravitated to the kitchens, to help Mami, and so Malin did too and in consequence shelled more snap peas than he'd ever seen in his life.
It was nice, though. Sitting in the kitchen with the sunlight filtering in diluted gold through the curtains Lenore had embroidered, with a big bowl in his lap, talking and working and trying to make Benni laugh from where she sat across from him husking corn.
It was a break from his schoolwork, too. Nearly all non-food operations had ground to a halt when Isobel had heard Marion was bringing a man home and they'd turned instead to preparing the house and harvesting the garden so they'd have more time with the two when they actually arrived.
And now, once the canning was done a few weeks later, they'd taken their sealing pots off the fire pit, and Isobel had allowed them to keep the blaze alive for a bit longer to make s'mores.
Mari and Grey had left earlier that morning to trek down the beach, packing two bags and a lunch and, on Marion’s part and to no one’s surprise, a copious amount of plastic shapers and buckets and shovels which he strapped to his belt because apparently Greyson had never built a sandcastle and it was an important milestone they had to establish at any cost. According to Marion.
The fire was crackling with seasoned oak logs. Malin was leaning forwards to pull his blackened marshmallow off of the stick. Lenore was poking her tongue out to lick the caramelized sugar off her lips, nose scrunched in a way that jostled her glasses, and Benni was giggling as she fumbled with the wrapper of a new pack of crackers.
There was a loud clatter from the road, that Malin hardly noticed. It was this week's delivery truck down the driveway, and it’d come to drop off the hay for the goats, and the driver had let the tailgate fall open with a loud metallic bang that rang off the hillside.
And Malin heard it, but he didn’t, because he’d heard it hundreds of times before, but it rang out.
In one second, Benni was smiling, and fumbling with the wrapper of the graham crackers, and in one more, she was on the ground, and she was screaming.
Lenore had startled, and Malin dropped his stick in panic without knowing it.
At first, he thought the fire had popped and she’d been burned, but as the adrenaline tinted clarity set back in he could see she wasn’t cringing away from it.
He and Lenore met eyes in a split second. Benni was on the ground, she was curled up and she was wrapping her arms around her face and she was screaming, broken wails of ‘No,’ and ‘No!’ around the heaving chest.
Lenore knew, and so did he, because they’d seen such attacks before and they hardly needed a glance anymore. Lenore had jumped up to bolt towards the driveway to make the trucker stop before the other gate fell, and Malin was turning towards the house with ‘Mami!’ already pushing past his lips.
He needn’t have, however, because Isobel was already rushing through the screen door with her broom clutched firmly in her hands, and Alex was behind her, fumbling for the holster at her belt and with a snarl on her lips.
~
After Isobel had dropped her broom and gone to ground the sobbing girl, and after Alex had been convinced to put away the glock, and rushed inside to shutter Benni's room down in preparation of the aftermath, they'd begun the slow process of getting her inside.
She'd screamed harder when she was touched, at first. Malin had stood by and watched, useless, as she was coaxed to cease the shrieking, crooned into his mother's arms, and helped up with Lenore supporting half her weight as they took her inside.
He'd hovered, useless, outside the porch door, and picked at the paint while he waited, and babbled an inquiry when Lenore had slipped out. Her face was pale and she'd told him he wasn't allowed to go in yet before disappearing quietly in the direction of her safe spot.
And Malin almost stomped his foot, the well of frustration building up to clog his throat while he waited. Useless.
He wished Greyson were here. Benni was surrounded by people she'd only known a few weeks, but she'd seemed to like him a lot. But he wasn't here.
Malin waited, until eventually Alex exited too and gave him a sharp look, and left without a word in response to his questions, leaving him to glare at her retreating back.
He didn’t get why Marion was friends with her, or why she'd come over, or why she was allowed to be in with all their stupid hushed conversations. And why she was allowed in Benni's room when he was not.
He often wished that the harsh voice and dour face would just go away instead of skulking around. Like now.
Malin jumped as he felt something cold pressed against his neck, and snatched the popsicle away from Alex as she sauntered back around the porch from the kitchen behind him. He glared at her, snapping, “I can get my own snacks when I’m hungry.”
“You’ve been sitting out here for like two hours. It’s hot. She’s gonna be fine, kid.”
Something twisted in Malin’s gut. He could tell Alex was still on edge, stiff and hackled and a little jittery the way the cats got before a storm. He sneered. “Oh, yeah? Is that the prognosis, Doctor Jerkwad? I thought you did nose jobs, not therapy.”
Alex thunked her back against the railing, lips culred, “Oh, jesus fucking cripes, Hicksville, don’t you have a goat to be milking somewhere?”
“Don’t you have some teeth to be punching in?” Malin shot back, and Alex looked like she might take him up on that for a second. He stared her down, and then turned away, crossing his arms with a huff.
“My brother said you knew that looney lab had her. And you didn’t do anything.”
“When did he tell you that?” Her voice, sharpening now.
“He didn’t. I heard him talking to Grey,” Malin stated matter-of-factly, and then added, in smug condescension, “I hear a lotta stuff.”
“Wow. You are a tiny piece of shit.”
His teeth clenched tighter. He didn’t say anything.
“He was right, though. I didn’t do anything."
Well.
"Why-" Malin said, and it came out as more of a gasp, because he hadn't actually thought she'd say it. He couldn't quite believe it.
"Why!? What did she do? She didn't do anything! Why didn't you just- just- kill those guys and get her out?"
Alex barked a bitter laugh.
"Do you have any idea- it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what happened to any of us, as far as you're concerned, kiddo. Only- you just have to- you gotta let it bear. I-I"
Mailin looked over at her curiously. He hadn’t ever heard her stutter before.
“She really just- might not ready to talk about that kind of thing. I hope you get that.”
Alex fell silent, and then bent over to pluck a ratty old dog ball from the wood slats. She bounced it once or twice, then turned to toss it out into the yard, where it disappeared into a tuft of grass.
“It haunts ya. ‘Specially a sweet girl like her. And you gotta see that you don’t really come away from that. Kid, there are a lotta folk in your family who aren’t ever gonna be completely ‘okay’ the way most people are. No use worrying about it.”
Malin swallowed the last of his popsicle, and nodded.
“I know,” he said. “But I’ll worry.”
Isobel opened the door, then, and cut off further conversation. “Cucciolotto, vieni qui e lascia lo scorpione. Vuole parlare con te.”
And suddenly Malin was feeling rather smug. “Benni wants to talk to me. You gotta stay out here, though,” he translated automatically, seeing the furrow clench Al’s brow. And then he added, “You scorpion.”
“Fucking hell, not you too,” Alex muttered.
The lights were dim inside, yellow seeping through the curtains. Benni had tossed her blankets aside and crept to the armchair by the window, dragging her blanket with her, and she sat curled up in it clutching a steaming mug.
Malin recognized the smell of the drink, could almost taste the cloying mixture of spice and sugared milk and chocolate, which he had on good authority were almost as sweet and warm as one of his brother's hugs. They were also saved for the bitter moments like these.
“Your mom says I’m not allowed to go out until my hands stop shaking,” Benni said softly, almost too softly to hear, her voice still scratchy and grated.
Malin nodded. “Too much light difference can make you dizzy after an attack. That’s why she gave you that, too,” he explained, because he didn’t know what else to say. “For....for the sugar. Good energy.”
Benni hummed, and her form still as she let her gaze fall from him to the floor and stay there. Malin shifted from one foot to the other, and wished after a long few seconds, that he’d brought a kitten in with him. She’d fallen in love with those.
Benni gulped, and said, “There was a cage.”
Malin’s breath hitched.
“I’d stay there a lot. And they used to bang on the sides, while I was sleeping. When she’d come to get me. So…”
“You don’t like banging,” Malin said, plaintively, trying not to let his eyes grow blurry. He wondered, suddenly, if he did want to know the rest.
“I’ll be okay now, though. Now that I’m here with you all,” Benni added, in that raw tone that was soft and wavering and taut under the feebleness in the way that made Malin’s vision get a little blurry when he realized she was trying to comfort him.
He crossed the room and reached out, and she took his hand with a question forming on her lips but he beat her to it, “You’re not shaking much anymore.”
She blinked.
Malin glanced furtively towards the inside door, then grasped her hand, “...come with me, I wanna show you something. We can sneak out the window.”
She blinked again, and then broke into a watery, and gleeful little smile. “Okay.”
They made short work of clambering through the window, into the treeline where Alex couldn’t see them (he hoped) and skirting the field, until they’d reached the grove of trees at the top of the yard before the sandy bluffs that led to the ocean started sprawling out.
The old grown trees were huge, and the canopy plunged the warm sun into dappled streams of light that danced when a breeze swayed the oaks overhead. Benni watched the treetops as if the leaves were speaking to her.
As they approached the center of the grove, Malin hesitated, his fingers loosening on her sleeve, “Oh- do you have any claustrophobia? Small, or dark spaces?”
Benni considered for half a second, then shook her head. “No, I like them. It was always really bright,” she murmured. He nodded, then crouched down, opening a square door in the ground, and crawling through. The tunnel was round and stout, and held up with wooden support beams that opened to a ladder in the hollow of the old dead oak. Clambering up, Malin shoved aside the trap door to the treehouse, and hoisted himself in.
Benni poked her head through a moment later, and her eyes were roving as she clambered up, and settled besides him. She was hesitant, but as Mal fumbled around and flipped the switch to turn on the dim little row of moon shaped fairy lights, he could hear a little gasp.
“....what is this place?”
“It’s my safe spot,” Malin said, unable to bite back the chuffed little grin as his cheeks heated with pride. “My Papi made it for me. He made one for all us kids, and this is mine. I’m the only person allowed to come in here- well, unless I let you in.”
The last part a bit hastily, as Benni gave him a worried look.
The space was only six by six feet or so, but it was cozy and sturdy, the windows sealed to keep out the bugs and the little stack of shelves and trunks neatly crammed into one corner. Malin turned before she could say anything, and crawled over to his chest, wiggling off the tight wood lid and pulling out a bundle of burgundy wool, “Here! This always helps me. Smell it, too,” he instructed, watching as Benni nodded diffidently and followed along, pulling the sweater over her head. Her frame drowned in it.
“That was my dad’s too,” Malin stated matter of factly. “Mami says that when I was a baby, I used to sometimes have fits where I’d cry and had trouble breathing. They think it was just cause of stuff that happened with my birth parents. And whenever I did, my dad used to show up. She said he just always knew when I cried cause he was a really good dad, but I think she called him.
“He’d come on the train, every time, and my mom let him in the side door cause he hated other people seeing him, really. A lot, I guess, and he’d take me out to the back and sit in that rocking chair,” And he pointed with the untrapped hand to what was really just a speck on the distant porch.
Benni nodded sagely. “I sat there last night.”
“He’d sit and rock me, and sing until I was asleep,” Malin grinned, soft. “And then go back to the city. Everyone says I was too young to remember it, but I think I do. The porchlight, and his beard, and how I didn’t like its scratchiness. And the smell. His cologne.”
“I believe you,” Benni chipped, “I can remember a nurse giving me a care bear I had since I was one.”
"Cause it's important stuff." Malin gave a resolute nod. “My dad left behind stuff for each of us. I got his sweaters and cologne and Nora got his records, and I think Mari got the antiques they didn’t sell. I think he got rid of his, though. Whenever I’m really scared or stuff, I can come in here, and put on the sweater and read some of his books, and it helps me out. So I thought you might…”
Benni seemed to consider a moment, and then she gave a little huff, and whispered bashfully, “You’re really nice.”
And then she held up the hem of the sweater, and Malin flushed and took the invitation for what it was- wriggling in besides her. It was a snug fit to shove both their torsos into the sweater large though it was, and the collar was snug around their shoulders and they each took an arm, but Benni was giggling and Malin grinned so hard his cheeks hurt until they were comfortable sharing the shetland wool and the spicy, musty old man scent. He kicked a little at the window latch until it popped open and the air seal broke, and the wooden hatch fell away.
Benni’s gasp was more delighted this time; the windowspace revealed the whole field beneath them- the sloping green hill and the lodge beyond, and the long barn bordering the park. It was humming with a breeze and a lark spun circles round the premise, the call warbling.
Two figures, holding hands, emerged from the woods at a leisurely pace, and Benni blew a quiet huff out her nose as she watched black tousled curls and light blond disappeared behind the hayloft. “Think they're going inside?”
“Oh, yeah.” Malin hummed. “That’s where Mari’s safe place is. Wonder what they do in there for so long.”
There was a loaded pause, during which Malin’s mind quickly turned to dark and sinister things.
“They probably french kiss,” he added, grim. Benni snorted, and then she leaned over to bury her face in his shoulder and laugh, muffled and giddy.
“Ewwww,” the girl whined, but it was a smiling whimper and her shoulders were shaking, and Malin’s chest was suddenly fluttering, and he found himself laughing too, until they were both done and let out each of them sighs; the deep, shuddering kind that ebbs away the stress to wash it over with something sweeter.
Benni’s head stayed on his shoulder.
When they came down to go back inside, twilight was falling and the larks had turned into bats, and Marion and Greyson had wandered out to watch the fireflies rise from the hayfield.