Roscoe And The Rat King

Part 14

After signalling a taxi, we're at the desert entrance in under three hours. Lee waves his hand and sand is thrown around an arch allowing access. He parks after fifteen minutes driving north bound on a sandy road. I sit outside the car, drinking water as the others riffle through the trunk. Lee sniffs the air, throwing his head back with arms wide pointed at the sky. We all laugh, and he turns, situating the toy robot tightly into the ground. He winds it up and does the same with the other, about two feet parallel to the other.

'Do you think it will work?' I ask.

The robots? Just watch.' Lauren smiles.

The robots. Yes. Both plastic polymer skins embedded with DNA. Sand shifts and the ground begins to rumble and shake, filling an emerging structure. Lee points towards a door as sand falls from its roof. I pull the door open, and the others run inside, brushing sand from their clothes.

The interior is nicely decorated, following a theme of beige and cream décor. A boy sits in the centre of a wooden room. A small fish is following his finger from the inside of a tank. He turns to Lee, his fingers leaving the glass. Running towards us, he hugs Lauren and then Polo. He plays with his hands as he approaches me, and Lee introduces us. Shaking my hand, he looks back pointing at the fish.

'Hi! I'm your uncle.'

'I know. My dad sees you.'

Lee claps and takes his small palm, following him back to it. Lauren and Polo put their things down; the boy looks back to me for a second before he is consumed by the aquatic creatures.

The whole house is built on a base of wood. I reach towards the stairs before Lauren pulls me into a side room.

'What do you think of him?' Polo asks, he's leaning against a desk.

'He's lovely,' I nod, 'How are you?' I squint through this uncomfortable moment, until he looks at me with sincerity.

'I'm fine.'

I nod and walk back out, waiting on the other two. We eventually convene at the door. I manage to get a high five out of the kid before we leave. He looks a lot like his mother, especially when he looks up at me. Lee puts his hand on his shoulder, then holds him in his arms. He whispers something to him, and he runs to Polos side. Lee hands Lauren a suitcase.

'She knows enough that she could find us now.' Lee says. 'You'll have to take Theo.'

Since Nia will no longer be joining us, we decide to cut the trip short. I've managed to contact the agency that we are returning. Scrolling through the lack of photos taken, I wonder if I can now create mental images and have them in my phone. Polo walks through the front door as we bring our suitcases downstairs. He welcomes Silva in.

'Hey.' I'm glad to see her again.

Silva gives a perfunctory smile. 'Struggling with your phone? Bill can fix that.'

'Silva's coming with us. She can help you with your abilities and I think she can help you find your sister.'

'Thank you, Silva.'

'No worries, Polo tells me you'll need the help.'

Theo is shy, he blinks at Silva before turning back to me. His hair is curly and soft – also like his mothers. I ruffle it, laughing at his slight discontent. He punches my knee and I double over in pretend pain, letting him hide behind Lauren.

He mimics this when we arrive back home. It smells the same. I always enjoyed that feeling whenever I did return home after some time away. Almost immediately, I'm greeted by the Darnes daughter. She flashes a cheeky grin, hiding something in her hand behind her leg. I have to set up somewhere to sleep for Silva. She's excited to see her sister and follows Polo to her, while I bring our stuff up the stairs. On our journey back, Polo had made it clear that we not tell Silva just yet, and he should be the one to break the information to her. Pushing through the door, I drop our bags. Thankfully, one of the suitcases catches the door before it can close. I hadn't spent much time in this wing of the house by choice. Unfortunately, I hadn't felt the need to look back on those memories. Now Theo is home, it might help to review how I feel about my childhood – as well help my memory.

'It looks so normal.' Lauren walks in.

'Yeah, it's scary.' We both laugh. Talking about our emotions hasn't ever been our forte. Maybe a little friendly competition and a mutual understanding that we didn't have the most normal life was our form of connection. Coughing, I sigh and turn back to the bags. Hopefully, Lauren can't tell I'm upset. I pat my eyes dry with my palm and turn back to her.

'She was your sister too. You can grieve, okay. You can grieve too.'

'I don't want to grieve. I was there.' She looks straight ahead to the end of the corridor. The old master bedroom. 'So, when you snap or get angry all I want to do is sleep. Then I wake up, knowing it doesn't have to be this way. But none of us will take a chance to just move on. She wouldn't have either.'

'I just don't think it's fair, everyone gets to be angry. But us. It is exhausting making so much space for those who, for whatever reason, won't do the same.'

'Well that just means we have practice. Practice makes perfect. We can do this.'

My stomach sinks again. Practice makes perfect. It's another phrase we'd heard a lot growing up and as we are now, it hurts to know those words are new when they're spoken but their effect isn't. I roll my neck and groan.

She wrings her fingers, looking around.

'Do you think you're gonna try and visit Lee again?'

'Yeah.' I say. 'He's fun, you guys got on well. Didn't you?'

'I don't know how people have fun if it's not forced.' She chuckles, letting her hands go.

'Well, you should. I can finish up here, you go enjoy the last day before we're back to it.'

'Lee must have been upset, spending all those years out there. I hope it was worth it.'

She walks back out, moving the suitcase so the door slams shut behind her.

Coming down to the kitchen, all the colour in the place has been drained. Silva is weeping in Laurens arms with Polo standing next to them, watching with a glass of water in his hands.

'The sand.'

I shake my head. 'The sand. The sand, the sand!' My breathing becomes shallow as I try to focus on Lauren and Silva. She hugs me after she does Lauren, taken aback by my shaking hands on her back.

I have got to get her voice out of my head.