night terrors.

ii.

The window curtian inhaled, parting the sheer fabric.

Theo watches as the Slaves, drawn by lines of gold, spin and dip in a circle around a gilded fire. The fire sways and flickers with them, and the wind whispers the shape of the song into their ear.

"Well, we made it through the first day, darlin'," Kit put his arms around them, resting their chin in Theo's hair. He'd developed a habit of speaking to make himself known.

"Yeah," Theo says, sliding back into reality. "Thanks to you."

"I am very distracting, aren't I?"

Theo rolls their eyes, and Kit laughs for the both of them, bumping their noses together.

"One to ten, hun?” He asks gently.

Theo doesn't answer for a long time.

"That's fine," He squeezed them once, then lets go. "Tell me when you want to,"

iii.

In their dream, she was running.

Her shadow was long and thin, traced in moonlight as she barreled. Naked branches pulled at the fibers in her clothes, tugged at her hair. She fought them loose, threads snapping and hair tugging and kept running.

Her heart was squeezing, and she made the mistake of turning around.

And there was no ground beneath her.

Their legs were shorter and weaker than they remembered, and their hands were smaller.

They forced the girl to look down.

Children’s hands.

The little girl was screeching, snot and tears running into the folds of her scrunched cheeks. She was gasping, losing air as they pulled her up, up, up.

She wailed.

They let go.

Theo opened their eyes with a jerk and a sharp inhale as if surfacing, hands flying to their neck.

"- eo - Theo - baby - wake up," Kit leaned over them, his image swiMing.

Their eyes dart around wildly, trying to piece together where the dream may have tossed them now.

"It's alright; it's just a nightmare, sweetheart." Kit brushes an escaped lock of hair out of their face, and they flinch. "I'm here, Theo. I'm here."

Breathing hurts. "K-Kit,”

“Breathe with me, baby.”

Theo squeezes their eyes shut and echoes his breathing.

They hate nothing more than the helplessness that courses through them in these moments.

“Can I touch you?”

Theo’s eyes slid toward him, closing once.

Kit swiped his thumb along their jaw.“Do you want to talk about it, darlin’?”

Theo’s eyes fluttered close. In a shrunken voice not their own, they said, “They hung me.”

iii.

The Light on the Mountain Baptist church had been built, burned down, and built again twice all before Theo was born.

It was a white square building with white paint browned with dirt and age, wild and flowering bushes broken up by tall, thin stained glass windows in the front and far square ones along the sides.

Theo raised a hand to block out the sunlight, stopping mid step for some boys in little suits playing tag. They started to round the corner but stopped when they heard the whispering. With their bight hats, gathered in a circle like birds were three women gossiping.

Theo started to walk away.

“You know, I can’t believe that Scarlet let her granddaughter come out here looking like that,” Mrs. Phillis said. “So … unkempt.”

“Well,” Mrs. Patrice wound the word up to spring. “I can’t believe Scarlet let her come home with a white man,”

“I’m surprised she even brought a man home at all,” Mrs.Margaret said. “She’s always been a little strange - a little … off,”

Heat rose in Theo’s cheeks. Those old Harpies, Mawmaw would say, they’ve been doing that before the dinosaurs - don’t pay them no mind. Years later, it was still difficult. Theo shook their head and started to turn.

“True that,” Mrs. Phillis said. “But what a time to come home,”

There was a chorus of distaste.

“Y’know,” Mrs. Partice’s voice lowered conspiringly. “I hear Martha’s girl went missin’,”

Theo’s blood froze.

“Darn shame,” Mrs. Marget said. “How many girls is that now? Two?”

”Three,”

The dream began to overlay the reality, and Theo peeled away from the little figure rising into the tree. It was all shapes and dark shadows, but she knew.

Birds scattered at the sticking crack.

“What are the police doing about it?”

In the silence, they exchanged glances.