It wasn't abnormal for Tommy to talk to himself—Emma had noticed him muttering their first day on the farm, laying prone on the floor of Richard's childhood bedroom and lording over his tiny tin troops. She wondered if he had any idea how similar he was to the room's original occupant, who as a child could spend hours playing make believe with or without her company. It was a bittersweet realization, given the somber cloud that swept over their home whenever her brother was brought up in conversation: ever since that night several months before when she had awoken with a cold chill and immediately known the truth, she was the only member of their makeshift family who refused to entertain the fantasy that he would ever keep his promise and walk back through the front door.
But there was something different about the boy's voice tonight, louder and clearer in tone than she had ever heard from him before. She clutched the laundry basket to her chest and followed the sound to his door.
"Tommy, who are you talking to?"
The boy's face swiveled brightly to meet hers. "He came back," he chirped, gesturing to a field of silvery luminescence just beyond the door. "I knew he only got lost."
The clatter above startled Julia from yet another labyrinth of melancholy. She dried her hands and went to the living room to check on Dad and Hubert, both fast asleep in their high-backed chairs, and let out a sigh of relief that her father had made it through another day without strangling the innocent fool for any number of unintended verbal missteps. But if they hadn't made the noise, then—
She took the stairs two at a time, heart pounding with worry for her adopted son and the sister-in-law who had quickly become so much more. "Tommy! Emma!" she called out, rushing from room to empty room until the little boy's was all that remained. She found the door wide open, Emma's laundry basket an upturned heap on the floor as the tall young woman, all color drained from her already milky cheeks, clasped a hand to her mouth and stared straight ahead.
"Emma, you look like you've seen a ghost—"
It was then that her eyes met his; she hit the floor before anyone could say another word.