Disclaimer: Molly Walker's backstory is mine. Molly isn't.
The Boy and The Watcher.
She doesn't like the man and the woman, the ones that tell her too call them mommy and daddy even though they aren't really her mommy and daddy and they do things that Molly has never seen other mommies and daddies do.
Molly has seen other mommies and daddies. She has seen them at the park and the food store and walking in front of the house.
Other kids' mommies and daddies don't hold their Mr. Bear over the fire on the stove, laughing as she shrieks and cries in terror at the sight of the purple flames coming too close to the pink fur of her furry friend.
Other kids' mommies and daddies kiss their face or rock them in their lap when they cry. They don't pinch their tummy or slap their face or burn their arm with the nasty smelling smoking stick.
They don't put a lock on the fridge and scream at them to shut up when their belly is so hungry it feels like it has teeth and is trying to eat itself.
They don't take a medicine shot that makes them sleep for a really long time.
They don't come into their room at night and do mean and scary things to the boy.
Molly loves the boy.
He goes to the really big school, the one where he has to read a lot of really big books and write lots of funny numbers on white paper.
When mommy and daddy take their medicine shot he takes care of things.
He vacuums the carpets and washes the floors and scrapes the fuzzy green stuff off the dishes in the sink. Molly helps by putting the shoes away (one shoe in every corner of the room) and by vacumming after him with her green vacuum that has the bouncy beads in it (He might have missed something).
He colors with her and attends tea parties with her and Mr. Bear, buys apples and peanut butter and milk for them to eat, reads The Rainbow Fish to her every night, and lets her sleep next to him in his bed.
Sometimes daddy wakes up in the middle of the night and comes into their room.
They can tell it's him because his footsteps are really loud and he says bad words to himself.
When they hear him coming the boy looks like he's going to throw up.
His hands shaking he pushes her away from him and tells her : "Get into your bed. Don't watch, cover your head."
Molly does what he says.
She gets into her bed and pulls the covers over her head and lays quietly in the stuffy darkness with her heart beating against her ribs like birds' wings and her face pressed into Mr. Bears' back.
She will hear her daddy come into their room.
The boys' bed will squeak and there's a lot of low and scary noises (like a hungry monster when it breathes), and then there's a stinky smell like the clothes when no one washes them.
After that daddy leaves, and Molly hears the boy crying.
Daddy is mean.
Daddy hurts the boy.
She hates daddy.
Molly never sees what happens. She does as the boy says.
Mr. Bears sees it though.
The boy didn't say that Mr. Bear has to cover his head, so he never does.
Mr. Bear always sees everything. That's his job, to watch and see and know everything that happens because other mommies and daddies turn their heads away and they boy makes sure that Molly doesn't watch and the puppy that likes to dig holes in the yard doesn't know.
He does his job very well.
When two people in nice clothes come and take her and the boy away, and tell them that the boy has to go to a different home, Molly gives him Mr. Bear.
When he tries to give him back Molly says no. She tells him what Mr. Bear's job is, and now that they are making the boy go away Mr. Bear has to go with him and see things for the boy.
The boy stares at her for a moment before agreeing, pulling her into a hug before one of the people leads him away.
The boy was Molly's protector, even though she didn't know it, then.
How did you like it?