"...Gilford? Are you still awake?"
"No, I'm not. Go back to sleep."
"I can't! There's monsters in the dark and they're gonna eat us!" Emmeline struggled with her covers in the dark, pulling them up over her eyes. The nursery vanished.
"They're only real enough to eat you if you think about them, silly." Silence followed his words, and for a minute he thought she'd fallen asleep.
She hadn't, though. "Gilford, I can't stop thinking about them!"
"...fine." He rolled over to stare at the ceiling, smiling a little as he heard her emerge from under her covers to hear what he'd say. "I'll tell you something really important, then. But Emmy, you must promise to never tell anyone else, ever."
"I promise, I promise! Tell me?" She was already distracted, he knew, her fears dissolved by her desire to know one of his "secrets."
He thought quietly for a moment before he spoke. "...everyone in the whole world gets one wish. One honset-to-God, real and true wish."
"Really?"
"Really. But you only get one."
"Well, I know what I'd wish for. I wish that-"
"No, Emmy, you mustn't!"
He could almost hear her pouting. "Whyever not? It's my wish. You said."
"I know I said. But you have to think about it. You only get one, no matter what - so even if nobody ever can make your wish come true, it doesn't matter, you can never have another one."
The nursery was blessedly silent for five minutes before she spoke again. "Gilford, how do you make your wish?"
"Well, first you have to save it up, and remember you have it always. And someday, when you know exactly what you want most in the entire world, you make your wish."
"To the moon?"
"Why the moon?"
"It was in my story book. You're a s'posed to tell your wishes to the moon, so she can tell the stars, and they can tell all the angels who pray for people."
He could see her now in the light seeping in from outside, sitting up in her bed, her straight dark hair tangled and messy, frowning as if she was having difficulty remembering. He sighed and nodded. "To the moon, then."
"...g'night, Gilford."
He smiled. Mission accomplished. "Goodnight, Emmy."
...
It was cold and empty in the room Emmeline refused to call her own. It was only hers when her husband was there with her, just as she could only really feel that he was hers when they were alone there together.
She didn't know where he was now, but she chose not to dwell on it.
Pulling her robe tighter around her shoulders, Emmeline carefully opened the window - against her better judgement, for who knew if Death waited outside to snatch her away? - but nothing befell her, and only the pale, cold moon watched her, casting a weak silvery light on her cheeks.
She smiled up at the moon and the stars and the clear, dark sky as the wind blew through her hair and made the candles behind her dance. "I know my wish now. I know what I want most in the entire world." Closing her eyes, she whispered, "I wish for someone to love me, truly love me - anyone at all."
She stayed in the window, watching the stars twinkle, until Cain returned and pulled her attention away with the promise of warmer things.
...
He was outside and the dark here was so much more free than the cloying desperation inside and he could hear the stars laughing and it was keeping the Other back in the blackness where their lives met and warped and clung, and that was good because the Other scared him and he wated to enjoy the night and the dark and the taste on the wind like the whisper of silk against pale skin and the moonbeams peaking into his eyes were chasing away the dreams of the girl who was falling, falling, falling down and down forever but he just couldn't move, no matter how much he screamed and struggled and cried the Other held him and he could never save her, ever, and it only ended when she hit the ground but she never did, so it wouldn't end.
He heard his sister in the window above and he remembered the wish, because the nursery had been his before the Other and the blackness and the dream and the pain that kept clawing at him to give up and let the other win, because he'd made up the wishes to get Emmy to sleep so long ago when it had been she who feared the monsters in the dark who could eat you, and not him.
But her wish jangled and clattered around in his head, and the Other latched onto the chaos, pushing and dragging and winning his way to the top, to freedom, to anything.
He glared up at the window as it closed, childish eyes suddenly angry and harsh. "Idiot. I told you not to waste your wish. You only get one, remember?"