Chapter 01 – Trust v. Mistrust
Danny slept most of the car ride back to Amity Park, sucking on his thumb. He had a strange stuffed animal, one that his mother had made for him, in his grasp. He insisted it was a fox, though Jazz argued that a fox didn't have so many tails. Danny frowned at her, not understanding how she didn't see that it was a fox. Jazz frowned and looked at Maddie with a judging glance, wondering if a baby brother would really be so wonderful.
The fox itself was rather strange. It was black and a golden thread outlined its eyes and other facial features. A Japanese character was on a small metal collar around its neck. Danny called the character "Shi". Asking the translator what it meant sent small chills through Maddie.
"The character 'shi,' depending on how it is written," she said, taking out a piece of paper to write down the characters that were pronounced the same way. Maddie stopped her when she saw it.
死
"That means 'death'."
Why would a mother give her child such a thing? Such a frightening concept to teach a being that is just beginning to live.
Danny held it dear and close as he slept.
Jack helped Danny put his things in the room that they set up for him. There was a nice window that they could use if he wanted to look up at the stars, something the boy said that he liked to do.
"Danny hoshi hoshii!" Danny reached up to try and grab the stars that Jack had put up on the walls, the glow-in-the-dark shapes currently dull but still a nice shade of green.
"Hoshi?" Danny toddled to his new father and nodded. He pointed to the star and repeated the word.
"So it's a star?" Jack put the small dress that the boy had worn the previous day, the nice blue one of faux velvet, into a dresser drawer.
"Star." The little boy grabbed the last of his shirts – not that he had that many – and attempted to fold it like Jack had. When he was done, though it was sloppy, he held it out to Jack. "Done!"
The large man grabbed it and put it in the drawer, closing it and grabbing the little boy into a warm hug.
"All done, son." Danny was still for a few moments in his arms, blinking, before hugging Jack back.
"… Daddy…"
Jazz smiled as her mother poured some syrup onto her pancakes, her Flapjack Fentons. Even if her dad was somewhat strange compared to other fathers that she had met on Parent Day at her pre-school, she loved him all the same, from his jumpsuit to the food that he loved to make.
Danny stared at her food, as though he had never seen it before. When Maddie gave him his pancakes, all cut into bite-size pieces for him, he thanked her but continued to sit. Jazz hummed softly and began to eat, watching her parents continue to make some more pancakes and talk about their work that went on downstairs in their lab.
Jazz kept looking at Danny, wondering why he wouldn't eat. He kept hugging his weird fox and looking at their parents. Only when Maddie and Jack were finally sitting down to eat, Jazz long done and reading her new book, did Danny mutter something and begin to eat, losing himself at the sweetness of syrup that he had never tasted before.
"Yummy!"
Jack laughed. "It's good, isn't it?"
Maddie smiled. "Is there food you like, Danny? I can make it."
The child held a pensive expression. "Piroshki… and tiramisu." He continued to eat the pancakes quieted himself for now.
Jazz asked Maddie why he wouldn't eat and she told her daughter that they would ask him later.
They never did. Danny did eat in time with Maddie and Jack, and Jazz would do that same until she got tired of it.
Danny held his fox close as he tried to sleep in the new bed that Maddie and Jack put him into. It was strange sleeping above the ground. No matter how many times he had done it – at his cousins' houses – Danny thought it was weird to sleep on a bed, so soft and cushiony. He turned and could not get comfortable.
"Little Prince, darling dear, sleep; it seems…
"That the witches are changing all the bad dreams…
"Into the butterflies, that flutter by, into silver…
"But they are not something that I'd ever pilfer…
"Because I have you in my arms, your eyes like the stars…
"And love, are all the treasure I need…"
He wanted his mother back. Why did she go to the doctor? Why didn't he fix her?
Why did Papa leave him with his aunt? Why did he let the officials take him away?
Maddie and Jack were nice. They didn't understand him, but surely in time they would…
Surely…
