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CHAPTER 7

System #2

"Goodnight, Mattie," Monica said softly to the skinny little seven-year-old girl curled on the couch.

Mattie, however, was not satisfied. She was tired, but a small spark of the day still flared through those sleepy blue eyes.

"Tell me a story, Auntie Monica," Mattie insisted. "I ain't tired yet."

"What did you just say?" Monica asked, unable to hold back a smile.

"Tell me a story. I ain't tired yet."

Monica chuckled as she kneeled down beside the couch so she could be at the girl's eye level.

"Your dad says 'ain't,' doesn't he?"

Mattie nodded.

"Well, try not to talk like your father. It's fine for him, but it's not good for a girl your age to talk like that. Say 'not--never 'ain't.'"

"Okay . . . I'm *not* tired yet. Now, tell me a story. Please," Mattie remembered her manners at the last minute.

"Sorry, but I don't think I'm a very good storyteller."

"That's what Daddy said, but I thought he did all right. He can't tell one like Mommy, but he does all right."

"Well, in that case, maybe I'll give it a try." Monica tried to think of what sort of a story Mattie might like as she sat on the edge of the couch. Mattie fell into an eager silence, wrapping herself a little tighter in her cocoon of blankets.

"I know," Monica realized aloud. "I'll tell you a story that I heard of when I was your age, and I later read about it. I'll have to take out a few things, because there are some things that just aren't good for a little girl's mind to consider, but you'll still like it, I think."

"What's the story?"

"It's called 'The Thousand and One Nights.' A very, very old story--"

"I need to talk to you."

Monica turned to see Brad poking his head through the front door of their small house. His face was haggard with worry.

"I'm sorry, Mattie. I'll be right back," Monica mumbled as she rose and walked to him. "What's going on? What kept you so late?" she whispered, hoping Mattie wouldn't hear.

"Luke's missing. He never came home from school. Will and I went out and tried looking for him, but he's just . . . gone. I don't know . . . It could be nothing. Kids these days stay out until they drop dead from exhaustion."

"This late? No, he's not like that," Monica said, unable to keep the dread out of her voice. "Luke's a good kid . . . and he knows John would have his head if he ever found out about something like that."

There was a silence.

"Well, we'll keep looking. If he's not back here by midnight, call the police."

"Right."

She watched him step back out into the night, and she gently shut the door. An uneasy feeling started gnawing at her stomach. She sank down to the floor, just as Mattie walked to her. Monica couldn't exactly tell who it was, though: the girl had thousands, if not millions, of faces, with so many different names rushing through Monica's mind . . .

She blinked, and her vision cleared--she only saw Mattie there.

"Is everything okay?" Mattie said, her voice trembling.

"I . . . don't know, Mattie," Monica let her gaze drop to the floor. Nervously, she toyed with her wedding ring, turning it around her finger as she thought.

The boy, Monica felt sure, was fine physically. He was alive, and they'd find him sooner or later. Emotionally, mentally: that she couldn't feel so certain about. A vital quality of Luke's nature had just been jerked away . . . In her mind, Monica watched it be cruelly ripped away from him, in a thousand different ways . . .

*It's not fair to him!* a frustrated something inside her yelled. *It hurts him so much . . .*

Just then, Monica heard a boy's shout from outside. She rushed to a window and flicked open the cheap miniblinds to see.

It was Luke, with his ecstatic younger brother Will on one side of him, and Brad on the other.

There was a haunted look about Luke that Monica would never forget--though he stood there seemingly unhurt, Luke looked much more dead than alive.

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