Foreverland Is Dead

ten feet at the most. Mr. Williams waits for her. She leans on the crutches.
    “You didn’t know this was back here?”
    She shakes her head.
    “Well, someone does.”
    He points at the tracks in the snow leading from the front door. Someone has been in and out—many times.
    A cold chill rises in Cyn’s stomach.
    Someone has been watching them. Have they been coming out at night? Are they hiding?
    Mr. Williams walks up to the door. Cyn follows—
    “Oh!” She stops.
    Puts her hand to her neck. The tingling wraps around her face, darkness threatens her vision.
    “What’s wrong?” he asks.
    Cyn backs up, slowly. First one step, then two. She rests on the crutches until the feeling goes away.
    “There’s a fence around it.”
    He’s immune, like Miranda.
    He smiles and tries the door handle. It’s locked. He twists it up and down, but it refuses to open and looks plenty thick to resist persuasion. There are no windows to peek through. Mr. Williams walks around the right corner. A few minutes later, he comes around the other side, dragging his fingers along the wall, looking up and down, like he’s expecting a secret door to open.
    None do.
    He locks his hands behind his back and stares at the front door. “I’d like to speak with Ms. Miranda,” he says without turning.
    “Tell me what you know. Why were you in beach clothes? What is this place?”
    He turns. One eyebrow raised. “None of this is what you think it is.”
    “Tell me. You said you’d answer all my questions.”
    “I will, Ms. Cyn. I promise. But first, I need to know a few things before explaining our strange arrival. Trust me, it will benefit all of us if I understand everything before explaining.”
    Cyn squeezes the crutches, clenching her teeth.
    He faces the cabin, teeters on the balls of his feet. She doesn’t stop him from walking past her.

32

    Miranda hasn’t slept much.
    She spends most of her time watching the old man, even when he’s sleeping. At first, he and the boy slept like they were dead, lying in bed all day, only getting up to eat.
    Cyn still makes them sleep in the same bed at night. Miranda thinks it’s rather cruel. The men are sick. One of the girls could make a bed in front of the stove. The way they sleep, they’d never know the difference between a mattress and a plank floor.
    Miranda has been so consumed with the monitors, she stopped playing music days ago. She moves only between the kitchen, bathroom, and back room, her obsession blotting out fear.
    He knows something.
    It’s the way he looks around, studying his surroundings, taking it in, digesting it. Sometimes she catches him nodding, affirming some thought or feeling, and then hiding behind a smile.
    Finally, he’s ready to talk. That’s what Miranda thinks. He’s been biding his time and now he’s feeling better, ready to make a move.
    He gets out of bed and sorts through a pile of clothes, switching out some of the things the girls put on him when he was too weak to dress himself. He instructs the boy to remain in bed. The boy does as he’s told, curled beneath a fleece blanket, doing what he does: staring and drooling.
    Ignoring Roc’s pleas for help.
    The old man goes into the kitchen. He thanks Cyn for her gratitude because he knows she’s in charge. She couldn’t care less. Cyn doesn’t stand, doesn’t make eye contact, just sits there with the permanent scowl.
    Miranda turns up the sound, but they don’t say much in the kitchen. Cyn and the old man go out to the meadow where Miranda can’t hear. And she can’t read lips. They’re pointing around the camp. Cyn must be giving him an update about how they woke up and what they found.
    Miranda feels a cold sensation crawl up her back when Cyn points at the brick house .
    She pulls her legs onto the chair. The old man nods as Cyn explains how Miranda’s hiding from them, denying them food, telling him lies about her.
    They finally look away. They walk around the buildings, toward the woods. Toward the path.
    Miranda reaches out, tapping keys and directing the mouse, changing the views. She loses them in the trees. She flips back and forth, finally finding the view from the little cabin in the woods.
    The old man walks along the path with a slight hitch in his step. He stops, surveys the front of the cabin, looking left and right. Cyn hobbles not far behind.
    The old man comes up to the front door and, without hesitating, turns the knob. It doesn’t open. He’s adamant,