Page 14 of Jacob Michaels is Not Here

“You can’t stop what’s comin’, Robbie.” She sighed. “But we might be able to keep Lucas out of it. Everything you remember? Keep it to yourself. Don’t say a damn word. Not even to me. Don’t even think about it if you can help it. The longer you can keep from talkin’ about it…the longer you can keep from thinkin’ about it…the longer we have.”

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll do what we have to do.” She gave a firm nod, her hand going to the banister as she turned to continue her ascent.

Suddenly, a thought came to me.

“What about mom and dad? We could—”

Oma spun on her heels, a furious look on her face.

“You gonna make another fuckin’ wish, Robbie?” She hissed at me. “Is that what you’re going to do? How’d that work out for you last time?”

I leveled her with my eyes.

“It bought us ten years, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.” She snorted. “How’d that work out for you?”

“We’re both still here.”

“Barely.” She snarled.

I had no retort for that.

“That’s the last of it, Robbie.” She made a vague gesture at the floor. “We’re all we got now. There’s no more wishes or prayers or hopes or…”

I stared up at her.

“Go back to bed, Robbie.” She sighed. “Crawl back into bed with Lucas. Be in love. But don’t let one word cross your damn lips, ya’ hear me?”

For what seemed like hours but was probably less than five seconds, we stared into each other’s eyes from across the dark expanse of the cellar. Finally, I gave a firm nod.

“Okay.”

Oma nodded back, then started to stomp up the stairs, mumbling under her breath and shaking her head. Waiting until I heard her footsteps crossing the kitchen and going into the living room, then start up the main stairs in the house, I went over to the cellar stairs. As I stepped up onto the first step, I braced my hand on the banister and turned to look where the well had been. Where it would never be again. Nearly four hundred years of history ended with me. Of all the things I had to atone for, that one made my chest ache the most. If I had known then…

Shaking my head to clear it of thoughts—which was nearly impossible—I padded lightly up the stairs into the kitchen. Ernst was creeping out from the shadows under the kitchen table as I closed the door behind myself. I didn’t lock it. There was no point anymore. Ernst looked up at me, his eyes somehow sad and full at the same time as he wrung his hands together at his waist. There was nothing I could think of to say to him that would make things better.

“How’s your memory?”

“’Tis back, Rob.” He blinked.

“Don’t tell Oma. At least…for tonight.” I warned him.

“I won’.” He shook his head vigorously, fearfully.

“Do you think…I mean…the others…?”

He shook his head again. “Dey weren’ down there wif us.”

I agreed with Ernst’s assessment. Only the two of us had been in the cellar ten years prior. Lucas, the other Kobolds—they were in the house but further away. Oma hadn’t been in the house. Things would be different for us all in one way or another.

“I’m sorry, Ernst,” I said, simply. “I’m really, very sorry.”

“’Twas worf it.” He held his head high. “I don’ blame ya’. Ya’ did the only thin’ ya’ could-o.”

Ernst speech was even more muddled than usual. The gleam in the corners of his eyes that caught the moonlight let me know why.