“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“About what?” Shannon asked, though she knew what the girl was talking about.
“Why you came here.”
“I can’t,” she said.
Instead they sat next to each other, close enough to feel each other’s body heat in the cool cellar. It didn’t take long for Charity to fall asleep again, and when the nightmares started, Shannon held her close and calmed her.
Shannon, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep. On top of the horrors of the night, the restless memories of the monster that drove her into the cellar kept her awake. Too many memories for one night, again making her wonder why the big people of the world too often forced the small ones to grow old before their time.
When she did finally sleep, those dusty memories followed her down.
Shannon was fourteen whe
