Charlotte dragged Maggie around the entire garden, showing her the apple tree and the patch of strawberry plants. She was just about to lead Maggie back to the pond when the first raindrops began to fall. Maggie glanced towards the mountains and just like Tommy had said, the fish-shaped cloud was just past the top of it.
Maggie followed a squealing Charlotte back to the house. She darted from tree to tree in an attempt to stay dry in the steadily increasing downpour. Charlotte on the other hand danced along the path and jumped in a couple of the small puddles that had formed by the time they reached the porch.
When they reached the kitchen, Maria and Jacob were sitting by the kitchen table colouring. Jacob was concentrating with his tongue out. Tommy was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Tommy?” Maggie asked.
Maria gave her a quick look before she returned to her colouring book. “Momma’s changing him.”
Charlotte had already climbed onto one of the oversized chairs and started hoarding the blue and green crayons, but Maggie didn’t feel like colouring. So she decided to explore the house instead. She found a large living room on the ground floor and bedrooms and an additional bathroom on the first floor. When she made her way up the steep staircase to the attic, however, she found something odd. Somebody had tied some string between the backs of two chairs and put a blanket over it, creating a small tent. Well, small compared to the chairs; it was more than big enough for Maggie. The tent itself wasn’t really all that strange, but inside she found a shoe box filled with papers. Leafing through them, Maggie saw mathematical equations and calculations far more advanced than what she understood, but the closer she came to the top of the stack, the simpler the maths became. Eventually, the numbers were replaced by unidentifiable squiggles and then there were drawings of flowers. Bluebells to be precise. Sometimes a single flower, other times whole fields of them.
“Do you like them?” Maggie almost jumped out of her skin. Charlotte was kneeling in the opening to the tent. She crawled in and sat down next to Maggie, taking the stack of papers from her.
“You did that?”
Charlotte nodded. “I wasn’t very good at first, but Momma said that if I practised I would get better. And I did, see?” She picked up a new drawing from the floor outside the tent and held it up for Maggie. It was a picture of two stick figures in a green field dotted with blue flowers. One was wearing a pink dress and the other a blue one. “I made it for you,” Charlotte said.
“Um, thanks.”
“Come on, Momma said it’s dinnertime.” Charlotte crawled out of the tent, giving Maggie a perfect view of her soiled diaper as she did.
The two girls joined Tommy and Jacob in putting away the crayons and colouring books. They were almost done when Eliza and Maria came back from the downstairs bathroom.
“OK, anybody else need a change before dinner?” Eliza asked matter-of-factly.
Charlotte looked away and scraped her foot on the floor. “Me,” she said quietly.
“Charlotte made a stinky! Charlotte made a stinky!” Maria began singing.
Maggie could see that it upset Charlotte who looked like she was about to burst out in tears. For some reason she felt oddly protective of her. “Quit picking on her.”
“Yeah,” Tommy chimed in. “Stop being a meanie.”
“Maria!” Eliza said sternly.
Maria stopped immediately. “Sorry,” she mumbled, not sounding very sincere. Charlotte however didn’t notice and went off with Eliza.
Maggie sat down next to Tommy. “So you’re all wearing diapers?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah. That’s the first thing to go. Then it’s numbers and letters like I told you. And finally you don’t even remember anything from before.” He nodded slightly towards Maria and Jacob.
“That doesn’t sound so bad. I mean, apart from the diapers this place doesn’t sound all that bad.”
“Are you kidding? It’s the same day over and over and over. The rain starts at the same time every day.” He pointed out the window. “And by the time Mom puts the rest of the food back on the stove, it’ll stop raining. Then just after sunset it’ll get kinda windy. Tomorrow morning, just after breakfast, a big fish is going to jump in the pond, and so on and so on. Every day is the same and every day you feel a little of yourself slip away.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Shhh,” Tommy said as Eliza and Charlotte returned. “She doesn’t like us talking about that.”