In This Place

Her hands won't stop shaking. The knuckles of the hand holding Claire's knife are white. She can hear her breath coming in uneven rasps.   The lamp in the corner gives off a warm glow. Petyr's computer is still on, the video he was watching paused.   She doesn't know how long it's been. Did Petyr leave a minute or an hour ago? What time is it now?   Anxiety twists her stomach into knots. She gave the remote to Petyr. He went to turn off the television. Will that stop it?   She remembers the man on the screen, how malicious his gaze was and how dangerous he must be. Was he the thing that killed Claire? Or was it something else? The letter said nothing about what she suspected it was and Petyr only found the body after the thing had disappeared.   She glances over her shoulder at Nica's sleeping form. The toddler is quiet, her back rising and falling with her breaths, her face squished against the mattress. She looks adorable. Hella knows instantly that this child isn't her sister or her daughter, but she would still die for her.   She turns back to face the rest of the room and spots something outside the window.   Ice fills her veins. Her eyes lock on the place she saw a shadow move. For a moment nothing happens, and she swallows. It could have been a trick of the eye. It could have been a branch moving in the wind.   But there are no trees on this side of the house.   Hella tightens her grip on the knife, raises it in front of her chest, and watches out the window.   And then, from the same place she was looking, a figure uncurls from the darkness.   It grows larger, drawing toward the window. Black, is all she can think of. It's black, completely black, like obsidian and ink. There are no limbs, no discernable shapes. Only a pair of sickly golden lights that seem to stare into her soul.   The thing presses against the window. As it does, it starts to become more humanoid. Just as she can see hands separate from arms and clutch the window, the bedroom door slams open.   Hella whirls toward it with a shriek. Petyr shouts from the doorway, ducking when he sees the knife. "It's me, it's me!" he yells.   Hella throws a glance at the window and startles. The thing is gone. Outside is dark, with no shadows or figures visible.   "Where did you get that?" Petyr gasps, pointing at the knife.   "Claire wrote me a note and slipped it under my pillow," Hella barely manages to say. "She told me that she felt something was wrong and had hidden a knife in the desk of the master bedroom. I grabbed it when you left."   Petyr blinks at her. "Um." Then his gaze falls behind her and onto Nica. "She's awake."   Hella drops the knife and turns to pick up the toddler. Nica isn't upset, only confused. She curls softly into Hella's arms and closes her eyes again.   "Did you turn off the television?" Hella asks.   Petyr pales at the reminder. "Somehow. It took several tries. All it did was change the channel at first. Sports, mystery show, action movie, then that man again. Finally it shut off. Your cousin came in when I tried the final time. He looked horrified when he saw it. I'm sorry I didn't come up earlier. He wanted to tell me about last night."   Hella nods, holding Nica closer to herself. "I think we should stay in here the rest of the night," she says. "Did you see through the walls?"   "Through the..." Petyr trails off, his expression sliding back into blankness. "The first night we were here," he whispers, "Claire and I didn't sleep well. We didn't tell each other everything about our dreams. But Claire liked to keep Nica up here instead of downstairs. And she picked this room. She must have seen through the walls like you have."   "If you can't see through them, what did you dream of?" Hella asks.   "The swamp," Petyr says. His face is frozen. "And that man on the television. I saw him."   There is something wrong here. In this "house" by the swamp and even in this chamber.   Hella frowns. She thought they were safe here. Why does she feel like something is going to happen?   Then she realizes.   "Petyr," she says through bloodless lips, "Where's Theo?"   He looks back at her, realization beginning to creep over him.   "He's still downstairs," he says slowly. "He said he was going to watch outside of the window with his gun."   "He didn't bring it down," Hella says. "And he didn't come up to get it."   Nica shifts in Hella's arms, asleep again. Her calm only makes Hella's terror climb.   "Are you sure you turned off the television?" she asks.   "What does it do?" Petyr asks. "Does it stop him from watching us? Does it keep us safe? Can this remote even do anything?" He shakes the piece in demonstration, then goes perfectly still. "Hella," he says, voice suddenly steel, "put the baby in the crib and get the knife. I'm going back downstairs."   "What?" She steps forward, but Petyr locks his eyes on her with absolute certainty.   "Something's outside," he says. "You can't feel it yet. I'm going to shut off the lights downstairs and bring Theo to his and Lina's room. Stay here."   He leaves before she can say anything else.   She stumbles back to the crib, sets Nica down, and picks up the knife again. She doesn't know what's going on anymore.   She leans against the crib and holds the knife out in front of her again. She's shaking harder than she was before. Nothing makes sense. Nothing is right. She doesn't know what she's doing.   Time twists again. The numbers on Petyr's clock take forever to change. Her arm is sore. Her eyes are tired. She wants to sleep.   When the thing comes back to the window, she doesn't move. She doesn't freeze, or flinch, or watch it carefully. She looks instead at the windowsill, away from the thing's eyes, with it still in her periphery.   It doesn't turn into the man from the television. It doesn't turn into a monster. It turns into something else.   Her stomach flips. She doesn't know what it is. She doesn't want to look. She doesn't want to see. And she can't. If she looks, if she sees, if she acknowledges it, it will attack.   The thing presses a claw against the glass and scrapes down. There's no sound, but Hella can feel her teeth shudder anyway.   She waits, staring at the windowsill, not daring to move, hoping it will disappear. It has to disappear. Last night, the thing outside left. Surely this one will too.   Nica shifts in her sleep, makes a whimper, and Hella glances back at her. When she turns back to the window, she forgets to look at the sill.   The thing is horrific. Black shadows drip over brown... fur? feathers? and gaping holes of red show through the shadows and the moss that grows out of its shoulders. It looks like it's rotting, like it died in the swamp and then rose from its grave. And it isn't an animal. It's a monster.   The golden eyes, just like the lights that hover in the swamp, fix on her face.   Before she can move, before she can look away, it slams its claws against the window.   Whatever protection Hella believed the chamber had, it fails. The glass breaks, shattering the way she knows it isn't supposed to.   The creature tips into the window, half on the sill, half inside the room. One arm holds the side of the window, one reaches forward. The black claws stretch forward, the hungry gaze sliding past her to rest on the baby behind her. It makes a noise, something between a hiss, a shriek, and a caw, and leaps.   Hella screams.   The thing moves faster than anything she's seen before. Before she can blink, it's halfway across the room.   Her limbs feel like they're moving through syrup, but she raises the knife and swipes at the claws before they can reach her face. The blade connects with enough force to move it, to shove it off balance. When it comes back, she takes another swing, this time going up, and knocks it back.   Nica cries behind her. Hella's blood, racing with terror, seems to still. She's woken the baby. The baby she needs to protect. The baby who will almost certainly be killed if that thing touches her.   Eveything sharpens. Nica's sounds vanish. The world slows. Even the monster, rising to a semblance of feet and facing her, moves differently.   No. It's her. She can see everything, every shift of its claws, every dim of its eyes. She knows exactly what it's about to do.   She fends off a few more attacks, waiting for the opening. She backs up a step, lets the thing sense her fear, lets it see her exhaustion.   Then she stumbles. A misplaced foot, a tiny mistake. But enough for it to overcome her, enough for it to wrap a clawed hand-thing around her neck and reach past her for the toddler in the crib.   Just as the arm closes around her throat and the other passes over her shoulder, the knife goes into it.   The thing stops.   Everything does.   Hella shoves the knife in deeper, twists with all her might, and forces the creature away from herself and Nica.   It falls to the floor. Hella doesn't watch any longer. In a single motion, she spins, scoops Nica into the arm unburdened with the knife, and bolts for the door. It isn't safe here anymore, not when the window was broken, not when the thing already entered.   She forces the knob open and flings herself through, slamming the door behind her just in time to see that only shreds of black mist remain where the creature fell.   Nica is crying, beating small fists against her shoulders and neck. Hella whispers to her desperately, her voice shaking. They're away from the thing, form the breach in the walls, but now they're back in the open where Petyr and Theo are.   There's a knife in her hand, and she thinks she just killed that thing, and she was right that something is wrong here, and she's scared, and her friend died a week ago, and Petyr is gone, and Theo is gone, and she has to protect Nica, has to protect her siblings, has to protect herself, and she wants her parents, and she wants the hunters to come, and she wants to go home.   She doesn't want to be here anymore. She doesn't want to be in this place where nothing is right and everything is wrong.   But she has to be. Claire wanted her to come. Petyr needs her to protect Nica. Her siblings need her to stay watchful.   She doesn't know what she's doing. But as long as she's here, she needs to do it.