Taken Away by Celine Kiernan Page B

eyes, underscored with deep lines, surrounded with purple shadows. His cheeks were hollow and filled with shadows. He scanned the gloom of my bunk with fear, his white lips compressed. It took a moment for him to register my presence. Then his eyes jumped to mine. I flinched, terrified by the certainty that we’d done this before: me looking up at him; him looking down on me – a solemn-eyed boy of ten, untouched by the wind and rain.
    The child quickly recovered from the shock of seeing me. Then his sunken, sick-looking face hardened into loathing and, without taking his eyes from mine, he hissed to the person up above me – to Dom: ‘He’s here.’
    The bunk squeaked overhead as Dom shifted suddenly, and I heard my brother gasp in fear. The little white child reached his whole arm over the edge and gripped the middle rung of the ladder as though he meant to crawl down, headfirst. He glared at me and bared his little teeth, and they were black against the snowy white of his lips.
    That scream bubbled up inside me and I opened my mouth to let it out.

    â€˜ HEY, SWEETHEART . ’
    I leapt, my scream nothing more than a soundless rush of air, and Ma drew back in surprise. ‘Did I give you a fright?’ she whispered. ‘Sorry, love.’ She brushed my hair off my face. ‘You know you were asleep with your eyes open? You looked a bit creepy, staring at the ladder like that. Were you dreaming?’
    I blinked at her, frozen and disoriented, the blankets bunched at my chin. The storm still gushed and buffeted outside the house. Downstairs, the telly burbled cheerfully and Dad and Dee chattered away to each other.
    Ma smiled at me. ‘The Eurovision’s just about to start. D’you want to come on down and watch it?’
    I nodded dumbly, not trusting my voice. Ma handed me my dressing-gown and stood to wake Dom. He jolted awake, the bed squealing as he jerked into a sitting position.
    â€˜Who’s there?’ he cried.
    Ma laughed. ‘You’re as jumpy as cats, you two! Come on! I kept your dinner, and there’s apple tart and custard for after.’
    At the mention of food my stomach contracted and I was overwhelmed by a dizzying cramp of hunger. I heard Dom above me, escaping his blankets in a flurry of urgency. The bed lurched as he leapt from the ladder. ‘I’m starved ,’ he said.
    Ma said, ‘Hey, watch it!’ as he pushed past her out the door and onto the stairs. They entered the kitchen together, their voices under me now, coming up muffled through the floorboards.
    I sat hunched on the edge of the bed, listening as my family moved about downstairs without me. I was shaky and sweating, folded over the emptiness in my belly, too dizzy to move. The hunger in me was as sharp as a pain. My hands were trembling with it, and my head ached so badly that I had to squint in the weak light. I wasn’t sure that I could get my feet under me. The door looked miles away, across acres of bare wooden floor.
    Then, above my head, Dom’s bed creaked slyly.
    I was up and moving in a flash, staggering out the door on legs so wobbly that I thought I’d fall head over heels all the way to the bottom of the dark steps. Somehow I managed the stairs, clinging to the wall, my knees buckling with every step. I was making frantic sounds in the back of my throat, because I could feel that little child behind me, his black eyes hating me, his little hands ready to push.
    I stumbled into the kitchen in a sweat of fear, looking over my shoulder and almost crying with relief. I turned to Dom. He was sitting at the table, grinning. Ma laid our dinners down, and the sight of them blew everything else from my mind. I rushed over and grabbed a spud, cramming it into my mouth before my arse even hit the chair. I groaned at the lovely gravy, the delicious, salty potatoes, the frothy, ice-cold milk. I couldn’t get them into me fast enough.
    Across the table