Children of the Red Tear Chapter 1 : The House on Elm Court
The sidewalk was crowded. Arthur walked through it like he'd memorized every gap in the flow of people before it happened.
No hesitation. No glances sideways.
From a distance he looked like someone on autopilot. Up close, he was the kind of person people usually noticed. Hair so pale it looked silver in the light. Eyes a deep green, with a thin red thread hidden in the iris that only showed under certain angles.
He was tall for eighteen. Almost 1m90. Built like a runner, not a fighter.
And yet people walked past him without really seeing him.
He liked it that way.
The smell of turned soil reached him before he even opened the gate. His mother was kneeling by the flower bed, sleeves pushed up, dirt on her wrists.
"Arthur! You're back early."
"Math finished early today."
Her voice was warm but tired. It always was. She was in her late forties, unremarkable in every visible way, and somehow that made her more comforting, not less.
Inside, Rose sat at the kitchen table, halfway through an apple.
"Still eating fruit like it's a personality trait," Arthur said.
"Hmph. What's wrong with that?"
At sixteen, Rose had none of her brother's stillness. She was loud the way a match is loud the second it catches. Something in her had shifted this past year, the last traces of childhood giving way to something else, and boys her age had started noticing.
Arthur tried not to think about that too much.
Homework took the rest of the afternoon. Around six, their mother's voice came up the stairs.
"Arthur! Dinner. Now."
"What a gracious summons," he muttered.
He came down anyway.
The table was set for three. It had been set for three for as long as Arthur could remember counting, and some nights that detail still caught him off guard, the way a missing stair catches your foot even when you know it's not there.
Nobody mentioned their father. Nobody had, not in any real way, for eleven years. The subject sat in the house like a wall nobody talked about, because the house was still standing.
Arthur's last memory of the man was fixed in place, the way old photographs are.
His father under the car in the garage. Two men in dark suits arriving. A short exchange Arthur had been too young to understand. Then his father coming inside, saying something low to his wife, kneeling in front of his son.
Get ready, boy. You're going to have work to do. Trust your mother. Protect your sister. I love you.
Then he left. He didn't look back once.
Arthur was fairly sure that most of what people mistook for his coldness had started in that garage.
"So. How was everyone's day?" Lily asked, setting down the pot.
"French, English, history, math. Nothing worth reporting," Arthur said.
"You talk like you're forty," Rose said.
Their mother smiled at that and reached over to smooth Rose's hair. Arthur caught something underneath the gesture. Not just affection. Something closer to checking that she was still there.
"Speaking of reporting," Arthur said, "you never mentioned the guy trailing you home today."
Rose froze mid bite. "Not funny."
"His name's Marcus," she admitted after a second. "A year above us. Three weeks now. Persistent type."
She glanced at her brother, half amused, half actually asking for an opinion.
"Another one," Arthur said, mostly to his glass.
"Excuse me, what was that?" Rose's grin sharpened.
"Nothing. Thanks for dinner, Mom."
"You're welcome." Lily paused, hand on the back of Rose's chair. Her tone shifted. "Arthur. You'll look out for her. Right?"
It wasn't really a question. It never was, when she asked it like that.
"Always," he said.
Something crossed his mother's face. Quick, gone before either of them could read it properly.
Rose rolled her eyes at the whole exchange. She never understood why she needed looking after in the first place.
Not yet.
After dinner, Arthur showered. He'd barely gotten the water hot when the door banged open behind the steam.
"Rose. I've told you. Not while I'm in here."
"Relax, I'm not looking at anything. I need my hair thing. Yours is the only bathroom with a mirror that doesn't lie to me."
"Use your own bathroom."
"Mine's a disaster zone. You know this."
It wasn't really about the mirror. It hadn't been about anything specific in months. She did this because it got a reaction. Rattling her brother's calm was one of the few sports available to her at home.
Then came fast footsteps in the hallway. Their mother.
"Rose. What did we say about walking in on your brother?"
"I'm not looking at him, I just need—"
The door swung open the rest of the way. Lily's face had none of its dinner table softness left in it.
"Rose Laura Walker. Out. Now."
Rose vanished like she'd been pulled out of the room. A door slammed down the hall, followed by their mother's voice, low and clipped.
Arthur stood under the water a moment longer.
The whole thing shouldn't have bothered him. It happened often enough that it barely registered anymore. But something about it always left a small residue he couldn't place. Not embarrassment. Something closer to a note played slightly flat.
He dried off, went to his room, picked up his copy of King of the Mysteries, and tried to let the story crowd everything else out.
It didn't quite work.
What was that about, really. Is she just bored, or is there something under it I'm not seeing.
He didn't have an answer.
He would, before the night was over. Though not in any form he could have prepared for.
Just past ten, the ground started to shake.
At first it felt like an earthquake. But this region didn't get earthquakes. Not in living memory.
The people who noticed that detail were the only ones who understood, for half a breath, that whatever was coming wasn't natural at all.