I had no idea how she was able to talk with no tongue, only teeth, it pestered me at the back of my mind. I had to know.

“What is an eater?”

I trod carefully over little alphabet blocks: rocking horse, porcelain dolls—cracked and twisted—and sat a few feet apart from her. She didn’t twitch nor did she try to claw at my face and neck—not menacing—although she was a talking cadaver, so there was that.

“It ate Mommy’s love and it made her angry at Daddy because he left with me to go to heaven.”

She whimpered and scootched further to my side until her bones touched my warm, pulsing arm; she didn’t fidget nor stirred at my invasiveness, a little girl was all she was. I had to think of the right questions to ask. This kid… her normal had changed.

“Why aren’t you with Daddy?”

She turned to face me as I had.

“I’m Mommy’s love. Daddy said to stay until Time would come.”

Her bony finger lifted and stopped at me. I doubled back.

“Are you saying I’m Time?”

She nodded and if I didn’t know better, she sure was sure about it. She couldn’t be right, I mean, I’m just a crazy eighteen-year-old who wants to go to college; get a boyfriend, maybe a cat-like Jeffrey, and yeah—I’d like to go to Venice too.

“You have to go now.”

She turned back to her corner and picked where she left off, scratching the fallen frame.

“Wait, I have more questions. I—”

The room wobbled and wailed like a crashing shipwreck.

“Times up,” a man’s slick voice whispered in my ear.

“What? Ah!”

I choked and yelled when a hand grabbed onto the collar of my shirt, pulling me out of the room.

“Bye-bye, time.”

Lily waved and crumbled into smoke.

“Lily!”

My voice echoed out her name. I wanted to know more. The door slammed in my face, the house deteriorated into dust: its piles of aged newspapers, magazines, old crusted food went all up in smoke like Lily. Everything went dark. I blinked and gasped.

“Well, nephew, good thing I got you out of there in time. Any longer and you’d be stuck with no way out,” the same slick voiced man who took me away from Lily said.

“Wait, did you just call me nephew?”

I whipped my head and cringed, raised an inquisitive brow, and tried to get a look at the man claiming to be my Uncle. Sadly, I couldn’t see much of him since my face was plastered to the church’s concrete rubble. Wonderful….

“Why yes, who else would you be, but my nephew. Although it would have been best to have met in Venice, this will… do. Hello, Ray, I’m your Uncle Rotchird at your service. ”

He bowed slightly and gave me a hand. I didn’t know whether I should take it or not, to me he was just as strange to me as my kidnapper, I hardly remember him. The last I saw him I think I was six to seven years old, New Year’s Eve in my late Grandfather’s home in Old San Juan. I recalled having sat on his lap, cheeks, and lips covered in chocolate; jumping and giggling while holding out a round-gold candy in a mesh bag. The house sort of dark and musty, he had a raised, prominent smile just like back then; very gallant and charming.

“Where’s Mrs. Hatchet?”

Uncle furrowed his brow, his lips flatlined.

“Who?”

He tilted his head and blinked.

“My neighbor who became—”

“Ah, yes. She’s… consumed.”

I stiffened, my stomach roiling, blood cooling.

“I’m sorry, Ray. She’s dead,” my uncle said, a hint of sorrow in his voice stirred me to pull myself up, even with the struggle and ache in my ankle.

“No. No. No.”

I didn’t want to believe it. She was alive, mad, still alive. My kidnapper caught me before I tripped over rocks and sharp debris.

“I’m sorry,” my kidnapper whispered.

He pointed to a pile of dust. I met his eyes above me and he nodded, narrowing his stare.

“That… its….”

I swallowed the heat down, the ton of bricks collapsing and rilling my stomach even more. My eyes burned, slowly slitting.

“Alright, it’s time to get back home. Your parents must be hysterical,” my uncle said, cutting off every emotion in me.

He moved to the entrance of the church with the knights and Mr. Plaid-suit behind him. I searched for the kid and he was beside me and Mr. Kidnapper. At least he was ok. His ears were still flat on his head and his tails dragged. I poked him on the closest ear. His ears perked and he poked my clenched hand. A cold, round thing was inside my hand and I hadn’t noticed—I was too busy trying to digest what happened to Mrs. Hatchet—not me though—to notice I held onto her locket all this time. Unbeknownst to me, my uncle started knowingly at my hand.

“Gio can your Innana get us all to his house?” Uncle asked, staring at Mr. Kidnapper.

His name was Gio. Did his face fit with the name Gio? Hmm… he might be more of an Adrian to me, seeing we met at the diner, and he kidnapped me. Sure, it was to save me from… The lump down my throat grew heavier. I wasn’t going to sleep tonight.

“If she isn’t too lazy,” Gio said.

He huffed and rolled his eyes, nudged his shoulder at me. I kind of knew what he wanted me to do.

“So, I say her name and think of a place?” I asked him anyway, he nodded and softly pulled a charming smile at me.

The blood on my face burned and I scratched my throat.

“Here goes. Inanna….” Take us home.

It didn’t feel like anything, I opened my eyes and saw the front door to my house. Across the street were many other houses, the same kind of freshly mowed grass; a little decorative garden, and Mrs. Hatchet’s… gone.

“The house it’s gone. It can’t be. It was always there.”

My heart screamed, acid rising, burning my tongue. This was impossible. Where did the small set of gardenias go, the nudgy edge where I fell and broke my nose, and her blue-greyish paint peeling off her house?

“This is what happens when they are consumed by the shadow,” I saw Gio’s face and knew he told no lie, “Nothing stays, not even a memory.”

I held onto her locket, it was all she had left of herself. Mrs. Hatchet wasn’t the nicest neighbor but she was a person. She had a past and a story of her own. Who would tell her story now? Now she was gone. An idea popped into my head, how did her locket get to stay?

“What about this?” I asked Gio and he pursed one moment and held my hand with the locket the next.

“Time, you made it stay.”

His eyes pierced into mine, a throbbing aching about them. He was tangent, feasible, practical. I recalled what Lily had said, “time, I was time.”