***

Alan looks up from the open books on the wooden table, stretching and yawning. He can feel the faint pangs of hunger stabbing at his insides again. Not that they’ve ever really left. Alan’s always been hungry, as far as he can remember. He crouches and curls up into a ball, waiting the worst of it out. His dull jade eyes gaze around the silent, empty room under the suffocating sun.

As usual, there’s nothing to eat. And it’s boring, reading these books all the time. Oscar told him it would be important to learn how to read and write, but it was easier said than done. His brother must be a genius if he could learn all this in a month. Alan’s been trying for half a year now and can only make out the skeletons of sentences. He sighs, pushing himself away from the desk as the heavy pangs of hunger subside. He’d be alright for now.

A knocking at the door piques his attention.

“Who is it?” Alan calls.

“It’s Sarah! I’ve got a surprise for you.”

The landlady? What does she want? We’re not getting booted, are we? Panicked thoughts race through Alan’s head as he shakily makes his way to the door. But she’s letting us stay here for free and she really doesn’t have to.

He steadies his hands and unlocks the door. As it swings open, Alan’s hit by the mouth-watering smell of a meat pie. Instantly, he starts drooling.

“Surprise!” Sarah exclaims.

Alan quickly wipes his drool away. He steps aside and allows Sarah inside. She sets the pie down on the table beside his books.

“Figured you might be hungry,” Sarah says, turning back to him as she wipes her hands on her blue apron.

“Y-you really didn’t have to,” Alan stutters, looking away. “Oscar will be back in a few hours and we’ll get something to eat—”

“You know,” Sarah interrupts, reddish-brown wisps of hair bobbing at her sudden crouching motion, “I don’t really approve of that.”

Alan blinks.

“You’re both growing children and you’ve grown up on the streets for who knows how long. It’s a miracle the two of you are still alive, given the odds. You could’ve died from all sorts of things, the least of which is starvation.”

Alan looks to the side, “Well, I mean there’s lots of kids like us out there—”

Sarah’s brows crease and Alan gulps.

“If I may be blunt,” Sarah starts, “Oscar’s idea of getting you food once a day isn’t healthy. He’s off working now, so he’ll be fed three meals a day at the Blackwoods. But you won’t be, Alan.”

“Oh, no, no, it’s fine. We can’t buy that much food anyways.”

“No, it’s not fine. I know you’re hungry. Look, you’re drooling again.” Sarah points to Alan’s chin and he embarrassedly wipes it away. “So just eat, for heaven’s sake. Do what you have to do to survive, you hear me, Alan? I would know what it’s like to…” She trails off, voice wavering. “Never mind. In any case, this should last you a couple days. If you can’t finish it, I can put it in the icebox for you. This is all yours, Alan.”

Stunned by the suspicious thickness coating Sarah’s usually cheerful and bright voice, Alan can only nod obediently.

Sarah stands. Her hands caress the pages of his open book on the desk as she scans it. “Are you getting the hang of reading and writing?”

“No.”

She laughs, voice merry again. “Honest. I like that. At least that’s one good thing Oscar’s doing for you.”

“What do you mean?”

Sarah’s brown eyes narrow and she observes Alan for a moment. “Don’t worry about it.” She steps away, leaving the room. At the doorway, she pauses. “Alan, do you love Oscar?”

Alan smiles tenderly. “Of course I do. He’s the bestest brother I could ever have!”

“Best,” Sarah corrects him with a chuckle. Her visage flickers to something else, but it changes back so quickly that Alan must have imagined the sadness on her face. “If you love Oscar that much, it might be best if I stop coming to visit you.”

“What?” Alan freezes. “W-why? I can visit you instead!” He runs to Sarah, clutching her hand. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t apologize,” Sarah tells him firmly as she gazes down at him. “It’s nothing to do with you. I just can’t stand by and watch as Oscar…”

Alan waits expectantly for a reason, but she doesn’t give him one. Sarah turns away so that he can’t see her face.

“I’ll still make meat pies for you,” she says, voice steady.

“It’s okay even if you don’t make any,” Alan interjects. He grips her hand a little tighter. I don’t want to be alone.

Sarah ruffles his hair. “You’re a sweet child, Alan.” She squats down so that they’re eye level. “Pinky promise me one thing?”

Eyes wide, Alan nods almost desperately. He holds out his pinky.

“If you love your brother, be good. But most importantly, don’t be too good. Listen to your brother, but don’t listen too hard. Trust your brother, but don’t believe everything he says. Find others you can trust too.”

Alan frowns. “I don’t get it.” But Sarah is dead serious, so he quiets and nods.

Sarah hooks their pinkies together and they seal it by pressing their thumbs together. Sarah rises and waves as she disappears up the creaky, winding stairs.

Alan closes the door, his body suddenly very heavy. He feels a lump in his throat, but the moaning of his stomach directs his sight to Sarah’s meat pie. He takes the accompanying fork and digs in. It’s meatier than usual and his tummy feels a lot better as he eats.

Why won’t Sarah come back again? Alan’s mind circles back to this question and he can’t come up with an answer. He thought they were getting along just fine. If anything, Alan had started to think of her as a mother. He knew it was probably wrong of him, but…

Maybe Oscar would know what to do?

He stops that train of thought. He promised Sarah that he wouldn’t tell Oscar about her visits and her meat pies. He still felt guilty that he was getting extra yummy food while Oscar kept to stale bread most of the time, but he couldn’t deny how tempting Sarah’s offer was at the time. It was about a month after they had moved in, only half a year ago.

“Listen, Alan, it’s really important you don’t tell Oscar that I’m giving you meat pies,” Sarah had said. “He’s… trying his best to care for both of you, and if you tell him about me, he might get upset and think that his efforts are wasted. You wouldn’t want your brother to be sad, right?”

Alan had agreed immediately. A small niggling question arose in the back of his mind about why Sarah wasn’t giving any of her delicious meat pies to Oscar. But he was pretty hungry and couldn’t be bothered to think about it. An even smaller part of him didn’t believe Sarah for one second. But Alan was confused by that part of him, so he buried it away. And so, their secret weekly arrangements began behind Oscar’s back. Sarah would bake him a meat pie and he’d have something to eat for lunch for a few days of the week.

But Sarah says Oscar’s eating at the Blackwoods, so it should be fine now, right? The guilt in his gut doesn’t lessen anyhow.

As Alan finishes his slice of meat pie for the day, his mind fills with the unanswered questions he’d put aside for so long. I’m going to ask Sarah.

When Alan knocks on Sarah’s door at the top floor, the remainder of the meat pie in hand, he receives no response.

“Sarah? Can I ask you a question?” he calls.

There’s no sound inside.

“Just one?”

Silence.

“I’ll leave it by your door…” Alan trails off, uncertainty swelling in him. A part of him doesn’t want to ask anything, satisfied with the way things are. When there’s still no sound of movement after a couple minutes, Alan sighs and places the meat pie in front of the door. “Thank you for the food,” he mumbles as he starts down the stairs.

When Alan turns the corner and starts down the second flight, a doorknob turns. Startled, Alan bolts back up the stairs, hoping to catch a glimpse of Sarah.

But the corridor is empty and there is no trace of her. The meat pie is gone too, and Alan’s breathing is the only thing that echoes off the speckled brick walls.

It’s like she was never here.

Every now and then, these stray thoughts surfaced when some small part of him doubted something about Oscar, about the times his brother told him to keep a secret, and the feeling that something is terribly wrong. And Alan knows he will forget what exactly is wrong very soon, just like all the other times he’s had these disturbing thoughts.

Sure enough, his body starts to feel sluggish again and he quickly stumbles down the stairs. I’m not afraid. I’m not. It’s just sleep, he chants to himself.

It’s only when he has these episodes that he sees flashes of white wings, golden hair, and an unfamiliar face in a strange place. Floating cities. A too-bright sky. Beings that could only be called angels.

Alan winces, head throbbing.

He races against time, hoping he’ll make it back before this feverish state overtakes him completely. The spiralling stairs fuzz and blur as he rounds the corner once, twice, and thrice. There’s an ache in his head and a cloudy tiredness drowning his body. His hands fumble against the doorknob and it somehow opens. It’s harder to breathe now. Alan’s body falling against the door slams it shut. The impact breathes life into his darkening vision and he barely manages to fall into bed.

Sarah’s voice echoes once more in the stifling darkness.

Oscar is not a good person.