Chapter 405 (1/2)

Sydney Harp remembered very specifically waking up, as a two-year-old, and fixedly pawing at the latch to her crib. Eventually, by some miracle, her fingers caught the latch and her crib fell open. From there, she pushed herself off of it, and landed on the ground, harder than she had intended.

After a brief, silent cry, she stood and tottered off, heading to the window. Because that was the source of her current fury.

She couldn’t make it to any of the windows in her room, but the Harp family living room had a couch she could climb up on, that would give her a view out of the window and to her neighbors’ house. Also, luckily for Sydney, her parents always left her door cracked, so they could hear her if she began crying.

Which she never did, of course, but it made them paranoid that she was a crier, they were just missing it. And so she could use her two-year-old hands to pry open the door, and slowly stumble towards the kitchen. From there, she moved to the living room and then spent around 10 minutes working herself up onto the cushy couch.

Then, another 10 minutes to get up to the top part from one of the arms, so she would walk along to the side by the window, and press her nose against it, peering out towards her mortal enemy.

Because out there, in the darkness of the night, a baby was crying. She could see his window, and Sydney was sure it was a he, the house to their house’s left, with a light in one of the uppermost windows, as he was left to cry himself to sleep every night.

“Syd, sometimes I wonder if you aren’t trying to run away from home.”

Sydney jumped, spinning around. Her 10-year-old older brother stood behind her, hands on his hips, superman onesie zipped to his chin.

“I’d come with you, if you were,” Zack, her brother, added. “I’m tired of all the vegetables in this joint.”

Sydney frowned but said nothing. She could speak but had only practiced it in secret, because she was aghast at how slurred her words sounded. She resolved herself that she would only speak when her English was perfect. So she pointed violently, out the window towards the lit up window in the house next door, insistent.

Zack crawled up next to her, humming. “Oh, the Ghosthound kid. Yea, he’s a whiny baby. Careful you don’t end up like him. You know he’s your brother, right? So you are a crybaby like that too.”

Wide-eyed, Sydney stared at Zack, drinking in every word. He nodded, clearly satisfied with the attention. “Ask mom and dad. You two were born on the same day, right next to each other. So you are connected. And that’s that.”

And so it was.

Sydney was fascinated by this strange relative that her parents hadn’t told her about and watched him carefully for the next three years. All in all, she found him profoundly unimpressive.

His hair was always messy, he always looked at the ground, and when he spoke he mumbled half his words, so he was impossible to understand.

So, when they coincidentally had a birthday party in the same park, at the same time, because of course their birthdays were on the same day, and they lived in a small town, Sydney resolved herself to make contact with the sloppy boy. Inform him that if they had to be related, the very least he could do is practice his speech a bit.

Everything went wrong immediately. Sydney had approached the boy, Randidly, and dragged him to the sandbox behind the hedges. There she had demanded an explanation, and he just looked at her dumbly. He also just backed away as she advanced towards him, until he tripped and fell on his butt.

Then, his eyes crinkled, and a telltale look went over his face. Sydney’s heart filled with dread; he was about to cry.

Her hand shot out and grabbed his mouth, yanking him forward until they were nose to nose.

“Don’t you dare. You are better than this.” Sydney whispered, her eyes narrowed. And to his credit, he didn’t cry. Randidly just stared at her. But then, just as she escaped disaster, things took a turn for the unforgivable.

“Ha! I found ‘em, mom. They are kissing back here,” Jack called over his shoulder, a 13-year-old who was too cool for his sister’s party taking out a bit of his angst on her. Sydney leaped backward, away from Randidly, but it was too late.

Sydney’s mother and father walked over, chortling, looking over at the two of them with the most disgusting eyes that Sydney had ever seen.

“It’s good to be young,” Her father said, kissing the crown of her mother’s head.

Her mother laughed. “It’s a little early, but… those two have a special connection, don’t they?”