Free Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill Page B

claim him, Laila secured his body to the bottom with a tangle of lakeweed and swam back to shore. She stood over Knocks, dripping wet and smiling, stroking his cheek. “There, there. Is that better?”
    Knocks nodded.
    â€œGood. Now, let’s get his wallet and go shopping. Mama wants a new dress.”
    B Y THE TIME he turned six, the nixies realized that they could no longer keep their adopted son around the lake. Stories cropped up about a ghostly child lingering around the spots where people had drowned. Other tales whispered of an ethereal, disembodied giggle heard as grown men flailed for their lives. And while the authorities never took any of these claims seriously, the nixies had noticed an uptick in interlopers searching for the Ghost Child of Ladybird Lake; that was attention they could no longer ignore. So by a vote of three to one the nixies decided to leave Knocks in the Limestone Kingdom—which was where he now resided. Laila, the only sister to vote against abandoning him, followed him out to the court, raising him among the fae of the Hill Country.
    And he hated it there.
    The Limestone Kingdom was far from the hustle and bustle of the big city; far from the traffic snarls, the hulking stone buildings, the excess of weekend nights. There were no shootings, no stabbings, no drunken date rapes. No homeless lay suffering on the corner, no despondent teens slit their wrists over self-centered teenage crushes. No children were beaten, abused, or humiliated in any way. There was almost no one around at all. You could walk for miles before seeing a living, breathing human being—and even then all they wanted was to live quietly, as far away from the beautiful chaos of the big city as possible.
    There wasn’t a drop of delicious dread anywhere to be found. It was like living in a world without oxygen, and Knocks was desperate for a single breath of misery. He knew what drowning felt like; he knew better than almost anybody. And that’s what this was. They were slowly drowning him in a lake of emptiness.
    His only respite was his nightly swim with Laila. Together they lay there—floating in the middle of a spring-fed lake—staring up at a field of stars so vast it strained the eye. When those stars reflected off the lake’s crystal sheen, it was like floating deep in the murky void of space—stars everywhere, swallowing them whole, an inky, airless vacuum with only Laila’s comfort staving off suffocation. Only the thin ring of trees surrounding the horizon served in any way to dissolve the illusion.
    â€œMama, I saw them today,” he said one night.
    â€œSaw who, sweetie?”
    â€œAodhan and Caitlin. My parents.”
    â€œYou can’t be sure it was them.”
    Knocks furrowed his brow, giving his mother a stern look, as if she should know better. “It was them.” She stroked his head, nodding, acknowledging her mistake. “I hate them. I hate them so much.”
    â€œOh, honey, you shouldn’t hate them.”
    â€œThey threw me out like the trash and asked for him instead.”
    â€œYou know the rule. We don’t talk about him.”
    â€œBut, Mama—”
    â€œBut nothing,” she said, squeezing him tight. “You are not him . You are Knocks. And if those self-centered prats hadn’t tried to trade you in, I would never have gotten the son I always wanted.”
    â€œI still hate him.”
    â€œYou have to control that, Knocks. We don’t survive by letting our instincts take over. We only survive by being smart. He’s not smart like you. He has his own cross to bear. You remember that. One day you’ll look back and be thankful that you’re not him.”
    â€œOkay, Mama.”
    â€œDon’t okay, Mama me. You say yes, ma’am. ”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œThat’s better. We should be heading in. The sun’s coming up.”
    The two swam to the edge of the