Chapter 43: Secrets of our Past
"Are you going to send us away again?" We asked her. "To another boarding school?"
She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.
"I don't know, honeys." Her voice was heavy. "I think . . . I think we'll have to do something."
"Because you don't want us around?" We regretted the words as soon as they were out.
Our mom's eyes welled with tears. She took our hands, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, James, no. I-----I have to, honeys For both of your own good. I have to send you both away."
Her words reminded us of what Mr. Brunner had said----that it was best for us to leave Yancy.
"Because we're not normal," we said.
You both say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy, James. But you both don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd both finally be safe."
"Safe from what?"
She met our eyes, and a flood of memories came back to us-----all the weird things that had ever happened to us, some of which we tried to forget.
During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked us on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed us when we told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.
Before that-----a really early memory. We were in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put us down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. Our mom screamed when she came to pick us up and found us playing with a limp, scaly rope. We'd somehow managed to strangle it to death with our meaty toddler hands.
In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and we were forced to move.
Chapter 44: Our weird Dream
We both knew we should tell our mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about Percy's weird hallucination that he had sliced our math teacher into dust with a sword. But we couldn't make ourselves tell her. We had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and we didn't want that.
"I've tried to keep you both as close to me as I could," our mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy, James-----the place your father wanted to send you. And I just . . . I just can't stand to do it."
"Our father wanted us to go to a special school?"
"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."
Our heads was spinning. Why would our dad----who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see us born-----talk to our mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?
"I'm sorry, Percy, James," she said, seeing the look in our eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-----I couldn't send you guys to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you both for good."
"For good? But if it's only a summer camp . . ."
She turned toward the fire, and We knew from her expression that if We asked her any more questions she would start to cry.
That night we had a vivid dream.
It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with it's huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.
We ran toward them, knowing We had to stop them from killing each other, but we were running in slow motion. We knew we would be too late. We saw the eagle dive down, it's beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and we both screamed, No!