By morning, Cole was gone. His side of the bed was empty. In his place, curled on the pillow, was a small, brown rat with a terrified look in its eyes. Leo’s mother screamed. Leo did not. He simply walked to the cage in the corner, opened the door, and watched the rat scurry into the walls.
“Does he?” she said softly.
Barbara took the whistle. She held it to her ear. She heard a lullaby, a promise, a scream. She saw Leo’s future—a long road of foster homes and fist-shaped bruises. She saw her own forty-year retirement crumbling like a dry leaf. barbara devil
Barbara Devil smiled her terrible smile. “I’m not a witch,” she said, her voice a low hum that rattled the windows. “A witch still has a soul to save. I have nothing of the kind.” By morning, Cole was gone