He said if she starved to death, it would be because he decided it.
So she took up Hide & Seek again, but he’d proven to be persistent. The best part about living in a palace, though, was that there were so many hiding places. A new one every day. Sometimes he found her. Other times he didn’t even look. She preferred him not to bother, because whenever he sought her, he made her heart hurt. His words got all ugly. He always made her cry with his lies. ‘Your mother does not love you, kitten. If she did, she would be here with us.’
It was a cold night, snowing outside, when the little girl lay beneath a bed in a guest room on the second floor, right above the den. Noises filtered up, reaching her ears. The Tin Man hadn’t looked for her because he had visitors, his flying monkeys and some women. It was late, pitch black, when the noise below got louder, chanting, counting backward.
New Years.
The little girl had really missed Christmas. No Santa Claus had come. She thought maybe something had stopped him, like maybe the Tin Man scared him, too, or maybe she just hadn’t been good enough that year, but a mean voice in her head whispered, ‘maybe he’s just not real.’
It was a whole different year now. She tried to remember the one before it, but her memory was being fuzzy.
She didn’t like it.
She lay there with her eyes closed, trying to remember her mother, how she laughed, and loved, but the little girl could only seem to picture her sleeping on the kitchen floor.
She wanted to remember the happiness. How could she do that? Maybe she’d just have to go out and find her mother. Seek her out, instead of the other way around.
Some of the noise from downstairs came closer. Whispering, footsteps along the second floor. The little girl tensed when it moved into the guest room, feet shuffling in the darkness.
Two people.
High heels and a pair of boots.
They moaned, making kissing noises, before falling onto the bed, hitting the mattress so hard the springs almost squished the little girl’s head. She gagged as a cloud of dust surrounded her, tickling her nose. Oh no. Uh-oh. She had to sneeze.
She tried to stop herself, so they wouldn’t hear, but holding it in only made it come out louder.
The sneeze echoed through the room.
The kissing abruptly ended.
Feet hit the floor and the blanket flipped up seconds before an upside down face peeked between a set of legs. The Cowardly Lion. He scowled before dropping the blanket again and sitting back up with a groan.
“Everything okay?” the woman asked.
“Can you…?” He groaned again. “Go back downstairs. There’s something I need to take care of.”
Uh-oh, for real.
The woman didn’t argue, leaving the room. As soon as she was gone, the blanket flipped up again. “Get out here.”
The little girl crawled out from under the bed and stood up beside it, frowning. She tried to just leave, but he grabbed her arm.
“Whoa, busybody, where do you think you are going?”
“To bed,” she said. “I’m tired.”
He cocked his head to the side, giving her a glassy stare. “Me, too. I’ve been tired for a long time.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, grateful when he let go of her arm. “You should go to sleep.”
“Tried,” he said. “Found a little monster hiding under my bed.”
She scrunched up her face at that, which made him laugh.
“Come on, tell me,” he said. “Why are you hiding?”
“Because he’s mean.”
“And?”
“And that’s all,” she said. “He’s just not nice.”
The Cowardly Lion blinked a few times, like there had to be more answer, but she didn’t have anything else to say.
Wasn’t that enough?
“You’re right,” he said. “He’s not nice.”
Her eyes widened. “You think so, too?”
“Of course. He’s a mudak. A real piece of work, that one. But hiding from him will not make him nicer.”
“What will make him nicer?”
“You,” he said. “Believe it or not, you make him nicer. It softens us, love. It makes us all squishy. But sometimes that same love becomes a liability.”
“What does a lie-bully mean?”
He smiled. “It means he can’t live with you, but he can’t live without you. Either way, it is a problem. So you should give him reasons to live with you, because your mother gave him too many reasons to live without her, and we see where she is now.”
“Where?” the little girl asked. “Where is she?”
“Not here.”
‘Not here’ sounded good to the little girl.
“Come on,” he said, standing up, grasping her shoulders. “Let’s go say goodnight.”
He led her downstairs, keeping his grip on her, taking her straight to the crowded den. People were drinking and sniffing white powder again. The Tin Man’s eyes were straight black as they zeroed in on her. She didn’t like his black eyes. They scared her.
“Found this one up in a guest room,” the Cowardly Lion told him, “hiding under the bed.”
“That is not very creative,” the Tin Man said. “Of all places to hide, you choose where everyone knows to look. Did you want to be found?”
She shrugged.
“She says you are mean,” the Cowardly Lion added. “You aren’t very nice. She asked how to make you nicer.”
The little girl glared back at the Cowardly Lion. “Nobody even likes tattletales.”
The Tin Man laughed at that, like she amused him, opening his arms and motioning for her to come closer, but she didn’t budge.
“You know, obedience makes me nicer, kitten. Maybe if you give a little, I will give a little back.”
“Will you give Buster back?”
“No.”
Then no, she wasn’t moving. She wasn’t giving. She didn’t care if he got nice. She’d already decided she was leaving. She didn’t need him. She was going to find her mother and they were going to stop playing all this Hide & Seek. She didn’t need a daddy.
Especially one so mean.
The Tin Man dropped his arms, giving up, waving her away. “Go to bed.”
“I’ll make sure she makes it there,” the Cowardly Lion said, pulling the little girl from the room, leading her upstairs.
The little girl ignored him, pretending he wasn’t even there, as she settled into the bed, covering herself up with the blanket, pulling it the whole way over her head.
The mattress dipped, the Cowardly Lion’s hand ruffling her hair through the blanket as he sat down beside her. “It is New Years, sweet girl. It is the time for new beginnings. Resolutions.”
“There’s no point,” the little girl muttered.
The blanket was ripped from her head, and she made a face, trying to snatch it back to cover up, but the Cowardly Lion refused to let her. “What is wrong?”
“It’s all stupid,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I don’t like holidays no more! Santa didn’t come, I got no presents, and I didn’t even get my wish to come true!”
“What was your wish?”
“I want Mommy. I wanna go home.”
The Cowardly Lion blinked at her for a long moment before throwing the blanket back over her head, covering her up as he stood to walk away. The little girl listened to his footsteps crossing the floor before he called back to her quietly, “Goodnight, sweet Sasha. Happy New Year.”