Chapter 3 — The Fuzz

When Molly got home, the days slipped back into their usual rhythm. Busy school mornings, her mum like a landslide through the house, her instructions steady and inevitable.

“Molly, shoes!”

“Molly, your bag!”

“Molly, hurry up.”

Molly always did what she was told. The rush kept her focused and stopped her from paying attention to the fuzz that was filling her insides.

“Ah, reliable old Molly,” her teacher had said one afternoon, handing back a worksheet. “I wish there were more like you,” she quietly added with a wink.

Molly smiled and slipped the paper into her bag. She knew the words were meant as praise, but something about them unsettled her this time. They made her feel as though she was being given a role in a play or a movie or something, but she didn’t know when it had started or whether anyone had even asked if she wanted to be in it.

By the time Molly got home that afternoon, she was more tired than usual.

“Gee whiz, Molls,” her mum laughed. “You’d think you were up all night performing at the Opera House.”

Performing. That night in bed, Molly stared at the ceiling, that word running over and over around the inside of her head.

The fuzz kept coming back. Some days it made her feel a little sick, some days a lot scared, and slowly Molly began to think of it as a creature. Though it felt as though it was trying to crush the life out of her at times, mostly it was barely noticeable. But it was always there.

Its strength seemed to depend on places. And people. It wasn’t too bad at home, though it grew as the time before school drew near. It roamed freely at school, but its power would increase if, say, her teacher reminded everyone to hurry. Especially when everyone already was.

One lunchtime, Molly wandered off by herself and sat down in the shade of a big leafy green tree. It wasn’t long before she felt the creature loosen its grip. But her classmates seemed to get no release at all. They were all yammering and screeching and darting about like startled chickens. If she didn’t know better, she’d say the creature had left her alone but had them all by the scruffs of their necks.

So the creature was not some horrible pet of hers alone. Molly was a sensible girl and she’d heard enough of her Grandad’s stories to know monsters needed to be defeated or vanquished, or at least given a stern telling off. That was why she decided to become not only a scientist, but a detective as well, and it wasn’t long before she started to notice some very interesting patterns indeed.

Some nights, drifting off, she thought about Nin too, out there somewhere with a feather in her pocket, looking for the place where one thing turned into another.