A/N: In order to read this you gotta shake my hand and agree that Buzz magically got his whole entire brain cell back after TS4.

Other than that, this takes place several years after TS4. The title comes from the poem Errantry, by J.R.R. Tolkien, and this chapter's title comes from the song Quiet, by Lights. I'm gonna keep naming the chapters based on songs I was listening to at the time of writing. Maybe I'll put a whole playlist on Spotify up at the end of the story if anyone wants to hear.

Chapter 1

I'm Not Yours and You're Not Mine, but We Can Sit and Pass the Time

The mountains called the Anderson family, and eventually, they went.

Bonnie thrived in Nevada for her last two years of high school. She rode horses the first summer, living out her Sheriff Jessie stories beneath the Sierras. She saw the Milky Way for the first time on a class ski trip to the lake in the darkest, clearest dead of winter. Under the moonless, star-filled sky, a spacewalk couldn't have provided a clearer view. She published her first short story in the high school literary journal. She helped her dad rebuild the house they'd moved to on the foothills of the mountains. And most thrilling of all, she'd graduated high school not just with honors, but with a job offer thanks to her home construction experience and a community college certificate in welding.

(She was going to be a writer, she and her parents agreed. But they also agreed that it was a good idea for a writer to have a trade.)

She skyped her best friends back in California regularly to tell them everything - all the triumphs and accomplishments, all the big dreams she was turning into realities - and her toys were glad to hear about it all, even secondhand.

Secondhand was the only way they heard anything from Bonnie these days. Since she'd first put their cardboard moving box into her new closet two years ago, she'd only opened the box once - that night, to take Totoro out to sleep with. She hadn't looked at them since.

"She just doesn't seem old enough to go to San Francisco herself," Buttercup worried, peeking through the slats in the closet door into the warmly lit bedroom. Bonnie sat on her bed, tapping away at her laptop, her writing playlist covering the toys' whispers.

"She wouldn't seem old enough no matter how long she stayed here," Buzz reminded them. He'd known Andy was ready for college when he'd gone, but even though children changed so rapidly, it was so hard to ever see them as the grownups they became, when they loved the children they'd been so much. "And she's not going to San Francisco alone."

Bullseye headbutted him on the shoulder, grateful for the reminder.

"I know, she's living in a group house, with the other actors," Buttercup said.

"Activists," Pricklepants corrected.

"I thought they were building houses, not acting."

"They're not acting, they're being active against homelessness," Dolly corrected. "We can sneak out tonight to read the pamphlet again if you're still confused."

"The pamphlet didn't explain why she had to go all the way to San Francisco to build houses," Buttercup sighed. "Aren't there homeless people in Nevada?"

"She's taking her first steps to chart her life's course," Buzz said. He glanced at Dolly, who nodded, glad for his input. The few toys who still remained still looked to her for leadership, but she hadn't gone through seeing a kid off to adulthood before. Buzz had. "It's hard not to worry, but she's becoming the grownup we helped her realize she wanted to be. We can be proud of that, and proud of her."

"Even if we're gonna miss her."

Jessie surprised everyone by piping up. The others crowded at the closet door's slats, but she remained in the shadows, stroking her braid in quiet anxiety.

The rest of the toys murmured their subdued agreement and turned back to the view of their kid, but Buzz kept his eyes on Jessie, concerned.

"Which story do you think she's working on?" Pricklepants whispered to Dolly and Buttercup, as Bonnie reread a paragraph, took out a comma, then put the comma back in. "The sword and sorcery isekai? The space pirate swashbuckler?"

"Nah, the urban racing scifi has the strongest legs," Dolly said. "Dystopia is so big now. She's gotta strike while that iron's hot."

Buzz left the closet door to take Jessie's hand. "How are you holding up?" he asked.

Jessie controlled her breathing. It was easier to do when Buzz was holding her hand, giving her something real to feel that wasn't just her anxiety over the future. She let go of her braid, to give him both of her hands.

Buzz was so good at seeing the bigger picture, the one in which they were valuable to their kid's life even after the kid wasn't a kid anymore. They icould be proud that Bonnie was about to go out into the world, to live a life that helped others, that helped her reach her creative dreams. They'd been such big parts of so much of that creativity, even if they were done now.

That didn't mean he wasn't also worried, or already a little hurt at being about to be given up again by a kid who hadn't touched any of them in years. Jessie had never forgotten his look of hurt and dismay when Andy had put him into storage. He was putting aside his own anxiety to support Jessie, and the others, and Jessie wanted to support him back.

"She is a good kid, isn't she?" she said, and it was all she could say without choking up. What else could she say? That she didn't know how she was going to do this again, and again, always wondering each time when they'd be thrown away and how they'd avoid the incinerator again? Or would they be lucky enough to be donated to a school, where she could keep her friends close, or a store, where they'd have to escape together, or would they get the vaulted few years in an attic until Bonnie's kids came to claim them for a whole new life -?

"Yeah, she is," Buzz agreed, eager with warmth to focus on that. "She's a good kid - and Andy was a good kid. So was Emily, right?"

"She was," Jessie agreed. It was less hard to talk about Emily, now that she also had Andy and Bonnie to talk about. The distinct ways they'd each been great kids were nice to remember, even with a future without any of them looming so large. "I can't wait to tell you all about her," she said, lifting Buzz's hand to her cheek, relaxing a little as he followed her lead and let her rest her face in his palm.

"I can't wait to hear all about her," Buzz agreed. Once upon a time, life had only been worth living if he was there for a kid who loved him, but now, at the natural end of that love - a second time - life still seemed bright if he took all the good he had ever done with Andy, and Bonnie, and kept those memories alive with Jessie. "I still have some stories about Andy you missed," he added, as Jessie smiled with real comfort for the first time in perhaps a week. "We'll always have done a great job with them."

The comfort reached Jessie. A future without a kid was frightening, but her past with her kids was so warm and real and true. It would always be with her - and if Buzz were always with her, nothing about being a lost toy could really be too bad to weather.

"You did good, Spaceman -" Jessie started to say, when the knock at the door cut her off.

"Honey? Are you busy?"

"It's Mom," Dolly said, in a hushed tone, ushering them all to creep silently back to their box. Mom, recently become the Tidier, might unexpectedly open a closet at any time.

Buzz waited as the others crept in the quietest line possible. A thought that had been bothering him recently wouldn't go away.

Mom could decide to do anything with their box. She could take them downstairs now, or take them to the attic now, or Bonnie could decide to pack one toy and not another tomorrow. That was a lot of possibilities, a lot of potential problems to resolve.

But the closet was full of hiding places where a toy or two could go unnoticed for another day or so. He, Jessie, and Bullseye could hide long enough to figure out Bonnie's plans for them, and decide whether to go and be Lost Toys a little ahead of schedule. They'd cut so many other possibilities off if they did -

"Buzz!" Jessie cut into his thoughts. She waited at the edge of the box, as Bullseye leaped inside. "Aren't you coming?"

They were likely going to be thrifted. Once Bonnie made that choice to give them up, they could go be Lost Toys without causing her any distress, or distressing their own instincts. But going in the box made so many variables possible, while hiding now ensured they'd get the fate they wanted.

A good toy would get in the box, and wait for whatever decision Bonnie made. A good toy following his toy instincts would respect what the kid decided to do with them, keep or split or sell or otherwise, no matter what that choice was, and solve whatever problem it presented once it was presented to him.

But if that choice involved splitting him up from Jessie, he didn't want Bonnie to have the means to make it. Hiding in the closet would prevent that.

The others were already in the box, waiting on Jessie, who waited on Buzz. Good toys waited for their kid to decide what to do with them. Good toys didn't take their fate into their own hands. Space rangers did that.

You're not a space ranger, Buzz reminded himself again. He managed to say it to himself without feeling bitter so often. He barely managed it now.

"Come in," Bonnie called, pausing her playlist.

"Buzz!" Jessie waved him over, urgent.

He ran over to the box and helped Jessie up, taking her assist over the edge of the box as Bonnie's old mountain house door creaked open.

"Oh, are you writing? Am I interrupting?"

"No, it's fine, I'm just outlining," Bonnie said. Mom padded over in her slippers on the hardwood and the bed squeaked as she sat down at the foot.

"Which one, the girl who finds out she's a queen in secret, or the flying pirates?"

"The mermaid one," Bonnie said.

"Oh!" Pricklepants gasped. "I thought we were doomed never to know Queen Salinity's fate!"

"Bonnie, you haven't done any packing for San Francisco yet," Mom pointed out.

"Nuh uh, I packed the books I want," Bonnie said. "Other than that, all I'm taking is my laptop, my bed stuff, and Totoro," Bonnie said. "And my toolbox. But I'm not packing all that until it's time to leave."

"What about your clothes, your toys? You've still got to figure out which of those to donate to the thrift shop."

"Mom," Bonnie groaned. "Why can't I just leave them in the attic?"

"If they don't bring you joy now, they're not going to bring you joy after you've gotten older."

The toys all gasped as one. "We could," Dolly exhaled. It was the only time she'd ever spoken against Mom.

"Does my room have to become a guest room?" Bonnie sighed. "It's going to be so weird not to have my own room to come back to."

"Honey this room will always be yours first," Mom assured her. "But while you're not using it, it would be nice to be able to let Grandma and Grandpa sleep here without surrounding them with Kpop posters."

"Grandma might like them," Bonnie objected. "Who knows? Maybe Grandpa does too."

"Plenty of girls would like your old clothes," Mom chided. "And some kids would enjoy your toys more than you have been."

"I barely have any toys anymore," Bonnie shrugged. "They're all in the box in the closet."

The toys all dropped motionless as Mom walked over.

"Oh, the old guard," Mom sighed, pulling the box flaps open. "Whatever happened to your dinosaurs?"

"Pretty sure Mason still has them," Bonnie said, tapping a few letters into her word document. "They're living their best life with all his old Battlesaurs."

"I wouldn't want to try and declutter that boy's room," Mom said, picking up the box. "Oh, you told me some of your first stories with these," she sighed, as she set the box on Bonnie's bed.

Bonnie peered over the box. Jessie was glad she'd chosen to fall face-down. She only caught a glimpse of Bonnie's cheek, still a little baby round, her undercut freshly buzzed, her hair dyed as purple as Dolly's and cut to floof effortlessly on top. She had been so sweet and so fun. Now she was still sweet, still fun, but not to them.

"Yeah, they helped unlock the imagination," Bonnie said. The warmth in her tone filled them all, suddenly, like a sunbeam flashing through the clouds -

The brief warmth vanished as Bonnie sat back, her interest spent. "They can all go to the thrift store," she said,

"All of them?" Mom said, looking over the box. "So spartan."

"Hey, you're the tidying queen," Bonnie threw back. "And I'm not going to have much room in SanFran. I'm sharing my room with two other girls. There might not even be space for Totoro if he didn't double as a pillow!"

"Don't you want to thank them before you donate them?" Mom asked. "They gave you so much."

Bonnie snorted. "Thank them? They're just plastic." There was no dismissiveness in her voice. She wasn't diminishing them intentionally. She tapped her temple. "What I got from them is all up here now."

"Well, if you're sure," Mom said, looking from the box to Bonnie as Bonnie stared at her laptop screen, absorbed. She paused, then asked - "So, have you figured out Queen Salinity's decision?"

Bonnie sighed. "No, I still have no idea how to end this book," she nearly growled. "But I figured out how she befriends the mysterious loner and learns her tragic secret, and I wanted to get it down before I put that one on the back burner."

"Well as soon as you know, I want to know," Mom said. She lifted the box of toys and whisked them away. "Don't stay up ALL night again. You promised to help finish the deck tomorrow!"

"I know!"

Dimness fell on the toys as Mom closed the box. A sharpie squeaked against the exterior and Mom set them down again, light still streaming in through the seams of the boxflaps.

Bonnie's playlist resumed. Dolly stood fabric-silent up to peer through the pinhole they'd popped out of the cardboard.

"She left us by the bedroom door," Dolly whispered.

Bonnie hummed along to her music. The toys stood up quietly, even Jessie, though her legs felt shaky beneath her and she wanted to stay seated. Beneath Buttercup, in the box, Buzz had grabbed her hand and still hadn't let her go as she wrapped her free hand around his.

Dolly stepped away from the pinhole, her stare suddenly blank.

"Could we -" Buzz gestured to the pinhole behind her. "Could we get a last look?"

"It's facing the wrong way," Dolly said. "You can't see her from this angle."

None of the toys said anything, as they absorbed their reality.

Bonnie had given them up. They were done. No more wondering who would be put in the attic, who would be on a thrift store shelf, and who would go to San Francisco.

They had their answer, whether they liked it or not. And they'd had their last glimpse of their kid.

"Now we'll never know if the Megashark gets revenge on the finning boat," Pricklepants lamented. "I was desperate to know if Queen Salinity would quench his thirst for vengeance with Sirenian justice, or if the ocean would boil with the entrails of all humanity."

"She has such a way with describing viscera," Dolly sighed, with sorrow and pride.

Bullseye nickered sadly, and Buttercup translated, "It would have been nice to have been thanked."

They all fell silent, realizing suddenly how nice it would have been to have been thanked. Just as it would have been nice to have ever, even once, told Bonnie that she was welcome. That they'd loved her. That they always would.

Buzz heard Jessie breathing deeply next to him. She was maintaining such stoicism despite it all, the cramped cardboard box, the sudden dismissal by her kid, all these things that had hurt her so much in the past.

But this was it - they were going to be thrifted.

It was the best outcome for their plans.

He took both of Jessie's hands and faced her. "Are you ready to go?" he asked.

"Now?" Jessie's eyes widened in surprise. "The lights are still on."

"As soon as Bonnie turns the lights out and goes to sleep," Buzz said. "We shouldn't wait until we're at the thrift store to get out on our own. Some collector might be there." There was, somehow, always someone waiting to snatch Jessie in her valuable rarity up.

"You're going through with that plan?" Dolly asked, eyebrow raised. "Really? You're going to go be Lost Toys in the middle of the mountains?"

"Don't you want to get another kid?" Buttercup asked. "What could possibly be out there that is better than the chance of getting played with again?"

Buzz glanced at them, but looked back to Jessie, squeezing her hands as he caught her eyes. "The sooner we go, the fewer things can go wrong," he said. "But only if you're ready. If you want to try again with another kid - whatever you decide, whatever happens, I will be there with you."

Even if he had to come find her in the attic. Even if he had to kick out a taillight and slip inside a car trunk to follow her to a museum.

Any human could decide to do anything with them from here on out, but he'd made his decision - to be wherever Jessie was.

She heard the promise with a smile, sorrow over the people she'd lost before mixing with love as she took a deep breath, then another. No more being abandoned, she thought. This could be the last time. "Yes," she said, squeezing Buzz's hands back. "I'm ready to go."

"Gone for a life of vagabonds in the wilderness, your loyalty and wits your only defense against the slings and arrows of fate," Pricklepants opined. "There is a certain romance to the tale."

"See?" Buzz chuckled, looking from Jessie to the other toys. "Someone gets it."

"How romantic is it to get torn up by a coyote?" Buttercup muttered.

"We'll be fine," Jessie insisted. She perked up a little. "I always wanted to see a real coyote."

"And the Milky Way, and the lake in the mountains -" Buzz added, encouraging her, and himself.

Bullseye neighed his agreement, and quietly bounced over to headbutt Jessie quietly. Her anxiety was washing away. She was really going to do it - she was going to disappear into the wilds with Buzz and Bullseye, and never be given up, stored, lost, or separated from them again.

"We've had more than one kid already," she went on. "We've got great memories to take with us. Emily, Andy, and Bonnie - they loved us, we loved them, and we'll always have those memories, no matter what else happens." She breathed in, out. "But it's time for something else to happen."

"Our mission was a success," Buzz agreed. "If you meet another Space Ranger at the thrift store," he added, to their friends, "try and let him know he's a toy easy, will you?"

"I'm really not sure you're doing the right thing," Dolly said. "But if it's what you've decided to do - well, then, take care of each other out there."

"Ride into the sunset knowing your work here is done," Pricklepants agreed.

"And if you do get eaten by a coyote, give it indigestion," Buttercup added.

Buzz chuckled, and turned back to Jessie. She looked so relieved to know what came next. She looked so relieved that it meant braving the wilderness with him.

The moment of warmth he'd felt with Bonnie's compliment flashed through him for a brief moment as Jessie leaned her head against his, her hand still gratefully wrapped in his. Maybe nothing again would ever match the intense wonder of being played with. But he'd given up once on the dream of having all the wonders of the universe to explore and protect - deciding his own fate with the wonders and perils of one whole world to explore with Jessie could come close.

Closer, absolutely, than doing it all on his own would.

They settled at the pinhole to wait for Bonnie to put her laptop away, shut off the lights and music, and leave them safe to disappear.

But hours passed, and Bonnie still typed away at her keyboard. Her typing diminished as the night wore on, but the clacking resumed each time they were sure she'd run out of words.

The lights stayed on. The playlist cycled through and began again.

Bonnie's keyboard clacked so intermittently that she might not have been typing - she might have just been surfing the internet - or she might have been reading one of her own stories - but she never rolled over and turned the light off.

"Is she pulling an all nighter?" Dolly asked.

Buzz's sense of dread was growing. He stuffed it down. This was still fine - if they took a ride to the thrift store, they'd still slip away there when an employee's back was turned. There wouldn't be any uncertainty now if we'd stayed hidden in the closet, he thought. It wasn't a Good Toy's line of thought, but it wasn't wrong.

"She knows she's supposed to help Dad finish the deck," Buzz said. "She's igot to get some sleep before that."

"She might be sleeping now," Jessie said. "I can't hear any typing."

"Give me a boost," Buzz whispered. Jessie laced her hands for him to step in, and he peeked just barely over the edge of the box, barely moving the seams of the flaps.

"She's watching a movie!"

He was aghast. With a day of hard labor ahead of her, Bonnie was still propped up against her pillows, the clock beside her reading 4 AM, her eyes half-open with her headphones plugged into the laptop, though her music still played from her Bluetooth speaker.

"Watching a movie and listening to music?" Pricklepants repeated, skeptical.

"She likes to party," Buttercup said.

"She could still fall asleep before dawn," Jessie said, as Buzz dropped back to the ground.

He nodded, but said nothing. If Bonnie fell asleep, how would they know? If she never did, they would absolutely be seen as they left the box. Bonnie's bed was right next to the only window that opened without squeaking. There was no chance they'd escape the house through any means but that window, unless they could make it to the closet to hide, but the closet doors were closed and squeaked so loudly that there was no chance of opening them. The lack of clutter in the room since Mom's tidying frenzy left almost no reliable hiding spaces. If only Bonnie hadn't already gotten rid of her bedframe, he thought, but she had - and there was no hiding underneath a box spring directly on the floor.

The plan will still work. There probably wouldn't be any collectors who knew Jessie's worth who just happened to be at the thrift store on the particular day she arrived. They could still escape between now and Mom's car. He just had to stay vigilant. No more letting chances slip by.

Morning changed the light in the room, visible through the pinhole. The stairs creaked as 7 am came and went, and Mom knocked on the bedroom door.

"Bonnie, don't tell me you haven't slept," she scolded.

"Okay, I won't tell you," said Bonnie, yawning.

"You made a promise to Dad!"

"I know! I can still help!"

"Really? You're not going to pass out in three hours, no matter how much coffee you drink?"

"I was on a roll. I think I figured out how to solve Queen Salinity's dilemma."

Pricklepants gasped with eager excitement, but Bonnie didn't elaborate.

The box shook as Mom picked it up. The toys fell immobile positions, Buzz and Jessie face-down at the bottom. Buzz's hand landed on Jessie's back, the soft cotton of her yellow hair ribbon underneath his fingers. "Well you'd better get SOME sleep now. I'm going to the thrift store and Dad's taking a load to the landfill, so you have a little bit of time to catch up."

Bonnie yawned as Mom walked out the door, down the stairs. The latch creaked as Mom opened the front door, grabbing her keys. She wasn't even going to set the box down -

"Wait!"

"Bonnie?" Dolly whispered, at the footsteps on down the stairs behind them.

"Mom, are you going to the thrift store right now?"

"Yes, right now, I'm opening today!" Mom said, a little annoyed.

"Okay, but -" Bonnie groaned a little. "I guess . . . I wanna thank my toys after all."

Mom sighed. "Hurry it up," she said, plunking the box down on the front porch.

The flaps popped open. There she was again - not their last glimpse of Bonnie after all, her hair askew from a night of no sleep, her eyeliner smudged from a stray wipe with her hand.

Love poured off her, warmer and gentler than sunshine

"I guess I like the plastic more than I said," Bonnie said, reaching into the box and pulling out Dolly and Pricklepants. She let out a little chuckle over both of them. "Thanks for the lookspiration, Dolly. Thank you, Mr. Pricklepants."

She hugged them both, and though they didn't move, they felt as if they'd sighed. The tension was suddenly gone, swept away along with all the fear of a new journey.

They had been of use to Bonnie. They had made her life better. She knew that. Her knowing it locked it into every fiber of their being.

They somehow looked more vibrant, more ready for a new child when she set them back in the box.

She thanked Buttercup and Bullseye, hugging their plush bodies together, and they shared the slightest, yet most elated smile as she dropped them, free with her love instead of without it. She picked Buzz up, pressing one of his voice buttons -

"Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!" Bonnie chanted along with the recording, laughing. "Thanks, Spaceman," she said. "You got me to love the stars too fondly."

If he could have cried, he would. The powerful magic of gratitude suddenly filled Buzz with so much wonder, he might as well have been spacewalking in the milky way.

"Oh, so are you going to go to college for Astronomy after all?" Mom teased.

"Maybe," said Bonnie. "I could write some cool books about space then."

Bonnie loved the stars because of him. Bonnie had something that wonderful to take with her, and he would always be a part of it, even free to live his own life.

The means to choose his own fate was the gift Bonnie's thanks gave him.

She placed Buzz back in the box, facedown, where his hand landed again on Jessie's back, and her hair ribbon.

She hovered, looking over the last contents.

"Oh, Sheriff Jessie," she said, reaching in.

There was tenderness in her voice. There was so much care there.

She picked Jessie up with one hand, and reached in to grab Jessie's hat as well. She lifted Jessie out. Her hair ribbon, caught in Buzz's fingers, slipped off the end of her braid, stuck in his hand.

Bonnie turned Jessie over without noticing the missing bow.

"I really had a lot of good times with Sheriff Jessie," she said.

"You want to keep her?"

"Mmm."

Jessie's features remained still as Bonnie looked her over. Facedown on the cardboard, without eyes on him, Buzz struggled to maintain his expression.

He'd known this was a possibility. He had memorized the route back from the thrift store. I'll be back for you in no time, he thought, wishing his thoughts could reach Jessie.

How many times had he told her, wherever she went, he would be with her? Had he told her enough that she knew never to disbelieve him, even if she were trapped in storage?

"I have outgrown her," Bonnie said. Buzz nearly sighed with relief. "But she's unique, isn't she?"

"Unique is . . . A word," said Mom, leaning over Jessie with a slightly skeptical expression.

"I haven't seen another doll like her," Bonnie said. "She's not a Barbie, and, I dunno, she's just nicer than a doll you'd get at, like, Target or whatever. She's kind of old."

"Does she spark joy?"

"She does, but if I take her to San Francisco, she might get damaged, or dirty -"

"So put her in storage."

Jessie did not move. I'll be back for you, Buzz thought. He should have told her so every day, instead of just a handful of times.

"How's she gonna spark my joy if I leave her in storage, Mom?"

"Well you'll get joy knowing she's there," Mom said, "Waiting for when you have kids of your own to give her to."

"I don't even know if I want kids," Bonnie said.

"Well, honey, if you don't want kids and you don't want to take her to San Francisco, do you really want her?"

Bonnie evaluated Jessie. She thought for a long time.

"I'd rather have her around if I do decide to have them," she decided. "I can figure that out later, but I can't un-donate her. I've never seen another doll like her. I'm not saying I WILL have kids," she eyeballed her mom, "but if I do, I guess she's the only one I'd care to set aside for them."

"Find a good container to store her in. Something plastic, in case we get moths or raccoons."

"My old nail polish box would work," Bonnie said. She set Jessie on the porch railing. "I'll go get it. Donate the rest," she said, pausing in the doorway. "They did bring me a lot of joy. Some other kid will love them."

Jessie's braid unraveled slightly without its ribbon as Mom took the box of toys down the porch steps. Bonnie ran inside to get the nail polish box.

Her grin dropped as Mom stopped by the scrap heap of broken branches and rocks from the yard, bits of wood and broken cinderblocks and rebar from renovating the house and building the deck. Dad was pulling an empty black trash can between the heap and the truck.

"Still going to the dump?" Mom asked, box in hand as Dad leaned his shovel against the truck.

"Yeah, this is a two barrel load at least," Dad said, looking over the heap.

Mom reached into the box of toys. "Don't tell Bonnie," she said. She pulled out -

Buzz. Jessie lifted her head from the railing, already mid-panic.

"We have five of this same space toy just collecting dust on the shelves," Mom said. "I feel bad not telling Bonnie, but -"

"Better drop him in before she gets back downstairs," said Dad, zipping his lip.

Mom dropped Buzz in the trash barrel. "You're the best."

Jessie fell limp as Mom turned around, walking to her car with the box. Bonnie thundered downstairs, yelling "Found it!"

Dad picked up a shovel. He scooped up a full load of rocks, chunks of two-by-four, twisted, rusted rebar, and dropped it into the trash barrel.

It was impossible to tell if anything cracked inside, beyond the sound of the wood and metal crashing and clanging. Panic flooded Jessie and clashed against the urge to be still as Bonnie picked her up, the instinct and horror so intense the whole world seemed to spin. Bonnie carried Jessie inside, holding her with her eyes facing out to the yard.

Dad dropped a cinderblock on top of Buzz. He shoveled in another load of rocks and broken wood. And another.

Bonnie whipped Jessie away from the sight, running upstairs. "It's just the right size for you," Bonnie said, happiness pouring off her as she stared Jessie in the eye, and the pressure of Bonnie's direct gaze kept her from screaming.

In her room, Bonnie set Jessie carefully on the floor by a red and white bandanna, and an old gift bag with tissue paper crunched up inside. She laid the crumpled tissue paper in the box, then laid the bandanna over the tissue paper. She arranged Jessie on the bed of tissue paper, put Jessie's hat on her midsection, and crossed her hands over the hat's brim. She folded the sides of the bandanna over Jessie, blinding her.

Jessie's smile dropped into an open mouthed breath of terror. Bonnie pressed the plastic lid down on top of her, shoving her deep into the tissue. The tiniest scream she could muster with Bonnie still this near leaked out of her constricted throat as Bonnie snapped the plastic stays of the storage container down.

Jessie tried to press her hands against the lid, but the tissue paper and lid held her down so tight that there was barely space to move her hands side to side. She hyperventilated quietly, hearing Bonnie still so close, her claustrophobia warring with the baked-in need not to move, not to scare her kid. The walls pressed in around her. The tissue paper crinkled too loudly. The bandanna and the lid dimmed the light almost to nothing, but the box was being lifted, moving again, and then she was still, set down somewhere, the sound of cardboard box flaps warning her that total darkness was coming -

All the light vanished.

"No, no, no no no."

In the complete being unseen of storage, Jessie's voice broke out of her in a whisper.

Footsteps walked - down the attic ladder.

"No no no -"

The lid pressed the cloth bandanna against her face. There was no difference between closing her eyes and opening them.

The attic door slammed shut. In the crash she heard again the heavy, crushing scrap dropped on Buzz, pulverizing him at the bottom of a trash barrel.

She couldn't see anything else against the backdrop of darkness but him falling, then the first crushing load, then the next.

There was nothing else to think. There was nowhere to move.

There was no one to hear Jessie scream.

So she did.