“I can’t leave you alone in here,” he says kindly. “But I can give you some space.” He takes five echoing footsteps backward, crosses his arms, and leans against the door. He stares up, searching the ceiling and seeming to count the perforations in the white tiles.
I turn my back to him and hunch over my mother’s stony face. Every line seems sharper, her sculpted cheekbones, her fair but long, thick lashes. Her red hair fans out around her head like a crown. I lift a finger to touch her, but I’m scared. Scared she’ll move, scared she won’t. Knowing she can’t.
Her face has been washed of makeup; it’s clean, natural. She is beautiful. She was…
A tear sweeps my face and lands on her cheek. I take a small breath. “I’m sorry.” I reach out with one brave finger and wipe the tear from her quiet expression. Her skin is ice cold. I place an open palm on her hair, and her head rocks away from me like it’s made of hollow wood. Sickness, nausea creeps up my spine. “Please,” I murmur through trembling lips. “Please Mommy, don’t go.”
Please.
7. FAMILY
KETTLE
Time is hard to tell when the lights flicker on and off with a mind of their own, but the frigid air makes me suspect it’s nearly dawn. One day, they’ll stop working all together as the wires erode from lack of maintenance.
I scrape my eyelids of sleep and grit, propping myself up on my elbows. The sound of snoring kids is intermittently drowned out by subway cars whooshing through tunnels. No one stirs. The rattle of wheels over tracks is a lullaby, comforting, reassuring.
Two nights home and now I have to leave again.
I sigh loudly and collect my gear. Keeper’s small voice penetrates the hazy light. “You going already?” she whispers as she wipes the back of her hand under her runny nose. I crawl over sleeping bodies and touch her forehead. She feels a little clammy, a little too warm.
“You feeling okay, Keeps?” I ask softly.
She nods her head and coughs into her palm. “Just a cold,” she says and smiles for me. Her big, green eyes blink, red rimmed. “Mubbee I got allergies?” she asks.
I sling an arm around her slim shoulders and laugh, pulling her to me. “Maybe. Just take it easy today. Make sure everyone cleans up before lunchtime, eh?” She scribbles notes in a frayed pad of paper I gave her six months ago, licking the tip of the pen every now and then.
The corners of her mouth are stained with black ink when she grins and nods. “Yes sir, Kettle.” She sniffs again, and I hand her a handkerchief from my pocket. She nuzzles into my chest, almost purring just like a cat.
“I don’t need anyone getting sick, okay?” I warn with a wink.
She coughs, trying to cover it by stooping over. Her black hair falls over her face in one solid lump. I light a candle and peer at the watch nailed to the rocks behind me. I’ve only got about half an hour.
“Keeps?” She swings around, hair hanging over her eyes and in her mouth. “Come here, let me show you something.” She shuffles closer, looking a little scared. I pull out a hairbrush from the bag I brought home last night. “This is a hairbrush.” She squints at it, waiting for it to do something. “It’s for your hair, so it’s not so, um, hard to manage…” She tips her head to the side, looking for all intents and purposes like a puppy about to have its first bath. She’s our first and only girl resident. “Come sit in front of me.” I pat the ground gently, and she slides backward. “Don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you,” I reassure, although I’m not one hundred percent sure that’s true. “Keeps, what did I say when you came to live here, when you became a King?”
“Dat I could stay as long as I wanted and dat you would keep me safe,” she replies warily.
I grip the brush firmly in my hand and gesture to the section of cold stone in front of my crossed legs. “Do you believe that’s true?”
She scrunches her eyes shut and says, “Yes.” Crawling over to sit in front of me, she turns her mound of thick, black hair my way.
I raise the brush to her head, place it in her hair, and make a liar of myself.
***
The boys cover their ears to shield themselves from her caterwauling.
“Throw her back,” Krow mutters, scowling, which only makes her scream louder.
She bends her head back every time I run the brush through and screeches like I’m actually scalping her. The brush snags in the dirty clumps, and I can’t pull it through. I’ve said sorry about a hundred times but now that I’ve started, I feel like I need to finish it. She needs to look less like a street urchin and more like a child on her way to school if we’re going to remain inconspicuous.
On the hundredth and fiftieth scream, Kin finally storms over. He gets up in her face, and I think he’s going to tell her to shut up. It’s what I should have done, but I feel at a loss on how to deal with a ten-year-old girl who thinks I’m torturing her.
“Keeper, what would you like me to do? I can cut it all off or you can let us clean it up. Right now you look like a drowned rat wearing a dead cat toupee. Do you want to look like a drowned rat with a bad hairpiece?” Kin says.
She shakes her head and whimpers. Then she whispers, “I wanna look like that.” She points to the catalogue I’ve been teaching some of them to read from. A sweet girl with long brown hair in two plaits on either side of her head smiles thinly at us, her eyes round and blue, her ribbons frozen in mid-swing.
Both Kin and I stare at each other and gulp. Then Kin puffs out his chest, swears, and laughs. “If you can rescue women from burning buildings, together we can surely plait a ten-year-old girl’s hair.”
The boys snicker. “Shh!” I snap and then look to Kin. “Here you do this side and I’ll take the other.” We separate her hair into two uneven handfuls and go to work. With my mouth pressed tight, I start, with one eye on the photo we’re trying to replicate. The other eye is watching Kin try to plait hair with his giant paws. I swear he’s starting to sweat. I snort, gripping her hair so it doesn’t fall out.
Kin’s face jerks to mine. “What?”
I look down at the ground, my eyes watering. “Um, nothing…”
Kin holds his twisted clump of hair tightly, a concentrated, almost cross-eyed look on his face. “What?”
A laugh escapes my mouth, and all the boys join in. “I can’t watch you. My God. It’s like watching a bear try to peel a plastic banana!”
Kin sighs in exasperation but refuses to give up, a small smile creeping into his stern expression. “Yeah well, you’re surprisingly good at this. Anything you wanna tell us?”
Laughter fills the rocky space. It’s warm and bright, scrubbing the walls of grime and filling my heart.
When we’re finally done, I grip my plait tightly in my fingers, searching for something to tie it with. Krow steps forward and begrudgingly hands me two bread bag ties, which I wind around the ends. I push Keeps gently in the back. “There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Turning around, she gives me a look of ‘you’re kidding, right?’ and scampers to the mirror. She frowns when she meets her reflection. Her whole face is now visible, smooshed cheeks and pinchy little ears. She looks cute. She tips her head down, and one large lump falls over her eyes. I remember the gift I bought that I was saving for her King birthday. Fishing around in the paper bag, I retrieve two red clips with white polka dots on them. Keeps stares at herself like she doesn’t know it’s her face. I sweep her fringe back and clip it in place. She touches it lightly, like I’ve just put a diamond tiara on her head.
She smiles sweetly, her dark lips brimming with teeth. “I think you should cut it off. I’m a King, not a queen,” she states proudly.
I stall in shock, and then my heart does that proud, pumping-strong thing. Kin slaps my back, and I stumble forward. Keeps draws in a sharp breath as I fall and begins coughing uncontrollably.
“We’re going to be late,” Kin says, extending a long arm in my direction, his eyes sliding to the coughing girl sitti
ng delicately on a faded purple cushion. “We’ll think about the haircut.”
I smile at her. “Think about it some more, Keeps. You might miss it when it’s gone.”
Her determined eyes tell me otherwise. Her sallow, sweaty skin worries me.
We leave the boys and… girl… with instructions and head to work.
8. STRANGE
NORA
Silence frightens me. In the silence is plotting, planning, and waiting. Silence is death. In his silence lies pure malevolence.
Frankie kicks and bucks in her sleep. Her silky, fine hair sprays up my nose as she flips her head back and forth on the pillow like a carnival clown. I humph and shuffle to the edge of the bed. She follows me, even in her sleep, inching over and plastering her sweaty body to my back, clinging like a marsupial to its mother.
I shudder as the last few nights roll over me in a cloudless nightmare. Mother. That is my role now. Mother and shield.
The door creaks open a crack and I close my eyes, holding my breath and clamming up so I’m still as a stone, silent under an ocean. Appearing unconscious is my only defense. Because I’m not technically doing anything wrong, he has no flimsy excuse to strike me. I feel his shadow falling over my curled-up form, cold and heavy as a thick military blanket. But then it’s tugged away and I breathe freer when I hear his footsteps retire to the den.
That’s where he sleeps now. Their bedroom is an untouched shrine to Rebecca Deere. The bed messily made, a silk dressing gown lying lonely across the foot of the bed. Three pairs of shoes toppled around the large dressing mirror.
I wait until I hear the thump of his defeated body hit the red velvet sofa and then try to relax.
Sleep is uneasy.
How can you sleep when a threat hangs over you like a chandelier clipped of all but one stubborn wire? Soon, glass will shatter, iron will graze, and electricity will burn.
***
I wake in confusion as I have the last two mornings. My brain still reaches out for noises that no longer exist—my mother’s radio blasting and her loud stomping rumbling through the corridor. It’s like someone scooped up the life of this house, shoved it in a sack, and threw it off the Humblestone Bridge.
My hand shoots sideways, searching for Frankie’s warm body beside me. Her wriggly worm movements are absent. I jolt up from my bed and run out, my heart squeezing in panic. I don’t have time for a dressing gown or slippers as I throw open the door and tear down the stairs, trying hard not to close my eyes as I grip the bannister. I can’t leave them alone together.
I hit the cold tiles, stepping around where she landed like I might sink through the floor, and make my way to the kitchen. Listening for voices—plates smashing, crying. Instead, I hear my father laugh.
I halt in the doorway, pressing my fingers into the dark brown frame. I count the bumps and carvings in the architraves, my toes balling under. My fingers catch on a rough part, and a splinter digs into my skin.
“Ouch,” I whisper.
A chair pulls back, and I hear footsteps. I squeeze my finger, and one drop of blood rises like a bubble on the tip. Staring at it with morbid fascination, I turn it this way and that, waiting for the surface tension to break and blood to run down my skin.
My father’s jolly face peers around the cabinet I was hiding behind. “Good morning, Nora,” he exclaims brightly, frighteningly. I take a step back from this dancing mask of a face.
Marie, our maid, sighs deeply, and Frankie squeals from the table. “Mornin’. Mornin!”
My hand darts behind my back as he approaches, and one strong eyebrow rises in curiosity at my quick movement. Scents of vanilla and butter crawl across the kitchen, and I smile. Pancakes.
My father stands over me, hands lazily resting behind his back, trying his best to look nonchalant. His necktie hangs from his throat like a curtain cord. “What are you hiding, Nora? Show me what’s behind your back, please,” he says sternly but with lightness in his voice.
I stare down at his shiny shoes, and then back up to his face. His expression remains impassive. Timidly, I hold out the bleeding finger. He tenderly takes it in his hand, brushing the blood away with his thumb and shakes his head. “That looks painful, darling.” He glances up at me, eyes as earnest and round as a puppy dog he would ordinarily grip at the scruff of the neck, and says, “Will you allow me to remove it?”
I nod, dumbstruck by his sudden kindness.
Frankie’s rusk-like voice spills out around a mouthful of macerated pancakes and cream. “You better hurry up coz I’m gunna gobble up all the pancakes!” Lumps of half-chewed food fall onto her plate as she beams. I wait for the snap, the shoulders to pull back, and the hand to come flying at her face. I mentally measure the distance between us in alarm when I realize I won’t make it in time.
But my father remains calm, although I can see his jaw winding tighter and tighter like Frankie’s chattering toy monkey. He opens his mouth and a lighter-than-air laugh floats through the kitchen. He’s still gripping my wrist as he drags me to the butcher’s block that sits next to the kitchen table. Usually we eat in the dining room, but there’s nothing usual about this situation or his demeanor.
“Marie, do you have a sewing kit?” he asks over his shoulder at our dull housemaid, who’s busily pretending to wash dishes.
She jumps, her hand to her chest. “Yes, Mister Deere,” she squeaks and scurries from the room, her long, black skirt swishing like a magic broom.
We wait in silence, him pinning my wrist to the stained chessboard wood, animal blood and fat spotting all colors of disgusting, and me staring out the side window. From here, I see nine squares of beautiful. Each frame the size of a photograph. Gold blossoms, fastened to spindly branch fingers, gleam in the morning sun. Smiling dreamily, I think about walking to school and collecting handfuls as I go.
Marie returns and shakily places her sewing kit on the block. Frankie jumps from her chair and stands on her tiptoes, leaning over my shoulder to get a better look.
“Ick!” Frankie remarks.
I feel a prick and realize he’s already started digging at my skin with the needle, a greedy, concentrated look on his face like he’s seeking treasure. “Nora, I’ve decided to withdraw you both from school,” he states as he pierces my skin. “I’ve hired a tutor who will work with you and your sister full time, Monday through Saturday morning.” I feel the locks turning as he talks, the bolts of his control sliding neatly into place. “I hope you can understand how I feel. After losing your mother, I want to keep you both close… safe from harm as best I can.” He wiggles the needle and then holds it up. One tiny, blood-dipped piece of wood the size of a grain of rice. “Ah! Got it!” he says, proudly holding it up to the light. He then flicks it to the floor like my last scrap of freedom and smiles.
I pull my hand back and nurse it in the other. “But…”
He methodically cleans the needle and places it back in the case without looking at me once. “No arguments,” he says, dusting his hands off on his tailored brown pants. “Marie? Call the handyman and get him to sand back the door and give it another coat of lacquer. We don’t need any more injuries, now do we?”
Marie shakes her pretty, plump head too fast, gazing at the floor. “No sir.”
In one graceful movement, he sweeps his briefcase from the floor, lays his jacket over his arm, and presses his lips to the top of Frankie’s head. She rocks on her heels, hands behind her back, and looks up to smile at him. “Have fun judging people, Deddy.”
He opens his mouth to correct her but instead, he gives her a tight-lipped smile. Counselor Deere strolls to the front door. I watch him edge around where she fell too, feeling the gaping ache of missing her widening in my heart.
“You better eat your breakfast quickly, Miss Nora. The tutor will be here at nine,” Marie urges, pushing a plate heaped with pancakes, syrup, and cream toward me.
Frankie jumps up onto the stool beside mine, teeters like a tenpin, and e
yes my pancakes with her tongue in the corner of her mouth. “Can I have some of yers?” she asks pleadingly like she’s starving. To add to the drama, she clasps her hands together like she’s praying
“How many have you had?” I ask incredulously.
“Five!” She holds up her tiny, white hand, wriggling her fingers and giggling.
I laugh. The sound and feel is like Christmas baubles tapping against each other. I hold my chest, feeling like it’s wrong to laugh when Mother only died a few days ago. Frankie still gazes up at me expectantly.
I fork a pancake and plop it on her chipped bunny plate. The only one she’ll eat from. “Oh, all right. Here you go!”
She picks it up in her fingers like a cookie and bites before I can stop her. “Frankie…” I sigh as she takes another one, rolls it up, and puts it in her dressing gown pocket.
She pats it once and whispers, “I’m saving this one for Mommy.”
Marie sniffles and wipes her eyes with her apron.
I don’t know what to say, so I just wrap an arm around her and rest my chin on the top of her head. She gives me a squeeze with her sticky hands.
Never still for long, it only takes a few seconds for her to start rattling around and buzzing like a fly in a bottle.
***
I feel lost as I walk back upstairs to change. The swirly handrail is clamped in my hands as I trudge up each carpeted step, my toes touching the brass weights pressing the rug into the corners. Cool autumn sunshine lights the landing. A few leaves leap from trees and swing gently back and forth to the ground. I think about what it would be like to be tiny and ride the leaf like a surfboard to the ground. My arms push out from my sides as I pretend to ride the wind. When I realize what I’m doing, I stare down at my feet, embarrassed. But then, no one’s here to watch me anyway.
I lean back on the railing, feeling my clothes slip on the waxy wood. Staring out the window, I wonder what Father is up to. Where did this sudden kindness sprout from? I want to believe that Mother’s death has given him new perspective but I just can’t believe it. A growing winter spreads in my heart at the prospect of being trapped in this house with him. And without her.