curious about things. He just didn’t understand the need to keep his mouth shut sometimes.
The cool wind had dried a sweaty trail of hair against the curve of his cheek, and Brian absentmindedly brushed it away. He turned his back on Spring, the thought of his mother having temporarily soured his taste for any more playing around. He unraveled a sprig of honeysuckle which had grown around his ankle and headed back for the downward path, feeling deflated. What good was magic if you couldn’t use it?
He walked quietly into the leaf-scented shade of the hickory trees, paying no attention to anything above the tips of his toes. He was lost too deep in thought. Maybe if he was super careful and only did things Mama wouldn’t notice, then he might get away with it. That was an unsatisfying compromise, but it was the best thing he could think of at the moment.
He sighed, and decided it was probably about time he headed home; he needed to be back before Brandon woke up, just in case.
While he thought thus, he felt a single fat raindrop land on his arm, and again he glanced up at the sky uneasily. This time dark thunderheads were piled up like play-doh in the west, and the wind was starting to pick up again. From where he stood, he could see rain falling in dark gray sheets maybe half a mile away, and it was moving his direction.
He made a run for it, gambling on the chance that he could make it to the house before the rain did. Brian was a fast runner, and if he’d been wearing his shoes he might possibly have made it in time.
But he was barefoot, and that slowed him down just a bit. He was crawling through the fence when the rain caught him, causing him to rip a long hole in the back of his t-shirt from trying to slip through the barbed wire too quickly. He cussed under his breath and ran across the pasture to the back door, angry at the fence, and the rain, and himself most of all. He didn’t have so many shirts that he could afford to tear them up like that.
He quickly got a grip on himself as he reached the house, though. There were worse things in the world than holey shirts, and the slightest display of bad temper was as sure a way to provoke Mama to anger as he knew of.
He scuffed his feet and made sure to let the screen door slam (but not too loudly, of course) when he walked into the kitchen. If he made a little noise he could let Mama know he was there without actually having to speak to her. She was out of the bathroom now; he noticed the back of her head where she sat on the couch watching one of her soaps. On the screen, an actress was passionately kissing a character Brian had never seen before, and Mama seemed rapt. She either didn’t notice him or didn’t bother to say anything. Brian didn’t really care which, as long as she left him alone.
He didn’t see Brandon with her, so he slipped upstairs as quietly as possible. A quick touch of his amulet wiped out the creak in the seventh step just as his foot touched it, and a second one swept the dust all clean. Those were things nobody would notice, or if they did then Brian could always say he’d fixed them by hand. Caution, caution was the thing to remember.
He didn’t start to worry until he got to the bedroom and found no Brandon there either, and when a quick look in the upstairs bathroom and out the back window also failed to turn him up, Brian reluctantly decided he had no choice but to ask Mama, although he dreaded it.
He almost skipped the seventh step on his way down before remembering that he didn’t have to anymore, and then he deliberately set his whole weight on it just to listen to the silence. He was starting to feel a little better about things. He might have to be careful, but his power was far from useless! He fixed two of the worst cracks in the wallpaper and removed a scratch on the banister without missing a beat, and then slipped through the kitchen as quiet as a whisper to stand hesitating at the entrance to the living room. Then he waited carefully for a commercial break before clearing his throat.
Mama didn’t look back at him.
“What?” she asked irritably.
“Um, I just wondered if you knew where Brandon might be, Mama,” he asked, in the humblest and most respectful voice he possessed. Mama hated disrespect above all other crimes.
“I don’t know where he went. Go find him yourself if you want him,” she said, in a tone that meant the subject was closed. Brian mumbled something that might have sounded like a thank-you, and then quickly retreated.
He searched rapidly through the house, checking all the places he could think of that were big enough for Brandon to be hiding in. He went back upstairs, looking in the hall closet and even venturing into Mama’s room. No Brandon anywhere.
Then he thought of the attic. It seemed unlikely; Bran didn’t usually go up there by himself, but there was always a first time for everything.
Brian quickly climbed up the narrow steps and poked his head through the door. It was too dark to see much, so he grabbed a rafter in one hand and felt his way forward, groping for the lamp stand. He couldn’t remember switching it off earlier, but he guessed he must have.
When his eyes had adjusted to the darkness a bit, he immediately saw the lamp knocked over on the floor and the bulb smashed into a thousand pieces. He doubted Mama had been up there, so it must have been Brandon who’d done it.
“Great,” he muttered.
He explored the boxes and piles of junk one at a time, being careful not to step on broken glass, and finally he found Brandon curled up in a ball in one corner, almost hidden behind a stack of old newspapers. Brian could barely see him at all except when he moved, and he seemed to be making no effort to come out. Then he realized the kid probably couldn’t tell who he was in the dark.
“It’s me, Beebo. Come out and tell me what’s wrong,” he said.
That got results. Brian staggered and barely kept from falling backwards into a mountain of rusty gas pipes heaped up behind him, almost bowled over by what felt like a human cannonball. Brandon wouldn’t do anything but cry for a long time, and Brian soon gave up trying to ask him anything. It could wait.
Instead, he sat down and held him till he stopped crying before trying to talk to him again. Brandon still wasn’t having any of that just yet, though, and the tears threatened to start all over again.
Eventually he calmed down to the point that Brian was able to pick him up and carry him out of the attic, and that was progress at least. It wasn’t until they came out into the hall that he saw Brandon’s left eye was almost swollen shut.
Brian went cold inside. Black eyes don’t come from falling; only fists can do that.
Still, he said nothing, and took Brandon to their room. When he got there, he shut the door and sat down in his old rocking chair by the window. He knew, in a way, that this was just as much his fault as it was Mama’s, because he was the one who’d wanted to go off and leave Brandon alone with her. He knew better. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t.
“Let me look at your eye, Beebo,” he whispered. Brandon turned his face up, looking at him with one bright blue eye. He couldn’t see out of the other one, which gave him a strange, lopsided look.
Brian didn’t care about being secret anymore. He closed his eyes, and imagined Brandon’s eye the way it was supposed to be, and then kissed it. And when he looked again, there was no trace of the black eye left. Brandon looked at him soberly and laid his head on his brother’s shoulder, and then it was Brian’s turn to cry.
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