Chapter 11 – A Piece of Glass
When I first came back from my Journey, I was so excited. I wanted to be like my father so much. I respected him, admired him, and hoped that one day I would become mayor and be just as respected and admired by my own children and the rest of the House like he was. Yet the moment I stepped back inside The Glass Palace it all changed. I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore. What do I want to do? What do I feel?
I don’t know.
I don’t know anything anymore.
All I do know is if I really want to end all the doubts, I could quite easily kill myself. During the next day, several methods come to me like flashes of inspiration. I could break a window, take a slither of glass, and slash my wrists. I could jump in the river and drown myself. I could climb on top of The Glass Palace and jump off. I could steal Father’s key for the gun cabinet and shoot myself in the head. In one simple step, I could end it all; the pain, the doubt, everything. Right now it seems the only way out of this mess I call my life. But do I have the guts to go through with it?
I’ve just come back from planting seeds in the vegetable patch by the fields. I’m a little tired and feeling very, very guilty. Flynn’s mother had been in the patch, too, and she had told me what she thought of me. Apparently I am a vicious, privileged bully. It hurt when she called me that. I’m no such thing, but at the time I had punched Flynn, I was bordering on it. Does the entire House know what happened? It appears so. Most people shoot me disappointed looks. I am the mayor’s son. I’m supposed to set a good example.
I wash my hands in the public bathroom and return to my quarters. I can’t bear to set foot outside my room today. Everyone knows what I’ve done to Flynn. Brian hates me. The whole House hates me. How can I become mayor when everyone feels so negative towards me? I can’t go on like this.
I look in the mirror and at the small piece of glass I’d found buried in the soil. It’s wickedly sharp. It could easily puncture my skin, and rip open a vein. I’d bleed to death before anybody could be bothered to find me. They’re probably already wondering why the best son had to die and the pathetic one still clings to a life that doesn’t belong to him.
I hold the glass against my left wrist and watch the pulsing blue vein. My heart starts to hammer in anticipation. I can do this. I’m not a coward. All I have to do is cut and they’d be rid of me.
There is a knock at the door. My hand slips and I slightly cut the side of my arm. The cut is so shallow it doesn’t even bleed. I throw the piece of glass onto my bed.
It’s my mother at the door.
“What is it?” I demand.
Mothers know when something is wrong with their child. I can see she wants to ask me something but is afraid of my reaction. I’m afraid of my reaction, too.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m a figure of hate,” I say bluntly.
“Yes, I did hear about the incidents with Flynn and Brian.” Instead of shouting she comes in and gives me a hug. “But it’s nothing to worry about. Tempers flare all the time. Maybe you shouldn’t have beaten him up, but I’m sure it’ll all be totally forgotten soon.”
“I doubt that.” I hope she doesn’t see the shard of glass on my bed and ask me about it. I don’t want to lie to her.
“There are more important things to occupy this House than a little spat between you and Flynn,” says Mother. “Your father was always getting into scrapes when he was your age and look at him now!”
“Did he beat up someone and threaten to have their family thrown out?” I say, almost shouting. “Father would never do that. I must be such a disappointment to him.”
“He knows and he understands.”
“Of course he does,” I grumble. I don’t know how Father can understand what I’ve done. If I were him, I’d be ashamed.
Something about what she said suddenly struck me. “How do you know there was an incident with Brian?”
“A husband tells her wife everything.” She chooses her words very carefully. “And if the wife is a chatterbox like Lottie, she tells her friends, who tell their friends.”
I can’t help but groan. This keeps getting better and better. Soon I’ll never be able to show my face again.
“So everyone knows I kissed Brian,” I mutter, sinking onto my bed. I feel more red-faced embarrassment now than shame.
Mother nods sadly. The thought that everyone imagines me as a violent bully is bad enough. But now everyone will think I’m a home wrecker as well! My reputation is as low as it can get.
“I’d do it again,” I tell her. “I love him.”
Mother smiles sweetly. “You’re in love. It feels good, doesn’t it?”
I can’t help but laugh. “It’s sort of like the best stomach ache in the world.”
“Try to be a bit more careful in future,” Mother advises me, giving me a loving smile. “And don’t try to go for anyone who is already married. That always leads to disaster.”
“There won’t be anyone else. I’ll only ever love Brian.”
“There will be others,” she assures me, but I don’t believe her.
Now I know how Mother feels about it, I feel a little better myself, though not by much. What does Father think of me, or does he even know? Maybe he’s too busy with the injured man in the infirmary to bother listening to all the scandals going around about his delinquent, home-wrecking son.
The man in the infirmary! How could I forget about him?
“How is the man I brought in?”
Mother sighs and sits on the bed beside me. I fear the worst. I couldn’t bear it if he was dead. I didn’t even know his name. But at the moment, the strange man is the most important thing in the world to me.
“Is he dead?” I ask tentatively.
“It was touch and go for a while there but Phylida is an experienced doctor, despite the fact she’s currently running out of some important items.” Mother pulls a small notebook and pencil out of her pocket and jots a few things down on it. “Something to tell your father about. He’ll forget.”
“The man?” I prompt.
“He’d lost an awful lot of blood. Almost too much. But he’s going to be fine.”
I erupt into a smile. I’ve helped someone and maybe that doesn’t mean my life is totally worthless.
“That’s what I originally came to see you about,” says Mother. She looks conflicted, which is something I’ve never seen on Mother’s face before. “When he finally came around this morning he asked for you.”
“Really?” I exclaim. I’m a little excited. This is a blessing in disguise.
“I don’t want you to get involved,” Mother states.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to lose another son to it.”
“My brother accidentally fell down a ravine.”
She gives me a hug again. And I see a tear running down her cheek. Most of what she said makes little sense. The main thing is Father is going to reveal to me the secret he has.
Along the route to the infirmary, I hear banging and clanging, and look up to see a few men on the glass roof. They are putting a board of plastic over a broken pane. The nearest glazier, who lived in the House of Rowan, had recently died. His apprentice has hiked up the prices and we can’t afford new glass, at least not yet. The board makes the place look unsightly, less majestic.
I try to avoid Lottie as I spy her walking in my direction, but she deliberately steps in front of me and folds her arms. She looks like a forty year-old harridan, but she is only my age. I don’t know what to say to her.
“I want an apology,” she demands.
I’m really not in the mood for this. “No.”
She splutters with rage. “What do you mean, no? You kissed Brian and you need to say you’re sorry!”
“Yes, I did kiss Brian, but the more I think about it, I realize that I’m not sorry I did it.” I stand up to her, stare her down, and it feels glorious. “He’s a very good kisser by the way
. His lips are warm.”
She tries to slap me but I grab hold of her wrist. I continue to stare at her, daring her to raise her other hand to me. Lottie is literally quivering with rage. After ten seconds, she pulls herself away, straightens her shoulders, and stalks off. I grin.
I’m feeling so good about myself as I saunter into the infirmary that I almost walk straight into Rosa. I’d forgotten she was the new medical assistant now.
“How are the wedding plans going?” I ask. Not that I care.
“We’ve been busy.” Rosa appears quite miffed about that. “I’ll get him married to me if it’s the last thing I do, though. I want to start trying for a family as soon as possible.”
“You want children?”
“I love Rooster. Of course I want to have children with him.”
I move into the other room where there are five empty beds and another one that holds the man I’m here to see. Father is sitting by the bed talking animatedly to him while the doctor fusses about, prodding his stump with a stick. The wound looks like something out of a nightmare. Bone, sinew, and flesh are exposed, though it looks like it has been cauterized. There is an iron on a nearby table with fried blood on it and I have to stop myself from throwing up.
“It’ll take a very long while to heal properly but you should be up and about in no time at all,” Phylida declares, wrapping up the stump in a fresh set of new, clean bandages. “I know it hurts, but you can put up with it.”
“Just be glad you’re alive,” says Father.
The man laughs, a laugh imbued with much irony. “I should be grateful that I lost only the one hand. They wanted to cut off both.”
“I’m glad they never got around to it,” says Phylida, giving the man a kiss on the forehead. “I like your hands.”
“Even though they are a bit small,” says Father.
Phylida laughs. “Stop picking on him, Zach.”
Father notices I’m there. The three of them seem to have a very close and trusted friendship. I didn’t even think that Father knew the doctor all that well, other than to advise her on occasion in his role as mayor. Mother even calls him Zachary. For a brief second, I even imagine that Father is having an affair with her, but I know Father wouldn’t do that. His love for Mother is obvious to me.
“Come and sit down,” says Father. “We need to talk to you.”
There is a spare chair on the other side of the bed. The man, even though he must be in some considerable pain, turns and smiles to me. I sit down on the chair, a little nervous, and wait.
“Can I just tell you how thankful I am that you saved my life?” says the man. His craggy, sun weathered face beams at me, and I can’t help but smile. “If you hadn’t been out in that forest at the right time then I would be dead now, picked apart by scavengers. Thank you.”
“I only did what anyone would have done,” I say modestly.
The man sighs. “Most people would’ve seen me lying there and robbed me blind. In fact that happened to me once. Some thieves thought I was dead when I was passed out from smoking some nectar and took everything I had, even the clothes on my back. I had to stumble to the nearest village completely naked. The fishwives had an eyeful that day, I can tell you.”
“Lucky for him size doesn’t matter,” jokes Phylida as she looks at me.
“I’ve had no complaints,” says the man with a sly grin.
With his non-injured hand the man grabs hold of my own and gives it a compassionate squeeze.
“I am forever in your debt, young man.”
I can’t help but blush furiously. I’ve never saved anyone’s life before and it makes me feel like I’m on top of the world. Lurking around in the background like a sneaky thief is all my other problems, just waiting to crash back in.
“How are you this morning?” I ask him.
He grunts. “I could be better, all things considered. I really liked having two hands. It will be difficult.”
“I’m sure,” I agree. I pause for a second as Phylida sits down next to Father. I feel like I’ve been invited to some sort of formal meeting.
“What do I call you?” I ask.
“Nobody has used my real name in decades, my boy,” says the man, looking nostalgic. “I’m not sure if I even think of myself as that person anymore. But you can call me what they all call me, Harold Oldman.”
“I’m Ben Casper.”
“I know,” says Harold. “I helped deliver you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, you see Phylida was away in another village at the time and I just happened to be there. I learned a lot about midwifery from my first wife Glenda and I’d delivered half a dozen babies all across the country. You made quite a racket that day if I recall rightly.”
Phylida, Father, and Harold start laughing at some private joke. By all accounts, I’d been an adventurous toddler, always getting lost, though why they’d think that amusing, I had no idea.
“What’s going on?” I wonder.
Phylida nudges Father with her elbow and says, “You said you were going to tell him. Don’t chicken out now.”
Father clears his throat. “Today I’m going to change your life forever.”
I’m not sure a few words can do that. Actions change lives, not a talking to from your father. Now the three of them are silent, staring at me. I suddenly know something momentous is coming.
I listen, rapt, as Father continues. “We’re god slayers.”