“Some of them are my friend Sean’s,” Charlie said, handing them over. Rocking back on his heels, he stuffed his sweaty hands in his pockets and naturally jabbed himself with yet another stray pin. He hissed and snatched his hand back out, a bright drop of blood sliding off his fingertip as he shook his hand.
“Ah, let me guess, a Sean original?” Reggie said, holding up a card that was composed of a single bright pink handprint that said just said “Hello” underneath. Reggie had a kind, easy smile and it made Charlie miss Theo so badly that he felt light-headed for a moment.
“Can I—” Charlie cleared his throat, feeling his ears get hot. “Can I ask you something? About—about the war?”
The smile slid off Reggie’s face all at once. “Certainly,” he said, his voice still warm and polite, even as a sort of vacant resignation settled into his eyes.
“My brother, Theo, he’s coming home this week. But he . . . he stopped writing a couple of months ago. When he first left, he always wrote to me, even if it was just a postcard. But after a while, he started to write less frequently, and then he just . . . stopped.” Charlie swallowed thickly, looking at the floor. “Why would he do that?”
All the warmth had left Reggie’s face, and he looked somehow hollowed out, almost transparent, his skin sallow and sweaty. “Let me ask you something: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Charlie blanched. That time he broke the vase Mum’s grandmother had made and let Theo take the blame. That time he had yelled at Grandpa Fitz for spilling all their milk, even though he was confused and it wasn’t his fault. When he couldn’t find Biscuits, and the air raid sirens were wailing and wailing and they had gone into the shelter without her and he couldn’t even hear himself screaming for her over the sirens.
“You don’t want to tell me, do you? Of course you don’t.” Reggie’s voice was gentle, his pale face soft, like he was apologizing for making Charlie think of whatever the worst thing he’d ever done was. “And that’s fine, because it’s private, and it’s hard, and hard things are difficult to speak about.” He settled back on his pillows with a heavy sigh and went on, almost to himself. “But sometimes it’s as if the more you don’t talk about that thing, the worse it becomes, the bigger it get in your memory, and it starts to poison things.”
He shuffled through the pile of cards again, pulling out at random a smeared red handprint Sean had fashioned into an unlikely heart. “You look at things you know you should love, and you feel . . . you feel . . .” His voice trailed off. He was staring at the harmless, ugly little card with something almost like horror. “I’m sorry,” Reggie mumbled, his dark bird’s eyes too bright, feverish. “You need to leave,” he said, grabbing on to Charlie’s wrist with shocking strength, the skin blooming splotchy red and white under each fingertip. “You need to leave.”
“What—no—Reggie, let go.”
Reggie looked down at his own hand where it was clutching Charlie, his eyes going wide, and snatched his hand away.
“You need to leave. Please, Charlie.”
But Charlie was already turning, shoving his way past the curtains and out into the room. Everything was too bright all of a sudden, and loud, and wouldn’t stop moving. None of it would stop. He hurried down the rows of beds, stumbling on watery legs.
Every soldier in every bed now had Theo’s face, his coppery hair, his glass-clear eyes. With each bed he passed he saw things missing: arms gone, legs gone, ears, fingers, eyes.
A memory rose gasping to the surface of his mind, a game he and Theo used to play with gingerbread men. Theo would make them run away from Charlie’s greedy mouth, pleading, “Not my toes! Not my lovely knees!” in tiny, silly voices, as they tore their limbs apart. Charlie would never be able to eat another gingerbread man, he realized, with an instant and total surety.
He was going to be ill.
Charlie stumbled past Matron, her lips pursed in displeasure at his blundering, and burst out into the hall and ran all the way to the lobby, he didn’t care if he was bothersome or underfoot, he couldn’t breathe—
“It’s all right, Charlie, take a breath.” Sean’s voice cut through the noise, and Charlie realized they were alone here in the quiet, echoing space, except for the woman behind the great front desk. “That’s it, just keep breathing. Come sit down for a moment.”
After a minute or an hour or however long they sat there, Charlie leaned back against the wall, too shamed to even look at Sean.
“Yeah,” Sean sighed, leaning back so they were side by side. “It’s like that, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid that Theo’s—” Charlie squeezed his eyes shut so hard they actually hurt, but a few tears got past anyway. “I’m afraid all the time.”
“I don’t really know which is worse,” Sean said, his voice flat. “The being afraid, or the knowing. I really don’t.”
They sat like that, silent and not quite touching, until the rest of the church party came back.
Grandpa Fitz didn’t say a word to Charlie as they walked home, but he held Charlie’s hand, very tightly, the whole way, and never once let go.
5
CHARLIE AND GRANDPA FITZ STILL HADN’T SPOKEN by the time they were divesting themselves of coats, hats, and gloves, putting the kettle on for tea. The room was cramped with all the things neither of them was saying.
“Charlie . . .” Grandpa Fitz started, his voice so gentle that it set Charlie’s teeth on edge.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Charlie said, his voice flat.
“It’s all right if you—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Charlie set the teacups down too hard and they rattled in their saucers like frightened animals.
That’s when Mum swept into the house in a gust of snowy air and perfume.
“Hello, boys,” she called, pulling off her gloves and rolling her head back and forth as she rubbed her neck. “I get so hunched sitting at that desk, I’m starting to look like an old lady.” She struggled to take off her coat, and Charlie hurried over to help her shrug her arms free. Her carefully curled and pinned hair was wilted with snow and in the dim evening light, shadows seemed to paint themselves under her eyes and cut deep hollows under her cheekbones. Mum’s face, a face built for joy and smiles, had unfamiliar lines tugging her mouth into a frown.
And then she turned her face into the light and her face broke into a smile, and the moment was gone.
“Why do women wear these ridiculous shoes?” she asked, kicking off the shoes in question, one of which went flying and nearly brained Biscuits, who had come running in when she heard the door open. “Oh, sorry, love!” Mum swooped Biscuits up into her arms and kissed the soft fur behind her ears. “Oh, Biscuits, I must admit to coveting this lovely warm coat of yours,” Mum said into Biscuits’s neck.
Biscuits purred, smug and very loud, and wrapped her tail around Mum’s wrist as if to hold her in place.
“How was the hospital visit?” Mum asked over her shoulder, making tea one-handed with Biscuits hoisted up in her arm.
“Fine,” Charlie said, forcing his voice into a blank mask of unconcern. Grandpa Fitz gave Charlie a long look and then told the story about the card trick he had taught the one-armed soldier, carefully leaving off any mention of Charlie or Sean. Mum laughed into her tea, seeming to sense nothing amiss. Charlie kept quiet and smiled or laughed when appropriate, wishing for nothing more than to be asleep in bed so the day would just end.
“All right,” Mum finally announced, pushing back her chair. “To bed with us. We’ve all got full days tomorrow.” They processed up the stairs to their bedrooms, Mum carrying Biscuits on her shoulder.
Grandpa Fitz went into his room without giving Charlie any more significant glances, for which Charlie was pathetically grateful. At her door, Mum released Biscuits back to Charlie, then patted down his hair in a despairing sort of way and smiled.
“Do you want a story before bed, Charles? We haven’t had one in a bit.”<
br />
Charlie wiggled a toe through a hole in one of his socks. He did want a story. He wanted Mum to tuck him in and give him a mug of cocoa to sip in the warm dark until all the different kinds of sweetness lulled him to sleep so he could wake up in the fresh-fallen-snow world of the next morning, brand-new. But he couldn’t, and no one else in the house needed a story to go to sleep. And besides, cocoa had been on ration for years now. It probably didn’t even taste as nice as he remembered.
“No, I’m fine, Mum.”
“All right, love. Good night.” Mum kissed the very top of his head and slipped into her room. Charlie padded off down the hall in his stocking feet towards his room. Biscuits met him halfway and rubbed up against his shins. He bent down to scoop her up, but she darted away and pawed at the door to Theo’s room.
“He’s not in there,” Charlie reminded her. He went to scoop her up, but she slithered away from his grip and scratched again, with an insistent brrrrpt! Feeling hesitant for no real reason, Charlie turned the knob and nudged the door open. Biscuits squirmed through like a shot and disappeared into the darkness.
The room didn’t smell right. It had that musty, un-lived-in smell of attics or garages. It was as if Theo had never lived here, never talked in his sleep here or done star jumps at six in the morning for no reason that he or Mum or Grandpa Fitz could understand. As if Charlie had never had a big brother at all.
His mind went unwillingly to Reggie, brave and funny and alone behind his drawn curtain, still shaking at things that weren’t there.
He would not let that be Theo. Not ever.
Biscuits pawed at Theo’s window, chittering in alarm. Charlie took a breath and crossed the room in three big steps and swept the curtain aside. He let out his breath in a rush. Across the street was a big, lanky stray dog, its head hanging low, its yellow eyes staring up at the window.
“It’s just a silly old dog,” he said to Biscuits, and hauled her up onto his shoulder despite her protests. “You can’t fight it, it’s bigger than you. And it’s across the street, anyway.”
He shut the door behind them a little harder than he meant to, and stood with his eyes closed in the hall for a long moment. He chewed on his lip, Biscuits’s tail thrashing around against his chest.
Mum opened her door on the first knock.
“Everything all right, darling?”
“Could I have a story, Mum? I changed my mind.”
Mum’s smile wrapped him up warm, and she pulled back the quilt on Dad’s empty side of the bed for Charlie to burrow under. Then she settled herself next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders and he tucked himself into the crook of her arm, his head snug under her chin and his ear pressed to the warmth of her heartbeat. Biscuits plonked herself down with finality between their legs.
“Once there was a soldier,” Mum began.
“Like Theo and Grandpa Fitz?”
“Just like them, yes, don’t interrupt,” she said. “A very handsome lad he was, too, and he conducted himself very nobly during the war. When peacetime came, he went home to his brothers and asked to stay with them while he recovered, and until he could find a new career. But his brothers were hard-hearted, and since he was a burden, they sent him away without a thought.
“The soldier went out in the woods and sat down beneath a great big oak tree. Now, as you can well imagine, he was feeling heartbroken and melancholy and terribly, terribly lonely. So he cut open a hand and bled three drops of red blood onto the forest floor and begged, ‘Please, anyone, come and find me so I might not be alone.’ But no one came, not after hours and hours, and the soldier felt even more lonesome and heartbroken than before. He was having himself a good cry, just like anyone would in his position, when a tall, thin fellow with cloven feet came up to him.”
“What’s ‘cloven’?” Charlie asked, tipping his face up to Mum’s.
“That split type of hoof that pigs and goats have, now hush. The tall, thin fellow with his funny feet came up to the man, and asked him what was wrong.
“‘I’m alone and I have no skills or craft except for war,’ lamented the poor soldier. ‘How will I survive? How could anyone love me? What will become of me?’
“‘I’ll make you a deal,’ said the tall, thin man, which is never something someone with good intentions says with any regularity. ‘I’ll give you riches so you can have whatever life you choose, if you will but agree to my terms.’ Because, as you may have gathered, he was a monster, and monsters always want something.”
“What were his terms?” Charlie asked, and Mum tapped him on the nose with her fingertip for silence.
“First, he had to wear a cloak made out of a bear’s skin. It was thick and warm and cozy, but it smelled a little odd. Second, he had to agree to wear only the bearskin cloak and to never wash or tend to his appearance for seven years. He would always have money if he put his hand into the pocket of the bearskin cloak—”
“Bearskins have pockets?” Charlie interrupted. Biscuits chirped at him in reproach.
“It was an added feature for practicality. The soldier, it should be said, was confused by these terms, but he agreed, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, he was so distraught.
“Now, the first year wasn’t so bad. He had money to pay for lodgings, and if he smelled a little off and looked a little scruffy, well, so do a lot of people. But the second year, he started to look quite rough—his beard was thick as fur and his nails got long and sharp as claws. He was quite a sight, and people were afraid of him. And even though he had money, a lot of people wouldn’t let him stay in their inns or houses, and so he spent a lot of nights in people’s barns and doghouses and toolsheds.
“As you can imagine, this was quite a dispiriting way to live, and the soldier was so lonely that he jumped at every chance he got to make a friend, even if it was just for a night. He shared his money with all the other poor souls who got stuck out in the barns and sheds with him, and bought them all hot meals to share. He let birds nest in his hair and beard, and rabbits and foxes and hedgehogs all burrowed into his warm bearskin cloak at night to keep warm. So for all of the bad things that happened, he was still happy because he wasn’t alone anymore.
“So one day, long after the soldier had lost count of how many years he’d been wearing his bearskin cloak, he came across a man crying and wailing and really making a right spectacle of himself in the middle of the street. The soldier asked the man what was wrong, and the man went on and on about how he had no money and three daughters and how miserable life is when you’re poor and have lots of mouths to feed, essentially. So the soldier fished around his pocket and brought out handful after handful of money.
“‘I have lots of money that I don’t really need,’ said the soldier. ‘You can have it if you need it.’ Well, the other man was so grateful that he wept for joy and danced a jig and promised the soldier one of his daughters’ hands in marriage.”
“He could do that?” asked Charlie. That didn’t seem a fair way to treat one’s children. He was quite certain Mum would never give him away for money, even if Grandpa Fitz did sometimes joke about trading Charlie in for butter rations.
“This was the olden days, when people were still quite stupid about the whole concept of marriage and free will. So the soldier followed the man home and did his best to look friendly and marriageable, but the old man’s daughters were still so put off by the bearskin cloak and the dirt and the nails that there was a lot of screaming and carrying on. The older two daughters in particular shrieked some rather unkind things about the soldier’s appearance and then started crying. The youngest daughter still had some scraps of manners and simply looked very brave in the face of such poor grooming, but in a way that sort of drew attention to itself, if you understand me.
“Well, the soldier had been living rough so long that he’d sort of lost the knack for talking to people, and he was so flustered by the whole thing that he just ran away to be alone in the woods for a moment to col
lect himself. And then who do you suppose he should meet but the tall, thin fellow with the funny feet. It turned out that it was the very last day of his seventh year in the bearskin cloak, and he hadn’t even known. Now the tall, thin fellow might have been sneaky, but he understood that rules are rules. So he had the soldier stand in the stream nearby and scrubbed him all over with soap. It took three scrubs and rinses to get all the dirt and birds’ nests out. Then he cut the soldier’s hair and trimmed his beard and clipped his nails and got him all kitted out in a sharp new black velvet coat and shiny boots and a crisp white shirt.
“‘May I keep the bearskin cloak?’ the soldier asked. You see, he’d worn it so long that he’d grown quite attached to it, and the thought of being without it made him anxious. The tall, thin fellow said it made no difference to him, and wished the soldier well in all his endeavors. So the soldier gathered up his bearskin under his arm and went back to the village where the other man and his daughters lived. Mostly because he didn’t know what else to do with himself, he was so overcome by the whole thing.
“The man’s two older daughters were near hysterical when they realized that the handsome chap in the velvet coat was the same man in the bearskin. They wanted to marry a rich, handsome man, too. But the youngest daughter was the one who the old man had promised to the soldier, so out she went to shake his hand.”
“She still had to marry him?” Charlie said. “But that’s not fair. She didn’t even know him, and he was scary.”
“I quite agree, Charles, so you’ll be relieved to hear that the soldier released her from her father’s promise and she went off to marry a very nice lad she’d known her whole life and was terribly smitten with. The soldier paid for their wedding and they remained the best of friends for the rest of their long lives.”
“What about the older sisters?”
“Well, they were so upset that they’d missed their chance to marry a rich, handsome soldier that they flung themselves into the river, never to be seen again, and the devil was insufferably smug about getting two souls for the price of one.”
Hollow Chest Page 4
