“Please,” I said. “Not another one of your stories. I love your stories, Dad. They make me smile and they make me think, but—”
“I know,” he said. “They’re not about what’s happening now.”
“Yeah,” I said.
The meaning of my yeah could have filled a book.
Dad rubbed his hands together to warm them up and said, “There are things we aren’t telling you. Alistair is not in a healthy state. Mom and I know this. Rest assured that he has spoken to some experts. And he’ll need to speak to more. We’re working on finding the right fit.”
“He believes these things, Dad,” I said. “I can’t begin to describe what he believes.”
He stopped and pushed his head toward me like a curious bird. “Did he tell you he was going to hurt himself … or anyone else?”
“No,” I said, so glad that Dad was worried about the same thing I was. “But…”
He nodded, and said, “If he wants to talk to you, listen to him. If what he says worries you, tell us. But realize that you’re not going to solve things for him. Mom and I aren’t going to solve things for him either.”
“But you’re an expert,” I said.
“Not in this,” he said. “These are very specific psychiatric issues that I don’t have much experience with. But there are people who do. We’ll leave it to them. My job right now is to be a dad. You love your brother, don’t you?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
I would have said it a million times if I could have, but Dad started walking again and we were almost at school. “Then your job is to be a sister,” he said. “All you have to do is this: Listen. Have patience. And love.”
EVENING
Leave Alistair to the experts. As in psychiatrists. As in shrinks. As in the wackiest flavor of scientists.
Oh, glorious science. If my family had a religion, it’d be you. We celebrate Christmas and all that—because, come on, presents!—but when it comes to explaining things, we bow down to science. When it comes to fixing things, we worship science.
So science will fix Alistair. The science of psychotherapy? The science of prescriptions? Might work. I hope so, but I can’t say for sure. I can only say that in the past doctors would cut out parts of people’s brains to “cure” them. Oh yes, lobotomies were all the rage, and not so long ago. All in the name of science.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that science is wonderful, but I don’t always trust science. Because of those mistakes of the past. Also for personal reasons.
The personal bit goes back about two years. Late springtime. Or maybe it was an unusually warm day in early springtime. I remember I was in a denim jacket, not a down feather anywhere on my person.
Mandy and I were sitting on the swings in Hanlon Park, discussing whatever it was we discussed in sixth grade. Boys? I guess so. I had a crush on Sean Delaney back then, which is pretty insane considering what a rumor-spreading, rattail-having slimeball he turned out to be.
At some point, we got to talking about how middle school relationships are a bit like swings, all up and down, back and forth, which got us talking about middle school science, about pendulums and, I think, maybe … Newton’s Laws? Newton had laws about how things fall, fly, swing, spin around, and flip upside down in the world, right?
Yes, I realize I should’ve paid more attention during class.
Anyway, this all led to Mandy grabbing both of our backpacks—mine full of books and hers full of magazines—and placing them in the bucket seat of one of those swings designed for babies. Together, the backpacks probably weighed close to twenty-five pounds. That’s one chunker of an infant.
Next, Mandy stood in the gravel, pulled the weighted swing back, and held it about an inch in front of her nose. “The magic of science,” she said as she let it go.
You know what a pendulum is, don’t you, Stella? It’s usually a ball on a string that rocks back and forth. Businessmen often have little ones on their desks—don’t ask me why—but pretty much anything on a string, rope, or chain can be turned into a pendulum. A swing, for example. The thing about pendulums is that when you hold them and drop them, gravity will make them move. They swoop down, swoop up, and come back. They end up right where you dropped them from. Or almost as close. They slow down after a while because of … wind friction?
Okay, I may have forgotten some of the terms over the years, but the point is if you hold a pendulum in front of your nose, then drop it, it will swing out and swing back, but it won’t hit you in the nose. That’s science. And that’s what Mandy was doing. She was giving science a run for its money.
Hey, we get bored here in Thessaly. Isn’t a heck of a lot to do.
Where was I, Stella?
Oh right, Mandy dropped the backpack-baby-swing-pendulum. Then she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth, made her body go stiff as the thing flew down and up, the chains creaking as it went. Then it changed direction and came racing back at her, down again and up. I was tempted to dive in front of it, because it sure looked like it was going to plonk her right in the nose. But I didn’t, maybe because I trusted science or because I wanted to see what happened. Probably more of the latter.
Well, hooray science, because it stopped short of Mandy’s honker. By a sliver. The force of the movement even caused her hair to blow back like some supermodel standing in front of a fan at a photo shoot. I gasped. She winced. Then she threw up her hands and cheered, “Your turn!”
That’s how it goes with me and Mandy. Her first. At everything. The good and the bad. First slice from the pie, first cannonball into the cold swimming hole. Not that I’d call myself a follower, or her a leader even, but we fell into that routine long ago. Which sometimes works to my advantage. If Mandy had gotten plonked on the nose by the swing that day, then I would have called it quits. But since she didn’t, I was obliged to take my turn.
I stood in the exact same spot that Mandy stood, in her footprints in the gravel. I pulled the swing back, feeling the weight of it. “Not sure I can do this,” I said as I pressed the rubber to the tip of my nose.
“I can do it for you, if you want,” Mandy said. And she put her hands on the swing while nudging mine down. I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t stop her. I held my hands at my sides and closed my eyes and went stiff like she did.
“Okay. I’m ready,” I said.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Bam.
Oh, science. To go along with your lobotomies, you need to answer for the girl in the denim jacket who ended up writhing in the gravel with a bloody nose. That’s right. Booooo Newton and your lousy laws! Because that swing hit me smack-dab in the nose.
Truth be told, I didn’t actually see it hit me. My eyes were still closed at that point. But it felt like it probably feels when a gorilla punches you in the face.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Mandy cried as she came to my rescue. “You shouldn’t have leaned forward. Why did you lean forward?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t mean to,” I babbled, and blood pooled in my hands, which were cupped over my nose.
“Why did you lean forward?” she asked again, rubbing my back.
“I didn’t,” I said, which I knew to be true and still know to be true. If anything, I leaned back.
Now, two years later, I will do what my dad asked. I will be a sister. I will listen. I will practice patience. I will love. I will let science take its shot at fixing my brother, but if science ends up plonking him in the nose, well then … screw science.
WEDNESDAY, 12/13/1989
EVENING
Let me tell you something about December in Thessaly: it sucks. It’s rainy or it’s snowy and it’s worse than February because in December you know it’s only going to get colder. Also it’s so dark. It’s painful to get out of bed before the sun comes up, and you don’t believe your alarm half the time so you’re always oversleeping.
Today was the suckiest of sucky December’s sucky days. And not because of specific things. Just the gener
al feeling about it. A sucky feeling.
Glen got all depressed because he wanted to chat on the walkie-talkies again during study hall and I didn’t want to, so we didn’t, which made the walk home today kind of blah with Glen complaining about his grandma and me hardly listening. And Mandy was sick and so I couldn’t talk to her about anything. And Mrs. Delgado gave us a pop quiz in Earth Science and I’m sure I got no better than a C. Not end-of-the-world stuff, but when it all piles on, it piles on high.
So all I wanted to do tonight was zone out in front of the TV with something stupid, and I was flipping the channels trying to find the most brainless thing possible when Alistair came in.
“Stop there,” he said, pointing at the TV. “Go back one.”
I clicked one channel down on the clicker and there it was: a picture of the Littlest Knight. It was some news special on cable. While there had been plenty of coverage of the Littlest Knight, the media had never shared a clear picture of him. But this one was clear. Maybe too clear.
Trust me, you don’t want to see the face of a dead kid. Ever.
Alistair sat down on the edge of the sofa and rested his chin in his hand. “I thought it might be him,” he said, “but now there’s no denying it.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Hadrian,” Alistair said.
“Hadrian who?”
“A guy I knew, an unbelievably old swimmer,” Alistair said. “I … I’m the one who … He died because of me.”
There was a tremor in his voice that reminded me of the old Alistair, the bumbling kid who used to question things more, who used to get more confused and flustered. Only the old Alistair was usually worried about a stain in the carpet, not a dead kid half a world away.
“What are you talking about?” I said. “He’s way off in the desert somewhere.”
“I let a monster called the Mandrake get to him,” Alistair said. “The vicious, merciless Mandrake ran him through. And the thing that everyone suspects is true.”
“What does everyone suspect?”
“That if you die in Aquavania, then you die here too.”
“You didn’t know that?” I asked. “I thought you were all-knowing in Aquavania.”
This was me heeding Dad’s words. This was me being a sister. This was me wanting to believe, but not being able to believe, so pretending to believe, because it was dark stuff he was talking about. People getting hurt. Exactly what my parents were worried about.
“I know a lot,” Alistair said, finally turning his gaze from the TV. “But there’s a lot I don’t know. Like about the other swimmers. I’m still working on getting them back too. That’s what happened to Hadrian, but it hasn’t happened to them, which means there’s still hope.”
That word! Hope. It counts for so, so much. Even more than wanting to believe Alistair, I want to believe that there’s hope for him. Yes, I had broken my promise to him and, at that moment, I decided to break it again. But it was in the name of hope.
Hope alone can’t do everything, though. Hope needs help.
“Mom!” I called out. “Dad!”
There was no answer.
“What are you doing?” Alistair asked.
“Mom! Dad!”
“They’re not here,” Alistair told me. “They left thirty minutes ago. They had a meeting with Ms. Kern. Left some baked ziti in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
“They’re seeing her without you?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure they want my input these days. I guess they’re doing what they think is best for me.”
“And so am I,” I said.
“You’re going to tell them what I told you?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, but I already have,” I said. “At least a little bit. But I can’t keep secrets like this.”
“I never said these were secrets,” Alistair replied. “Only that I needed a little time. I haven’t heard back from Jenny Colvin yet, and that is the most important thing at this point. Go ahead and tell Mom and Dad what I told you, but I don’t think they’d believe it.”
“And why am I supposed to believe it again?” I asked, a question I have asked myself about a billion times already.
“Because you know about the wombat,” he said.
“Again with the wombat! Who cares about a wombat?”
“And you know about the waterfall.”
“So what?” I said, my voice hopping up a few octaves. “It’s weird for you to know that. It scares me that you know that. But it doesn’t prove anything.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll ask you one more question, and maybe that will change your mind.”
“I can’t imagine that being possible.”
“What does Banar mean to you?” he asked.
Impossible.
THE PHOSPHORESCENT WOMBAT, PART II
Three years went by.
By the time Rosie had stored her bike in the attic and had started driving a VW bug, Luna was more green than she was brown, and when the sun set, her fur provided the same illumination as a weak streetlight. Hollywood producer Hal Hawson drafted a new contract, and it contained a clause.
Should aforementioned wombat glow any greener, or should her wombat fur glow any brighter, then we reserve the right to void the contract.
Aforementioned wombat did glow greener and her fur did glow brighter, but the contract remained intact. Pocketful of Hullabaloo was now a hit, and not because of the skeet-shooting grandmothers or the scat-singing unicyclists who graced its stage, but because of the tuxedoed wombat who sat on a pillar in the back and shone like a Christmas bulb and reminded the world that there are still strange and wondrous things.
And yet all things, even strange and wondrous ones, lose their luster with time. They always do.
Fifteen more years went by.
Rosie and Hamish’s parents perished in a freak ballooning accident over the Sahara and their bodies were never recovered. Rosie fell into a depression and then into love. She married a baker named Pedro who was a wizard with sourdough, and they left town to live by the sea. While it pained Rosie to be away from Luna, she couldn’t bring the wombat with her.
“We want to have children,” Pedro said. “I’m not sure they’d be safe around Luna. She might be radioactive.”
Even though Luna had passed countless physicals, Rosie had to agree. They didn’t know the source of Luna’s light, so they didn’t know if it was dangerous to children.
Hamish was not a child anymore, so he took on the danger himself and took over watching Luna, shuffling her back and forth to the studio in a tiny red sports car he bought with money from the Sunfirst bank account. He always insisted that Luna stay in the trunk, because her light was blinding when reflected in the rearview mirror.
Pocketful of Hullabaloo was not the hit it once was. Luna’s luminosity, for years the major attraction, was beginning to inspire channel-surfing. She resembled a wombat less and less each day. By spring of her eighteenth year on the show, Luna looked like a green orb, resting atop the pillar. The fabulous Mr. Nickelsworth, short legs, wiggly nose, and all, was a memory, and there were only so many times people would tune in to see sword-swallowing Siamese twins on roller skates.
The show was canceled that autumn.
It didn’t bother Luna. She was tiring of the job, because she was changing. Not her body so much as her mind. Yes, the increasing glow of her fur made her resemble an orb that expanded day by day, but she was like the filament of a lightbulb. Her actual body was still a wombat body, and it hadn’t grown even a millimeter. The glow had simply gotten bigger, denser, impenetrable to the naked eye.
The more significant change was happening in her brain. She was becoming curious about the pictures and symbols she saw along roadways, in libraries, and on television screens. She knew they were trying to tell her something. But what? Surely that there was more to the world than being Mr. Nickelsworth.
By constantly listening and watching, she learned what many words and
gestures meant. She understood communication, and even though she wanted to respond with wiggles and winks, no one could see her features anymore. The glow was too bright. Of course, Luna could see the entire world as clearly as ever. Her gaze cut through the glow, and it was only when she fixed it on a mirror that she would see herself as the world saw her.
People assumed she was blazing hot, like a coal from a barbecue pit. Animals trusted their instinctual fear of fire and kept their distance. The truth was, she was cool to the touch. She could be hugged, scratched behind the ear, placed in the shower, and lifted into bicycle baskets and car trunks. Hamish knew this. Everyone else didn’t.
After the show was canceled, the government expressed some interest in studying Luna, but Hamish couldn’t bear to give her up. So he cleared out the bank account and snuck the two of them off to a farm many miles from the studio. Only Rosie knew where they were, and she came to visit every once in a while—always alone, though, which meant Hamish didn’t get to spend any time with her children, his new niece and nephew. There were no other family and friends to speak of, and so Hamish grew fond of Luna in ways he never had before. Even though he couldn’t really see her anymore, he knew there was a heart at the center of that glow. He could sense there was a brain.
Luna spent most of her time in the barn, where there were stacks of cardboard boxes full of old letters and magazines. At first, she only liked looking at the colorful pictures, but eventually she was drawn to the black lines that covered most of the pages.
These, she would one day learn, were called letters. She tried to reproduce them by moving stalks of straw with her mouth and dropping them on the floor of the barn. Before long, she could do the entire alphabet. Then she moved on to words. Order didn’t matter to her at first. ART was the same as TAR was the same as RAT. These, she would one day learn, were called anagrams. They had different meanings, but she didn’t know that quite yet.
While Luna was learning to read and write, Hamish rarely came into the barn. The glow was too much, even for him. He would hover near the door, at the edge of the ever-expanding glow, and he would lob fruit, turkey legs, and cheese balls to Luna.
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