by Gillian Chan
“That’s the way, Mike, let it all out.” I opened my eyes to see Chaz kneeling beside me, concern creasing his face. He started patting my arm, the way you’d soothe a dog. “Do you want to talk, tell me about the dream?”
I shook my head.
“Okay, then let’s get you back to bed, leave it all to the morning.”
I let him guide me to my feet and over to my bed. I lay down, trying to block everything out. I heard Chaz move to the doorway, but the door didn’t close. He must have stood there for five minutes or more, just watching me, or maybe Jacob.
The truly funny thing was that I could have sworn Jacob really was asleep.
Chapter Five
I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I just lay there, forcing my eyes to stay open. I didn’t want to sleep. I was terrified that there would be a nightmare for real. I was terrified that Jacob would speak again and I would miss it, miss an opportunity to speak to Jon. I didn’t buy that horseshit that Jon had gone away. Where? My gut told me that Jacob was playing me in some way and I was determined to find out how.
Nothing.
Jacob slept the night through. He had reverted to his usual flat-out position, but his breathing was deep and regular, his face clear of all worry.
At about five in the morning, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I got up, not being particularly quiet, and headed down the corridor for a piss. My deliberate clumsiness was wasted; Jacob didn’t stir so I saw no point in heading back to our room. Taking more care to be quiet now, I crept downstairs to the kitchen. We weren’t supposed to go in there unless we were on kitchen-helping duty, but at that time of the morning, I didn’t think anyone was going to give me a hard time about it.
Medlar House is old, and the windows are tall and narrow. It was still dark outside and the street lamps’ yellow light barely illuminated the kitchen. I flipped the light on as quickly as I could. I couldn’t help thinking about Jacob’s them. I had this picture in my mind of being surrounded by the spirits of all the people who had ever lived here, and maybe Jon, too. It was only the thought of Jon that stopped me freaking out completely. It was upsetting to think about the spirits of the dead, how they wanted to communicate, how they might be pawing at me, trying to attract my attention. I didn’t know what was worse—not to see or hear them, or to be like Jacob.
I shook my head and forced myself to move, getting some chocolate milk from the fridge, putting it into the microwave to warm it up, snagging some cookies, too: mundane things that did a little to stop my heart beating as if I was in some kind of race. Once I was sitting at the table, my hands clasped around the warm mug, I felt like I could go over what had happened in my head.
Jacob spoke to the dead. He had spoken to Jon. Jon had told him that he’d died instantly when Danny hit him, that the blow broke something in his brain. Was this Jon’s way of telling me that he didn’t blame me, that there was nothing that I could have done? Jacob told me that Jon had gone now because he’d said what he needed to say. It made sense, but why did I have those nightmares then? There were other things, too. Jacob said he had always seen the dead, but he only talked to them when he was lonely. Why was he lonely? He had a brother, Caspar. Where was he? Were there other brothers and sisters? There was someone in his life called Foda—what the hell kind of name was that? Jacob had only mentioned him once, and just briefly, but my spidey sense told me there was a story there, that maybe this Foda wasn’t a good person to cross. All of these thoughts were swirling around in my head, and each one set off another, most of which brought me back to who the hell was Jacob Mueller, and why, if he had relatives, had no one come forward to claim him? I was mulling this over, thinking that perhaps he was such a weirdo that they were glad to see the back of him, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was large and heavy, so there was no point in doing the outraged spinning around and flinging it off that I would have indulged in with anyone else.
“Mike, are you okay?” Chaz’s voice was gentle. His hand squeezed my shoulder.
“Yeah, I guess.” I stood up, breaking the physical contact, then picked up my plate and cup and took them to the sink. “I couldn’t get back to sleep.” I busied myself with rinsing the dishes, waiting to see how Chaz would play this.
“Not at all?” I didn’t look up, but I could hear him clattering around, pulling things from the fridge and pantry.
“Nah.”
“You haven’t been sitting down here all night, have you? You should have woken one of us up!”
“No, just since about five. I got up for a pee and I didn’t want to wake Jacob—he’s down for the count—so I came down here. Is that all right?” I didn’t give a shit whether it was or not, but I’ve found that if you ask, you’ll normally be told that it is, even in retrospect.
“Yeah, sure.” Chaz was hovering behind me now, and I could sense a really heavy conversation about my nightmares coming on. I thought that I’d better do something to nip that in the bud.
“Chaz . . .” I hesitated, purely for effect, and when I spoke, I tried to give my voice a ragged quality, which was not hard after all the bellowing I’d done last night. “I’m feeling really rough. Do you think I could stay home today, maybe go back to bed once everyone’s gone off to school?” I turned around and wasn’t having to try too hard to look tired, because I was. I felt like someone had wrung me out like a dishcloth.
“Whoa, you look like shit!” A tide of pink rushed up Chaz’s face as he realized how his words could be taken.
“Don’t I always?” I said, smiling so that he knew I wasn’t pissed off by what he’d said.
“Sure,” he said, grinning back at me. “Do you want to head back up to bed now, or wait until it’s quiet?”
I shook my head. “I’ll wait.”
“Go and watch some TV or something while I start getting breakfast ready.” Chaz edged toward the sink with the kettle in his hand.
“I can help, if you like.”
The smile that lit up Chaz’s face pierced my heart. The stupid bastard thought that some major breakthrough was occurring. Surely he knew me better than that? I did nothing at all unless there was something in it for me. I only wanted to help now because I was hoping to pump him for more information about Jacob.
Chaz put me in charge of grilling the huge amount of bacon that we go through at a typical breakfast. A wise move, since his favored method of cooking seemed to be burning the meat into leathery strips. I’m quite handy about a kitchen: I had to be when we lived with Mom. Ever since I could remember, if Jon and I wanted regular meals, I had to make them. Chaz concentrated on mixing up what looked like a vat of pancake batter.
I figured that since he was thinking I had softened up, I might as well play on this a bit more. “I’m sorry about last night,” I said, keeping my head down as if I was too ashamed to meet his eyes. “When I have one of those nightmares, it’s like I’m sleepwalking.”
“Don’t sweat it, Mike. All I wanted was to make sure that you didn’t hurt yourself and that Luce didn’t think it was some kind of temper tantrum. Your records say that you used to get nightmares a lot. Not so much here, eh?”
Oh, was he ever good. But I was better. “They come and go. I never know when I’ll have one. You must have been worried about Jacob, too. Frightened that me freaking out would make him have one of his overloads. Strange that he didn’t, don’t you think?”
Chaz fell for it. He started in on how difficult it was to predict how Jacob would react in any situation, and it was easy for me to slip in the odd question or comment here or there—nothing that would be thought too intrusive, though. My mentioning how weird it was that Jacob had no identification on him when he was found led Chaz into a riff about how mysterious Jacob’s appearance had been.
“You remember I told you he’d been beaten up when they found him?” Chaz didn’t wait for my reply. “The police thought he had be
en mugged: he was missing clothes, and had a black eye and some cuts. All he had on were a pair of pants and a shirt, and he was clutching an old blanket. His shoes were even missing.” Chaz was really getting into it, and I didn’t even have to make encouraging noises after a while. “Strange, though, his feet were cut up like you’d expect if he’d been walking barefoot for a long time, so they wondered if maybe he’d been snatched somewhere, robbed, beaten, and then dropped off miles from where he came from.”
I waited to see if he’d go on. When he didn’t, I asked, “So, what was he like when he first came here?”
“Pretty much the same as he is now, only then he wasn’t talking at all.” Chaz lifted up the bowl of pancake batter and carried it over to the stove, setting it down next to the hot plate. “We tried everything we could to get him to talk to us while the police were putting out their appeals for information.” He shook his head. “Nothing, not even when they went nationwide, in case he had been kidnapped rather than mugged. They even sent feelers out to the authorities in Europe.”
I raised my eyebrows at that.
Chaz grinned. “You’re smart, Mike, think about it. I finally did manage to get his name out of him—Jacob Mueller is pretty European-sounding—and there was that slight accent of his, sounds almost German, so it made sense to try places like Austria, Switzerland, or Germany.”
I inwardly kicked myself. Why I hadn’t I realized that Jacob had an accent? I just thought his voice was odd all around, kind of sing-song and whispery. That was something to remember for later.
Chaz had got the hot plate going and was ladling out dollops of batter. “Mike, there’s nothing more to be done in here. Would you mind filling up the milk and juice pitchers and taking them through to the dining room?”
“Sure,” I said. Mindless activity was good. It gave me more time to think, about Jacob, about what had happened, and what I was going to do about it. The accent thing was tugging at my thoughts. German-sounding. Was Mueller a German name? Was Foda a German name, too? These were things I could work on, for sure.
The sound of the gong shook me out of my thoughts. I could hear the house stirring: muffled groans, the sound of feet on the hallway floors, water being run and toilets flushed. I wondered what Jacob would think when he woke up and saw my empty bed.
I stood in the hallway, watching to see who would make it down first. The front door opened behind me and Luce almost fell in, hastily closing her umbrella, which was dripping on the carpet nonetheless. “Mike,” she said, “you gave me a fright. What are you doing up so early?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” I muttered, not wanting to get into all that again, “so I helped Chaz.”
“Well done, you,” she said. “I’m running late—the rain seems to have slowed everything up, so I’m sure he was grateful for that.”
I grunted neutrally, still watching the stairs. Kids were starting to trickle down now. Adam was first, running and looking over his shoulder as if he were being chased. Then I realized why. Paddy was just a couple of steps behind him. Adam was frantically looking around, obviously searching for Chaz. When he couldn’t find him, he threw himself in my direction and scurried behind me. I sighed when he pressed himself against the back of my legs; I could feel him trembling. My last attempt to discourage him obviously hadn’t worked. Paddy stopped on the bottom step, causing a logjam of kids behind him. His face was twisted in frustration. Then there was a commotion at the top of the stairs. At first I thought it was Matt trying to catch up with Paddy, but he was nowhere in sight. I couldn’t quite see what was happening until suddenly Jacob appeared, pushing and worming his way through the others until he caught sight of me. He stopped, a look of what I guessed was relief on his face. After that he came down the staircase slowly, then stood alongside me, not speaking, just looking down at his feet. Adam made a move then, too, coming out and standing on my other side, still a little too close for my comfort.
Paddy looked at the three of us and sneered. “A trio of weirdos—the monster, the retard, and the little, sucky one.”
Luce yelled at him to can it. She looked as if she were going to say something to me, too, but I just turned around and made my way into the dining room, to what had become my seat, near the bottom of the table next to Chaz. I was conscious of the fact that Jacob was right behind me like a shrunken shadow, but I didn’t do anything to acknowledge him. Adam followed me, too, and wouldn’t move until I gestured that he should go sit by Luce.
Breakfast was its usual noisy self. A few squabbles broke out over how the bacon was distributed. It was always one of the more popular foods, and now that it was decently cooked for once, there seemed to be even more demand than usual. This kept Chaz occupied, which was good. I didn’t need him trying to get me talking about my nightmares again. He left Jacob alone, too, after making sure he got a reasonable portion of bacon to go along with the plain roll he was having instead of pancakes. Jacob had his head down, but every time I looked up, he was peeking up at me, which was seriously freaky.
I ate fast, and as soon as I was done I stood up and asked Chaz if I could go back upstairs to bed. When he agreed, there were howls of protest, and several other kids started clamoring that they felt ill and didn’t think they could go to school. I left Chaz to it; not my problem. I glanced back to see Jacob half risen from his seat, his mouth open as if he was about to speak.
I hadn’t thought that I would actually sleep. I was sure that I would have those same thoughts about Jacob, about them, and about Jon twisting around in my head, but it was as if someone hit my off switch, because I was asleep almost as soon as I hit the bed.
When I woke up, the sun was shining through the flimsy curtains. The house was quiet. Neither Jacob nor I had any idea of the time until after I got dressed and ventured downstairs. I could hear the TV on in the common room. Chaz was in there, watching an old Star Trek episode.
“Mike!” He leaped to his feet. “How are you feeling, bud? You’ve been out cold for most of the morning. Do you want some lunch?”
I shook my head. I had an idea, but didn’t know whether I’d be able to pull it off. “I was wondering whether I could go to the library; I’ve got some things to look up for school.”
Chaz looked at his watch, as if he was weighing up whether there was enough time to actually send me to school for the afternoon. “Ah, go on, I’ve got some errands to do downtown, so I’ll drop you there on my way, pick you up on my way to get the others from school. About three? That suit you?”
I nodded, hardly able to believe that it had been that easy.
“Don’t let me down, Mike, okay?” Boy, was he ever trusting, but this time he was safe. I really did want to go to the library.
I ran upstairs and got my backpack and was ready way before Chaz met me in the front hall with the keys to the van.
“Keen, eh?” he said, but left it at that when I didn’t bother to reply.
I had never been to the Hamilton Central Library before. It was huge and ugly, a monolithic cube. Once I got past the entrance, I gave a silent cheer. There were banks of computers, and not all of them were being used. But I was brought down to earth with a thud: if you didn’t have a library card, you could only use what they called the express computers, and only for fifteen minutes. The librarian at the desk who explained the system was nice enough about it and picked up on my disappointment.
“You can sign up for a card right now. I can do it for you.” He cocked his head to one side and looked at me. “All you need is proof of address. You are eighteen, right?”
I shook my head. This was one of those times when my size worked against me.
“Oh, well, it’s not a big problem. Your mom or dad can sign for you.”
I must have looked even more downcast at that.
“Is that a problem?” I wondered what the guy was picking up on with that—maybe he thought I was a street kid.
“Yeah.” I looked down to avoid his gaze. “I’m a ward of Children’s Aid.” I wasn’t able to fake a sob; that would have been going too far. I snuck a look at him, and his face told me he didn’t quite know what to say. I decided to press on. “My caseworker dropped me here. I’ve got a big project for school and I really need to look up stuff for it . . .” I let my voice trail away and waited to see what the librarian’s next move would be.
“That’s okay.” He was talking fast, happy to have found a solution. “He can sign for you. Where is he?”
I tried to look even sadder. “He’s gone to do errands and is picking me back up at three. That’s an hour and a half away, and if I can only use a computer for fifteen minutes, I’ll have wasted a lot of time. My assignment’s due the day after tomorrow.” I didn’t make the deadline too urgent; I didn’t want him to think I’d left everything until the last minute. I was trying to project “good boy” big time. I even managed a sniffle, though I couldn’t quite get to the sob.
The librarian rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “Okay. I shouldn’t do it this way, but I’ll give you a card now and fill out the application form. Your guy can sign it when he comes in to get you.”
I looked directly at him then, smiling and trying to make the smile not as ghastly as it usually was. “Thank you. You don’t know how much this assignment means to me. I have to get good marks in school.” I was letting him fill in the blanks here, betting on the fact that he was astute enough to get my implication that education was my way out of the system. I wanted to keep it subtle, didn’t want him to think he was being obviously played.
He smiled back at me. “It’s nothing, really. We have to make these rules because sometimes you’ll get people who want to hog a computer for hours on end.” He looked over at the rows of machines. “It’s not too busy today, so you’re lucky. When your hour’s up, it shouldn’t be a problem to sign in again. What’s your name so I can make out the card?”
