by Lani Lenore
“He’s my brother. Don’t I get a say in this?”
“It’s a courtesy that I’m telling you first,” she said firmly.
Wren looked back at her, hardly able to believe this harshness. Miss Nora was not usually cruel – distant, perhaps – but this all seemed particularly cold to Wren. She stared at the woman until finally Miss Nora sighed, looking so aged in that moment that it was frightening. Wren saw a reflection of herself beyond the hard life that awaited her.
“Wren, I know how you feel about the three of you staying together, but let us face the facts. You’re growing up to be quite an attractive young woman and you can’t hope to hide it forever. Despite your effort, you’ll eventually be bought off to be someone’s wife – if you’re lucky enough to even get a commitment like that. Who’s going to protect them then? Henry, with his attitude, may never get out of here, and this could be Maxwell’s only chance before it’s too late for him as well. Would you rather him be on the street? Down a mine shaft somewhere with Henry? You need to think about what is the best thing for Max; not for you. He’s young. There is no future for him if he stays here. Be reasonable.”
Wren was trying to be reasonable, but all she could think was: I’m going to lose both of my brothers now. All of this struggling to stay together, and for what?
“The Ausbrooks are wealthy,” Nora said as a way of consoling her. “They have an estate in the country and have traveled out to prepare the house for him. He’ll be well taken care of, will have a good education and will grow up to be a fine young man with the love of a family, like he deserves. How could you ask for more than that?”
In her heart, Wren knew she was right, but yet it was a lot to swallow at once.
“How long?” she wanted to know. She heard her own voice breaking up, but she swore she wouldn’t cry – not now.
“Several weeks yet. They hope to be back by the end of the month,” Nora explained, her voice full of finality. “Plenty of time to say goodbye.”
2
After that, Wren didn’t have much to say to anyone. She was irresponsive to any verbal attempt as she carried out her chores and helped to prepare supper for the rest of the children. By the time she sat down with her brothers to eat, she was like a ghost, drifting about, transparent and with no purpose.
The meal was one of their more conservative. It was an oatcake with onions and a small amount of potato, which outshined everything else, despite it being such a little chunk. They did eat better than this on occasion, but it seemed that Nora’s displeasure had affected the menu. They were all being punished for it. She had lost the income from two workers and intended to make up the difference somewhere.
Wren stared blankly at the table, beyond her plate of food, not paying attention as Max pushed his oatcake off onto the floor. Henry tore his into little pieces, stirred them around on his plate for a bit and then finally put one morsel past his sore lips. He had only just tasted it before he spat it back out onto the plate and shoved all of it away from him across the table, making several of the others look up from their own food in surprise.
“I don’t want this,” Henry muttered sullenly.
Wren snapped back to herself. She could see that look on Henry’s face – the way he stared down at the table, lips clenched. She suspected that something else was bothering him instead of the food, but decided to feign ignorance. She hardly had the energy to deal with his issues right now.
“What’s wrong with it? Is your mouth sore?” He was still swollen from the beating he’d taken. There was no denying that.
“It tastes like shit.”
“Henry!” She didn’t like to hear him say words like that. It was unrefined, and they were not lowlifes. They had been taught better than that. It did, however, make several of the others at the table giggle, which roused Maxwell’s attention, because he did not understand.
“What’s ‘shit’?” Max asked, looking up at her with his inquisitive four-year-old eyes. Wren was aghast, but Henry snickered with his head down. There was a short smile on his busted lips.
“It’s a word none of you should be saying,” she scolded them all, then glared at Henry. She lowered her voice to rebuke him. “That’s perfect, Henry. Just what we need is to have him saying words like that in front of his new parents.”
It was out of her mouth before she’d thought much about it. Wren froze, waiting for him to demand what she meant by that, but Henry did not seem to grasp onto it.
“We don’t need new parents,” he told her. “We have parents somewhere.”
“Who gave us up,” she reminded him.
“Exactly. It didn’t work the first time. Why would it work again? There’s no point in hoping for it. It’s not going to happen!”
Wren was angry with him, furious in fact. He was so young and stupid that he could not possibly understand what was happening right now, just under his nose. She almost erupted and told him what Nora had said to her – that he was going to be sent away and Max was being taken – but she managed to keep it contained inside. It was stagnant water in an old bottle.
“What happened today is not alright,” she warned him. “It won’t be forgotten or forgiven. We won’t just waltz away from it like nothing happened. You need to stop living in a fantasy and realize that there are going to be consequences!”
“What happened?” a girl across the table asked. Her name was Polly and she was around seven years old – much too young to be concerned about it.
“Wren pushed the Devil into the machine. Tore his hand right off,” Liam informed her quietly. He had been there to see it.
“Was he trying to get the gold?” Polly asked innocently.
Wren felt a chill run through her. Henry looked at her knowingly.
“Then there’s no sense hoping that someone will adopt us then, is there?” he asked smartly. “That’s a fantasy too.”
Wren was fed up, unable to take any more. She wanted to yell at him but held back for the others’ sakes. Instead, she lifted her tin plate and slammed it back down on the table, scattering food and making a loud noise that startled them all.
“You’d rather stay here and eat shit? Fine. Maybe you’ll get your wish.”
Wren’s face flushed when she allowed herself to say the forbidden word, but she was too angry to go back on it. She got up and walked away from the table, leaving Max there and Henry bewildered. He just didn’t understand. Did he really have no grasp of what they had done? Did he not know that they weren’t going to be excused from it?
I can’t deal with this. I just can’t.
Wren went to the girls’ washroom, closing herself away. She sank down in the corner against the wall, feeling the coldness of the tiles pass through her dress. She was alone, and she didn’t bother holding back her tears. Everything was falling apart around her and she could do nothing to stop it. Soon, her family would all be gone and she would be the only one left.
I won’t have anyone at all, she thought. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to belong...
The door of the washroom began to open and she tried to turn away so that no one would see her sorrow. Tears were contagious in this place.
Glimpsing a familiar form made her look up, and she was surprised to see that it was Henry. She was so shocked that he had come after her that she simply stared at him, dumbfounded. After that, it was too late to hide her tears.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” she told him, but that meant very little to her rebellious brother, who didn’t care for rules. He sat down next to her against the wall, watching her as she tried to get a handle on her emotions. She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, knowing they made her eyes look puffy and old.
He was quiet for a few minutes as he waited for her to stop sobbing, looking sober and patient, which was very unusual for him.
“I’m fine,” she said to him, but he still wouldn’t go away.
“You have never ever cursed at me,” he told her. That was probably true.
She was usually very good at keeping patient, but she felt she couldn’t be blamed for it now. Still, she supposed it had been uncalled for.
“I’m sorry for that.”
“What’d she say to you?” he asked, brushing off her apology.
Henry had his moments when Wren was certain he didn’t use his brain at all, but he was smart enough to have figured this out. When Miss Nora had kept Wren in her office, it hadn’t been to chat about the weather.
She didn’t want to dump this burden on him, but she guessed she didn’t have much of a choice now. He had already seen her distress, and he knew that it wasn’t going to be good news. He had a right to know.
“Those people from yesterday want to adopt Max.”
To her surprise, Henry didn’t get angry immediately. He sat there, letting it soak in.
“But not us,” he confirmed.
She shook her head sadly. “Nora already approved it. They’re supposed to come back for him by the end of the month.”
Henry was quiet, but she could see how his fists were clenched. She wanted to tell him that fighting wouldn’t work this time, but she only sat there with her arms around her knees, looking somber.
“She said something about me too, didn’t she?” he assumed, his voice unnaturally calm. Wren sighed, knowing she had to give in.
“She doesn’t think she’ll be able to find a place for you after what happened, and if not, she plans on sending you away to work in the mines.”
“Damn it,” Henry said under his breath, but she was still able to hear. He was quiet as he let the anger well up in himself – until he finally burst. “We have to leave here.”
“Where are we going to go, Henry? Everything is ruined. No one will want us now!”
“We can live on our own!”
“We can’t!” The sharpness of her tone seemed to shock him, but she had finally reached her limit after all this time, and she could not be stopped. “You might think that living on the streets, stealing and picking pockets to survive, will be fun but what about Max? That’s no sort of life for a young child. We’ll be alone in a sea of faceless orphans and we’ll die that way! No one cares about us! No one wants us! I’ve been trying to make the best of what we have here, but now—!”
She stopped, not because she had said everything she needed to say, but because her sobs had sprung up again, making it impossible for her to go on. Wren felt alone and heartbroken. Even the ones she had tried to keep close seemed far away from her now.
Wren couldn’t tell if any of that had gotten through to Henry, because she couldn’t bear to look at his bruised face. They sat quietly, hearing the drip from the leaky faucet echo within the hollow room. It had a trembling, melancholy sound. When he spoke again, she had her answer.
“What about all those things you used to say about us going somewhere else?” he asked. “Maybe there is somewhere that we can go – in the woods, or across the ocean…”
“Those were fairytales,” she told him, crushing his fantasy beneath the weight of her words. “We’re both too old to believe that now.”
Henry didn’t say anything else, and Wren didn’t look at his expression, but she knew that he was hurt. She could hear the gusts of his breath exiting his nostrils as he pouted angrily. Then, he abruptly got up and left the washroom, slamming the door behind him.
Wren let him leave her, even though she knew he was furious – even though she knew he might walk out onto the street and never come back. She didn’t have the energy to stop him, and maybe it was better this way. They were all going to be separated – it was fast-approaching now – and maybe it would be easier if she quietly gave up her stock in her brothers and let this happen.
Wren sat there for a long time, even though she was supposed to be back at her chores, but she stayed for as long as the quiet would last, alone with her fear and sorrow and self-loathing.
Nothing matters at all now, she thought. Nothing at all.
3
That night in the gloom of the dormitory, Wren could not find sleep for the jungle of worry that had sprung up around her. Though she’d told herself that the burden of her brothers was simply too much to carry anymore, she had been glad to find that Henry had not fled, but was now sleeping in the bed next to hers. Max was still oblivious to his fate, which would be good enough for as long as it lasted, but Wren could not stop worrying about what was going to happen to their family.
She kept having visions of Maxwell crying for her at night after he was taken away, seeking her but not being able to find her, and then eventually forgetting about her completely as he grew older. She imagined Henry in the darkness of a mine shaft, dirty and alone until falling rocks would take his life before he was even a man.
And what of her? Without them, would she be taken on by an unscrupulous lout who only wanted to abuse and molest her – or until she was pregnant with her own child which she would be forced to give up because she couldn’t afford to feed it?
Wren closed her eyes tightly, trying to shut those images away, but they kept returning, flashing across her, making her head ache and her stomach churn.
So horrible…
You must stop. Just go to sleep. There is nothing that worrying will do.
The whole ordeal was exhausting her, and she felt more tired than she had in a long time. Taking a deep breath, she gave in and let her eyes flutter to a close. She tried to keep herself still and relaxed, looking for some distant island in her mind, fancying that she heard the melody of a flute serenading her from somewhere beyond the ocean.
Chapter Four
1
Wren was imagining the gentle sound of waves on a shore, rocking her to sleep. It was peaceful for a while with the water sighing as it rose up beautifully and collapsed on itself, but as she continued to listen, the wind became a roar in her ears, whipping around her in curling gusts. There was a sound of thunder in the distance, grumbling lowly in the heavens, and she knew that a storm was not far away.
She woke up with her face in the sand and her gown feeling damp around her legs. Tiny grains were stuck to her face, and she passed her fingers over it to brush off the grit as she sat up with a start, blinking to focus on her surroundings. It was night; the moon was enormous above her, taking up most of the space in the sky, flanked by a million winking stars.
Where am I?
She was certain that she’d fallen asleep in her bed at the Home. How could she have woken at the beach? She hadn’t even been to the ocean in years – not since she was very young, and certainly before her parents had cast her off.
I must be dreaming. Yet everything around her had such vibrant life. The waves were tossing on the sea which stretched out for miles ahead of her. She could smell the salt, feel the bite of the wind nipping at her. Wren shivered, rubbing her bare arms to generate heat. The moon’s eerie blue glow covered everything, allowing her to see down the shoreline without need of a lantern.
She looked around, down the length of the beach, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else, and she might have scolded herself for being out in the middle of the night. The beach was empty – with good reason – and she was alone.
Then she heard it – the familiar sound of the reeds playing that haunting melody. It was closer now than it had ever been before, and she knew it was the same song she had been hearing in her sleep. It was calling her nearer to it, and how could she disobey now that it had brought her this far?
Wren began to walk down the shoreline, her bare feet pressing into the firm, wet sand. The eerie notes of the flute drew her closer until she saw the dark silhouette of some precarious boulders, topped by a small glowing light that drifted to and fro like a candle flickering in the wind. She felt that she had seen that light before.
That was when she saw him for the first time. He was only a shadow sitting atop the rocks, but she was sure that he was the source of the music. When the song stopped, she knew he had seen her too.
He slid down and landed on
the sand so agilely that she didn’t hear any disturbance when his feet touched down. The light stayed behind, perched on the rocks, and eventually it died down to nothing and vanished. The boy approached her in the moonlight, and as he did, she was gradually able to make him out.
Who is he? She wondered and yet, while she was wary of strangers, she could not help going nearer to him. Maybe he could help her. He could at least tell her where she was so she could get back to the Home.
They stopped a few paces from each other, but he didn’t speak, and she wasn’t sure what to say to him either. His face was partially hidden by a hood and she could not tell how old he was or what he looked like, only that he was a few inches taller than she was. As Wren looked him over, she realized how unusually he was dressed.
He was in doeskin pants and dark leather boots that reached to his knees, but strangest of all was his long coat that was made entirely of waxy leaves, sewn together in rows. The hood was of leaves as well, the points jutting out around his face like sharp teeth. The coat was open, and he was wearing no shirt underneath. She could see his bare chest, firm and strong, youthful.
Wren nearly blushed to see his flesh, but she was much too fascinated by him to turn away in embarrassment. He was the only one around, and she needed to focus on discovering her circumstance.
“Excuse me, but could you help me? I seemed to be lost.”
He didn’t respond immediately and she found herself wondering if he even spoke English. Clearly, he was not from the city. He looked positively wild! She determined to herself that this was what he was – a wild boy – though how this could be so with the gray city spanning so far, she couldn’t say. Would a boy like this even know how to speak? Wren wondered these things, but she got her answer when he opened his mouth, still giving her a hard stare.
“You’re a girl,” he said, bewildered. Even though he spoke English, his accent was different from hers. He was definitely not local.
