The House in the Cerulean Sea

by TJ Klune

He went with Talia to her garden, listening as she extolled the virtues (the many, many virtues) of working in the dirt.

  He followed Phee and Zoe into the woods, while Zoe talked about the importance of listening to the earth around them, to the trees and the grass and the birds.

  He listened as Chauncey regaled him with tales of famous bellhops (most of whom Linus believed were fictional) who opened doors and carried luggage and solved crimes such as jewelry theft or brought up trays for room service. He brought out a thick tome (almost the length of the RULES AND REGULATIONS) from underneath his bed, wrapped in plastic to keep it from getting wet. He grunted as he lifted it above his head to show Linus the title, the plastic crinkling: The History of Bellhops Through the Ages.

  “I’ve read it four and a half times,” he announced proudly.

  “Have you?” Linus asked.

  “Oh yes. I have to make sure I know what I’m doing.”

  “Why?”

  Chauncey blinked slowly, first his right eye, and then the left. “Why what?”

  “Why do you wish to become a bellhop?”

  Chauncey grinned. “Because they get to help people.”

  “And that’s what you want to do?”

  His smile faded slightly. “More than anything. I know I’m…” He clacked his black teeth. “Different.”

  Linus startled. “No, that’s not what I—there’s not a single thing wrong with you.”

  “I know,” Chauncey said. “Different doesn’t mean bad. Arthur says being different is sometimes better than being the same as everyone else.” He looked at the book clutched in his tentacles. “When people come to hotels, they’re usually tired. They want someone to help them carry their bags. And I’m really good at it. Talia asks me to lift heavy things for her all the time so I can practice.” He frowned, looking down at the book. “Just because I look the way I do doesn’t mean I can’t help people. I know some people think I’m scary, but I promise I’m really not.”

  “Of course you aren’t,” Linus said quietly. He nodded toward the book. “Go on, then. Let’s hear about these bellhops throughout the ages. I believe it will be positively riveting.”

  Chauncey’s eyes bounced excitedly. “Oh, it is. Did you know that the first use of the word bellhop was in 1897? They’re also called porters or bellmen. Isn’t that amazing?”

  “It is,” Linus said. “Perhaps the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.”

  He sat with Theodore near his nest (never in, because he didn’t want to be bitten), listening to the wyvern chirp as he showed Linus each of his little treasures: a button, a silver coin, another button, a folded up piece of paper with what looked like Sal’s handwriting on it (what it said, Linus couldn’t tell), yet another button.

  And he asked them, each of them, if they were happy. If they had any concerns. If anything scared them here on the island.

  He’d asked similar questions before at other orphanages, and he could always tell when the children had been coached to say what they thought he needed to hear. There was always a note of artifice to their bright words of happiness and joy and No, Mr. Baker, absolutely nothing is wrong, and I am filled with joy.

  It wasn’t like that here. Here, Talia would stare at him suspiciously and demand to know why he was asking and did she need to get her shovel? Here, Phee would laugh and tell him she didn’t want to be anywhere else, because these were her trees and her people. Here, Lucy grinned at him and said, Oh yes, Mr. Baker, I would like to go somewhere else, one day, but only if all the others came with him and agreed on his ideas of world domination. Here, Chauncey’s eyes would bounce and he’d say he loved the island, but that he did wish there was a hotel here so he could carry luggage. Here, Theodore would stumble over his wings in his excitement at seeing Arthur, even if Arthur had only been gone for a few minutes.

  And it was here, on the Thursday near the end of the second week, that Sal appeared at a quarter past five on the porch of the guest house, gnawing on his bottom lip.

  Linus opened the door after hearing a knock, surprised to find Sal by himself. He leaned out, sure that one of the other children would be there hiding, but no.

  It was just Sal.

  Linus quickly schooled his face, not wanting to scare the boy. “Hello, Sal.”

  Sal’s eyes widened, and he took a step back. He glanced over his shoulder, and even though Linus couldn’t see him, he was sure Arthur was watching from somewhere. He didn’t know how he knew, but Linus was under the impression that not much happened on the island without Arthur knowing.

  Sal turned back toward Linus and lowered his gaze to the floor. His hands were in fists at his sides, and he was breathing heavily. Linus was getting worried that something was wrong, but then Calliope walked through Linus’s legs and began to rub against Sal. She meowed loudly at him, arching her back, ears twitching.

  Sal smiled softly down at her and seemed to relax.

  “She’s a good cat,” Linus said quietly. “Gives me a bit of trouble every now and then, but nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I like cats,” Sal said, voice barely above a whisper. “Most times, they don’t like me. Because of the dog thing.”

  “Calliope’s a little different. She likes you.”

  Sal looked up at him. “Really?”

  Linus shrugged. “Do you hear the way she’s talking to you?”

  Sal nodded.

  “I’ve never heard her do that before. Oh, she purrs like a normal cat, but she never meows. At least not until we got here. And not until she met you.”

  Sal looked shocked. “Wow,” he said, looking back down at her. “I wonder why.”

  “I like to think it’s because she’s a good judge of character. That perhaps she senses something in you that allows her to speak. Cats are very smart that way. If they sense someone isn’t a good person, they tend to avoid them, or even attack them.”

  “She’s never attacked me,” Sal said.

  “I know. She likes you.”

  Sal scratched the back of his neck. “I like her too.”

  “Good,” Linus said. “Because as much as cats can tell about people, you can always judge a person by how they treat animals. If there is cruelty, then that person should be avoided at all costs. If there is kindness, I like to think it’s the mark of a good soul.”

  “I’m kind to animals,” Sal said, sounding more animated than Linus had ever heard him. “And they always seem to like me.”

  “How about that,” Linus said, amused. “I’m so very pleased to hear it.”

  Sal flushed and looked away. When he spoke again, he mumbled something Linus couldn’t quite make out.

  “Say that again, please? I didn’t hear it.”

  Sal took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I was wondering if I could show you my room.”

  Linus kept his voice even, though he was more thrilled than he expected to be. “I would like that.” He hesitated. “Did anyone put you up to this? Because I don’t want you doing something you’re not ready for.”

  Sal shrugged awkwardly. “Arthur said before you got here that you’d want to see it, but he’s never brought it up again.”

  Linus was relieved. “And none of the other children—”

  He shook his head. “No. I mean, I know you’ve already seen their rooms, but … they didn’t say anything.”

  Linus wanted to ask why now, but decided to keep that to himself. He didn’t need to put more pressure on the boy. “Then I would be delighted.”

  “Can Calliope come too?” Sal asked in a rush. “If that’s okay. I don’t want to cause trouble for anyone—”

  Linus held up a hand. “Absolutely. Though, we’ll leave that up to her. If she follows, which I expect she will, then so be it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Shall we?”

  Sal gnawed on his lip again before nodding tightly.

  Linus closed the door to the guest house behind him.

  * * *

  Cal
liope came with them, as Linus thought she would. She continued to walk up to Sal, only going a few feet ahead before turning and coming back to him. Linus almost felt put out by her obvious show of affection, but since he was a forty-year-old man and not a sullen teenager, he didn’t say a word. Besides, he told himself, she was obviously helping, and Linus wasn’t going to say no to that.

  In the garden they passed Talia, who only waved before turning back to her flowers. Chauncey was next to her, exclaiming loudly that the flowers were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and that if she were so inclined, he’d like to eat a few of them. Phee and Zoe were in the woods. Lucy was with Arthur in his room. Before they reached the stairs, Theodore chirped. Linus looked up to see the wyvern hanging from an exposed beam above them as if he thought he were a bat. He made another sound, and Sal said, “It’s okay, Theodore. I asked him to come.” Theodore chirped again before closing his eyes as Linus followed Sal up the stairs.

  They paused in front of the door to Sal’s room. Sal, who never stopped looking nervous most days, put a shaking hand on the doorknob.

  Linus said, “If you’re not ready, then you’re not ready. I won’t push you on this, Sal. Please don’t do this on my account.”

  Sal frowned as he glanced back at Linus. “But this is on your account.”

  Linus was flummoxed. “Well … yes, I suppose it is. But we have all the time in the world.” They didn’t, of course. Linus was almost halfway through his stay on Marsyas. The realization startled him.

  Sal shook his head. “I—I would rather we do this now.”

  “If you wish. I won’t touch anything of yours, if that makes you feel better. And if there’s anything you want to show me, I will gladly look at it. I’m not here to judge you, Sal. Not at all.”

  “Then why are you here if not to judge?”

  Linus balked. “I—well. I’m here to make sure this home is exactly that. A home. One that I can trust to keep all of you safe and sound.”

  Sal dropped his hand from the doorknob. He turned fully toward Linus. Calliope sat near his feet, looking up at him. This was as close as Linus had ever been to Sal. He was as tall as Linus was, and though Linus was thicker, Sal had a heft to him, a strength that belied how small he tried to make himself seem at times.

  “Are you going to make me leave?” Sal asked, that frown deepening.

  Linus hesitated. He had never lied to any child in his life. If the truth needed to be stretched, he would rather say nothing at all. “I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to,” Linus said slowly. “And I don’t think anyone should.”

  Sal studied him carefully. “You’re not like the others.”

  “Others?”

  “Caseworkers.”

  “Oh. I suppose not. I’m Linus Baker. You’ve never met a Linus Baker before.”

  Sal stared at him for a moment longer before turning back to the door. He pushed it open and then stepped back. He began to gnaw on his lip again, and Linus wanted to tell him he was going to hurt himself, but he asked, “May I?”

  Sal nodded jerkily.

  The room was nothing fancy. In fact, it seemed to be devoid of almost anything that Linus would associate with Sal. The other children had made their spaces their own, for better or worse. Here, the walls were blank. The bed was neatly made. There was a rug on the wooden floor, but it was muted and gray. There was a door to a closet and … that was it.

  Mostly.

  In one corner, there was a pile of books that reminded Linus of Arthur’s office. He looked at a few of the titles and saw they were fictional classics—Shakespeare and Poe, Dumas and Sartre. That last caused Linus to arch an eyebrow. He had never quite understood existentialism.

  But other than that, the room was a blank canvas, as if waiting for an artist to bring it to life. It saddened Linus, because he suspected he knew the reason why it was the way it was.

  “It’s lovely,” he said, making a production of looking around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sal peeking through the doorway, tracking his every movement. “Quite spacious. And just look out the window! Why, I think I can almost see the village from here. A wonderful view.”

  “You can see the lights from the village at night,” Sal said from the doorway. “They sparkle. I like to pretend they’re ships at sea.”

  “A pretty thought,” Linus said. He stepped away from the window and went to the closet. “Is it all right if I look in here?”

  There was a brief hesitation. Then, “Okay.”

  The closet was bigger than Linus expected. And there, next to a chest of drawers, was a small desk with a rolling chair tucked in underneath. Atop the desk sat a typewriter, an old Underwood. There was a blank sheet of paper already threaded through. “What’s this, then?” Linus asked lightly.

  He didn’t hear a response. He looked back over his shoulder to see Sal standing next to the bed, looking like a lost little boy. Calliope hopped up onto the bed and rubbed against his hand. He spread his fingers into the hair on her back.

  “Sal?”

  “It’s where I write,” Sal blurted, eyes wide. “I—like to write. I’m not—it’s not very good, and I probably shouldn’t—”

  “Ah. I seem to remember something about that. Last week in your class, you read something for everyone. You wrote it?”

  Sal nodded.

  “It was very good. Far better than I could ever write, I’m afraid. If you need a report filled out, I’m your man. But that’s as far as my creativity extends with the written word. No computer?”

  “The light hurts my eyes. And I like the sound of the typewriter better.”

  Linus smiled. “I understand. There’s something magical about the clack of the keys that a computer can’t emulate. I should know. Most days, I sit in front of one at work. It can hurt my eyes too, after a time, though I believe your vision is a little sharper than mine.”

  “I don’t want to talk about what I write,” Sal said quickly.

  “Of course,” Linus said easily. “It’s private. I would never ask you to share something you aren’t ready to.”

  That seemed to appease Sal slightly. “It’s just—it doesn’t make sense, sometimes. My thoughts. And I try to write them all down to find an order, but—” He looked as if he were struggling to find the right words.

  “It’s personal,” Linus said. “And you’ll find the order when you’re ready. If it’s anything like what you read previously, I’m sure it’s going to be quite moving. How long have you been writing?”

  “Two months. Maybe a little less.”

  So only since he’d been at Marsyas. “Not before?”

  Sal shook his head. “I never—no one let me before. Until I came here.”

  “Arthur?”

  Sal scuffed a shoe against the rug. “He asked me what I wanted more than anything. For the first month, he asked me once a week, telling me when I was ready to answer, he’d do whatever he could within reason.”

  “And you said a typewriter?”

  “No.” He looked down at Calliope. “I told him I didn’t want to have to move again. That I wanted to stay here.”

  Linus blinked against the sudden and unexpected burn in his eyes. He cleared his throat. “And what did he say?”

  “That he’d do whatever he could to make sure that happened. And then I asked for a typewriter. Zoe brought it the next day. And the others found the desk in the attic and cleaned it up. Talia said she polished it until she thought her beard was going to fall out from all the chemicals. And then they surprised me with it.” His lips curved up. “It was a good day. Almost like it was my birthday.”

  Linus crossed his arms to keep his hands from shaking. “And you put it in the closet? I should think it would look nice in front of the window.”

  Sal shrugged. “It—the closet helped me feel small. I wasn’t ready to be bigger yet.”

  “I wonder if you’re ready now,” Linus mused aloud. “Your room is a little bigger than th
e closet, but not so big that it feels like all the walls have fallen away. It’s like the village at night. You can see them, but they can’t see you, though there is all that space between you. A little perspective, I think.”

  Sal looked down. “I never—I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “Just an idea. The desk is perfect where it is, if that’s what you want. It doesn’t need to be moved until you’re ready, or even at all. For all I know, the window might prove to be a distraction.”

  “Do you have a window where you work?”

  Linus shook his head. He thought this was dangerously personal, but did it really hurt anyone? “I don’t. DICOMY isn’t … well. They’re not fond of windows, I think.”

  “DICOMY,” Sal spat, and Linus cursed inwardly. “They—they’re—I don’t—”

  “It is where I work,” Linus said. “But you knew that. And you said yourself that I wasn’t like the others.”

  Sal’s hands were curled into fists again. “You could be.”

  “Perhaps,” Linus admitted. “And I can see why you’d think that with all that you’ve been through. But I want you to remember that you have nothing to prove to me. I have to prove myself to you, that I have your best interests in mind.”

  “Arthur is good,” Sal said. “He doesn’t—he’s not like the others were. The masters. He’s not—he’s not mean.”

  “I know that.”

  “But you said you were investigating him.”

  Linus frowned. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that aside from a private conversation. How did you—”

  “I’m a dog,” Sal snapped at him. “My hearing is better. I could hear you. You said it wasn’t a visit. It was an investigation. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to listen in, but that’s what the others said too. That they were investigating. It’s why I never get to put things up in my room like Talia or Lucy. Because it’s always temporary. Anytime I’ve ever thought I was going to finally have a place to stay, it was taken from me.”

  He cursed inwardly. “That wasn’t for you to hear.” Sal began to shrink away from him like Linus had raised a hand to him. “No,” Linus said quickly. “That’s not—what I meant was, I should have been more aware of what I said. I should have been more careful with my words.”