Cold air filled the abandoned hall. Gray light. Dirt and debris. The boy who ran there was nine years old and thin, a scarecrow in ill-fitting clothes. Tears cut crescents in the grime beneath his eyes, then tracked white to his chin, his neck, the hollow places behind his ears. Windows flashed past as the boy ran, but he ignored the snow outside, the hints of mountain and other children, barely seen. He ran and choked and hated himself for bawling like some girl.
Just run, Julian…
Breath like glass in his throat.
Just run…
He came to an intersection, and stumbled left down a darker stretch that smelled of rot and mold and frozen earth. Broken glass crunched under his feet, and his lips moved again.
Sticks and stones…
He didn’t know that he was talking out loud. He felt the rush of blood, the crack of linoleum, dried out and breaking beneath his feet. He dared a look over his shoulder, and his shoe caught on a broken tile, ankle folding like cardboard. He stumbled against a windowsill that tore skin from his arm.
Sticks…
Julian sobbed in pain.
Stones…
Metal clattered behind him, distant voices. He stopped at the bottom of a rotted-out stairwell. Light spilled from the third floor, a wisp of snow from some broken window. He thought of climbing but was too weak, the injured ankle shooting blades of pain up his leg.
Make me like Michael, he prayed.
Footsteps behind him, his eyes rolling white.
Make me strong.
Another sob escaped his throat and he fled the sound of their steps, the noises they made as they slammed through doors and banged metal pipes on the hard, concrete walls.
Please, God…
Julian burst through a door. The bad ankle crumpled and he went down again, pain a gunpowder flash behind his eyes. He smeared a sleeve across his face because it would be worse if they caught him crying.
Ten times worse.
A thousand.
He dragged himself up and rooms tumbled past: glimpses of naked bed frames and broken chairs, closets spilling old hangers and rotted cloth. He spun into another hall, breath still sharp in his throat, not enough air getting in. Behind him, a wolf-cry rose, and then another. He looked for a place to hide, but a cry skipped down the hall behind him: “There he is!”
Julian looked back and saw tall windows lit by falling snow, then dirty faces and hands, bodies lost in dark, rough clothes. They stormed out of the shadows, five boys in a dead run. He screamed this time, and they came faster, older boys, big ones, their cruelty proven a hundred times in a hundred terrible ways. Their feet made snapping sounds in the shotgun hall, and Julian cried as he ran, half-blind and sobbing and ashamed.
They caught him where the building ended. Julian hit a pocket of cold, heavy air, then metal doors and thick chain; when he turned, hands up and open, they slammed him into the door and drove him down. He shook the big chain once before they peeled his fingers loose and flipped him on his back. Then it was laughter and warm spit, the smell of rubber as a shoe crushed his nose and brought the bright, hot blood.
“Don’t mark him this time.” A faceless voice above dirty jeans. “Not his face.”
Julian screamed. “Michael!”
“Your brother’s not here to save you, you little freak.”
Julian knew the voice. “Hennessey. Wait…”
But Hennessey didn’t wait. He bent low, copper hair dull in the empty light, his eyes narrow and dark as he curled his fingers into Julian’s hair and pushed down, grinding the smaller boy’s skull into the concrete, twisting so that his left cheek came next, pressed flat on the filthy floor. “Say it.”
His mouth forced hot air into the tunnel of Julian’s ear. Julian rolled his eyes, saw the flush in Hennessey’s skin, the wisps of pale hair on his lip, the crazy, unforgiving eyes. “No.”
Hennessey pushed closer, his lips touching Julian’s ear, the whiskers as light and fine as a spider’s silk. “Say it.”
“Please…”
“Hennessey is the king of Iron House.” Julian started to cry, but that only made Hennessey push harder. He leaned in until skin tore from Julian’s cheek. “Hennessey is the king. Not Michael. Say it. Hennessey is the king of Iron House. Michael is a pussy-”
“No.”
“Michael is a pussy. Say it.”
“Please…”
“What?” Hennessey thumped Julian’s head on the floor, then stood. “Please, what?” They loomed over Julian, all five of them. A smile touched Hennessey’s lips and the same mad light filled his eyes. “Please what, motherfucker?”
“Please, wait.”
But they ignored him. Hennessey laughed once, said, “Boys.” And they went to work with their feet. They kicked until Julian stopped moving, then leaned close and told him what they were going to do. Julian curled tight but it was useless. Hands found his legs, his hair. They pulled until cold air knifed his skin, then threw him naked through the window. He landed in a drift of snow, on his back beneath a metal plaque bolted to the stone wall. Snow obscured the letters on the plaque, but he knew the words.
Enter child, and know no fear but that of God
Laughter came from beyond the window, pale faces pressed against the glass, then gone. Julian touched his gushing nose and saw finger-paint snow on his nails. He spit blood into the drift, and when he tried to pull himself up his hand brushed something sharp and hard, an old knife, lost in the snow. He tilted it and saw a wooden handle, half-rotted, and eight inches of rusted metal. He touched the flat edge to his cheek, then squeezed the handle until his fingers ached. “Michael,” he wept.
But his brother never came.
Julian looked at the sky, the pinpricks of white.
Snow like tears.
So cold…
Falling.
The limousine crept up a mountain road edged with slush and broken asphalt. Road grit feathered the car’s paint, a rough film thrown up by tires that had no business on a black-ice road four thousand feet up in the North Carolina mountains. The air outside was cold, the light flat. Nothing else moved on the mountain, no traffic or blown leaves, just a heavy, wet powder that sifted from the low sky. The woman in the backseat never looked at the drop-offs, the vast open spaces where the earth simply vanished. She closed her eyes until the car plunged back under the trees and the vertigo left her, then she stared out at the forest, at the snow that lay between the naked trunks. She lit a cigarette, and the driver’s eyes rose in the mirror.
“I’m not smoking again,” she said.
His eyes flicked away. “Of course not.”
“It’s just today.”
“Of course.” His hair remained military short, but she noticed that it was starting to gray. Creases cut the back of his neck, and against his black jacket, the collar of his shirt shone whiter than the snow. She twisted her wedding ring and pulled smoke into lungs that burned. They’d been an hour out of Charlotte when the first flake fell. The driver had twice suggested they turn back, but she had refused each time. Today is the day, she’d said. Now, here they were, alone on the edge of the world.
The driver watched his passenger for a long second. She had translucent skin and green eyes, golden hair that curled at the tops of her shoulders. She was barely twenty-five years old, young for such wealth and power.
“We’re going to be late,” she said.
“They’ll wait for you.”
“Yes.” She lit another cigarette. “I suppose they will.”
Snow thickened as the car moved over and around the folds of silent rock. Cigarettes appeared, turned to ash, and she thought of why she was here, high in the frozen mountains. She thought of why she had come. “Stop the car.” She rocked forward in her seat, pressed a palm into her stomach. The driver hesitated. “Stop the car.”
The driver slowed and stopped. She swung the heavy door into the falling snow and stepped out, her expensive shoes ruined by slush and salt. Three steps carried her to the edge of the woods, where she bent at the waist.
“Ma’am? Are you okay?”
Snow beaded her hair, her fine silk blouse; when she finally stood, she smoothed the back of one hand across her cheek. The cold air felt clean on her skin, and the nausea passed. She turned and found her driver standing by the front of the car, one hand on the hot metal. He nodded. “It’s a big day,” he said, as if he understood.
“Yes.”
“I would be nervous, too.”
She allowed his misperception to stand.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She looked at the wet linen sky, the skeleton trees with crooked arms and a million twisted fingers. “It’s so still,” she said.
“Let me get your door.”
“So cold.”
It was after four when the limousine began its slow descent. The road wound into a narrow valley, the town at its center a knot of low buildings. Abigail Vane did not claim to know the place, but she knew what it would look like: properties in decline, bars with vinyl stools and people in cracked skin. There would be a gas station at each end of Main Street, a drugstore near the middle. It was a small town, a blink of light on the dark edge of the mountains, and she knew that in a half-day’s drive there were a hundred others just like it. North Carolina. Tennessee. Georgia. Small towns, and people who dreamed of other places. The car edged onto Main Street and she watched the bar fronts, the rough men with bent necks. “Soon?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The road narrowed on the other side of town, and the driver turned right onto a barely plowed track of old pavement. Crumbled columns stood in the snow, and a river ran fast and black at the far end of a long field. “This is it,” the driver said, and she leaned forward.
An institutional building piled up from the valley floor. Made of brick and stone, it rose three stories, with long wings that spread from each side of the main edifice. One wing was completely dark, its windows rowed and blank, some boarded over. From the rest of the structure, light spilled out to touch smaller buildings and an uncompromising yard. Bent figures moved between the buildings. Small figures. Children. A boy stopped and turned, his features lost behind the falling snow. She strained forward, but the driver shook his head. “Too young,” he said.
The drive curved around the yard and they stopped where broad steps climbed to a covered porch. The door opened and a man stepped out. Above him, letters scored the concrete.
Iron Mountain Home For Boys
Shelter and Discipline since 1895
She stared at the words until the driver turned in his seat. Lines creased his face, and hard eyes shone under the salted hair. “Are you ready?”
“Give me a minute.”
Her heart beat too quickly, a slight flutter in her hands. Thinking he understood, the driver got out of the car and stood by her door. He nodded to the man on the high porch, but neither of them spoke. After several minutes, Abigail Vane tapped a ring on the window. The door swung open and the driver accepted her hand.
“Ma’am.”
“Thank you, Jessup.” She stepped out and he released her fingers. She took in the broken concrete steps, the rust on the iron handrail. Her gaze traveled to the high, sloped roofline, then to that portion of the building that lay in ruin. Windows stretched away in triple rows. She saw cracked glass and missing panes, weather-stained boards under nails hammered flat.
“Mrs. Vane.” A round-shouldered man scuttled down the steps. His eyes were attractive and very bright, his Adam’s apple large. He’d combed sparse hair above neat ears, and his teeth, when he smiled, were small and white. “We are so pleased that you have come. My name is Andrew Flint. Perhaps your assistant spoke of me? After all the correspondence and phone calls, I feel as if I know her.”
She took his hand, found it narrow and cool. “Mr. Flint.” Her voice remained neutral, the same used at a thousand fund-raisers, a thousand functions. She’d used the same tone when she’d met the last two governors, the President, a hundred different CEOs. She gave his hand a firm squeeze, then relaxed her fingers and waited for him to realize that he, too, should let go.
Flint glanced at the empty limousine. “Your husband?”
She touched a button on her blouse. “The senator is otherwise engaged.”
“But we had hoped…” Flint forced a smile. “Never mind. You are here, and that, too, is exciting.” He made a nervous gesture, hands spread to take in the snow, the gathering dark. “Shall we go inside?”
Halfway up the steps, she turned. False dusk had settled in the yard, and what children remained were indistinct in the gloom. The scene depressed her: so many lost children. But today would be different. For two brothers, she thought, today would be the beginning of something grand. “You received our donation?”
“Yes, Mrs. Vane. Of course.” Flint made another bow and dry-washed his hands. “As you can see, we have ways to use it.” He gestured and she followed his gaze. Stretching into the storm, the abandoned wing of the orphanage looked like a derelict ship, massive and broken on some unforgiving shore. She saw movement behind one of the windows, a slash of white that flickered twice and was gone.
“Is that wing in use at all?” she asked.
“God, no. The conditions are deplorable.”
“I thought I saw someone.”
He shook his head. “A bird, perhaps. Or a wild cat. Both seem to find their way inside. It’s a very dangerous place. The boys are under strict orders-”
She stopped on the top step. “I’d like to meet them.”
Flint’s fingers curled around one another, and he fumbled his words when he spoke. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“The gift was five million dollars. That should make many things possible.”
“Yes. I’m aware, of course. But…” He hesitated further, craning his neck to peer at the building behind him. He hesitated, as if waiting for someone to save him. “The truth is. We can’t seem to find them.”
“You’ve lost two boys?”
“Ah… Just for the moment.”
“Does this happen often?”
“No. No. Of course not.”
“I had hoped to meet them at once.”
“I’m sure they’ll turn up soon. Boys, you know. Probably off somewhere…”
“Off somewhere?” Her eyes sharpened on his.
“You know…”
A nervous laugh.
“… playing.”
Michael ran down the deserted hall, eyes cutting left and right, fingers curled into fists. Windows rose above him, tall as doors, but he did not look at the snow outside, his reflection as he ran. Julian had been gone for an hour, and Julian never did that. He stayed in their room on the third floor, stayed on their hall or wherever Michael was near. And when Michael was gone, which happened, Julian stayed with what friends he had. Because Julian wasn’t stupid. He knew he was weak. That weakness led to torment.
Abusing Julian was one of Hennessey’s favorite games, mainly because he and his friends lacked the courage to mess with Michael directly. They’d tried it once and left with broken fingers and loose teeth. Five on one and Michael cleaned the floor with them, as if it didn’t matter how much he was hit or how much he bled. Michael fought with a noise in the back of his throat, like an animal in a cage. He fought like Tarzan would fight. That’s why the younger boys looked up to him, why the older ones stayed clear, because Michael, in a corner, became so wild and fierce that some of the older boys thought he might actually be insane. But that’s not how it was. There was nothing but time at Iron House. Time to burn. Time to kill. The place was hell, and his brother wore a target on his back. What other choice did Michael have?
“Julian!”
He called his brother’s name and it echoed in the frozen space. Michael had come back from kitchen duty and a kid on the hall told him Julian was gone, culled out of the group, then dragged to the empty wing. He said Hennessey was laughing when he pried boards off the sealed door and kicked Julian hard to get him running. There were five of them, the kid said. They gave him a two-minute head start, and then went after him.
That was an hour ago.
So, Michael ran. He called his brother’s name, and when the sound came back alone, he called again.
Cold words.
Smoke on his lips.
Flint showed Abigail to a small bedroom on the second floor. “This is our only facility for visitors,” he apologized. “You can freshen up. Rest. The boys will turn up soon.”
“Thank you, Mr. Flint.”
He started to turn, then paused. “May I ask a question?”
“If you must.”
“Why these boys?”
“You ask because of their age?”
“And because one is so sickly.” Flint’s eyes were kind but puzzled. “It’s highly unusual.”
“And you wonder if I have some special interest.”
“My curiosity is only natural.”
Abigail stepped to the window and gazed at the snow. “They’re ten and nine, yes? Foundlings?”
“Discovered in a creek bed, just across the line in Tennessee, not that far from here, really. Forty miles as the crow flies, twice that with the roads up here. It was late November, very cold, and two hunters heard crying at the backside of a dead-end hollow. The creek was two feet wide, but fast. Julian was partly submerged and both were half frozen. It’s a miracle either survived, but especially Julian. He’s a weak child-puny, as my grandmother might have said. The hunters carried them out tucked in their shirts. I believe they’d have died otherwise. A few more minutes. Less kind strangers.”
“How old were they at the time?”
“We’re not sure, exactly. Julian was newborn, a matter of weeks, probably. Michael was older. The doctor put his age at roughly ten months, though he could have been younger. Julian was definitely premature. We’re assuming the same mother, so-”
“Premature?”
“By a month at least.”
“A month.” Abigail felt her vision blur, and enough time passed for Flint to become uncomfortable.
“Mrs. Vane?”
“I was raised in an orphanage, Mr. Flint. It was a small place, poorer even than this. Cold and hard and unforgiving.” She turned from the window, and one palm tilted to catch the institutional light. “You can imagine that I have certain sympathies…”
“Yes, yes. Of course.”
“I was adopted at age ten, and my nine-year-old sister was not.” She showed Flint her eyes, and there was no weakness left in them. “She was sickly, too, like Julian, and left behind because of that. I went home with a loving family and four months later my sister contracted pneumonia. She died alone in that horrible place.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“Well, I should like to think-”
“I married well, Mr. Flint, and find myself in a position to prevent a similar tragedy. I’ve been searching for children just like these boys. Older. Unwanted. It won’t bring my sister back, but I hope to find some small measure of relief. A new life for the boys, and maybe for myself. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
“I meant no undue intrusion.”
“I want to meet them, Mr. Flint.”
“Of course.”
“Please find them.”
Julian had hiding places for when things got bad. An abandoned well house in the woods, the crawl space under the chapel. He’d once found a crack in the granite where the river spilled to the lower field. The descent in was a headfirst scrape through a narrow slit, but three feet down, the cave opened up and he could stretch out, the rock wet and black twelve inches from his nose. The cave was cold and dark, and he’d come out once covered with leeches; but the worse things became for Julian, the deeper he went. Deep in the world. Deep in his mind.
Michael found him in the subbasement.
The place was a maze of dark and dusty rooms-dozens of them, maybe even a hundred-but over the years, Michael had been down every hall and opened every door. He’d found ranks of cabinets with files more than eighty years old; a hall stacked with bundled newspapers rotted to mush; an old infirmary; moldy closets full of stored books, bandages, and gas masks. He’d found boxes of glass syringes, chairs with leather restraints, and straightjackets stained brown. Some rooms had steel doors; others had manacles bolted to the concrete walls. He’d once entered a room at the southern corner and been driven to the floor by a flood of bats that had found a passage in through a rotted place at the foundation. The ceilings pressed low in the subbasement. Light was sparse.
The first time Julian went missing, Michael found him in the furnace room, curled up in the tight space behind the hot metal, his knees to his chest, back hard against the brick.
He was six years old, beaten bloody.
Three years ago.
Michael ducked under some pipes, then pushed through a stretch of black to where blue light and furnace heat pushed under a warped door. He heard a low voice, his brother singing; when he opened the door, heat drove past him. The furnace filled the room, blue flame in its guts, damp heat pushing out. Julian had squeezed into the narrow place behind the boiler, his back curved, arms around his knees. Shoeless, he rocked in the narrow space, his upper body bare and red and filthy, his hair wet enough to steam.
He did not look up.
“Julian?” Michael squeezed behind the boiler. “You okay?” Julian shook his head, and Michael saw new bruises, fresh abrasions. He put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, then sat; for a long time, Julian said nothing. When he did speak, it was in a broken voice.
“Remember when we were little? Old man Dredge?”
Michael had to think about it. “The maintenance man?”
“He slept in that little room down the hall.”
Julian tilted his head and Michael remembered. Dredge had a small room with a cot and refrigerator. He kept girlie posters on the wall and booze in the fridge. He was old and bent, and Julian had always been strangely unafraid of him. “What about him?”
“I come down here, you know.” Julian said it like Michael had no idea. “He used to help me when I needed it. I’d hide down here and he’d act mean when the older boys came looking. He’d shake that stick he had, talk crazy talk until most boys were too scared to even think about coming down here. He wasn’t really mean, but he wanted to help. He was my friend. When things got bad he would tell me stories. He said there were hidden doors down here, magic ones. His eyes would squint up when he talked about them, but he swore they were here. Find the right wall, he’d tell me. When things get bad, find the right wall, tap it just right, and it’ll open up.”
“Sunlight and silver stairs…”
“I told you about that?” Julian asked.
“A door to a better place. I’d forgotten, but, yeah. You told me.” Michael pictured the old man, his seamed skin and bloodshot eyes, the smell of booze and cigarettes. He’d disappeared two years ago. Fired, Michael guessed. Fired for being crazy or dirty or both. “It was just a story, Julian. Just a crazy old man.”
“Yeah. Crazy, huh?” Julian laughed, but in a bad way. And when he cupped his hands, Michael saw the abrasions on his knuckles, the smeared blood and split skin.
His brother had been down here tapping walls…
“What happened, Julian?”
He shrugged. “They tried to throw me out naked. They tried to throw me out, but I fought.” He sniffed wetly. “They got my shoes.”
Michael studied his brother and realized that his skin wasn’t red from heat, but from cold; and that it wasn’t sweat in his brother’s hair, but melted snow. Then he realized something else. “Those aren’t your pants.”
Julian ignored him. “They locked all the doors but the main one. They wanted to make me come in the front, past all the people. They thought that would be funny, but I beat them. I came in where the bats come in. You know? Right, Michael. The bat room.”
Michael saw it now. He saw his brother running through the snow, naked and cold, then squirming through a gap of rotted wood and collapsed subfloor, headfirst into all those bats, all that shit. “Those aren’t your pants, Julian.”
The pants were stiff with crud and far too big on his narrow waist. They looked like something dug from one of the moldy boxes that littered the basement floor, a man’s pants, old and stained and frayed at the cuff. Julian’s fingers curled on the stiff knees, and his eyes hung open in a face gone suddenly slack. “Why would I wear somebody else’s pants?”
The expression was so familiar, the dull eyes that refused to focus, the open mouth and hint of crazy.
The disconnect.
As much as Michael hated to see it, he understood too well why the look took his brother so often. Harassed at every turn, Julian had been disintegrating for months, so twitchy and pale and hollow-eyed that he barely ate or slept; and when sleep did come, it was as tortured as his days, the dreams relentless. The worst moment came two nights ago when Julian rolled out of bed with a whimper in his throat and silver spit on his chin. He crammed himself into a corner and balled tight, same slack mouth, same nightmare eyes. It took long minutes to snap him out of it, and when Michael finally got him back in bed, Julian remained jittery and glazed and afraid. His words broke as he tried to explain.
Things change in the dark. It scares me.
Things change how?
You’ll think I’m crazy.
I won’t.
Swear?
Jeez, Julian…
You know how a candle starts out all clean and smooth and pretty? How it makes sense when you look at it. Like that’s how it should look.
Okay.
But then you light it, and it melts and drips and goes ruined and ugly. Well, sometimes it feels like that when the lights go out. Like everything is wrong.
I don’t understand.
It’s like everything melts off in the dark. Like the dark is the flame and the world is wax.
The world’s not a candle, Julian.
But how do you know if you can’t see it?
Why are you crying?
How can anybody know?
Just the thought of it made Michael angry. So what if his brother was soft? “Who did this, Julian? Hennessey?”
“And Billy Walker.” Julian started crying again, bright, oily tears. He sniffed loudly, smeared dirt with a forearm.
“Who else?” Michael asked.
“Georgie-boy Nichols. Chase Johnson. And that fuck-head in from juvie.”
“The one from north Georgia? The big one?”
“Ronnie Saints.” Julian nodded.
“Five of them?”
“Yeah.”
Michael stood, even angrier. Furnace heat pulled sweat from his skin. “You have to stand up for yourself, Julian. Once you do that, they’ll leave you alone.”
“But, I’m not like you.”
“Just show them you’re not scared.”
“I’m sorry, Michael.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry…”
“Please don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
“I’m sorry, Michael.”
Julian buried his eyes in a forearm, and Michael stared down for a long second. “You have to stop, Julian.”
“Stop what?” Big eyes turned up. A heavy swallow in his narrow throat.
“Stop mooning around all the time.” Michael hated the words. “Stop singing to yourself and looking lost. Stop running when they chase. Stop flinching-”
“Michael…”
“Stop being such a pussy.”
Julian looked away. “I don’t mean to be. Please don’t say that, Michael.”
But Michael was tired of the worry, the fights. “Just go to the room, Julian. I’ll see you there later.”
“Where are you going?”
“To handle this myself.” He shouldered the awkward door and left so fast he missed the look of hurt on his brother’s face, the diamond tears and determination. He didn’t see the way Julian’s arms shook when he stood, how he pulled the knife from behind his back and squeezed until his hand was bone.
“Okay, Michael.”
His brother was gone.
“Okay.”
Julian glared at the knife, then at his skinny arms and birdcage chest. He didn’t have muscles like Michael did, not the wide shoulders, or the strong blue veins that showed in his arms. He lacked the sharp eyes, the even teeth and steadiness. He had over-pale skin and lungs that burned when he ran; but the weakness went deeper than that. An uneven place lurked behind the bones of his chest, and part of him hated Michael for not having the same, soft place inside. Sometimes that hatred was a terrible thing, so strong it threatened to show on his face; sometimes it disappeared altogether, thinned so much by love that Julian remembered it like a dream.
Julian stood for a long time, humiliated and ashamed, his eyes shiny wet. His mind rolled with the memories of a thousand small hurts: taunts and abuse, Hennessey’s spit on his face, an old man’s pants and the taste of bat shit in his mouth. And he thought, too, of the big hurts, the pain and fear and self-loathing. The disappointment in his brother’s eyes. That one most of all. Julian smeared snot on his face and wondered how he could love his brother and hate him at the same time. They were both so big.
The love.
The hate.
Julian wanted to be steady on his feet. He wanted people to say hello to him in the hall and to not hurt him just because they could. If he was like Michael, he could have those things, so Julian decided that’s what he would be. Like Michael. But when he stepped for the door, the damaged ankle rolled and he went down so fast and hard his face hit concrete with the sound of cracking wood. The knife clattered away, and he curled in the dirt, lonesome and hurt and wanting to be in his brother’s skin.
Michael…
Julian’s head ached like the bone above his eyes had split, like something sharp and hot had been jammed through the crack. He cupped his face and cried, and when his eyes opened he saw the rust-speckled blade on the floor. His fingers found the handle and metal rasped as he rolled onto all fours, head loose at the end of his neck, vision blurred. He heard a strange noise in his throat, and his face twitched as something in his head gave with a glassy snap. He felt different when he stood, dizzy and distant, limbs heavy. He swayed as the world grayed out, and when his vision cleared, he heard the sound of knuckles tapping the wall, hard, bony thumps as a far part of his mind said: That hurts…
But the pain belonged to some other boy.
Stop being such a pussy, the boy said, and Julian’s feet scraped on the blackish floor. His hand found the rail that angled up, and stairs led past the basement kitchen as the air filled with the smells of sugared tea and fatty meat, white bread and fake butter. Julian climbed another flight, then made a left turn that led to the dining hall where, already, boys had begun to gather. He stumbled past the door, then pulled himself up more empty stairs and down a long hall, knife hard against his leg. He passed a few other boys, and some part of Julian knew how bad he looked, filthy and limping and hurt. Boys stared at his bruises and rotting pants, the swollen knot above crazy eyes. They stepped out of his way when they saw the knife, their backs flat on the rough plaster walls. But Julian ignored the way they looked at him, the pity and the jeers and the odd, kind question.
No, said the boy with Julian’s voice. We don’t need any help.
He found Hennessey alone in the first-floor bathroom at the end of the north hall. He stood at the urinal, and turned when the door swung closed, his disbelief twisting into a leer. “Jesus,” Hennessey said, then turned his back and flushed. The bathroom smelled of bad aim and disinfectant, the lights white and cold behind metal cages on the ceiling. Julian kept the knife behind his back as Hennessey spit once on the floor and stepped closer, the freckles dark as flung mud on the slope of his nose.
“I’m not scared of you,” Julian said.
Hennessey was tall and wide, eyes muddy brown under red hair. Pale fuzz covered the backs of his hands and a single bad tooth marred the right side of his smile. He flicked a gaze over Julian, and shook out another laugh. “Look at you. Girly muscles all bunched up. Got your angry eyes on.” He waved fingers, made a circle of his mouth and said, “Ooh.”
Julian’s head titled, his eyes dark and dull. “I’m not a pussy.”
“Yeah.” Hennessey shoved hard and pushed past. “You are.”
“You take that back.”
“Or what?”
Hennessey didn’t even turn. He got one hand on the door before the knife went into the side of his neck. It slid in with a crunch, and Julian stepped back as the big kid went down thrashing, two hands on his throat, eyes rolling and white. One hand rose, wet and stained, fingers spread. He saw blood and confusion changed to terror. “Julian…”
For that instant, a terrible satisfaction boiled in the place Julian’s fears were normally found, but a deep-down voice cried out that this was wrong. It said call a grown-up. Get help.
Shut up, you pussy.
The words rang in Julian’s mind, so strong they rocked him back on his one good foot.
Such hate.
So loud.
Julian fell into a stall door, clattered inside, porcelain cold and hard on his back. He held his head as Hennessey’s legs thumped twice and grew still. So much pain behind his eyes, like something had torn. He squeezed harder and the room tilted into something foreign, angles all wrong, gravity that pulled sideways. Julian let go of his head and hauled himself from the stall, wretched and hurt and confused.
“Michael?”
His voice this time, small in his own throat. On the floor, Hennessey sprawled over the tiles, the knife a strange and foreign thing that rose between the fingers on his throat; around him, red liquid spread, and with it an emptiness in Julian’s head. He pushed his bloody palms together and blinked as they stuck slightly, then separated with a noise like plastic pulled off meat. He looked at the high, white lights, the mirrors equally bright. The tile floor was black and white, small rectangles with a red tide that rolled along the grout.
“Michael?”
Silence.
“Michael?”
And it was like the third time was magic. The door opened and he was there, his brother, who for all Julian’s life had made things right. He was breathing hard, sweaty, and Julian knew that he’d been running. Julian tried to speak, but had cotton in his head and putty in his mouth. He held up his red hands, blinking, and for five long seconds Michael stood still, eyes ranging from Hennessey to his brother, his brother to the hall, up and down, then back inside. He shut the door, stepped wide to clear the body, and Julian almost cried with relief to see him there. He would make it right. He would make it all better.
Michael’s hands found Julian’s shoulders. His mouth moved and there were words, but Julian couldn’t really understand. He blinked and nodded, eyes dropping from Michael’s mouth to the twisted legs on the floor. Everything was wrong, sound rushing in his ears, the taste of vomit in his throat. Michael led him to a sink, still talking, and helped Julian wash his hands, his arms. He wet a paper towel, and gentle as a mother, wiped bloody spray from his brother’s face. And all the while his eyes were on Julian’s. His mouth moved, and when Julian did not respond, he said it again, stronger, slower: “Do you understand?”
Sound from a long tunnel. Julian felt his head move, and Michael said it was okay, then said something again. It made no sense, but Julian heard the words. “I did this.” Michael’s face was inches from Julian’s, and he was tapping his own chest. “I did this. Do you understand?”
Julian leaned forward, mouth open. Michael looked hurriedly at the door, then stooped and tugged the knife from Hennessey’s neck. It came with a wet sound and Michael held it so Julian could see. “I did this. Hennessey was hurting you and I did this. When they ask, that’s what you say. Okay?” Julian stared. “You can’t handle what’s coming from this,” Michael said. “Julian? Understand? He was hurting you. I came in. I did this.”
“You did this…” Thick words. Disconnect. Julian felt his head tilt, and his eyelids fell once.
“Yes. Me.” Michael looked at the closed door. “Somebody saw you with the knife. People are coming. I have to go. I did this. Say it.”
“Hennessey was hurting me.” A pause. “You did this.”
“Good, Julian. Good.”
Then he hugged his brother once, opened the door, and was gone, blood on his fingers, knife in his hand.
Julian looked at Hennessey and saw eyes as dull as spilled milk. He backed away, blinked, and people came. They shouted and moved a lot, large hands on Hennessey’s throat, his eyes. An ear to his mouth. Julian saw Flint and other grown-ups. He blinked as they asked questions, blinked again.
He looked at the open door.
And did what Michael said.
Abigail stood at the window of the narrow room, dark sky outside, snow still loose on the wind. Frost rimed the glass and everything was damp and cold: the furniture, her clothing, her skin. She saw movement on the drive, a boy, and could no longer bear the thought of children in this stark and bitter place. A coat flapped as the boy ran, and she wondered why he was outside in the storm, to what place he was running. She closed her eyes, and asked God to watch over these children, to keep them safe; and when her eyelids rose, she saw that night had come in its fullness, black and shuttered and alive with wind.
She looked for the boy, but he was gone.
Cold wind blew and snow came harder. Her fingers settled at her throat as from beyond the glass she heard a lonesome wail.
Sirens in the distance.
Small hearts beating red.