The Hands of Ruin: Book One

by Peters, Dylan Lee

  Zigmund and Zerah were now at the end of the third day, and the twins were lying on the bed in the room being called Zigmund’s. They were both on their backs, staring at the ceiling, doubts and questions swirling through each of their heads, when Zigmund first voiced the thought about leaving Rainart.

  “There must be someone else we can stay with,” he said. “I just don’t see how this is going to work out. I don’t even think he would care if we left. I mean, would he notice if we left right now?”

  “He probably wouldn’t,” Zerah answered with a piteous laugh. “But I’m not sure there is anywhere else we could go. He is Mom’s only brother, and Dad didn’t have any siblings. Grandma and Grandpa Eil Dragaredd are long gone, so is Grandpa Aschburner, and Grandma Aschburner is in that retirement home.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t need to be family,” Zigmund reasoned.

  “Yeah,” Zerah laughed. “Because we both have such good friends that their parents would agree to adopt us. Who are these great friends we have again? Because I don’t remember them.”

  Zigmund frowned but didn’t answer his sister’s question. It didn’t need answering. They both knew they hadn’t been great at making friends at school. In truth, they were each other’s best friend. The obvious truth that they were all each other had to rely on was striking Zigmund much harder than it should have. The weight of that reality made his stomach tighten.

  “If all we have is each other,” Zigmund said, “then why don’t we just go out on our own?”

  “And do what, Ziggy?” Zerah asked. “Find a big house inhabited by some old curmudgeon who doesn’t care whether we shack up with him? Convince him to provide us with food and all the other stuff we need to get through life? Would they even let us past a wall into another county?”

  Zigmund knew what Zerah was doing, pointing out the obvious. If they were alone—and make no mistake, they were alone—they were already in a great situation. The only negative was a matter of perception. Their dreams of the perfect uncle had shattered like the dining room window, but that didn’t mean they were better off without the man. It may not seem like much, but Rainart was keeping them fed, clean, sheltered, and in a very strange way, cared for. This was just a situation the twins would have to acclimate to.

  The next morning Zerah and Zigmund decided they would press their uncle to spend a little time with them. It wasn’t that they wanted his company exactly, but they needed him present if they were going to establish expectations going forward. Certain things, at the very least, needed to be figured out. Would the dining room be getting fixed? When they needed more food or other items, where and how would they get them? And what was being done about their schooling?

  Zigmund knocked on Rainart’s bedroom door and took a step back when the man answered almost instantly. He was fully dressed and looked as if he was already preparing for departure.

  “Yes?” Rainart asked when neither of the teens spoke up.

  “Umm.” Zigmund searched for his words. “We wanted to spend some time going over a few things. Zerah and I—”

  “Yes,” Rainart interjected. “We’ll get everything settled on the trip.”

  “The trip?” Zerah asked tentatively.

  “We’re boating today,” their uncle said plainly. It seemed as though the twins hadn’t been the only ones in the house who were prepared to force conversation today. “Go to the kitchen, and fix yourselves breakfast. When you finish, meet me down on the beach.”

  “The beach?” Zigmund asked.

  “What have the two of you been doing these last few days? Yes, the beach. There are stairs down the cliffside, just a stone’s throw from the house. There’s a small beach where I have a boat. We’re going out on it today.” Rainart shook his head, his brow furrowed. “You kids need to get out more.”

  With that, Rainart closed his bedroom door, leaving the teens staring at each other, stunned at the irony of what had just happened. They shook their heads at the absurdity, and then they stalked off to the kitchen.

  “I miss bacon,” Zerah said in the kitchen as she leaned loosely against the refrigerator door. “This vegetarianism thing sucks.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Zigmund said as he poured himself a bowl of granola.

  “Easy for you to say,” Zerah pouted. “You don’t even like food.”

  Zigmund just shrugged and dug a spoon out of a drawer. He had learned to keep his mouth shut when Zerah was complaining about food. There had been the time when he had pointed out that if Zerah liked food less, the boys at school might like her more, but that had made Zerah cry and had gotten Zigmund slapped by his mother. Another time, long after, he had tried reasoning with her that some people in the poor counties didn’t even have food to complain about in the first place, so they should consider themselves lucky they had anything to eat at all. That conversation hadn’t ended well either, as Zerah had simply said, “What does any of that have to do with how I feel right now?” After that, Zigmund realized shrugging and moving on was the only answer worth his time. Zerah would have to battle her food problems on her own.

  After Zigmund finished his granola and Zerah finished complaining her way through peanut butter on toast, they exited the house and started looking along the cliff for the stairs Rainart had told them about. It was a beautiful day with barely a cloud in the sky. The tall pines swayed gently in the cool breeze, and birds sang somewhere overhead. The twins noticed a little path next to the driveway that seemed to follow the cliff’s edge, so they began in that direction. The trees were high on either side of the forest path, but the view of the cove was never obscured. It would have made for a great place to sit and read a book if they didn’t have something already planned. The path was uneven with tree roots, rocks, and pine needles, but the trees provided shade, the ocean provided breeze, and the cove on a sunny day made for a winning view.

  As they continued on the curved path around the cove, they noticed stone steps off to the right. They had been cut directly into the rock wall, gray, light tan, and blue gray intermingling all the way down. The stairs had no banister, and the drop was precipitous. It would have been foolish to take the steps in poor weather, as one had to watch one’s footing and keep a hand on the cliff face as one went down. Zerah went first and Zigmund followed behind. They could see a small boat with an antique-looking outboard motor. The sides of the boat had been painted white but were now flecked red with rust. The boat was rickety and basic, with only two metal seats crossing the inside. It didn’t look as if it could fit more than three people.

  “I hope that’s not what he plans on using,” Zigmund complained. “That thing looks a hundred years old.”

  Zerah just shrugged, smiling impishly. Zigmund wasn’t the only one who could answer complaints that way.

  It took about five minutes to descend the stairs, and when they finally reached the bottom, they felt their uncle had been generous in calling the place a beach. There was sand but not a great deal of it; the area was covered mostly with rocks and tidal pools. Great black rocks sprung from the ground like obsidian giants. Zigmund imagined the beating they had taken the other night in the storm, the water and these rocks battling like Titans of myth. Zerah picked up a smooth stone, black like its larger brothers, and chucked it out into the cove. The water gulped the rock down with little complaint.

  The twins walked to the boat tethered to a long iron nail that had been pounded into the black rock long ago. The sea had worked on that iron nail, creating pocks and rough edges. The rope between the boat and nail looked worse though, almost as if it were about to give up its job of holding the two together. The boat itself was even less impressive up close, and now Zerah couldn’t fault Zigmund’s complaining.

  “There’s a hole in the side of it,” Zigmund said. “Do you see that, Zip? There’s a damned hole. I’m not getting in that thing.”

  “Yes you are,” a gruff voice from behind called out.

  Zerah and Zigmund watched their uncle Rainart
limp down the final few steps of the rock wall, looking inappropriately dressed for someone about to go boating. He wore a black T-shirt and the same black slacks he seemingly wore every day. Either he had a pair for every day of the week, or they were never washed. He had rolled the cuffs of his slacks and wore no shoes at all. Bare feet were fine for a nice sandy beach, but this place was far too rocky. The teens wondered how Rainart’s feet were not going to suffer the consequences.

  “That boat is going to sink as soon as we get into it,” Zigmund argued.

  Rainart threw an old T-shirt at the teen. “You’re going to plug the hole with this.”

  “That’s not going to work,” Zigmund said, catching the shirt out of the air.

  “It will if you plug the hole tight enough.” Rainart walked past Zigmund and looked at Zerah. “Is he always this cynical?”

  Zerah couldn’t help but smile. Zigmund huffed and followed his uncle to the boat. In the sunlight the twins could see the many gray streaks in Rainart’s hair, and even some wiry white hairs that stood straight out like mavericks bolting from the pack. The man looked older in the light of the sun, and the scar on his neck seemed more prominent. Yet Rainart jaunted out over the rocks as if walking on grass. Despite the man’s impairments, he never seemed impeded.

  He untethered the boat, and Zerah helped him set it in a better place for launch. Not that there was a good place for launch—the sound of rocks against the bottom of the boat made the hair on Zerah’s neck stand on end—but they found somewhere closer to the water. Zigmund rolled the T-shirt as tight as he could and stuffed it into the hole in the boat. The hole was high along the left side, but Zigmund was sure it would still be under the waterline once they were all inside. Nevertheless, he did as his uncle instructed, hoping the ocean would prove Rainart wrong. Zigmund wasn’t keen on the boat sinking while they were aboard, but the thought of Rainart making a mistake made the boy smile a bit. He didn’t like his uncle and wasn’t sure that would change. Zerah may have been right about needing to stay with Rainart for now, but Zigmund would be on the lookout for other possibilities.

  Rainart instructed the teens to get in the boat, and once they did, he shoved them off of the sand and rocks, jumped into the water, and quickly got inside. The man then took the tie out of his hair and left it around his wrist. The wind whipped his gray-streaked black locks around, and the twins saw a smile they hadn’t yet seen from their uncle. He started the motor, and it chugged along more smoothly than either Zigmund or Zerah expected. Then Rainart directed the boat out toward the heart of the cove.

  The water was calm, and the ocean smelled fresh. Zerah dropped her arm over the side of the boat and let the salty water wet her hand. This was her first time out on the ocean, and it scared her far less than she thought it would. Zigmund smiled at her. He was happy to see Zerah enjoying herself, though his eyes darted back to the plugged hole every ten seconds, at least.

  “So are we headed somewhere in particular?” Zigmund asked, calling out above the thrum of the motor.

  “No.” Rainart shook his head and smiled, knowing Zigmund would be steamed by his aloof answer.

  Rainart had brought a gray duffel bag with him, and he now fished through it as he steered the little boat. After a moment he plucked out two telescopes and tossed them to the teens. The meaning was simple enough: have fun looking at stuff, and I’ll let you know when I want you to do something different.

  The teens obliged and spied the coastline as the boat motored on. Zerah looked down the coast to the south, where bluffs jutted out into the sea like faces of proud old men, each a lighter shade of blue gray the farther away it was. Atop each bluff, pine trees lined up as if waiting their turn to dive into the ocean and take a swim. An eagle flew out from behind a bluff, and Zerah followed it for as long as she could before it darted back to land and out of her vision. A group of gulls gathered on a tall rock that stood at least forty yards offshore. They took turns bombing the water around them in the hope of catching lunch. Zerah decided to name them all. She started with Boris; he was the fat gull with a gray head. Then there was Portia, who continued to attempt to take flight, only to think better of it a moment later. And then there was Stableford, who kept yelling at all the other gulls. Zerah imagined he was the leader and was giving orders to the others, but she also imagined none of the other gulls really listened to Stableford anyway. Zerah noticed her gull friends getting smaller and smaller in her lens. She lowered the telescope and saw their boat seemed to be pretty far off the coast now. Without the telescope she could barely make it out. She looked at Rainart, who turned the motor off, and the boat glided silently, rising and falling with the surface of the water.

  “So who do you two think you’re responsible for?” Rainart asked. The question was so odd the teens wondered whether this was the first time Rainart had ever had to make small talk. “Is it something you’ve ever considered?”

  Zigmund lowered his telescope and shrugged. “We’re fourteen.” He felt he continually had to remind the man. “We’re not responsible for anyone.”

  “Are you responsible for yourselves?” Rainart asked.

  “Well, sure,” Zerah answered.

  “Are you responsible for each other?” Rainart asked.

  “Yes,” Zigmund said, already annoyed with the conversation.

  “Anybody else?” Rainart wasn’t even looking at them. He was staring off into the great blue nothing as his hair whipped about.

  “No.” Zigmund was self-assured. “As I said, we’re fourteen.”

  “All right. I get it,” Rainart relented. “I understand your logic. It’s the same philosophy most people use to answer the question. If I were to ask a married man and father of four the same question, he would probably answer that he was responsible for himself, his wife, and his four children. He’d be wrong, of course, but I can at least see the logic. You see, the mistake is thinking you are responsible for people who depend on you. Let me ask you this: How do mosquitoes survive?”

  “They drink blood,” Zigmund said and sighed, refusing to hide the fact he thought the conversation was absurd.

  “And you could say they depend on that blood to survive, right?” Rainart asked rhetorically. “I mean, without it they would obviously die. They are dependent on humans and other animals for survival. So are we responsible for the mosquitoes? Should our consciences be afflicted with guilt for not setting up feeding grounds for the poor creatures?”

  “That would be ridiculous,” Zerah laughed.

  “Of course it would,” Rainart agreed. “So you cannot say we are responsible for those who depend on us, because we don’t always have control over that and something’s dependence on us might be detrimental to our lives. I’ll offer you this concept instead. My philosophy is to believe we are responsible for those whom we have taken from. For instance, the two of you feel responsible for each other because you take love, security, and friendship from each other. You may not recognize it that way, because we, as a society, like to imagine ourselves as selfless and altruistic, but it’s still true.”

  “A mother doesn’t take anything from her child,” Zigmund pointed out.

  “Wrong,” Rainart said coldly. “A mother takes love from her child, as well as pride, purpose, and self-fulfillment, to name just a few things.”

  “Well, the baby takes more from its mother,” Zerah said, thinking she had found the flaw in her uncle’s logic, “and we would never say a baby is responsible for its mother.”

  “Ahh,” her uncle said, raising his great black eyebrows as he did so often. “You’re digging deeper. That’s good, but you’re missing something. We do expect children to be responsible for their parents; we just look at that responsibility differently. We put expectations on children that are within their ability to achieve. An individual’s level of expected responsibility is in proportion to what his or her capabilities are. Children are responsible for their parents.”

  “I don’t get it,” Zigmund sa
id in a monotone. He had no problem displaying his boredom with the conversation.

  “Okay,” Rainart said. “Let me put it another way. Just because a child’s responsibility to its parents is delayed or small in comparison to the responsibility of others, it does not mean children are not held responsible. Did your parents never hold you responsible for anything, Zig?”

  “I had chores, and I was expected to do well in school,” Zigmund replied. “But how does that mean I was responsible for my parents?”

  “Did your parents not directly benefit from the chores you did?” Rainart asked. “Would they not have benefitted from all you learned in school and achieved in life? Even if the only direct benefit they received was pride in their child, does that not have value? The two of you were expected to be responsible for your parents to the level of your capabilities. If they had lived, as your capabilities grew, you would have been more and more responsible for them.”

  “So you’re saying a child is forever indebted to his or her parents because the child took from them as a baby?” Zerah was still not comfortable with the philosophy. It seemed flawed somehow.

  “Only if you believe a debt cannot be paid off,” Rainart answered. “I assume we all do believe debts can be paid off, and we understand each debt is different in nature. I take an apple from a grocer, and I am responsible for payment. Once we exchange money for goods, the debt is satisfied, and we no longer have a responsibility to each other. The debt that comes from love is far more difficult to pay and requires a much greater level of responsibility, but it can be paid off. For instance, have you asked yourselves why I agreed to take you in after your parents passed?”