by Gillian Chan
He begged and he begged. What could I do?
When I finally agreed, he lay down on his back in bed, crossing his arms on his chest, eyes open this time. I motioned to Adam that he should come and sit by me. I had to perch on the edge of my bed, leaning forward, so that I could use the bedside lamp to see. I wanted Adam there so he could do some of the reading, and we took turns, switching places each time for the best light.
I started from the beginning again, and this time, there were little comments, exhalations, and grimaces from Jacob’s side of the room. I waited for him to stop me to explain some of old Katerina’s fancy vocab, but he didn’t, just smiled and whispered, more to himself than me, “Even at three little Kat was clever, and she became a clever woman.”
The mention of the farm was a trigger: now Jacob spoke up. I sat back and listened to the monologue that drifted out in fits and starts, not all of it making sense.
“I was firstborn. It was I who should have been the strong one, but the voices, always I heard the voices. Mutta, she said there were others in her family who heard them, too, and that I should listen to what they told me. Not Foda.” At this, Jacob’s face tightened. “Foda, he said it was the devil talking to me, and he beat me to drive the voices away. They learned and became clever, and after a while they never talked to me when I was with Foda. Caspar, he was lucky, he never heard them. He did not get distracted from chores like I did. He was a good boy. Although he was the second born, he was the strong one.”
There was silence then. Jacob turned his face to the wall and when he spoke again, his voice was low, thick with tears.
“Dead babies, only dead babies after that for Mutta. She was slipping away from us, going to them. It made Foda so angry that she was weak, that I was weak. He needed more strong ones like Caspar to work on the farm. Mutta smiled at him and when I was nine she went to the dead babies.”
Then I nearly fell off the edge of my bed because at this, Jacob sat upright and let out a wail. I was terrified that someone would hear and come running, but no one did. He just sat there, shaking. “Mutta, she did not come back. She did not talk to me, not even when I begged and begged and cried for her. Neither does Caspar. My own dead do not speak to me. For those with the gift, our own dead are silent.”
Adam spoke up. “My mummy died, too. She got sick and she wouldn’t let me go and get help. I made her soup, but she wouldn’t eat it. She fell asleep and I thought that was good because when she woke up she would be better. Only she didn’t wake up.”
There were two horror stories unfolding here, both the equal of my own.
Adam looked over at Jacob, then reached a small hand toward Jacob’s face and brushed away tears. “It must have been so hard,” he said, “to lose your mother, but you had your father and your brother still, didn’t you?”
Jacob shuddered. “Foda wanted more babies, ones who would grow strong like Caspar, so he found a new mutta, Elfrida. She was just a girl, only six years older than me. He had to travel far away to find her. The families near us would not trust Foda with their girls. The babies did not come at first, but then they did, dead ones like our mutta’s. Only little Kat came, but she was a girl and that made Foda angry. Then Elfi went to join her dead babies. She talked to me after—she is not my dead. She told me that since I was twelve now, I had to look out for little Kat. We both did, Caspar and me. We kept her with us when we worked, but when she started walking, it became hard.” Jacob reached out a hand, as if he was trying to pull someone toward him. “I tried to stop her, but she was too fast. She was just a little girl, three years old. She did not mean to knock over the pail of milk. He should not have hit her. She was just a little girl.”
I knew it was Foda. I didn’t have to ask. Even across the years, I smelled the man’s anger, just like the anger Danny had. I let the pamphlet fall from my hand, felt the pleasure of my fists clenching, fought down the urge to hurt someone or something.
“Little Kat would never be safe again. Caspar and me, we knew that. We had talked. Elfi came and talked, too, but only I could hear her. We had to take Kat to Elfi’s family, who lived near Dundas. I left that night. I wanted Caspar to come, too, but he said he should stay. If someone were still there to help on the farm, Foda would not want to stop working. He would not waste time looking for us.
“I walked for three days. Kat walked sometimes, but she was just a little girl, so sometimes I had to carry her. Elfi’s family were sad and happy when we got to them: sad that their Elfi was dead; happy that I had brought Kat to them and that now she would be safe. They wanted me to stay, too, but I had to get back to Caspar.” Jacob was panting now, like he was running a race. “I was so tired. The rain was coming so hard. I found shelter under some bushes by the side of the trail, near the water. I did not mean to sleep.”
There was a silence. In the dim light, I could see that Jacob’s mouth was moving, but no words were coming out. After a ragged sigh, he finally spoke. “The first blow, it woke me up.” His head rocked to one side as if someone had landed a fist on his jaw. Then he flopped backward as if another punch had hit his shoulder. It was bizarre to watch Jacob’s body twitch, reacting to blows that I could not see, but which he clearly felt, blows from a beating given over a hundred years ago to another boy entirely. As I watched, I saw imprints of large hands appear on Jacob’s neck, red deepening to purple as the unseen hands increased the pressure.
I couldn’t stop myself. I jumped forward, my hands batting uselessly at empty air. I growled with frustration, but I had done enough. Jacob’s body straightened out and he coughed.
“I knew. Foda had killed Caspar. I knew his hands.” He closed his eyes. “I called out to Caspar, but I heard nothing, sensed nothing. With my mind, I called and called. I had never felt so alone. I did not want to be there. So I pushed. I pushed myself as far away from my sorrow and loneliness as I could.” He grimaced. “I ended up here, in this place that is loud and confusing, that does not seem real at all. I must go home to the real place. Kat needs me.”
“You pushed?” I couldn’t believe this. “You pushed yourself through time? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! Why can’t you just push yourself back?”
“I have tried! Every day I try, but I can’t. Even tonight, while we waited for lights-out, I was trying.”
There was no way to answer that.
Jacob turned and faced the wall again, leaving me to stare at his back and wonder what on earth I could do.
Adam had said nothing during the last part of Jacob’s story, but he had been listening intently. Now he pointed at Jacob and whispered to me, “We have to help him, Mike. We just have to. Between us we can think of a way.”
I admired his optimism, but I wasn’t sure that we could.
I had no idea of the time, but I suspected it was early morning. Adam was already heading for the door, his forehead scrunched up as if he was thinking hard.
“You can’t say anything about this, okay?” I stared hard at Adam, willing him to see that I really meant this.
“I won’t. I promise. Apart from you and Mr. Mazzone, I don’t really talk to anyone.”
Yeah, I had to give him that. In his own way, Adam was as much of an outcast as Jacob and me.
At some point, I must have lay back down, too, because suddenly it was morning and the gong for breakfast was clanging away. I shot upright, looking around, but no Jacob. His bed was actually messed up today, sheets and blankets kicked toward the end like a real boy had slept there. He came in as I was hurriedly throwing my clothes on. He still looked weird, wispy and furtive, and kept his eyes to the ground. He moved slowly and gingerly because of the bruises, but if you looked at his face you knew that something had changed. The best way I can describe it is to say that he was like a house that had been vacant for a long time and now someone was living there.
“Shall we go downstairs now?” A small smile crept acr
oss his face.
I followed him in amazement, interested to see if he would talk to anyone but Adam and me.
Chaz was in position, presiding over the doling out of breakfast: rubbery scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon. As we sat down, he raised a questioning eyebrow but I didn’t have a chance to say anything.
As he flopped down into his chair, Jacob pushed the plate bearing his usual plain roll away and without looking directly at Chaz whispered, “I would like that,” pointing at the eggs.
This couldn’t have had a greater effect if he’d whipped his clothes off and danced naked on the table. All conversations stopped and everyone stared at our end of the table. It was the first time most of the others had ever heard Jacob’s strange, raspy voice. I swear Chaz had tears in his eyes. He didn’t say anything, just ladled some of the yellow mess onto a plate and handed it to Jacob, who nodded his thanks and then settled down to eat, apparently oblivious of the stir he had caused.
Me, I was in a cold sweat. I knew that as soon as breakfast was over Chaz would be giving me the interrogation to end all interrogations. That wasn’t that big a deal. What worried me more was that Jacob was going to go and announce where he’d come from to the assembled masses. If he did that, then we were in serious shit, because he’d be carted off to an asylum before you could say “real place.”
Not another word passed Jacob’s lips until the very end of the meal. As the emptied plates (well, there weren’t actually that many of those because the eggs were truly god-awful) were passed up the table to be stacked for washing, he nodded his head again and quietly, without looking at Chaz, said, “I thank you.”
Chaz was not subtle. “Err, Mike, would you give me a hand with the clearing up today?” His studiedly casual tone fooled no one.
For form’s sake, I sighed and kicked my chair back hard. “Fine,” I said, trying to sound bored and put-upon and anything but fine as I picked up the plates. I ignored the wet kissing sounds that Paddy was making quietly from his place at the table.
I think I half expected Jacob to follow me and Chaz into the kitchen, but, no, he slipped silently from the table, and the last view I had was of him ghosting his way up the stairs, presumably to our room.
“So?” Chaz was leaning back against the sink when I staggered in, laden with plates. “What on earth did you do? How did you get him talking?” He was grinning and it was hard not to grin back. “You do realize, don’t you, that Jacob’s never spoken except to answer questions before. It’s amazing. We’ve only ever managed to get his name out of him, and that was after weeks of asking!”
Playing it down seemed to be the safest option. “He had a nightmare, started jerking around like he was being hit.” It’s my experience that lies work best if they have a tiny bit of the truth in them. “I just tried to get him to calm down. Nothing major, just told him that he was safe, that he didn’t have to go back to school just yet.” I shrugged. “I thought that, I don’t know, maybe he was reliving the attack that put him in the hospital or something.”
I felt like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights, so intense was Chaz’s stare, the way he was willing me to somehow solve the mystery of Jacob Mueller for him. I couldn’t deal with it, so I turned my back and busied myself scraping crap from the plates and loading them into the dishwasher.
“What did he say? Did he say who did it to him?”
Yeah, like I could tell Chaz what Jacob had actually said. “Nah, nothing like that. Most of the time I couldn’t make out what the hell he was saying because he talks so funny, and with the crying, you know . . .”
I continued working away, and could almost feel the disappointment radiating from Chaz.
I turned around and made for the dining room to get more plates. “I did ask him.” I paused in the doorway, like something had just occurred to me. “Jacob says he doesn’t remember much, nothing from his life before. Only”—and here, sick bastard that I am, I paused for maximum effect—“he did say one name: Dundas.” I waited, but Chaz was silent, so I carried on with the clearing up.
When I came back in with the last of the plates and dishes, Chaz hadn’t moved. “Mike,” he said, “are you sure he said Dundas?”
“Yeah.” My mind was racing, wondering if I had said too much. I did my best to look innocent and curious. “Could that be where he’s from?”
Chaz shook his head. “If it were only that simple, Mike. If that’s what he said, it just adds to the mystery. It’s where he was found, just outside Hamilton.” The fact that Chaz was a talker and could never resist adding extra info to any conversation helped me out. “It was weird, Mike. He was found all beaten and bruised like I told you, along a hiking trail in the Dundas Valley Conservation Area, where the trail meets Sulphur Springs Road. He was right by the spout that the old spring comes out of now.” Chaz laughed. “You can’t miss the place because of the stink of rotten eggs.”
“So, who found him?’ I asked.
“A jogger out for an early morning run,” Chaz said. “He was spooked, I can tell you, to see a strangely dressed kid who was beat-up and bleeding. Luckily, he had a cellphone on him and he dialed 911.” He paused then, giving me a sincere look, and said, “Seriously, listen for anything you think might help. I think Jacob trusts you, okay?”
I nodded. I wanted to get out of there. There were too many questions and no answers that I could safely give. At least I had learned something: the place where Jacob had come through time.
The door to our room was shut. I thought I could hear voices, whispers coming from inside. I shuddered, feeling cold sweat form once again on my forehead. I wasn’t sure that I could face hearing the voices around Jacob again. A sudden thud and the whimper that followed shook me out of my funk. I threw the door open to see Jacob huddled up on the floor, Paddy standing over him with one foot raised, preparing to kick.
I grabbed Paddy by the back of his sweatshirt and flung him aside. He lurched back toward me, fists clenched. Jacob rose shakily to his feet, his eyes never leaving Paddy. He almost hissed when he spoke, and raised one hand to point directly at Paddy. “I know what you are. You like the pain of others. It makes you forget who you are, and your own pain.”
Paddy didn’t like what he was hearing. His face twisted in a snarl. “Freak!” he exclaimed viciously. “You know nothing about me.” When I moved menacingly toward him, he straightened up, attempted a swagger. “Remember what I said, freak. You might be talking now, but there are some things you don’t talk about. Your goon,” he said, flicking a dismissive finger at me, “won’t always be there, and that’s when I’ll come for you if you talk. Remember that.” His attempt at a dignified departure crumbled when he broke into a run as he passed by me on his way out of the room.
Before I could ask him if he was all right, Jacob knelt on his bed and stared out the window. “There is one in every place,” he said wistfully. “One whose anger burns, makes them lash out.” He sighed. “I could not stop Foda. You could not stop Danny. Maybe this one we can stop.”
I didn’t like the sound of this, not one fucking bit. If I had things worked out, and I thought I did, there was no need for trouble. All we needed was some time—time to plan, to gather some things, and then to try out my theory. Jacob as caped crusader against evil would screw things up royally.
Chapter Eleven
We were rousted out of our room soon after that. It’s policy. Unless you’re sick, you’re not allowed to hole up in your room for too long—God knows what you might get up to there. Sunday dragged by, like Sundays always do in shitholes like Medlar House. Jacob had pretty much reverted to his usual silent self. Chaz mounted a one-man charm offensive in an effort to get him talking, but Jacob was having none of that. It must have been more frustrating than ever for Chaz: before, you never knew whether Jacob was actually hearing you. Now you knew he was, because he would actually answer questions, but only with his new mantra: �
�That I do not remember.”
Paddy was never far away, watching and listening, and his smirk grew more pronounced every time Jacob professed amnesia. He obviously figured that he was safe, that Jacob wasn’t going to finger him for the beating.
One interesting twist was that Matt was definitely keeping his distance from Paddy. If anything, he seemed to be trying to stay close to me. I hoped I was imagining that; another lame duck was the last thing I needed.
It was hard to fill the time. I pretended to read, but my brain was preoccupied with how to get Jacob back to what he called his “real place.” I was stumped. I needed to talk to him again. My chance finally came in the late afternoon. It had been snowing on and off for most of the day. At about 4:00 p.m. it stopped, and the bitingly cold wind died down. Someone suggested going out to build a snowman and the idea was taken up en masse. Jacob obviously wanted no part of this. He had spent the afternoon sitting alone at a table in the common room; unusually, he was actually doing something today. I don’t know where he got them from, but he had a pencil and some paper and had been scribbling furiously, covering the sheets protectively with his arm if anyone came within ten feet of him. Luce was going out to supervise the snow antics and stopped to ask if I was coming.