by wildbow
Sylvester listened to the footsteps.
“You numbskull,” she said, voice soft.
He lashed out, swiping at her with the knife, still not looking.
It was only after a long paralyzing minute where he wondered if he would look up and see Jessie bleeding from a throat wound that he finally allowed himself to look.
No Jessie. Nothing there.
Sylvester moved the knife back to his lap. He looked at his hand, where a bruise drew a line across the palm, black, purple and green.
He brought the hand back down to the stair, the line meeting the edge of the stair. Firmly in position, and he gripped it hard.
☙
“I know you just had an appointment,” Mrs. Earles said. “I know you’re usually surly.”
“It was a bad one,” Sylvester said. “I can’t even think straight. Can’t remember things.”
Her hand brushed through his hair, stroking his head.
“Enjoy the moment. Spend time with your friends.”
While I can.
The thought came unbidden.
The door to the kitchen was open, and the sun was shining. Now and then the orphans went in and out of the kitchen, grabbing glasses from the edge of the table to drink them as fast as possible before hurrying outside again, as if every bit of summer possible had to be used to best effect.
Sylvester drew a foot up onto the bench he sat on, knee against his chest. His hands hurt, bruises crossing them.
“Mary’s doing what I told her not to, and she’s tying up her dress so it won’t get in the way while she climbs the tree. For such a young lady, she’s such a tomboy sometimes.”
Sylvester nodded.
“Someone should tell Lillian that if she follows suit and breaks something, it could get in the way of her studies. Gordon’s helping her.”
“She’d accuse me of looking up her skirt or something.”
“If you’re concerned about that, you should stop looking up her skirt.”
He allowed himself a snort of a laugh.
“Sylvesterrrrr!” a voice called out. Helen’s. “Jamie’s going to draw us! Come sit on the branch with us!”
Sylvester fixed his eyes on the table. Mrs. Earles continued stroking his hair.
“If you wanted to sit and be quiet, I don’t think Jamie would mind the company,” she said.
Sylvester shook his head, even though there wasn’t anything else in the world he wanted as much as that.
He remained where he was.
☙
He heard the footsteps. There were no voices.
His hand found the knife.
He raised his head just enough to see the feet, the shoes.
Before he could finish counting, one of those sets of feet broke into a run.
One, two, three, four, five, six…
He finished the count just in time. There were enough of them.
The knife fell from his hand, and danced down the steps. He let his guard down, and he welcomed the embrace, fully aware that if this was a trick, if this was the ploy that his own head pulled on him, then he was done with, the last remnant of him would be gone.
It was a painfully tight hug, and it made the bruises where his lower back met the stairs flare in agony as the weight of her pressed against his front.
Lillian still smelled like Lillian. She still felt like Lillian.
“Move aside, Betty,” Jessie said. “Stay close, but let me by, here.”
Betty, still sitting next to Sylvester, got out of the way. Jessie hugged Sylvester as well, and she kissed the side of his face. He turned his head and she kissed him properly, before resting her forehead against his.
His bruised hand trembled a little from exhaustion as he fixed the position of her glasses.
“I tried to stay put,” he said.
“Shh. It’s fine.”
“I wanted to minimize the damage I could do.”
Duncan, standing very close by, gave a short laugh.
“Shush, Duncan,” Lillian said, her face still buried in Sylvester’s front. “Don’t even say anything.”
“Yeah,” Duncan said. He wasn’t one to join the hug, but he reached out, taking Sylvester’s hand. Almost shaking it, almost holding it. “Sorry.”
Sylvester shook his head. There was no need for apologies. He squeezed his friend’s hand.
Helen joined the hug-pile, and she was very good at fitting herself into it. Ashton followed her.
Even Mary, hesitant, joined in.
All together.
He’d told himself that he would trust in the Lambs, that nothing else would do for letting his guard down, for letting them close, or for listening to them.
“The Infante isn’t coming,” Jessie said. “None of the important ones are. The Infante clued into the Duke, he attacked, and now they’re getting defenses in order.”
“It’s fine,” Sylvester said. “It’s fine.”
They were together.
“Betty’s alive. I didn’t kill her.”
“Yes, Sy,” Jessie confirmed.
That vision of her had laid there for what might have been a night and a day, convincing him she was dead.
“The dormitory building, did it burn?”
“No, Sy.”
“Is there—is there a blood trail there, where the rats dragged one of the children away?”
“No, Sy.”
“Is—did Bo Peep die?”
“Not as far as I’m aware, Sy.”
“Did Shirley? Pierre?”
“No sign of anything happening to Shirley, Sy. Pierre’s off helping with getting children to the West Corinth orphanage. He doesn’t like staying in one place, remember?”
Sylvester nodded. “Don’t lie to me.”
“No lies. I promise.”
“Did I kill Davis? His body would be on the stairs.”
“No, Sy,” Jessie said.
Lillian made a small sound.
“Okay,” he said, his voice soft. “I’ll stop asking the questions.”
“You should ask as many as you need to,” Lillian said.
“No,” he said. “After. And maybe for a while yet.”
“Okay,” she said. “If that’s how it is.”
“It is,” Ashton chimed in, finally.
They were together. All back together, finally.
He had had more than enough time to think, in a roundabout, not-really-thinking way. That line of thinking, coupled with the swelling feeling in his chest, it made him feel like conquering the world wasn’t out of the question.
Previous Next
Root and Branch—19.1
Everything hurt. Mind, body, more of my body. I had organs that hurt and I wasn’t sure exactly why that would be the case. I was in bed, and my first attempt to sit up failed, in part because the bed I was in was too soft, giving too much when I was looking for leverage.
I was in one of the guest bedrooms, reserved for visiting nobles. The bed was large enough for five people to sleep in without touching one another, sporting a canopy draped with embroidered silk. The furniture was grown wood with gold elaboration that had no doubt been worked into it as it grew.
The only people in the room, at first glance, were Percy and the Snake charmer, sitting at the table at the window, with a chessboard and cups of tea between them. The chessboard itself wasn’t set up, the pieces absent.
Sub Rosa stood by the door.
My eyes took too long to find Ashton, sitting on the footboard of the bed, the red silk canopy that extended down the pillar of the canopy bed partially obscured him as he sat there, staring at me.
I remained where I was, staring at him. For his part, he was utterly still, unblinking, as he fixed his attention on me.
It was good to see his face. I was pretty sure it was his face, anyhow. A Lamb, a brother I hadn’t had nearly enough time to get to know, a friend, a briefly lived nemesis.
“Are you real?” I asked.
“I hope
so,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re on the same page there.”
“Jessie said to tell you she wished she could have slept in with you, but she had things to do. Mary didn’t want to, and Lillian would have, but she has surgery.”
“Surgery?” I asked. “Because of me?”
Ashton thought for a long, agonizing moment, before he said, “Yes.”
I winced, looking away.
“But not very because of you. Distantly because of you. You got her talking to the Duke and the Infante learned about the Duke, and he punished them by hurting Lillian. That’s part of why it took so long for us to get back.”
I tried getting up again, rolling myself into a sitting-up position instead of relying on anything abdominal. I grimaced, found my bearings, and then slipped off the edge of the bed, easing myself down until my feet were on the cold wood floor.
Ashton hopped down and helped to support me.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m not sure if you’re calling me sir to be ironic, when I’m not a sir or an adult you might call sir. It’s not polite if you are.”
“I used to, a bit, and then it became a genuine token of respect,” I said. “The joke became reality.”
“Okay then.”
We walked past Sub Rosa, who guarded the door. She smiled at me with lips that had been sewn shut, doing nothing while Ashton reached past her to open the door.
It was something of a relief to see the door open. A part of me had worried I was in a room like the one from Radham, a spatial representation of things, which kept my thinking in a particularly constrained space, instead of my thinking being so far-ranging that it became ambulatory, vocal, and argumentative. The hallway was empty, almost normal, but for a tear in the carpet that ran down the length of it, a gouge in one of the doors, and some bullet casings.
I felt my stomach clench with tension, which only reminded me of the pain in my midsection.
“Ashton, why does my side feel like I was kicked a few times by wild horses?”
“Because you sat on stairs for a really long time and you didn’t go to the bathroom. They said you hurt your kidney and bladder, doing that.”
“Kidney, singular?”
Ashton gave me a shrug, his narrow shoulders moving beneath my arm. “It’s what they said.”
I might’ve lost it in an injury I couldn’t recall.
“I guess I thought my head was just trying to trick me into moving, so I suppressed it.”
“Yes. And you hurt yourself. You’ll get better. We have lots of doctors.”
Lots of doctors. My thoughts turned to the others—to the Academy-trained Beattle rebels, the Hackthorn rebels who we’d barely had a handle on, to the Lamb Doctors, and everyone else who had suffered because of the storm of chaos. I’d know it would be bad, but… it sat uncomfortably, thinking about just how far I’d sunk.
I wasn’t wholly sure I’d surfaced, either. I wasn’t in a room in my head, I was pretty sure, but the dangerous figures were still there, waiting.
“This way,” he said.
‘This way’ wasn’t toward the dining hall. Maybe for the best. It was down the length of the hall, in the opposite direction, and then up the stairs.
It wasn’t a place I’d really explored, past my initial perusal of Hackthorn. On the days I’d been inclined to visit, the weather had been poor. A rooftop garden with a patio, all sorts of unusual plants arranged on several levels, so that five individual groups could sit with enough of a barrier between them to be private, and so people could take their time walking around the garden, if they walked slowly.
Lillian was there, sitting, with a cup of tea on a saucer set beside her.
Part of the reason I hadn’t spent much time up here was that there wasn’t a particularly amazing view. We were high up enough that the water was only really water, without much in the way of waves, and even if we’d been on ground level, the landscape wouldn’t have been much to look at. Black wood and scorched earth.
There was only so long that one could sit and look at the clouds. Especially when there was a great deal to be done. It was a place to read on nice days, and Jessie had come to do that several times, but I suspected that she ended up spending more time napping in the sunlight than actually reading.
Lillian noticed our approach. She looked fine, if weary, but her posture was odd and I could see traces of orange-pink at the collar of her shirt. Disinfectant, some of which was on her neck.
“You’re out of surgery already,” Ashton said.
Lillian nodded.
She patted the bench next to her.
“Can you talk?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, her voice soft.
I took my seat. I had to calculate and assess the appropriate and graceful amount of physical distance that a tense ex-relationship, hurt feelings and my own plunge into madness required. The presence of the obstacle that was the cup and saucer factored into it. I sat at a distance that meant I could have just barely touched her shoulder with a fingertip if I was of a mind to.
She picked up the cup and saucer as I settled with Ashton’s help.
“Okay?” Ashton asked me.
“Very okay,” I said.
“Do you want anything?” he asked me.
I thought of eating and drinking and the torture it would be for my strained body. “No thank you. Not just yet.”
“Oh, Lillian told me to tell you you need to urinate regularly. You might want to use a bush.”
“I’m right here, Ashton,” Lillian said, still speaking at half her usual volume.
“I know, but you said to say it and I’m remembering now that I see you, so I’m saying it.”
“Thank you, Ashton,” Lillian said.
“You’re welcome, Lillian,” Ashton said. Then he shifted his footing, “I’m going to go and tell the others Sylvester’s awake. We should be along in a little while, but it’s going to take a little while and I’m not going to run.”
“Thank you, Ashton.”
“You’re welcome,” Ashton said. “For the record I’m taking my time because you two should have some time to talk and get things worked some, I’m not taking my time because I’m slow or bad at running.”
“Thank you, Ashton,” Lillian said, with emphasis. She winced a little at the pain that small degree of effort caused.
“You’re welcome. I know you’re saying it that way because you want me to go. I understand, I can take hints.”
“You’ve been getting better,” Lillian said, touching her throat. I saw how the disinfectant transferred to her fingertips and checked my pockets for a handkerchief. I handed it to her.
“You hurt yourself. Try not to yell at Sylvester,” Ashton said. “You’ll hurt yourself more.”
“If you stay any longer, Ashton, I’m going to throw something at you,” Lillian said.
“Try not to throw things,” Ashton said. “You might hurt yourself if you exert yourself too much.”
Lillian twisted around, searching her immediate surroundings, no doubt for something in the order of a pinecone or small rock.
“Try not to make her upset, Sylvester,” Ashton said, ignoring the fact that he was needling her, inadvertently or no.
“I’ll try not to,” I said, my voice quiet.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
He turned to leave, and I watched him go, my eyes narrowed.
Had he just pulled a clever line on me, or was that Ashton being Ashton?
“I’m fond of him,” Lillian said. “I haven’t gotten to see Ashton enough as of late.”
“He’s a good egg.”
“I’ve missed everyone,” she said, looking at me. Then, by some leap of logic, she jumped straight to, “I’m sorry I didn’t get my black coat, Sy.”
“What? No. Don’t do that, or I’ll think you’re somehow crazier than me.”
“I think that would be a feat,” she said.
“Are you alrig
ht?” I asked her. I touched my throat, to indicate. “Ashton said it was the Infante?”
“I’m not very alright,” she said. “It scared me more than almost anything. I’m fairly sure he let us go and I’m worried about why… But sitting is nice. Seeing you almost normal is nice.”
I had my doubts about that, but I didn’t voice them. I wanted her to have ‘nice’.
I had other doubts, that she was holding back on her true feelings, because she didn’t want to stress me out.
She went on, “I performed some of the surgery on myself, Jessie did some more, and I had more this morning, cosmetic, and to ensure I could speak without pain. Some of it affected the spine… I’ve still got some pain from that. It’s mild, but…”
She rubbed her arm, heel of her wrist digging in, as if she needed to press deep enough to make it felt bone-deep.
“Is it fixable?”
She nodded. “I’ll need another surgery. I’ll get it before we leave.”
Leave. That was a thing.
The intention had been for this to be a final stage, I’d hoped to prepare it, to make this the arena, as much to our favor as possible, and that had fallen through.
We would have to leave, fight our enemy on their turf.
“I’m drinking tea because I need fluids but I can’t drink too much too fast before I’m all healed up. The heat of it slows me down, and then when it’s cold I won’t want to drink it, because who drinks cold tea?”
I really liked the sound of her voice, even if it was quiet, or especially because it was quiet because that was a voice that had once been used when we slept in the same bed in her dormitory and didn’t want to be overheard. I liked the shape of her face and the way her hair had grown just a bit longer and framed that face. I wished I could stare at it more and hurry up my reconstitution of Lillian in my head, without actually staring at her and being creepy.
I tried to split my attention between looking at her and looking at the heavy clouds.
“How are you?” Lillian asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I really needed to see your faces. But I also think I shouldn’t feel as quiet as I do. I’m worried that they’re just mustering their forces.”
“They?”
“The Snake Charmer, Percy, Sub Rosa, the Humors, Avis, Fray, Warren, Wendy… and so on. Dead soldiers, doctors, and ghosts. The Brechwell Beast pretending to be a girl, the Primordial pretending to be a boy…”