Bedtime Story

by Robert J. Wiersema

Standing in front of the bookshelves beside his door, my back to him, I asked, “So, what shall we read tonight?”

  “Daaaad,” he said, drawing out his exasperation. Playing along.

  “All right …” I slid the hardcover of The Hobbit off the shelf and carried it over to the chair beside the head of his bed.

  He was already nestled under the covers. Nolan the hamster was running merrily in his wheel.

  The bookmark was leather, rough-cut and almost rectangular, with faded, painted letters, some of them backwards, that read, “To the best Dad in the world.” He had made it for me for Father’s Day when he was six, and we used it in all of the books we read together.

  “We’re getting pretty near the end of this,” I said. “We’ll have to figure out what to read next.” I didn’t want to be the one to suggest the book that I had given him, still sitting on the coffee table in the living room.

  “The Lord of the Rings?” he asked. Again.

  We had watched part of The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD, the parts before it got too violent and gory, and he had been wanting to read the book ever since.

  “We’ll see,” I said measuredly. “Those are some pretty meaty books, so we might want to wait for a bit.”

  He pouted deliberately.

  “There are plenty of good books out there.” Not hinting. Not really.

  David had always been a reluctant reader, only doing his Language Arts homework under duress. We learned why when he was eight and his teacher sent him for some testing: dyslexia. Reading was a struggle for him, and since then we had done everything we could to make it easier.

  But our nightly ritual wasn’t about work, or learning, it was all about pleasure.

  “Dad,” he said tentatively, before I could start. “None of my friends get a bedtime story every night.”

  “No?”

  “Darren Kenneally says stories are for babies.”

  “Do you think he’s right?”

  He shook his head.

  “Good. Because I know for a fact that he’s wrong.”

  “Because you write stories. For grown-ups.”

  I smiled. “Right. And you know what? Darren Kenneally doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

  His face brightened.

  After that he was quiet for so long that I was about to start reading when he said, “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When am I going to be too old for you to read to me?”

  The thought brought a thickness to my chest. “Someday. That’s up to you.” Hoping silently that day would be a long time coming.

  He watched me carefully for the first few minutes I was reading. Every time I looked up our eyes would meet, and he would grin a little and press himself deeper into the pillow. After a while he turned onto his back, folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. His breathing slowed.

  He never fell asleep when I was reading, but he always closed his eyes. Once when I asked him why, he explained, “When I close my eyes I can see what you’re reading. It’s like a movie inside my head.”

  Although it took more than an hour, we finished The Hobbit that night; there wasn’t really a good place to stop in the last few chapters.

  I was slipping the book back into the space on the shelf by the door when he said, “Lord of the Rings next?”

  I turned back to him, setting the bookmark on the edge of the shelf. “Maybe,” I said, trying not to sound hurt. “We’ll have to see.”

  He snuggled more deeply under the covers. “Okay.”

  “Time for sleep now, though.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sweet dreams,” I said as I stepped into the hallway. “Happy birthday.”

  I left the door open a foot or so, the way he liked it.

  The soldiers marched Matthias quickly toward the castle, their boots echoing off the cobbles and the stone walls. Few people were out so soon after sunrise, but those who were gave the men wide berth, stepping into gutters or doorways to let them pass.

  He gasped when they rounded the corner and the castle came into view.

  The castle gates were closed.

  For as long as he could remember, the gates had stood open, guarded, but swung wide onto the broad castle boulevard, the gardens within, and the towers that always seemed to shine against the blue sky. People would come and go freely. But this morning the entrance was blocked with towering wooden doors braced with iron.

  Matthias stumbled slightly when Captain Bream stopped at a narrow iron door cut into a shallow recess in the castle wall, a short distance from the gates. The captain tapped three times on the door, and an eye-slit opened. The eyes behind the door surveyed them carefully, and after a moment a tumbler chunked into place and the door opened.

  Matthias peered into the narrow opening, expecting to see the castle grounds on the other side of the wall. Instead, there was a dim tunnel, lit with torches, sloping into the depths of the castle. Armed guards stood inside.

  “Come on,” the captain said, directing him through the door.

  Matthias’s heart jumped into his throat as he stared ahead, his mind filled with his worst imaginings of the castle dungeons.

  The captain dismissed his men, and they swung the heavy iron door shut as they left. The captain took a torch from one of the guards and started down the hallway.

  Matthias followed silently, the torchlight wavering on the walls. The tunnel angled downward for a while, the walls growing damper, the air thick. Men stood guard at the openings of other tunnels, and they straightened as the captain passed.

  Then the tunnel began to climb. In time, the air became fresher, cooler. The walls and the floor dried. Matthias had lost track of how long they had been walking when they came to a sudden stop at a dark archway, covered by what seemed to be a heavy curtain.

  The captain pushed his torch into a bracket on the wall, then led Matthias through a barely noticeable seam in the middle of the curtain.

  No, not a curtain, Matthias realized as he passed through it: a tapestry.

  He found himself in a wide corridor, flanked on one side by a row of tapestries down the length of the stone wall through which he had just passed, and on the other by a series of high windows. A breeze blew cool from outside.

  Matthias stopped in the middle of the corridor. The captain turned to him. His face was hard, and his mouth opened to speak, but he stopped himself.

  Matthias was overwhelmed, and confused. To go from the backroom of the tavern to the heights of the castle …

  He looked first at the wall.

  The tapestries were all about the kingdom. He was standing in front of a weaving of his home: the island at the mouth of the Col River with the walled lower city rising toward the castle, and on the shore, Colcott Town. The next tapestry over was a battle scene, soldiers fighting, and falling, the Sunstone crest bright on their standards. One soldier was rising from his mount, driving his sword deep into the chest of a Berok warrior, the blade piercing the bearskins the savages wore instead of armour.

  He took several steps toward the windows and looked down, first, on the castle and its gardens, then, beyond the castle wall, on the narrow streets of the lower city winding down to the protective wall at the shoreline. From this direction there was nothing but the sea beyond the outer wall; if the corridor had been on the other side of the castle, he knew, he would have been able to see Colcott Town on the shore.

  “It is difficult to tell how far you’ve walked in the tunnels,” the captain said. He looked toward the windows. “Or how high you’ve climbed. Only the royal chambers and the battlements are above us now.”

  The royal chambers? Matthias glanced down the hallway at the huge double doors, the pair of guards standing in front of them. His heart thrummed in his chest.

  “The Queen’s receiving rooms. Come.”

  The guards pushed the doors open as they approached.

  Inside, the heady smell of spices and flowers and perfumes filled the bright, sunlit
air. Without warning, the captain fell to one knee, bowing his head so it almost rested on his other knee.

  “My Lady,” he said.

  Not having any idea what else to do, Matthias copied the soldier. He didn’t dare look up. His stomach lurched, and he trembled with fear.

  “Rise.” The voice, rich and melodious, had come from the far end of the room.

  Matthias waited until Captain Bream started to his feet before he stood up. He kept his eyes fixed to the floor, knowing better than to look on the Queen unbidden.

  “Come,” said the voice, and Matthias followed Captain Bream forward.

  He glanced about surreptitiously, curious about his surroundings. The room was large, but seemed cozy, with tapestries on the walls, low couchettes in the corner, carpets over much of the floor.

  “Matthias.”

  He couldn’t help but look up.

  The Queen was the most beautiful woman Matthias had ever seen, with long dark hair and pale skin that seemed to shine in the light. She reclined on a low divan on a raised stone platform, a small bowl of dried fruit and a goblet close to hand.

  “Y-yes, Your Majesty,” Matthias choked.

  “Has Captain Bream told you why we bid you come?”

  He shook his head, conscious of every motion. “No, Your Majesty.”

  He tried to look away as she stood up. Her blue-grey gown trailed behind her as she stepped down carefully from the platform.

  “You’re here because we need you, Matthias,” she said, close enough that he could smell the sweetness of her breath.

  He almost jumped when she reached out and took his hand, holding it warmly between her own.

  “The kingdom needs you.”

  When I got down to the kitchen, I poured Jacqui and me each a glass of wine. As I carried the glasses and the bottle into the living room, I pictured myself passing the glass to Jacqui, reminding her of what we had been doing eleven years ago right now, the night that David was born. I imagined a moment of shared history, of tenderness.

  She had been flicking through channels, but she turned the TV off as I set her glass on the end table next to her.

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Davy’s to bed,” I said as I sat down. Anything to break the silence.

  She picked up her glass.

  “We finished The Hobbit.”

  I wished she had left the television on, for the noise, the distraction. I lifted my glass toward her.

  “Eleven years,” I said.

  She smiled a small, sad smile, and sipped her wine.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. Odds were the answer was going to involve me somehow, but I couldn’t bear the silence, the feeling of things hanging in the air.

  She shook her head. “It’s the same old stuff,” she said dismissively. “Is it really worth getting into it, all over again?”

  I could feel myself deflating. “Okay.”

  “I mean, seriously, Chris. You couldn’t even be bothered to come to his ballgame? On his birthday?”

  “I—”

  “And that book. It’s like you don’t even know him. You spend more time with him than any other dad I know spends with his kids, and it’s like it doesn’t even register.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Do you even know who Rob Sterling is?”

  She was so quick with the question, I knew that she had been waiting to use it. And I couldn’t answer.

  “I didn’t think so.” She shook her head and looked away. “He’s his coach, Chris. Coach Sterling. David talks about him every day. Do you even listen?”

  I leaned forward on the couch. “Of course I listen.”

  “Really? Then why didn’t you get him what he wanted for his birthday? Instead, you get him that …” She nodded toward the book on the coffee table. David had taken all of his other gifts upstairs to his room.

  “He’s going to like it,” I said, aware even as I was speaking the words that they weren’t going to make any difference. “When I was a kid—”

  “Exactly,” she said, so loudly I almost flinched. “That’s exactly it, Chris. When you were a kid. This isn’t about you. This is about David. It’s his birthday. And you couldn’t even be bothered—”

  “Right,” I said, leaning forward to set my wineglass on the coffee table and pick up the book. “You’re right.” I stood up. “It’s probably not worth getting into it all again. I’m gonna go.”

  “Chris,” she said to my back as I turned out of the room, but I didn’t respond.

  I walked through the house and out the back door. I navigated the narrow path in the spill of light from the kitchen window and unlocked the door in the back of the garage.

  He sat up slowly, listening to the faint sound of his parents’ voices as they rose up the stairs, drifted through the partly open door.

  After a few moments, the voices grew louder, not really shouting but definitely upset. It was impossible to ignore them, to tune them out. He couldn’t make out actual words, just a texture of voices raised in anger.

  Biting his lip, he stood up and walked across the room, careful to be quiet. He closed his door fully, and darted back to bed in the dark, pulling the covers up to his chin and burying his head in the pillow.

  He could barely hear the voices, now.

  I’m not gonna cry, he told himself. I’m not gonna cry.

  The narrow staircase was dim with the light from my desk lamp, which I left on from four in the morning until I went to bed. In the shadows of the small kitchen, I filled a glass with vodka from the bottle in my freezer. I set the glass on top of the morning’s pages and sat down at my desk.

  Why did it always have to go so bad so fast?

  I pulled my cigarettes out of my pocket and set my lighter on the desk next to this morning’s work. The engraving caught the light. After tapping a cigarette out, I put it to my lips, savouring the feel of it there, its light presence.

  For a long time, I had allowed myself a single cigarette each day, just before I turned in. It was a holdover from my days as a smoker, and was supposed to be a reward, a way of recognizing a good day’s work, a capstone to a productive time. Now, I was smoking compulsively again, my hands shaking as I flicked the lighter, as I held the flame to the paper waiting for that subtle crackle.

  As I drew in the first smooth lungful of smoke, I ran my thumb across the lettering on the lighter.

  COASTAL DRIFT

  CHRISTOPHER J. KNOX

  SPRING 2000

  The Zippo had been a gift from my Canadian editor. He had lit my cigar with it at the launch party for my first book, then handed it to me with a broad grin and an arm draped drunkenly across my shoulders.

  “To the first of many,” he had toasted me.

  “Right,” I muttered to the memory, throwing the lighter onto the desk and taking a healthy swallow of the icy vodka. It chilled all the way down, and when the burn hit my stomach I shivered.

  That had been a perfect night: my life was on track, unfolding as I had always dreamed it would. My novel was just out, and already on the best-seller lists. Jacqui and I had just bought the house, and every time I met her eye across the crowded bar, she smiled. The future was wide open.

  And this was where it all led: me sitting in what once had been my office over the garage, trying to ignore the bed in the tiny adjoining room. There had been no more books, no more launch parties. And, over the last couple of years, precious few of those smiles from across the room.

  I sat quietly for a moment, watching the shadows of the smoke play along the desk in the pool of golden light. As I opened David’s book to where I had left off—since I had started reading it, I’d been sneaking in a few pages whenever time allowed, and when it didn’t—I deliberately kept my back turned to the bookcase next to the desk, the top shelf with the different editions of Coastal Drift, the second shelf stuffed with bulging notebooks, stacks of loose-leaf, battered files. Ten years in the life, waiting for a match.

&nb
sp; It felt like the floor had tilted beneath his feet. Matthias couldn’t think, could barely breathe, with the Queen so close to him, holding his hand, staring into his eyes.

  “Let us sit,” she said, turning him toward a cluster of divans and chairs against the wall.

  “That’s better,” she said, a smile of comfort softening her face as she settled on a divan. “Sit.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Matthias said as he sat, not sure of how to speak.

  “Comfort is a fine, fine thing,” she said, almost to herself. “Save for the price that must be paid.”

  Her smile disappeared as she looked at Matthias again. “Five days ago, the watchtowers fell. Three of them. All under cover of a single night. The Berok have taken them.”

  Matthias stole a glance at Captain Bream; the man’s face was hard and still.

  “Our most feared enemy is at the borders of the kingdom, less than two days’ ride from the city. From this castle—” She broke off as handmaidens entered the room with wine.

  Matthias’s mind reeled: the Berok?

  Matthias and Bream waited while the maidens tasted from each cup before serving them, and then until the Queen had taken a sip before they drank. The wine was cool and strong.

  “The King has brought you here today,” the Queen said, “because we think you can help.”

  Matthias bit back a protest. He knew only tavern fighting, and all he knew of the Berok were the stories his mother had told him when he was a boy. The country to the north was the stuff of myths and children’s stories, of blood-thirsty warriors and epic betrayals. Surely there was nothing he could do. He drowned the words he was tempted to say with another swallow of wine, knowing better than to argue with the Queen.

  “I know you believe there is nothing you have to offer,” she said, seeming to read his thoughts and expression. “But others think differently. Loren,” she called, barely raising her voice.

  From a doorway at the far end of the room a man appeared, a long, grey beard falling to the middle of his chest. Within the folds of his tattered robes, Matthias could see he carried a large, leather-bound book.

  “Loren is an historian and a scholar. One of the King’s most trusted advisers,” the Queen said, not even glancing at the man as he took his place beside her. “He has been working in the libraries, both in the castle here and at the monastery,” the Queen said. “He has found some startling information.”