Bedtime Story

by Robert J. Wiersema

  “Slow and steady,” the captain called.

  It was like crawling through the air. As he moved, he stared down at the water, never sure if the roaring white foam was immediately beneath his feet, or a great distance below. Distance and time had lost their meaning. The only thing that meant anything was keeping his grip, the line burning in his hands.

  As he neared the middle of the canyon the wind caught at him, buffeting him. For a moment he imagined himself as a kite, lifted into the sky. His concentration faltered and his feet slipped along the rope. As the lines swung and wavered, for a moment he felt weightless, the world spinning out of control. But he did not fall.

  He started again, shuffling slowly to his right.

  So focused was he on the feel of his hands and feet on the ropes, the slow sideways motion, hand-width by agonizing hand-width, that he was surprised when, on extending his hand for another piece of the rope, his fingers closed instead on cold iron: a bolt, driven into the stone.

  He had done it. He had made it across.

  But his heart sank.

  There was no ledge, no path, no place for him to go.

  “Starting a little early today, aren’t you,” she said, looking at the empty glass as she came into the living room straight from work. Green scrubs today.

  “It’s been a day,” I said, trying to get the right sense of warning into the words.

  “Is it David?” she asked, glancing toward the stairs.

  I nodded. “He’s up in his room.” I gestured to the couch. “We need to talk,” I said. “You should probably sit down.”

  I told her about the meeting in the vice-principal’s office, about Mr. Green’s story and David’s suspension. A couple of times I had to pause to calm her down, to keep her from rushing upstairs to confront David before she knew the whole story.

  “David says it happened differently,” I explained, as soothingly as I could. “He says that he only muttered it”—she started to speak, but I shook my head—“and that was only after Mr. Green told him he was stupid.”

  I paused, waiting for the same anger that I had felt, her inevitable defence of our son, her outrage at what the teacher had said.

  “So David threatened him?”

  It wasn’t the reaction I had been expecting. “He told David he was stupid, Jacqui. Don’t you think—”

  “That doesn’t give him any right to threaten anyone. I’m surprised that they only suspended him for two days—in a lot of places, you’d have been picking him up at the police station.”

  “He was upset.”

  She shook her head and looked away. “And I suppose you brought him home and made him lunch and told him that everything was going to be all right.”

  I bit my lip, holding back the response on the tip of my tongue. “No, actually,” I said slowly, as if it were costing me considerable effort to make myself understood. “I told him that you and I were going to talk about it and figure out the appropriate consequence for what he did.”

  “And what do you think an appropriate consequence would be?” she asked.

  “Well,” I said, as if I hadn’t been thinking about it all afternoon. “I think he needs to write Mr. Green”—she gave me a quizzical look—“Monsieur Vert a long and heartfelt apology.”

  She nodded.

  “And I think he should be grounded. For at least a week, probably two. No TV, no video games, computer for homework only—”

  “So where’s the book?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Where did you put the book? I want to have it with us when we’re talking to him.”

  In the pause that came before I could get an answer out, Jacqui understood.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, Chris—you gave him back the book?”

  Clinging with one hand and balancing on one foot on the bolts that secured the lines, Dafyd felt a moment of panic: surely the guardsmen wouldn’t have built the bridge with nowhere for him to go. Why would the captain have sent him across?

  Craning his neck, Dafyd looked back, his eyes scanning the canyon wall. At first glance, the rocks behind him looked just like the rocks in front of him, pitted and rough, a solid wall stretching from the water to the sky.

  As he faced forward again, however, he caught a glimpse of something. He wasn’t sure what—an edge? A right angle where there shouldn’t have been one? He couldn’t be sure.

  Carefully he twisted so he was almost pressed against the wall, still clinging to the top bolt with his left hand. As he moved, the wind caught at him again. He crouched, lowering his centre of gravity as much as he could, trying to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach as he started to trace his fingertips along the rock face, the rough surface. Nothing even hinted at a door.

  And then his fingers seemed to slip over a sharp edge, the rock wall disappearing into a space so deep he couldn’t reach the end of it. Looking at where his hand had disappeared, Dafyd could almost make out the doorway’s sharp edge. Whoever had made the door had done a good job of concealing it.

  Taking a deep breath, he extended his foot along the wall in the direction of his hand. It was terrifying, watching his foot hovering in the air, feeling it bump along the wall. He tried not to believe his eyes, which told him that there was nothing there, nowhere for his foot to land.

  But he knew better. He knew, now, that his eyes couldn’t always be trusted.

  Stretching his leg, he found another edge, and a flat surface deep enough to hold his foot.

  From the fleeting glimpse that he had caught of it at sundown yesterday, he knew that the doorway was more than wide enough for him to stand in. Without giving his fear any more chance to take root, Dafyd planted his foot, gripped the edge of the wall and pulled himself away from the bolts.

  For one dizzying moment he hung in the air, and then he was standing, pressed against the back of a shallow nook in the canyon wall. Dafyd fought to keep his balance, fearfully aware that the slightest misstep would send him into the rushing river below.

  With barely enough space to turn around, and the wind pulling at his clothes, he struggled to get a good look at the rock wall he was pressed against. He could find no handle, no latch. The stone’s surface was smooth, almost slick, different from the canyon walls themselves. If this was a door, there was no way to open it.

  Dafyd cried out his frustration. Here he was, all but clinging to the edge of the canyon, having risked his life in crossing the river, and now he was stuck. He pounded on the rock wall with both fists, half screaming, half growling in the back of his throat.

  That was a mistake. The pounding on the wall, the momentary loss of control, threw off his balance, and he wavered over the drop to the river. He threw his arms out at his sides to brace himself against the door frame, such as it was.

  He took a moment to let his heart slow.

  As he calmed himself down, he noticed that the rock under his fingers wasn’t as smooth as the back wall of the alcove. The side walls looked smooth, but shadows obscured some roughness where one of his hands had come to rest. Dafyd ran his fingers lightly over the stone surface. There. A ridge, and a dip. Another. Another. Each sharp ridge led into a vaguely rounded recess. He cursed the shadows. If only he could see.

  As he moved his hand over the shapes, his fingers slipped into them. They seemed to fit there, perfectly. He shifted his palm into place and felt a surge in his chest.

  It could have been his own handprint, so well did his fingers fit into the stone. Was this how the door was to open? Dafyd pushed excitedly against the handprint, turned his wrist to see if the impression would turn.

  Nothing happened.

  He muttered a curse to himself. It should have done something. Why would someone put a handprint there if it didn’t have something to do with the door?

  Unless …

  Turning his head, Dafyd scanned the opposite edge of the door frame. His guess was correct: another handprint was visible, and he could see the skill that had gone into its
carving. The amount of detail was astonishing.

  He stretched his arms across the doorway, careful to keep his balance, straining toward the far wall. He barely had enough reach left to apply even the slightest pressure.

  It was enough.

  As he pushed, both handprints gave way, retreating slightly into the stone. Then they stopped with a muffled clatter, and the rear of the alcove began to slide with surprisingly little sound into the canyon wall.

  David was lying on his stomach when we came into his room, the book splayed open on his pillow. He didn’t look up, just slid his index finger down the lines of the page as he read.

  “David,” I said. “We need to talk to you.”

  It would have been easy to miss the slight nod of his head if I hadn’t been watching.

  “David,” Jacqui said, her voice rising with warning.

  There was a beat, a moment, a movement of his fingers along a line of text before he turned to us.

  “Oh. Hey, Mom,” he said innocently, as if completely unaware of the reason for our coming to his room, together.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Okay.” Breezy, casual.

  “Sit up,” she said.

  He carefully turned the book over on the pillow to hold his place before shifting into a sitting position. His movements were slow and deliberate, unconcerned.

  The colour was rising in Jacqui’s face.

  “Would you like to tell me what happened at school today?” she said.

  He looked from her to me, then back. “Didn’t Dad—?”

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  He thought for a moment. “Well, Mr. Green—”

  “Monsieur Vert,” she corrected him.

  He looked at me again. “Monsieur Vert got mad at me in French class and—”

  “Why did he get mad at you? Were you doing something wrong?”

  A slow nod, his eyes drifting downwards now.

  “Well? What were you doing?”

  I shifted on my feet.

  “I was reading,” he said quietly, a hint of contrition colouring his voice.

  “What were you reading?”

  He glanced down at the book on the pillow. “That.”

  “Why were you reading it in French class?”

  He looked up, appealing to me. I wanted to do something to comfort him, or maybe I could say something to Jacqui.

  When I looked at her, I saw that Jacqui had caught our silent exchange. She pursed her lips and looked back toward the book, nodding slightly.

  “Pass me the book, David,” I said, as evenly as I could.

  “What?”

  “Give me the book.”

  “Why?”

  I took a deep breath. “I told you there were going to be consequences,” I said, trying to sound reasonable. “You can’t threaten people.” I held out my hand.

  He shook his head, pulled himself back on the bed. “Why? I’ll do anything. Anything you ask. I’ll do the dishes. I’ll mow the lawn. I’ll give up the computer.”

  I glanced at Jacqui, but she wasn’t wavering.

  “David,” I said, still trying to be reasonable. “Don’t make it worse. Give me the book.”

  He moved his hand toward it, and for a moment I thought he was going to pass it to me. Instead he picked it up and held it tightly to his chest. “No,” he said. “You can’t. It’s mine. You gave it to me.”

  “David.”

  Fed up, Jacqui stepped forward and reached for the book.

  David’s next movements were a blur—he shifted, curling himself around the book so that he was kneeling on the bed, sheltering it with his body. His arm rose and he shoved Jacqui back as he shouted, “No!”

  Jacqui stumbled and I reached out automatically to steady her. She pushed my arm away.

  “David,” I said in my sternest voice.

  “No, no, no,” he repeated. He hunched more tightly around the book, pulling himself farther up the bed, farther away from us.

  Jacqui didn’t hesitate. She grabbed his arm, twisting sideways to avoid a sudden flurry of kicks. “No.” His voice was louder, and he squirmed to get away. His ineffective thrashing shook the bed.

  Jacqui looked at me, her face tight with the effort of holding his arm. “Chris,” she muttered.

  I tried grabbing his other arm, but he pulled out of reach. I had to turn myself to avoid his kicks.

  “Chris, the book.”

  She leaned into him, using her weight to slow his thrashing. As he tried to push her off, I could see the spine of the book and I grabbed it away from him. I stumbled back from the bed, lifting the book high as he grasped for it with his free hand.

  “Do you have it?” Jacqui asked, still trying to hold him down as he thrashed.

  “Yeah,” I gasped. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”

  She released him and stepped back quickly from the bed.

  “No!” he howled, his body shuddering to rest.

  Jacqui looked at me. Her hair was wild, her face flushed from the exertion. A red spot was forming under one eye. She reached up, touched it gingerly. “I think he got me.”

  We both turned to look at David.

  He was lying on his stomach, his back heaving with sobs I could barely hear from the depths of the bedding where he had buried his face.

  “David,” I said, starting forward, but Jacqui laid her hand on my arm.

  “Stop,” she whispered.

  “David,” she said, her voice cold and even. “You need to calm down. We’re not done talking about this.”

  She didn’t touch him, didn’t try to comfort him. Instead, she turned and left the room, beckoning for me to follow her.

  As I turned to follow her, David looked up at me. His cheeks were wet with tears, his eyes filled with a look of incomprehensible betrayal.

  In the hallway, I handed Jacqui the book. I didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to have anything more to do with it.

  She took it.

  “I hope you’re happy,” she said.

  VI

  IT WAS ALL DAVID could do to wait.

  He forced himself to keep his hands in his lap as his father’s footsteps faded down the stairs. He desperately wanted to reach under the blanket, but he forced himself to stay still, just a little longer. Like holding his breath, it gradually became almost unbearable.

  Far away, the back door closed with the faintest of sounds. Dad was outside now. Probably smoking. It was safe.

  Reaching under the covers, he pulled out the book and opened it to his page. He tried to keep one ear open, ready to hide it again. But what was the worst thing that could happen if his dad discovered that he had been taking the book down from the top of the fridge, reading it when he was supposed to be sleeping or banished to his room? It didn’t matter. What was important was the book, and what happened next—especially now, with Dafyd so close.

  The stone door slid silently into the canyon wall. Dafyd took small steps into the corridor that had opened before him. He could breathe again, relax, turn and face the canyon without fear of falling.

  He shivered at the sight of the simple rope bridge swaying in the wind, fading into the mist and distance.

  He could barely see the far edge of the canyon. He held his hands high above his head and waved to the tiny figures of Loren, Bream and the guardsmen, indistinct and blending into the canyon wall behind them.

  No response. Had he disappeared into whatever shadows hid the doorway from view? No matter the reason, he was truly on his own.

  Dafyd turned back into the passageway. The stone door had come to a stop. He was stuck, again, it seemed, this time inside a rectangular stone box.

  He had just begun to wonder what else he would need to do when the stone wall began to tilt slowly away. Dafyd flinched reflexively, expecting a loud crash. But there was no crash—it slowly continued to fall.

  In the dim light, he made out a niche cut into the passage wall. A torch rested in a metal bracket. A small
leather bag hung below it. He touched the torch-head carefully. It was sticky. His fingers came away smelling of pitch.

  Fumbling under the bracket, he opened the leather bag, and smiled as a number of tinders spilled into his hand. Dafyd struck one against the cavern wall and touched it to the head of the torch. The pitch caught almost instantly, bursting with a warm golden light.

  Dafyd could see now that the gentle descent of the stone wall was controlled by heavy chains on both sides.

  “A drawbridge,” he muttered to himself.

  But over what?

  The door settled flat, and Dafyd stepped forward cautiously, stopping at the narrow seam between the stone floor and the drawbridge. Water lapped at the length of the drawbridge: a narrow stream ran beneath it through the cavern.

  He set one foot carefully forward. The stone didn’t move. He pushed down and it remained firm.

  Taking a deep breath, he stepped quickly across.

  His torchlight flickered back at him from another smoothly carved edge, another doorway, this one open. Angling the torch forward, he found himself looking down a set of damp stairs that disappeared into the black far below him.

  There had been a time when the house, our house, was as comfortable as a familiar jacket, something warm that could be pulled on, nestled into. But it was all different now. I couldn’t relax, couldn’t get comfortable. Every sound made me start, pulled me out of the book I was reading.

  Finally I put on a Philip Glass album, hoping that the repetitive, slow-building melodies might help.

  It didn’t work. I ended up sitting there, thinking of David huddled asleep in his bed above me. Nothing I could say could console him now. What had I done? What was I even doing here?

  The cordless rang, and I jumped.

  “Hello?” My voice was rough, tenuous, after hours of silence.

  “It’s me,” Jacqui said quietly. “I wanted to be sure you got my message.”

  She had called in the afternoon to say that she wouldn’t be home for dinner.

  “I did. Is it busy there? Friday night and all …”

  “It’s steady,” she said. “It looks like it’s starting to ramp up now.”