by TJ Klune
MOTHER: UNKNOWN (BELIEVED DECEASED)
FATHER: UNKNOWN (BELIEVED DECEASED)
What had Helen said?
It was my first job. I was seventeen. It was a different parlor back then, but I expect I still know how to work a scoop. It’s how I know Arthur here. He would come in here when he was a child.
And then he read the next line, the one that said SPECIES OF MAGICAL BEING, and everything changed.
* * *
Dinner was, in a word, awkward.
“Aren’t you hungry, Mr. Baker?” Talia asked. “You’re not eating.”
Linus choked on his tongue.
Everyone stared at him.
He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I seem to be quite full from the ice cream.”
Lucy frowned. “Really? But you have so much room. I ate all my ice cream, and I’m still hungry.” As if to prove a point, Lucy attempted to stick an entire pork chop in his mouth. He wasn’t very successful.
Linus smiled tightly. “It is as it is. I may have … so much room, as you say, but that doesn’t mean I need to fill it.”
Theodore peered over at him, a bit of fat hanging from his mouth.
“You’re being awfully quiet too,” Phee said, chasing a small tomato with her fork. “Is it because Lucy almost killed a man today?”
“I didn’t almost kill him! I wasn’t even trying very hard. If I wanted to, I could have exploded him with the power of my mind.”
That certainly didn’t make Linus feel any better, though it didn’t frighten him as much as it would have a couple of weeks ago. He wondered if this was what Extremely Upper Management meant in their letter. Against his better judgment, he was almost charmed. That wasn’t a good sign.
“You shouldn’t kill people,” Chauncey said. He had yet to remove his bellhop cap. Arthur had told him he could wear it to dinner just this once. “Killing people is bad. You could go to jail.”
Lucy attacked his pork chop viciously. “No jail could hold me. I would escape and come back here. No one would dare come after me because I could make their organs melt.”
“We don’t melt people’s organs,” Zoe reminded him patiently. “It’s not polite.”
Lucy sighed through a mouthful of meat, cheeks bulging.
“You should eat,” Sal told Linus quietly. “Everyone needs to eat.”
And how could he refute that coming from Sal? Linus made a show of taking a big bite of the salad on his plate.
That seemed to appease everyone. Almost everyone. Arthur was watching him from across the table. Linus was doing his best not to meet his gaze. It seemed safer that way.
He didn’t know what Arthur was capable of.
* * *
Linus begged off after dinner, saying he was more exhausted than he expected. Lucy looked a little disappointed that Linus wouldn’t be listening to the new records he’d purchased, but Linus promised him that tomorrow was a new day.
“You do look a little flushed,” Zoe said. “I hope you’re not coming down with something.” She had a strange glint in her eyes. “Especially seeing as how it’s your last week here and all.”
Linus nodded. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
She took his plate from him, still nearly full. “Well, get some rest, Linus. We’d hate to see you sick. We need you, you know.”
Ah. Did they? Did they really?
Linus was almost to the door when Arthur said his name.
He closed his eyes, hand on the doorknob. “Yes? What is it?”
“If you need anything, all you have to do is ask.”
He thought the knob would crack under his fingers. “That’s very kind of you, but there’s nothing I need.”
Arthur placed a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure?”
Oh, how easy would it be to turn around? To look upon the man who had twisted his heart so? The man who, in not so many words, had kept so much from him?
“I’m sure,” Linus whispered.
The hand fell away. “Be well, Linus.”
He was out the door and into the night as quick as he coul d go.
* * *
He stared at the ceiling in the dark, the comforter pulled up to his chin. Sleep was impossible. That blasted file had made sure of that. Even now, he could feel its presence underneath the mattress where he’d shoved it earlier. He didn’t want Chauncey finding it if he came in to take Linus’s laundry.
Which brought another wave crashing over him.
Did they know? Did the children know about who Arthur was? About what he was?
He could see it clearly in his mind, though he didn’t want to. Arthur in the classroom, telling the children that a man was coming from the mainland. A man who would be there to evaluate them, to investigate them. A man from the Department in Charge of Magical Youth who had the power to take this all away from them. Lucy, of course, would offer to make the intruder’s skin crack from his bones. Theodore could eat what remained and then regurgitate it into a hole Talia had dug. The hole would be filled in, and Phee would grow a tree on top of it. When someone came to ask after this interloper, Chauncey would offer to take their luggage, and Sal would say earnestly that they had no idea who Linus Baker was.
Arthur, of course, would tell them in no uncertain terms that murder wasn’t the answer. Instead, he whispered in Linus’s head, you must make him care about you. You must make him think for perhaps the first time in his life that he has found a place to belong.
It was ridiculous, these thoughts. All of them. But thoughts late at night when sleep is nothing but a fleeting notion usually were. In the dark, all of it seemed as if it could be real.
It was after midnight when he sat up in the bed. Calliope yawned from her spot near his feet.
“What if it’s all a lie?” he asked her in the dark. “How did I get to the place where I wouldn’t be able to stand that?”
She didn’t answer.
Life before had been mundane and ordinary. He had known his place in the world, though every now and then, the dark clouds parted with a ray of sunshine in the form of a question he barely allowed himself to ponder.
Don’t you wish you were here?
More than anything.
And then another thought struck him, one so foreign that he was barely able to grasp onto it. It was so outside the realm of what he thought possible that it boggled the mind.
What if, he thought, it’s not Arthur who is lying? What if it’s not the children?
What if it’s DICOMY?
There would be a way to prove that.
One way.
“No,” he said, lying back down on the bed. “Absolutely not.”
Calliope purred.
“I’ll just go to sleep, and in six days, we’ll go home, and all of this won’t matter. What did the letter call me? Susceptible? Bah. Why, the very idea is ridiculous.”
He felt better.
He closed his eyes.
And saw how Chauncey had hid under his bed the first morning, how Talia had looked sitting on the floor of a record shop with her tools, how Theodore took the buttons as if they were the greatest gift, how Phee had lifted a trembling Sal from a pile of clothes, how Lucy had cried after breaking his music, how Zoe had welcomed him into her home.
And, of course, Arthur’s smile. That quiet, beautiful smile that felt like seeing the ocean for the first time.
Linus Baker opened his eyes.
“Oh dear,” he whispered.
* * *
The night air was cold, much colder than it’d been since he arrived. The stars were like ice in the black sky above. The moon was barely a sliver. He shivered as he pulled his coat tighter over his pajamas. He reached down to his pocket, making sure the key was still there.
It was.
He stepped off the porch.
The main house was dark, as it should have been at this late hour. The children would be asleep in their beds.
He barely made a sound as he walked toward the garden. For a m
an his size, he could be light on his feet when he needed to be. The air smelled of salt and felt heavy against his skin.
He followed the path through the garden. He wondered what Helen would think when she came. He thought she’d be impressed. He hoped so. Talia deserved it. She’d worked hard.
He rounded the back of the house. He stumbled over a thick root, but managed to stay upright.
There, in front of him, was the cellar door.
The scorch marks made a terrible amount of sense now.
His throat clicked as he swallowed. He could, Linus knew, turn around right now and forget about all of this. He could go back to his bed, and for the next six days, keep a professional distance and do what he’d been sent here to do. Then he would board the ferry for the last time, and a train would be waiting to take him home. The sunlight would fade behind dark clouds, and eventually, it would start to rain. He knew that life. That was the life for a man like Linus. It was dreary and gray, but it was the life he’d led for many, many years. This last month, this bright flash of color, would be nothing but a memory.
He took the key from his pocket.
“It probably won’t even fit the lock,” he muttered. “It’s most likely been changed.”
It hadn’t. The key slid into the rusted padlock perfectly.
He turned it.
The lock popped open with the smallest of sounds.
It fell to the weeds.
“Last chance,” he told himself. “Last chance to forget all this foolishness.”
The door was heavier than he expected, so much so that he could barely lift it. He grunted as he pulled it open, arms straining at the weight. It took him a moment to figure out why. Though the outside of the cellar doors were wooden, the inside was a sheet of thick metal, as if it’d been reinforced.
And in the starlight, he could see shallow grooves carved into the metal.
He raised his hand and pressed his fingers against the grooves. There were five of them, close together. As if someone with small hands had scraped them from the inside.
That caused a cold chill to run down Linus’s spine.
Before him, disappearing into a thick darkness, were a set of stone stairs. He took a moment to let his eyes adjust, wishing he’d remembered to bring a flashlight. Or he could wait for daylight.
He entered the cellar.
Linus kept a hand pressed against the wall to keep his balance. The wall was made of smooth stone. He counted each step he took. He was at thirteen when the stairs ended. He couldn’t see a thing. He felt along the wall, hoping to find a light switch. He bumped into something, a bright snarl of pain rolling up his shin and into his thigh. He grimaced and felt for—
There.
A switch.
He flicked it up.
A single bulb flared to life in the middle of the room.
Linus blinked against the dull light.
The cellar was smaller than he expected. The room in the guest house where he’d spent the last three weeks was bigger, though not by much. The walls and ceiling were made of stone, and almost every inch of them were covered in what appeared to be soot. He looked down at his hands and saw they were black. He rubbed his fingers together, and the soot fell away to the floor.
He’d bumped his knee into a desk set against the wall near the light switch. It had been partially burned, the wood blackened and cracked. There was a twin bed, the metal frame broken. There was no mattress, though Linus supposed that made sense. It would be too easy to burn. Instead, there were thick tarps that Linus expected to be flame retardant.
And that was it.
That was everything in the cellar.
“Oh no,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”
Something in the corner caught his eyes. The single bulb in the room wasn’t strong, and there were more shadows than not. He approached the far wall, and as he got closer, he felt his knees turn to jelly.
Tick marks.
Tick marks scratched into the wall.
Four lines in a row. Crossed with a fifth.
“Five,” he said. “Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five.”
He stopped counting when he reached sixty. It was too much for him to handle. He thought they were meant to keep track of days, and the idea caused his heart to ache.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. The unfairness of it all threatened to overwhelm him.
DICOMY hadn’t been lying.
The file had been true.
“I haven’t been down here in years,” a voice said from behind him.
Linus closed his eyes. “No. I don’t expect you have.”
“I thought you seemed a little … off,” Arthur said quietly. “After you returned to us from the post office, something had changed. I didn’t know what, but it had. I chose to believe you when you said you were tired, but then at dinner, you looked as if you’d seen a ghost.”
“I tried to hide it,” Linus admitted. “It doesn’t appear I did a very good job of it.”
Arthur chuckled, though it sounded sad. “You’re much more expressive than you think. It’s one of the things I— No matter. That’s neither here nor there. For the moment, at least.”
Linus curled his hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “So it’s true, then?”
“What is?”
“What I read. In the file DICOMY sent to me.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never read my file. For all I know, it’s full of half-truths and outright lies. Or, perhaps, everything is correct. One can never tell with DICOMY.”
Linus turned around slowly as he opened his eyes.
Arthur stood at the foot of the stairs. He was dressed for bed, meaning he wore his shorts and a thin T-shirt. Irrationally, Linus wanted to offer his coat. It was much too cold for Arthur to be out in what he was wearing. He didn’t even have socks on. Or shoes. His feet looked strangely vulnerable.
He was watching Linus, though there didn’t appear to be any anger in his gaze. If anything, he looked slightly stricken, though Linus couldn’t be sure.
“He gave you a key,” Arthur said. It wasn’t a question.
Linus nodded. “There was a key, yes. I— Wait. What do you mean he?”
“Charles Werner.”
“How do you—” He stopped and took a deep breath.
But I made this house a home for those I had, and in preparation in case more came. Your predecessor, he … changed. He was lovely, and I thought he was going to stay. But then he changed.
What happened to him?
He was promoted. First to Supervision. And then, last I heard, to Extremely Upper Management. Just like he always wanted. I learned a very harsh lesson then: Sometimes wishes should never be spoken aloud as they won’t come true.
“I’m sorry,” Linus said rather helplessly.
“For what?”
Linus wasn’t sure exactly. “I don’t—” He shook his head. “I don’t know what he intended.”
“Oh, I think I do.” Arthur stepped away from the bottom of the stairs. He traced a finger over the burnt surface of the desk. “I suspect he read something in your reports that caused him concern. This was his way of intervening.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s who he is. People can present themselves as being one way, and once you’re sure you know them, once you’re sure you’ve found what you’re looking for, they reveal themselves for who they really are. He used me, I think. To get him what he wanted. Where he wanted.” Arthur rubbed his hands together. “I was younger, then. Enamored. Foolish, though you wouldn’t have been able to convince me. I thought it was love. I can see now it wasn’t.”
“He said this was an experiment,” Linus blurted. “To see if—if someone like you could—”
Arthur arched an eyebrow. “Someone like me?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Then why can’t you say it?”
Linus’s chest hitched. “A magical creature.”
“Yes.”
/>
“Perhaps the rarest of them all.”
“So it would seem.”
“You’re.…”
“Say it. Please. Let me hear you say it. I want to hear it from you.”
You knew a phoenix, then?
I did. He was … inquisitive. Many things happened to him, but he still kept his head held high. I often think about the man he became.
Linus Baker said, “You’re a phoenix.”
“I am,” Arthur said simply. “And I believe I’m the last of my kind. I never knew my parents. I’ve never met anyone else like me.”
Linus could barely breathe.
“I couldn’t control it,” Arthur said, looking down at his hands. “Not when I was a child. The master then wasn’t someone I like to think about if I can help it. He was cruel and harsh, more likely to beat you than look at you. He hated us for what we were. I never knew why. Perhaps something had happened to him or his family before he came to this place. Or maybe he had just listened to the words of the people of the world, and let it fill him like poison. Things were different, then, if you can believe it. Worse for people like us. There are certain laws in place now that didn’t exist back then that are meant to prevent … well. The village wasn’t so bad, but … it was only a tiny place in the big, wide world. It was cherry ice cream from a pretty girl. It made me think that perhaps this island wasn’t the be-all and end-all. And so I made a grave mistake.”
“You asked for help.”
Arthur nodded. “I sent a letter to DICOMY, or at least I tried to. I told them how horribly we were being treated. The abuse we suffered at the hands of this man. There were other children here, though he seemed to have a specific vendetta against me, and I took the brunt of it. But I was okay with that, because the more he focused on me, the less he concerned himself with the others. But even I had a breaking point. I knew that if I didn’t do something, and soon, I was going to hurt someone.”
The more you beat down on a dog, the more it cowers when a hand is raised. If pushed hard enough, a dog might bite and snap, if only to protect itself.
“I thought I was being clever with my letter. I smuggled it out, folded into the top waistband of my pants. But somehow, he found out about it while we were in the village. I snuck off, trying to make it to the post office, but he found me. He took the letter from me.” Arthur looked away. “That night was the first night I spent in here. I burned after that. I burned brightly.”