by Rob Thurman
“You always were a good brother.” And then he smiled. Niko wasn’t much for smiles. They happened— don’t get me wrong—but they were subtle. The faint curve of a lip, the sly twitch of an eyebrow. Sometimes it was reflected only in the amused turn of a dry word. They were smiles all the same and you did have to watch for them more carefully, but they were there.
This one was different. This one anyone could have seen. It was small, but plainly visible. Grave but content. And it was his way of saying the things that honestly didn’t really need to be said. I was still me, gateway to hell and all. He was still my brother and that was never going to change. My hand tightened on the cloth of his shirt still clenched in my grip. Never.
“I’ll get you some soup.” He waited patiently until I released him. “Georgina has been by several times a day to sit with you.” As I tensed, he shook his head. “She’s fine. Truly. Whatever Hob’s tastes, they didn’t run in her direction. She was mainly dirty and tired. He kept her fed and in good physical condition for the Calabassa. And apparently she and Slay were together much of the time. Such a babysitting detail is good for occupying the mind. She is whole and as she was.” It was a long speech for Niko and I appreciated it.
“Good.” I coughed against the dryness of unbreachable sleep, then cleared my throat. “Good to know.”
It was. I couldn’t see George as anything other than what she’d always been. People change . . . sometimes, but it’s usually not for the better. George was already perfect within herself. I didn’t want to see her altered, withdrawn, suspicious, or uncertain. Shadowed. I didn’t want her time with Hob to have changed her. I didn’t want anything to change her.
Not even me. Especially not me.
“She’ll be back soon.” As I started to sit, he put a hand behind my shoulder and assisted me. “I’m not sure she would leave our apartment if her mother wasn’t so insistent. Considering what her family’s been through, I can’t blame them.”
“Promise?”
“Left this morning.” He cupped the back of my neck before pressing a ponytail holder into my hand. “Chicken broth or potato barley?”
I grimaced and chose the lesser of two evils. “Potato.” Twenty minutes later and minty of breath, I was in the kitchen, wobbly but upright, and spooning down steaming soup. After half of it and a piece of dry toast, I felt steadier. And when there was a knock on the door I was recuperated enough to stand and answer it myself. I opened it, knowing who was waiting on the other side. Not knowing in the way that George knew, but it was a knowing all the same.
“Caliban.” She smiled brilliantly as she saw me. Feature by feature she wasn’t perfect. Her eyes were too large; her mouth was too wide. Her hair now so short made her appear childlike. It didn’t matter. “You’re awake.” Her hand rested on my cheek in a move so familiar I knew she must’ve done it countless times as I slept. It was a hand still scratched, with nails short and cracked from her ordeal.
It hadn’t been my fault that she’d been taken; I knew that now. Hob had been after her from the beginning. We’d been swept up in that net with her. She wouldn’t have blamed me if the situation had been reversed, and I didn’t blame her. How could I? It wasn’t her intention that a tidal wave carry us away. After all, she hadn’t looked . . . not at herself. That was George; that was her way. She was an innocent who accepted the world with all its wonder and all its flaws.
I wasn’t.
It hadn’t been her fault we’d been pulled in over our heads. It would be mine if the same happened to her. George had had one enemy . . . one who coveted her. I didn’t know the number of mine, but it was far in excess of one.
Curious as I continued to block the door in silence, she tipped her head back to study me more clearly. “Caliban?”
“Do you ever look, George?” I asked quietly, although I knew she didn’t. “Do you ever look at what happens to us? To you and me?”
“No, that would be cheating.” There was an impishly gamine turn to her smile. That was George’s philosophy. You took what life gave you and you loved it or you learned from it. Small things could be gotten around—could be changed, but never the big ones. As she said, that would be cheating, and George wasn’t a cheater.
I leaned toward her and kissed her softly. It was a suspended moment. It was the only moment. Then I pulled back and touched her face as gently as she had touched mine. “I think you should look.”
And I closed the door between us.
About the Author
Rob Thurman lives in Indiana, land of rolling hills and cows. Lots and lots of cows. Visit the author on the Web at www.robthurman.net.