Chapter 3 - Not Being In The Know Is Safer And Hurts More

Your mother warned you, when you were little, not to talk to the Dusek boy. You remember curling up by her side as she knitted, watching in fascination as she looped the scratchy wool around her needles with practiced ease as the rain pattered lightly against the windowpanes.

"Be a good girl and listen to your mother, now," she had said, and you had straightened your spine and sat at attention and tried to prick your ears up like the dogs in the street do when you whistle at them, because you had always tried your hardest to listen to your mother. She had finished her row, glanced at you, and smiled, before turning her needles and starting another.

"Do you know the Duseks?" she'd asked, smile fading slightly as the name passed by her lips. "The family down the road?"

You had thought hard about it, wrinkling your little brows together in concentration. No one had immediately come to mind, although it was hardly your fault for it - the whole town had stopped by your family's dry-goods shop at some point or another, and an eight-year-old couldn't be expected to remember everyone.

"No-ooo," you'd started slowly, before brightening, remembering something else. "I do know their boy, though! His name's Karel, and he sits across from me in school. We play together sometimes during lunch. He knows lots of games. " You'd paused for a moment, tilting your head in consideration. "I like him."

Your mother had gone tense beside you. The rhythmic clicking of her needles had faltered slightly, before picking back up just a little faster than it had been before. You could see her skin fading pale over clenched knuckles.

"Mama? Did I say something bad?" you'd asked, wondering what you could possibly have done to upset her. She'd asked if you knew the Duseks, hadn't she? All you'd done was answer.

Your mother had stayed silent for another moment, fingers still working the yarn, before sighing and setting her knitting aside. She'd gathered you into her lap, arms around your waist and fingers laced together behind your back, and looked you straight in the eyes with an odd sort of solemnity.

"No, baby. Nothing bad. But I need you to stop playing with Karel."

"What's wrong with him?" you had asked, blinking confusedly. "Is it because he's a boy? Because he's not rough like the big boys, honest - he's really shy."

Sometimes he would come to school with bruises on him like the big boys after a fight, though, so you might be wrong - but he never pulled your hair, or shouted names, or got into scuffles with the other boys. You'd asked about the bruises, once, and he'd mumbled something about falling down the stairs. Maybe he was just clumsy.

Your mother had smiled a little at your remark, slowly stroking your back with her thumbs. "No, it's not because he's a boy. It's just that his family..."

She had trailed off, looking over your shoulder at the window. The rain was coming faster, now, drumming against the windowpanes. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance. She'd sighed, looking back to you with sadness in the creases by her eyes, and you had paused, expectant, watching her mouth open and close as she struggled to find the right words.

"There's something very bad about his family, and I don't want you to get caught up in it," she'd said, having finally settled on the words she needed.

"What kind of bad?" you'd asked, head tilted inquisitively to the side. "Bad like apples?"

Your mother had told you about apples; how some of them were rotten to the core, and how even one of the rotten ones could spoil a whole barrel. You'd seen a rotten apple, once, in the midden heap by the grocer's shop. Was that what Karel's family was like?

"Not… exactly," your mother had replied. "It's not their bodies that are rotten, it's their souls. Do you know what those are?"

"I think so. Granny told me that souls are something inside of you, kind of like a conscience, that say whether you're good or bad," you'd said, brow scrunched as you tried to remember the conversation's details. "But Karel's not bad!"

"I'm sure he's not," your mother had placated. You could tell she didn't mean it, but she continued before you could voice an objection. "But his family is. They're bad apples, rotten to the core - you're too young to remember, but Karel's grandfather was an absolute menace. His father's no better - I've heard the constable talking about him many times before."

You'd stared silently at her as she spoke, her mouth twisting like she'd tasted something sour. Her eyes, though, had been sad.

"I know he might seem kind to you now, but listen to me - people are just like apples," she'd continued. "Even if someone starts out good, if they remain too long with rotten people, they won't stay good for long. Get away from Karel Dusek while you still can, and stay away from his family, too."

"But we go to school together," you had protested, heart stinging at the potential loss of a friend. Sure, the girls there were her friends too, but none of them were Karel. "I can't help but see him. And besides - I'm a good apple, right? Maybe I can help him stay a good apple, too!"

Your voice had pitched up at the end with indignation, adamant in the defense of your friend, and your mother had closed her eyes. Her voice, when she spoke again, was tired.

"I can't stop you from talking to him, love, but believe me when I tell you that it won't end well."

"He's not forbidden?" you'd asked, to be certain.

"No. You can still talk to Karel. But stay away from his family - if you're right about him, he may be the only good one in it."

You had smiled at her, relieved that your favorite playmate was still allowed to you. "Thank you, Mama."

"If he ever hurts you or threatens you, though, will you promise to tell me about it?" your mother had asked. "Promise me."

Her words had been heavy, solemn, like an oath taken before a priest. They scared you a little bit, but you swallowed and nodded your head.

"I promise."

"Good girl," she had replied, the tired heaviness gone from her voice. Instead it was warm, like it usually was, and she'd smiled again. "Now, let's go to the kitchen. Heavy talk like that needs a snack to chase it off."

She rose, and you rose after her, holding one of her hands between both of yours as you walked to the kitchen. Despite the weight of the promise you'd just made, you couldn't find it in you to feel worried. Karel was your friend, after all. He was sweet, and funny, and quiet - he would never hurt you. You were sure of it. Firm in your convictions, you padded to the kitchen by your mother's side, tempted by the promise of food.

You remember walking to the schoolhouse with your lunch pail in hand a few months later, the sunny weather putting a skip in your step. You couldn't wait to chat with Karel before class - you'd missed him over the weekend, and you still weren't allowed to visit him outside of school. You hadn't said anything to him about the conversation you'd had with your mother that rainy afternoon; he might be sensitive about his family, after all. No need to call them all bad apples, even if he was a good one.

Spotting him by the schoolyard gate, you waved to him energetically. He raised a hand in greeting quickly before dropping it to his side, a grimace of pain crossing his face. You were still a good distance away, but you couldn't possibly have missed it. Trotting as quickly as you dared towards him - running would kick up mud, and wasn't ladylike, besides - you could see him breathing heavily, one hand clutched to his ribs. His face was still twisted slightly with pain as you approached him, but he'd made an impressive effort to appear like everything was normal.

"Laika, hi!" he said, the attempt at brightness ruined by the way his voice hitched in the middle of your name. His eyes had bags under them, the way your father's did when he'd stayed up all night, but you had a feeling that wasn't the reason this time. His face was bruised today, more than it had ever been in the past. The splotches of blue-yellow-brown stretched down his neck, disappearing under his shirt, and from the way he was still gingerly holding his ribs you realized it was probably worse down below. One of the bruises on his cheek was clearly in the shape of a hand, broad-palmed and long-fingered. You gasped, the small sound clearly audible even amongst the general clamor of the schoolyard.

"Karel… those aren't from the stairs," you said quietly. He blanched, making the bruises stand out all the more vividly.

"No, I - really, I'm just clumsy, is all -"

"Stairs aren't hand-shaped, are they?" you asked, the rhetorical sentence less a question than a statement. You had raised an arm slowly towards his face, as if he might spook; you let your hand hover over the imprints of the fingers on his cheek, not daring to touch it for fear of hurting him further. He turned away, scuffing his heel in the dirt, and you decided then and there to break your promise of mentioning his family. Your friend was hurting, and it wasn't right.

"My mama told me," you began carefully, "that if a good apple sits next to a rotten apple, the rotten one does bad things to the good apple. She said that happens with people, sometimes, too."

Your friend stayed silent, so you pressed on. "My mama… She said that your papa was a bad apple. Is that why you have bruises?"

"No!" he cried, eyes snapping up to meet yours. "My papa's not bad, I swear! I was being bad, and - and he punished me, that's all!"

"When I'm bad, the worst my papa's ever done has been to send me to bed without supper - and then only sometimes! He's never hit me like that," you had replied, shocked that anyone would want to hurt your quiet friend so much. He was too nice to do something bad enough to warrant a beating like that - which could only mean that his papa was wrong, even though grown-ups were supposed to know what was best.

"I'm glad," he'd said sincerely. "No one should hit you, Laika."

"But it's okay for people to hit you?" you'd asked, shocked that he could even think such a thing.

He had shrugged slightly, wincing as the motion jostled whatever injuries were hiding beneath his shirt. "It's alright. I know how to deal with it."

"Yes, but you shouldn't have to!"

Your voice had come out more shrilly than you'd meant it to, and he turned away again. Silence fell between you as you stood there.

"The teacher's going to call us in soon," he had said quietly. "We should go."

You walked into the small schoolhouse a step behind him, still worried, but still silent.

You had never mentioned the bruises, after that.

You remember walking to school several years later, and feeling panic flash through you when you had realized there was no one waiting to greet you at the schoolyard fence.

Karel had been coming to school with bruises more and more often as time went by, and even though you never said anything, you couldn't help but worry. A tight knot of fear and concern had clenched tighter and tighter in your belly as you'd waited, standing by the gate and hoping for him to show. As the teacher had called you in for lessons, though, you'd resigned yourself to his absence. You went home worried and lonely that day, brushing off your mother's questions, clinging to the hope that he would be waiting for you in the morning, just like always.

He had been missing the next morning, too.

You had kept your cool that day, as well. Maybe he wasn't delayed. Maybe he was out sick. There were lots of reasons why someone might miss two days of school, after all - this didn't mean anything. (You hoped.) Your mother's questions had been even more insistent that night, and you had mumbled something about having a stomach ache before finishing your meal as fast as you could and leaving the table. You hadn't been lying, exactly - there was a knot of worry clenched in your abdomen that was only growing tighter the more you thought about your absent friend.

You had waited by the fence again on the third day, the hope that he was only delayed having vanished. Now, you only hoped he was still alive. You had barely been able to focus on your lessons that day, making error upon error as the girls beside you tittered with embarrassment on your behalf. You didn't care.

Karel was missing the day after that, too, and the one after that. The days had eventually turned to weeks, and the weeks into months, until you'd almost stopped waiting for him entirely.

When he showed up again, slouching against the schoolyard fence, you almost hadn't believed it was Karel at first - he had never slouched like that before, legs crossed in front of him as he leaned against the gatepost. His eyes were closed, head bowed towards his chest in the very picture of sloth, but there he was, standing there like no time had passed at all. You had ignored the unease that twisted in your stomach - what did one affectation matter, really, now that his months-long absence was broken? - and run to greet him, skirts in hand.

"Karel, where have you been?" you had called out to him, smiling as he glanced up. "I was so worried about… you..."

He'd pushed off the fence as you approached, sauntering towards you with all the grace of a predator, and you'd stumbled to a halt, voice withering away into nothing as you took in how different he looked. Not so much with regards to physical appearance, as far as you could see; he still had the dark eyes, slender build, and mess of brown hair that you remembered. But the set of his shoulders, the swing of his hips as he moved, the cadence of his pace - all of it was wrong, but you couldn't pin your finger on why.

And then he grinned at you, smile replete with sharpened, serrated teeth, and your throat had closed with fear. That wasn't Karel's grin, soft-edged and eye-crinkling and full of good humor. That was the grin that you'd seen on men outside the tavern, whose boundaries thinned and disappeared the more they drank until they hung off each other, leering and calling out to you as you hurried home from your evening errands. That was a grin that promised danger if its bearer caught you, and it was a grin that had no business twisting its way onto the face of your friend.

Something was wrong with him.

"Hey, Laika," he'd said, lips still curling hungrily back as he dragged his gaze down your body. The touch of his eyes made your skin crawl. You had curled one arm across your abdomen to grip your other elbow, shoulders curling forwards defensively, and had met his gaze with wary eyes.

"What, do I scare you?" he'd asked mockingly, gesturing broadly towards his face as he stepped forward. "Just a little present from dear old dad. Pretty cool, huh?"

His voice had come out just as wrong as his movements, with syllables stretched too far, broken off too sharply, timbre just a little too low and tone a little too rough, and your stomach clenched again. He'd kept advancing, closing the gap you'd left, and every instinct you had screamed threat.

"It takes more than teeth to scare me," you had replied in a carefully measured tone, warily meeting his gaze and taking a large, deliberate step back. His face twisted at the action, caught somewhere between amusement and anger, and a chill shot down your spine. You had thought he was your friend, and that he wouldn't hurt you - but clearly, that friendship disappeared when Karel had. Now, you had no idea what he might do. Another moment passed with the both of you standing in silence, until the schoolmaster called the students indoors and he turned away.

"I guess I'll just have to find out what does," he'd called over his shoulder, tucking his hands into his pockets and walking towards the schoolhouse. After a moment, you had followed.

The lessons that day had been easy and uneventful, leaving you plenty of time to think. What you'd told Karel had been true - his teeth alone weren't enough to scare you. Had Karel shown up with no other difference than that, you would have been perfectly fine. But this, now… he scared you. Your quiet friend, bearer of far too many bruises, was gone. In his place was someone you didn't understand, didn't know, and didn't trust in the slightest. Someone who brought so much more to bear than just his teeth to make your stomach clench in fear.

After classes came the lunch break. You had taken shelter among the cluster of girls who ate on the schoolhouse steps, tuning out their conversation as you picked at your food. You had still been too shaken up for an appetite. You'd watched him from across the yard, instead. He had produced an apple from his coat, tossing and catching it one-handedly for a minute beneath the spreading beech tree, before finally biting into it. His teeth had plunged into the fruit like knives. You had watched him devour it, core and all, throat bobbing as he swallowed, and remembered your mother's warning.

You hadn't gone to school any more, after that.

You remember all of this as you stare down at your daughter, curled against your side as you had been so many years back. You take a breath, hold it, and sigh.

"Nina, love," you say, "listen to me."

She shifts against your side and looks up at you, wide-eyed. You turn towards the window, staring out at the cloudy twilight, stroking her hair with your thumb and remembering old hurts and older warnings.

"Stay away from the Dusek boy," you tell her, and wish you didn't have to.