The changes of the seasons were visible to us only through a few small windows. I had marked the passage of time with tally marks on the attic wall. Ed and I had been held in captivity for one year.
It was mainly the maid who brought food to us. Only once every few months did Father visit us. When asked about his progress on resurrecting our mother, he became vague and evasive. Even I was beginning to feel something was amiss. I could feel the hope seeping from my heart day by day.
But if any of our captors thought they had broken us enough to cause a rift, they were dead wrong. Our bond was stronger than ever.
Ed, now more than halfway through sixteen, was my fierce protector. He treated my uncoordination-related wounds, listened to my daydreamer ramblings, and held me at night when the skies opened up.
One balmy August evening, a downpour erupted. The strong gusts of wind blew the rain horizontally against our bedroom window.
I had joined Ed in his bed. I lay with my back to him. I was not yet asleep, and Ed had rolled his body over to press against me. I could feel his warm, slow breath blowing through my hair. He draped his arm over my middle. Was he asleep? I couldn't tell and I dared not ask. The heat radiating from him was comforting, even on this warm summer night, and I absorbed it into myself, and it caused a fluttering in my chest.
I waited until the next late-night rain, only four days later, to ask him the question that had been nagging at me.
"Ed? How do you know when you're in love?" I asked, facing him in his bed.
For all we now knew of alchemy, we knew almost nothing of the real world anymore, of anything that existed outside the walls of our prison. We certainly had no experience with girls, and yet our journey into adolescense warranted some curiousity.
Even by the soft light of the candles, I could see a flush on his cheeks. He thought long and hard, gnawing on his bottom lip. "I think it's when you can't imagine life without that person."
Oh! So it wasn't such an unfamiliar feeling after all!
I could not imagine my life without Ed. Surely I would have gone insane long ago had he not been my constant companion in this nightmare. We were all we had. No longer could we rely on Father for guidance or affection. The only human interaction we had anymore was with each other.
"I see. Is that all?" I laughed softly.
"No," he replied darkly, but didn't elucidate any further and shut his eyes.
I shifted closer to him. He extended his arm and I laid my head on his shoulder, submitting quickly to dreams.
Ed seemed preoccupied the next afternoon. We finished lunch and headed up to the attic.
Ed had made a beeline to the stacks of alchemy texts while I sifted through a chest of drawers in which I had hoarded my most beloved attic treasures. I pulled carefully from it the faded blue military uniform, its various stars and medals eroded from time, torn threads poking out like thorns. I slipped my arms into the jacket and gently tugged it up to my shoulders. I slipped my legs into the trousers and was pleasantly surprised to find that I could no longer step on the hems. Despite the lack of nourishment needed for young bodies, it appeared at fifteen that I had experienced an unnoticed growth spurt.
I felt eyes on me. I could see from my periphery that Ed had taken his intense gaze from his book and turned in onto me, watching me as he lay on his stomach in the strata of dust on the floor.
I examined the uniform and took note of how it fit my body now. I buttoned the jacket but didn't quite fill out the chest. My torso was leaner, having lost the fleshy layer of baby fat, but still lacked the swelling musculature of a strong man.
As I was lost in analyzing my foreign, new body, I hadn't noticed Ed was now standing near. I arched my back and craned my neck, running my fingers over the frayed tail of the jacket and saw him there watching.
He stepped to me silently. His fingers, tinged gray with ancient ink, took hold of the lapel of my jacket and smoothed it. I watched his chest, a bit broader than mine but still maintaining that underdeveloped litheness, rise and fall as if his breaths came heavy.
He moved his hands upward to my collar and tried to stand it up, for it had ages ago lost its starched stiffness. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, and I watched the flexing of his taut arms and the threads of veins jutting from his wrists.
I glanced up to his face but he kept his focus on my uniform. His opened his mouth as if to speak, but thought twice and instead bit into his bottom lip. He seemed in an internal struggle by the look of tormented confusion across his face.
After a long moment of silence, he finally spoke.
"You look... handsome," he said, though so softly I barely heard.
"You think so?" I replied, my chest swelling proudly.
Moving from the fabric at my neck, he brought a hand to move an errant hair behind my ear. I was in desperate need of a cut. I preferred my hair short while Ed grew his out.
As he tucked my strands away, he leaned in and planted a small kiss on my cheek, as if we were unacquainted royalty from distant lands greeting.
Before I could say anything, he turned from me and headed toward the stairs.
By the time I had disrobed from the uniform, Ed was in the bathroom. I could hear the faucet to the tub running. He stayed in there for what felt like hours. I couldn't stand being coated in layers of attic filth any longer, so I knocked on the door.
"Come in," he said.
He stood at the sink, scrunching the water from his long hair with a towel. His linen pants sat low on his hips, and they were catching the droplets of water that fell from his shoulders and trickled down his bare back.
I perched on the edge of the tub and turned the faucet on. Ed was brushing his hair, staring intently at his reflection in the mirror.
As I turned the faucet off, he left the room and I undressed. Slipping into the warm water felt amazing. Baths had never seemed like such a luxury before, but everything now held much more value, since we had so little.
I took my time scrubbing my skin clean, and watched as the surface of the water became cloudy and gray. I bent my head back to clean my hair. Saturated, it reached my shoulders.
I pulled the plug from the drain and stood, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my waist. I moved to the mirror, fogged over with condensation. I brought my hand to it and wiped a swath of moisture away, barely recognizing the face looking back at me.
From my outgrown hair, to the way my once full cheeks had sunken in, the bones jutting from my clavicle, I saw not a child staring back at me anymore. No, that child was gone. Perhaps he was left in Resembool, growing like a flower in the sun, his body being nurtured by a loving mother. This young man before me had no sun, had no mother, and was not growing strong but wilting, holding no hope in his bones that even if today was dreary, a brighter tomorrow was coming.
There was a gentle rapping on the door.
"Al?" Ed called, and pushed the door open slowly. I turned away from the stranger's reflection that looked like me but was merely my doppelgänger.
"Why don't I give you a haircut?"
I remained at the sink. Ed, having procured a straight razor, came up behind me.
He held my hair between his fingers and began gently slicing at the length. He cut expertly, deftly, and when he was finished the reflection resembled me more.
I ran my fingers over the closely-cropped sides and through the length he kept longer on top.
"Thanks, Brother," I said, but my smile faltered. My lip began to tremble and I couldn't stop it. Soon my eye produced a tear, then another, another, until I was hiding my face in my hands sobbing.
Ed scooped me up in his arms and carried me to my bed. He sat cradling me in his arms, a palm firm against the side of my head, pressing it to his chest.
I cried for Mom. I cried for Father, for he died with our mother, and was now a stranger. I cried for the innocent childhood we were losing. I cried for my suffering, and Ed's too. I would mourn that for the both of us, because he kept his grief locked up inside.
When my tears were spent, Ed pressed his lips to my temple for a long moment. He brushed the fringe from my face.
"I'm getting us out of here, Al."