The sun was just dipping below the tree line when mother appeared, knocking on the door and ordering Garten to open it. Garten obeyed, and then threw himself back onto the carpet, where he'd been lying, looking asleep but not actually being so.
"How's your day been?" She asked, kissing Whittel on the forehead and calling Lucy to her so that she could take her medicine. Lucy also had asthma, and back then they made those with that disease take a daily injection. Lucy never complained.
"Fine." We all replied in unison. Our mother raised an eyebrow, clearly not satisfied.
"I spent the better part of the morning down by the lake with Jupiter." I offered after no one had anything to say.
"That sounds nice."
"He fell asleep."
"He should find something to do."
"Well, we tried." Garten interjected. "But the field was taken." Mother sighed.
"There's other things in this world besides sports, boys."
"Garten's idea." Whittel stated. Garten rolled his eyes, and was about to say something else when Lucy interjected,
"Which you, of course, just had to drag me with on." Lucy's snipe successfully shut down the bickering before it could occur.
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Mother gave us dinner and then sent us out into the back garden. It was twilight. Garten picked up a stick and began to practice sword moves with it. Lucy hobbled over to a bench, cracked open her book, and nibbled on her piece of bread. Whittel attempted to read over her shoulder, but she shoved him away with her crutch. He tried twice more, got the same result, and went over to the small pond and began to chuck stones into it. I wandered to the back of the garden, shoving through an especially prickly bush to reach the back gate. Something was wedged between intricate top of the fence, a rolled-up piece of paper, and I climbed between the bars to reach it. Unrolling it, I discovered a note from Perkin;
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Hi Wilfred.
Jupiter dropped by this afternoon and told me to find some way to get this to you. We decided that it would be fun to see who could get the highest up that old pine at Arner's. He said you probably wouldn't like it, but that he knew you'd be there anyways. He's poking me now for saying that but it's true. Anyways, I'm better today and I think grandmother is going to kick me out of the house tomorrow. See you then! :)
Perkin
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The most infuriating thing about Perkin was how devil-may-care he was about everything. I sighed, stuffed the piece of paper in my pocket, and turned back to the house. I sat down beside the pond, which Whittel was now poking a stick in. Garten had wandered off towards the far end of the water, and Lucy was exactly where I had left her, engrossed in her book.
"I don't know what you want me to do, David!" I froze. So did everyone else. Glancing up, I realized that the window to our parent's room had been thrown wide open. "He's your father, not mine!" My mother always shouted first. But she wouldn't have ever had to shout if my father, David, had never started the fights. "You're hardly here, David. Hardly."
"Do you want to eat Alyss?! If I don't take care of my father's business those ships will be ceded back to the government, and we'll have nothing. You hear me? Nothing!" Garten chucked his stick across the yard, muttering curses under his breath. For a while there was silence, or, silence to us, and sometime in that quiet the world unfroze.
I started to breathe again after I realized I'd stopped.
Whittel was trembling, and Lucy had silent tears running down her face. Garten paced up and down the yard, muttering and casting bitter glanced towards the house. He was always so bitter about everything.
"That isn't the only reason you aren't here." Mother said, voice low, and cold. "We need you, David, and you're not home. I told you when I married you that I didn't need a fortune. You aren't going to build one like this." I was, by that age, keenly aware of my father's desire for money. As keenly aware as I was of my grandfather's greed for ale. Garten grabbed my arm.
"C'mon. Let's go inside." He grumbled.
"Mother didn't say-"
"Who cares what mother said."
"I care." Whittel whispered. He was timid back then, quiet, and anxious. His health wasn't as bad as Lucy's, but it wasn't much better. He was constantly sick and a constant source of worry for the entire family, even more so than Lucy because Lucy always bounced back. Whittel didn't.
I think it was probably because he was so terrified all the time. So scared of being beaten for reasons he didn't know and scared of being shouted at for no good reason that he could hardly stand it. He wasn't like Garten and I; he didn't act out in anger or hyper-vigilance like we did. He felt things different, and I suppose that's all I'll ever know. I don't think he understood it himself.
Garten glared at him, and he shrank.
"Shut up, Whittel." He snapped, and stormed off, letting go of my arm. Whittel looked down, tears filling his eyes.
"Hey, Whittel, he didn't-" Whittel shot a furious glare at me, scrubbed at his eyes behind his spectacles, and dodged off around the side of the house. I looked back at where Lucy had been sitting, but she had vanished. I was quite alone, standing there silent as the sky turned to black.
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Whittel and I shared a room. Garten had his own, mostly because he was the oldest and neither of us wanted to share with him when he was in a temper, which he was that night. Lucy, being the only girl, obviously was allowed her own bedroom.
Our room faced the front of the house, with a window showing a view of the front garden, road, and lake. You could even see the palace. I loved that window. So did Whittel. Besides that, there were our beds, two huge bookshelves on Whittel's side, one smaller one on mine, one wardrobe that we shared, and a table shoved in a corner that was perpetually covered in random junk and things. It wasn't necessarily a nice-looking room, but it was ours, and it worked. Oh, one other thing, we were up in the attic. Why? I'll never know. There were plenty of other rooms.
"You have a reading list from school?" I was on my way up to said bedroom when my father interrupted me. I didn't really know him. He was always away on business trips, and when he was at home, he locked himself in his office and I didn't see him at any other time than mealtimes and occasionally when I was in trouble, and that was the worst. We all feared him when we were in trouble.
"Yessir."
"How many?"
"Ten." Why was he asking? He never got involved in our schooling. His face was hard and narrow, sharp. I didn't know why.
"Which one are you on?" He asked. I winced.
"None, sir."
"And this is….?"
"June 21st sir."
"You need to start, Wilfred." My name sounded strange coming from him.
"Yessir."
"Tell your brothers the same thing."
"Lucy has a list too, sir."
"I'll talk to her myself." I began to climb the ladder, wanting desperately to escape this strange conversation. "Wilfred," I paused, "Tell Whittel he'll be getting new spectacles when my next ship makes landfall, if his book list is complete." I squinted at him for a moment, nodded, and climbed the rest of the way up into my room.
Whittel was up there, curled up in bed, asleep with a book lying next to him. He'd never taken his glasses off, or even changed. I took his glasses off for him, folded them, and set them on the bedside table.
Then, bone-tired myself, I climbed into bed and feel asleep almost instantly. .
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The dream I had that night tormented me for years and years after. I understood it later, much, much later, but then? I was just confused. And scared.
Something was on fire. Something large, and green, and indiscernible through the blaze. The flames themselves were large and bloody, and unlike other fire they didn't fade or burn away, they just devoured more and more, until there was nothing left. But ash. And bones. And even then, the fire still burned, as if it was impossible to stop it, as if the world was ending. Horrible screeching and wailing filled the air, so loud it rattled my skull. It was…...hot. So, so hot. As if the fire were-wait, that screaming wasn't just in my dreams it was-
"Wilfred! Wilfred wake up! Wake up now!" I bolted up right. Garten was screaming at me, and for a moment I was confused. Then I saw that the house was on fire. I let out a yell, and bolted out of bed. Garten gripped my arm, but this time it wasn't because he was angry. It was because he was trying to save my life. Smoke was everywhere and the floor was half gone, the floors below crumbling into ash and cinders.
"How-How do we-" The smoke was making it hard to think. Garten's face was hard, and set,
"We'll have to go out one of the windows!" He shouted over the crackling of wood and the cascade of sparks. "We can get down as far as we can, and then go out that way!" I nodded, shocked and terrified but still able to register the plan. We headed for the door, when I suddenly stopped,
"Where's Whittel?" Garten wouldn't look at me. "Garten," My voice rose in panic and tensity. "Where's Whittel?!"
"I don't know!" Garten screamed. "He wasn't here! I don't know-I-I don't know….." His voice trailed off, his breath coming in short gasps. Whether due to the smoke or the fear I'll never know.
That's when it hit me.
Whittel was missing. In a burning house. Whittel was missing.