Chapter 53

My gaze flitted back and forth from the doorway leading into the kitchen to Joshua, who had climbed to his feet.

"I will speak to him," Joshua offered.

"I would prefer another moment of his time, if you do not mind."

Both Joshua and Julia gawked at me as though I had gone mad.

"Alone?" Julia asked incredulously. She wiped her tear-filled eyes and looked me over. "Are you certain?"

"If he is still out there," I said as I looked to Joshua.

"Unless he climbed the fence, he is still in the courtyard as the gate is locked," Joshua explained.

Quite frankly I would not have been surprised to find Phelan scaling the fence merely to avoid me.

"Ten minutes," I said. That was far more time than I expected we would tolerate one another, but I desired another opportunity to speak with Phelan. I looked at Joshua, who offered a solemn nod in return.

The kitchen was empty when I walked through the brightly lit area with food already prepared and plates waiting to be served. The two servants were huddled in the pantry, and their whispers ceased the moment they saw me pass through. The younger woman with the jet black hair pointed toward the back door, which was creaking on its hinges. I nodded and turned away from them.

There was a step down into the courtyard, which I failed to notice in an unfamiliar house. I stumbled out the door and nearly into Phelan, who whirled around when I released a grunt of surprise and righted myself. His square face glistened with perspiration, the startled look in his eyes quickly replaced by annoyance. I thought for certain he would brush past me and exit the courtyard, but he stayed his ground.

"Careful, there is a step," he dryly remarked.

"How very kind of you," I muttered.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness after the bright lights in the kitchen. Through the thick bushes and smaller trees I saw what appeared to be a narrow alleyway behind the house. The courtyard itself was small with stone posts and a wrought iron fence. The posts had small statues and busts atop them, most of which were tangled in ivy. On any other occasion it would been a beautiful location for a chat, but with Phelan it felt like more of a cage.

Phelan stood at an angle and attempted in vain to roll up his torn sleeve. His shirt was untucked, and his disheveled appearance made him every bit the picture of my drunken, angry father cloaked in shadows.

I stared at the scar tissue on his forearm while he looked away from me, and eventually he gave up on his sleeve and straightened his arms.

"Why don't you step closer for a better look?" he asked without meeting my eye. "No charge for the first glance."

"My father did that to you?" I asked without acknowledging his remarks.

"Your father," he said tersely as he flexed his hand. "Bjorn Kimmer."

"It is a burn," I observed.

The scar spanned nearly the length of his forearm. Red and angry in appearance, I imagined the nerve damage still bothered him tremendously.

"It was," he corrected. "Now it is nothing more than puckered, misshapen flesh."

"You are a painter," I said in an attempt to make conversation. Naturally, Phelan said nothing. "Does it affect your work?"

Phelan smiled to himself. "Praise God I did not have my right hand damaged. Is that what you were thinking? How very kind of you to pity me."

"It is not pity," I assured him.

Phelan shrugged, and with that dismissive gesture, I stood awkwardly in front of him while he casually ignored me.

"Your father must have been upset when you were injured," I said at last.

Phelan ran his fingers over the burn. "You mean Alak Kimmer?"

I nodded despite Phelan refusing to look at me.

"What did Alak tell you of me?" Phelan asked.

I opened my mouth to defend my uncle, but in all truth, he had said so little of his middle son that I had nothing to share. I knew they had not been close, at least not in the years before my uncle found me. Whatever had fractured their relationship was never spoken of while my uncle was alive.

"He said you both had your differences," I replied at last.

Phelan nodded. He turned to face me and straightened his cravat despite his shirt torn and in disarray. "How did he refer to me?"

"As his son," I answered. "Of course."

Phelan waved off my words with a flourish of his right hand. "Nothing more than an overused term of endearment. I could have been some filthy beggar on the street and he would have called me his son."

My chest tightened. As much as I did not want to share any part of my past with Phelan, I could not tolerate his disparaging words about my uncle.

"That was how he found me. Filthy and limping in the shadows in search of something to eat," I said. At last I had his undivided attention. He dropped his hands to his side and met my eye. "And you are correct. He did call me his son, despite looking like a mongrel. He referred to me as his own when my own father did not. It was not an overused term of endearment to me; I wanted to be his son. To this day, I still want to be his son. I would have traded places with you-"

"Traded places with me?" Phelan asked incredulously.

"Without a second thought."

"And he would have loved you more?"

"That...that is not what I said."

"Then what are you saying?"

My frustration threaten to get the better of me. "You had a father who loved you, and despite your differences, he still cared deeply for you. I had nothing. For the first thirteen years of my life, I had nothing, and then for six months I had someone who offered his guidance rather than a heavy hand. What did you have?"

Phelan crossed his arms and looked me over closely. "Do you want to know what I had? Do you really want to know?"

He stepped closer, his voice a dark rumble. My muscles tensed, my hands in fists and shoulders squared as he came and stood inches from me. He looked me over, scrutinizing every detail with his dark eyes as though he saw through my mask and hair piece to the visage beneath.

Seconds passed, and he took a small step back. "I had no bed, no food, and rarely anything that could be considered clothing. There was a single room with a fireplace that was not lit consistently in winter." He held his left arm up a second time and moved his thumb. "And there was an infant screaming out of cold and hunger confined to a cradle in the far corner. He would not stop crying, not for hours on end when he finally exhausted himself. I was seemingly the only person who heard him wailing."

"That is not true." I knew my uncle loved his youngest son. He mentioned him frequently, this child with the twisted spine who had perished in his first few years. They shared their first name with my own son.

"He was deformed," Phelan said. "He should have died at birth, perhaps, but he did not. I fed him what I could, cold goat's milk from a dirty bottle. I cared for that screaming, deformed brat when no one else would."

Rage became nearly impossible to quell. "Not another word," I said through my teeth. "Not another damned word. Your father loved the baby, he would never allow such a thing."

"Did he?"

"You know he did," I said through my teeth. "My uncle loved all three of you, despite what delusions cloud your memory."

Phelan made another gesture like he was shooing away a fly. "Alak Kimmer provided food, shelter, and clothing, but he was not my father," he said firmly.

My heart stuttered. Eyes narrowed, I shook my head. "You are mad."

"Am I? What do you know of it? You said yourself I resemble your father," Phelan said. "Why do you think that is?"

I glared at him, barely registering his words. "You are not…you cannot be..."

Phelan shrugged. "Fine. Then I am not and cannot be."

"Alak-my uncle- he would have told me if we were..."

"Brothers," Phelan finished on my behalf. "Are you certain?"

His questioned threatened to unravel the perfect tapestry I had created in my mind of my uncle. I could not imagine why he would have kept such information from me in the months we traveled together.

"Did he tell you how you came into his home? How he found you when you were months old? The condition we were both in? Did he tell you why you returned to our father?" He snorted and shook his head. "Your uncle did not tell you nearly as much as you thought."

"Enough," I said through my teeth. I turned away from Phelan, unsure of what to say in return given his claims. I thought of Alex left behind as an infant, of how I had no idea how to properly care for a newborn. I could not imagine the duty falling upon a child who could not have been older than four.

"You-you cared for me?" I asked under my breath. I stood with my back to him, unable to fully comprehend his words.

Not once had I ever considered the possibility of a sibling, but there was no denying Phelan was the mirror image of my father. He was leaner in build, tall and thin like I had always been. I wasn't sure if we were truly similar or if I was desperate for kinship, but I thought of what Julia had said to me days earlier in that she thought I looked similar to Phelan.

"How do you think you survived birth?" Phelan asked.

I turned to face him again and wordlessly shook my head. From the corner of my vision I saw movement from the open doorway, but did not turn my head to see who peered out.

"I had always assumed that my mother and father had done the bare minimum to keep me alive," I said at last.

"Keep you alive for what?" Phelan asked.

I didn't respond as I had no idea. When I was much younger, I assumed they kept me alive out of duty, then as I grew older and more aware of how parents treated their children, I felt as though my father wanted me simply as a tool to release his anger. Once I was free from their home, I no longer fixated on the reason.

"You have no idea what I experienced," Phelan said as he examined the scar on his hand and arm. At last he sighed and started to walk past me, but I stepped in his path. "None at all."

"Then tell me," I said.

"Why?"

"Because…"

"We are family and I am dear to you?"

"No," I replied. "I mean nothing to you and you have been nothing more than a name to me."

Phelan raised an eyebrow. "Then what do you want?"

"The only parts of my life I recall before my uncle taking me away is being alone or being punished. I have nothing else, nothing for years. Nothing until...my uncle. Our uncle. And then after he passed away and I buried him..." My voice trailed away, and I had no desire to divulge what happened in the months following his death.

"And this will make you less lonely?"

His question made me shiver. "Nothing will ever make me feel less alone, at least when it comes to my youth," I answered. Nothing Phelan could have said in that moment would end the constant thrum of forlorness I felt after so many years filled with solitude. "I have come to realize time does not heal all wounds."

"Time heals nothing," Phelan said bitterly under his breath. He looked up at me suddenly, his eyes so cold and dark I fought the urge to look away from him. "Tell me, Monsieur Kire, did he ever knock you to the ground, then order you to stand again so he could push you down once more?"

My heart stuttered. I inhaled sharply and felt my skin prickle. Out of all the moments I could recall as a child, there was one that was clearer than all others.

"Many times," I answered softly. "I always thought I could please him if I did as he asked."

"Please him," Phelan scoffed. He gave me one last look, his dark eyes more apologetic than scrutinizing.

"Why did he burn you?" I asked before he walked away from me.

His body stiffened and he stood to his full height. The moment his eyes hardened, I regretted my inquiry.

"Because Bjorn Kimmer was a drunken bastard, and he had no desire to carry wood into the house in the middle of a snowstorm."

I blinked at him as though somehow his words might jar my memory of the instance he recalled. At last I slowly shook my head. "I apologize, I do not know what you mean."

"Of course you do not know what I mean. It was January, perhaps early February. You were two, maybe three months old at the time. Starving. Filthy. Your fingers were blue from the cold and every scream was emphasized with your breath in the air. I could not feel my face and my stomach was empty despite repeatedly asking our mother for food."

At months old, I was far too young to recall that day, but I nodded nonetheless. I could picture the room in the back of my mind; my mother seated by the window or near the fireplace, rocking back and forth as she muttered incoherently to herself. I had only seen the upper floor of my parents' home a handful of times, mostly while being dragged through on the way back to the cellar, but I could picture it nonetheless with its bare dirt floors and empty walls. Barren, I thought, lacking anything of beauty or interest.

"I placed the last logs into the hearth to keep from freezing to death, and he asked me who would venture outside and bring in more wood. When I failed to give the appropriate answer, he told me if I was so damned cold, he would make certain I never feel winter again."

Phelan paused, his gaze distant, his eyes narrowed. "He yanked me across the room by my wrist, then shoved me forward in front of the hearth with my arm held at the elbow. He extended my forearm over the flames, his fingers digging into the crook of my elbow so hard I thought he would crack my arm in half. I struggled and begged for him to let me gather more wood, but he refused.

"And then, when the heat grew unbearable, I screamed and flailed with such force I lost my balance and fell to my knees. My flesh had already started to blister when he at last released me. Of course, he did not let go because I screamed in pain. No, no he finally stopped when he could no longer tolerate the heat from the fire burning his own hand," Phelan answered. He made a sound, a sort of half-heart, humorless chuckle. "I ran outside and placed my injured arm as far as I could into the snowbank. Then I gathered as many small sticks as I could carry with one good arm to feed the fire until our father decided he would carry more wood into the house."

He spoke quite eloquently, as if he read the words aloud from a book he had long since memorized. After an agonizing moment of silence, he searched my face, his dark eyes haunted with remorse. Eventually he turned his attention back to his arm. "And now I feel nothing."

The nonchalant way in which he spoke made me shudder. I could see my father's face in the back of my mind, his deep-set eyes turned to cavernous pits, his angular features aglow by the firelight as he steadied his oldest son's outstretched arm. I thought of Alex as an infant and as a small child, of how there were many instances where he frustrated and angered me to no end, but not once had I ever considered harming him in such a manner.

"Is that why you are angry with me?" I asked suddenly. "Because you attempted to keep me freezing to death and this is the result?"

His mouth twisted. "No," he answered flatly.

I stared at him, unsure of how to respond. I wanted very much to believe that there had been someone at some time who had cared for me long before my uncle had taken me away, but Phelan seemed like the least likely person to spare me a second glance.

"Then why-"

Phelan swung away from me and brushed past Joshua, who stood in the doorway. He paused briefly to nod at Julia and offer a quiet word before he disappeared.

I stood with my mouth agape and heart racing long after he disappeared. All of my life I had come to expect others to say disparaging words or treat me with malice and cruelty based on my appearance, but Phelan disliked me for a reason he kept to himself.

At last I forced myself to take another breath. "He is telling the truth," I said without meeting Joshua's eye.

"I did not hear all of what was-"

"You heard enough. Is he telling the truth?"

"Yes," Joshua answered plainly. "I apologize for not offering an explanation to you earlier, but I thought he would want to tell you himself."

The moment Joshua finished speaking, the front door slammed shut, and with it any hopes of Phelan answering the ever growing list of questions about our apparent shared past disappeared.