Chapter Five
Theo
Before Elise left, I woke several times at night to find my feet carrying me to where she slept. Her face was hidden in the rough pillow, her hair dangling from the side of the bed. I could tell that she rolled around in bed a lot. Perhaps nightmares made her sleep uneasy. In the many times that I woke up to check on her, she was always in a different position.
It was like a dream that kept repeating itself several times with minor alterations. But like many dreams, it started with a nightmare and ended with one.
It was a little before the sun began to rise that I found myself asleep by the door of her room. I opened my eyes and smelled decaying animal skin seeping in from the window. There was another distinct smell in the air—it was rosy. I shrugged and leaped off the floor, and a purple rose fell to the ground. It landed on my shoulder.
I remembered seeing the rose near the willow tree with the swing. I also remembered Elise’s eyes studying the heart of the roses.
I picked up the flower and held it gently in my hand as I pushed the door of her room open. It wouldn’t budge. There was something behind it that made a creak with the wooden planks. I pushed harder until there was an opening for my figure.
She wasn’t there. Elise was gone, and the window was open. Her smell was still there, however, and it remained in the room until the smell of the animal skin overtook it days after.
At first, I thought Elise was probably with Matilda. Maybe they were picking peaches from the peach trees that grew behind our home. But when I smelled the eggs burning, I knew they had to be together in the kitchen.
I found Matilda crying alone near the stove. Somehow, my little heart knew that Elise was no longer around. I held my mother’s shoulders as I kept trying to drag the answers out of her, but there were none. Elise was gone.
It took me a long while to be able to live with that. I didn’t play by the valleys, and the swing by the willow tree was removed by the king’s Hawks. The things that gave life to our memories disappeared one by one until I only had that wilted, purple rose.
***
I met Bernard a few years after Elise left. I had begun working for the king, and his Hawks had begun to recognize me from a distance—not because my face was distinct but because I always hid my six fingered hands behind my back.
Once a week, I visited that willow tree, holding back tears about Elise. But those tears weren’t the only tears inside of me. I had others. The other tears were tears of anger I used up working for the king.
“Hey, kiddo.” I heard his shout from a distance behind me. “Why you alone?”
I was scared. I had a piece of paper in my hands that Elise had left before she abandoned our home. If the Hawks found it with me, they would kill me immediately. I hid the piece of paper under my foot and wiped my eyes.
“Nothing. I’m waiting for the king’s orders,” I lied.
“You think I’m a fool, kid?” Bernard approached me and slapped the back of my head.
I trembled.
“You’re Matilda’s kid, aren’t you?” he asked as he bent to his knees.
“Please don’t hurt my mother,” I begged him, trying to grab a hold of his foot to kiss it.
He pushed me away and smacked my head again, this time harder. I thought I was about to die and hoped my mother wouldn’t follow. I saw a wooden branch dangling from the ancient bark of the willow tree. I reached to grab it as Bernard cornered me at the tree.
“Yes, grab the branch, kiddo. Fight for your life. That’s the only way you’ll survive here,” he shouted.
“Screw you, and screw your bloody king,” I uttered the words that I knew would bring me death.
Suddenly, the pressure he forced on my back ceased. I grabbed the branch immediately and was about to smack him with it, but I saw his smile. He was laughing too.
“Damn, you’re one brave idiot,” Bernard said between laughter. “Did you think I was a Hawk or something?”
“Aren’t you?”
“You’d sure be dead if I were,” he said leaning back on his knees and dusting his ragged, black shirt.
“Who are you?” I asked him, finally realizing I was safe.
“Bernard, the king’s blacksmith.” He shook my trembling hand.
“Theo,” I said, seeing that his eyes were scanning my sixth finger.
“That’s one hell of a finger you got there,” he laughed.
I was silent. My mind flew off to that day when Elise laughed at my hands. The dark-skinned, broad-shouldered man on his knees before me didn’t exist. My mind was elsewhere, locked in its own reminiscence, and that man was invading my moment of remembrance.
Thinking of Elise made me remember the note. My foot wasn’t stepping on it anymore. A slight breeze blew, and I could see the sand carried by the brief winds. I looked in the distance and saw the yellowish paper on the edge of the cliff.
Bernard was staring at me in wonder, but I was focused elsewhere. I ran to the edge of the cliff, and I leaped right before I reached the edge. I jumped forward, and my fingers brushed the paper. The depths of the valleys was beneath me. Next thing I knew, I hung from the ledge with my arms in Bernard’s hands.
“Are you out of your mind? What the hell was that?” he screamed at me and pushed me away from the cliff.
He noticed I was trying to hide the piece of paper behind my back and pulled me toward him and snatched the note from my hands.
“Give it back,” I demanded.
“You know what could happen to you if they saw you with something like this? You would wish I didn’t save you from falling off the cliff.” He blew the words in my face and gave the note back to me.
“What do you want from me?” I shouted back.
“Oh, I’m leaving, but do you want to tell me what you’re doing here in the first place?”
“No, I don’t,” I turned around and stared at the purple roses around the tree.
“You were crying, weren’t you?” he asked, and chills rose up my spine.
“I wasn’t crying. I’m a man,” I said.
“Yeah, you weren’t crying. You were weeping, kiddo.”
“My name is Theo, not kiddo.”
“Goddamn,” he said with sudden anger.
All of a sudden he rushed toward me, held me by the back of my neck, and marched me toward the cliff. I screamed. He put his hand over my mouth to shut me up. He stood by the edge and let my body dangle. I saw the distance of the valley and for the first time in my life felt an alien emotion.
“Can you tell me what you’re feeling?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” I replied with tears falling to the valley.
“Well, think as you fall,” he said and dropped me but grabbed me again.
“Fear!” I screamed. “I’m afraid. I’m scared.”
“That’s one thing. We’re getting somewhere,” Bernard said. “What else?”
“I don’t know. Anger?”
“Exactly. You’re a smart one, Theo,” he said and pulled me back up and threw me on the ground. “Cry as much as you want. Weep if you have to, and never dread a fear that you have.”
“But Matilda says that the world would be better if there were no fear at all,” I argued.
He shook his head and put his both his hands on my shoulders.
“Matilda is a wise one, kiddo, and yes, it would be better if there were no fear, but that’s only because we are afraid of fear. Don’t fear it. It’s as much a part of you as your longing for that girl of yours. Look, know this—if you add the right amount of anger as a response to any emotion, you will save this world from those who create fear or run away from it. If you are never angry or always angry, you’ll become one of them.”
My eyes closed, and suddenly I felt a strong wave of heat engulf my hands. My spine began to feel heavier, and my elbows were beginning to sink into the ground. I looked at him, and I saw that he was startled by something. I looked at my hands again and they were glowing red.
“My arms hurt,” I said.
“I should’ve guessed it. You’re like him,” Bernard said vaguely.