Manifest (The Darkening Trilogy) (18 page)

“Miss Lori is quite the cook,” Miquel added.

“Oh, you.  Maybe it’d be better if I wasn’t,” and I gave his tummy a patting. “And this here, at the top of the stairs is your room.  It’s a little small, but you’ve got a great view of the park outside.”  If my heart didn’t nearly break in two when he went over to that bed and put a single finger down on it till it let out a squeak.  The look on his face, you’d have thought I was letting him sleep in a pile of treasure.

“All of these blankets?”

Mercy me, I lost it.  And Miquel must have known since he handed me a handkerchief which I used to dab at my eyes.  “Yes love, all those blankets are for you.”

“
W
hat are your thoughts?” Miquel asked, enjoying a cup of my special tea in the kitchen with me.  I made it with love, you know.  “Oh Miquel, he is the most precious little angel I have ever seen.  I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.”

“How do you think he’ll fare?”

“He’ll do just fine.” I began to rinse out the tea pot in the kitchen sink.  “He’ll have quite a roll to play.  Mark my words.”  But then I set down the pot.  “Miquel, I have to be honest.  I’m terrified.  I never did think I would have to raise a child.”

“I empathize with your fear.”

“I won’t start instructing him for a while,” I said, answering a question no one asked.  “He’ll need time to adjust.  For Pete’s sake the boy’s never slept on a mattress before.  Not that he’s sleeping now, staring up at the ceiling.  Terrible what they said to him.  Just terrible.”

“Who told you?”

“Why would someone have to tell me?  They were, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” he said a bit shamefully.

“Oh, don’t beat yourself up.” And I chuckled, adding, “I’ll be needing you to tell me that in a few years, I’m sure.  Weighs heavy on you, doesn’t it?”

“What?  Oh.  Yes.  It’s hard to see what I may have done to his fragile mind.  What will come of it, five, ten, a hundred years from now?”

“Just as likely our inactions will have done the same,” I sighed.

“Never before have I been so conscious of that fact.  But it must end somewhere.”  Miquel said.

“Yes, I suppose it must.” And at that I scooped up the adorably ugly pug sitting patiently at my feet.  “Mustn’t it Pumpkin?”  And he let out a yelp and then panted.  “He says,
yes it must Mama Lori!
  Don’t you? 
Yes Mama Lori!
  That’s a good boy.  Well,” I said to Miquel after setting Pumpkin down, “you’d best get on your way.  I’d offer you a guest room, but I know you have pressing business to get back to.  Still driving that old boat?”

“You that know I am.”

“Well yes, but how else do I broach the subject.  I can’t just say: it’s such a silly big thing you drive; get a new car.  Wouldn’t be proper.”

“Good night, Miss Lori.”

“Good night to you, Miquel.” I gave him a smooch on the cheek and sent him on his way.  And when he stepped out the door and I turned to look up the thin staircase at Ezra’s bedroom door, I suddenly felt more alone and scared then I ever had in my life.

“
T
hey call this
croque-monsieur
.”

“A crock misser?”

“Close enough, child.  Now here you go, eat up while it’s hot.”

“Miss Lori?”

“Don’t chew with your mouth full, and here hold the fork like this.  Yes, what is it, child?”

“Why am I here?”

“Why, you’re my apprentice.  One day you’ll have my job.”

“But what’s your job?”

“My job is to help the sentiners.  Not a one can figure out the Dewey Decimal System, so they hired us.  That’s a joke, child.”

“Are those the men from the theatre?”

“Yes, but you put that night right out of your head.  You don’t listen to a word of that, you hear me?  One day you’ll understand, but for now, just pretend it never happened.”

“Miss Lori?”

“You can call me mama, child.”  Well I’ll be if the little thing didn’t just burst into tears right there at the table, mouth full of food and fork clutched wrongly in his hands.  I didn’t know what to do.  I pulled his chair over to me and put his head in my bosom and let him cry.  And he cried for a long while.  A good long while about a lot of things, I imagine.  And when he was finished and my apron was covered in tears, I wiped his nose with a napkin and looked into his bright little eyes and I said, “You listen here.  What you’ve been through?  There’s nothing I can do about that.  But you got a chance at a new life, a good one too and that’s all your mama, Bell, could ever want for you.  Sometimes these things happen to us and we can’t do a thing to stop ‘em, but we have to pick ourselves up, you understand, and we have to keep on going.”

He nodded big-like, the whole motion of his neck, the way kids do, and then leaned in and hugged me again.  And when he put his little arms around my waist in gratitude I felt a warmth inside of me I didn’t know could be.  I loved that little boy.  I loved him so much it hurt all over. 

“
A
ll right now, Ezra, I have to take a meeting with someone and it’s important we not be disturbed unless it’s an emergency.  Do you know what an emergency is?”

He nodded.

“Good, so in the meantime I want you to mind the store.  It’s a big task, but I think you’re up to it.  You sit here on this stool behind the counter and make sure to greet anyone who comes in.  How would you greet someone?”

He answered with a timid little curl at the corner of his lips. 

“You say: how do you do?” I instructed him.

“How do you do?” he asked.

“Very well, thank you for asking.”

“You’re welcome.”

“See?  You’re a natural, boy.  A natural.  Now take this book and read as much of it as you can.  And if you finish it you can go get a comic book from that bin by the window – the one that says fifty cents.  You’d be surprised; there’s some good reading in that there bin.  Oh, that’ll be her.” And with that Cassandra Ranico, one of my daughters emerged from her car outside and approached the door.  What a fetching woman she was with her milk chocolate complexion, golden eyes, and silky black curls.  But only one man had her affection – to the chagrin of half the population.

The door opened with a jingle and Cassandra stepped inside.

“Take off those sunglasses, child,” I told her.  “This world is dark enough without you hiding those stars.”

“Hi mom.”  She gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“How do you do?”  Ezra chirped.

I let out a laugh that I quickly stifled.  I didn’t want to embarrass little Ezra for doing just what I told him to and I smiled and nodded at him from behind my Cassandra.

She looked at him inquisitively and suddenly felt ashamed about the recent proceedings.  The shouting match where they picked the Anatheas seemed ill equipped to deal with someone like the boy before her now.  He was still brewing in the pot, not yet sure if he was a stew, or a sauce, or a broth.  They had been trying to taste test a winner by licking the paper recipe, and the whole thing did not an ounce of good for anyone.  This here was the first time she had even heard the little thing speak. 

“I’m doing fine.  How are you?” was her reply.

“Very well.  Thank you for asking.”   

I gave him a smile and a wink and led my daughter Cassandra, disarmed as she was, back to the kitchen.

“
O
kay now, Ezra.  Today we begin our formal lessons.  We’ll start with a pop quiz.  What’s the name of this bookstore?”

“Alexandria.”

“Excellent.  Now for extra credit, what’s the name of the street we’re on?”

“Artemis lane.”

“You never cease to amaze me, boy.”  As scared as he was that first night, after a six hour drive into North Gothica’s forests and suburbs, he remembered the name of the street after passing it once in the dark.  “Did you get to read any of those comic books?”

He nodded.

“Which ones?”

“That half of the bin,” he said pointing.

“My goodness gracious, child,” I squeaked, prompting my ugly little baby, Pumpkin, to bark from Ezra’s lap then snorffle like a pig.  “What one was your favorite?”

“I didn’t like them.”

“Oh?  Well what about the book?”

“I didn’t really like it either.”

“What kind of things do you like to read?”

“I prefer non-fiction,” he said, quite seriously.

Where had that little child gone and when did the professor come into the room and take his place?  It was cute and all to hear the little child with his tiny voice and his trouble pronouncing words because his baby teeth and adult teeth were competing for gum space, but I was more shocked than tickled.  “What book did I give you to read?” Maybe it had been the wrong one.

“
On Darkenings: Volume One
by Sentiner Delano, see pee tee.”

“That’s the abbreviation for Captain dear.  But never mind that.  That book wasn’t fiction.”

He gave a look like a chicken pulling its head back flush with its neck.

“What made you think it was fiction?”

“Pages three through forty-two and seventy-six through three-fifteen.”

I was flabbergasted.  I thought children believed what you told them!  He wasn’t more than nine years old!  How could he question…?  “Well, you’d best try.”  And I’m sure I said it meaner than I meant to.  He looked cowed and I was fraught.  My me, his teen years were going to test me.  “Well what did you like about forty-three to seventy-five?”

“His methodology.”

“Where in the world did you learn a word like that?”

He shrugged.  Pumpkin began to look back and forth between us like he was following a ping pong match.

“Don’t you shrug at me.  Someone must have taught you that.”

“I just know it… like I know all the words I say.”

“All right then, mister, the first chapter…” I said testing the limits of his criticism.  “You don’t believe in the ontology of Gothica?”

“That was based on,
On
Gothican Ontology
by sentiner Bashima see, pee… Captain.  Maybe I should read his book.”

“
Her
.”

“Her book.”

I pressed him for some analysis.  “But what about Delano’s chapter didn’t you believe?”

“Well they both agree that Gothica isn’t normal.  It’s abnormal the way cause and effect work.”

“Go on.”

“But it is all we know – why would there be anything other than
Gothican
reality?  And why would it be different?  And why would that different reality be
normal
?  And where did they get the idea that all things have to have a reason?  Maybe they don’t.  It seems like things just happen all the time, so why does there need to be a reason for each one?  And they talk about kharma a lot.  Why isn’t kharma a good enough reason – just because you can’t prove it or predict it?”

“That’s certainly a lot to think about.  What do
you
think?”

“I think that when there isn’t an answer people make up one.  We need to have answers.”

Despite myself, my eyes must have sparkled.  This boy’s head had a bid ole tube running up into the clouds, and where most people would go insane with a feed of information like that – a spigot gushing thoughts from the city’s mind itself – he had installed a brass filter.  “Well then, I hope that together was can learn how to know these things.”  And I squeezed his hand for good measure.

“Come on, let’s go take Pumpkin for a walk in the park.”

I
t was gorgeous day and the park, more like a town green, surrounded on all sides by a quaint little street of mom and pop shops.  It was our own little forest oasis.  I never got to go out much, not beyond the park anyways.  We lived a secluded life, a monastic one.  It hurt at first – there weren’t two ways about it.  My figure was a fine twenty-nine, but to be honest, I wished it wasn’t.  Those hips an’ cheekbones didn’t do me a lick of good.  Didn’t seem natural either.  A woman ought to age.  She ought to act like it too.  That’s why I had to throw out those dresses long ago.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I still made myself presentable.  I had
two
shades of lipstick and I tweezed my eyebrows the same as any other gal, but there was just no need for a slinky number.  Or a skirt that twirls on the dance floor.  Just no use in it.

“Do we ever sell any books?” Ezra asked me while my ugly little Pumpkin rasped and gasped and choked himself on the leash. 

“Heavens no.”

“But isn’t Alexandria a book store?”

“No, not really.  Here let’s have a seat in the shade.  Oh, Pumpkin, would you stop already?  You’re going to pass out.  You see Ezra, we’re more like
librarians
.  And life is about that exciting.  We live here and catalogue and go over the Hyperion records.  We’re not officially supposed to read them, but it passes the time and it helps us do the other thing that’s not necessarily in our job description.”