The Ever Breath (5 page)

“It seemed like it was true,” Truman said.

“But it couldn’t have been,” Camille said, shaking her head. “She may not like the term
grandmother
, but she is one. And grandmothers
invented
fairy tales, didn’t they? You know, to stop kids from taking shortcuts through the woods and eating apples offered by strangers.” She sat down in the wing-back. “But when I asked about her homeland, she didn’t answer me. Did you notice that?”

“I want to know where she imported all that food from. I ate everything and I feel fine.”

“Yeah,” Camille said. “I was sure you’d turn into a Macy’s Parade balloon.”

Truman turned the box in his hands. He wanted it to be something special. Something
truly
special. He was tired of disappointment. Every morning when he woke up, he hoped that that day would be the one when his father came home. But each day passed with no Dad.

“I’m opening my gift,” he said.

“No, wait. We’ll open them together,” Camille said.
Because they were twins, they were used to opening presents at the same time.

Camille got up, went to the other bed, and picked up her box. Then she and Truman sat across from each other and said, in unison, “One, two, three!”

They popped open the lids.

Inside each of the boxes, a little note sat on top of tissue paper.

Truman unfolded his and read aloud:

“‘There are only three true seeing globes in the worlds. This one once belonged to my sister Ickbee. And now it is yours. Let it guide you. Love, Swelda.’”

He looked at Camille. “A
seeing
globe?”

Camille pulled out her note and read it:

“‘This once was mine. It is one of three in the worlds enchanted for seeing. It now belongs to you—with all the power and all the responsibility that come with it. Love, Swelda.’”

Camille rubbed her forehead. “Enchanted!” she said. “Does she think we’re second-graders?”

“I don’t know, but I hope this isn’t more crackers or Chap-Stick.” Truman reached past the crinkly white tissue paper and felt something cool and smooth and round and heavy.

He lifted it from the box.

It was a glass snow globe, as big as a baby’s head.

Camille pulled out a snow globe of her own.

They both shook their globes, and the snow swirled up.

“Look at this,” Camille said, holding hers to the light. “A little mud hut that seems to be covered with roots and vines.” The little house was situated in a dense forest, with trees
crowding around it. “And look,” she said, “there’s an old woman peeking out of one of the windows.” They could see only half of the woman’s face; the other half was hidden behind a yellow curtain. Camille squinted. “It looks like she has two cats sitting on her shoulders.” She paused. “No,” she said, “three cats. Maybe four.”

Truman held up his globe. The snow had settled. He and Camille peered at the miniature landscape inside. There was a large tent, its flaps billowing in the watery wind.

There was a young man in a blue hat who seemed to have stumbled backward and fallen on the ground beside a round cage that held a straggly dog. A woman with dark skin—dry and cracked, as if mud-caked—stood over him. She was dressed in a hooded cloak. On the ground between, there lay a knife, its hilt in the shape of a snake’s head with the flared feathers of a parrot.

“It’s like Grossbeak’s head, but on a snake,” Truman said.

“And look at his hat,” Camille said.

It was wooly, much like their grandmother’s hat. “That’s strange,” Truman said.

They both inched even closer to the globe. The man on the ground was wearing a white shirt, but it was turning red—a bright spot of blood was spreading across his white shirt!

Keep your eyes on those gifts
, Truman heard his grandmother’s voice repeat in his head.
Keep your eyes on them!

Truman couldn’t sleep that night. The room shifted with strange shadows, and the narrow bed squeaked every time he moved. He lay on his side and stared at his snow globe sitting on the bedside table. Even now, just sitting there, it shimmered. Had the woman in the hooded cloak stabbed the man on the ground? What kind of grandmother gives a snow globe like that as a gift?
My grandmother
, Truman thought.

Camille was having no trouble at all sleeping. She was even snoring a little, cradling her snow globe like a football.

Truman always had trouble falling asleep. When he closed his eyes, his mind would be flooded with strange creatures—roaring, clawing, creeping, pouncing. His father called his imagination his blessing and his curse. But it seemed like just a curse to Truman.

In addition to the strange room with its strange noises and shadows and the eerie image in the snow globe, Truman was being kept up by his stomach. It was gurgling. He wasn’t
sure how it was possible, but he was hungry. And he’d just eaten more than he ever had in his entire life!

As he tossed and turned, he only felt hungrier and hungrier. Eventually, at some point after midnight, it dawned on him that he hadn’t really
eaten
dinner. He’d
tasted
it! It had been a
tasting
tale! There were tons of food left over too, in all those containers. He put on his glasses, kicked off his blanket, and decided to go downstairs for a late-night snack.

He took the snow globe with him. He could stare at it while he ate—maybe he’d see something that made sense. He wanted desperately to connect the snow globe to the story Swelda had told.

He tiptoed out into the hallway and passed Swelda’s shut door. He could hear her snoring too, loudly. He was glad she was asleep. He was embarrassed by his pajamas—blue flannel with red buttons. Who had buttons on their pajamas anymore?

He ran his hand along the water-stained wallpaper—the dragonlike Chinese fighting dog—as he went down the stairs. The living room was dark, but he could see the dim shapes of the furniture, as well as the hall tree standing quietly by the door. It looked a bit drier than it had the day before.

When he stepped into the kitchen, he felt the wall for a light switch. He patted the spot where the light switch was at home, but there was nothing. He patted a bit more. Still nothing. And then, as if by magic, the overhead lights shone bright.

And there, claws gripped to the back of a chair, was Grossbeak. His perch was mounted on the wall right next to a light switch. The wall had a long, wide crack running all
the way to the ceiling. Truman didn’t remember seeing it when he’d been in the kitchen the day before. Was it possible he hadn’t noticed a crack that big? Did it just appear, like a crack shooting through the ice on a frozen lake?

Truman looked at the crack and then the light switch and then the parrot. “Did you turn the lights on?” Truman asked, imagining him pecking it with his fat, curved beak.

Grossbeak bobbed his head.

“Did you just nod at me?” Truman asked.

Grossbeak bobbed his head again.

“You’re a smart bird, aren’t you?”

“Parrot, knucklehead!” Grossbeak squawked, correcting him.

“You know it’s not nice to call people knucklehead, right?”

Grossbeak bobbed his head. He knew all right. And then he added, “Knucklehead!”

Truman gave him a dirty look and walked to the fridge. He opened the door. The containers were stacked everywhere. Truman was delighted. He recalled, immediately, the tastes of the different foods, and with each remembered taste, a bit of the story swirled within him too. He remembered the strange dizziness of the tale, the way it felt inside him. He wanted that feeling back again.

And he realized that he wasn’t hungry for the food—or not just for the food. He was really hungry for more of the story.

Feeling greedy, he picked up a mini-tower of containers, turned around with his arms full, and shut the refrigerator door with an elbow. He set the containers on the table.

Grossbeak glared at him, flaring his head feathers.

“What?” Truman asked, innocently. “I’m just getting a snack, that’s all.”

The parrot shook his head.

“Do you have a problem with that?” Truman asked, spreading the containers around on the table, trying to decide which one to open first.

Grossbeak nodded. His scaly feet paced back and forth on the back of the chair.

“Too bad,” Truman said.

But when Truman pulled up the corner of a lid, the bird squawked viciously and beat his wings, lifting his body off the chair. He flapped in a circle over Truman’s head.

“Hey!” Truman shouted, covering his head with his arms. “Stop it!”

But the parrot only became more vicious, snapping his beak and squawking. He flew up toward the ceiling again, but this time he dive-bombed.

Truman grabbed his snow globe and took off running. He sprinted one lap around the tiny kitchen, the parrot flapping wildly behind him, and then darted into the dark living room.

Truman stumbled. Everything went quiet for a moment. He thought he might be able to hide here. The bird seemed to have disappeared into the shadows.

But suddenly, in a gusty flap of wings, he was there again, right in front of Truman’s face, snapping his beak as if he were testing the amount of force it would take to peck a boy to death. His wings stirred a breeze so strong that it rippled Truman’s hair and shirt.

Truman darted behind furniture and curtains. “Back off!”
he shouted. He knew his sister would sleep right through all of his yelling. Was Swelda the same? Could anyone hear him?

He dodged and parried, and eventually he wound up near the front door. The bird blocked him in, massive wings beating, plumage flared. Truman saw no way to escape him—except through the front door, out into the night.

Truman struggled with the lock and the doorknob, but at last the door swung open. Truman slammed it shut behind him.

It was dark outside, except for a distant floodlight on the golf course. It had started to snow. The scene was dusted in white, much like the one in the snow globe that Truman still had tucked under one arm.

Barefoot and wearing only his pajamas, Truman stood on the front stoop, wondering how he’d get back inside, past Grossbeak, to his bed. And then he heard a pecking noise on the other side of the door, and a click.

“Grossbeak?” he said.

Truman turned the knob.

The door was locked.

Truman hugged the snow globe to his chest and tried to wrap his arms around himself to keep warm. He started hopping from foot to foot to keep the snow from stinging his bare feet. The snow was coming down fast. The flakes were heavy and fat, and the fog was so thick that Truman could see only a few feet in front of his nose. Everything was white. His glasses fogged up too, so it was like trying to see a cloud through a cloud. He pulled them off and wiped them on his pajama top, but as soon as he put them back on they fogged up again.

He wondered if he should pound on the door and call for help. But would Swelda and Camille even wake up? Or would this just rile Grossbeak?

Truman remembered the lost golf balls he’d seen earlier. He could dig for some golf balls in the grass and throw them at the boarded-up windows. It was all he could think of, and he had to try
something
. He couldn’t stay out here all night!

As he walked down the brick steps, he felt the edges crumble just a bit beneath his feet. Was the house about to collapse?

He tiptoed through the snow to the deep grass near the bushes where he’d seen golf balls earlier. The grass was stiff with cold.

Then he heard a small cry. It rose up in the night air. Two sad notes:
mewl-mewl
. Like a cat, but not quite. The voice was sadder, more human.

“Mewl-mewl,” it cried again.

Truman remembered the shiny black tail of the cat he thought he’d seen in the bushes when they first arrived. Was the cat still lost out here in the cold?

“Here, kitty,” he called. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

The cat cried again, in that nearly human voice. Truman could see only white and the clouded outlines of the nearby bushes, the edge of the house. The cry sounded even farther away, like it was coming from the side yard. He followed the voice. “It’s going to be okay,” he called.

Truman kept one hand on the side of the house so as not to lose his bearings. The fog was rolling in even more heavily. Now he could see only a white mistiness.

“Mewl-mewl,” the cat cried. This time it sounded like it had turned another corner and was coming in from the backyard.

“I’m coming,” Truman called. “Stay still.” He’d decided that, even though he was allergic to pet dander, he’d pick the cat up and bring it inside—however he could get inside. Maybe it was a kitten that had gotten separated from its mother and was now lost in the freezing cold. He would heat up some milk and put it in a saucer.

Truman was in the backyard now, blinded by whiteness.
He could see the small glowing cracks between the boards nailed over the windows in the kitchen. But that was all.

“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” he called again.