Nora & Kettle (3 page)

5. HOME

KETTLE

It’s funny how I always feel lighter, almost like I’m flying, as I head home, even though I’m descending into a dark, dank kind of place.

I whistle as we wind our way through slimy alleyways stinking of trash and other unnamable things. Ignoring the smells, I plunge my nose into the bag of groceries I’m carrying; fresh bread and crisp-skinned apples reward me. Kin gives me irritated, sideways glances as I whistle. I’m only doing it to annoy him, and it’s working.

“Will you
quit
it?” he snaps.

I flick his hat from his head, and it lands in a puddle. He swears, going to punch me in the guts. I swerve and he stumbles, almost head-butting a big, green dumpster. “Ha! Serves you right,” I say triumphantly.

He growls and gives me the silent treatment the rest of the way to the station.

It’s peak hour, the best time to get home. We fold ourselves into the swarms of people huddling shoulder to shoulder, pushing their way through the turnstiles. We line up at side-by-side turnstiles, wait for the person in front to produce a ticket, and then press too close to them, slipping through. We both apologize and run off before they can respond.

It’s a weird, quiet noise that rumbles through the underground space. People moving, thudding into each other by accident. No one really talks, but this many people crammed together just make noise, a chorus of bodies and breathing. I like it. It’s life, messy and complicated, getting mixed up together. This place forces rich and poor to mingle. Down here, we’re all just people trying to get home. I grin at the thought and catch Kin rolling his eyes at me.

We line up at the platform, looking like we’re about to jump on the next car, but as soon as people swarm around the door, Kin and I step backward, kicking an old, wooden door with our heels. It slowly gives way, and we slip into darkness.

As I turn and rake my hands over the cool stones of this dark tunnel, peace hums over me. The moss whispers home. The stones seep comfort.

Kin breaks the silence. “How long has it been this time?”

“Three days too long,” I reply, slapping out at his tall, slim form in the dark. My hand connects with his back. His ribs jut out like ladder rungs.

“But you made it count didn’t you, superhero?” he teases.

“I made some money if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s what I mean.” He groans. “You know, if you skimmed a bit off the top, even if you crammed a few packets of those cookies down your pants, we really would be eating like kings tonight.”

I hoist the bag of groceries tighter to my chest. “That’s not how we do things anymore. You know that. Right? We’re better than that.”

Kin snorts and spits on the ground. “Yeah, yeah. For seventeen, you’re a self-righteous lil’ bastard.” He reaches out to pat my head, and I duck away from his shadow.

“Kin, you are only a couple of months older than me.”

He grunts.

“Now, answer me this—will we eat tonight?” I ask.

No answer.

“Will we eat tonight?” I croon.

“Will you shut up?” he croons back.

“Kin,” I say with a descending tone to my voice.

“All right, all right. Yes, we will eat tonight, and yes, we didn’t steal. Blah, blah, blah.” I smile at his half-hearted whining.

“Good man!” I chirp, my feet slapping against the dirty water running through this abandoned passage.

We come to the second door. Golden light tries to escape through the cracks in the wood.

Kin mutters under his breath, “You shouldn’t bug me so much. I’m much bigger and stronger than you.”

“Yeah, but this is my place. I found it. I called dibs. You wanna live here, then you do it by my rules.” I puff up my chest, smiling. Kidding around. But there’s truth to what I say. I lean against the wall, remembering the fear that drove me into this tunnel, the desperation as I plunged between the legs of commuters and fell through the door. I still feel that pack of sweets digging into my palm, the shuddering terror at the thought of being dragged back to detention or worse, the orphanage. Finding the tunnel was a sign or something. It was a refuge.

We knock on the door in a secret way. Things move and rattle on the other side, and it creaks open. Cat-like green eyes and a broad smile greets me. Keeper runs a dirty hand through her black hair and chomps her teeth like a piranha. “Food!” she yells. She snatches the grocery bag from my hand and runs to the others, throwing random items into greedy hands.

Wrappers scrunch in dirty fingers and eager eyes glance up at Kin and me for permission to start. “Easy. That has to last us a few days.” They tear into the wrappers but eat slowly, taking small bites and rolling down the tops of the packets to keep for later.

My family of homeless children, the Kings of the subway, eat quietly, fight over who gets to eat what, and play.

I snatch a cracker from Krow’s hand and nibble. He glances up at me. “Is that all you’re going to have, Kettle?”

I shrug. “I ate on the way here.”

Kin elbows me in the ribs and whispers, “Liar,” so only I can hear him.

I shrug again and leave the group, running my hands over the stacked stones, raising my eyes to the ceiling and marveling at the arch over our heads. Every stone is in perfect balance. Some people might see sandy, discolored rocks, but when I look at this haven, I see gold. I see a palace. The iron chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, though unlit most of the time, still hold an air of grace to them. The way the candlelight flickers and reflects off the green tiles that pattern parts of the walls and ceiling is a tapestry.

I collapse on a dusty cushion and sigh. The candle sitting on an old cable drum next to me wavers with my breath.

It’s good to be home.

6. GO
ODBYE

NORA

Keep me,
I breathe.
I know it’s impossible but… wherever you’re going, keep me with you.

I’m staring at my feet. The velvet looks battered and dirty, layers of hospital dirt creeping up my heels. My toes push up at the ends.

They lead me down a waxy hall, pink spotted with black mixed with dried blood creates the carpet on which I walk. Frankie’s tiny shoes step in line with mine. I can’t look up. If I make eye contact with one more sorry face, my own will melt away. I could drown this whole hospital in tears. Because this is very suddenly becoming too real. This is not a dream I had. This is not a mistake. My mother is dead.

She fell, she fell, she fell.

I will never see her again.

I clutch Frankie closer to my side and look at my reflection in the heels of my father’s shiny shoes. We are wisps of children, ghost-like and hungry looking.

The nurse gestures to the elevator, presses the button, and gives me an I’m-so-sorry look, which I manage to catch under a curtain of my own hair. I nod.

“The morgue is on Basement Level Two,” she says. “Someone will meet you at reception.”

The doors open, and my father strides inside. He sniffs. This is harder for him than he would like either of us to see. I don’t want to see him like this either. It makes me wonder about him in a way I can’t. The idea that he loves, loses, and feels sadness is too much for me.

When the doors close, my father clears his throat and speaks, his voice dry and wooden, “Girls, I want you to behave respectably. Keep your goodbyes brief and control your emotions.”

Frankie steps forward out of my grasp, and I see my father’s fist clench at his side. “What does respect-a-bubble mean, Deddy?”

I pull her back and answer for him. Cupping her chin, I whisper, “It means don’t scream and cry. Be polite and do as you’re told. Okay?” There’s a warning in my eyes, but she’s not getting it.

“Will there be toys in the mork?” she asks as she grasps the handrail and swings from it, lifting her knees to her chest.

“Toys? Why you… I…” He spins around and grabs at her, but I step in front. His knuckles connect with the top of my ribs, which would have been her head, sending icy splinters of pain radiating up my shoulder. I stumble back and then straighten.

“She’s sorry, Father. She doesn’t understand,” I say, attempting to diffuse and trying really hard not to reach for the throbbing new injury he’s given me. I need to shield her. “I’ll make sure she behaves respectably. I promise.” I bow my head, a small tear squeezing from the corner of my eye.

He seems to remember himself, remember where he is, and irons out his shirt with his flattened palms carefully. He turns his back to me, but I can see his wobbly form and furious expression in the elevator doors. “Right. Good. Make sure you do.”

Swallowing, I hold out my hand to my sister, wishing so hard this wasn’t happening and understanding what my life will be like now.

The elevator chimes, and we step out. Before I’ve taken two steps, my father kneels down at Frankie’s eye level. He puts his hand on her shoulder and smiles. She smiles back. “Daddy didn’t mean to scare you, darling.” He touches her hair, tucks it behind her ear, and sighs deeply. I shudder. “You look so much like Rebecca. You’ll grow up to be a beautiful woman one day, sweetheart.”

Frankie curtsies. “Thank you, Deddy.”

“Are you the Deere family?” A young voice inquires.

“We are,” my father replies.

Minus one. We are the Deere family minus one.

*****

Father goes in first, flanked by a man in a white coat and a police officer. He is in there longer than I expected. Something about identifying the body. When he comes out, he sweeps his long arm around us both and hugs us awkwardly while the police officer watches.

“Can I take my girls home now, Officer?” he asks impatiently, with not much of a veil over his irritated tone.

“Wait.” I step forward. “I thought you said I could…?” He’s eyeing me hard, and I know I’m going to pay for it later, but I need to see her.

“I decided it’s no place for a young lady,” he answers shaking his head. “It won’t do you any good.”

“Please, Father?”

With everyone watching, my father concedes. “Suit yourself. But I warned you.” There are two meanings to that warning—one pretends to care, the other is a ready fist. I bow my head, not even wanting to look at the punishments lurking in his eyes.

“Thank you, Father,” I say to the ground.

I silently follow the police officer through two doors. Bluish lights glow overhead and the cold seeps deep, deep, deep into my bones.

We come to a bank of metal drawers, and the police officer speaks, “Are you sure you want to do this, Miss Deere?” his tone wary.

“I’m sure.”

I’m not sure at all as I watch his hairy hand grasp the drawer at knee height. I kneel down opposite him and wait. He flexes his fingers and tugs on the drawer quite forcefully. It opens just one foot with a metallic, grating screech. A face covered in a white sheet stares at the ceiling.

He shakily pulls back the sheet so I can see her and winces when I gasp. Putting a hand to my mouth, I try to shove the scream that wants to escape back inside. I look up at him, my vision blurred by tears. “Can you give me a moment alone, please?” I whisper.

“I can’t leave you alone in here,” he says kindly. “But I can give you some space.” He takes five echoing footsteps backward, crosses his arms, and leans against the door. He stares up, searching the ceiling and seeming to count the perforations in the white tiles.

I turn my back to him and hunch over my mother’s stony face. Every line seems sharper, her sculpted cheekbones, her fair but long, thick lashes. Her red hair fans out around her head like a crown. I lift a finger to touch her, but I’m scared. Scared she’ll move, scared she won’t. Knowing she can’t.

Her face has been washed of makeup; it’s clean, natural. She is beautiful. She was…

A tear sweeps my face and lands on her cheek. I take a small breath. “I’m sorry.” I reach out with one brave finger and wipe the tear from her quiet expression. Her skin is ice cold. I place an open palm on her hair, and her head rocks away from me like it’s made of hollow wood. Sickness, nausea creeps up my spine. “Please,” I murmur through trembling lips. “Please Mommy, don’t go.”

Please.

7. FAMILY

KETTLE

Time is hard to tell when the lights flicker on and off with a mind of their own, but the frigid air makes me suspect it’s nearly dawn. One day, they’ll stop working all together as the wires erode from lack of maintenance.

I scrape my eyelids of sleep and grit, propping myself up on my elbows. The sound of snoring kids is intermittently drowned out by subway cars whooshing through tunnels. No one stirs. The rattle of wheels over tracks is a lullaby, comforting, reassuring.

Two nights home and now I have to leave again.

I sigh loudly and collect my gear. Keeper’s small voice penetrates the hazy light. “You going already?” she whispers as she wipes the back of her hand under her runny nose. I crawl over sleeping bodies and touch her forehead. She feels a little clammy, a little too warm.

“You feeling okay, Keeps?” I ask softly.

She nods her head and coughs into her palm. “Just a cold,” she says and smiles for me. Her big, green eyes blink, red rimmed. “Mubbee I got allergies?” she asks.

I sling an arm around her slim shoulders and laugh, pulling her to me. “Maybe. Just take it easy today. Make sure everyone cleans up before lunchtime, eh?” She scribbles notes in a frayed pad of paper I gave her six months ago, licking the tip of the pen every now and then.

The corners of her mouth are stained with black ink when she grins and nods. “Yes sir, Kettle.” She sniffs again, and I hand her a handkerchief from my pocket. She nuzzles into my chest, almost purring just like a cat.

“I don’t need anyone getting sick, okay?” I warn with a wink.

She coughs, trying to cover it by stooping over. Her black hair falls over her face in one solid lump. I light a candle and peer at the watch nailed to the rocks behind me. I’ve only got about half an hour.

“Keeps?” She swings around, hair hanging over her eyes and in her mouth. “Come here, let me show you something.” She shuffles closer, looking a little scared. I pull out a hairbrush from the bag I brought home last night. “This is a hairbrush.” She squints at it, waiting for it to do something. “It’s for your hair, so it’s not so, um, hard to manage…” She tips her head to the side, looking for all intents and purposes like a puppy about to have its first bath. She’s our first and only girl resident. “Come sit in front of me.” I pat the ground gently, and she slides backward. “Don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you,” I reassure, although I’m not one hundred percent sure that’s true. “Keeps, what did I say when you came to live here, when you became a King?”

“Dat I could stay as long as I wanted and dat you would keep me safe,” she replies warily.

I grip the brush firmly in my hand and gesture to the section of cold stone in front of my crossed legs. “Do you believe that’s true?”

She scrunches her eyes shut and says, “Yes.” Crawling over to sit in front of me, she turns her mound of thick, black hair my way.

I raise the brush to her head, place it in her hair, and make a liar of myself.

***

The boys cover their ears to shield themselves from her caterwauling.

“Throw her back,” Krow mutters, scowling, which only makes her scream louder.

She bends her head back every time I run the brush through and screeches like I’m actually scalping her. The brush snags in the dirty clumps, and I can’t pull it through. I’ve said sorry about a hundred times but now that I’ve started, I feel like I need to finish it. She needs to look less like a street urchin and more like a child on her way to school if we’re going to remain inconspicuous.

On the hundredth and fiftieth scream, Kin finally storms over. He gets up in her face, and I think he’s going to tell her to shut up. It’s what I should have done, but I feel at a loss on how to deal with a ten-year-old girl who thinks I’m torturing her.

“Keeper, what would you like me to do? I can cut it all off or you can let us clean it up. Right now you look like a drowned rat wearing a dead cat toupee. Do you want to look like a drowned rat with a bad hairpiece?” Kin says.

She shakes her head and whimpers. Then she whispers, “I wanna look like that.” She points to the catalogue I’ve been teaching some of them to read from. A sweet girl with long brown hair in two plaits on either side of her head smiles thinly at us, her eyes round and blue, her ribbons frozen in mid-swing.

Both Kin and I stare at each other and gulp. Then Kin puffs out his chest, swears, and laughs. “If you can rescue women from burning buildings, together we can surely plait a ten-year-old girl’s hair.”

The boys snicker. “Shh!” I snap and then look to Kin. “Here you do this side and I’ll take the other.” We separate her hair into two uneven handfuls and go to work. With my mouth pressed tight, I start, with one eye on the photo we’re trying to replicate. The other eye is watching Kin try to plait hair with his giant paws. I swear he’s starting to sweat. I snort, gripping her hair so it doesn’t fall out.

Kin’s face jerks to mine. “What?”

I look down at the ground, my eyes watering. “Um, nothing…”

Kin holds his twisted clump of hair tightly, a concentrated, almost cross-eyed look on his face. “What?”

A laugh escapes my mouth, and all the boys join in. “I can’t watch you. My God. It’s like watching a bear try to peel a plastic banana!”

Kin sighs in exasperation but refuses to give up, a small smile creeping into his stern expression. “Yeah well, you’re surprisingly good at this. Anything you wanna tell us?”

Laughter fills the rocky space. It’s warm and bright, scrubbing the walls of grime and filling my heart.

When we’re finally done, I grip my plait tightly in my fingers, searching for something to tie it with. Krow steps forward and begrudgingly hands me two bread bag ties, which I wind around the ends. I push Keeps gently in the back. “There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Turning around, she gives me a look of ‘you’re kidding, right?’ and scampers to the mirror. She frowns when she meets her reflection. Her whole face is now visible, smooshed cheeks and pinchy little ears. She looks cute. She tips her head down, and one large lump falls over her eyes. I remember the gift I bought that I was saving for her King birthday. Fishing around in the paper bag, I retrieve two red clips with white polka dots on them. Keeps stares at herself like she doesn’t know it’s her face. I sweep her fringe back and clip it in place. She touches it lightly, like I’ve just put a diamond tiara on her head.

She smiles sweetly, her dark lips brimming with teeth. “I think you should cut it off. I’m a King, not a queen,” she states proudly.

I stall in shock, and then my heart does that proud, pumping-strong thing. Kin slaps my back, and I stumble forward. Keeps draws in a sharp breath as I fall and begins coughing uncontrollably.

“We’re going to be late,” Kin says, extending a long arm in my direction, his eyes sliding to the coughing girl sitting delicately on a faded purple cushion. “We’ll think about the haircut.”

I smile at her. “Think about it some more, Keeps. You might miss it when it’s gone.”

Her determined eyes tell me otherwise. Her sallow, sweaty skin worries me.

We leave the boys and… girl… with instructions and head to work.