Don't Leave Me Behind

Between ragged breaths, a pain sharp enough to tear her apart seeped in. Anna walked straight past Elliot. He had been listening in a daze to the sound of her footsteps slowly fading when, too late, he turned.

"Anna. I think there's been a misunderstanding…."

He followed her into her room. Anna was squirming her way into the wardrobe.

"Why on earth are you going in there…. Anna?"

Before the words, tangled with a hollow laugh, could even finish, the wardrobe door slammed shut. He stared blankly at the empty place where she had been a moment before, then slowly approached the wardrobe.

"Anna."

No matter how he called her name, no answer came. Elliot set a hand on his hip, drew a deep sigh, and began to rap on the wardrobe as if knocking at a door.

"I have a fair idea what you've got wrong, but it isn't like that. I only went to pay my respects to a priest I knew when I was little. Selling you off, betrayal—how could you even say such…."

"…."

"Anna. Are you listening? Say something."

The knocking, purely cautious at first, gradually gathered force. The wardrobe was so terribly still that fear lurched through him, and before he knew it he raised his voice.

"If you can hear me, please just answer. Anna! Nothing's happened to you in there, has it?"

Thud, thud! The dull beat of his fist against the wardrobe rang through the room.

"Answer me! Come out and talk to me face to face! Hiding like this isn't going to solve anything, and you know it…. Damn it!"

Bang!

His fist came down hard on the wardrobe.

"You think I'm here because I like it? If Freddy hadn't asked me, I wouldn't be stuck doing this at all! How long am I supposed to put up with it!"

Sell her off? A traitor? He'd been shoved into this without a moment to think and was still clawing just to stay alive—so why did he have to hear words like that?

I'm trying, somehow, to get along. Somehow, to live quietly.

"What do you even want from me?"

A month, that was all, since they had met. They had been stuck together the whole time, yet he could count on one hand the occasions they had actually spoken. This half-formed thing between them.

He was still awkward enough to keep measuring the distance, but she, it seemed, was not. So she went on grating at his nerves, crying out to be understood, crying out to be asked after, and had leapt ahead to the certainty that he dared not betray her.

How could I do this to you?

That was a question he wanted to throw straight back. With a bond this thin, how could you do this to me?

"…."

The wardrobe was silent. He did not kick the door the way his temper urged, and no breath thick with anger came from within. An eerie stillness, as if no one were inside at all.

Only after he had coughed out a few dry laughs did he spit the words as if chewing them.

"Do as you like. Do as you like."

Footsteps receded, and then a click—the door shut. In the room, where peaceful midday sunlight came fluttering in, only a cold silence lingered.

All at once, a small sniffle leaked from inside the wardrobe.

Elliot came out to the kitchen, dropped into a chair at the table, and pressed his hands over his eyes. His temples throbbed as if a headache were gathering.

The breath that had kept catching and surging in his chest soon spilled out as one long sigh. He lifted his head without warning and stared blankly at the wall. The clock was already nearing noon. Telling himself he ought at least to fill an empty stomach, he rose unsteadily.

On the counter, the stew he had made yesterday still sat as he had left it.

"…."

Elliot gazed at the cold stew in the pot, then turned up the flame with an ordinary hand. He tried to soothe himself—he had gone hungry all day, and here, fortunately, was something to eat—but a stomach once twisted does not easily come undone.

Soon the stew began to bubble. He gave the stiffened stew a stir with the ladle to loosen it, then took a baguette from the cupboard and cut it into reasonable pieces. Before long a savory scent of stew filled the kitchen.

A cautious taste told him, thankfully, that it had not spoiled. Elliot carefully ladled the stew into a bowl. Even after three or four transfers the pot hardly seemed to have gone down. Well, there was enough for one person to eat all day. Enough, it seemed, to put the cook's care to shame, since someone had not so much as touched it.

Seated at the table, he began to tear into the baguette he had left half-soaked in the stew. Nothing but fresh ingredients had gone into it, and yet, strangely, he could not taste a thing. Only the coarse, tough texture of the bread.

He chewed mechanically, swallowed, and still did not stir for a while. As if waking faintly from a sleep inside the silence, his slowly moving hand reached the water glass. Elliot took a mouthful of cold water. Then he shot to his feet.

A moment later a tray was in both his hands. Along the rim of a bowl brimming with stew, several pieces of baguette were lined in a row. After some hesitation he slipped quietly into Anna's room, which was as still as if no one were there.

Elliot slowly set the tray down before the wardrobe. The fingertips he had extended to knock soon curled back into his palm. He bit his lip and hesitated a long while.

Because if he opened his mouth carelessly, he did not know what would come out. He did not want to spill every word pent up inside him, the way he had earlier, and ruin things.

"…Eat."

Having managed that single word, he fled the room. Only once he was out in the hall did he let go of a heavy sigh.

She was a child dried up like a twig, who had skipped three meals. What was so hard about giving in once?

A good leader ought to know how to read people's hearts.

At the voice that rose without warning, Elliot smiled bitterly.

Major Keaton. I suppose this is why I failed.

The sun crept westward, sinking low.

The kitchen, draped in red evening glow, was deep in cooking. Elliot, searing a thick cut of beef in the pan, lowered the flame and finished with a scatter of pepper. The dessert would do as it was…. Catching the scent of the bubbling cream soup, he left the kitchen satisfied.

He knocked on Anna's door. Beyond the panel, silence. Without waiting any longer he opened it, and a scene not a whit different from midday greeted him.

Elliot walked straight to the wardrobe and dropped down in front of it. At the half-open window the curtain danced without rest. He watched for a moment the violet dusk staining the white cloth, then lowered his eyes.

The bowl was clean and empty.

"…I'm sorry I got angry earlier."

He rubbed at his eyelids as if tired, and laughed shortly.

"I never meant to get that angry."

Murmuring softly, he leaned against the wardrobe and slowly looked up. The evening glow had spread even to the ceiling, blooming in motley colors like fireworks. He wished Anna could see this sight that would last only a moment.

"There's a man in the village—Uncle Tom. He's tall, with a bushy beard, so he looks for all the world like a bandit off some mountain, but he's a very kind person. And a wonderful cook."

"…."

"When I told him I'd come down with my younger sibling, he said he wanted to meet you."

The lips that had been letting the story flow in a gentle coax closed a little. Only then did Elliot hesitate. How ought he to say it?

If it's all right with you. No—if you'd like it.

"Want to go together tomorrow?"

Still no answer came. He eased the impatience out of himself and looked leisurely toward the window. The long-drawn evening glow was already rushing toward his feet.

Click—the wardrobe door opened.

The crack, no wider than a fingernail, creaked and slowly widened. Through it a white foot poked out. Anna, a blanket pulled over her from head to toe, crouched down beside him.

"Is it over for a while now?"

Anna's voice was still locked, as if it belonged to the dark inside the wardrobe. Elliot kept his gaze fixed on the window as he answered.

"No."

"But it's all right to go out?"

"We'll have to be careful, I suppose…."

He gently stroked Anna's blanket-covered head.

"It's just that, for the first time in a long while, I want to walk a street where the moonlight falls."

Anna tightened the hands clasped around her knees. Following the head that slipped quietly downward, her small body buried itself deeper in the blanket.

"I'm sorry too. For getting angry earlier."

A breath-held whisper went on, hushed.

"I really thought you'd betrayed me. I thought you meant to sell me to the Church…."

"Why would I do that."

"Ordinary people are afraid of me. They hate what's frightening."

Only then did Elliot turn to look at Anna. The fingers fidgeting atop her knees caught his eye at once.

"You knew that, and you still did it?"

Moving things about as if to make him see. Displaying, as if to make him see, a wound healed clean in a single night.

"Because you're different, Elliot."

"When have you even seen enough of me to know."

"You are different. That's why you didn't betray me."

"…."

"Do you dislike me too?"

He lowered his gaze without a word.

Whether she moved objects as she pleased, or a wound healed in an instant—to him, Anna was only a girl who pulled a blanket up over her head and spoke through a stuffed nose. Not some noble saint out of a far-off old tale.

"Dinner's ready. Go and eat, quickly."

Speaking with a deliberate calm, Elliot started to rise, then faltered and looked back. A small hand gripping his little finger tight. From under the blanket, Anna was staring straight up at him.

"Promise you won't leave me behind."

Elliot gazed quietly at the blue eyes lost in shadow. She still feigned a passable blankness, and yet the hand clutching his little finger trembled. That intermittent shaking tipped his heart in spite of himself.

He carefully opened Anna's hand and hooked his little finger with hers. He still did not know what she wanted of him, but this promise, at least, he could not turn away from.

He no longer wanted to leave anyone behind.

"There."

Elliot turned Anna by the shoulders so she faced the mirror. Reflected there was a girl in a sky-blue dress that fell to her knees, a straw hat on her head.

"This ought to do, I think. How is it?"

Anna carefully touched the white mask covering her face.

"It feels strange."

"Bear with it a little, and you'll get used to it."

"Can't I just wear a raincoat?"