Another Morning

Out of habit, Elliot's eyes opened at five in the morning, and he stumbled into the bathroom. The electric light flickered several times before it grudgingly caught—dim enough to draw a sigh, yet bright enough to give the mirror his pallid, early-dawn face.

He gazed steadily at the face looking back at him. A complexion gaunt to the edge of pallor, the hollows of the eyes sunk deep. He had tossed through the night and managed only a couple of hours' sleep, and in those eyes the red threads of capillaries stood out sharp and clear.

He glared at the reflection, then let his head drop, strengthless. The hours he had longed to sleep, and could not, seemed to weigh on his whole body like stone. Drowsiness had loitered about the bridge of his nose, teasing him with a rest it would not give; now it vanished without a trace and left only a dense fatigue behind.

Another morning.

Another day was beginning.

The rain that had poured all night eased only just before dawn. The wind that had shaken the house vanished in an instant, and the sky, scoured clean of its black clouds, shone clear. A round sun lifted over the puddles caught here and there in the grass.

Elliot and Anna were eating breakfast earlier than usual—a modest meal of bread still warm from the oven, fruit jam, and a fried egg.

Over the quiet table came only the occasional clink of dish on dish. Glances crossed and slid away. Both faces wore a mask of calm.

In a silence taut as thin ice, Anna put on an air of perfect innocence. Her blue eyes rose, all unnoticed, and quietly took the measure of Elliot seated across from her.

Elliot looked down at his own plate and nowhere else. His mouth worked with mechanical regularity; his hands traded fork for knife and knife for fork. One slice of bread remained. He spooned out a modest measure of jam and began to spread it thin.

Anna's eyes narrowed, just a little.

Clunk. The glass jar of jam tipped over of its own accord.

The hand plying the jam knife stopped dead. The gaze that had clung, stubborn as a creed, to the plate alone snapped toward the jam like lightning.

The table might have been a painting. No one moved.

Then the heavy glass jar began to drag itself across the wood with a loud scrape. As though drawn by an unseen hand, the jam crossed the table and came to a neat halt before Anna's plate.

Elliot's eyes, which had followed the moving jar and would not let it go, stopped there with it. As if to mock the glare he turned upon it—a glare fierce enough to frighten—the lid dropped with a click. His throat bobbed. Cold sweat gathered in the hand clenched around the jam knife.

And in that instant he caught it: the corner of Anna's mouth, lifting ever so slightly.

The chair shrieked across the floor.

Elliot shoved it back and stood. He flung the jam knife down and was out of the kitchen like a shot.

Left alone, Anna remained as straight-backed as ever, every nerve bent toward her ears. The footsteps that had pounded the floor broke off at the sound of the front door opening and shutting. Only then did she rise, quietly, from her place.

Silent steps carried her to the living-room window, where white curtains stirred. She slipped her face between them and gazed out at Elliot's back as he hurried down the hill.

She whispered it, and the sullenness would not stay out of her voice.

Noisy footsteps drove down into grass where a spring breeze idled. He was panting his way down the hill when one foot plunged, without warning, into a puddle.

"Damn it......"

Elliot stared at his soaked shoe and swallowed the rest of the curse. Of all the things. Now this. Not a single matter in the world would go as he wished.

What is she.

After a night he could not sleep for the confusion, he had opened his eyes near dawn certain it had been some empty dream. Eyes that had been blue all along could not simply turn gold, and a door could not shut itself. He had been sure he'd seen wrong in the daze of half-sleep.

But as if to scorn that desperate hope, Anna had done it again today.

That—he did not even know what name to give it. That stunt.

At the scene that flashed through him, he raked a hand through his hair in irritation. He dithered halfway down the hill, then at last drew out a cigarette with a hand that would not stop shaking.

Please. Let this confusion die down. He pulled the lit cigarette deep into his lungs, but the tremor in his hand remained.

A hollow laugh escaped him of its own accord.

He had not shaken even when he faced dozens of enemy planes alone. And yet here he was, playing the fool.

Breathing out a pale veil of smoke, he looked vacantly down over the village spread beneath the hill.

What, in God's name, am I doing here?

Come to protect a girl who was supposed to have been abused? Was abuse even conceivable for a child who moved objects without laying a hand on them? If he was honest with himself, he had begun to doubt the very fact that Anna had been abused at all. He felt like a fool ringed in by liars, good for nothing but being deceived.

Anyway—if it hadn't been for Fredrick, that son of a bitch.

"......"

The cigarette, balanced precariously between his fingers, dropped.

Elliot had been staring blankly into empty air. All at once he ground his teeth. He crushed the butt—its ember still alive—under his heel and broke into an urgent run down the hill.

He pushed through the post office door, and the boy sprawled at the counter sprang upright.

"Oh, what. I thought you were Grandpa...... H-huh?!"

The boy, a tousled sheaf of straw perched on his head for hair, lifted a finger, face blank with astonishment. Elliot crossed to the counter in long strides, his breath coming hard.

"A sheet of letter paper, please."

"Y-yes?"

"You don't have letter paper?"

Flustered, the boy glanced about and drew a single sheet from beneath the counter. Elliot took it, sat in a corner, and lifted the pen. The letter all but scrawled itself. Its recipient was, of course, Fredrick Dickens.

The nib stopped.

He stared at the page, where spots of black ink were slowly blooming.

What Anna is—do I even want to know?

The halted nib drew line after heavy line through the sentence he had not been able to finish. Elliot began the close of the letter over again.

Elliot folded the sheet and slid it into an envelope. When he went back to the counter and held it out, the post-office boy let his voice fly, as if he had been waiting for just this.

"Whoa. A letter to Castleleigh...... You must know someone in Castleleigh."

Elliot, rummaging in his pocket for coins, looked at the boy in puzzlement. He could not have said why, but the gaze turned on him was full of longing.

"Going to Castleleigh has always been my dream. There are tall buildings there, and trolleys run, don't they? The palace must be magnificent, of course. My wish is to go to the palace and see His Majesty the King!"

"......"

"I bet the streets of Castleleigh are full of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen. You couldn't find a rustic corner like Winsmore if you tried. The person you're sending that letter to must be a splendid gentleman, too!"

"No."

"Sorry?"

"He is not a splendid gentleman."

A splendid gentleman, my ass. There isn't a swindler alive who could match him.

Shuddering inwardly, he set a few coins on the counter.

"Keep the change."

"What? W-wait!"

Elliot pushed the post office door and stepped outside. The boy who had chattered without pause had seemed, somehow, familiar, but a face he had never properly looked at vanished from his mind without a trace.

The avenue before the post office was quiet. Under a sunlight sharp enough to pierce, dust rose like heat-haze. The glare was so fierce that he stood in the middle of the road for a long while, brow knotted.

"Why are you standing there looking half-dead."

Someone tapped his shoulder. It was Thomas, the butcher. He flicked a glance past Elliot's shoulder at the post office and put on a knowing smile.

"What. Thinking of that girlfriend you left behind?"

"......There'd have to be someone I left behind, for that."

Elliot answered offhand and started off, listless.

"Got something for you. Come along a minute."

Thomas was already striding ahead.

"Young green thing like you—what have you been doing all this time without a girlfriend."

"I was out flying planes."

"That's just what I mean. They say you're awfully famous."

Big as he was, Thomas kept stealing glances at him, oddly ill-suited to that bulk.

"Back when Judith was in her prime, you know. Even with Mr. Olivier right there beside her, she got bouquets of roses several times a day. You know Frank Reed, that actor who used to be famous? Even he had a spell of scandal with Judith, they say."

"Then why did Mother marry Father, and leave all of them behind."

Flustered, Thomas cleared his throat and did his best to look unconcerned.

"W-well, that's because Mr. Olivier was such a fine man, and he and Judith, ah, went a long way back in the service...... Handsome, too. Even another man could see that plain as day."

Elliot gave no particular reaction to the rambling. Thomas let out a groan and scratched furiously at his short, curly hair.