ONE
Her footsteps were heavy on the stairs. She came crashing into my room, a large doll in her right hand.
She stood by my bedside, waiting for me to acknowledge her, but I merely continued to stare out of the window at the dreary streets of London.
Finally she spoke.
“Artem?” Her young voice was questioning, the voice a kitten might use to implore of a mother cat. But I did not answer her, still I stared unseeingly at the street outside.
“Artem? Won’t you play with me?” I grimaced, but I did not reply. I wanted her to be gone, for I wanted to go Home, and she was the only one who still kept me in the Living World.
She stood silent for a minute more, and then she went away.
*****
I stood outside in the snow with Mother, and I watched the delivery man draw up. Joseph stepped out of the front door and stood beside us; I shied away from him. He was not my father.
A man came down from the truck, I would presume that he unloaded the new mirror Imported From France and helped Joseph carry it inside the house; I did not watch and was occupied in observing two peculiarly white pigeons across the street. They seemed to be scavenging for food on the pavement, and whenever one got too close to the other, the other would hop farther away, only for the one to eventually wander too close again, and then they would repeat the process. In this way, they soon went all the way down their side of the street, and eventually turned the corner. But they were grounded all along, and I wondered that they could not fly.
Mother’s hand suddenly rested upon my shoulder, and she led me back inside the house which was to be our new home. We walked up the stairs, past the first landing where Joseph’s office Where Important Things Happened was to be, past the second landing where Mother and Joseph and Maria were to have their bedrooms, and we stopped on the third landing. Truly I do not suppose landing was the right word, for it was in reality the final floor. But the room to be my bedroom in the attic above could be reached by stairs which came down when you opened the hatch. Joseph told me this was like Hey Arnold. I did not know or care who that was.
But we didn’t come here to see my room, me and Mother stayed on the Third Landing. Joseph stood in front of us; the unloading man was nowhere to be seen. Joseph looked at the new mirror hanging on the wall, and he laughed cheerfully. I think he and Mother may have started to talk about how nice and big this house was, about fresh starts and the nearby school for me and Maria. I paid no attention; instead I stared at the old mirror, which lay leaning against the wall beside the new. I wondered if it was perhaps one of the many doors leading back to my Home. It was covered with a dirty green cloth, but still I stared at it. Joseph must have noticed.
“This thing was here when I and your Mother brought the house, Artem,” he said, jerking his foot in its direction.
“It’s old and worthless, but I suppose we’ll keep it around, perhaps its owners may return to claim it.” He smiled, and I decided that I did not like his haircut, another reason for me to go Home. He was trying to make me talk; they all tried to do that. I would not. I was determined to waste away and die, to return Home.
“Can you help me carry it to that room?” he said, pointing to the room to our left. “It’ll be the storage room.”
I said nothing, but moved forwards to take it. I carried it to the soon-to-be Storage Room, and I crouched down behind the door so that neither Mother nor Joseph would see me. I propped the mirror against the wall, and I made to get up, or at least I made to make to get up, but as I looked at the dirty cloth, some force seized me, and suddenly with all urgency I wanted to remove it and look in the mirror. I crouched there for what seemed an eternity and forever, and then Mother called my name “Artem?” and I got up and went away.
*****
They stared at me oddly when I did not answer their questions. One boy, a pale-faced simpleton whose name I forget but who I will always think of with evil thoughts, suggested to the other illiterates: “Maybe he can’t speak English.” I cursed him in my head, but said nothing.
Our teacher was called Miss Woods. She asked me to introduce myself, but when I merely stared at her, she promptly introduced me as Artem Adams. She pronounced it Ar-teem. I heard a fool in the back ask another fool if that was short for Artemis. I cursed them both.
My name was not Artem Adams. The name my Living World mother had given me was Artem Rasputin.
*****
It was on a bright sunny day that lost all reason to stay in the Living World. I lay on my bed, lost in dark and gloomy thoughts. I thought of my lost companion, of the injustices that had shocked both of us, and the horrors that had driven him to give up hope completely. I had nearly given up. If not for Maria, I would have long gone. I hated this World.
There were footsteps on the stairs, and Maria rushed into my room. She had with her her dolls again. Father had given her that. Once again she stood by my bedside, silent. I ignored her as usual. Again, she called my name, and asked me if I didn’t want to play with her, and then she finished, but she did not go away like before. She simply stood there in silence. She stood there, and I slowly began to seethe. She had no right; none of them did, to demand anything of me, to force me to break my silence. They didn’t understand, they couldn’t, the horror and darkness of the Living World was all they ever would know, they could never discover the joys of the Other World, the endless songs and feasts and riches and happiness. They did not know, and never would know how I longed to be back. I had tried, truly tried to Stay, in the midst of the wickedness of the World, but my companion had given up and deserted me, I too was now determined to waste away and die, and nothing would stop me, not even the sweet face of Maria, the only Living One I had become attached to. Then I was shocked suddenly out of my thoughts by the ice cold touch of Maria’s hand upon my arm.
“Artem? Don’t you want to play? Like we used to?”
It was so cold. So cold. I was still for a moment, like a corpse. And then I snapped.
I jumped off the bed, throwing her hand off me, and I grabbed her pigtails. She screamed in fear and pain and I in rage. She tried to get away from me, in desperation she dropped her doll and I remember hearing a loud crack, I grabbed her arm and pulled her towards me, at the same time I lashed out with my other hand and I heard her cry in pain. I could not think in the blur of my anger, my fury. They were misdirected, not meant for her, but for the injustices and cruelties of this world. For the Ignorant Mothers and Fathers. For the Foolish Children. For the Blind People.
I screamed in her face, lashing out again and keeping a tight grip on her arm. She cried and sobbed, and eventually I let go of her arm, I shoved her violently towards the stairs.
I repressed what happened next, later, between tears and great racking sobs Mother, ever understanding, ever wasting her love on the cold child whom I was, would tell me that in her fear and disorientation, Maria had tripped and inadvertently fallen herself, in my darkest daydreams and dayhaunts I would tell myself that it was my push that had caused her fall. Whichever truly happened, in the next few seconds I was bent over the rail and screaming again, not in rage but in the very epitome of hopeless despair, as I stared at Maria’s lifeless body at the bottom of the stairs below.
