Fires are slow to die. Even when their feast has been reduced to sickly black blocks of char, one last remaining tendril of flame licks hungrily at the remains, swaying feebly in the air as one who is starved. Then at last it collapses into the coals, and a slight discoloration of smoke issues from its grave.
Felix wakes.
"Lavern!" laughs Felix as he wrestles me in the grass. He clings to my shoulder, tugging playfully. I see the green filaments of grass hanging above us sway as he pulls and grapples my larger body.
"Lavern." More serious now. I gaze at him inquisitively in response. His feathery golden hair, his innocent face. They all emanate youth.
"Do you think I will be able to--" his voice drops to a whisper, "To sing like Daddy?"
The question surprises me, but then I laugh.
"Just like him," I say. I love his smile.
It is my little brother's birthday.
A box of crayons. I even found some faded wrapping paper. Gold. It still shimmers in some places.
He loves to draw. He is good at it for his age.
But where is he? I dissect the entire cottage, small as it may be, but neither mother nor little brother can be found.
Father I know is not home. Perhaps my mother took him someplace. Of course that is what happened.
She took him someplace.
Not telling me.
No note.
Nothing.
Yes. Of course that is what happened.
I walk as briskly as possible down the path next to the lake, trying to disguise my urgency. My vigilance. Where could they be? The streets of my rural village are mostly empty. I would see them. Did they go in a shop? But it is early. And Sunday. It is a rare shop whose lights I find on.
A splash. A silent scream. Running feet. Then nothing.
And I am there, yelling his name. The golden hair sprawls spiderily in the gray water surrounding him. Wide eyes. Open mouth. No sound. Already he is beginning to fade: eyelids drooping, flailing limbs calming. But I am in the water before any of this registers in my mind.
Already I am halfway to him, but he is so far, so far from me....
His eyes slide shut.
I am surprised when finally my hands are grasping his shirt. Hazy blotches obscure my vision, but this is no time to pity my own oxygen deprivation.
When I surface and crawl to land, I allow myself only a few seconds of gasping before I set to work on Felix. Press my hand against his small chest. Feel his dim pulse.
Alive.
His eyes flutter open. Coughing. Water sprays from his mouth. I sigh and I lie down on my back. So tired.
"Happy Birthday," I say. That reminds me of something.
The present. I look up and see it, floating away, already so tiny. Though no sunlight pierces the clouds above, I catch it gleam as it disappears from view. Like soft golden hair.
I don't know how much time passes when Mother appears next to me, weeping. Seeing her, an unusual sense of anger seizes me. Who was she to let Felix almost drown? Who was she not to be there beside me in the very moments of his rescue? But I say none of this. Instead I watch her, her long brown hair shaking as she sobs, pregnant form shivering in the cold. Somehow I know this is not the time to admonish her. Felix is alive.
For now.
I think of the running footsteps I heard before I saw him. Had this been someone else's doing? But who would be heartless enough to try to murder a child, especially one as innocent as Felix? I look at him. His eyes are closed, not in death, but in sleep, and his chest rises and falls heavily. Like Mother, there will be another time to question him.
That is what I think.
I am so wrong.
I am in bed. It is night.
Yet this night is different. Blacker. Like a fog, creeping out of a cave in thin onyx tendrils.
Sleep does not accept me into its realm. Feverishness gnaws at my head. Its saliva is warm. I drown in the sea of sheets.
A ringing sound stabs at my ears. It takes me a few dreadful seconds to realize it is a scream.
My shoulder hits the floor. It takes me hours and hours to extricate myself from the sticky grip of my blankets. Then I am at his bed, staring at the empty mattress.
The scream does not disappear until morning.
