Chapter Text
“Do you think he’s the one?”
“Of course he is, you saw his scores.”
“Yes, but he seems a bit… aloof.”
“Exactly, Roger.”
“He reminds me of Adam.”
“…”
“Quillish, we cannot afford to fail again.”
“Go get the boy.”
Someone who feels that they have lost everything might feel empty, like they’d lost everything inside themselves along with everything outside of themselves. As though the essence of their self was tangible, quantifiable, and able to be sucked out to balance the new absence of matter on the outside. Of course, logically, souls do not pass through the membrane of our shell and therefore cannot bend to the properties of osmosis. So it might comfort this person to know that however much they lose on the outside, their essence, soul, self, or whatever have you, will still remain inside and safe.
Nate River, however, had no such comforts. “I have lost everything,” he said. His small voice echoed against the blackened walls of his house. A cool draft of winter air made the still-warm ash slither about his feet as though it were alive. As though what was left of his house was beckoning for his soul to even itself, pulling him down to join its ashy corpse.
He trudged through the ash and soot in his school loafers and corduroys and tall white socks, staring blankly at the skeletal remains. He felt more or less like a skeleton, himself. He shivered; none of the warmth from the ashes reached his bones. He had read books where someone loses someone important to them and in all of these books the characters describe a dreadful feeling that bursts inside them, letting them know that their loved one has perished. Nate searched for such a feeling inside himself. His parents couldn’t be dead, could they? But he couldn’t find anything in himself other than a cold, terrible ache.
He stepped further into his house, towards the office where his father spent most of his time. The ache grew stronger with fear, he knew he had to look but he couldn’t make himself take another step. He hugged his arms around himself and stared blankly at the blackened door. The whispers of his house wrapped their tendrils around his feet, pulling, pulling. Balance me. It seemed to snarl.
His eyes widened as he heard light footsteps toeing around the wreck behind him. His heart thrummed with hope but he dared not turn around. The footsteps reached closer until he felt a light hand lay on his shoulder abruptly.
“Kid,” said a calm voice. His eyes widened and his heart beat, not with hope anymore, but with apprehension. He turned around to face the woman slowly. She was a police officer, tall, with a deep crease above her eyebrows. “Don’t go in there.” Nate began twisting his hair with his index finger, around and around. He shook his head, asking a silent question. The officer shook her head in response and got on one knee. “I’m sorry.”
He covered his face with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut. No. He couldn’t be dead, he thought, but he knew the woman was telling the truth. His father was dead. He keened into his fingers then released his trembling hands. The house hissed and breathed and pulled at his being.
Nate brushed past the officer with cold fervor and started to go upstairs, to the room where his mom liked to paint. The runner was burnt to dust and the staircase was littered with glass from where the pictures along the wall had exploded. He again searched for that feeling, the one that would tell him if his mother, too, was dead. But there was nothing discernable.
He then felt that same hand on his shoulder. “Let’s wait outside,” the officer said, and moved her hand to his, tugging on him. He turned around sharply, breathing rapidly. He shook his head again, staring up with pleading eyes. Not my mother, please, he asked without words. I cannot lose anymore or I will be nothing! I will seep out and become a shell! Please, Officer! He begged with no words. She gripped his hand tighter and she looked away from him. She swallowed before speaking. “I’m sorry, kid,” she uttered.
Nate followed the woman outside where she sat him in the passenger side of the police car. She gave him a capri-sun. He didn’t drink it. He stared at the remains of his house, at the ash that held his parents. At the ash that beckoned for his warmth as it rapidly cooled.
“Do you think you can tell me your name and how old you are?” She said.
Nate turned towards the officer with wide, white eyes. The fire of grief burned inside of him rapidly, eating him. Eating him. But his exterior remained untouched. “My name is Nate River. I am six.” His voice shook with anger, with grief, and simply with the cold. “And I want to go back in.”
She tilted her head. “Thank you for telling me, Nate, but I can’t let you do that.”
He looked past her, towards his house. “I need to know what started the fire.”
“Oh, um, don’t worry, we have people doing that for you.” She looked at him with teary, compassionate eyes. “I’m sorry, kid.”
He curled his white hair. Around and around. He tilted his head in cold anger. “Then what? Then what?” He asked with increasing emotion.
She glanced away from him, the crease in her forehead deepening as she grew progressively more sad with him. “Nate, do you want to play a game with me?”
“I want to go into my house.”
“The rules are easy peasy, I look around and say ‘I spy with my-’”
“Would you please just listen to me!”
She took his hands in hers and he groaned at how sweaty they felt. He pulled away, wiping his hands on his school corduroys. She looked embarrassed, teary. He looked towards his house, the casket, the skeleton. Then he sighed, understanding that this woman took his dolefulness and felt it herself, she was empathetic. Well I can be empathetic too. He took her hands again despite the way it made his palms itch. “Why can’t I enter my house?” He asked softly.
She squeezed his hands back, her eyebrows coming together and up. Nate imagined them as two hands, together and up, a symbol of unity. She was making progress with him, her expression said. “The house is unsafe.” She did not say ‘because I don’t want you to see the burnt remains of your parents,’ but Nate knew what she meant.
He gave up, this was already exhausting and he didn’t want to continue playing Good Boy Nate. Did it even truly matter if he knew how his house burnt down? No. No it didn’t. “It doesn’t matter.” He said. His parents were dead and burnt and his house was dead and burnt. He was left behind. “I was left behind.” He murmured with breathless distress.
She hugged him with sudden ardor, like a spring mechanism let loose. He frowned and let her comfort him. She smelled like bubble-gum. And sweat. And fire.
He looked over her shoulder at his house, remembering the day he first moved in. It was just him and his dad, he worked hard for his kid, they moved often for different jobs. Different opportunities. ‘This’ll be the one, yeah, lad. Last house, our forever home, hmm?’ He always hummed at the end of phrases, like he was questioning his own words. Or maybe he was questioning the world and its permanence. ‘There’s a nice school just a small walk away, hmm lad?’ He said, pressing that soft hand into Nate’s shoulder. He was right to question permanence.
The police officer let go of him and gave him a half-smile. “I know. I know.” She said. He returned her gaze and remembered how his mom would half-smile when she was filled with pride in him but had to discipline him anyways. She would sigh and half-smile and ask what he did this time and if it was deserved. He hadn’t known her as long, but his bond with his mother was tight as blood. His mother, hmmm? He was right to question permanence.
Nate closed his eyes and curled his legs up into himself in the cloth car seat. He was becoming unwell– irrational in thought, he knew because his thoughts would twist and spiral and repeat themselves. His memories became engorged with repetition. And repetition. Then what? Then what?
The officer patted his leg. “I know. I know.” She cooed.