“No,” Seth says, shaking his head. “No, you don’t understand.”
“Then help us to understand,” Tomasz says. “You have seen my worst memory, after all, Mr. Seth.”
“I can’t.”
“Won’t,” Regine says.
“Oh, yeah?” Seth says, growing angry. “How did you die again? Freak accident falling down the stairs?”
“That’s different –”
“How? I just found out I killed my brother!”
A small group of pigeons flaps out of the grass nearby, startled by Seth’s raised voice. Seth, Tomasz, and Regine watch the birds fly off, too small to be a flock, disappearing deeper into the cemetery, into overgrown trees and shadows, until they’re nothing but a memory.
And then Seth begins to speak.
61
He was still holding Owen’s hand. Their mother had said, “Don’t move!” and they’d obeyed her almost to the letter, sitting down on the floor next to the dining-room table when they got tired.
And then came the knocking. Not at the front door, but on the kitchen window at the back, in the garden that led nowhere except to fence after fence.
Where a man in a funny-collared dark-blue shirt was now looking at them.
“Hello, lads,” he said, his voice dampened by the glass. “Can you help me out?”
“Seth?” Owen said, worried.
“Go away,” Seth said to the man, trying to sound braver than he was. But he was eight and never sure why adults did any of the things they did, so he also said, “What do you want?”
“I want to come in,” said the man. “I’m hurt. I need help.”
“Go away!” Owen shouted, echoing Seth’s words.
“I won’t go away,” said the man. “You can count on that, lads. I will never, ever go away.”
Owen gripped tighter onto Seth. “I’m scared,” he whispered. “Where’s Mummy?”
Seth had a sudden inspiration. “You’ll get in trouble!” he shouted at the man. “My mum will catch you! She’s here. She’s upstairs. I’ll go get her now!”
“Your mother left,” the man said, unbothered. “I watched her go. I thought she might pop back in, because who would leave two youngsters like yourselves on their own, even for a few minutes? But no, it really does seem like she’s gone. Now, I’m going to ask you again, lads. Unlock this back door here and let me in. I need your help.”
“If you really needed help,” Seth said to him, “you would have asked for it when Mummy was here.”
The man paused, almost as if acknowledging this mistake. “I don’t want her help. I want your help.”
“No,” Owen whispered, still panicky. “Don’t do it, Seth.”
“I won’t,” Seth said to him. “I never would.”
The man’s face was half in shadow from the sun, and Seth had a moment to think how short he must be, if all they could see was his shoulders and head. When their father looked in, he nearly had to lean down.
“I don’t want to have to ask again,” the man said, his voice a little stronger.
“You have to wait until our mother comes back,” Seth said.
“Let me put it this way,” the man said calmly, “so that you understand me, okay? If you let me in, all right? If you let me in, then I won’t kill you.”
And at that, the man smiled.
Owen’s little hands squeezed Seth’s hard.
The man cocked his head. “What’s your name, boy?”
Seth answered, “Seth,” before he was even aware he could have refused.
“Well, Seth, I could break that door down. I’ve done worse in my time, believe me. I could break it down and I could come in and I could kill you, but instead, I am asking you to let me in. If I really meant you harm, would I do that? Would I ask your permission?”
Seth said nothing, just swallowed nervously.
“And so I’m asking you again, Seth,” the man said. “Please let me in. If you do that, I promise not to kill you. You have my word.” The man put his hands up to the glass. “But if I have to ask one more time, I will come in there and I will kill you both. I’d prefer not to, but if that’s the decision you make –”
“Seth,” Owen whispered, his face pulled tight with terror.
“Don’t worry,” Seth whispered back, not because he knew what to do but because that’s what his mother always said. “Don’t worry.”
“I’ll count to three,” the man said. “One.”
“No, Seth,” Owen whispered.
“You promise not to kill us?” Seth asked the man.
“Cross my heart,” the man said, making the motion across his chest. “Two.”
“Seth, Mummy said no –”
“He says he won’t kill us,” Seth said, standing.
“No –”
“I’m about to say three, Seth,” the man said.
Seth didn’t know what to do. There was threat everywhere, crackling through the dead, stale air of their house, a place where harm and danger seemed impossible. He could feel it shining from the man like a fire.
But he didn’t understand the threat, not fully. Was it a threat if he didn’t do what the man said or if he did? He didn’t doubt that the man could break down the door – adults could do that sort of thing – so maybe if he just did what the man said, maybe he would –
“Three,” said the man.
Seth leapt into the kitchen, suddenly urgent, fiddling with the lock, shifting its weight so it would open.
He stepped back. The man moved from the window and around to the door. Seth saw that the funny-collared shirt was actually a dark blue jumpsuit. The man was stroking his chin, and Seth saw scarring on the man’s knuckles, a strange white puckering like he’d been burnt there.
“Why, thank you, Seth,” the man said. “Thank you very much indeed.”
“Seth?” Owen said, edging around the doorway from the main room.
“You said you wouldn’t kill us if I let you in,” Seth said to the man.
“That I did,” said the man.
“We’ve got bandages if you’re hurt.”
“Oh, it’s not that kind of hurt,” the man said. “It’s more a dilemma than an injury, I’d say.”
The man smiled. It wasn’t friendly. At all.