———

The radio hissed and crackled like an evil thing.

The reception here was not good. The dial seemed to be permanently stuck between two stations. Sometimes there was faint music. Occasionally, voices intruded.

A woman was warbling “My Melancholy Blues” to the faded accompaniment of a big band slamming out “East Street Riot.” They did not match well and were frequently and unpleasantly flat.

A harsh male voice with a newscaster’s twang was breathlessly recounting a series of events.

“…rioting following a possible terrorist attack in Canburry Square. Police suspect a bomb or possibly another incendiary device… fire spreading from Canburry Square down Fourth Avenue… use of magic may be involved… coloured community up in arms… looting… store owners boarding their windows and defending their property with baseball bats…”

So now this party’s just beginning…

“Unconfirmed reports of a coloured child being kicked and beaten by two laughing young men and their hard, black boots… He was hurting and he couldn’t get up, but they just wouldn’t stop kicking him.”

And you’re not exactly winning, ha-ha…

“In related news, they almost killed you, kid.”

He moaned and twisted but he dared not move otherwise. His head was on fire. They had split his head with an axe and poured in fire, and every part of him burned.

“Our sources report that he just wanted to look at the horses. He was perfectly aware that horses are not safe, but he wanted to look at them anyway. In fact, he slipped away from his uncle at the very first opportunity, so there was no one there to help him when the bad animal with hard hooves and very large teeth reared and struck out at him.”

Sad songs can have happy endings too…

“Sources say that he must have been some kind of an idiot, and that he deserves every ounce of pain he gets.”

Though you don’t want to sing about it…

“Here is a late-breaking report on which animals are safe. Some animals just do not like magic users, Erik, not coloured ones like us. They are liable to react violently if you approach them.”

Can’t get along without it…

“Cats are safe. Dogs are not safe. Goats are safe. Sheep are not safe. Cows are not safe. Except oxen. Oxen are safe. Donkeys are safe. Horses, as previously stated, are not safe. We regret to inform you that we have no data about whether mules are safe or not safe because you are a bad child and you don’t listen.”

It was so loud. He couldn’t reach up to cover his ears. He wasn’t even sure he had ears, or hands, or anything. He was this pain.

But it was so loud.

He wanted to cry, but could not bear to do so. He was so hot, too hot for tears. If he could’ve cried, it would’ve been smoke.

The woman’s voice, thin and insectile, was like a needle in his brain. A broken vessel can hold something new!…

“…a crowd of angry dockworkers has just thrown a little yellow girl with braids through a plate glass window. She was trying to run home, but the riots overtook her. She is cut all to pieces and she is crying, but her coloured skin marks her as a born magic-user and no one is going to help her.”

So come and get us… Let us…

“That’s your fault, kid. You just had ta look at the horses, didn’t ya? Now the streets are running red with blood, and it’s coming this way, kid. They know where you live, kid!”

Fill in those empty spaces… With some rare mettle, and a little fire…

“Turn it off,” he said weakly, and somehow the sound of him was even louder. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to be dead. “Oh, please…”

Another voice, soft voice, near, and not distorted with static. Sweet. Careful. “Honey, do you hear me? What do you mean? The light?”

He shuddered. No, not the light. What light? There was no light. There was this fire. There was this pain.

And it was so loud.

“The radio… The radio…”

“Erik… There isn’t any radio. It doesn’t work. It’s not on.”

“It’s so loud…”

Hissing. Static. Like boiling oil.

Laughter.

Sure, kid, I’m the radio. Ya like the radio? Ya like the stories? Ya like the news? I got some news. You can kill them all if you want to. I’ll help you. Bet that’d make the pain go away. Hey, even if it doesn’t, who the hell cares?

Let me tell you, they deserve it. They all deserve it. They did this to you.

“Turn it off,” he pleaded, and he did cry. It hurt. Every sob sent new needles into his brain, but they wouldn’t help him and they wouldn’t make it stop.

The distant woman was still singing, assuring an invisible audience they could relax and put themselves in her hands.

“I have just been handed a bulletin: Although we still have no confirmation on whether mules are safe or not, we believe it is best to treat them as if they are not safe, until further information is available. I think that’s a good idea, don’t you, kid?”

His mouth moved, though he couldn’t voice the words, The radio… turn it off…

“Hey, kid, I’m pretty sure your brain is melting. What do you think? I think you ain’t never gonna be right, don’t you?”

———

“What’s he mean, ‘the radio’?” said Mordecai.

“It means nothing,” said Hyacinth.

He recoiled from her.

She sighed and spoke again, more gently, “It means he’s hurt and he’s doing everything he can to get better, and he doesn’t have the strength to do all that and make sense too. It’s going to be like that for a while. You were like that for a while.”

“Does he even know I’m here?”

She shook her head, and she tightened her grip around his waist when he staggered. “I will send for you when he is better enough that he might. I will send for you that very instant, no matter if you’re asleep or awake or mended or not. Do you believe me?”

He nodded.

She made a weary smile. “Then will you go back to bed?”

“I can’t get up the stairs,” he admitted. He had hardly been able to get down. He had slid most of the way. His nightshirt and whatever remained of his dignity had suffered for it.

“I can help you that far,” she said. “And then you can have Ann.”

“I don’t want…” The stairs were too hard. He stopped speaking.

There were noises outside, audible as they approached the ground floor. Shouting. Cracking sounds that might’ve been fireworks or gunshots. No actual explosions, so far.

“Getting closer,” Mordecai said.

“Go back to your room and draw the drapes,” said Hyacinth. “Stay away from the windows. If you need something, ask someone to bring it. Stay out of sight.”

“Hide from them,” he said bitterly.

“Yes, damn it, for all our sakes. If they see you, they might try to get in.”

“Going to do that anyway.”

“They’ll do it less if they don’t see you. Now, come on!”

Magnificent was standing at the top of the basement stairs, rocking back and forth on the low heels of her shoes. These were proper shoes with nails, but fine ones. Like Ann’s collection of spiked heels, Hyacinth had not considered them worth cannibalizing.

(She had snipped off the buckles several times, until the General altogether ceased buying shoes with buckles and made content with satin bows. “Impractical,” she scoffed. “Just not in this house.”)

The girl’s tight dark curls were twisted into tails, one on either side of her head, as if she were in motley. She wore a dark blue dress at precisely knee length, a starched white petticoat, and two little white gloves with pearl buttons. She could’ve passed for military herself, minus the scabby knees and plus a little brass detailing.

She had undone one of the pearl buttons and was toying with the edge of the glove, but had not yet taken it off.

She opened her mouth and coughed a spray of speckled brown feathers.

“Oh, dear,” said Hyacinth.

She patted the girl on the back, afraid to haul off and give her a really good whack like she would’ve done another child. The General made a habit of appearing at the worst times. “Still working on that bird, huh?”

The brown girl nodded. She was not coloured, but she was a dusty shade, not as light as her mother or as dark as her father. She doubled over, still coughing, retched, and brought up a couple of good-sized, fully formed flight feathers. They wafted to the floor.

“Please excuse me,” she said miserably.

“That’s okay,” said Hyacinth. “I understand. I think you’re getting better at the feathers. Those are some darn good feathers.”

Maggie wiped her mouth and threw a disgusted gesture, all in one motion, “But it’s not supposed to be like that!” She gave a gasp of realization, stuck her hand in the folds of her dress and drew out a wadded white handkerchief. She dabbed her lips. “Forgive me.”

“Forgive what?” said Hyacinth. Such manners were mystifying, and unnatural in a child. Especially now.

“Cin… Please, Miss Hyacinth, is Erik all right?”

Mordecai was already nodding. Hyacinth gave him a shove. You didn’t lie like that, not even to children. Especially not to children, because it hurt them when you had to back up and tell them the truth. And sometimes that truth was, they’re dead.

“He was hurt very badly,” she said. “I had to replace most of the bone around his eye with metal, and not gold or silver or anything pure. He’s in a lot of pain right now. It’s going to be for a few days. You might hear him cry out sometimes.”

“Oh.”

Hyacinth crouched down to eye level and put her hands on the child’s shoulders. “He was hurt in the head. Did Ann tell you?”

Maggie nodded.

“It’s hard to get better from something like that. It takes a long time. He’ll say some things he doesn’t mean, and some things that don’t make any sense. And he might not always act right or remember everything he should.”

“But he’ll get better?” Maggie said.

“Some better,” said Hyacinth, “if he makes it through this part all right. But I can’t promise you all better. I can only promise we’ll try.”

“But is he gonna remember me?” The girl was tearing up. The handkerchief had vanished into her clenched fist, forgotten.

“If he doesn’t,” said Hyacinth, “we’re gonna help him so he does. And if he still doesn’t, then we’re gonna tell him everything about how much you love him so that he knows. Okay?”

“Yes…” But it wasn’t okay. Of course it wasn’t.

Hyacinth dithered. She couldn’t stay here and comfort the girl. She had to go back to the boy. “Mordecai,” she said.

Mordecai was crying too.

“Ann!”

Ann appeared. She had traded her going-out clothes for a silk kimono and some open-toed slippers with a “sensible” kitten heel. All of these were edged with marabou, which wafted prettily and occasionally shed. Ann had an outfit to make any occasion a bit more surreal.

“Barnaby is into your spice rack,” she said.

“Is he hurting it?” Hyacinth asked.

“No, but he’s getting rather upset about it. He wants to know where you’ve hidden the ginger.”

“I don’t have any goddamn ginger.”

“That’s what I told him,” sighed Ann. “Oh, Maggie.” She drew nearer. “What’s this?”

“I’ll be all right,” said Magnificent. “I’m mmm-moment… Momentarily…” She sobbed, but she did not say that she was scared or unhappy. “Incon… Inco… Momentarily…”

“Oh, I’m certain it’s momentarily, whatever it is,” said Ann. She pulled the child into a hug. “Now, Em, I really think you’d better stop that so you can breathe.”

He nodded, then hiccuped. “Mm.”

“What about a nice cup of tea?”

“I’m supposed to be in my room,” he said.

“It is not impossible to have tea in your room,” Ann replied. “Maggie, you too. We’ll picnic. You’ve a very nice rug for it.”

Hyacinth nodded to them. Without waiting for a reply, she turned and crept back down the stairs.

The boy was sobbing and shaking and still going on about the radio.

She sighed.

They had a little shrine in the basement. It was fashioned of found objects, glue and paper and glass, and a few printed icons — cheap, smudgy ones on rough paper. The shape was a bit like a band shell, with plenty of interior ridges for affixing images and decorations above a central platform for offerings.

Hester Carthage of the Hearth was at the top. Auntie Enora was offset, but a bit larger, this being a concession to Hyacinth’s own preferences. There was Cousin Violet and Iron John and Lame Anthony, all of them fairly benign, good Invisibles to have around the house. There was a small portrait of Baron Yowie, also, but this was more for appeasement than invitation.

There was room enough among the soggy cereal and shiny objects for a single candle. She lit a white one for general purposes.

She knelt and drew two fingers down her forehead and over the bridge of her nose. It was best to show the proper respect, you never knew who was watching.

“I know you’re out there,” she said softly, “and I know you’re listening. Please leave him alone. You don’t need him. Let me heal him. Leave him alone.”

“The radio…” said Erik.

“Oh, honey.” She crawled to the cot and sat on the floor beside him. She did not touch, because that would hurt, but she spoke gently to him, “It’s not on. I promise. It’s not on…”