Illustration: Maggie’s tarot card, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, based on Strength. She stands in Strawberry Square, with a bottle of grape soda, pleased with herself.

[PSI-3]

Magnificent spent one day plotting and two days preparing, and she decided she had been very clever. She didn’t even have to go hungry, she just switched out the apple and sandwich for bread and olives. After two days, that left precisely enough extra lunch money for a grape soda. It came out of the ice chest and it was nice and cold.

She approached Hyacinth in the kitchen. She was neat and polite, and she had a cold soda, which provided a time constraint. She had Erik’s favourite soda.

“Excuse me, Miss Hyacinth, I bought Erik a grape Pin-Min. May I give it to him?”

Hyacinth sighed and smiled. “Oh, Maggie, thank you so much. Of course you may. You’ve been very patient. After it happened, I thought you wouldn’t leave me alone for a minute. I want to thank you for just letting me take care of him.”

Ah. Apparently she had not been very clever, she had just been very patient. Or possibly she had out-clevered even herself. Well, it didn’t really matter. She smiled.

“But we need to talk first.” Hyacinth crouched down next to her and put both hands on her shoulders.

Magnificent recognized her position for delivering unpleasant information and stopped smiling. She nodded gravely.

“He can talk a little, and he’s making more sense, which is the other reason I’m letting you see him, but it’s still hurting him and he is very, very tired. If he’s sleeping, or he doesn’t want to talk, you need to let him.”

“I will, Miss Hyacinth.”

This child is too damn polite, though Hyacinth. It was unnerving. She could hardly remember what she needed to say. She had been trying to lay it out in her head, but she had expected to be saying it days ago.

“Okay. Well… He’s weird right now. He might not remember you, but that doesn’t mean it’s forever. And he doesn’t always know what he’s saying. Sometimes it’s wrong, or mean. But he’s not really mad at you or trying to hurt you, he’s just tired.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Maggie, and he might not want that soda. He doesn’t even want water. Everything tastes like metal right now.”

“Oh,” said Maggie. She considered the bottle. “But may I ask him in case he does want it?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll bring a cup, just in case. I think that might be easier for him.”

———

Mordecai was curled up next to him and reading a story out of his lap. It was the one with the boy and the wolf and the music, with no music. The notes were on the pages, all quiet. He wasn’t even attempting the voices. He looked desperately unhappy.

Erik was in the cot, under a blanket, with his head turned away and his eyes — eye — closed. His fine white hair was plastered to his head with sweat. He was breathing audibly. He would tense and twist and then fall limp again.

“Is he awake?” Hyacinth asked softly.

Mordecai shook his head at them and mouthed, I don’t know.

Hyacinth took Magnificent by the arm and pulled her nearer. “Come on, Maggie. It’s all right.”

“Will I hurt him?” she asked.

“No, not just by being near. Don’t touch him, though.”

Maggie nodded. She approached and sat down on the other side of him, carefully, so as not to jostle the cot. Her shoes were hard and they dug into her legs when she sat on the floor.

He made a soft sound and turned his head away from her, towards his uncle. That touched his metal socket to the pillow. He flinched and turned back the other way.

“Erik?” said Maggie.

He didn’t say anything. Maybe he closed his eye a little tighter.

“I got you a soda. It’s grape. It’s cold right now, but you don’t have to have it. We can save it, okay?”

He didn’t say anything.

Hyacinth touched her shoulder to help her up. “I’m sorry…” she said.

“It’s cold?” Erik said. He opened his eye and focused on her.

“Yeah,” she said. She held up the bottle.

“I have some?” This came very slow, as if he had to consider every word. When he got through them, he sighed.

“Yes,” said Hyacinth. She twisted open the bottle and poured some into the glass. It fizzled and sang. “You’re going to have to sit up a little, though.”

“Can’t,” he said.

“I’ll help you. I’ll hold you.”

“Oh.” He tensed, and he gasped when she slipped her arm beneath his head. She just held him like that for a moment, so he could settle. When he turned his head to the side again, she offered him the glass.

He sipped.

He held the liquid only a moment before spitting it out, a little purple waterfall, back into the glass. He shuddered. “Awful.”

“Sorry,” Hyacinth said, both to him and to Maggie.

He sat up and stared at the girl. His eye was wide and grey and bright. “Why did you bring me that? It’s horrible. I hate you!”

“Ah,” said Maggie. She sat back and put both her hands on the floor behind her.

“He doesn’t mean it,” Hyacinth said.

He turned on her. “How do you know what I mean? You’re stupid! Look what you did to me!” He showed his empty eye, then he clapped both hands to his face and cried out, “Oh, ow, it hurts!”

“Maggie, I think we’ve had enough talking,” Hyacinth said, gathering her quickly. “He needs to rest.”

Maggie nodded, already clambering to her feet. He didn’t mean it, she believed that, because it hardly even sounded like him. But if her being there was making him do that, then she needed to leave right now so it would stop.

He was sobbing. Left alone with him, Mordecai used his own judgment and held him — gently.

Erik first pushed him away, then curled nearer. He continued to cry, but softer. “…hurts.”

“I know, dear one.”

“…hurts… hurts…”

“Shh.”

He calmed. Mordecai let him back on the cot. He wanted to brush back the child’s hair, but he thought better of it.

“I like something cold,” the green child said slowly.

The red man flinched. “You had some soda, Erik. You didn’t like it. There isn’t anything else.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, dear one. You don’t have to be sorry. It’s all right.”

He opened his eye. “Girl?”

“She had to go so you could rest.”

“No…” He remembered. It wasn’t that. There was purple. And taste. And shouting. And all of those things went together some way and he didn’t like it. “I… mouth…” Not that word, but he didn’t know what word. “Loud.”

It was hard to understand him sometimes. Like he was trying to tell stories with the cut up pieces of a single magazine. It was somehow better when he was upset, but it was worse too. Mordecai touched his hand, and when he didn’t cringe, held it. “She just had to go.”

“Say I’m sorry.”

“Okay. I’ll tell her you’re sorry.”

“Say she come back.”

“Yes. She will.”

He closed his eye. Mordecai hoped he had gone back to sleep. He hardly slept, and he needed it badly. There had just been too much pain.

Maybe he did sleep. Maybe he only skimmed the surface of it.

“Uncle?”

He startled. “Huh?” The boy hadn’t called him that, or anything at all, in days.

“I remember sometimes, okay?”

“Why? What do you remember?”

“You.”

He smiled, or tried to. It felt a little like smiling. “That’s good. I’m glad it’s sometimes. I’m glad it’s not never.”

But will it ever be always?

“No, I don’t,” the boy said softly. He was looking away, talking to nothing. “Quiet.” He turned his face against the pillow.

But it is quiet, thought Mordecai. He glanced around the room. Isn’t it?