The House in the Cerulean Sea(67)

In the garden they passed Talia, who only waved before turning back to her flowers. Chauncey was next to her, exclaiming loudly that the flowers were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and that if she were so inclined, he’d like to eat a few of them. Phee and Zoe were in the woods. Lucy was with Arthur in his room. Before they reached the stairs, Theodore chirped. Linus looked up to see the wyvern hanging from an exposed beam above them as if he thought he were a bat. He made another sound, and Sal said, “It’s okay, Theodore. I asked him to come.” Theodore chirped again before closing his eyes as Linus followed Sal up the stairs.

They paused in front of the door to Sal’s room. Sal, who never stopped looking nervous most days, put a shaking hand on the doorknob.

Linus said, “If you’re not ready, then you’re not ready. I won’t push you on this, Sal. Please don’t do this on my account.”

Sal frowned as he glanced back at Linus. “But this is on your account.”

Linus was flummoxed. “Well … yes, I suppose it is. But we have all the time in the world.” They didn’t, of course. Linus was almost halfway through his stay on Marsyas. The realization startled him.

Sal shook his head. “I—I would rather we do this now.”

“If you wish. I won’t touch anything of yours, if that makes you feel better. And if there’s anything you want to show me, I will gladly look at it. I’m not here to judge you, Sal. Not at all.”

“Then why are you here if not to judge?”

Linus balked. “I—well. I’m here to make sure this home is exactly that. A home. One that I can trust to keep all of you safe and sound.”

Sal dropped his hand from the doorknob. He turned fully toward Linus. Calliope sat near his feet, looking up at him. This was as close as Linus had ever been to Sal. He was as tall as Linus was, and though Linus was thicker, Sal had a heft to him, a strength that belied how small he tried to make himself seem at times.

“Are you going to make me leave?” Sal asked, that frown deepening.

Linus hesitated. He had never lied to any child in his life. If the truth needed to be stretched, he would rather say nothing at all. “I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to,” Linus said slowly. “And I don’t think anyone should.”

Sal studied him carefully. “You’re not like the others.”

“Others?”

“Caseworkers.”

“Oh. I suppose not. I’m Linus Baker. You’ve never met a Linus Baker before.”

Sal stared at him for a moment longer before turning back to the door. He pushed it open and then stepped back. He began to gnaw on his lip again, and Linus wanted to tell him he was going to hurt himself, but he asked, “May I?”

Sal nodded jerkily.

The room was nothing fancy. In fact, it seemed to be devoid of almost anything that Linus would associate with Sal. The other children had made their spaces their own, for better or worse. Here, the walls were blank. The bed was neatly made. There was a rug on the wooden floor, but it was muted and gray. There was a door to a closet and … that was it.

Mostly.

In one corner, there was a pile of books that reminded Linus of Arthur’s office. He looked at a few of the titles and saw they were fictional classics—Shakespeare and Poe, Dumas and Sartre. That last caused Linus to arch an eyebrow. He had never quite understood existentialism.

But other than that, the room was a blank canvas, as if waiting for an artist to bring it to life. It saddened Linus, because he suspected he knew the reason why it was the way it was.

“It’s lovely,” he said, making a production of looking around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sal peeking through the doorway, tracking his every movement. “Quite spacious. And just look out the window! Why, I think I can almost see the village from here. A wonderful view.”

“You can see the lights from the village at night,” Sal said from the doorway. “They sparkle. I like to pretend they’re ships at sea.”

“A pretty thought,” Linus said. He stepped away from the window and went to the closet. “Is it all right if I look in here?”

There was a brief hesitation. Then, “Okay.”

The closet was bigger than Linus expected. And there, next to a chest of drawers, was a small desk with a rolling chair tucked in underneath. Atop the desk sat a typewriter, an old Underwood. There was a blank sheet of paper already threaded through. “What’s this, then?” Linus asked lightly.

He didn’t hear a response. He looked back over his shoulder to see Sal standing next to the bed, looking like a lost little boy. Calliope hopped up onto the bed and rubbed against his hand. He spread his fingers into the hair on her back.

“Sal?”

“It’s where I write,” Sal blurted, eyes wide. “I—like to write. I’m not—it’s not very good, and I probably shouldn’t—”

“Ah. I seem to remember something about that. Last week in your class, you read something for everyone. You wrote it?”

Sal nodded.

“It was very good. Far better than I could ever write, I’m afraid. If you need a report filled out, I’m your man. But that’s as far as my creativity extends with the written word. No computer?”

“The light hurts my eyes. And I like the sound of the typewriter better.”