Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(7)

Sumi shuddered—not as theatrically as she normally would have. This wasn’t something to be seen. It was something she felt all the way down to her bones, which were the only remaining part of her original body.

“My parents,” she said. “They were like Nancy’s but the other way around, chasing monochrome instead of spectrums. They didn’t understand. Thought if they threw enough gray and gray and gray at me, I’d forget I’d seen rainbows and learn how to be their little sparrow-girl again. She died in Confection and I rose from her ashes, a pretty pastry phoenix. I need my color. It keeps me breathing when I see me in the mirror at midnight.”

“Exactly.” Kade slung a measuring tape around his neck and grabbed a stack of charcoal trousers. “Jack is literally in someone else’s body. That’s got to be like dysphoria squared. She’s scared and confused and she needs to be anchored. Get that shoe box for me, would you?”

Sumi picked up the box. “Is it full of bees?”

Kade eyed her. “I don’t want to know why you think I’d have a box of bees up here. No, it’s not full of bees. It’s full of gloves. Jack’s gloves. Jill always had less muscle mass than her sister, so I’m guessing I’ll need to do some alterations on the rest of her clothing if I want it to fit her correctly, but the gloves? Those should be fine.”

“That will help,” said Sumi, looking approvingly at the box. “Jack doesn’t like it when the world touches her.”

“I know. Come on. I don’t want you up here unsupervised.”

Sumi dimpled, looking young and innocent and terribly dangerous all at the same time. “What could I possibly do that would be so awful?”

“Everything. Every moment of the day. Since you were born.” Kade waited in the doorway until Sumi flounced past him, then closed the door as he followed her.

They’d have to involve Eleanor eventually. She liked it when the students were self-sufficient, and didn’t believe in coddling them; after all, they’d seen wonders beyond their apparent ages, had fought monsters and saved kingdoms. Surely they could go about their business without being smothered by the nearest available adult. She’d still want to know that Jack was back, and that something terrible had happened in the Moors. She’d want to help.

Or she would have, once. Eleanor had been less and less invested in the daily operation of the school since Lundy’s death. All the current teachers were adults who thought they worked at some sort of strange boarding school for the children of eccentric hippies: they didn’t know about the doors, or the wonders they concealed. Eleanor continued to handle student intake, and had taken over Lundy’s daily therapy sessions, but she was slipping.

Eleanor had started the school because she didn’t want other children to suffer the way she’d suffered when she returned from her own Nonsense world and ran up against the disbelief of the people who should have been most willing to believe her. Strange as it was to consider, she’d been young once, quick and bright and flexible-minded, ready to handle any challenge … except for exile. So she’d opened a school, with the goal of getting it as stable as she could before senility softened her mind and she went back through her own door. Before she went home.

Kade had always assumed there’d be someone to take over when that happened. Not Lundy, maybe, whose own journeys had left her a brilliant woman trapped in a body growing younger every year, but someone adult and capable. Someone who’d understand why it was so important, and who’d be willing to keep Kade on, keep teaching him everything he’d need to know to eventually step up as headmaster. And of course, there was college to be considered, courses in education and business and …

And he wanted to involve Eleanor in this latest potential crisis, and he didn’t want to involve her at all, because that theoretical adult had yet to appear. What if she decided this was the last thing she could handle? What if she left him, unprepared and alone, to take over running the school?

The thought made his heart beat too fast and his chest feel too tight. Panic attacks aren’t supposed to be contagious, he thought sourly. If he went too far down the metaphorical rabbit hole, he’d need to take his binder off in order to get his breath back, and he wanted that even less than he wanted to talk to his great-aunt.

Sumi followed him down the stairs from the attic to the main floor and along the hallway toward the basement, uncharacteristically quiet. When they reached the basement door, she reached out and placed a long-fingered hand on his arm, stopping him.

“There’s enough air for everyone,” she said, voice soft. “No one’s going to take it away from you.”

“Weirdly enough, that helps,” he said, because weirdly enough, it did. “Let’s see if we can’t convince Jack of the same thing.”

The scene in Christopher’s room hadn’t changed much: Jack was still huddled against Alexis, the yellow tablecloth bunched up around her bare feet and calves. Christopher was standing a reasonable distance away, with Cora halfway hiding behind him, like she expected to be ejected from the room at any moment.

“Oh, this is silly,” said Sumi. She shoved past Kade, taking back the box of gloves as she went, and hopped down the last six stairs, not pausing until she was next to Alexis. She slammed the box down on the table, creating a banging noise loud enough to make Jack flinch.