Once Upon a Wardrobe(11)

The soft sound of his door closing was the last thing he heard.





Five

Ink as the Great Cure




George’s room shimmers with eventide light, pink and buttery yellow, and he sits quietly in his bed with his eyes closed. He is so still; I think maybe he’s fallen asleep. I am finished with the first story, telling it as best I know how, and it looks like I’ve bored him, put him to sleep. Maybe all he’d wanted was a simple answer; maybe I should have just made it up and told him about the fake box of ideas. He’d never know the difference. After I’d left Mr. Lewis, there was just so much to remember, and I’d rushed all the way through this first story.

I press my hand on my brother’s and squeeze. “George?”

“I heard every word. I’m here. I saw it all.”

My heart constricts with the knowledge that he feels like he has to say he’s still in the room, still with me. Tears prick the base of my throat, and I swallow them. His eyes open and he gives me a sad smile. “What happened when Warnie came back from school? Did he still love Boxen or did he grow up and not . . . ?”

“He still loved it; he didn’t outgrow it just because he went off to school! They worked on that land for years and years.”

“Well, you left out that part of the story.”

“I thought you were asleep, silly boy.”

“No! How could I possibly sleep in the middle of a story? I was just . . . in the story. Which isn’t sleep at all but something brighter and . . .”

“In the story?”

“Yes. Don’t you do the same?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“When I read a story or you tell me one, I can go into them.”

“Oh?” I say.

“So what happened when Warnie came home?”

“Well, close your eyes if you please.” I laugh and cover his eyes with my hand.

*

George leans back, and there he is again with nine-year-old Jack waiting for his brother to come home for holiday.

Jack sat in the attic staring past the rolling hills and farther, to Belfast Lough’s dark blue water. Flat, low clouds filled the much lighter sky, a faded sea.

On the road that was hidden by high trees, a black carriage carried Jack’s father, Albert, down to the docks to retrieve Warnie. In the house, in the rooms and hallways, the grown-ups bustled about. Mother in the kitchen, fussing about the grand meal for Warnie’s return. Their nanny, Lizzie, fluffing the sheets high in the air like the sails of a ship as she prepared Warnie’s room. Annie sweeping the front hallway of the brown mud Jack had tracked in after running through the garden. And his grandfather Lewis, who lived in an upstairs bedroom all to himself, sitting in a chair in the library, clucking and fussing over the news. Grandfather didn’t rush about like the others. He was slow and quiet, a presence of love in the house.

They all waited for Warnie, with Jack the most expectant. While Warnie was away, there’d still been school lessons for Jack—the mathematics he hated, the reading he loved, Latin, Greek, and history. And in between, he’d continued creating the world of Boxen.

Now staring out the window, Jack noticed a ferry had arrived in the lough, squat and low, its broad decks peppered with people. One of those people was surely his brother, but Jack couldn’t see that far. He waved from the window as if Warnie could feel his greeting.

Within the hour, Warnie and Jack were in the attic, reunited and standing in the little end room.

“You’re here at last!” Jack could not contain his enthusiasm.

Warnie stood tall, still in his school uniform starched and straight as the wall even after all that travel. “I am so happy to be home.” He beamed a smile.

“Tell me everything,” Jack said. “I want to know everything.”

“The headmaster—” Warnie looked keenly at Jack, intense. “His name is Capron, but he’s called Oldie. He reads our letters before they are mailed so I can’t say everything I want to say. But I don’t want to talk about school right now. I want to talk about Boxen. Your letter said that King Bunny has been captured!” Warnie loosened the top button of his uniform and sat down.

“I rescued him!” Solemn words poured out of Jack. “I wrote so many stories for us: ‘The King’s Ring,’ ‘Manx Against Manx,’ ‘The Locked Door,’ ‘Living Races of Mouseland,’ and ‘The Relief of Murry.’”

“Oh, that’s so wonderful. I want to see them immediately.”

“I even wrote a play called The King’s Ring with Icthus-Oress, who is the son of a dead butcher and a singer. And these.” Jack pointed to new drawings where mice carried swords and donned top hats. Toads wore three-piece suits.

Warnie reached for the piles of drawings and notebooks and Jack watched him, aware that Warnie was slightly different. Not in any essential way, but something in his eyes had shifted, a hardness that softened with the talk of Boxen.

“Do you not like Wynyard?” Jack asked, wondering if this might be the cause of the change that made Jack feel as if there was something about his brother he didn’t know.

Warnie gave a sad type of smile. “I like cricket and being outdoors but—”

“Then I would hate it,” Jack said. “You know I can’t play those kinds of games.” Jack held up his thumbs. “I am too clumsy by far.”