Wunderland(76)

“A girl,” she said, begrudgingly.

“What sort of a girl?”

“A girl jumping into a well.” Like you should.

“Why would she want to do that?”

She glared up again, preparing herself for ridicule. But behind the fraying wad of tape and the scratched spectacle lenses his eyes weren’t mocking. They were mahogany-dark with greenish-gold flecks in them. They were curious.

“She dropped her spindle in it,” she said cautiously. “Her mother makes her go back to get it. And when she does, she finds the world down there is much better than the one up here.”

He rocked back and forth on his feet. “Well, that’s splendid,” he said thoughtfully. “I’d sure like to find a better world underground.”

Ava scrutinized his face again, but it still appeared guileless. He was even nodding slowly to himself now, as though the idea of a wondrous land inside a well made such perfect sense he was wondering why he hadn’t thought of it himself.

“So what kind of place is it, down there?” he asked, taking a seat next to her.

“A beautiful meadow with butterflies. Talking bread and apple trees. A lady who showers her with gold.”

“All underwater?”

She hadn’t thought about this. “No. I think the meadow and everything is under the water—the next level down. But not actually inside the water.”

“That’s good. So she wasn’t soaking wet. That would make things pretty uncomfortable.” Cocking his head, he added: “Show it to me?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

Why not was that while Ulrich Something-or-Other had seemed decent enough to this point, there was still plenty of time for him to find something to laugh at her for. And there was little Ava hated more than being laughed at. By anyone.

Glancing at him sidelong, however, she had to admit that he didn’t look as though he was going to laugh. In fact, with his sad eyes and his long serious face, he looked like he rarely laughed at all.

She rearranged her knees into a crisscross position like his and set the sketchpad in between them. Ulrich studied it for a few moments, saying nothing. Then he looked up at her grimly.

“It’s good.” He sounded as though he were delivering a fatal prognosis.

Ava glanced at the picture. Since her grandparents’ deaths, no one had complimented—seriously, thoughtfully complimented—any of her drawings. The nuns at the Children’s Home of the Holy Mother had been too busy to offer more than an occasional “that’s nice.” So unfamiliar was this sort of praise that for a moment she wasn’t sure how to answer, though she knew gratitude was in order.

But when she opened her mouth, what came out instead was a question: “What’s a KZ?”

“Didn’t you say your dad died in one?”

“Yes, but my mother won’t tell me anything.”

He nodded, as though personally familiar with this conundrum. “It’s like a jail, only worse.” Picking a stick up from the rock’s surface, he studied it intently.

“Did people do bad things to be put inside them?”

“No,” he said shortly. “That’s part of why it’s worse.”

“How else is it worse?”

“My father won’t tell me.” He began stripping the twig of its silver skin. “He says he’ll explain when I’m older.”

“That’s what my mother says to me,” Ava exclaimed, abruptly giddy at this shared injustice. “We’ll discuss it when you’re older. You’re too young to understand.” Picking up a pebble, she threw it after his twig. “Like I’m a baby.”

“They think being grown-ups gives them the right to talk that way,” he said darkly. “But I’ve heard him cry sometimes. Like he’s a baby.”

“Really?” Ava had never seen Ilse cry. Not even once.

Ulrich nodded. “He thinks I don’t hear it. But I do.” Picking up another pebble, he tossed it so it landed between his twig and the little stone Ava had thrown. “So you really don’t know who your father is?”

“No.” For some reason it wasn’t hard to say this to him.

“But you know he’s dead?”

“I don’t even know that.”

He held her gaze a long moment, his gold-flecked eyes thoughtful. For a moment Ava had the strange sense that he was looking not into her pupils but through; right into the confusion and hurt and mortification that had made her blurt out the word KZ. He knows, she thought, with a cold empty certainty she felt in her stomach. He knows that I was lying.

If he did, however, her new friend opted not to say so. What he said, at last, was: “That’s better.”

“What is?”

“Not knowing whether he’s alive.”

“Better than what?”

“Than knowing he’s dead.”

She had heard this before. “What if he’s alive, and a truly terrible person?”

Ulrich brightened. “Like a bank thief?”

“Or a murderer.”

“Maybe he’s an evil genius,” said Ulrich, warming to the topic. “Like Lex Luthor.”

Ava frowned at him. “Who’s Lex Luthor?”