Hyacinth came in through the back door with boxed dinners and heard the Beatles. This annoyed her.
Mordecai, if you are home, you can cook. Why am I walking out in the dark to buy curry?
He was supposed to be playing on a street-corner someplace. Things had been pretty unsettled with the baby and everything, but Frig’s Day night was prime time for people to throw money at violinists and Mordecai had been unwilling to pass that up. He had also expressed an intention to visit Calliope for dinner and bring her some real food. Milo had a late shift and he would only be home long enough to get changed before departing for the club, so Hyacinth couldn’t send Ann. She didn’t want to resort to boxed noodles, so she got takeout.
But apparently, if she’d just hung around a little bit longer, she could’ve had real food at home with zero effort.
She deposited the paper bag on the counter with an irritated sigh. It was already cold. There wasn’t anyplace near enough to get warm takeout to the house in fall weather, not unless she resorted to Hassan’s. Maggie or the General could probably do something to it, but it was the principle of the thing.
She headed through the dining room, presuming he was in his room and presuming she was going to bang on his door and then yell at him.
The music wasn’t coming from his room.
The music was coming from the basement.
There was a soft crinkle of static and the song began again.
She recognized it. Not just generic slow Beatles but “Yesterday.” The musical equivalent of a weeping man in a dimly lit pub who wanted to show you photos of his wife and kids.
What in the actual hell? thought Hyacinth.
This was the unmistakable sound of Milo replaying the radio. But Milo replayed happy songs on the radio. Usually insufferable ones. Petula Clark. Milo would replay Petula Clark until Hyacinth desired to assassinate the woman. Not maudlin crap like “Yesterday.”
Milo shouldn’t even be here. Milo should be Ann and singing right now.
Problem, thought Hyacinth.
Serious problem? wondered Hyacinth.
She proceeded immediately to the basement.
Milo was sitting under the worktable with his hair down and his head hanging. He had one knee up and one knee down and his hands dangling limply between them. He was rocking, but not like when he liked the music. Like when she found him in his closet and he was hitting his head on the wall.
I have to hide the scissors, thought Hyacinth. She shook her head and rattled the thought away.
“Milo!” She stumbled down the rest of the stairs and skidded to her knees beside him. She picked up his hair and pulled it aside like a string curtain.
Brandy Alexander, she thought, then she pushed it away.
His glasses were opaque. There were tear-streaks of foundation and powder trailing down his cheeks. He was flushed and damp all the way down to his shirt collar. His nose was running over his mouth. He was bawling. But, you know, silently.
Hyacinth…
He couldn’t really see her, but he heard her. She was saying stuff. He wished she would stop and go away, but not enough to do anything about it.
Ann wouldn’t let him go upstairs. He had scared her too much when he wouldn’t be in the mirror this morning. She thought if she let him go upstairs and get changed he might not come back, or maybe he’d go in the closet and hurt himself somehow so he’d die. She was trying to talk to him but he was tired and he didn’t want that anymore so he played the radio.
He liked this song. It was how he felt. He had done the thing where he could get replays out of the radio ages ago, before Calliope brought the record player and he could replay any song he liked and she’d sit next to him and like them too.
There weren’t going to be any more records. Calliope didn’t die and the baby didn’t hurt her but it didn’t matter. He had hurt her. There weren’t going to be any more records ever, not even ‘Build Me Up, Buttercup’ on a park bench with sandwiches.
Ann made him go to work. She talked to him about it until it was easier to just go and maybe she’d be quiet. She was quieter. Then he was looking at the conveyor belt and he wondered if he put his hand under the conveyor belt if it might eat him like the machines used to eat the kids and the ladies at the workhouse and Ann got really scared and loud. So he didn’t do that, but Ann was still scared he might.
Stupid Ann. There weren’t any damn conveyor belts in the damn closet.
Ann made him get coffee on the way home. One of those stupid coffees he found out he liked after Calliope came to live here. With the ice and the milk and the syrup. Ann found him a nice bench to sit on and he sat on the bench and held the coffee until it melted and then he dumped it into a bush and he threw away the cup and he went home and Ann wouldn’t let him go upstairs.
He couldn’t change, but he had taken his hair down. She couldn’t stop him from doing that. She knew how he felt.
Hyacinth wouldn’t stop talking.
I’m not hitting my head or biting, he thought wearily. What more do you want?
The song was ending. He reached up and hit the radio with another enchantment, so it would play again. If he let the radio play something else, it would lose the song. It only remembered one song. He liked the song. It helped him cry.
Hyacinth had pulled the pad of paper down from the worktable and she was trying to hand him a pencil.
“Milo, honey, please. Tell me what’s wrong. Please try.”
Wrong…? What’s wrong…?
He took off his glasses and tucked them in his shirt pocket with the cards. He couldn’t see with his glasses. He took the pencil and he drew a watch.
“Something at work, honey? The factory?”
Milo shook his head. He put glasses on the watch.
“Okay. That’s you.”
He nodded. He changed his grip on the pencil, holding it downward like a knife, and scrawled a dark, jagged line over the watch. He tore through the top two sheets of paper and he kept scratching with the pencil, trying to obliterate the entire drawing.
Hyacinth covered his hand with her own and made him stop. “Milo. Milo, don’t. Don’t.”
He dropped the pencil and took his hand back. He turned away from her.
“Milo, can you get changed? Can I talk to Ann?”
He shook his head. He wasn’t even going to try to draw that. He’d want to tear up the Ann-drawing too.
The radio was playing an ad for Pin-Min soda. He’d lost the song.
He pressed both hands over his eyes and sobbed. There were no sounds. You could only see him shuddering.
Hyacinth wanted to cradle him. She folded her hands up in each other, then she hugged herself. “Milo, please come upstairs with me. I want to give you medicine, but I don’t want to leave you.”
He shook his head.
No. No. I don’t want medicine. I want basement and radio forever.
I want my song! I lost my song!
He hated the radio. It didn’t have his song. He hit it with another enchantment and snapped it off. A wisp of purple smoke drifted out of the stringed amplifier.
I… I hurt my radio… I won’t even have radio…
His brain felt like broken glass.
Milo, please go with her. You don’t have to have medicine, just please go with her. Don’t be alone.
Ann wouldn’t stop pushing him. He was so damn tired. But she wouldn’t let him be her!
You’re supposed to be my friend.
Milo… I’m trying to be.
Hyacinth was pulling his hand and speaking softly. She only had a hold of three of his fingers and she was trying to be gentle. “Please, Milo. I’ll make you coffee. Or chocolate. Or a Brandy Alexander! I don’t know. Please come.”
He got up and went with her. It was easier. He didn’t want the radio anymore, anyway. He hurt it.
I hurt everything.
Everything hurts.
I want my suitcase.
She sat him at the kitchen table. First she tried to give him tissues. He wouldn’t take them, so she dried his face for him. She held his nose and told him to blow. He wouldn’t do that, so she just wiped under it. She asked him if he wanted coffee. He looked away from her. She asked if he wanted hot chocolate. He continued to look away from her, and when she tried to move into his field of vision he looked in the opposite direction.
He was refusing to engage with her. It was like when he first showed up at the house. Except, even then, he was willing to do “yes” and “no.” Now there was nothing.
Oh, gods, Milo. Who did this to you? Who hurt you this way?
There weren’t any bruises. She wiped away the makeup and he was only hiding the one from running into the door the other day. No fresh blood and no new bruises. If someone had caught him changing in a pay toilet or coming out of the Black Orchid, there would be bruises.
“Milo, I’m going to make…” She was not going to make hot chocolate, because she’d have to go back in the basement for the milk and she wasn’t going to leave him. That meant coffee or tea. Milo was a coffee person, but it was after six and what she wanted more than anything was to sedate him. She had some herbal tea. She kept it to help with Mordecai’s cough. That would be something calming, even if she couldn’t get anything else into Milo.
“Milo, I’m going to make tea. You’re going to have tea.”
She was seriously considering adding some chloral hydrate to the tea, but if she tried to knock him out like that, she was going to scare the hell out of him. She might as well chase after him with a needle. (Which, in the back of her mind, she was also considering.)
Milo did not acknowledge the concept of tea with either approval or disapproval or even blinking. He sat stiffly in the chair with his arms hanging down to either side of him. He was pale with a mad blush in his cheeks and glazed eyes. He wasn’t even crying anymore. He looked like a wax doll.
Hyacinth put water in a glass pot and lit the stove. She watched him the whole time. If it looked like he was going to move or do anything, she was going to be right there to make certain he didn’t do anything bad.
She really, really wanted to hide the scissors.
◈◈◈
Erik had been in Calliope’s room. He had taken it upon himself to redecorate for the baby, and Calliope had all the best art supplies. Maggie gave him a hand when she could, but she still had to have lessons all the time, even though a new baby ought to be better than a bank holiday.
They had already stuck some nice drawings to the walls and some “Welcome Home” and “Congratulations” signs. (Maggie had to help him get all the stupid letters going the right way.)
Today’s project was a paper mobile. He had drawn and cut out a crescent moon and some stars and some clouds. He thought Maggie could probably do something to make them hang together and spin around. His uncle was out trying to make money, and Hyacinth didn’t come in to tell him to quit for dinner, so Erik cut out shapes until he got bored of it, then he wandered into the kitchen to see if there was food yet or if there was going to be food or what.
There was obviously not going to be food and when he saw Milo he didn’t care.
He didn’t just see Milo, he… It wasn’t like he heard Milo, when he understood what Milo was saying. It wasn’t like when the Invisibles talked to him, when there were voices in his head and words. It was like when they told him things. He just knew. It was there. Like a memory.
Like he suddenly remembered how Milo didn’t want to exist anymore and he knew how that was and how that felt.
Oh, please don’t.
Please don’t feel that.
Please don’t do that.
He felt sick and wobbly like cold custard and his thoughts were like ice in the back of his head.
He made a sound. Some sound. A very unhappy sound. He crawled into Milo’s lap in the chair and he flung both arms around his neck and he clung and he began to cry.
“Erik!” said Hyacinth. She dropped the tea. The cup splattered and chipped and rolled and she ignored it. “Erik… Don’t!” She took him by both shoulders and pulled at him.
Milo had gone ramrod straight and pale like cheese and he was trembling. His hands came up, fingers splayed, and then they went down and gripped the sides of his chair. He stared straight ahead at nothing.
“Milo… no… suitcase!” Erik sobbed. He refused to be removed. He held tighter. “Milo… please… no… suitcase!” He was practically screaming. It was like he was burning alive. “I… love you! I don’t… want you to… go! You’re… good! I…. want… you… to… stay! Please! You’re… scaring… me! Please… please… stop!”
“Erik, what’s he saying?” said Hyacinth, soft and numb. She still had her hands on him but she had stopped trying to get him away. She was too scared.
“Not… words,” said Erik. He could hardly do words himself. There was so much in the way. He sounded like one of Calliope’s records trying to play with a hand pressing on it. “It’s… blaaack.” A boiling black cloud with thunder in it or scribbled layers of black pencil over blood. He shuddered and pressed a fist to his chest. “It’s… like… my… uncle… said… I… haaate… you… and… diiie… and… it’s… my… faaault!”
Milo shivered. He could hear. He wanted to shut down and not think and not be, but he could hear. Especially Erik.
I’m… hurting… you…?
He was afraid.
Is it because I’m hugging you wrong? I’m sorry…
He didn’t know how to fix it.
Milo, it’s not that. He knows what you’re thinking. Someone told him what you’re thinking.
This was hard. He couldn’t… There was touching and afraid and everything hurt. About Calliope?
About wanting to go away forever.
He doesn’t think I should?
He didn’t need to ask Ann that. He knew.
Erik was terrified.
Erik liked him.
Erik was seven.
Oh, gods, Erik, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you that. You didn’t need to know that. Oh, gods. Do you know I’m sorry? Do you know I’m sorry?
Milo, he doesn’t care if you’re sorry. He’s not mad!
Milo wanted to scream. What am I supposed to do?
Tell him you won’t!
HOW?
Erik wasn’t hearing him. Erik was too scared.
Suitcase. Erik doesn’t want me to have a suitcase. Suitcase…
Milo reached up a shaking hand and drew a card out of his shirt pocket. He put it on the kitchen table with the blank side up, then he went after the pencil. He had to reach around Erik to draw. He did not attempt a hug. He began to draw a handle, then he stopped and drew a large firm X. No. No suitcase. If he drew a suitcase first, Erik might think he meant yes suitcase. He put the suitcase under the X, then he retraced the X, bigger and darker. He picked up the card and showed Erik.
Look. Okay? Look. Please. I’m sorry.
Erik plucked the card from Milo’s hand. He nodded at it. “Promise?” he asked softly.
Milo nodded rapidly.
Erik sobbed. He shivered and clutched the card against him.
Is it wrong? thought Milo. Did I make it worse?
“I’m… sorry I… hugged you,” Erik whispered. He slid out of Milo’s lap and took two unsteady steps away. He turned away too. “I… was… scared.”
Hyacinth knelt down next to him and snatched him and held him tight. “Erik, it’s all right. I wanted to hug him too.”
They were both crying.
Milo put both hands on the table and hung his head. Ann? Why do I hurt everybody?
Milo, they’re hurt because they love you.
Then they should stop.
Milo, it doesn’t work that way. You don’t get to tell people to stop loving you. They do it because…
This was difficult. Milo had a very hard time with this sort of thing and he had already gone through emotional hell. He was punch-drunk. He was understanding things even less.
Ann chose words carefully, They love you because they like you and you’re good, and they’re afraid of you being hurt. Love makes you want someone to be okay. Like you want Erik and Hyacinth to be okay.
He brought his head up, wide-eyed, and shook it. I can’t be okay right now. Won’t they be okay until I can be okay?
I… I think all three of you are going to have to try to be more okay together.
Milo flinched. It’s so hard.
I know. I’ll try to help you.
There was a box of tissues on the table. Hyacinth wanted him to have the tissues before, but he pretended he didn’t understand because he didn’t want anything. He took two, then he pushed the box over at Erik and Hyacinth.
Please have this. I can’t give you hugs or look at you the right way. Please have this thing that helps.
Hyacinth took tissues for herself and for Erik. She said, “Thank you, Milo.”
Milo closed his eyes and shivered. Then that’s good. Then that’s right. He wanted to cry again, relief now, but he was still too scared.
He wished he could have the tea she tried to give him, but it was all spilled. If there was even a little left in the cup he would’ve tried to have it, but there wasn’t any. He couldn’t make more. If he tried to get up he was going to fall. He could only give the stuff he could reach. He guessed he could try giving them the sugar bowl, but they might not understand. Sugar wasn’t anything to do with sad.
He could maybe give them his shirt. There was a thing people said about being so nice you’d give someone your shirt. It was grey cotton. Chambray. Sort of a rough weave, but it was a work shirt. Button down collar. Set-in sleeve. He didn’t know about the buttons. Some kind of fake, swirly… It didn’t matter. The shirt thing was just one of those metaphors. If he really did it, they wouldn’t understand — and they’d see how he hurt himself sometimes.
He had cards in his shirt, and the pencil was on the table in front of him.
He drew a hug. Not faces or people. Two arms holding a heart so tightly they had squished it a little in the middle. He pushed that at them. I want to, okay? I would if I knew how. I would always.
Hyacinth examined the card. “Milo, do you want a hug?”
Milo nodded… then he put both hands up and shook his head.
Hyacinth nodded. “It’s okay. I understand.”
Milo sighed relief and slumped.
Erik took the card from Hyacinth. He was still crying softly but he managed a word, “Milo?”
Milo looked at him.
Erik crossed his arms over his chest and hugged the card. He rocked back and forth with it. I’m hugging you back, okay?
Milo nodded. Yes. Thank you. He clasped a hand against his chest. He shed a few tears. Hyacinth handed him a tissue. He used it.
I understand this. I understand about giving things. I still feel hurt, but I’m doing this right.
He was a little less scared, and he could cry a little more.
Hyacinth said, “Milo, will you let me give you some medicine?”
Milo winced. Hyacinth thought medicine was to help him. She helped people with medicine all the time. She didn’t know how it hurt him and he couldn’t explain.
Milo, it’s not all like that.
No. It wasn’t. He took his last card out of his pocket and he drew Hyacinth’s doctor bag. He showed the card. He pointed to the bag on the counter and he pointed to the table in front of him. For good measure, he put the card on the table in front of him.
“The whole thing?” Hyacinth asked him.
Milo nodded.
Hyacinth put Erik in a chair, and she hugged him again and she gave him more tissues, then she got the doctor bag and she put it in front of Milo. He opened the bag and searched inside. For a minute, he couldn’t find what he wanted, and he thought he might have to guess and take something else, but then the clear bottle of aspirin presented itself. He removed it, he showed Hyacinth, and he dry swallowed two.
There. Now she’d given him medicine to help him.
“Aspirin?” Hyacinth said weakly. She’d really been hoping for a sedative, or a tranquilizer, or even a goddamn antihistamine. But Milo looked… She wasn’t sure. Exhausted, and careful and hopeful. Like he was in the middle of a tightrope and he really wanted off and he thought he might make it.
“All right,” she said. “But at least let me get you some water. You shouldn’t take them that way.”
Milo nodded. He let Hyacinth give him water. That did help a little. She gave Erik water too. And she dished him out a pill. Not aspirin. It was tiny and pink.
Erik was going to take that. Milo put a hand over it. He frowned at Hyacinth.
Will that hurt Erik? Erik is little.
She gave Erik medicine that hurt him before, so he couldn’t focus or talk right. Ann said it was to help, but that was not helping.
“It’s just…” said Hyacinth. She closed her mouth on her tongue. That was an antihistamine. She wanted Erik to sleep. She thought probably Milo wasn’t going to be super okay with her drugging a seven-year-old. Mordecai might not have been either. “It’s so his nose won’t be stuffy. He’s been crying.” Well, that was sort of true.
Milo took his hand off the pill. He turned his palm upwards. He sniffed once.
“You want some?” said Hyacinth. She tipped four into his hand.
Milo blinked. He put three down on the table and accepted one.
“You should have more than that,” said Hyacinth. “It’s by weight. Erik is little.”
Milo doubtfully picked one more off the table.
Hyacinth tried handing him another. She smiled. Come on, Milo. Negotiate with me. But even if he’d only take two, she was thrilled with that. It would help him.
Milo took three. Erik took one.
Hyacinth smiled at them both. “I’m going to make some tea, you guys.”
Maggie and the General came down while she was making the tea. Erik and Milo were already starting to look a little bit stoned, but Hyacinth thought that was more circumstances than side effects. Regardless, she approved of it. The General wanted to know if there had been some kind of crisis. Hyacinth was not firing on all cylinders herself, and she was not sure if that was sarcasm. Hyacinth picked up the bag of cold curry and handed the woman the whole thing.
“Here. This is dinner.”
“All of it?”
“Yes. No.” She took back the bag and put it on the kitchen table. She didn’t want anything, and she was damn sure Erik and Milo didn’t want anything, but she had to feed Barnaby and Room 101, and she was in no shape to cook, or even assemble sandwiches. She removed two boxes at random and she handed back the rest. “Here. Knock yourself out. Eat what you want and pitch out the rest. I really don’t care. I have other things to do.”
“That is wasteful,” said the General.
Maggie had a little bit more on the ball. She was ignoring dinner and hugging Erik. “What happened?”
He shook his head. “Milo…” He didn’t want to say that. He wasn’t sure how to say that. What Milo felt and what he wanted to do. “It’s better now,” he said first. He was still clutching the cards with the X-ed out suitcase and the hug. “Milo wanted to go away. He thought everyone else wanted that too.” Erik sighed. “I hugged him on accident. Please don’t hug him, Maggie. Everything is really hard right now.”
Maggie blinked and looked up. She didn’t stop hugging Erik. “Milo… Why…?”
Milo looked pained.
Maggie shook her head and looked away. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to say why. I don’t want you to go away.”
Milo nodded. He dropped his head. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry about everything. I forgot.
Ann, I’m so tired. He shuddered and his hands shook. Is it the medicine? Did Hyacinth hurt…
Milo, you’re exhausted. You’ve been hurting yourself.
Yes. He closed his eyes. He stopped paying attention. Hyacinth put a cup in front of him and he drank out of it. It was warm and that was all he cared about. She said she wanted him to go to bed.
Ann, can I?
Yes, dear. I think it’s all right now.
He nodded at Ann and Hyacinth.
Erik said, “I want to go with you. I want to stay with Milo. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Milo looked at Erik. Briefly. Erik’s shirt had set-in sleeves too.
Erik wants to give me sleeping-on-the-floor, he thought. He gave Erik sleeping-on-the-floor once, but that was a hard thing to give, and Erik was little.
Milo put his hand on Erik’s arm. Erik? Will you let me give you sleeping-in-your-bed? Do you hear me? Do you understand?
Erik nodded. “Okay.” He put his hand on Milo’s hand, then he let Milo and Hyacinth go.
Hyacinth put Milo to bed. She took off his shoes and threw them in the closet. She took his glasses out of his pocket and folded them on the dresser. When she tried to undo his shirt he folded his hands across his chest and shook his head, so she just put him in bed and covered him up.
She didn’t want to leave him like that, but she had left Erik in the kitchen with tea. Milo was tired and he had his eyes closed, so she didn’t think he’d do anything. She’d come back and check on him. She had a feeling she was going to be going back and forth all night, or at least until Mordecai got home.
She took Erik out of the kitchen and put him to bed. She got him into his nightshirt. She wanted to ask him what the hell happened. Why Milo was like that. She couldn’t ask Milo. Milo didn’t do “why,” and for whatever reason Ann was unavailable. She had no idea when Ann would be back or if Ann would be willing to do “why” when she got back.
She didn’t ask him why. She didn’t ask him anything. She held him and she thanked him so much for helping, and she told him it was going to be okay.
“I think it is,” Erik said softly. “Will you wake me when my uncle gets home? He might not want to, especially if he thinks I got hurt.”
“All right, honey,” Hyacinth said. “But only for a little while.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to sit with you?”
“Yes, but go back and check Milo first. Please.”
Hyacinth went back up and came back down. Then she did it again. Then she did it again.
