Gerard would almost rather be working a Latin exercise. He hates Latin—hates most of the dead languages his mother is trying to teach him, especially since being able to read them fluently will mean he has to read some of the books she’s always poring over, and he knows he doesn’t really want to do that. At least Latin uses a familiar alphabet. Ancient Greek and Sanskrit both use alphabets he has to struggle to remember. Eventually he’ll get better at them, but for now, reading them is torture.
Not nearly as much torture as being forced into helping his mother in the shop, though.
Pinhole Books, Mary Keay, Proprietor—as she always answers the phone when it rings—is small and crowded, but not cluttered. Every book on the shelves is older than Gerard himself, probably older than his mother. He’s not a child anymore—or at least he doesn’t consider himself one—and he doesn’t think his mother is as ancient as he did when he was little, but he overheard her talking to a client once and he knows she was born in 1924, so that’s still pretty old. (He’s looked it up, because he wondered, or maybe hoped, she wasn’t really his mother; having a baby at age fifty-two is rare, but hardly unheard-of.) The really old books, or at least the really rare ones, are kept in a glass cupboard behind the desk she uses as a check-out counter, and Gerard isn’t allowed to touch those. He’s not only allowed but encouraged to touch the others, though.
Right now she’s got him helping her sort through a box of books she just got in. He watches her closely, trying to take his cues from her. He needs to know if he’s supposed to be excited or disappointed or angry or confused. His mother’s expression is set into one of careful neutrality, though, and Gerard can’t penetrate it, so he silently pulls books out and looks at the covers and tries to figure out her system for stacking them. The trouble is, he doesn’t recognize the alphabet it’s written in.
“What language is this?” he finally dares to ask. It’s a gamble how she’ll react; either she’ll be pleased to impart information to him or annoyed with him for not just knowing, and he can’t begin to guess which way it’s going to go.
“Russian,” his mother replies, and that’s definitely her annoyed voice. Any second she’s going to backhand him for being stupid, and he cringes backwards instinctively. “Or so I assume. This is certainly the Cyrillic alphabet.”
“Oh.” Gerard stares at the books. Cyrillic. That’s probably another language he’s going to have to learn to read, which means another alphabet to get mixed up with. A couple of the letters look familiar, at least, which is better than usual.
The bell on the front door peals loudly, and Gerard drops the book he’s holding. His mother gives him a reproving look as she gets up. “Keep unpacking the box, Gerard,” she orders him. “I’ll be right back.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gerard says meekly. His mother doesn’t say anything in reply, just heads for the steps to the front door.
He’s messed up. He knows he has. He’s already in hot water for having stolen the bottle of dye from under the sink and used it on his own hair; the sink, his hands, and his forehead were all stained black, and it didn’t set properly because he didn’t know what he was doing, so it’s blotchy and uneven. After yelling for almost an hour (or maybe it just felt like it), his mother gave him a choice: Shave his head completely bald and never be allowed to dye it again, or do whatever she instructs him to do exactly as instructed for the next week, in which case she won’t take his dye away if he buys his own.
Not that she gives him any pocket money, but still, he doesn’t doubt for a minute she can carry that threat out.
He concentrates on unpacking the books, as carefully as he can, setting the books on their sides so that his mother can more easily read the titles and go through them if she wants to. Murmured voices float up the stairs, and a few moments later, his mother returns, accompanied by her latest client.
Gerard peers over the box at the client. It’s a woman, which is unusual but not unheard of. He’s not sure how old she is exactly; her expression looks tired and bitter the way his mother’s does, but she seems relatively young. Her hair, ash blonde and fine, is piled in an elaborate hairdo on top of her head in a rather sad attempt to make it look thick and full, and her skin is sallow and sagging, like she was once quite fat but has lost a lot of weight in a very short amount of time. The woman is holding onto Gerard’s mother’s arm, which is also surprising—she’s not the touchy-feely sort, his mother—and looks like she’s about to collapse. The real surprise, though, is that holding her other hand is a child.
Gerard stares at the kid in unabashed, undisguised surprise and interest. It’s a boy, probably a few years younger than Gerard himself—maybe five or six? Gerard doesn’t spend a lot of time around other kids, so it’s not like he’s that good at telling. He’s short and stocky—he probably weighs more than Gerard does despite being at least a head shorter—and wears a Norfolk jacket several sizes too big for him and a matching cap that’s only saved from falling fully into his eyes by a pair of large round steel-rimmed glasses. The curls protruding from the sides of the cap are a lightly copper-kissed caramel, and the eyes behind the lenses of the glasses are a soft sour apple green. Truthfully, his coloring—apart from the freckles dusted across his nose and cheeks—is exactly what Gerard’s always wished he had instead of the nearly carrot orange hair and muddy hazel eyes he’s been cursed with, and he wants to hate this kid on sight.
The expression stops him, though. The boy looks downcast, bewildered, lost, and afraid all at once—emotions too big for such a (comparatively) small body. Looking at him, Gerard finds himself wondering if the boy’s mother is planning to sell him to Gerard’s mother, or abandon him, or trade him for a book. Or if he’s going to be used in one of the dark, terrifying rituals found in the pages of those books, or fed to one of those terrifying things his mother’s always consorting with.
He feels bad if that’s the case, but it’s not his problem, he tells himself. He can’t save the whole world. He can barely save himself. And honestly, if the kid dies before he finds out how scary and…and fucked up (Gerard’s not really supposed to curse, because gentlemen don’t use that kind of language, but he does it as often as he can in the privacy of his own head anyway) the world is, it’s probably for the best. The Fourteen don’t generally pay much attention to children—that person with the long fingers and the white smile and not much else said it was because incomplete fears are unsatisfying, whatever that means—but this kid looks like he’s going to be claimed by one or another if he lives long enough, so it’s probably a kindness if he dies now.
“Here, you sit down right here,” his mother says, her voice honey-sweet and soothing. It makes Gerard almost want to look around for where his real mother is hiding, because he’s never heard her speak like that to anyone, let alone a client. “That’s it. Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Yes, please,” the woman says, her voice a mere thread. She’s got a distinctly Northern accent, and Gerard, who has hastily resumed unpacking now that his mother is back in the room, wonders if she’s a recent transplant to London or just here on a day trip.
“I’ll get that right out for you, and then we can talk.” Gerard’s mother studies the little boy, who’s no longer holding the woman’s hand but standing next to her. Gerard can’t tell if it’s protective or nerves or what that keeps him so close to his mother. “Gerard.”
“Yes, Mum?” Gerard gets to his feet hastily, expecting that she’s going to send him to make the tea. Anything to get away from the books.
He’s not remotely prepared for her next instructions. “Take this young man up to your room while Mrs. Blackwood and I have our consultation. Is that all right with you?” she adds, looking not at the boy but at his mother.
The woman nods, then suddenly pulls out a handkerchief and coughs into it for several moments. Once it subsides, she turns and fixes a steely look on the boy, who shrinks back slightly into himself. “You behave yourself, do you hear me?”
“Y-yes, Mum,” the boy stutters out.
“Don’t make me regret bringing you along.”
“Yes, Mum. I, I mean, no, Mum.” The boy looks even more terrified at that.
Gerard takes pity on him. He knows what it’s like to have a mother like that. “Come on, then. Follow me.”
Obediently, the boy falls into step behind Gerard. Gerard leads him up the stairs, down the hallway, and to almost the last door along the way. Before opening it, he hesitates, then turns to look at the boy. “You’re not…claustrophobic or anything like that, right?”
The boy frowns and silently forms a few syllables. “I don’t…know what that means.”
“Are you afraid of the B—of closed in spaces?” Gerard clarifies. “With no windows or anything?”
“N-no?” The sudden panic on the boy’s face, there and gone in a second, makes a lie out of that, though.
Gerard mentally shrugs. If it’s that big a deal, he’ll leave the door open. “Okay. Just thought I’d ask.” With that, he opens the door. “Come on in.”
He switches on the light as he steps into his room. It almost definitely used to be a storage closet of some kind; it’s relatively small, maybe three meters on each side, and it has no windows. There’s a twin bed, a dresser, a night stand, and a desk, or at least a table that Gerard uses as a desk, which is covered in art supplies. He contemplates the chair in front of it, then waves at the bed. “You can sit over there.”
The boy lets out a sigh bigger than his entire body as he steps into the room after Gerard. He sets his shoes down next to the door—Gerard hadn’t noticed him taking them off or carrying them, but then he has been behind him this whole time—and obediently comes over to hitch himself up onto the bed. After a moment, he unbuttons his jacket and takes it off, then lays it carefully in his lap, his cap on top of it. His hair is curly all over, Gerard notes, and it looks incredibly soft and fine. He feels a bit self-conscious about his own coarse, straight hair.
“I thought it would be smaller,” the boy says, looking up at Gerard with an expression of total innocence and openness that he’s not sure what to do with. “When you said…I thought, I thought it’d be like the hall closet at home. Small and dark and without a knob on the inside.”
The way he says it, so simply and matter-of-fact, makes Gerard feel sick to his stomach. His mother isn’t the greatest mother in the world, or the greatest person in the world, but…she’s never locked him in a closet with no light and no way out. As bad as she is, she’s not likely to put him in a position to draw the Buried or the Dark. Gerard puts that together with the way the boy reacted to his mother’s instructions and suddenly hopes that she is planning to leave him at Pinhole Books. Or even feed him to a Fear. Anything to get him away from her.
“No, this is my bedroom,” he says instead, trying not to sound like he’s angry. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Martin.”
“Martin,” Gerard repeats.
Martin nods. “Martin Blackwood. What’s your name?”
“Gerard. Gerard Keay.” Gerard is still turning the name Martin over and over in his head. It fits the boy like a glove—certainly better than his jacket or hat, or the shirt underneath that hangs loosely on his frame and covers half his hands.
Martin brightens and says something in a language Gerard doesn’t recognize, but it’s obviously a question. Gerard shakes his head. “Sorry, I don’t speak…whatever that was.”
“Oh.” Instantly, Martin deflates and shrinks back slightly, like he’s afraid Gerard is going to hit him. “Sorry, sorry, I just—you said your name was Gerard and that’s a Polish name too, so I though, I thought maybe you spoke Polish, and I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Gerard interrupts, holding up his hands. “I’m not mad at you or anything. I just didn’t understand, that’s all.” He blinks. “Are you Polish, then? No offense, but Martin Blackwood isn’t a very Polish name.”
“In Polish it’s Marcin.” Martin pronounces this MAR-cheen. “I’m British, same as you, but Granddad speaks Polish and he taught me. Russian, too. Martin is pronounced the same in Russian, but the alphabet looks different.” He suddenly snaps his mouth shut and shrinks into himself again. “Um, sorry.”
“For what?” Gerard frowns at him.
“For talking too much about boring things nobody wants to hear about?”
“You’re not talking too much. You barely talked at all,” Gerard points out. “And I want to hear about that. I don’t speak Russian either, but my mother just got a whole bunch of books in that she says are probably written in Russian, so I think it’s interesting that you know Russian. Can you read it, too, or just speak it?”
“I can read it, too. O-or I can read it as g—as well as I can read English, and Polish too.” Martin makes a face. “I’m only seven. Miss Taylor—she was my teacher last term—she says I read ahead of my age, but still.” He looks up at Gerard again. “Do you like to read? What languages do you read?”
“English, mostly, but I’m learning a few other languages.” Gerard shrugs. “I don’t read for fun all that much. Mostly it’s just for my studies.”
“Where do you go to school?”
“My mother teaches me at home.”
“Oh.” Martin picks at his coat for a moment. Before Gerard can ask him anything, he looks up again and adds, “How old are you?”
“N—” Gerard stops. “Wait, what time is it?”
Martin twists his arm and pushes his sleeve back, revealing a wristwatch on a brown leather strap. He moves his lips silently for a few moments, then looks up at Gerard with a triumphant expression. “Eleven thirty-seven.”
Well, Gerard’s mother always said he was born in the morning, so it’s close enough to not being morning anymore that he’s officially passed the right time. Probably. Most likely. “In that case, I’m ten now.”
“Today’s your birthday?” Martin looks surprised and delighted.
“Yeah.” Not that Gerard’s mother ever really acknowledges it, other than to add a year to the you’re too old for this behavior lecture.
Before Gerard can ask when Martin’s birthday is—not necessarily because he cares, more because he’s still trying to figure out this whole polite conversation thing—Martin sits up straighter, takes a deep breath, and launches into a song. It sounds enough like the language he talked in earlier that Gerard guesses it’s a Polish song, and it sounds happy enough, but he can’t translate it.
That actually matters less than Gerard would have thought, because he’s absolutely captivated by Martin’s voice. Gerard can sing along to recordings just fine, when he wants to, but when he’s singing by himself it never sounds quite right. Martin’s singing, though, is sweet and true.
“That was really good,” he says when Martin finishes. “What was that song?”
“Um, I think it’s called ‘Sto Lat’? Granddad sings it on my birthday every year. Here, I—” Martin looks embarrassed, and instead he sings the English “Happy Birthday” song. It’s a lot easier for Gerard to tell that this one is sung absolutely correctly. For a seven-year-old, Martin’s got a really good talent.
Also, and Gerard would rather be subjected to the direst torture than admit this out loud, it’s the first time anyone has ever sung the song to him.
“Thanks, Martin,” he says, and Martin’s face lights up. “You’ve got a really nice voice.”
Martin’s cheeks turn pink, and he ducks his head bashfully. “Thank you. I, um, I was in the chorus at my old school.”
“Not at your new one? Why’d you switch schools?”
“Oh—um—well, M-Mum and I just moved to London.” That fast, Martin’s gaze drops, and his shoulders slump. “I, we used to live in Devon, and that’s a long way to go to school, so…”
Gerard mentally congratulates himself on having figured out they weren’t originally Londoners. “How come? I mean, how come you moved here?”
“Mum’s sick. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. But she says there are—there are specialists in London that can help her get better. So we moved here.” Martin frowns. “I thought we were going to see one today, but—your mum’s not a doctor, is she?”
“No, she’s a bookseller.” Gerard really, really hopes his mother isn’t the “specialist” Mrs. Blackwood wants to consult, because that means that whatever is wrong with her is something supernatural, and that won’t be good for Martin either. He changes the subject. “So what do you like to do for fun?”
By the time Gerard’s mother comes into his room to tell them it’s time for lunch, which the Blackwoods are apparently staying for, Gerard has taught Martin how to play Gin and Martin is ahead by about thirty points. Gerard isn’t even letting him win.
He looks down at Martin’s bright smile and shining eyes turned up to him as they head out of his room, and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, it won’t be such a bad thing if this kid hangs around a little bit longer. Maybe Gerard can keep him from getting hurt, or falling too deep into the Fourteen, or finding out about them at all.
It’s something he can think about, anyway.