Mr. Zusman is Missing (113)

PSI-4

There were five kids in various positions of impatient repose around the schoolroom furniture under the bridge. They were brown and gray and dirty, like city birds. Pigeons and sparrows. Some had coats with patches and mismatched buttons, some had sweaters with coarse yarn and rough knitting. On a cold day in January, there would’ve been a lot more of them, but it wasn’t warm under the bridge right now. An upbringing in Strawberryfield begat pragmatism. Two of the little moppets were going through Seth’s belongings behind the chalkboard.

“Hey!” said Mordecai.

The moppets, a boy and a girl, looked up. “Emily, you were supposed to be on lookout!” the girl said.

“It wasn’t him!” Emily said. This child, who had evidently been hiding nearby, had a large silver-colored merger which took up more than half of her face. No sailing today, silver girl? Mordecai thought. He wondered absently if she was one of those burned girls from the shirt factory, but not as much as he wondered what the hell these two over here thought they were doing!

The boy was Soup, with chequered driving cap on his head and bow tie visible beneath a (probably stolen) coat. “Mr. Eidel! Is Seth dead?” He seemed remarkably concerned for an assumed grave robber.

“What? No, he is not dead! Who told you that?”

“Natalie said he was real sick, but Cornflakes said he took a whole lot of drugs and Miss Hyacinth probably put him in the asylum.” Soup frowned. “I didn’t believe her.” Although Mr. Eidel showing up seemed to suggest Miss Hyacinth was involved somehow.

“So that makes it okay for you to start going through his stuff?

“He wasn’t here and he didn’t do the heat under the bridge,” Soup’s distaff counterpart said reasonably. “Henri said they found him dead in the canal.”

“I mean, we weren’t happy about it,” Emily put in. “But this is just business. Josette would do the same for me.”

The fair-haired girl beside Soup nodded gravely. “It’s recycling. Like soda bottles.”

“I was just looking for food,” Soup said. “Food goes bad. I wasn’t gonna let them take anything he needed.”

Josette frowned at him. “We’ll see what you were gonna ‘let’ me take.”

“I didn’t see nothin’,” a boy of perhaps Erik’s age who was cleaning under his nails with a pocket knife opined. A standard witness statement in Strawberryfield. “Nobody told me nothin’.”

Hosanna! My Erik has a normal homelife, Mordecai thought. Hosanna! He caught himself. My Erik has a normal homelife…?

“That’s a double negative, Petey,” Emily said. Basic grammar. Okay, good to know. Emily looked to be about twelve.

“Mr. Eidel, what happened?” Soup said. “Where is he?”

“He has a cold, and Hyacinth took him home so he could rest where it’s warm and get over it. It’s not going to kill him. But I have bad lungs and it might kill me, so I’ve been banished from the house to look after you little hellions. And the school,” he added in Soup and Josette’s direction.

“I don’t need any looking after,” Emily said. She inclined her head smugly in Petey’s direction.

“It’s just a colloquialism, you little tart,” said Petey. Way beyond basic grammar.

Mordecai stared. I… I have absolutely no idea what Seth has been teaching these people. (For starters, ‘you little tart’ was a vast improvement in politeness, but only Seth and a couple of the kids knew that.) I don’t know where they are. I don’t know what they need. He must have some kind of individualized lesson plan for all of them. And, oh gods, he’s got to be able to apply it in groups of up to six… I think he could’ve done tactics just fine on his own!

“Are you gonna teach us?” a young boy asked incredulously. That one looked to be about four or five, further complicating things.

“Well, I was going to try,” said Mordecai. He addressed the chalkboard, “I’m… Is there any chalk?”

A little brown girl with long dark hair walked up and put two pieces in his hand. “I like hopscotch,” she said gravely.

Mordecai was uncertain if this was intended as a plausible reason she had chalk, or why she had attempted to steal it. “Thank you. What is your name?”

The girl sized him up for a moment. This guy had kind of a police-officer air about him, with the soldier’s coat and the shiny shoes. But the coat was faded and the buttons were mismatched, like her mom fixed all the hand-me-downs. That took the edge off a little. “Lilavati Patel. My dad owns the deli. I brought a pastrami sandwich.” She nodded to a white paper bag on the makeshift teacher’s desk.

“Right.” What an ethno-cultural wonderland our slum is, thought Mordecai. “Thank you, Lilavati.”

“Lila.”

“Thank you, Lila. Now, I’m…” He considered the chalk. Seth got away with first names all the time, but Mordecai didn’t think he wanted to chance it. Seth knew what he was doing, he could afford to be personable. “Mr. Eidel.” He wrote this.

“I can’t read cursive!” the youngest boy announced, raising his hand.

“Is there…?” He cast about for an eraser. “Oh, never mind.” He rubbed it out with his sleeve, leaving a pale stain there. “Mr. Eidel.” Mordecai twitched a small smile. “I’m the substitute.” He put that in parentheses. Mr. Eidel. (substitute) “I am not going to sleep here, but I will be back, and in a few days, Seth is going to be back, and he will be very sad if he has to rebuild the whole school from scratch, so could you try to leave his things alone?” He wrote… approximately this. Seth is sick. Back soon. Stealing makes him sad. And he put a box around it and wrote Do Not Erase, which he remembered from his own academic experience.

“I’ll keep an eye on it, Mr. Eidel,” Soup offered, hand raised.

“Right. Thank you.” To a certain extent, he trusted Soup. Just not around anything immediately edible. You couldn’t eat a desk. “Soup? Maggie is teaching you magic, isn’t she?”

“Uh,” Soup said, glancing around. The kids were staring at him. Lila whispered, “Maggie…?” and shifted uneasily. “Sorta,” Soup said. “I’m not great at it or anything.”

“That’s still better than me. There are sacrifice circles at the corners of the bridge. Think you can figure out how to get it warm under here?”

Emily and Josette, who had thus far not availed themselves of the desks, sat down. That was what they were waiting for. Soup shrugged and ambled off towards the supports on the south side, “Well, I’ll take a look at ‘em.” He was willing to come out of the closet, magic-wise, if it meant a warm place no one was going to throw him out of.

“Okay. If you can’t figure them out, I will teach everyone how to safely build trash can fires.”

Multiple voices piped up, “Oh, we know how to do that!”

“Of course you do,” said Mordecai. “I apologize for assuming otherwise. Now, you are…” He addressed them from left to right, pointing at each, “Emily,” with the silver patch, “Josette,” with the fingerless gloves, “Petey,” with the pocket knife. “…I don’t know who you are with the striped sweater.” It was dingy and stained and reminded him of the wallpaper back at the house.

“Carlos,” said the youngest boy.

“Carlos, thank you, and Lila,” with the brown skin… and the pastrami sandwich. “I already know Soup,” with the red bow tie and the hat. “So.” He smiled and folded his arms. “What would you like to learn today? Fifty-seven years of education and experience are at your feet.”

Carlos raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“Why aren’t you blue?”

“…Because I refract blue light and reflect red. Optics!” Mordecai said bravely.

Carlos considered this, frowning.

“And the sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering!” Mordecai added. He looked that one up for Erik at the library. “There are molecules in the atmosphere!” Which had something to do with it, he was pretty sure. “Primarily, but not limited to, oxygen and nitrogen!” He remembered that from passing out in the hospital waiting room.

Emily lifted a hand with a stub of pencil in it, “Do you think you could write that down so I can spell it?”

“No, probably not!” said Mordecai. Raylee? Raughly? Raleigh? He wrote Scattering, Molecules, Oxygen and Nitrogen.

“What’s the difference between oxygen and nitrogen?” Emily said.

“This is boring,” Josette said.

“It’s too hard,” Carlos said.

“I think it wants, like, a stray cat or something!” Soup called over from the far side of the bridge.

This is nothing like teaching Erik, thought Mordecai, still attempting to smile. Erik had a grand total of one brain and he could keep up with that. Bored of math? Okay, let’s read a book! Bored of everything? Okay, school’s over, let’s play outside!

He doubted his tiny audience would be amenable to recess, they could do that on their own.

He answered Soup, who was the easiest, “Okay, I am absolutely positive it doesn’t eat cats. Cats are too cute. I think he said bugs or…” Mice, he meant to say, but he had just caught a lungful of cold air and he doubled over, coughing it back out. Oh, shit. There went my heating charm!

“Geez, this one’s sick too,” Petey said.

“Maybe it’s a plague,” said Emily.

“Maybe it’s anathema,” Josette said with a gore-crow grin.

Emily groaned, “Josie, if it’s anathema, we’re all gonna die. That’s no fun.”

Mordecai frantically waved both hands. “No… No… Broken lungs. Just the cold!” He pulled up his scarf and covered his nose and mouth. That was a little better. “‘Scuse me a sec…” He went behind the chalkboard, in forlorn hope that this would block the glitter from view. It did not.

“Wow, what’s that?” Petey said.

“That a glimmer,” Lila said in an educator’s tone. “My daddy uses those because my mamma doesn’t want me to have any more brothers or sisters.”

“My brother gets the ones with the Xinese dragons,” Carlos said, nodding. “He says they’re more powerfuller, and we need that because we’ve got Iliodarian soldiers.”

“‘More powerful’ doesn’t need another modifier, Chili Bean,” Josette said.

“My brother says we could get a girl preggers on a windy day from across the street,” Carlos declared gravely.

“Ahh! No!” Mordecai ran into the chalkboard attempting to make a rapid U-turn and knocked it over. “No!” he reiterated, shaking a finger. He did not bother trying to right the board. He needed to right the children: “A glimmer with Xinese dragons in it is not any better than one with just glitter, just fancier-looking. You cannot get a girl pregnant from across the street no matter how windy it is. And these are not glimmers! They are single-use heating charms!” He stuffed his hand into the crumpled bag in his pocket and held one up near the central table where Josette and Petey were sitting. “See?”

Josette took the packet and examined it suspiciously. Her fingertips were red and sore-looking. “That’s writ on in pencil.”

“Written,” Petey said.

“Look, it’s kludged,” Mordecai said. “Okay? A friend made them for me. He had to use contraceptive charms, the toaster’s in the basement with Seth and the eggbeater sets things on fire! Come over here and feel me — Wait a minute!” He put up both hands and stumbled backwards. He stepped on the chalkboard. It crunched on the gravelly ground. “I did not just open a contraceptive charm and invite all of you to touch me. I misspoke. Do not go to the police. I am a good person! I promise you!” He was practically in tears. “Soup! Tell them I’m a good person! I make cookies and sandwiches! I have a child!”

The children were standing in a loose half-circle around him — the ones at the edges had come closer to examine the charm — and frowning. “What’s Seth doing in the basement?” said Emily with the silver patch and the interest in molecules.

Mordecai breathed a weak laugh. He shrugged. “Well, trying to get out, mostly, but Hyacinth doesn’t negotiate with hostages.” He was trying to be funny. Mistake number one.

Soup, at least, understood that humor was intended. He had drawn nearer to see if he needed to help clear up the thing with the contraceptive charms. He had no idea what the thing with the contraceptive charms was, but he did have experience with a lot of weird shit from Hyacinth’s house, and he assumed it was more of that. As, likely, was Seth being in the basement with a toaster. “You don’t have him locked down there or anything, right, Mr. Eidel?” he said, smiling.

The other children, who had less experience with magicians, were not smiling.

Mordecai focused on Soup, because Soup was easier to cope with. Mistake number two. “What? No. Of course not! There’s no door. Hyacinth had Milo put magic on the stairs so he can’t get out.”

Soup’s smile abruptly faded. He did not think Miss Hyacinth was torturing Seth in the basement, but he also knew the other kids had little reason to not think that. “Uh…”

“Look, he’s just going to run off otherwise.” Mordecai flung a gesture. “It’s for his own safety. Hyacinth doesn’t want to tie him to a chair and stuff drugs into him, that’s counterproductive.” He was paraphrasing what Hyacinth said earlier. Mistake number three.

“Mr. Eidel, I think you’d better choose your next words very carefully,” Soup said. He inclined his head in the direction of the desks.

Mordecai heard the sound of a familiar mechanism engaging behind him. He instinctively put up his hands. Don’t hurt me! The money’s in the violin case! All I have is change!

“Josie, you’re overreacting,” Soup said.

“You’re underreacting,” an incongruously young voice replied.

Mordecai turned to look, like one of those ladies in the horror movies who always seemed to be expecting the orchestral sting.

There were five children of various ages and heights standing among warped tables and chairs. None of them looked like what you would call ‘healthy’ or ‘well-cared-for,’ but all of them looked very angry. Josette was holding the switchblade with experienced ease. Petey had stuck his pocket knife point down in the scarred surface in front of him and his hand was fisted around it. Emily and Carlos had hands folded into their bulky clothing, presumably fondling more weaponry.

It was all right when Seth might be dead. Well, not all right, but there was nothing they could do about it except recycle his belongings back into the community. Mordecai had given them cause to think he might be in trouble, and a red stranger with too-glib an attitude presented a plausible target. This was how a bunch of slum kids who swam in violence and deprivation like the stagnant canals expressed their affection.

“Oh, now, children,” said Mr. Eidel, ersatz teacher. “There is such a thing as exaggeration that is meant to be funny…”

“Hyperbole,” Emily said.

“Satire,” Petey said, “but I don’t get it.”

My, but the little hooligans have excellent vocabularies! thought Mordecai.

“You’re over at that house all the time,” Josette said, gesturing. “Why didn’t you say something about Seth in the basement?”

“I am not!” said Soup, who felt it prudent to put as much rhetorical distance as possible between himself and the magicians. “I just like it ‘cos Miss Hyacinth feeds me. Everyone’s giving out free stuff for Yule right now, I haven’t been over in ages!”

“What about to play with Maggie?” Lila said, frowning.

“Maggie doesn’t play,” Soup said.

“We see you, Mr. Eidel,” Petey said. “You’re gonna want to stop right there.”

Mordecai, who was rather hopelessly attempting a fade, put his foot back where it was. There wasn’t anyplace to fade to, that was the problem. Seth didn’t have the decency to set up his school in a crowded area where a violinist without a permit could make an easy escape.

“We know where you live, dummy,” Josette added.

“Ha,” said Mordecai. “Sure.” It was just that if he could manage to get back there, he would have some resourceful people who could actually do magic to look after him when the kids with the knives showed up. He was pretty sure Hyacinth wouldn’t let him be murdered, no matter how hilarious she thought it was.

“So you’re useless, you don’t know if he’s okay?” Emily opined in Soup’s direction.

“Geez, you guys, I’m pretty sure he’s fine,” Soup said. “Miss Hyacinth is nice. She fixes toys. She fixes people. She fixed Emily over there!” He flung a gesture. “You know that.”

“She’s got our teacher locked in the basement with magic and he wants to come home!” Josette said.

“Me and Shirley would’ve gutted her if she tried it with us,” Emily said darkly. “But Seth can’t look after himself.”

“‘Shirley and I,’” Petey said, nodding.

Soup gazed heavenward and made a washing motion with his hands. “Okay, well, maybe ‘nice’ isn’t the word I want, exactly…”

“She has a strict moral code!” Mordecai declared. “Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say ‘moral…’”

“Dig up, stupid,” Soup hissed at him.

“As if you’re doing any better!” said Mordecai.

Petey turned his knife in his hands. “I think we all better take a little field trip down to Violena Street, Mr. Eidel, what do you say?”

“What if they lock us in the basement?” Carlos whispered aside.

“We should get the police,” Lila said.

“Police are useless,” Josette said. “This is our business. I’ll keep an eye on him.” She made a single pass with the blade, then pressed the button that hid it away. “You like having blood, don’t you, Mr. Eidel?”

“It’s a lovely day for a walk, children!” shrieked Mordecai. “What if we visit the basement? Wouldn’t that be nice!”

Lila took her pastrami sandwich. Josette and Petey held his hands.

———

There were maybe a dozen people in the front room waiting for service. Hyacinth had already dealt with five. No one new had shown up for about a half hour. She didn’t think this meant Maggie didn’t hit everyone in the head, just that some of them had decided to self-treat, or go to a real doctor. There was also a slim possibility that some of them were still lying on the floors of their homes, unconscious.

Her latest charge was proving rather difficult to convince and she was walking him to the front door in order to have a little more time with him. “Look, I’ve just fixed you for free, not even the cost of the materials. All I am asking is for you not to complain to the paper about this. It wasn’t Seth’s fault. It won’t happen again.”

“Miss Hyacinth, I understand where you’re coming from, but I can’t have a newspaper subscription that tries to kill me, even very rarely. This doesn’t happen with the Times.”

“Please. At least sleep on it.”

“Miss Hyacinth, if I sleep on it, I’m going to get another paper in the morning!”

“Now, you listen…”

To Hyacinth’s additional annoyance, Mordecai was coming in the front door with multiple small children in tow, allowing the stubborn gentleman with the mild concussion to make good his escape.

“Dammit, Mordecai! We talked about this!”

“I am operating under duress, Hyacinth,” he said, laying a hand on his chest. “I am fond of my blood.”

“What?”

“What’s up with all these people?” Emily said.

“Maggie tried to be clever with Seth’s paper route and hit all his subscribers in the head with this morning’s edition,” Hyacinth said flatly.

Lila gasped and dropped the paper bag with the pastrami sandwich, “Daddy! Did she hurt my daddy?”

“…Possibly,” said Hyacinth.

Lila abandoned the sandwich and ran out.

“Wimp,” Petey said. “It’s not even Sun’s Day.”

Emily shook her head. “Who buys a newspaper? People leave ‘em around all the time.”

“Hey, were you in that shirt factory?” Hyacinth said.

“Yeah?” Emily said suspiciously.

“How’s that working out for you?” Hyacinth touched the side of her own face, mirroring where the merger was.

It kind of hurt when it got cold, actually, but Emily wasn’t here to talk about her stupid patches. “Fine,” she said.

“You still got our real teacher in the basement, lady?” Josette said, one hand on Mordecai and one hand in her pocket.

Hyacinth opened her mouth. Mordecai opened his faster, “Don’t try to be clever or funny, we’ve done that, just nod and get out of the way. This one has a knife.”

“Hey, so do I,” Petey said.

“I got this toothbrush I sharpened,” Carlos added, desiring to be included. “My brother says I gotta help out if shit goes down.”

“Adorable,” said Hyacinth. It sort of was. He’d obviously worked very hard to get the handle to a point like that. Baby’s first shiv. “I take it this is some kind of rescue mission?”

“If he wants out, we’re taking him home,” Emily said.

“‘Home’ is under a bridge with no walls and no roof and no, you are not,” said Hyacinth. “I don’t care how many holes you put in Mordecai.”

“Hyacinth!”

“…That is not me being clever or funny, that is a statement of fact,” she continued. “You can visit him, but I’m coming down there in a couple minutes to clear you out. He is not allowed to keep you. He is going to rest.” She turned and addressed the room at large, “Okay, is anybody bleeding right now? Hands up! And, did anyone lose consciousness while I was out?”

Josette poked Mordecai in the ribs. Mordecai was eminently more vulnerable. “You’re coming with us.”

“Like hell you are!” Hyacinth sang out.

“I’ll sit at the top of the stairs,” Mordecai said, more tactfully. “You can threaten me and see Seth.”

Josette stopped everyone at the top of the stairs and called down first. The red guy said there was magic on the stairs. “Seth? Are you okay down there?”

“Josie?” came the weak reply. Seth wandered into view at the bottom of the stairs. He was wearing a button-down men’s shirt and plaid boxer shorts, both borrowed from Calliope. The sleeves were undone, and a bit short for him. He rubbed his eyes with a hand and blearily regarded the loose gathering at the top of the stairs. Frowning children in dirty winter clothing and nervous Mordecai. He smiled at them. “Josie, my dear, have you taken another hostage?”

Josette removed the knife from her pocket and gestured with it. “He said they magicked you in the basement and you couldn’t get out!”

“He tried to teach us!” Carlos added from behind. “He’s not even blue!”

Seth frowned. He was not very fond of his circumstances either, but there were more important lessons about stabbing people to impart. This wasn’t a good way to escape. “They have, but it’s only because I’d much rather be at school, and I was being silly about it. And I asked him to teach you, Charlie. He was very nice and went out in the cold to do it, even though that might make him sick.”

“I tried to tell ‘em you’d be okay, Seth!” Soup said, pushing his way to the front. “They weren’t buying it!”

Carlos shoved past him, and was the first to brave the stairs. He held his breath, and when he reached the bottom without being zapped into a frog, he let it all out in a relieved woosh and hugged his teacher around the waist. “We thought you died, maybe,” he said.

Seth sat down on the bottom step and pulled the boy into his lap. “No, my dear. It’s only a cold. Please don’t be worried about me.”

There was a stampede of children. Even Josette abandoned her captive and ran down. All of them hugged him, a couple of them seemed to be trying to assess his temperature, and Josette found space in his lap next to Carlos.

“Are you really for real sick?”

“Did that lady tie you up and put drugs in you?”

“Did they take your pants?”

“Lilavati brought you a sandwich, but she dropped it and ran off when she thought Maggie hit her dad in the head.”

“Are you gonna come back soon?”

“Why do you hafta be in the basement? Do you even have a bed?”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, please. This is all… ah…” He sneezed into his cupped hands. “Oh…” The tissues were over by his cot with the toaster and he was pinned down by multiple children.

Emily drew a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped his nose, leaving a dark smudge. He took it from her and used it, not minding the soot stains. “Thank you, my dear. I’m sorry. I think it would be easier for me if you raised your hands.”

Mordecai watched Seth take polite Q and A about being trapped in the basement for about fifteen minutes. He stopped Hyacinth when she put in an appearance, “No. I think he’ll send them off on his own.”

“I’ll check back later,” she said, frowning.

“Can we bring you some more Yule decorations?” Emily asked. There was some tinsel wound around the banister, and some ornaments, but no tree.

Seth shook his head. “Thank you for coming to visit me, but I don’t think you should make a habit of it. I don’t want to get anyone sick. I think Calliope will bring me as many decorations as I’d like,” he added with a smile. “She’s just a bit busy with everyone upstairs at the moment. She brought me a painting.”

“Yeah, what the hell is that?” Petey asked, hand raised. There was nodding and noises of agreement all around. Soup just sighed and shook his head. If it came out of Calliope, there was no point in trying to understand it.

Seth cleared his throat and dabbed under his nose with a tissue. They’d brought him the box. There was a small white pile gathering like snow on the stairs next to him, but Emily’s hanky had been carefully set aside for washing and return. “I think she said it was called Consumerism Emerging from a Well… No. From a Can of Spaghetti. There are quite a lot of old paintings about Truth coming out of a well, to scold people. Truth looks like a lady. Like Lady Victory. She’s making fun of it, I think. It’s like a cartoon.”

“What’s ‘consumerism?’”

“It’s how people like to buy things, even if it’s something they don’t need. To consume, is the verb.” His fingers twitched, uncomfortable without any chalk to back him up on the matter. “To take something, to take something in, also to eat or drink something. You can consume an ice cream sundae, or a comic book… or a can of spaghetti.”

“Ohh.”

Soup and Mordecai met eyes with each other, both of them staring. Holy shit, Seth just explained something Calliope did.

Seth blew his nose and another folded tissue joined the pile. He folded them in half first, then into quarters, then into eighths, and then there usually wasn’t any dry tissue left to use. “I’m so sorry, my dears. I don’t think my voice is going to go much longer. You’re not worried about me, though, are you? Hyacinth is taking care of me. She is kind.”

“Do you wanna go back to bed?”

“Yes, I think that would be best.”

“Is that cot really okay? Do you want your pillows from home?”

Seth sighed. I want to be home. I want to be home. He drew out another tissue and wiped his face. He was fairly confident they couldn’t tell he was miserable, he was leaking from everyplace possible, anyway. He smiled. “No, my dears. It’s quite all right. There are pillows here.” His voice wavered and he cleared his throat again. “Sorry.”

“Oh, no, it’s okay!” said the cadre of children with the knives and other improvised weapons. There was a lot more hugging. Petey grabbed the tissue box. They put him to bed. Not all of them had experience with being tucked in, Emily and Josette didn’t even have beds, but altogether they understood the concept.

“Get lots of rest and get better fast, okay?”

“Yeah!”

“Yes. I will.”

“Chicken soup!”

“Thank you, Charlie. That’s a good idea.” He leaned back on both elbows but did not quite lie down. “You’ll all tell the others so they don’t worry too, won’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna straighten Cornflakes out personally,” Soup put in.

“Be kind to her, Soup,” Seth said. “I’m certain she didn’t mean anything by it. It’s easy to get things confused.”

“Yeah,” Soup allowed. “Confused.”

“Thank you. Please be kind to Mr. Eidel too. There’s a lot he can teach you if you let him try.”

“Well, I won’t stab him,” Josette said.

“I appreciate that, Josie. Thank you.”

“Children?” Mordecai offered from above. “Can we let Seth get some rest now?”

Seth got one more hug each, and then the kids filed obediently back up the stairs.

“Just because I said I wouldn’t stab you, doesn’t mean I like you,” Josette said in passing.

“Yeah, you have to earn that,” Emily put in.

“There is nothing satirical about Seth being in the basement,” Petey said.

“The toaster’s a little funny,” Carlos said.

“Mr. Eidel, you gotta try to keep your foot out of your mouth, okay?” Soup said. “I’m not gonna be there to bail you out the whole time.”

“Yes, I will bear that in mind,” Mordecai said dryly. He spared one last glance into the basement, although he couldn’t see where the cot was set up from the top of the stairs.

It’s like a mutation, he thought. Everyone else adapts sensibly to Strawberryfield. They smarten up. They grow spines. They learn how to sharpen toothbrushes. Even the kittens have claws. That man is one-hundred-percent spun sugar all the way through and he gets away with it. He hangs out there all pathetic and vulnerable and makes you want to protect him. And it works. By gods, it works.

It was a little off-putting. He wasn’t sure which was worse: if that vulnerability was calculated… or if it wasn’t.

There was no door to close, no light to switch off. No way to know if he was alone and safe now. Seth pulled the blankets up over his head and tried to breathe evenly. Oh, yeah. I’m really stuck now, aren’t I? He’d just sent a rescue away, because… Because the kids didn’t need that, did they? He wasn’t their responsibility. And it wasn’t Mordecai’s fault… It wasn’t even Hyacinth’s fault, she was just trying to take care of him. She didn’t trust him because he’d gone and done something stupid. And he’d scared the kids that way. Maybe he shouldn’t be allowed out.

It’s not so bad here, he thought. Calliope even brought me a painting. They’re just trying to take care of me. It’s okay.

He cried very softly.