“This,” she crooned, “is the story of King Nuada.”
“Tell the one where he loses his hand and—” The bedroom door opened, and the loamy aroma of earth and adventure blew in with Warnie.
Warnie reached Jack’s bedside in hasty steps, his smile at the ready. “I have something for you!”
The metal lid of a biscuit tin rested in Warnie’s hand. He placed it in the nest of Jack’s palm. A tiny garden made of twigs and moss rested inside the lid, a miniature world as mightily real as the ones Lizzie had begun to spin from the air. Jack stared at the mossy collection and a feeling passed through him, a warmth and an opening of his heart that he could barely put into words: a yearning, a longing, a wanting . . .
Jack held that tiny world his brother made for him and also held the deep feeling, even as the day of his brother’s departure approached like a speeding train.
For the remaining hours and days they had together at Little Lea, the brothers played chess, checkers, and Halma. They read books and created their new land called Boxen.
When Warnie finally departed for boarding school—across the sea to England by ferry and then on a train to Wynyard in Hertfordshire—Jack guarded Boxen and the miniature garden as if his attention to this made-up world would hurry Warnie home to him.
*
One frigid November night, after Warnie had been gone for weeks, the house felt emptier than ever. Mother tucked Jack into bed, holding The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin. Jack thought for a moment to protest that he was nine years old now and much too grown-up for such stories, but that would have been a lie. His love for the story was greater than his pride.
Mother sat next to Jack’s bed and a light snow began to gather outside the window, a tinkling of sleet and a slip of white building up on the outside windowsill. Jack imagined Warnie in some common residence hall with other boys snoring about him and possibly not enough blankets to warm him. But Mother, with her long black hair piled on top of her head and her warm voice of love, began to read.
Jack’s mournful thoughts faded.
He could almost see the impertinent Squirrel Nutkin slip under the door, running from the owl, Old Brown. Nutkin and Twinkleberry tripped across the story, and Nutkin almost lost his tail when he taunted the owl.
Jack snuggled deeper in the blankets. Safe. Warm.
When the story ended, Mother kissed him good night. As she went to turn off the light, she spied a pile of papers. She lifted them and held them under the puddle of lamplight. “Jacksie, what is this?”
“I wrote it. It’s called My Life.” Jack beamed with pride. “Everyone in the house is in the story.”
Mother bent closer to the light as she flipped through the pages. Jack held his breath; he wanted her to love it. Finally a laugh erupted when she read out loud, “‘A bad temper, thick lips and generally wearing a jersey.’ This is how you describe your father? I am not so sure he’ll want to read this.”
“But it is true,” Jack said indignantly.
“All the same . . .” She read a few more pages, then looked to her son. “You include all the pets: our mouse; the canary, Pete; and our terrier, Tim! You are wonderful, my child, wonderful. You know, I was once a writer.”
“You were?” This was astounding. Mother always seemed as if she had only and ever been Mother.
“Yes. Someday I shall tell you about it. But for now, you must sleep.” She lifted the pages. “May I take these to read myself?”
“Yes! And, Mother?”
“Yes?”
“Only fourteen days until Warnie returns,” Jack said and rolled over to sleep.
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.