Nora & Kettle (6 page)

11. THE PRIZE

NORA

The house is too quiet. It’s like when she left, she took the sound with her. Everyone pads along the floors like they’re afraid of waking a demon in the basement. We’re stuck in this empty space, a void carved out so deep, so final, there’s nothing left to do but hug the edges and try not to fall in.

Mr. Inkham’s loud footsteps disturb the unholy peace this house has settled into, and I can’t decide whether I like it or not.

He follows me down the short, dark hallway and into the sitting room, hovering in the doorway as I fling open the curtains. Light floods the stale room, lifting the floral patterns from the sofas and highlighting the dust that flies through the air in streams.

I gesture to the dusty pink sofa, edged in ropey brown timber. “Please take a seat,” I say formally. I sit opposite him and fold my hands in my lap, then at my sides, finally scratching my nose for something to do. “Er, do you want something to eat or drink?” I offer.

Mr. Inkham shakes his head, a flop of dark brown hair curling over his eyebrow. “No thank you, Miss Deere.” He peers out the window, watching the featherbone clouds sift through the sky. He seems uneasy and is doing the same awkward movements with his hands that I am. “I need to keep this brief,” he says, his eyes tracking a couple walking down the street arm in arm. Leaves fall in the woman’s hair, and the man lovingly picks them out of her bun.

I rub my tired eyes and sigh. “Keep what brief? Mr. Inkham, why are you here?” I lean forward, sunlight hitting my face. I blink, still gazing up and out the window.
I want to fall into the sky, lay my bones against the clouds, and rest.
Just for a moment, I’d like to rest. I lean back and press a hand to my heart. An ache pushes between my fingers.

He bends down and fumbles through his briefcase, pulling out a small stack of papers. “As you well know, your mother came from a very wealthy family.”

I nod my head, though I didn’t know. This is the first I’ve heard of it, but then I never put any thought into how my parents supported themselves. Thinking about the fact that my father is a public defender and how we live, I guess it makes sense that the money came from her. Mr. Inkham raises an eyebrow at my stilted reaction. “Your mother had a large amount of family money that upon her death was to go to her husband, er, your father…” I realize my shoulders have sagged, my head is hanging by a thread, and I try to force myself to sit up straight. “Your mother came to me at the beginning of the year and asked me to change her will. She requested that most of her inheritance, save a sufficient living allowance, be put into yours and your sister’s name for you to claim either when you marry or turn twenty-one, whichever comes first.” He delicately hands a piece of paper to me. I take it like it may disintegrate in my grasp. He points with his index finger to an amount of money so large my jaw actually drops.

“All this will be mine?” I stammer, underlining the number again and again with my eyes. It glows red, a prize… a price.

He leans back in the chair and smiles sadly. “Yes, it will be yours and your sister’s. Half to you when you turn twenty-one, and the other half to her when she does the same.”

My feet curl under as I form the question, “Does my father know about this?” The paper feels poisonous, slicing my fingertips. A reward I can’t claim may as well be punishment.

Mr. Inkham shakes his head slowly as he contemplates his answer. “No, not yet, but his lawyers have contacted me. I won’t be able to delay them finding out for very long. I’m sorry.” He acts like he knows.

It’s struggling to sink in. The information is looking for a hiding place in my head and failing. “So my father will get none of her fortune save a living allowance?”

He crosses his legs, uncrosses them, and pats his hair down. “That is correct, Miss Deere.”

It makes me smile although it shouldn’t. His anger is going to shake the walls of this house when he finds out. My voice quivers a little when I ask, “What do you need from me, a signature?”

Mr. Inkham leans forward and places a soft hand over my jittery fingers. I withdraw sharply. His eyes warm when they regard me, and he gives a small nod. “I don’t need anything from you, dear. I just came here to prepare you for what’s ahead, to war…” He averts his eyes and doesn’t finish. His mouth is suddenly hard and sucked in, a bitter taste on his tongue.

Warn me. You came here to warn me.

He packs the papers away and clasps his case.

“Is there anything else?” I lean forward in my chair, my starved eyes ready to swallow the room. I’m hoping for a letter, a note, anything that might explain her reasons. Honestly, I’m looking for an apology.

“I’m sorry, Miss Deere. I truly am. Your mother, she was…” Again, he doesn’t finish. He’s holding secrets in his mouth, words that keep pummeling his lips to get out.

A tear is working its way out of my eye. I’m battered with the truth. I don’t understand what’s happening, and there is no way to get any answers. I lift my face to the ceiling in an attempt to stop the overwhelmed feelings from pouring out of my eyes. The plaster roses on the ceiling seem to crawl out from the middle of the room like spiders, and I want to grab at a leg and pull it from the plaster. I want to find a hole and pull myself through. Climb up, up, up, into the dust and spider webs.

“So what do I do?” I ask, still looking at the bumps and buds of a hundred tiny, plaster roses instead of his horribly sympathetic face.

A hand goes to my shoulder. “Just take care of yourself. Survive, endure, for three more years…”

“What about my sister?” I think of Frankie alone in this house with him, and my dress suddenly feels like it’s strangling me. I tug at the collar. “She’s still so young.”

There’s hope in his expression. His cheeks raise and he talks to me like an equal, like someone who might matter or at least, matter one day. “When you’re financially independent, you can petition for custody. And if you choose to do that, I will help you file the necessary motions.”

Oh, I’ll do it…

“Three years,” I whisper to my lap. My fingers count, one, two, three, tapping a silent prayer against an empty window.
It’s so long.

He stands, reaching into his pocket and handing me a black card embossed with white writing. “Three years. Then you call me.”

I hold the card in my fingers, folding it over once so it looks like a tiny tent I want to shelter under. “Or marry…” I whisper to my hand.

Mr. Inkham stops midstride, light cutting across his tailored pants so they look faded and old. He turns toward me, his eyes full of warning. “It is an option but, please, don’t rush into anything. You don’t want to end up in a more… er…” he searches for words that don’t exist and comes up with, “
compromising situation
than you already are.”

Got it. All men are dangerous.

I stand, straighten like a rod, and almost stamp my foot as I say, “My priority is my sister’s welfare. I’m no fool, and I will not make any decision lightly. What happens to me affects her too. I will do whatever necessary to keep her safe.”

“Fair words,” he concedes and then he pauses, rapping his fingers lightly on the surface of his worn leather case. “There is one thing you should try to remember, something you can hold onto, look forward to.”

I eye him warily, leaning back on my heels. “What’s that, Mr. Inkham?”

“Happiness,” he states with neither a smile nor a frown on his face. He is neutral, flat, like he’s offered me a cup of tea.

The word is a slap in the face. It’s too much to hope for. Too far-fetched.

I laugh sourly. “Any chance of happiness tumbled down the stairs and shattered to pieces with my mother.”

His eyes widen in shock, but he quickly composes himself, allowing me to pass through and walk him to the exit in silence.

“Good luck, Miss Deere,” he says grimly as he waits at the front door. He places his hat loosely on his head and steps outside, leaving me with a promise, a future three years forward, and a thousand days out of my reach.

Survive…

Happiness…

The two words are oceans apart.

An impossible couple.

12. ORDINARY LIFE

KETTLE

I sigh dramatically, and Kin jabs at me with his spare hand. “Do we have to eat here every day?” I complain as I throw my sandwich in the air and catch it.
Down by the water, the sad shadows of a ghost ship hovering over us
. I would have thought this kind of reminder was enough to put him off hanging around here.

Kin rolls his eyes. “You should be thankful we’ve managed to get in this many days in a row. Not that I like working this hard, but the money makes it almost worth it.” He shoves some food in his mouth, chewing carefully and swallowing before he continues. “I am starting to miss home though. How long has it been this time?” He flicks crumbs from his mouth.

I press my toe into the sludgy, tiger-striped sand, and flick a piece at one of the steel uprights still fighting gravity and the sea. It lands with a plop, slipping down and back into the water. “Four days…” I say, turning and pointing at him accusingly with my rust-colored finger. “Hey! You said
home
.”

Kin shrugs and mutters, “Shut up.”

I smirk and wade to the other side of the ship and up onto the dock, sitting down with my back against a stack of sleepers. Kin gallops over, slapping water toward me on purpose as he jumps up to join me. I shield my face but end up drenched in briny water anyway. He collapses at my side and opens another sandwich, fishy smells releasing from their packaging. I screw up my nose and make a gagging noise.

“Enough with the tuna!” I say, waving my hand in front of my face. “You’re starting to smell like a can of week-old cat food.”

“Our people do love seafood,” he says proudly, his high cheekbones seeming to stick out even prouder.

I roll my eyes. “What people? Cat people?” I say sarcastically.

Kin ignores me but I can see his nostrils flare as he looks left and right, holding a piece of his sandwich out in front of him and shaking it.

A meow sounds out of place amongst the sloshing waves and seagulls cackling. Tiger Lily sidles up to Kin, rubbing her body against his leg. “She won’t eat anything else,” he says dotingly as he feeds her with one hand and pats her with the other. She purrs.

She tries to rub against my leg and I shift it, tempted to push her into the water. “You need to stop wasting your food on that thing,” I growl, pointing. “Look, she’s getting fat.”

He picks her up under her arms and smiles, almost touching his nose to hers.

“Ugh!”

“You’re not fat. You’re just growing, aren’t you, Lils?” he says to the squish-faced ball of fur.

I arch an eyebrow, but there’s nothing I can say. He never listens to me anyway.

***

“This looks good,” I say to Kin, pointing down the alley between two buildings in opposition to each other. A burnt-out, ‘affordable housing’ project next to a luxurious, historical brownstone. It still smells faintly of smoke, but it should be quieter than the average alley as there’s no one in the apartment building and I’m banking on the brownstone residents keeping to their side.

“I think you’re confusing good with dirty and unsanitary,” Kin quips, narrowing his eyes. He rolls his shoulders and starts in on the conversation I hoped we could avoid. “I can’t believe you stopped me today, Kettle. That man, if you can even call him that, was being a jerk.”

I sigh. “He just bumped your shoulder. You need to learn when to walk away.”

Kin shakes his head like he’s so disappointed in me. “You heard what he said. The word he used.”

I purse my lips. “It doesn’t matter. You need to ignore it. It’s not worth getting in a fight.”

“Then what is? How far do we let them take it before we say something?” he asks, his voice getting stronger, more agitated. We’ve stopped on the corner, and people are starting to stare. I grab his shirtsleeve, and he shrugs me off. My eyes dart around, checking for men in dark blue or green, gold stars sparkling on their lapels.

I glare up at him, trying to warn him with my eyes. “Really far, Kin. Really, really far.”

I jerk my head toward the alley, and Kin stalks ahead of me. This fight will go nowhere, and he knows it. I wait a few seconds before following, making sure no one’s looking in our direction. Lamps are flicking on, the dark swarming over the buildings and dripping down the walls. My bones ache inside my salt-crusted, slightly sunburned skin. The walls from the two buildings lean close to each other over the alley. Kin stands right in the center with his hands on his hips, his shadow lengthening as the sun begins to set. I look up. I won’t get to see it tonight. Too risky. Maybe sunrise…

Kin shouts, “Dumpster or cardboard box?”

I approach him quickly, hoping he’ll quiet down.

His temper has flared and burnt out already, and he smiles at me as I throw a soft punch to his shoulder. “Who am I kidding?” He laughs. “There’s no cardboard box.”

I laugh, though it’s not funny. I’m thinking of home. The Kings. The golden light dancing on sandy walls.