The Ever Breath (4 page)

“That one’s alive, though,” Swelda said. “Yes, he’s quite alive.”

Camille laughed.

Truman glared at her.

The parrot used his beak to lift the door to his cage, then made his way, claw over claw, to the outside of the cage.

“Here, Grossbeak!” Swelda called. The bird gave a few strong flaps of his wings and lifted himself into the air, circling the ceiling and then, finally, perching on Swelda’s shoulder. “Out of this room, you two. Come along now. Follow me!”

“Gladwell biscuits, apple-dipped jelly yolks, whipped macaroons in a charred-prill sauce,” their grandmother said, holding a silver platter heaped with steaming food. “Broiled tubers, aspergillus gluten spread on sea-sprayed chowder chips! Pear noodles, minced toffee-dipped choy! Lemon-dotted fiddle-faddle! More and more! To drink? Seventeen types of tea.”

Truman and Camille gazed at the platter. It was stacked so high with food that they could see only the blue tuft of their grandmother’s hat sticking out on the other side. The rest of the kitchen was simple, spare, cramped—with an ancient stove and a leaky faucet that was tapping a rust spot in the sink. There was a small round table with two place settings and two chairs. Grossbeak was perched on top of the refrigerator, where he occasionally squawked.

Truman didn’t recognize a single type of food on the platter. Not one.

“Truman here,” Camille said, “is allergic to everything. His face blows up like a blimp. You should refer to his folder of medical records.”

“My stomach’s still a little loopy from the car trip,” he said.

“There’s nothing here that Truman will be allergic to. I import all of my ingredients,” Swelda said. “I guarantee he’ll be fine.”

Swelda couldn’t have cross-checked the meal with his records. She just got his records!

“Really?” Truman said. “One hundred percent money-back guarantee?”

She nodded.

“Still, this can’t all be for us,” Camille said.

“Of course it is,” Swelda said.

“We can’t eat all of this,” Truman said.

“We’re not sumo wrestlers,” Camille added.

“It’s not for eating. It’s for tasting.” Swelda, staggering under the platter’s weight, shuffled to the kitchen table, which held a curved row of teacups, all partially filled and sitting in saucers. She lowered the platter.

“This is a vegetarian meal,” she said. “Once you’ve spoken with an animal, you can’t eat it.”

“Have you spoken with animals?” Truman asked.

“I think she’s speaking figuratively,” Camille said.

Swelda sighed. “I forget sometimes that you two only know what little you know. Sit down!”

Truman and Camille slid into the two chairs.

“I’m not really all that hungry,” Truman said.

“He’s hyperallergic and hyperpicky,” Camille translated.

“That’s why I made so many kinds of food,” Swelda said. “So you can pick your way through them.” She whipped two cloth napkins off the table and plopped them onto the kids’
laps. Handing them each a pair of tongs and a plate, she said, “While you taste, I will tell you a tale.”

“A story, you mean?” Truman asked.

“It’s called a tasting tale,” Swelda explained. “The kind that’s told to you while you eat.”

“Is this an old family tradition?” Truman asked, thinking about his father’s childhood.

“It is. Our people, especially us Cragmeals, have always told tasting tales so that people could link each part of the story with a certain food—hold the story on their tongue, and then swallow it piece by piece.”

“What’s the story about?” Camille asked.

“When the first sliver of food sits in your mouth, I’ll begin.”

Camille dug her tongs in first—into mounds of strangely colored bobbles and bits from the various bowls and plates. Then she used the serving spoons to scoop the soupier items.

Truman wasn’t sure what to pick first. He let his tongs hover. Everything looked too foreign—too gooey or too dry or too blackened or too wet. He winced and then picked up a shiny yellow ball and put it on his plate.

“A little bit of everything,” Swelda goaded.

“But—”

“No buts. Just a little taste of everything.”

He did as he was told and picked up one of each thing—a biscuit, a spoonful of whipped beets, a chowder chip—all of it. Camille had already started eating.

“Mmm,” she said. “This is amazing!”

Once Truman’s plate was full, he set it down in front of himself. He paused, plucked a teacup from the row, and set it in front of himself too, just in case he had to wash something down
quickly. He then closed his eyes and let his fingers walk across the plate. They landed on something sticky and doughy and light. Without looking at it, he held it to his nose and sniffed.

Truman held his breath and popped the thing into his mouth. It tasted like nothing he’d ever tried before. It was tangy and gummy and bittersweet, but also sharp. It tingled his nose the way soda sometimes did, but there weren’t any bubbles. He took another bite, and this time it was more sugary and brittle and warm. He didn’t feel itchy or tight in his throat. His nose didn’t start running. He didn’t have a headache. He felt good—maybe a little warm in his chest, but as if he’d come in from the cold and was starting to thaw out.

He looked over at Camille and she looked dazed, as if she were daydreaming while she chewed.

Swelda began to tell her tale:

“Once upon a time, when the world was so new that the sky still showed its stitching—”

“Oh, so this isn’t a true story,” Camille whispered, dreamily.

“Another thing about the tasting tale, you can’t interrupt the teller, because it’s impolite to speak with your mouth full.”

“Sorry,” Camille mumbled.

“Once upon a time, there was only one world for all of us. All those magical creatures—the ones you see now only in dreams and stories—used to walk among us. But just as light was separated from darkness, for reasons we don’t understand and never will, the magical creatures were separated from the rest and two worlds were created.”

The tastes that filled Truman’s mouth were hard to
describe. They were sour and then tart. They lingered in his mouth and then suddenly swelled into a bitter tang. A salty taste like seawater would spike into a rich coffee taste and then become comforting, as simple as milk.

“The moon passed over the sun and the day went dark, and when the light started to slip back onto the face of the earth, the magical creatures were gone. They stirred only in people’s dreams, imaginations, and distant collective memories.”

The textures of the foods were just as changeable. Some of the foods were gummy. Others were crisp. Others melted in Truman’s mouth like dollops of honey the moment they hit his tongue.

“The two worlds are still unified in a mysterious way,” Swelda continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Sometimes it’s hard to determine whether our dreams direct our lives or our lives direct our dreams. Isn’t it?”

Their cheeks stuffed with food, Truman and Camille both nodded. Yes, yes, it was.

“This is the Fixed World. This world we live in now. And the other world was named the Breath World. Those in the Breath World felt cast out, of course, and so a stone to control the balance and flow between the two worlds was placed in their world. A stone called the Ever Breath—an amber orb with a breath embedded in its very center.”

Truman looked up at her, confused.
Breath?
he wanted to say.
In a stone?

Swelda paused and then sat back. “You want to know whose breath it is in the stone. Don’t you?”

He nodded.

“We don’t know, Truman. There are lots of names for
this being. I tend to call this being A Being Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived. The name arose centuries ago, but this being can go by any name. This particular name is a long one, but it works for me. Is that okay with you, Truman?”

He thought about this:
A Being Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived
. He nodded.

She put her bony elbows on the table and leaned in. “But if the Ever Breath is taken from its rightful spot, the passage between the two worlds begins to wither, and if it’s not returned, the two worlds will be closed off from each other forever. Which means that there can be no magical thinking in the Fixed World, no imagination, no more dreaming.”

How could this be? How could anyone be cut off from dreams, from imagination? The thought buzzed around in his head. He felt panic rise up in his chest. He glanced at Camille, and her face looked pale. Her eyes were wide. It was only a story, wasn’t it? Why, then, did it seem so true?

Truman looked down at his plate. The food had thinned out. Camille’s plate was nearly empty too. He nibbled at a fruit-encrusted heel of bread. Camille popped a few remaining purple seeds.

“That would mean death,” Swelda said. “This world would die.”

Truman squinted at Swelda. Was he hearing her right? Her voice sounded echoey and dim.

“This world cannot survive without magical thinking, imagination, and dreams,” she said.

And the Breath World?
Truman wondered.

She answered his question as if he’d said it aloud. “The Breath World would lose its tether to the Fixed World, its
anchor, and it would have no place to send its overflow of magic. The imagination would take over in its darkest forms. The evil magical beasts would rise up and take over. It would destroy itself.”

Truman tried to imagine that as well, but he couldn’t. It was too terrifying to think of worlds ending, and his mind felt cloudy. He licked one of his fingers and dabbed at the crumbs.

The room fell silent.

“Go on,” Camille whispered. “Tell us more.”

“I would tell you more, but your plates are empty and your stomachs full and your mouth has flown open. That’s how I know that the tasting tale is finished.” Swelda lifted the platter. It was still laden with food—beautiful savory juicy sweet food! They’d barely made a dent, but she was right. Truman was full. He couldn’t eat another bite. He was thirsty, though. He emptied teacup after teacup—orangey bitters, strong berry flavors, various mint mixes—and Camille did too. It was as if they were overcome with thirst.

When they put down the last cups, the story was swirling inside of them. There were two worlds. The Fixed World—this house with its boarded-up windows and everywhere they knew—and the Breath World.

Swelda started to pack the food up into little containers as if it had been an ordinary meal in an ordinary house. “Your bedroom is upstairs at the end of the hall,” she said. “It’s your father’s old bedroom, where he slept as a boy.” Swelda seemed a little embarrassed for a moment. Then she quickly added, “And there’s a gift sitting on each of the pillows.”

Soap?
Truman thought, remembering the gifts she’d sent to them for years.
Crackers, ChapStick?
Was this even the
same woman whom he’d known only by her horrible gifts? Everything seemed different now.

Swelda came to them and gently cupped each of their faces with her small hands for a moment. She smiled, her lower jaw more prominent than before. Her face was so close that they could see the fine wrinkles around her eyes, the delicate folds of skin on her neck. “You are Cragmeals,” she said. “From the long line.”

“The long line?” Truman said.

“I knew you’d show up here, in this house, one day.” Swelda’s one eye twinkled, wet with tears. And then she let go of their faces. She tapped her plastic cup, which blocked one of her eyes, with one nail—
tick, tick, tick
. “I’ve seen it all coming!”

“Seen what coming?” Camille asked.

Swelda didn’t answer. She heaved a sigh as she shuffled, as if tired now, to the sink and leaned against it, her back to them. Then she looked at them briefly over her shoulder.

“Keep your eyes on those gifts,” she said. “Keep your eyes on them!”

Truman turned to Camille. Were they supposed to go to their bedrooms now? They looked at Swelda’s narrow back. The parrot, Grossbeak, flew around the kitchen and then perched on her shoulder. They could see his eye, and the flared plumage on his head, which was cocked to one side.

“Bye-bye,” the parrot squawked. “Bye-bye, knucklehead!”

“Who, me?” Truman whispered.

“Well, I’m not a knucklehead, so he’s not talking to me!” Camille said.

“Bye-bye,” Truman said to the parrot softly. He wanted to add
knucklehead
, but he didn’t.

The wallpaper running up the walls of the staircase had water stains that took on strange shapes in the low light. As Truman followed Camille, he thought he saw a face in the water stains and then a dog. Not just any dog. This water stain looked like a Chinese fighting dog with lots of wrinkles and a smushed face. He stopped and touched the water stain with one hand. This close, he could see that it also seemed to have wings and horns and fangs, as if it were a dog-sized dragon. “The Breath World.” He whispered the words and wondered if this was the kind of magical creature that would live there.

“Are you feeling the wallpaper?” Camille said from the doorway at the end of the hall.

“Of course not,” Truman said.

She disappeared into the bedroom and Truman followed her. The room was spare, with two twin beds covered with nubby white blankets. Two brass sconces attached to the walls were glowing dimly. In one corner was a wingback arm-chair and in the other corner were a small desk and a chair.

“This is it, I guess,” Camille said. She looked a little
disappointed. Truman was too. He’d been hoping that the room would have more of their father’s childhood left in it.

The bright spot, though, was that there were two gifts, just as Swelda had said. On each of the pillows was a plain white box.

“Our gifts,” Truman said. He walked to the bed and picked up one of the boxes. This one had his name scrawled on top in thick black ink. “What do you think they are?”

“Well, I would have said jars of tacks or sticks of glue, but now I don’t know,” Camille said. “The story she told us …”