Anna began to miss certain crafts she’d done the spring before. Some favorites that Karel had stuck in the coal cellar. A pony she’d bent out of scrap wire, a little carved elephant with an Oriental-looking gem drawn on its forehead, a yarn June bug. She wanted to have these special ones in the attic, the best of the best, so she slipped through the kitchen and down the steps into the dark. There was a lightbulb, but, when she pulled the string, the weak filament did little good. Lit the landing, bled but little into the deeper shadows. Anna sat on the bottom step to let her eyes tune to the dark. After a moment she could see why Karel liked it down here. Nobody came looking for you. Nobody was looking at you. They all must have thought Anna needed their company, that she couldn’t stand to be alone and waited all day for her siblings to return—and she did, the unfortunate part about it. The house was always occupied. Maria around in the parlor, the kitchen, the front rooms. Herr all day in the attic. Even Jake Strauss coming home late in the morning, bursting into the bathroom to wash at the sink, even if Anna was in the bathtub or using the toilet. Anna liked Jake. She did. But he had a habit of embarrassing her.
Down by the banks of beetroots and mass of dried flower stems it was different. Maria was too old to use the wobbly cellar stairs anymore. And nobody else cared to come down. The cellar was full of what most folks would consider junk. The junk represented new worlds to Anna. Not only did she find stacks of her own work but other treasures too. Ancient ones, which were the best kind. She poked around. Looked in crates without digging deep. She was curious what Karel had been up to down here and mined for evidence. Paths had been cleared through the junk, so she could wander from wall to wall. The dirt floor turned over fresh where a crate had been dragged across the room. Crates stacked four high in their new spots, as high as they’d go before tumbling. There was scrap metal in the back, the frame of an old bicycle. There were some paintings, some plaster busts of Viennese composers—Schubert, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, of course—small busts about the size of an infant’s head. Even Anna’s crafts had been sorted into stacks. Her drawings. Her clay. All the wire work hung from a floor joist with tacks, so they swayed a little as she approached, vaguely alive and menacing. Anna was moved, seeing this. Her eyes wet. Nobody was watching as she let a tear brim and fall. Karel was always trying to fix things for her, wasn’t he? He hadn’t thrown her works away, like she’d feared, but preserved them in this secret place they shared. At least Karel did right down here, under the floorboards, where his efforts couldn’t be seen.
Of course, just as she was touched by Karel’s invisible kindness, a tear on her cheek, Anna noticed that he was sitting on the steps watching her.
“What are you doing?” He jumped down the wobbly steps and thumped to the dirt floor. “I didn’t think you came down here.”
“It was you, wasn’t it? That cleaned up. And hung my wires to save them.”
Anna moved next to Karel to touch his shoulder. His shirt was damp and his skin red. She could almost hear his heart pumping. “Is it hot out?” she asked. “You’re soaked.”
“I had to run home.”
“Oh.” She stepped away and poked around some, told him that she loved it down in the cellar and she saw why he did too. She was babbling, but she didn’t care. She could babble if she wanted. It wasn’t the sole right of Herr and Maria to babble on about nothing whenever they felt like it. She told Karel this. He looked at her like she was strange. “Oh, you know what I mean. Just to have an hour alone without someone picking on you. That’s all. But I’m glad to see you, Karel. I wasn’t talking about you.”
She noticed how he was holding something behind his leg. The dagger. He went to put it away, picked up the case the violin was in. Anna had no interest in the dagger—it wasn’t the least bit odd that Karel would borrow a knife, the kind of boy he was—but the old violin caught her eye.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“No, it’s a violin. Let me see it.”
“You’ll break it,” Karel said. “Don’t touch. It’s fragile.”
“I won’t. I know how.”
“Don’t come down here and ruin things.” Karel latched the case before Anna could touch the violin, before she could even really see it. He was angry for some reason.
“I wasn’t going to ruin it.”
“You don’t know anything.”
He lifted the crate that held the violin case and set it high on a stack where Anna couldn’t reach. She’d be too weak to get it.
Anna couldn’t believe him. How he turned and smirked at her and waited to see what she’d say about that. She felt like she was sinking into the floor, her legs failing under the light of her brother’s cruelty.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to see. That’s all,” she said. Him staring at her. “You did good here. Cleaning. Putting the cellar in order.”
“Yeah. That’s what you said.” He was put off even more after she apologized. “None of this belongs to us. It’s Maria’s things.”
“I know that,” Anna said. “What isn’t mine belongs to Maria.”
“Why should I care what happens to this junk?”
“You do. That’s all. Don’t yell at me about it. Answer your own question.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” Karel said. “You’re always sulking. You’re mad, that’s all. Jealous.”
“Jealous? Of what?”
“Of me, that’s what. Because of how things worked out here.”
“In Omaha?”
“In America.”
“Oh. I don’t think so. That’s wrong.”
“Listen,” Karel said. “I know how it is. Let me fix things for you. I’ve been thinking it over. You need to come to school with me. That’s what it’s going to take.”
“What are you talking about?”
“For you to feel better!”
Karel had it all worked out. She had until next autumn to build her strength, to find one of Maria’s potions that worked. If Anna was just a little better they’d let her come to school in the fall. She’d have something to look forward to then. Something worthwhile to work at instead of wasting time like she had been.
“We’d be in class together. We’d see each other all day. Isn’t that what you want?”
“But I’m older than you. I’d be a grade above.”
“No, you wouldn’t. With what schooling you missed already, they’d let us be together. Maria could work it out with the principal. I’d be there to help. Introduce you to kids.”
Anna wasn’t so sure. She unhooked a wire work, the pony, and took it to the steps to sit down. She’d consider what Karel suggested, she committed herself that much. Sat there and bent the components of the pony, made its tail wend upward and wild like in the wind.
“What do you do all day anyway?” Karel asked. “Why wouldn’t you come to school?”
“You know I do lessons. Every morning. In the books Herr bought.”
“Sure. The primers. But they’re old. None of the kids heard of them.”