—
I BELIEVED Ched though. With the solemnity of a couple exchanging vows we slipped knuckle-dusters onto each other’s fingers, four for each hand. Then I walked over to the boy who didn’t think he should have to share his name with anybody and without saying a word I smacked the pot of chocolate pudding he was eating right out of his hand. He was so astounded he just stood there pointing at me as his friends came loping over like bloodthirsty gazelles. I didn’t even check whether this Chedorlaomer boy really had my back, but I trusted that he did, and he did. What a great day, a day that a modest plan worked. That guy changed his own name in the end. And it’s been like that ever since with Ched and me. He was lucky enough to be a year older than me and when he graduated from our school it was like I was the only sane one left in an asylum. There was more and more bullshit every day. But Ched waited for me at the school gates, and he had a lot of good pep talks.
That’s why it’s pretty odd that Chedorlaomer went back for mandatory military service. Only passport holders have to do that, and I thought he’d given up his passport, like I had.
“No, I never told you that,” Ched said.
“But why would you keep it? Haven’t you seen the stuff they write about you over there? You’ve sold out, you’re scum, blah blah blah. So what, now you’re trying to change people’s minds? Why those minds in particular? I thought we—”
“Yeah, I know what you thought,” Ched said. He laughed and ruffled my hair. All of his was gone; he’d just come back from the barber’s. Baldness made him look younger than I’d ever seen him, and toothier too. Like a stray, but a dangerous stray; you could take him home if you wanted to but he’d tear the walls down. “It’s time for me to be part of something impersonal,” he said. “Duty is as big as it gets. Do these people like me? Do I like them? Am I one of them? All irrelevant. I’ll be directing all of each day’s effort toward one priority: Defend the perimeter.”
Other things my best friend said to me: That two years was but a short span. And in the meantime he hoped his house of locks would become a kind of sanctuary for me. It would’ve been a really nice speech if Boudicca hadn’t been blinking balefully at me the whole time. You there . . . forget to feed me once, just one time, and you’re dead. I mumbled that I had a lot on at work but I’d see what I could do.
—
I DON’T TELL Ched how often the things he says come true. That’s for his own good of course, so that he stays humble. But here’s an example: This past couple of weeks alone I’ve come to the House of Locks seven times. Four times to feed Boudicca and walk the length of her tank—the first time she raced me to the farthest corner, and all the other times she’s turned her back. The rest of my visits have been for sanctuary, I suppose. Just like Ched said. All I’ve seen or heard of him since his departure are blurry photographs of his arrival at barracks, these posted on various fan sites. He hasn’t called or replied to e-mails, so I walk through the wing of the house that he favors, passing the windows with various views of his fountain. A girl of pewter stands knee-deep in the water, her hands cupped, collecting streams and letting them pour away. Her eyes are blissfully closed. In the room I’m watching her from the curtains hang so still that breathing isn’t quite enough to make me believe there’s air in here. The front door is the only one I lock behind me, so as I go through the house all the doors behind me are ajar. It’s still hair-raising, but it’s reassuring too. The house is wonderfully, blessedly empty—nobody else will appear in the gap between the doors—that gap is a safe passage across all those thresholds I crossed without thinking.