Repeat. Speak, he’ll sign if he hasn’t heard something I’ve said. But he also uses it for “more” or “very.”
Repeat cold, he signed one night as he arrived with a pile of new blankets. It is cold. With the power off, the apartment isn’t heated. The sun blazing in the many windows keeps it warm enough during the day, but at night the temperature drops to close to freezing. I pile the blankets over me and shiver myself to sleep. Sometimes I wake in the night and find him kneeling or standing nearby, never looking at me, but his body radiates heat. He doesn’t seem to sleep. I think he’s trying to keep me warm in the night. It’s kind of skeevy to have him so close to me as I sleep, but I’m so tired and cold that I tolerate it.
This is how I learn his sign for “sad.” One night a dream of Tucker drags me out of sleep with a sob, tears streaming down my face. August leans down to check on me.
Feel broken? he signs. The sign means “pain,” I’ve learned. He worries about the lingering pain in my ribs and leg.
“Just sad,” I say. He draws a finger down his face, like a tear.
Sad.
“Yes, sad. I had a sad dream.”
He draws a swirl on his forehead, and a few cells in the region of my heart flicker at the idea that he has shared his word for “dream.” He says it again.
Sad dream.
Something about the way he nods to himself as he leaves me makes my breath catch in my throat. Does he dream? Are his dreams sad? I have a horrible feeling that he knows a kind of sadness I can only aspire to. I have people to get back to, after all. What does he have? He knows I hate him. I know he hates himself. He turned all the mirrors and every reflective art piece to the wall, like a vampire or something. He doesn’t even like his shadow. Once he stood in the doorway to the hall as I made my daily laps. The sunlight streaming in behind him outlined his shape on the wall. I watched him look at it for an instant and then step quickly out of the light.
He made a sign once, after I changed into some flowered thermal pajamas he found for me. I think he might have done it subconsciously; it wasn’t really directed at me. He glanced at me and looked away, making a shape with his hand. “Pretty,” I took it to mean, because he did it again, one night looking at the sunset, adding the repeat sign.
Repeat pretty.
When he saw his shadow, he made this sign backward with a shake of his head, negating it. He thinks he is ugly. I might have agreed with him once, but now I think maybe that’s a little unfair. He is what he is, no different from a toad or a hyena, or one of nature’s other less attractive offerings. Still not something you want to get close to, but I’m used to him now anyway. I don’t jump out of my skin every time I see him anymore, though I still don’t like it when he touches me or comes near me. I try to be civil. If I’m civil, I can earn his trust, and maybe get him to reveal things he shouldn’t. If I’m civil, he’s less likely to turn on me. So I do it because my life depends on it. But with all this rage embedded in me like a stubborn, bloated tick, even civility is a challenge.
Daily, I fantasize about leaving. I imagine marching through the mountains, alone, determined, a crust of ice forming on my face, my eyelashes freezing together. Sometimes the daydreams end with Topher finding me, with us running into each other’s arms in slow motion. Sometimes they end with me dead in the snow. It’s hard to decide which daydream I enjoy more.
August has other signs, most having to do with my care. “Hungry” and “tired,” he uses daily. “Scared,” which involves a closed fist in front of the mouth, he used a lot early on, when he approached me to check my leg or ribs. Scared, he would sign, shaking his head, subverting it. Don’t be scared. He doesn’t need to use it anymore. I turn away when he tends to my wounds. I’m not scared of him. And there’s nothing else to be scared of up here in the clouds.
I reach the end of the hallway, my good leg aching with the extra weight I still put on it. A musty breeze blows up the stairwell. I’m about to begin the difficult trip down two or three flights when I hear footsteps coming up. I freeze and edge backward. It’s probably him, but if it isn’t . . . I listen, straining. It sounds like one set of footsteps. It must be him.
Peering over the banister, I look into the deep, narrow abyss down the center of the railings. I can see his left hand, well, someone’s left hand, trailing on the metal bar. For some reason, I wait, neither descending nor retreating as he reaches the landing below me. He stops as he sees me.
“Hello,” I say. The dark stairwell makes him hard to see, shadowy. His armor clicks as he nods a reply. He’s carrying a large cardboard box. “What have you got?”
He carries the box up to my level and sets it down on the floor. Reaching in, he fishes around a bit and then pulls out a small pink teddy bear. It’s wearing floral pajamas very much like mine. He hands it to me.
At first I don’t know what to say. I feel a mix of amusement and revulsion as I look into the bear’s little pink face. It has a wide smile and bright blue button eyes, as well as a little red felt nose. Stitched on the front of the pajama top is a name: Lucy. I don’t know if that is the bear’s name or the name of the child who loved it. Suddenly, I feel a surge of nauseating anger rising up in me.
“This belonged to a child, you know,” I say. I can tell August hears the accusing tone in my voice. He takes a small step backward. “The child is dead, right?”
A second passes before he shrugs.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? All the children are dead. Everyone is dead. You killed them all.” He shakes his head.
Not me.
“You’re one of them though. One of those that killed everyone here. Aren’t you?”
His nod is barely there, tiny. I shake the teddy bear in his face.
“This is pirate plunder, Viking plunder. Don’t pillage on my behalf anymore. I don’t want things you’ve stolen from dead children.”
I reach forward and drop the bear into the abyss, watching as it sails down and disappears into the dark. When I turn, August is looking at me, still except for the rising and falling of his shoulders. I glance down and see the box is full of sweaters, thick socks, and mittens. Things I desperately need. Struggling to conceal the desire in my eyes, I turn back and stare defiantly at him.
He moves so quickly sometimes, it takes my breath away. In a flash he picks up the box and disappears into the hallway. I hobble after him, as fast as I can, seeing him stepping into the penthouse we have been living in. By the time I get there, he is out on the balcony, emptying the contents of the box over the railing.
“Don’t!” I say, but he throws the empty box, leaning over to watch it fall. “You’re being stupid. Stop it!”