Free Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz Page A

papers —”
    The door opened. Parsefall came in, oppressed by dogs. Pomeroy, the bulldog, had attached himself to the boy’s trousers and hung there, drooling. Punch, the rat terrier, leaped up and down like a hammer on a nail. Puck, the beagle, snarled at Parson, the pug dog, and Ruby was at the rear. The spaniel had caught the leash between her hind legs and was circling with one paw lifted, hopelessly tangled.
    “Oh, poor Ruby!” cried Lizzie Rose, and went to rescue her favorite.
    “I’ve got breakfast,” Parsefall said joyfully. “I asked for stale bread, but the old lady at the bakery said there was only fresh. She said she’d give it to me ’ot an’ cheap, if I’d just get the bloody dogs out of the shop.”
    “How clever of you, Parsefall,” cried Lizzie Rose, “and shame on you, using such horrid language in front of a refined lady like Mrs. Pinchbeck!”
    Parsefall blinked at her. Mrs. Pinchbeck was charmed, as Lizzie Rose had intended, and assumed an air of mincing gentility. “There’s fresh dripping in the larder,” the landlady hinted, and Lizzie Rose clapped her hands. She had an unappeasable craving for meat in any disguise.
    “Bread and dripping for breakfast!” announced Lizzie Rose. “I’ll run downstairs and put the kettle on, and we’ll have a feast.” She reached under the sofa, nabbed the gin bottle, hauled the bulldog off Parsefall’s leg, and went bravely downstairs to face Mrs. Pinchbeck’s larder.
    Clara slept. Never in her life had she known so dense a sleep: a sleep without dreaming, without the slightest twitch of finger or eyelid. She was as lifeless as a pressed flower. If she had been awake, she could not have said whether her eyes were open or shut. Her mind was empty, freed from guilt and terror and grief. Only the night before, she had spoken of her fear of cold and darkness; now darkness and cold claimed her, and she was not afraid.

T hat night Parsefall had a nightmare. It was Ruby who sounded the alarm, sniffing at her mistress’s face and whining softly. Lizzie Rose heard Parsefall’s labored breathing and climbed out of bed. She drew a blanket around her shoulders, tiptoed out of her room, and knelt down beside the sleeping boy. She wanted to rouse him before he screamed; Grisini did not like being awakened.
    “Parse,” she whispered urgently. She took his hand and squeezed it. “Parse!”
    His eyelids lifted, fluttering. He flailed his arms and sat up, straining to see through the darkness. Ruby whimpered and tried to lick his face.
    “It’s just me,” Lizzie Rose whispered. She put her arms around him and drew him close. He was trembling so hard that her own heart beat faster. She steadied herself, taking deep breaths. If feelings could cross from one body to another, he must catch hers, not the other way around. “I’m right beside you, Parse.”
    Parsefall burrowed into her. She felt the heat of his breath against her shoulder and a few damp spots, tears he would never admit to shedding. Once, after one of his nightmares, he had bitten a hole in her nightdress. Lizzie Rose rocked him back and forth, stroking his hair. It felt greasy and smelled horrid. She tried not to inhale. “You had a bad dream,” she murmured, “but the bad isn’t real. I’m here, and you’re safe.”
    For perhaps a minute and a half, they clung to each other. Then he pushed her away. “Get off me,” he growled.
    It occurred to Lizzie Rose that it would be easy to hit him. It would serve him right, and he was certainly within range. She pushed the tempting idea aside and reached for the poker. “I’m going to stir up the fire,” she whispered. “You’re cold as ice.”
    Parsefall wrapped his arms around his knees. He was still quivering, but he didn’t argue. He watched as Lizzie Rose put coal on the fire and stirred the embers. As the firelight grew stronger, his narrow little face took on a different cast. By full light, he was a weedy, homely little boy,