came to the level of Victor’s elbow. Quentin was too young for lessons; I remember being jealous when he was allowed to sit on the floor and play with a wooden horse on wheels while I had to practice penmanship, making rows and endless rows of slightly lopsided O’s and Q’s.
As for me, the doorknob to the coal cellar was right below the level of my eye, because when Mr. Glum slapped me roughly on the back of my head (I was afraid to open the door to the cellar) the doorknob struck me on the cheek, and I had a bruise there for a week.
I don’t remember why they were locking us in the coal cellar, but I do remember wishing and hoping that the Headmaster would come back from wherever he was, and set things to rights. He and Dr. Fell had dressed up in dark clothing, with black scarves fluttering from their top hats, looking grim and terrible. A funeral, I suppose. I remember the two stalking silently off into the freezing rain, wide black umbrellas overhead. The rest of the staff was particularly cruel to us that evening, or so it seemed to me. Mrs. Wren was raging up and down the corridors, howling like a banshee, toppling suits of armor on racks and pushing over floral vases that stood on the pillars next to the main doors. I think this was before she took up strong drink.
They locked us in the dark and cold. Whatever our crime had been, I did not know. It was dark and starless that night, the drafts smelled of snow, and the dirt floor was colder than ice.
I was shivering and my teeth were chattering. I remember Vanity saying, “Quentin’s all cold. He stopped moving. Is he going to die?” her voice was as thin and high as a flute.
Victor told us all to gather up in a huddle for warmth. His voice was high-pitched then, but it was very earnest, and just hearing it made me feel better. I could hear him rummaging around in the dark.
“This is a coal cellar,” young Victor said. “There is wood and kindling in the wood box.” There was a tremble in his voice, too, but I could hear how he forced himself to speak calmly.
Colin, or as he was called back then, Quartinus, said, “Boogers! There’s nothing to start a fire with! Mrs. Wren’s had a nightmare, and we’re all going to die for it.”
In the pitch blackness, Quentin’s voice came up from the pile where we all lay together, “A ghost. She saw her husband’s ghost.” I was relieved to hear him, because I was so very afraid he had passed away. Certainly his skin felt like ice up against mine.
Victor laid his coat over the pile of us. I wondered how he could stand the cold in his thin shirt, but he did not complain. Victor never complained. “I’ll start a fire. I’ll make something. Lend me your tie. I found a bent stick in the woodpile, and I can make a drill.”
Minutes passed, and it grew colder. I could hear Victor sawing away at something, the hissing noise of wood on wood, but no fire came.
“Boogers!” shouted Colin, who did not know any of the many foul words he was to learn later in life. “Do you think you are a Red Indian? Rubbing two bloody sticks together? We’re all going to die, and it will be your fault!”
Victor said to me, “Secunda. Get them talking. Keep their mind off it, you know? We’ve all got to hang together.”
My teeth wanted to chatter, but I made myself speak. “OK, attention, everyone! I know we are all cold and afraid. But we have something we have to do. We have to remember our Tales.”
I do not remember a time when I had not been the unofficial Keeper of the Tales for our group. It had always been my task. Colin used to joke that I was to be the Tale Keeper because my memory was so good. (“Whenever I do something wrong, she always remembers to remind me, eh?” so he would say.)
I spoke gently to young little Quentin. “The Tales are the only thing we know about our home. Our real home. Quentin, you start.”
“I-I’m t-too cold.”
“Quentin, you must start. We can’t lose our Tales. You have to tell.”
But Quentin simply whimpered and did not answer.
Colin said, “C’mon you great booger. Talk! You don’t want them to win, do you?”
I felt Quentin’s cold body stir in my arms.
He spoke in a voice so weak and thin that I could barely hear him, even though my ear was but inches from his mouth. “I remember my mum. Her hair is gray. She’s blind. I remember how I would run and she would spread her arms and say, ‘Where’s my little shadow? Where’s my little shadow?’ and I would run and jump into her arms, and mum would hug me, and give me a kiss, and she would say, ‘I know you, little one. I will always know you.’ And I would say, ‘How’d’ you know it’s me? How’d’ you know it’s me?’ and she would say, ‘My soul knows your soul, little one, my heart knows your heart.’ That’s what I remember.”
I said, “Tell us more. Tell us about the giant. You’ve got to remember the whole of the Tale. It is your Tale.”
Quentin said, “My dad. He lives in a room with statues. Statues and chessmen and dolls. His beard is gray and comes to the floor, and his hair is gray, too. He has a harp that sits in his lap. And when he plays, the statues dance. Once upon a time, he took me and took his harp, and sat on the statue of a big crow, and he played, and the crow flew up in the air.”
Vanity said, “That couldn’t really happen, could it?”
Victor, from somewhere in the gloom, said, “Maybe it was an airplane. Only looked like a crow.”
I said sternly, “Stop! You can’t talk back to the Tales. You can’t change them or make fun of them! That’s the rule! If you start changing the Tales, they might go away, and then we won’t have anything!”
Victor said, “She’s right.”
I said, “Go on, Quentin. Tell us about the giant.”
Quentin was quiet, and then he spoke in a sad whisper. “I don’t know the rest.”
“Sure you do! Your father took you to see the Shining Mountains! Instead of snow, the mountains all have light, silver light, all along the tops. Do you remember what he said? He told you,
Quentin said, “I don’t remember. I don’t. Leave me alone.”
I said insistently, “In the dark valley between the mountains of light, your father the magician took you to see the giant, who was trapped up to his neck in the ice. There were dwarfs all digging and digging, chipping away at the ice, to get him out.”
Quentin said, “It was cold. It was so cold. I saw his hand. It was a mile below me. Under the ice. The fingers. I thought it was five rivers coming to a lake, it was so big. So cold.”
I said, “Yes! Yes! And the giant said—do you remember what the giant told you—once he was free, the bad people would be punished, and the good people would all live happily ever after? The Golden Age would come again. Do you remember?”
“It was so cold.”
“Quentin, maybe the giant has gotten out of the dark valley! Maybe he is coming to save us, right now!”
Quentin sniffled and shivered, but did not answer.
Vanity spoke up next: “I remember my Tale! Me next! Oh, pick me! Oh, me!”
“OK. It is your turn, Tertia.”
“My house is in fairyland,” Vanity said primly. “There is a gold dog who sits by my front door, and a silver dog, too. They come to life when you want them to, and fetch a stick or chase away someone making fun of you. When you don’t need them, they just sit still. There is a singer who sings to me, and he sits in the sunlight in his chair of ivory, and beats the ground with his stick when he sings. He sings of wars and ships and deeds of kings. There are bowls made of silver that hop on three legs like bugs. Hop! Hop! Hop! They walk around and give you fruit and candy. If you’re good. It is always springtime there. My mommy has red hair like me. My daddy is the king there, but Mommy is the one who actually runs the kingdom. My brothers play out in the green field, and throw spears and throw disks. And they run. Sometimes Daddy takes me sailing, and our boat is faster than the wind. Sometimes Mommy plays hide-and-seek with me, and she pops out of the floor! Pop! And she puts her arms around me. She tells me to be good, because she loves me. That’s all.”
I said, “There is another part. Something about being watched.”
“Oh, that. It is not like here. Nothing pays you any mind here. The rocks and the wind and the grass. It’s all dead. Where I come from, they are all friends. They are all alive. You can feel them watching you, like a tingling all over your skin. It is like being at the recital, when everyone applauded. Like being on stage. Remember how nice
