The Collector: Five

The foyer was empty but for Simon, off on his own with one of the many pads that Father provided. Though the boy was young, he was particularly good at the age of nine. He had filled a good number of the books with sketches and little notes. Some of these notes became illustrated stories of a kind, which were of the only type Father permitted. There were other tomes crammed in hard-to-reach shelves of the library or stuck beneath jungles of clutter and webs that were at once both ancient and active. Despite their presence, Father insisted the only stories or books of any sort available to the children were those they constructed by hand. 

They approached, but he hardly noticed. Together, Rennard and Iris stood over Simon for a handful of minutes before he finally glanced up. Simon, despite his absent-mindedness, was rarely surprised by changes that occurred while he was away from the world. His teeth shifted into the black and white grin that was unmistakably his, “How’s it, Ren?”

“Well, as it ever could be. This is Iris, Iris, Simon.”

“Nice to meet you, Miss Iris,” the boy’s welcome was warm, but faced with the claw presented, Iris had trouble reciprocating. It wasn’t that Simon’s manner was uncouth nor Iris uncomfortable with people of his culture, unlike mother, but his hand-inspired terror. After a moment of realization, the boy dropped his charcoal crayon and offered instead a paw still with every digit that was meant to be there. At this, Iris returned his shake, though couldn’t help but think the indignity it must have been for the boy. Still, his outlook was not dampened, “Later on, may I sketch you?”

“Oh, if you want.”

“He’ll draw you sooner or later,” Rennard remarked, “There isn’t much to do after chores, and hardly much effort goes into sitting for Simon.”

“Where’s Father?”

Rennard craned his head back down the tunnel they had emerged from. For Simon, it was not clear if Father had gone to one of his inner sanctums that sunk into the earth and wound about the manor or if it was meant the shade now hung about the infirmary. He had begun to fold his pad closed when putting forth the question but now parted the pages again, “I best talk to Thecla tomorrow then.”

“You haven’t seen her up here? Well, better she left for another time if she’s still busy as a bee where she should be. Are the rest in the common room?”

Simon nodded before refocusing on his sketch, “Your friend hasn’t left your room, though.”

“Fools gotten sick again, I’m sure,” Rennard shook his head, trying to simply accept Jacob’s lot in life, “Well, better that than making trouble. You start getting ready for bed, alright, Simon? I’ll round up the rest tonight.”

“Your call, Ren,” he replied, his face buried in his sketch pad.

They began up a brief stair opposite where Simon sat to enter a vast chamber from which a great clamor of children could easily be heard even before the light from within split the dim chamber in twain. Within, a rust-red chandelier coated the walls in an almost twilight hue. The color did not evoke a sense of violence, despite the association so many of the children had with it and blood, but instead fostered a faint sense of comfort. To Iris, it was like so many late Sunday evenings with her father, him reading some story far out of her age range but still inspiring delight in her. The cries of metal rings wearing against each other with a pendulous motion of a child’s movements struck her then, and Iris was transported once more to life before. The swing set she had helped her parents build, helped by holding tools and adding stickers, made the same whines, and in that light, it was again so many evenings of gliding back and forth until launching herself into the sandbox, to mother’s dismay.

Before she could break free from romancing memories of years gone by before the dreams of yesterday collided with the nightmares of trauma lurking in those visions, a gaggle of children had surrounded her. Rennard kept a hand on her shoulder before snapping the lot of them into order and had them file into a single line but one that was anything but straight. Here and there, faces like a United Nations conference bobbed and peaked from their place to glance forward. It was still hard for Iris to tell ages apart, but she could only guess the range went from five to twelve or thereabout. There were likely outliers in the same way there were still those detached from the group, wallflowers, or those otherwise unmoved by another face in the crowd.

There were fifteen in all, now with Iris. Simon was counted in their number, though he did not join, and Rennard admitted there were a few more missing from the hall. Thecla and Jacob would not be joining for their own reasons. And there was Luna, who at least had come along near the end of introductions. The others had been playing in the park installed in the manor. It looked like a hodgepodge of parks Iris could remember visiting during a trip to see her great-grandmother. Newer parks were primarily plastic and coated metal in singular colors, often so dull and without enthusiasm as though they were designed to keep children from getting too rowdy. Yet there were vestiges of older equipment, those of unadorned steel or with varnish wearing away and exposing sliverous wood. The merry-go-round looked as though it were an antique, the first built even before a patent. Still, nothing was in disrepair. That did not mean everything was safe, proof positive by the calloused and half-blooded palms Gwendyloin attempted to greet Iris with.

As the precession carried on, Rennard excused himself momentarily, keeping the newcomer in sight as he went to the edge of the room. Luna stood, watching the younger children mill about the child as though they had never once seen a girl so young. Rennard leaned in and whispered to the girl, “Has anyone checked one Jacob lately?” 

“I had thought, with the two of you sharing the room, that you would have.”

“No,” he glanced back at Iris, who was looking slightly more comfortable now with so many faces of an age with her, “I’ve been busy with Father. I’d send Thelca to check on him, but…”

“She’s years younger than you, Ren. You can’t act frightened of her. She can’t do a thing but act the way she does, and Father won’t let anyone but her handle so much as a lozenge,” Luna smirked before catching the new girl’s gaze and waving, “If you’re so worried she might do something, I’ll come with, and she can meet your new friend.”

As the cloud of children thinned, Iris quickly, but without overt action, made her way to the far side of the play area. She waited for Rennard to turn and met his gaze with an optimistic expression that wasn’t yet a smile but hardly held the likeness of her terror in the lower halls. Rennard tousled her hair and nodded, “We’re going to meet a few others. There’s a girl and a boy who aren’t here.”

“Alright,” Iris looked to her slippers and then back at the boy, “Did that man tell you where I’m supposed to sleep?”

“You mean Father?” Luna inquired.

Iris nodded quickly but still faced Rennard, “No, Father Abbie didn’t say who you would be with, but if memory serves, there isn’t much room left in the girl’s wing.”

“The blonde girl, she said her name was Travis like her daddy’s, said the bed next to her is empty. She looks like one of my cousins, and I want to share her room if I can.”

Luna grinned to the boy before kneeling closer to Luna’s level, “That sounds like a great idea. Travis’ room is right across from mine. She’s a really smart girl, but I bet you’d like someone a bit older to keep an eye out for you, too, Wouldn’t you?”

Iris nodded quickly, the faintest notion of a genuine smile finally forming on her features for the first time. Rennard offered his hand to her, then in a very brotherly fashion, “We have another friend to meet. She has already met you, though you probably won’t remember her. She made sure you were not feverish or hurt.”

“Like a doctor?”

“Exactly, or more a nurse,” Luna offered kindly, taking the girl’s other hand, “She is Father’s right hand when it comes to taking care of the sick.”

“Is she like him?”

Rennard grimaced, not for the question but for the answer he’d rather give, “No, just a girl, like any of the others here, for the most part.” 

Rounding down the ramp that led to the infirmary, the trio found no one. Simon was absent from his spot, likely off to his bedtime duties as was expected, but as they reached the corridor with its many veiled beds and lacking in so many machines that Iris wouldn’t have exactly recognized but known from a clinic, there was not a soul. Rennard moved apprehensively among the beds, looking for the child who had almost a dual nature of healer and harasser but turned up nothing more than the merest vestige of her earlier labors. Surrendering the search, Rennard began back to the other girls, certain Thecla had been called away to help someone, possibly even Jacob. That thought put a chill of ice in his stomach. 

Thecla’s obsession went far beyond making those puppy dog eyes and queer comments that made Rennard think of so many women who dotted the streets at home. She was the sole reason Ren could think that, with rare exceptions, boys were not meant to travel to the girls’ wing and vice versa. However, Thecla was permitted as Abbie’s nurse, which meant Rennard would have to face her down with only the ill Jacob to serve as sentry. And even if he were likely to take Ren’s side should Thecla prove to be a handful, she could just as easily have drugged the boy to the gills so she might act in her unhealthy and obscene manner with impunity. That fear rushed in and out of Rennard as a weight fell onto him and wriggling fingers clasped onto his chest.

Panic struck him almost as quickly as the impact, but unlike the child on him, it fell away in an instant. Thecla hung from his back like a playful chimp prodding his face, looking desperately for orifices with a thermometer. She giggled as though it were all good fun, “Renny, you’ve got a fever. You’re absolutely burning up. It’s off to bed for you.”

“Get off me,” he shouted, the echo like that found in a cavern, “This is serious, Thecla.” 

“He’s right. Jacob is sick upstairs, and it seems no one has checked on him, and he’s being too stubborn to say anything,” Luna offered, shaking off a chuckle at Rennard’s expense. 

Thecla dropped down, glaring at the older girl in the manner a dog would, with a stranger looking at his treat, “Well, that doesn’t sound like my problem. Why didn’t you go tell Father? I know Jacob won’t let me near him without Father there or at least his say so. He’s scared of girls. Not like Renny.”

“Regardless,” Rennard took a few steps away, ignoring the chilly hand that tried to take his despite being so much smaller, “Father won’t attend at this hour unless it’s urgent and Jacob has at least a cold, if not worse. He’d approve of me giving the order considering the situation, so get together whatever will do and head up there… please.”

“Ren,” Luna added, gesturing to the quiet girl beside her.

A silence fell over the other three children as Iris pulled closer to Luna, locking her arms around the older girl’s waist. A sweeping glare went from Luna to Iris, who twitched away from the look to rest on Rennard’s impassive expression. Finally, Thecla cleared her throat, “The new girl. What about her?”

“Father asked me to introduce her to the rest. I figured you’d like to meet her as well. At least with her conscious of the exchange,” a slight upward twist came to Ren’s lips, seeing the dismay on the girl’s face. 

She ignored it entirely and began going through the drawers of a cart beside her, “Yeah, nice to meet you, new girl. You’re all patched up, and other than the bruising, I don’t think you’ll have anything to remember about from wherever you came from. Why you were in the sewers is something you should ask Father about. You’re the first I’ve seen pulled out of there.”

“Iris,” Luna’s voice boomed in the stony depths of the infirmary, “Her name is Iris, Thecla. New or not, she has a name. You wouldn’t like it if Rennard called you ‘little nurse’ just because that’s what you are, would you?”

The glower that swept over Luna and Iris was enough to match the desolate ashen face deep inside Abbie’s hood as far as Rennard was concerned. She slammed shut the drawer and clacked her heels twice against the two locked wheels. As she began away with the cart, she glared back at Rennard, who still had a slight devilish grin on for the comment. Keeping her voice tense but trying to not betray her fury, she shot back, “I’ll see you back in your room, Renny.”

Iris skittered out of the way, keeping as close to Luna as possible, though wanting no part in the confrontation. Despite hoping to remain clear of any further instigation, Iris met Thecla’s gaze as Luna remarked in turn, “And we’ll see you back in the girls’ wing tonight, Thec.”