Chapter Sixteen

“Your calligraphy is lovely,” Tamara cooed over Mond as the little girl struggled to control the pen that was too big for her hands. She had mastered straight lines with little effort, but the curves were giving her trouble as the top of the pen swung out of her control. “Grip it tighter at the base there and it should make the writing easier.”

The Ms and the Ns in her name that she was practicing writing in repeated lines over the paper looked well-practiced, like she’d been writing for years. But the Os and the Ds an anything she wrote in the rounded lowercase was more elementary, about on the same level as the letters Ben could write.

Tamara pretended not to know that Mond retaught all of her daily lessons to the boy at night when they were supposed to be sleeping. She knew she would have to do something to end it eventually, but she also had noticed a frightening downturn in Mond’s overall appreciation of Tamara, and she guessed that it was directly linked to the way Tamara treated the boy. The more apathy she showed at this point, the better it would be for the mother-daughter relationship she was trying so hard to foster.

She had been able to convince Mond that she shouldn't see the boy during the day anymore. She hadn’t told her it was because his medicine made him look and act something more akin to a hibernating ground squirrel than a human. Every once in a while, Tamara would hear a loud thump from the room upstairs where he was penned in. She never reacted to it in a way that Mond would notice, but she couldn’t help wondering what could possibly be happening up there when he was about as mobile as a calcified starfish.

This happened while Mond was practicing her calligraphy. “Why don’t you go back to cycling through the whole alphabet, Mond,” Tamara said. “I’m going to go make us some lunch. Would you rather steamed asparagus or some of that spinach soufflé from last night?”

“Spinach,” Mond said quietly, her lips pursed tightly as she struggled to make the arch in her lowercase a.

Tamara stood up and walked out, closing the accordion door behind her. She stalked carefully around the corner to the stairs and up them, stepping over the three that creaked. The room at the top of the stairs had a large, darkly stained door with two locks high up on the frame. Tamara deftly undid them and burst into the room, using the door both as a shield and as a weapon, whichever was needed.

But when she got into the stark, gray, dimly lit room, she was relieved to find that her startling entrance was not necessary. The boy was lying on his side in his bed, just as she had let him that morning, eyes half open, and a thin line of drool dripping out of his mouth.

“Good boy,” Tamara said with a sigh and a grimace. In his present state, he reminded her all too much of the last few weeks she had seen her sister. He always resembled her too closely for comfort, but now, with his lifeless gaze and vulnerable position, she could easily have mistaken him for his mother.

“You’re the monster here, you know,” Tamara whispered as she walked out the door and closed it quietly behind her. “Between the two of us. I’m just protecting myself. You’re the monster.”