Chapter Text
Ashe Ubert was a boy who believed in dragons. That meant he was a boy who knew how to be brave.
The maw of the great grey dragon widened before him, its bright white insides billowing out cold air. Ashe clung tighter to his mom’s hand. He had no weapon, no sharpness to fend off this fear. But he wouldn’t cower away. So, with his mom half a step ahead, he treaded into the belly of the beast.
One of the white-coat ladies led them down white-tiled halls with their white doors and curtains. Behind a door with a tiny window, his dad was fighting. Not with a sword or with a bow and arrows, but with little clear tendrils that ran up into his arms. Mom told him they helped dad stay strong, like magic potions. Ashe couldn’t see the thing his dad was fighting against, though. The first time they came here and his mom explained that dad had to stay here for a while, Ashe cried and yelled about how come if dad had to fight something scary, Ashe couldn’t help him? Why did he have to be in this gigantic, colorless place with all these strangers?
You are helping me, his dad told him. Seeing your face keeps me strong. And seeing you be so brave helps me be brave, too.
Ashe learned a few other things that help, too: being quiet, calming down the twins so they can be quiet, too, being gentle about the potion tubes when he climbs into the wide bed dad is propped up in.
So, when his mom pulled out a new storybook, he didn’t bounce around or yell in excitement. The twins were still too young to understand books, so his mom wheeled them out to the reception room while Ashe perched on his father’s lap. They cuddled in close. Even though the summer was hot and sticky, Ashe didn’t mind. He wished they could read at home, though.
The story had very pretty pictures. On the cover was a lady, reaching out into a sky where a tiny blue bird was about to land on her finger. Even though there were no knights or dragons, he liked listening to the close hush of his dad’s voice, only occasionally broken up by coughing, and he liked feeling the rhythm of a steady heart against his back. More than the words, he soaked in the time he hadn’t been able to spend with his dad for so long. By the time he finished, Ashe asked him to read it again.
“Next time you visit,” his dad said, tapping the tip of Ashe’s nose.
“Can we read at home, next time?” Ashe asked, already disappointed by the answer he knew would come.
“Just wait little while longer, and I’ll be home again.”
By the first snowfall, Ashe and his mom and baby siblings pulled into that very big, very gray parking lot in front of the very big, very gray hospital building. After their car got all clunky and then sputtered out, they started taking the bus. Ashe helped by holding Linden while his mom shuffled the baby carriers through the stuffy aisle, Iris in her other arm.
Today was a very important day, Ashe knew. His dad was having something called a ‘surgery,’ which meant they were taking the bad thing out of him with knives. If it went well, he would be able to come home again. Or so the doctors said.
If it did not go well, they all had to be here. Mom would not say why, only that they could tell daddy how much they love him.
The bus was late, so by the time they limped inside, the desk-lady told mom that the surgery already started. Mom’s face crumpled. Iris started crying. So, Linden started crying. The people in the waiting room all huddled further into themselves, looking away from the wailing.
The magical glass doors that opened on their own long lost their mystique for Ashe. The plaza outside the hospital was all hard and gray, flat except for a few benches and a planter with a scraggly tree. While mom sheltered beneath those thin branches and tried to comfort the twins, Ashe stared out to the fence that separated the hospital from the next building over. It was the kind that was made of wire diamonds. That was the easiest type for climbing, even though he always got scolded for it. Even if he climbed it, though, the stout buildings on the other side were just as dull.
Ashe loved his siblings, but sometimes they were too noisy. The inside of Ashe’s head was pounding, his chest was pounding, his fingers were cold. Mom’s hands were so full that she only nodded when Ashe said he was going to go play by the fence. His boots smashed snow into ugly slush underfoot. He pulled out one of the hacky sacks mom made him for his birthday. He kicked it between two feet, careful not to let the slush soak into the robin’s egg blue knitting, but the snowy concrete was too slippery and he missed a kick. He didn’t want to ruin it, so he tucked it back in his pocket.
The twins were still crying. In the empty plaza, Ashe spun around. His footprints tore the white apart. He spun and spun, screaming with his body instead of his voice, and when he couldn’t spin anymore he fell to his knees. The slush soaked through his pants, all from his ankles to his knees. But in front of him, there was still a patch of that pure, pretty white.
He looked at it for a long time, until his breath evened out. Iris and Linden babbled in the distance. Cars and buses rumbled by. But it was quiet inside himself; a quiet that was almost scary. He stayed like that until the pink of his fingertips was painful, just staring out over that silent white.
Then, there was a light.
It was tiny, and flitted like a green butterfly. It dashed across his fingers, up his arm, and hovered over his chest. Startled, Ashe patted over his heart. The butterfly-light alighted on the back of his hand, trembling faintly. Ashe laughed. The light danced around, and Ashe made as if to catch it, but never could.
He looked up. On the other side of the wire-diamond fence, there was a kid. In their hand was a harsh spike of light - a reflection off a piece of glass. Ashe hadn’t noticed that it stopped snowing. The kid was catching the sun in his piece of glass and throwing it over to Ashe.
Their hair was such a pretty color, like the lilacs and lavender flowers mom put on the tables in their restaurant in the spring. They were the same size as Ashe, but their scruffy jacket made them look skinnier. Their bare fingers and nose were burnt bright pink. Through the foggy breath blurring their face, their smile was like a lit window at night.
Ashe walked towards him, fingers knitting into those wire diamonds. The fence was so delicate that the simple touch sent a shudder of snow drifting to the ground.
“Hello,” Ashe called shyly. The kid looked him up and down. For a moment, Ashe was worried he scared away a potential new friend. But they dusted the snow from their pants, and joined Ashe a few steps away from the fence.
“You’re pretty good with that hacky sack,” the kid said. From their voice, Ashe thought he was probably a boy.
Ashe said, “Ah, thanks! I’ve been practicing a lot… Have you ever tried it?”
The kid shook his head.
“It’s fun! Do you want to try?” Excitement sparked in Ashe’s eyes. He drew the small knit bag from his pocket, pressing out through one of the gaps in the wire diamonds.
“No, thank you,” the kid said with practiced politeness. But his bright eyes stayed fixed on the hacky sack, mouth turned into a longing frown.
“It’s alright!” Ashe chirped. He knew when someone was just being nice about not borrowing toys.
“Is it?” The boy asked. The question was meek, but the way he asked was strong and curious.
“Yeah!” Ashe pushed it further through the fence. His wrist was skinny enough to make it through, but his coat bundled up around his arm and prevented him from reaching further. The kid gave him a very odd look. Maybe - worried? Confused? For a moment, it looked like he thought Ashe was stupid. But he smiled again, strode forward, and accepted the knit bag in his palm. He pondered it in one hand, weighing it against the glass shard in the other. Though he looked embarrassed, he dropped the shard into Ashe’s open palm. It was warm.
“That’s all I have,” he said.
“We don’t have to trade, you can just borrow it.” Ashe laughed.
“No. It’s gotta be even. I don’t just take stuff.” The boy looked so serious. He held the hacky sack in both hands, like it were a delicate baby bird.
“Thank you,” Ashe said. He held the glass up against the dull sky. It was a triangle of vibrant, rich green. He remembered how once, one of the waiters had dropped a wine bottle, and the broken pieces looked just like this. Mom and dad frantically rushed him away from the glass, saying they were very dangerous and absolutely not to touch them, but the shard in Ashe’s hand now was pretty as a polished river stone. He was so caught up with it that he almost forgot that he hadn’t introduced himself at all. Flushing, he reached for a handshake, realized the fence was in the way, and instead gave an awkward little bow. “My name is Ashe, by the way. I didn’t- yeah. I’m Ashe.”
“Do you always tell your name to strangers?” The kid asked. It wasn’t mean, but Ashe flinched back all the same. Mom did say that sometimes he was too friendly…
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Never mind,” the kid said suddenly. Then, a pause. “I’m Leo.”
“Leo,” Ashe repeated. The knot in his chest loosened. “I’ve never heard that name before. It’s very pretty.”
“Uh, thanks.” Leo looked back down at the hacky sack. “How do I…?”
“Oh! It’s like this-” Ashe did the kicking motion that could keep the bag in the air, though it sort of just looked like awkward waddling. Leo tried to stifle a smile, but when Ashe started laughing at himself, Leo joined in.
“Like this?” Leo asked, waddling in just a silly a way.
“Yeah,” Ashe got out between giggles. Leo was still cradling the bag like a tiny, blue bird. “Go on, try! You just drop it over your foot to start.”
Leo nodded, resolute. He poised one foot out in front of him, and held the hacky sack out like it might fly away. But when he pulled his hands away, it plummeted towards the snow.
His foot caught it. One kick, two, three- but he missed the fourth, and the bag plopped onto the ground.
“That was so good for a first try!” Ashe said, bouncing on his heels. Leo was frowning, though.
“I got it wet…”
“That’s ok! Why don’t you try again? I bet you can kick it five whole times!”
“That still wouldn’t be as good as you. You must have kicked it fifty.”
“I just practice a lot. I couldn’t even kick it twice, my first time.”
Ashe coaxed him into trying again, and it really did go better - seven kicks! Leo smiled at that. His confidence glowed like a hearth. Time passed in a flurry of cheers and laughter.
“Ashe?” His mom called from across the plaza. “Let’s go inside.”
Ashe wanted to protest even before he saw how Leo’s face fell into guarded disappointment. He picked the hacky sack up and offered it through the fence like a teacher returning a stolen toy. Ashe waved his hands frantically to turn him down.
“You can keep practicing!”
“This is yours, though.”
“I have a couple more…”
Leo shook his head. “It’s yours.”
“Then… how about you borrow it for a while, and give it back later?”
“Will you be back here?” Leo asked pointedly.
“Probably,” Ashe admitted. All the grown-ups told him dad would be coming home for so long that he couldn’t believe them, anymore. Even on the verge of crumbling, his smile was reassuring. “Will you be?”
Leo kicked a puff of snow mindlessly and nodded. That made Ashe genuinely light up.
“Ok! Well, then, I’ll see you later, Leo!” Ashe waved and turned to tromp off towards mom, but caught himself at the last second. He drew the glass out of his pocket. If this was the only toy Leo had, he shouldn’t take it. But when he tried to pass it back through the fence, Leo stepped back.
“It’s a trade. You keep it, until we see each other again.”
Until we see each other again. It felt like warm soup in his belly. It felt like a promise.
He held Linden’s hand as they waddled through the hospital door. He felt braver, now, a knight ready to take out the giant white dragon with his green glass blade.
And, that glass sword really brought him victory. It became his good luck charm. Because the doctor told them that after a little rest, dad was finally ready to come home.
-
He met Leo again when they came to pick dad up from the hospital. He meant to convince him to keep the hacky sack and tell him all about how lucky his glass shard was, but he got something even more precious - the knowledge that Leo attended the same school as him. And not only that, but they were going to be in the same grade.
The teacher already knew Leo, because he had been in her class the year before. She didn’t say why, and when Ashe asked Leo, he just shrugged and said, “Family stuff.”
Ashe met Leo’s mother, once, when he stopped by Leo’s house to drop off homework he missed. She smelled like a bunch of different flowers at once, and had that same lilac hair. Ashe liked her easy smiles and teasing, but he was never allowed to spend time in their house. He never saw Leo’s dad. He must have one, because he heard a man yelling and a crash from further within the house.
Leo spent most weekday afternoons in the back of their restaurant. He was so bored by their homework that he usually didn’t bother to do it, until Ashe inevitably needed help. He found solutions with the ease of a king ordering his subjects, and Ashe convinced him that if he was going to work out the answers he may as well write them on his own worksheets. He was confused and reserved around the twins at first, but after they grabbed and blabbered at him enough times, he took to gently poking their cheeks and playing peek-a-boo. After his first visit, mom remarked that he was one of the most polite boys she’d ever met. Ashe had to wonder if Leo didn’t like dads, though, because Ashe had the best dad a dad could be, and Yuri ducked away and mumbled whenever he tried to talk to him.
Leo talked about his mom’s cooking and his mom’s singing and his mom’s make-up, but his lip tangled up into a sneer the one time Ashe asked what his dad was like.
“Don’t have one.”
“You don’t have a dad?”
“No.”
“How…” A bramble stuck in Ashe’s throat. “How do you not have a dad?”
“I just don’t.” He kicked the hacky sack up so high that he had to run to try to catch it. It crashed down on the pavement. Though most of the snow melted, the days were cold and clear as ice. Ashe sat on their back step, squeezing another hacky sack in his hand. Other kids at school sometimes talked about ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa,’ and he didn’t have either of those. So… it must be possible to live without a dad, too.
His chest ached.
When his parents called them in for dinner, it was dad’s turn to take them upstairs while mom minded the restaurant downstairs. Ashe clung around his dad’s legs. He was busy with trying to keep the twins from spilling all of their pumpkin soup. Leo ate quietly, watching him sing-song Iris into opening up and miming chewing along with her. It was like Leo was watching a movie and waiting for the scary part to come, resolved to keep a straight face even when the monster jumped out of the shadows. Only, Ashe’s dad wasn’t a monster. He was the one who chased the monsters away.
After dinner, Leo’s mom hadn’t yet come by, so they settled onto the couch and watched a nature documentary. This one was about ’tornadoes.’ It was scary, like watching the sky twist into a screw that spun and spun and spun until the entire earth spun around it. Leo’s face, flashing bright in the TV’s light, showed no fear.
“What do we do if that happens?” Ashe huddled into Leo’s side. Leo pulled the blanket tighter around their shoulders. The knitting scraped against Ashe’s cheek, smelling of home.
“We stay calm and we work together, and we make it through,” Leo said. Something inside Ashe settled. The winds on the screen whirled viciously, tearing apart homes and farms and families, but he was here, on the cushy brown couch in their den, his siblings fast asleep and his parents just downstairs, with a best friend to hold his hand when he was scared. It was like a spark settling over his heart.
-
They saw the gathering clouds, menacing as dragon’s wings, and knew what had to be done. The schoolyard’s wire fence rattled, and the brown grass stirred with whirls of dust. Everyone wanted to listen to Leo; he was the smallest of them all, even for all of his nine years, but assured in the way of adults. He stood atop the highest playset in the way of a pirate captaining his ship, voice carrying with more gusto than the coming thunder. Dozens of heads turned to him. He warned of the storm barreling towards them, how the winds would curl into a spire of destruction - But don’t be afraid! There was a way to stay safe. If they all banded together beneath the playset to weather the storm, they would all make it through, together!
So as Leo gathered the masses under his protection, Ashe shepherded the shy kids to the safety beneath the slides and platforms. The braver among them clung to the swings and monkey bars like life floats on turbulent seas. It was tough to gather everyone on the shifting ground of the sandbox but they managed to make it before the first drops of rain fell.
Leo stood alone atop their makeshift fortress. If was as if his meager weight alone held the structure to the ground when the winds rose in earnest. The platforms were full of huddled children, so Ashe scaled the frame on the outside to join his friend.
“You stay down below, where it’s safe,” Leo told him. His hair was whipped wild, smile a spark among the storm, and something sparked inside Ashe, too.
When Ms.Manuela came out after recess to find every third-grader packed like sardines under the red playset, she burst into baffled laughter.
“They turned the playground into a fallout shelter because of a little rainstorm,” she told his parents at their next conference, still laughing at the absurdity of it all. “I was actually impressed.”
“Dear,” Ashe’s mom said to him. Her warm hand stroked along his hair. “I know we watched that documentary about tornadoes, but there are no tornadoes here. Even if there was one, you should go inside, alright?”
“Alright,” Ashe said. But inside, he knew. Maybe the adults didn’t understand, but he and Leo saved everyone.
—
But, he couldn’t save his dad.
He fought that invisible monster for so long, and when they thought he finally emerged victorious from its jaws, it lunged from the shadows again. The doctor said it was a ‘relapse,’ but it happened so suddenly that not even their magic potions could save him.
That night, his mom collapsed. Between her and dad’s bed and the twins’ crib, she hunched on her knees, shoulders quaking around sobs so wrathful it was like her heart was trying to burst from her chest. Her fingers grasped the bars of the crib, long and thin fingers grabbed by the stubby, gobbling hands of her two babies. Iris and Linden wailed, loud enough to drown out the screaming grief curling his mom’s spine. Ashe did everything he could. He tried to hold Iris or Linden to comfort them, but they fought from his hold. He tried to pat his mom’s back, to soothe her like she always did for him, to hug her, but she wouldn’t respond. She was an earthquake trapped in human skin, and one small boy’s arms were useless against the shaking.
Ashe fled from the room. He dug up the treasure box under his bed. His lucky charm glinted in the dim light from the hall. He remembered that spark on a dull day, that smile like a lit window, and hopes and hopes that there’s still some luck left for him.
He gasped in pain. His palm stung. The glass clattered to the floor, dark flecks of red dotting the floor. Ashe scrambled away, clutching his hand around the slash in the softest part of his palm.
“Mom,” he cried. His feet took him back to her. “Mom.”
When she saw the drawn shock on his face, the dark red blotting out from between his fingers, her eyes cleared. Like snapping out of a trance, she wound her arms around him.
“Baby,” she whispered. Her breath ruffled past his ear. “Oh, baby. What happened to your hand? Come on, let’s get you patched up. It’ll be ok.”
In their single bathroom, the yellow light flicked over the white bandages she gently wrapped around his palm. It felt like a betrayal, that the good-luck charm he sought out to comfort him hurt him like this. But, in a way, hadn’t it brought his mom back to him? Her eyes were still heavy and rimmed in red, but there was light to them, again. He had been so terrified that not only his dad was gone forever.
That night, they all slept on his parents’ bed. Iris and Linden only drifted to sleep when they were held, half in Ashe’s arms and half in his mother’s. His hand throbbed. But Iris babbled in her sleep, his mom finally breathed steadily, and they were together.
-
Only, one day, they weren’t.
The doorbell blared through dark halls. The shrill peal wrenched Ashe out of sleep. 5:15. His mom left so early to pick up their daily food shipment that the sun was only a purple haze on the horizon. He knew better than to answer the door when she wasn’t home. He buried his head beneath the pillow. Then, another ring pierced the pillow. It woke the twins, and Ashe ran over to shush them. He didn’t know what to do.
He crept to the window and looked down at the sidewalk outside the first floor. There was a woman in a dark uniform, her car flashing blue and red.
Ashe crept up to the door. It was worse than opening the closet door in the dead of night to check for monsters.
“Hello?” He tried to sound grown-up, but it came out as a squeak. The police lady paused, crumpled to one knee.
“Hello. Is your dad home?” Her pitying, thin smile was muddy snow on raw skin.
“My dad,” Ashe whimpered. “He’s already gone.”
-
They didn’t tell him what kind of accident mom had, only that she wouldn’t be coming home again.
He and the twins were taken to a big house with small rooms. There were other kids there, and adults in pale clothes. It was all so numb. Ashe couldn’t tell when he was crying and when he was frozen.
In his nightmares, white walls and white tile and white coats suffocated him with the cold stench of medicine.
—-
Ashe and his siblings were lucky. They were lucky, because they were not in the foster system very long. The three of them were still together, which he was told is a very rare thing. They were lucky, because the man that took them in lived in a manor ten times as big as their parents' restaurant. They were lucky, because now they weren’t at that dusty playground with its wire fence and thin brown grass, but at a school with lush lawns that twice a year smelled of rotting fish fertilizer.
At night, Ashe slept in his own room, in a bed with blue and white blankets pattered like the sky. A big window spilled moonlight over too much space. He went through his treasure box every night: the storybook with the blue bird, his lucky glass shard, a picture of his parents from their wedding, two hacky sacks from his birthday. Leo still had the third.
Ashe had not seen Leo since the morning the police officer came to their door. The people at the foster center and his adoptive father carefully explained what it meant when someone died: they were not anywhere, anymore, except heaven, which was a place Ashe could not go to. But Leo was still out there, somewhere, and his not being here was enough to push the shards of grief through Ashe's ribs and into his heart.
Ashe did not realize how much his adoptive father loved him until one day, he was out in the yard by the grand wood and metal gate. It was so much harder to climb than those wire diamonds. He fell many times, and lodged a splinter in both his shin and palm. In the end, he gave up. He wouldn’t be able to see the other side.
When Lonato found him, he didn’t yell or scold Ashe. He took him inside, cleaned up his palm with a mild disinfectant, and asked Ashe if he was happy, here. Ashe, truthfully, said he was. But he missed his friend. He wanted to see if he could spot him somewhere over the fence.
Lonato taught him how to use a phone book. Only, Leo’s last name wasn’t listed, and Ashe never knew his address. Ashe cried himself to sleep that night.
The next day, Lonato told him they were going out. It was a school day. They got in the shiny black car with the driver dressed in black and white like a penguin. Ashe watched brick and elm trees turn to telephone wires and bleached-out billboards. And just like that, they were outside his old school. Class was just getting out. Heart pounding, Ashe hesitated at Lonato’s side. He laid a warm hand on his shoulder, and encouraged him to step forward when that familiar violet emerged through the door.
Ashe should have been embarrassed for how the tears spilled onto Leo’s shoulder. His world wasn’t completely gone. There was one precious person left.
-
The first time Leo came to visit Lonato’s house, his jaw fell. Ashe lead him in by the hand, cheerily showing him all the incredible plants in the sunroom, the spinny globe in the study, and best of all, the painting of the knight in his bedroom. Leo didn’t speak. He didn’t touch anything. He was like a rabbit under the eyes of a wolf. He jumped whenever Lonato or Christophe poked their heads in to check on them.
It was not very like Leo at all. But then again, Ashe had also been shocked and enchanted when he first arrived here. Knowingly, Ashe lead him to the dining room.
There was a crystal chandelier over the grand table. Afternoon light streaking in from the high window sparked off in a splash of color, turning the pale walls and floor into a glittering rainbow cavern. Leo ran his hands over the shards of color, watching as they turned him, too, into something sparkling and beautiful.
“Watch,” Ashe said, and climbed atop the table. Christophe taught him this trick, but said never to do it when Lonato was around, else he might have to pretend to be angry. On his tip-toes, Ashe reached for the chandelier. He pushed it into a spin.
The shards of light whirled around the room. Like thousands of shooting stars shooting into orbit, they spun and spun and spun, and turned Leo’s wide eyes into a galaxy all their own. Ashe leapt from the table, taking Leo’s hands in his and spinning too. Finally, Leo laughed. On tip-toe, dizzy, the two of them made their own gravity, trying to keep up with all those madly spinning stars.
-
“You two want in?” Christophe raised his arms, hoisting the storybook up into the air. Iris and Linden were already tucked against his sides, stuffing the lounge chair so full Ashe worried the poor thing’s legs might break. Ashe took the chair beside it, and patted for Leo to join him. Leo had grown much less weary of Christophe after repeat visits, and would actually sit on the fine furniture when invited. Large and plush as the chair was, it was still snug for two growing boys. Ashe did not at all mind the way Leo’s limbs tangled with his, the rise and fall of his chest, nor the heat through thin cotton pajamas.
“You might be a little old for this one,” Christophe said, tapping the cover. There was a beautiful lady in a white dress, reaching out to a brilliant sky where a tiny blue bird was about to land on her finger. They were so close; only a hand’s width apart, but frozen in time as they were, they would never be able to touch. Honestly, though he knew it was better for kids the twins’ age, it was still Ashe’s favorite. Quietly, he turned to Leo and said,
“We can go do something else if it’s boring.” Secretly, he hoped Leo would stay. Leo shrugged, but settled further into the chair. His heart a hummingbird thrum, Ashe listened to Christophe’s rich voice begin to read.
“Once upon a time, there was a girl named Liz. Liz lived in a beautiful cottage, surrounded by the flowers she tended and vegetables she grew. Every day, Liz would make the walk into town, where she made bread and pastries at the bakery. And at the end of every day, Liz would walk those country roads back home, and make a dinner for one. Liz ate alone, and she slept alone, and woke up alone.
Then, one day, there was a terrible storm. Thunder boomed. Branches cracked from trees. The wind was so mighty that the windows in Liz’s cottage rattled. After weathering the storm, Liz stepped out to a sunny day. Only there, in her garden, there was a girl.
This girl had eyes of the most brilliant blue. Her dress was the shade of a robin’s egg. But she was hurt. Liz invited her inside, and bandaged her arm. The girl, who said her name was Blue, was very thankful for all Liz had done, and gratefully ate the bread and jam Liz made that morning. Blue did not have anywhere else to go, and she was so sunny and bright that Liz was happy to let her stay.
And so, Liz began making meals for two. They would comb each other’s hair, dance in the kitchen, and laugh all day. At night, they would tuck into bed and talk for hours, until the candlelight went out.
But Blue had a secret: she was not only a girl, but a bird as well. Her wing was broken in the storm, and so she could not fly. But as time went on and her wing healed, she began looking up at that beautiful, brilliantly blue sky. She was meant to fly. But she did not want to leave Liz behind.
And so, while Liz was fast asleep, Blue would slip out of bed and open the window. She would soar through moonlit clouds, over the fields and city lights, and always return by dawn. Only, Blue was not as good at keeping her secret as she thought. Liz know how much Blue longed to return to the skies where she truly belonged. Blue could fly so high and so far, if only Liz was not there to tie her down.
But Liz did not want Blue to leave. She had been so terribly lonely, and she loved Blue so dearly. She could not bear the thought of all their shared meals, their dances, and their conversations coming to an end.”
Leo was watching Christophe with vivid intensity. His eyes were hard in a way that Ashe could not look away from. He wanted, so much, to find softness there. Iris and Linden were already nodding off. Christophe continued,
“But Liz knew in her heart that she could never forgive herself for keeping the bluebird trapped in a cage, no matter how comfortable she worked to make it. In the end, no matter how they loved each other, they were made for different worlds. And so, she and the bluebird shared one final dance. She took Blue’s hands in hers and said, ‘You are free.’
Before her eyes, that charming girl became a bird even more blue than the sky. Those feathers melted into a speck in the endless air, higher and higher, and Liz knew that for the rest of her life, she would never forget that sight.
Liz still lived in a beautiful cottage, surrounded by the flowers she tended and vegetables she grew. Every day, Liz would make the walk into town, where she made bread and pastries at the bakery.
But Liz was not alone. The sight of that brilliant blue sky, the memory of that day, held her safe and warm forevermore.”
The pages fluttered closed. Ashe’s heart ached. It always felt like this, when this story came to a close. It was some echo of the pain he felt in those days in the hospital. But it turned that hurt into something warm and soft, like a fragile baby bird fallen from the nest, that he could hold and nurture in his ribs. When it emerged again, it might not look like pain at all.
Christophe carried the little ones to bed. The single lamp warmed the room like a fireplace on a stormy night. Leo’s face was darkness traced by a halo of light.
“Did you like it?” Ashe asked.
“No,” Leo said. Ashe’s heart sputtered. The cushion lurched beneath him as Leo stood. “That bluebird is really selfish.”
“Ah… I guess,” Ashe said. He smiled. If Leo had been looking at him, he would’ve seen just how wilting it was. He forced himself to his feet. Even the plush carpet felt a little cold. “Let’s go to bed?”
Leo lead the way through silent halls. His footfalls, from carpet to tile to hardwood, were so quiet it was as if he were something made of air, hardly even there.
Moonlight fell in bars over the wide bed. Leo’s back rose and fell slowly. In an odd panic, Ashe tugged at the back of his shirt. Leo peeked back over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry you didn’t like the story,” Ashe muttered. His bedroom was so vast that he could speak normally without disturbing the twins or Christophe next door, but the empty air was so heavy it pushed his voice down to a whisper. Leo’s eyes darted away. But, slowly, the bed shifted under the weight of him turning over.
“I’m sorry, too,” Leo said. Ashe wanted to ask, for what? But something in Leo’s face stole the words from him. There was a desperate sadness beneath a too-thin calm. Ashe’s hand climbed over empty sheets, asking a question that Leo answered by nudging their fingers together. Ashe interwove them.
Leo’s breathing was a calm shore at night. With his drowsiness as an excuse, Ashe could nuzzle further against him. Leo wrapped an arm around Ashe’s shoulders, grounding as it was hesitant. With his lashes fluttering against Leo’s neck, Ashe muttered, “I’m so glad I found you again.”
Leo’s breath hitched. Ashe had a palm pressed to his chest; that heartbeat pulse into his palm, up his arm, where it joined Ashe’s own, safe between his ribs.
“Me too,” Leo might’ve said. Or maybe Ashe imagined it. He was halfway into a dream.
-
The next time Ashe called Leo’s house, a grainy dial-tone scraped through the receiver. It was 5:00 in the evening; even if Leo didn’t pick up, his mom should have answered in her sing-song tone. But maybe they were busy. Ashe hung up.
He tried again the next day, a Friday. That dial-tone blasted his ear. He tried on Saturday, at 11:00am, 2:00pm, and 6:00pm. With every missed call, that dial tone grew harsher and harsher, a wailing siren that stirred unease in his chest. On Sunday, the blaring discord rattled in his skull from the time they got home from church to the time they settled in for dinner.
As soon as Ashe got home from school on Monday, he pulled out the phone book. His old school was listed. The main office was still open. He asked where Leo from class 5B was, if he was ok. The secretary leafed through a few pages, and grew very quiet.
“Is your mom or dad there?” She asked.
Ashe asked her to please wait a moment in a strained squeak, then he scrambled to where Lonato was poised in his favorite reading chair. Hauled up by a frantic Ashe, he asked, “Goodness, what’s wrong? Did you spot another ghost?”
“The school, my old school - I couldn’t call Leo’s house anymore, so I called the school, and they want to talk to you-”
“Alright, settle down.” He reached for the receiver, a grin quirking his mustache. “Hello, this is Ashe’s guardian speaking. Yes, that’s right. Yes.” He stood straight as an arrow, so stable that even Ashe’s dizzy heartbeat calmed. But with every nod, that grin melted into something unsteady. His brows furrowed, proud voice gone quiet as he asked, “And that’s all you know?”
Ashe desperately wanted to make sense of the garbled static coming through the receiver. He looked to Lonato for any reassurance that everything was alright. Anything to cling onto. But the glance Lonato sent him was confused, sad, even-
Like the glances adults gave him when they heard about his parents.
“Is he ok?” Ashe tried to sound big and grown-up and sure, but his voice trembled like a dry leaf in cold wind.
“He’s ok,” Lonato reassured. He thanked the secretary and clicked the receiver back into place. He fell to one knee, eye-to-eye with Ashe. He tried to erase that pitying shadow from his expression, but Ashe saw it anyway.
“Leo isn’t living with his mother, anymore,” he said.
“Did she pass away?” Ashe asked around the lump in his throat.
“No. No, it’s just that… It’s sometimes better, when some people don’t live together.”
“So where is he?”
Lonato forced a smile. “He’s somewhere that’s better for him. Safer.”
“But where is he?” Ashe’s voice cracked. Panic was stirring in his chest.
“He’s… Well, he’s in the foster care system.”
“Like I was?” Ashe asked. Lonato nodded, and then shook his head.
“He was placed in another state. And they can’t tell me where.”
“But why not?” Tears burned the edges of Ashe’s eyes.
“It’s complicated, little one. Sometimes… Sometimes people get involved in something that isn’t safe, and they have to move someplace new, to start over again.”
“Did he want to leave?” Ashe asked. “Why would he go someplace else?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will I ever see him again?”
Lonato ruffled his hair. But all the gentleness in the world couldn’t mask the pity on his face.
“Maybe. But I might not get your hopes up, sweet pea.”
“But he’s still alive! It isn’t like with mom and dad… He’s still out there somewhere!” Ashe never cried like this in front of his adopted father. Lonato pulled him into a hug, him kneeling, Ashe standing in little cloud-patterned socks that couldn’t keep out the chill of the tile floor. He soothed,
“The world is very big, little one. But maybe you’ll meet again.”
Ashe still tried to call Leo’s home once a day for three months. Then once a week. And then, once a month. He was 13 by the time a stranger’s voice answered on the other side, and said they had no idea who the previous owners were.
That night, curled in the too-big bed in his too-big room, Ashe stared with dry, red eyes at the final page of Liz and the Blue Bird. A small figure stood at the bottom, crushed under the enormity of a blue sky. He silently mouthed the three words written there, trying to turn them into something true. A better place. A safer place. Even if he never saw Ashe again…
“You are free.”