Chapter Text
I was eight years old and I counted everything. Steps in the hallway, tiles in the kitchen, cracks on the ceiling in the cupboard under the stairs. Counting was quiet, it didn't draw attention. Counting didn't hurt.
"Get up," Aunt hissed through the door. "And don't you dare be late."
I didn't dare. I pushed the creaky door open with my shoulder, careful not to hit the beam that had a habit of smacking me in the temple. The air in the hallway smelled of laundry detergent and something burnt. In the kitchen, Dudley was already at the table, his lips shiny like the ham on his plate.
"He's staring," he whined, as if staring was a crime.
"Don't stare at your cousin," Aunt hissed without turning her head. "The toast is burning, Vernon! Harry, the eggs. And don't you embarrass us."
Don't embarrass us meant do everything. I took the frying pan. The handle was too hot, but I didn't have a cloth. I pressed my fingers harder so I wouldn't drop it. The oil sizzled, and I counted to ten so I wouldn't look at the slices of toast everyone got except me. Dudley snorted with laughter. He saw me looking at the plates. I looked away. I counted the flames under the burner. One, two, three...
"Salt!" Aunt shrieked.
I reached for the salt shaker. It trembled in my hand as if it were alive. I held my breath. Sometimes things shook when Aunt yelled. Sometimes the flames went out. Sometimes something fell, even though it had been sitting still. I'd learned to pretend it was my trembling hands. It was safer that way.
"What's taking so long?" Uncle growled. "Always slow. Useless boy, you are."
"Here," I said, and the pan obediently slid the omelet onto a plate. Not mine.
My plate was empty. That is – there was no plate. I got a plate when someone was in a good mood, which was almost never in the morning. I'd learned to eat with my eyes. It wasn't filling.
"To the garden," Uncle grunted, setting down his mug. "Grass like a jungle. And then the garage. Cobwebs. I don't want a single one."
I nodded. Nodding was allowed. Talking rarely. I asked my questions to the walls. They answered with silence.
I scrubbed the pan. A bit too hard – the sponge gave way, and for a moment I felt the bare metal under my fingers, that strange, pure coolness. I liked that coolness, it was simple. It didn't scream.
In the backyard, the grass really was like a jungle. I had shears that were too big and hands that were too small. Sometimes I imagined the shears were the mouth of a beast, and I was feeding it green snakes. The beast went snip, snip and was full, and I could stop thinking about eggs and plates. The sun baked the back of my neck, sweat mixing with dust. When ants crawled over my ankles, I imagined they were saluting. That I was someone to be saluted. So I wouldn't feel the ants.
"Not dead yet?" Dudley yelled through the window. "Mum! He's staring at our window!"
"Stop provoking," Aunt hissed. "And hurry up, Harry. You don't think lunch makes itself, do you?"
I didn't think. I knew nothing made itself. Although sometimes... sometimes things happened that I didn't do.
That day, when I carried the toolbox into the garage, I smelled gasoline and iron. Cobwebs were everywhere, like white veins stretched from corner to corner. I had to take them down, but I hated touching them. They were soft. Alive.
"Come on now," I whispered to the empty corner. "Come down."
They came down. Really. As if a draft cut through the air, but the window was shut, and the door too. I stood for a moment with my hand mid-air, watching the thin threads pull away from the wall and settle on the concrete. I thought maybe I'd done something again. That I'd have to lie again if someone asked.
No one asked. In this house, no one asked me anything.
By evening, I was nothing but tiredness. My hands were heavy, as if I were carrying a bucket in each. When I set Uncle's mug on the table, my hand trembled and tea sloshed over the side. Drop by drop. One fell on the tablecloth. Before it touched the fabric, it stopped, as if suspended in mid-air. I froze. The drop quivered and... flowed back into the mug. As if it had never been there.
Uncle didn't see it. Aunt didn't either. I did. And I felt something that wasn't fear. Something cold and quiet, like water under ice.
"Under the stairs," Uncle snapped, not even looking at me. "And no light. Electricity costs money."
No light meant breathing. My breath glowed from the inside if I held it long enough. I'd learned to breathe slowly, so I wouldn't hear Dudley stomping, or the TV blaring, or Aunt slamming pots. The floor under my mattress had a knot. It was like an eye. It watched me when I wasn't sleeping.
I counted to a hundred. Then to two hundred. When I ran out of numbers, I counted the seconds in which I didn't feel like crying. Crying got in the way of breathing. And breathing had to be quiet.
I had a tea box where I kept my treasures. A wire that could pry out a nail. A shoelace someone had thrown out, which I'd washed in the sink. A small, blunt pencil. I liked the pencil best. The pencil left marks. Marks meant I existed.
On the side of the door frame, on the inside, I made tally marks. One mark for a day no one locked me in all day. Two marks for a day I didn't get slapped. Three for a day I ate something warm. Those were the fewest.
That evening, I made a mark too. One. And then I heard something that wasn't a step or the TV. It was like a rustle, like paper sliding over paper.
"Who's there?" I asked, and only a moment later realized I'd said it out loud.
No one answered. The rustling stopped. All that was left was my breath and the silence trying to pretend it wasn't there. I pressed the pencil into the wood a little harder than necessary. The line became thicker, almost like a gash.
"I won't cry," I said to the knot in the floor. "Not today."
The knot didn't answer. Maybe because it was wood. Or maybe because wood doesn't answer boys who whisper to it.
When I closed my eyes, I imagined I was somewhere else. Not in a fairy tale. Fairy tales lie. I only knew two real places: the kitchen and the garden. So I imagined the garden at night. That the grass grew loudly, as if trying to drown someone out. That the ants marched in formation, like soldiers. That I was bigger than all of them, but quiet. So quiet even the light wouldn't find me.
Maybe that's why, when I turned toward the wall, I saw a piece of my reflection in the vacuum cleaner's metal plate. Crooked, scratched. My eyes were dark. They were always dark. But that evening they seemed different. As if they were like that drop of tea – ready to pull back if anyone tried to touch me.
"Tomorrow I won't be slower," I said to the reflection. "Tomorrow I'll be faster."
The reflection nodded. Or maybe I just nodded. It was enough. I extinguished my breath, like blowing out a candle. And I let the night close over me like the lid of a tea box. Only this time I knew I was inside. And that I was leaving marks.