Vera by Carol Edgarian (year 7 reading list TXT) 📕

two girls, a bird, and a dog could enter a grand house without a proper invitation, it was the early hours of April 18.

“I always wondered how it would look in the light of day,” whispered Pie as we hesitated at the curb.

In daylight the house looked grand. Five stories and a riot of gables and fancywork, plaster reliefs and gingerbread molding, four chimneys, a balcony, and dozens of gold-drenched balls and knobs fixed to every peak and post. Next to its equally large yet more refined neighbors, Rose’s Queen Anne looked decked out for a burlesque show.

“Front door or back?” Pie asked.

“Back,” I declared, pulling the cart into the driveway, with Pie and Rogue following close behind. The driveway ended at a trio of garages: the first was General’s stable, the second housed the buggy, and the third was for Rose’s fancy motorcar.

Beyond the garages, a gate led to a small, manicured garden I didn’t know was there. It had rows of boxwood and roses, herbs, and several magnolia trees. There was an outdoor fireplace with a thick-necked chimney; a chicken coop, partially hidden by ferns. A bloodstained wooden block was beside the coop, where, I supposed, Tan cut off the head and feet of the Sunday bird in front of its compatriots.

We didn’t linger. A section of the back roof had collapsed in the quake, with stray boards and a small pike of bricks having landed on the roof of General’s stable. As we approached, the horse whinnied and kicked at the boards of his stall.

“I don’t like the look of that,” I said, pointing to the precarious stable roof. “We better take him out of there.”

“Let’s find Rose first,” Pie suggested, and she headed for the back door.

A sign was tacked there: “Beggars scat. Tradesmen knock. You know which you are.”

“That’s Rose’s hand,” Pie said, looking to me yet again to decide what we should do.

“I’m not about to knock,” I declared.

She wasn’t there. I knew it immediately: the air, shaken and thick with plaster dust, hadn’t pushed against a living soul that morning.

Even so, Pie and I spoke in whispers; we were careful not to touch anything. Rogue likewise sniffed at the floor but stayed close to my heels. It was cold in Tan’s kitchen, with its twenty-foot-high ceiling and steady chill radiating from the enormous icebox with six separate compartments. Rogue sniffed at the drip pans under the icebox and cautiously drank his fill.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Pie said, her voice ghostly, as she touched the wound on her head. “Whoa,” she whispered, swaying.

I understood that her knees were about to give. “Here.” I swept the broken glass from the seat of a kitchen chair and tucked her in close to the same table where Tan rolled his flaky crusts, where he minced vegetables and sides of beef with an ancient Chinese cleaver. It was all too strange.

Dipping a glass into a bowl of water in the sink, I handed it to her. “Drink, Pie, come on.”

I set Ricky in his cage on the floor beside her and lifted his blanket. “Pretty svenska, pretty svenska,” squawked the damn bird.

Pie reached for my hand. “Sorry… sorry I was sharp back there.”

“And I thought I was the tough bird.”

“You are.” She smiled thinly.

There were dish towels—dozens, in a drawer. I dipped one in the water. “Pie, put your head back against the chair. Good.” And I got to work washing the plaster and brick dust from the deep gash on her head.

“Ow!”

“This cut needs a doctor,” I said, scolding the wound.

Pie closed her startled eyes. “V?” She reached up and stopped my hand. “I keep seeing her… and the bricks.” Pie bit her lip. “It’s just… I’ve never, I’ve never been without her. Not one day.” Pie wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I know Morie hasn’t always been… I know it’s not the same for you.”

I could have said: I’ve been with Morie my whole life too. I could have said that this was my mother’s house in name only. And where was this mother anyway? Where had she ever been? I could have said that I took pride in being smart enough to get us up the hill, but that didn’t mean my insides weren’t jelly. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t terrified too. Maybe, just maybe, I’d lost two mothers in one wretched morning.

“No, it’s not the same for me,” I said, and I took one of Tan’s starched aprons from its hook and wrapped it round Pie’s head, making a turban.

Pie tucked the ends of the apron and felt the turban to see that it would stay. Then she tipped her head back against the chair and focused on the high ceiling.

I followed her gaze to marvel at the roses carved there, each rosette set in its own square box and all of it made of tin.

“James.” She sighed. “He won’t find us, will he?”

“He’ll find us,” I assured her. “Or we’ll find him.”

I got up then, just to keep moving—moving feeling less scary—and made a business of kicking broken glass into the corners and checking the food stocks in the icebox. I couldn’t imagine who ate all the food Rose laid in, but thank God she had: there were two beef roasts already cooked and two more raw. I stepped into the larder, where the shelves went as high as the ceiling. The floor was a mess of smashed tomatoes and eggs and nuts and rice and apples, and broken glass. Whatever was here was all we had.

“I don’t think she felt it, do you?” Pie asked.

I poked my head out of the larder. “What was that?”

“Morie,” said Pie, now using the rag to clean the cuts on her arms. “She was sound asleep.”

I pictured the mountain of bricks. “That’s right,” I said. “She never woke.”

“V, we’ll go back for her, right? Give her a proper burial. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

Pie stared at the rag in her hand. She was going through