NUMB by Judy Colella (tools of titans ebook txt) 📕

liaison. Beside him, Atarah was hammering at a block of pink marble, the chips flying about, some of them hitting her face, gouging out small chunks of skin. Her eyes had already been destroyed by the tiny stone projectiles, but she was smiling.

“Hey, what’s she making?” asked a man who Jett suspected was the orderly who had started to make a crude remark about her. His voice…

“Go away.”

“Yeah? Who’s gonna make me? You? You’re crippled.” His unfamiliar smile widened as he came closer to the heavily-bleeding sculptress. “Can I play with her when she’s finished?” He reached a hand toward her backside.

Jett yelled with a rage that had no time for words, and swung a fist. But instead of connecting with the man’s chin as intended, he hit Atarah, who fell sideways, then tumbled down the bleachers. Her body came to a stop when it hit the cement wall in front of the lowest row of benches. She was splayed out at unnatural angles, completely broken, her head twisted too far to the side and facing him. Her eyes snapped open, and she giggled through a bloody, toothless grin.

Too much. Too, too much. Jett climbed to the top of the bleachers, sobbing, barely able to see. When he got there, he looked over the back and saw he was not only a good mile up, but that instead of solid ground below, a choppy, cast-iron-dark sea roared at him. Something lighter, gray-blue and white, pierced the surface. Then another, and another. He recognized them as sharks. Perfect.

Without looking back, he dove off the end of the bleachers, only to see the blur of something falling even faster past him.

“Me first!” came Atarah’s voice, sounding gleeful.

No…not again…just let me die…

Like the last time, he simply woke up. Only this time, he wept.

*7*

 

 

Mornings were the nicest, in the girl’s opinion. Nearly every day was sunny, the breezes as bright and pleasant as the reflections on the water. Her mistress, Kyria Johanan, had tasked her with refreshing the linens, something that had to be done early, and before getting to her other work.

“Issa! Here you are!” A little girl rushed up, her big smile comforting. “I found this in the kitchen and though someone might have dropped it!” She held aloft something that sparkled in the new light.

“Let me see.” She finished draping one of the sheets over the line and turned, crouching to the girl’s eye-level. “Oh! Looks like a very pretty earring!”

“’Course it is!” Giggling, she dropped into Issa’s hand. “Is it yours?”

“No, Kleio, you know I could never afford something like that.” She smiled and ruffled the girl’s dark curls. “I’ll ask the Kyria – she may know.”

“I found a turtle!”

“Oh, my! You seem to be finding all kinds of things lately! Be sure to feed it right if you’re going to keep it.”

Kleio gave a quick nod, threw her arms around Issa’s neck for a hug, then ran off again.

Standing, Issa’s smile began to fade. She turned back to the large basket of linens and continued her job after tucking the earring into an apron pocket. No thoughts had changed her expression. Only another of her headaches, the one thing that made her days less than idyllic. She loved hard work, keeping the Kyria’s lovely home clean and organized, being available to help with extra things whenever she could – especially with her mistress’s husband recovering from such a serious operation.

Now she frowned because she did think of something. The sadness. Why was Kyria Johanan always so sad? Someone – the family cook, in fact – had told Issa the Kyria had had children once, but one of them was gone – something like that. This made little sense to her, however. With all the cleaning and arranging she’d done since being hired, Issa had never once come across any pictures of children. So why would the cook have told her that? Even if someone lost a child, certainly photos would be kept, if not out in the open, somewhere.

How very strange. She sighed, finished putting up the last sheet, and took the basket back inside. There were many things to be done yet before breakfast, and she wanted to get them accomplished quickly so she would have time to help the live-in nurse move Master Johanan to his wheelchair.

Pushing back against the throbbing in her head, she took a deep breath, focused on her schedule, and got to work.

 

********

 

“What if Iole decides to come back for some reason?”

“Why would she do that?” Chara was standing on the balcony beside her wheelchair-bound husband, staring out at the ocean. Her delight at his slow yet sure recovery was in no way the joyful thing it should have been. And now he was whining.

“I don’t know – you fired her without explanation, and she may want closure. I don’t think you handled it right.”

“Probably not.” In addition to losing his ability to move about, he also seemed to have lost his sense of humor. “Look, Seth, don’t worry about it. I sent her a huge severance check and a letter telling her it wasn’t her fault, that we were having some difficulties as a result of your operation. Let her make of that what she will, but I doubt she’ll come back here demanding a better answer.”

“How huge?”

“What?” She turned to look down at him for the first time since they’d come out there, incredulous that he’d even care how much the servant had been paid. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

“Seriously? No. Relax, my wife. You’re so Greek.”

Maybe he hadn’t lost his sense of humor after all. The hard line her mouth had taken softened into a smile. “If you weren’t sick, I’d smack you.”

“You probably would. Or try.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, well, I’d feel obliged to stop you, you know.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, doing a horrible Groucho Marx imitation. “And we both know how that would end!”

Now she laughed, not wanting to, but unable to stop herself. “What a crazy man you are!”

A knock on the frame of the balcony doors interrupted whatever Seth had been about to say. He turned his chair as Chara looked up to see who was there.

“Ah. Um. Issa, yes?” Seth tilted his head. “Unless you prefer Narkissa, Miss Xenakis?”

“No, sir, ‘Issa’ is fine.” She had switched to English, imitating his choice of language.

“Is there – do you need me for something?” Chara, one hand on her husband’s shoulder, gave the girl a pleasant smile.

“Oh, no, just…well, nothing important, really. I probably shouldn’t have pestered you. Um, Kleio – Markos’ daughter – found this on the kitchen floor and thought it might be mine. It isn’t, naturally, so I wanted to give it to you in case it was yours. Or maybe you know whose it is.” She handed over the earring the little girl had given her that morning.

“Oh!” Chara stared at it: an obviously expensive piece of white gold jewelry, the sapphires and diamonds studding its heart-shaped outline real. “I, er, yes. In fact, I have the other one – didn’t realized I’d dropped it. Thank you, Issa.” She wanted to give the young lady a warm hug, but didn’t dare overstep the employer-employee boundary she’d established.“You’re welcome, Kyria. I’ll tell Kleio it’s found its real home.” She smiled, nothing in her eyes betraying the pain behind them. With a nod to the man in the wheelchair, she went back into the bedroom and out to the hall to get back to her work.

“How unfair life is,” Chara murmured, unable to keep tears from forming. “I miss Atarah so much.”

“As do I, my love. Honestly, though, my deepest concern is for her husband. What must he be going through? I – I can’t even imagine.”

Chara sniffed, nodded. “According to Celia, he’s checked himself into a sanitarium somewhere, or at least, she’s pretty sure that’s where he’s gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t I tell you? No, I guess not. Too many other things happening and needing our attention. Anyway.” She went to one of the wrought-iron chairs at the iron-and-glass table nearby where they often ate breakfast, and sat before continuing. “Celia called me about a week ago and told me that after Jett was told of the accident, he disappeared into his room for several hours. When he came out, he gave her and Bryson a letter, told them he was going out and not to read it until he was gone, then left. They haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

“Good God! What was in the letter? And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me of this sooner!”

Chara rolled her eyes. “It was hardly at the top of my priority list, what with everything else we’ve had to deal with. The letter said Jett was going to go someplace where he could get help, because he knew if he didn’t, he’d end his own life. Said he didn’t want to be that selfish, so he had decided to put himself in the hands of people who could get him past this, and that when he could function again, he’d call.”

“And that was it?”

“I think so, yes.”

Seth frowned. “Everyone told the kids that their insane level of devotion to each other was unhealthy.”

“Like that could have stopped them.” She got up and peered over the edge of the balcony. “Remember when Atarah was about nine or so, and she found a hand-blown glass swan at one of the antique shops in Athens?”

“I do. She loved that stupid thing, said it was the most beautiful creation she’d ever seen. Kept it wrapped carefully in tissue.”

“Yes, and took it with her everywhere so she could take it out and hold it up to the sunlight. It made her laugh and smile, and she never tired of staring at it.” Chara straightened and turned back around. “Until the day she put it in the back window of the car, and a sudden gust of wind blew it out the open window. Before we could stop and retrieve it, another car crushed it.” She shook her head. “I though Atarah was going to die right there.”

“I know. She screamed and cried as if it had been a person – one of us, even!”

“You’d think that would have been a strong enough lesson for her, that she would have known better than to become that enthralled with something. Or someone. Sadly, the same is true for Jett, and now he’s suffering terribly for it.”

“Jeez. I feel awful for him, now that I know…and there’s nothing we can do about it, is there.”

“Not right now, no. Maybe never.” She took a long, deep breath, then came forward, grasping the handles of the wheelchair. “Come on, let’s go find something more pleasant to do.”

He didn’t argue.

 

*******

 

“Hey, are you Jax Kinsley?”

Shaking his head in disbelief, Jett’s older brother leaned back against the door of his rented car, crossing his arms over his chest. Only a year separating the two of them, the brothers were often mistaken for twins. They were approximately the same height and build, Jett being a bit leaner because of his constant exercise routines; both had dark brown hair and green eyes. Up close, the differences were more obvious, but they