SHAUNTI [2015 featured story]

Chapter Twenty: Choosing the Name

That Saturday evening, Jace remained in the other room.  Knox came in periodically and had tried to coax him to talking, but Jace couldn’t.  The boy stayed curled up on the bed in the fetal position, his face staring at his shadow on the wall.  Knox didn’t know what to do with Jace when he acted like this, in fact, this was the first time Jace refused to speak to him.  Worried, Knox walked up to the bed and draped a raggedy quilt over his friend’s shoulders. 

“Jace, say something.”  As he stared at the boy’s paling profile, Knox tried to read through the invisible wall between them.  It was as if he was communicating with a deaf and dumb person.  Anything he said meant nothing to Jace—it was as if he might as well not say anything at all.  “Are you cold?”  Knox swung his legs over the bed and walked over to the empty fireplace.  He picked up the logs and arranged them over the grill.  He stuck the small twigs in between the crossed logs and made sure the logs could breathe by allowing gaps in between the sticks.

Locating the matchbox in the bedside table’s drawer, he struck one and lit the end of a twig.  Thankfully, the twigs were dry enough for the fire to consume them and spread out over and under the logs.  The familiar crackling and snapping filled the air and the soft scent of smoke made the atmosphere more relaxing.  Gazing at the soft flames, Knox hummed in contentment from the warmth.  Looking over his shoulders, he said as pleasantly as he could, “Jace, come on, buddy.  It’s warm over here.”

Jace continued to find more interest in a blank wall. 

Frustrated, Knox popped to his feet and, with a mission, stomped over to Jace and grabbed him roughly by the shoulders.  Without wanting to hurt him badly, Knox yanked him off the bed and then dropped him to floor.  Jace fell like a ragdoll.  “Dammit, Jace!  What’s wrong?”

The boy pulled himself to the sitting position and his jaw shifted.  His face began reddening and his eyes swelled.  Staring up at Knox with the most helpless expression Knox had ever seen, Jace finally said something.  It was hard to hear at first, but after some effort, Knox deciphered it.  “I killed him.”

Knox dropped to floor beside Jace and placed both his arms around his shoulder.  Pulling him into a brotherly embrace, Knox held him tightly.  “Jace, it’s going to be okay, eh?  It’s going to be okay.”  Patting him on the back, Knox leaned away and said in an attempt to be encouraging, “Listen, we’re not going to be snowed in; the door opens towards us, meaning the snow outside won’t block.  And you did what you had to do.  Is that what is worrying you?  That you shot him?”

“I’ll go to prison—my dad was there once.  I visited him.  It’s the scariest place I’ve ever been.”

“They’re not going to take you to prison,” Knox assured.  He held Jace’s face firmly, his hands under the boy’s jawline so that he couldn’t look away.  “Listen carefully, they are not going to send you to prison for defending me and you.”

Jace fought back the tears and sniffled several times before he overcame the emotion.  In a clearer voice, he said, “What about my hand?”

Knox picked up Jace’s left hand—the hand he had noticed Jace babying the most—and observed it.  The back of the hand was a bright red and the tips of the fingers were slightly white.  Turning the hand over, he saw the palm a light pink.  “I don’t know, Jace.  But sit by the fire and keep it warm.  It might hurt because it’ll basically be defrosting, but you can’t have it exposed to the cold.”  Helping his friend off the floor, Knox led him over by the fire and sat him down.  “You should start feeling better soon.”

“I’m hungry,” Jace said.

“I think they had some food in the pantry.  I’ll fix us something.”  Knox hurried to the small pantry and took out a can of beans and beef jerky.  He poured two glasses of water they had found stored under the bed in water bottles and, balancing the food in one arm and the cups between his fingers, he returned to the fireplace.  Knox sat down and distributed their scanty rations between them.  “Do you have your army knife?”