with my lucky freckle on my lucky middle knuckle. My hand instinctively makes a fist but he’s so strong and he’s wild on the inside and I can feel that through his hands, his black electricity, his lack of reason, no emotion other than rage. He squeezes my fist hard and my forefinger pops out, rests flat on the table.
I’m going to be sick.
August looks across at my finger flat on the table.
‘What did he say, August?’ Tytus says.
August looks back at Tytus.
‘What did he just write, August?’ Tytus asks.
August feigns a puzzled look, confused.
Tytus nods at Iwan Krol behind me and then the blade of the Bowie knife is touching my forefinger, just above the bottom knuckle.
Vomit. In my stomach. In my throat. Time slowing.
‘He scribbled a message in the air,’ Tytus spits. ‘What did he say, August?’
The blade comes down harder into the finger, draws blood and I draw breath.
‘He doesn’t talk, Tytus,’ I scream. ‘He doesn’t talk. He couldn’t tell you even if he wanted to.’
August keeps staring at Tytus and Tytus keeps staring at August.
‘What did he say, August?’ Tytus asks.
August looks at my finger. Iwan Krol presses the blade down harder, so hard now it’s cut through all my skin and flesh and is lodging into my finger bone.
‘We don’t know, Tytus, please,’ I scream. ‘We don’t know.’
Dizzy now. Frantic. Cold sweat. Tytus stares deep into August’s eyes. He nods again at Iwan Krol and he pushes the Bowie knife down harder. Old Spice and his breath and that blade, that endless blade digging into my bone marrow. My marrow. My weak marrow. My weak fingers.
I howl in pain, a wail so unbridled and raw it rounds out with a high-pitched squeal, from white pain and shock and disbelief.
‘Please don’t,’ I howl through tears. ‘Please don’t do this.’
The blade goes deeper still and I roar with agony.
Then a voice joins the sounds in the room from a place I can’t register.
A voice to my left that I couldn’t hear properly over my screams but this voice makes Iwan Krol ease the pressure on the knife. A voice I’ve never heard before in my conscious life. Tytus leans closer to the table, closer to August.
‘Come again?’ Tytus says.
Silence. August licks his lips and clears his throat.
‘I have something to say,’ August says.
And the only thing to tell me I’m not dreaming this is the blood running from my lucky forefinger.
Tytus brightens. Nods his head.
August looks across at me. And I know that look. That slightly upturned half-smile, the way his left eye squints. That’s the way he says sorry without saying sorry. That’s the way he says sorry for something bad that is about to happen that he is no longer in control of.
He turns to Tytus Broz.
‘Your end is a dead blue wren,’ August says.
Tytus smiles. He looks at Iwan Krol, puzzled. He chuckles. A face-saving chuckle designed to mask something I never expected to see on his face in this moment. There is fear across his face in this moment.
‘I’m sorry, August, could you please repeat that?’ Tytus asks.
August speaks and he sounds like me. I never knew he would sound like me.
‘Your end is a dead blue wren,’ he says.
Tytus scratches his chin, takes a deep breath, thin eyes studying August. Then he nods at Iwan Krol and the blade of the Bowie knife smacks against Lena’s table and my lucky forefinger is no longer attached to my hand.
My eyelids close and open. Life and the blackness. Home and the blackness. My lucky finger with the lucky freckle resting on the table in a pool of blood. Eyelids close. The blackness. And they open. Tytus picks up my finger with a white silk handkerchief, folds it up carefully. Eyelids close. The blackness. And they open.
My brother, August. Eyelids close. And open. My brother, August. Eyelids close.
The blackness.
Boy Busts Out
The magic car. The magic flying Holden Kingswood. The magic sky, light blues and pinks, outside the window. A cloud so fluffy and big and misshapen it’s a prime candidate for August’s game of ‘What’s that one look like to you?’
‘That’s an elephant,’ I say. ‘There’s the big ears, left and right, and the trunk going down the middle.’
‘Nah,’ he says, because he talks in the magic car dream. ‘That’s an axe. There’s the blades, left and right, and the axe handle going down the middle.’
The car turns in the sky and we roll along the tan vinyl back seat.
‘Why are we flying?’ I ask.
‘We