The House

By Dawn Natelle

Another short chapter to get us to the court sentencing. I hope to get one more chapter done before the end of the week: Dawn

Chapter 28 – Waiting

That evening the Great Hall was subdued after the kids finished the dishes for dinner. Dary was unusually quiet, and just sat playing with the babies at first. Red suggested that they work on their legends books, and the girl just snapped: “What’s the use. You’re going away in another week.” She then got up and fled the room.

“I think she heard some of what that CSC official said,” Sun suggested. “I’ll go talk to her if you look after the babies, Red.”

“No, let me go,” the boy said. “It is me she needs to talk too.”

He went into the hall with Dary’s room, next to Willow’s. He tapped on the door. No answer. He tapped again. No answer. The third time he tapped he heard a sobbing voice call out “Go away. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”

“I’m going to stand here all night if I have to,” Red said. “I can’t stand it when you are hurting. Please let me in.”

“Okay,” she sobbed. “It’s not locked. But I don’t want to talk.”

Red went in, leaving the door wide open. He didn’t want to be accused of anything. He sat on the bed and listened to Dary sob into her pillow. He reached out and put his hand on her arm. She pulled it away. But a second later the arm came back, and grasped his hand. The sobbing seemed to slow, and slowly she rolled over, letting go with one hand but immediately grabbing his hand with her other one.

“Everything is messed up again,” she sobbed. “For a few days it was wonderful, but then that awful woman came and talked about you going to jail.”

“I have to go to jail, Dary,” Red said. “I did a horrible thing, and I need to be punished. But it will only be bearable if I know you are out here and still care about me. I really like you Dary. I know people say we are too young to be in love, but that is what it feels like to me.”

Dary started sobbing again, loudly, confusing the boy. He just couldn’t understand girls.

“What? Don’t you like me?” he asked.

More sobbing. Then: “Yes I do. That is part of the problem.”

“What problem?”

“I am like Sun,” she said, and sobbed some more.

Red tried to think of ways that Dary could be like Sun. Sun was a mother, Dary wasn’t. They certainly were not alike physically. Red loved Sun as a second mother, but she wasn’t nearly as pretty as Dary. He was unable to see the comparison.

“I don’t see how,” the boy said.

“Sun, and I both lived as boys when we were younger,” she finally blurted out. “When Sun told Hawk, he ran away for a while.”

“You mean like trans?” Red said. “I guess you are lucky then, because I can’t run away anywhere. I guess I’ll just have to stay here and keep liking you.”

Dary rolled over and wiped her eyes, which showed amazement. “You won’t run away? You don’t think I am horrible?”

Red chuckled. “The best place I lived before I moved here was with a person named Fred. Or Rikki, if she was in the mood or working. I met a lot of trans people at that house. Some transsexuals, some transvestites like Fred. And some who just weren’t sure. But I guess you are sure: transsexual?”

“Yes,” Dary said. “I take pills the doctor gets me so I don’t turn all boyish. They are called blockers.”

“That’s why you are so pretty,” Red said. “You are the prettiest girl in the world.”

Dary blushed, but smiled for the first time that evening. “I’ll be taking another set of pills soon, to make me look more girlish, and to get breasts. Then when I turn 18 I can get my thing removed. Then I will be a real girl.”

“You are a real girl now, to me,” Red said, and hugged the girl. She resisted for a second, and then melted into the hug. “I will be out of jail in three years,” he continued. “I hope you will wait for me.”

“I will,” she sobbed. “It will be so hard. Sun says someone from the house will go to your jail every weekend, if it is close enough to here. I want to go on every trip. And if we don’t, then I will send a letter. I will write even if I go, so you get something to read each week.”

“Then I guess I will have to work extra hard with Cooper in learning to read and write. My handwriting and reading are horrible. The other subjects won’t matter as much – although I do want to spend as much time with Grey as I can. The stuff he teaches me – it just seems to fill holes in my soul, and makes me feel more like a complete person. I hope I get enough from him to last me three years.”

“I know what you mean,” Dary said. “He helped me a lot, both when I dressed like a boy, and then when he found out I really was a girl. Before it was like looking through a dirty window, and now it is so perfectly clear.”

“That’s it exactly. Let’s go back and work on our books. If I only have a week left, I want to get as much done as possible. I want the babies to get our books for gifts this Christmas. You will have to write me and tell me all about Christmas – or better, tell me in a visit.”

“Oh I am sure there will be a visit after Christmas. I will have to give you my gift, won’t I?”

They headed back into the Great Hall, where all the other residents smiled at them, walking close together, holding hands. Dary went to get her books, and then sat next to Red, who sat close enough to Grey to get help if he forgot a part of the legends.

They were working for about an hour until Sun got up, handing one babe to Willow and the other to Nora. She left for 10 minutes, and then returned holding a guitar.

“I found this in the basement,” she said. “The neck was broken, but between Grey and I we fixed it, and it plays pretty true for a cheaper guitar. I used to play when I was in high school and college. I’d like to try a tune from the old days.

She sang:

Listen people to a story
That was written long ago,
'bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley folks below.

On the mountain was a treasure
Hidden deep beneath a stone,
And the valley people swore
They'd have it for their very own.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of heaven,
You can justify it in the end.

There won't be any trumpets blowing,
Come the judgment day,
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away.

So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure
Tons of gold for which they'd kill.

Came the answer from the kingdom,
With our brothers we will share,
All the riches of the mountain,
All the treasure buried there.

Now the valley cried with anger,
Mount your horses, draw your swords
And they killed the mountain people,
So they won their just rewards

Now they stood before the treasure
On the mountain dark and red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it
Peace on earth, was all it said.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat and friend,
Do it in the name of heaven,
You can justify it in the end.

There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day,
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away.

(Original Caste)

For nearly a minute there was total silence in the hall as the final notes drifted away. Then a spontaneous applause broke out, lasting another two minutes. As it drifted away, Dary spoke excitedly: “Can you teach me to play, Sun? That was beautiful.”

“Me too,” said Red. “I don’t have long here, I guess. But if you could at least teach me the basics, maybe I could teach myself in jail. I’d have to get a guitar, I guess.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Grey said. “There was another guitar and quite a few other old instruments in the basement where we found that one. We should be able to fix up another one for you. It won’t look pretty, but if the sound is right that is all that counts. In fact, in some of the places you might wind up a pretty instrument would be stolen or broken. A battered looking one probably won’t draw attention.”

“Those instruments are from the 80s,” Daisy explained. “As well as my dance school, Harry, a local musician gave lessons down there. When he died, I guess I inherited all the instruments. There should be some good ones down there along with the broken ones that Harry was hoping to fix. You folks are welcome to any that you can find that work, or that can be made to work.”

“Now it is time for you two youngsters to go to bed,” Sun said. “And no more tears. You never gain anything by crying about the future.”

------

Over the next few days the routine continued. Cooper agreed to concentrate on reading and writing until Wednesday, and one exercise that they both loved was writing letters to each other. Cooper didn’t mark these, saying that they were private, and by the end of the week they had evolved into early love letters. The amount of effort Red put into writing these was immense, since they were for Dary, and she treasured them, saving each one into her bottom dresser drawer.

Grey went out with Red as well, sometimes singly and sometimes with Dary. Red had become a favorite of the horses, particularly Pierre, who he often rode bareback, realizing that they memories of racing over the snowing Grove were things that would help him maintain his sanity over the next three years.

He also worked a bit with George, but the old man said that he would not gain much skill on only a week. Instead he told the boy some exercises that would allow him to build up his body over the next few years. He said that he hoped that he would be around to continue the apprenticeship in three years. This left Red perplexed. He hadn’t realized that some of the older people in the house might not be here when he returned: Daisy, Lois or George. And even some of the younger ones may be gone, either through accidents or just moving on.

He talked about it to Sun and Grey while working on the old bus: one of the key projects at the house at the time. Both of them claimed that they would still be there. Sun was so big and apparently indestructible that Red relaxed. As for Grey, even though he was only a few years older, Red considered him an elder, and just knew that he would survive to grow into that role.

Finally, on the final Tuesday night Red went around and said goodbye to every member of the household, even speaking seriously to the babies, who answered with a giggle (Mimihah) and a fart (Flint). The elder members of the household took his words seriously, and more than a few tears were shed. It was all too much for Dary, who ran off to her room halfway through. Red finished up and then went after her.

Sun found them a half hour later. Dary was under the covers, and Red on top, but they were laying together, holding each other closely and cooing softly to each other. Sun gave them a 10 minute warning, and then 15 minutes came back to usher Red to his room.

The next morning was the court sentencing.