CHAPTER 64: 64: THE STRANGER RETURNS VI

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John did not smile, though the picture was a sharp one. He let the image pass through him and leave a scratch on its way. He found his voice at last, not to calm Fizz, but to set one stone where it belonged.

"I do not recognise that man as my father."

He said the sentence evenly, like a man measuring wood for a coffin. John continued, "He told me never to reveal that I am his son with a commoner woman. He said the house name is not for me. That is why I never used the name White, since he threw me out of his house. My name is John, only John."

Fizz’s bright rage bent at the edges and folded into a smaller shape. The glow around him softened the way coals do when a wind turns gentle. His voice lost its easy bounce. He asked,

"What about your mother? Is she alive?"

John looked at his hands and at the ridges of old scars across his knuckles. He replied, "I do not know. I have only spoken with one person from that house since my birth. It’s the midwife who raised me. I asked her about my mother many times. She never answered. She would pat my hair and say eat your soup. She would ask if I slept. She would not say who my mother was. Is she dead or alive? She always stepped away from the question like it was a puddle that hid a well. I think she is dead. I have no one in this world I can call family."

Fizz recoiled as if the words had sharp points. "What do you mean you have no one?" His voice shot up with hurt that had no act in it.

"I am here. Do you not want me? Do you not see me? I am your family." He puffed himself bigger, as if he could fill a gap by taking up more air.

"You can call my mom Mom. She would probably fuss over you and tell me I do not comb my fur enough." His voice went soft and small.

"But I cannot introduce you. Not now. She lives in different places." He made a small unhappy sound in his throat.

"Sigh. Hurry and get stronger. When you are stronger I will take you to my home. Before that I cannot return. I cannot get back. It is not safe. It is not allowed. It is not time."

Questions budded in John’s mind like flowers too fast for the season. What kind of place changes places. What kind of mother lives in different rooms that may not be rooms. Why can you not go back. Who forbids it. Who would he have to become to lift that rule. He almost opened his mouth to ask one of these questions or all of them at once.

Fizz did not give him the chance. His feelings darted like fish. He grabbed the thread of revenge again with both paws and tugged. ."We will take revenge for you. We will gather every small insult and make a mountain out of it and then push that mountain onto their ass. I have many ways."

Fizz grinned in a small and wicked way that showed all the four teeth for such a small face. "There is the method of a thousand spoons. There is the method of ten thousand whispering frogs. There is the method of the broken door that never stops creaking." He waved his paw in delight at his own imagination. And continued, "We will pick something beautiful when the time comes, murder baby. They all deserve murder."

John rubbed his brow. "Why are you calling me murder baby?"

"Because you will grow into something that kills and you were born into something that tried to kill you. It fits. It is affectionate. Be grateful that I did not choose the doom toddler ball master."

John exhaled through his nose. "You are a strange and unique creature."

"Thank you. I had practice for that." Fizz clapped his paws together. "For now I have a better plan than spoons and frogs. It is simple. It is practical. It is heroic. I bet you have never tried to bathe with someone. Let us try it. Hold me and dip slowly. I will crush your trauma with my cuteness."

John stared at him as one might stare at a goat who had just proposed marriage to a fence.

"That is your plan?!!?"

"Yes. Hug therapy. I am very huggable. Your nervous body system will notice. Your lungs will be calm. It is science."

"That is not science. It’s just your imagination."

"It will be by the time we are done." Fizz drifted backward toward the tub with an eager little shimmy, then spun and presented the steaming surface with both paws like a showman revealing a royal gift.

"Warm. Clean. Friendly. I negotiated personally with the water. It promised not to be rude."

John looked at the tub. The light on the water made a pale coin. His ribs tightened a little just from the looking. He looked instead at Fizz and found the small creature trying very hard to look brave for both of them. The anger that had made his chest hot cooled into something steady and useful. If he could not beat a memory with pride he could try patience.

"Explain to me how this is supposed to work." John asked.

"Simple. You sit on the edge. You hold me. I will keep up a very pleasant commentary about breakfast foods and victory banners. We lower you to the shins. We wait. Your body says perhaps this is not death. We go to the knees. We wait. Your body says perhaps this is still not death. We keep going. If your breath turns wild we stop and go up. We do not fight. We practice. We are stubborn but polite."

John folded his arms and tried to imagine it. His breath already wanted to change. He made it slow with numbers. John murmured to himself "In. Four. Out. Four." He nodded once. "If I black out, do not let me drown in a tub one arm long and two arms wide."