“But he already has a home,” Chauncey said, confused. “Why would he live somewhere else?”
Helen, standing off to the side, sniffled as she pulled a handkerchief from one of the pockets on her overalls.
“They wanted to show you that you belong,” Zoe said.
“I can see that,” Linus said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He laughed, and it felt like the sun coming out after the rain. “I … when I lived in the city, I dreamed in color, of places where the sea stretched on for miles and miles.” He looked at each of the children in turn. “But what I didn’t expect was that the color didn’t come from the ocean, or the trees, or even the island itself. It came from all of you.” He blinked rapidly, throat working. “This has been the best birt. Thank you. You’ve made me the happiest I’ve ever been.”
Linus dropped Arthur’s hand and rushed forward, scooping up as many of the children as he could manage (three!) while the others held on tightly to various limbs.
Arthur waited until they began to pull away before speaking in a hoarse voice that he’d never heard come from himself before. “At the bottom. Is there a photograph missing?”
Sal looked at him and said, “That’s for David, in case he wants to be up there too. We didn’t want him to feel left out when he got here.”
Arthur closed his eyes and breathed.
THREE
The train arrived right on schedule, early on a Sunday morning, a black steam engine with half a dozen blue-and-green carriages in tow. The sky looked angry, the sun’s rays casting the thin clouds in a furious shade of red. It appeared a storm was brewing as the children gathered before Arthur and Linus to say their goodbyes.
“You’ll listen to Zoe, yes?” he said with an undercurrent of nervousness unlike anything he’d ever felt before. “You won’t give her any trouble?”
Lucy smiled prettily. “Oh, we wouldn’t dream of it. Cross our hearts, hope to die.”
“That’s what we’re concerned about,” Linus said. “No death. No destruction. And I’d better not hear from Zoe that there were explosions of any kind.”
“I’ll make sure nothing blows up,” Sal said, Theodore on his shoulder, nipping at his ear. “Shouldn’t be too hard, now that Talia doesn’t have grenades anymore.”
“I still haven’t forgiven you for that,” Talia said, glaring up at them.
“You have to miss us,” Lucy demanded. “And you have to call me every hour so I can tell you what I did the previous hour. In great detail.”
“You have to bring us back presents,” Talia said. “And if one of the presents—say, for a beautiful, talented gnome—happens to be twice as expensive as the others, then we’ll just have to deal with that.”
Theodore growled, and Linus assured him if he found any discarded buttons, he’d bring them back for the wyvern’s hoard. Theodore was so pleased he took to the sky, wings spread wide as he circled above them, his shadow stretching along the ground.
While the others continued to tell Linus what he and Arthur could and could not do, Sal looked at Arthur and jerked his head. They stepped off to the side of the platform, near an orange courtesy phone that hung from a post.
“What is it?” Arthur asked. “Did something happen?”
Sal shrugged. “No, it’s not like that. It’s…” He looked away out onto the rolling dunes rising beyond the platform, thin reeds bending in the warm breeze. “I just … I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Anything,” Arthur said with a nod. “Always.”
Sal took a deep breath, and said, “We’re going to listen to your testimony. On the radio. We talked about it—”
“Did you?” Arthur asked. “All of you?”
“Yes.”
He should’ve expected this, and though a prickle of unease danced along the back of his neck at the idea of them listening, it was no match for how proud he felt. He knew how hard this must be for Sal. For all the progress he’d made, Sal still had moments of extreme doubt.
“And you’re all in agreement?”
“We are,” Sal said firmly, even as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He sighed. “You confuse me sometimes.”
Arthur chuckled dryly. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard that.”
Sal arched an eyebrow. “Might want to work on that, then.”
“Cheeky.”
“You want to protect us from the people who don’t like us, and I get it. I do. But then in the next breath, you tell us we need to use our voices because those same people should know who we are.”
“A conundrum,” Arthur agreed.
“You can’t protect us forever,” Sal said, and the sorrow Arthur felt was sharp, a dagger through the heart. “I know you want to, but how else are we supposed to learn? How am I supposed to help you fix what’s broken if you shield us from everything?”
“You are a child,” Arthur said, that unease changing from a prickle to a full-on thrum. “All of you are.”
“I’m fifteen,” Sal reminded him. “If that’s a child, fine. But even then, I—we won’t be for long. You say you trust us. Doesn’t that mean you should trust us to make some decisions for ourselves?” He glanced over Arthur’s shoulder at the others, Chauncey’s vibrant voice echoing across the platform. “This is about us, Arthur. Don’t we have the right to know what’s being said?”
“You do,” Arthur said quietly. “Sal, I…” He shook his head. “Yes, you do have the right.” He laid his hands on Sal’s shoulders. “If this is what you want, then I’ll support it. All I ask is that you allow Zoe and Helen to be present to help you all make sense of it. And any questions you have for me or Linus, we’ll answer them upon our return.”
Sal nodded, obviously relieved.
“Is that all?” Arthur asked carefully.
Sal cleared his throat, gaze darting around. “I know … we talk about it. About you adopting the kids.” He winced. “And I know I’m probably too old for—”
