“It’s cold,” David whispered, taking a step toward the stairs. “Like…”
“Let’s go!” Lucy crowed, and grabbed David’s hand, pulling him down the stairs. The others thundered after them.
Linus and Arthur included.
There was a time when coming down to this place would’ve been nearly impossible, a grim reminder of a past that could not be changed. In all the years since his return to the island (and before they’d learned of David), Arthur had entered the cellar only once: when Linus had discovered the truth, one of Arthur’s greatest secrets. But even then, he’d felt the firm grip of panic squeezing his throat, his breath coming out in soft whistles. He’d pushed beyond it by sheer force of will, entering the cellar after a man who, too, was more than he seemed.
When Helen had brought David to their attention, he’d immediately thought of the cellar and wondered if it could be turned into a place of dreams rather than nightmares. Make something new out of something old, and while it couldn’t—and ultimately didn’t—erase the past, the idea of renovating the cellar into a room for David didn’t give him as much pause as he’d expected. He hadn’t known what that meant, exactly, the old adage of “time heals all wounds” ringing in his ears. But that wasn’t quite true, was it? The passage of time might dull the edges, but it wasn’t a cure-all. No, it’d take more than that. So much more.
Like this:
He shivered as he stood with Linus in the doorway, his breath a warm fog that streamed from his mouth with every exhalation. Linus crowded against him, muttering that he was thankful Arthur burned warmer than humans. As they looked on, the children did the same, watching as David moved slowly around the room, taking everything in.
The walls had been painted a soft shade of teal, so much like ice that it felt as if they were standing atop an iceberg drifting through the sea. Any tick marks had been sanded down and painted over, no evidence left that they’d been there at all. Near the ceiling, four vents, one on each wall, blew frozen air from an industrial air-conditioning unit that had been installed at the back of the house. The temperature was set right at freezing, as Arthur had read that yetis preferred to sleep in the cold.
And speaking of sleeping, against the right wall, a queen-sized bed with fluffy pillows and a white comforter, the corner pulled back in invitation. To the left of the bed, a chest of drawers sat beside an old oak wardrobe, the doors open, empty hangers dangling from a metal bar.
On the opposite wall, another set of stairs, lit up by sunlight streaming in through the windows of the newly installed cellar doors. Each door had a circular window in it, portholes to allow daylight to enter in late afternoon as the sun began its descent.
“What is this?” David whispered, standing stock-still in the middle of the room, his toes digging into the oval rug Helen had brought over from her personal storage.
“This is your room,” Talia said. “We all have our own. We tried to guess what you’d like, but we didn’t want to do too much in case you wanted to change anything.”
“It’s okay if you do,” Chauncey said, black teeth chattering. “You can do whatever you want with it. We won’t be mad.”
“Except if you make me paint again,” Lucy said. “Then, I’ll be very mad.” He cocked his head. “Unless we use blood. That would be all right, I think.”
“I don’t understand,” David said, sounding rather helpless. “What do you mean, my room?”
Phee frowned. “It’s yours. All of this.”
David turned away from them, head bowed. When he spoke, his voice was small, quiet, barely above a whisper. “I’ve never had my own room before.” Then his shoulders began to shake as he sniffled, and a moment later, the most remarkable thing happened.
Arthur wasn’t sure what he was witnessing at first. An ice cube, rectangular, about two inches long, fell to the floor and shattered, bits of ice spreading along the floor. It was followed by another. And then another. And then another, and it was then that Arthur remembered something he should’ve never forgotten in the first place: no matter how much research he did, it wasn’t thick tomes that would teach him what he needed to know, at least not fully. Firsthand experience was just as—if not more—important than anything he could read about.
Because the yeti known as David was crying; but instead of tears, ice cubes fell from his eyes, falling to the floor with delicate plinks!
Linus, obviously alarmed, started toward David, only to have Sal shake his head. “Let us handle it, okay?” he said in a low voice as more ice cubes fell to the floor. “It’d be better coming from us.” He didn’t have to say the rest: Because you don’t know what it’s like. We do.
“Of course,” Linus said. “I have complete faith in you.” Without artifice, without pandering.
Sal turned his head toward Theodore. “What do you think, bud? We got this?”
Theodore clicked his agreement.
“I think so too,” Sal said. He looked at the other children. “Give us a second, all right?”
“I don’t like it when people cry,” Chauncey whispered.
Theodore chirped twice in quick succession, followed by three long growls.
“Theodore’s right,” Talia said as she glanced at Linus. “Happy tears aren’t sad tears, even if they look the same.”
Sal and Theodore moved toward David quietly, the yeti trying to keep his sniffles from being too loud. They stopped next to him, looking down.
“Hey,” Sal said easily. “Big day, yeah?”
“Yeah,” David replied hoarsely. “Big day.” Another ice cube fell to the floor. “And I’m not crying. I just have something in my eye. I don’t know where the ice cubes are coming from.”
Sal shrugged, Theodore rising up and down. “Sure. But it’s okay if you were crying. I did when I first got here.”
David wiped his eyes with his arm. “You did?”
“Oh yeah,” Sal said. “It was … overwhelming. Not in a bad way, but it’s hard to tell the difference when you’re in the middle of it. I didn’t know where I was, who these other people were, making promises I’d heard before. If they were going to be nice to me, or if they were going to…”
“Hurt you,” David whispered.
Sal smiled tightly. “So I cried. The first night. The second night. The third. I cried because I was nervous and didn’t want to mess anything up. Because I couldn’t believe this place was real, that I would get to stay. I’d never had that before. I also cried because I was scared.”
“You were scared?” David asked, looking up at Sal and Theodore with wet eyes. “But you don’t look like you’d be scared of anything.”
Theodore chirped, tongue snaking out between his lips.
Sal nodded. “Yeah, what he said. No one here is going to make fun of you, not when we’ve all been there.” Sal hesitated a moment, and Arthur saw a familiar indecision cross his face. His shoulders began to hunch as he turned in on himself. Arthur was about to interrupt when Sal shook his head and pulled himself upright. Theodore spread his wings.
Next to him, Linus whispered, “You got this.”
Sal said, “You don’t know us, and we don’t know you. But things are good here.”
