Linus ignored him. “I shaved it off after four days. But it was my choice and had nothing to do with the fact that Theodore kept asking me if he could sample the worm growing on my face.”
“Phee?” Arthur asked. “Is there more to your tale?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I haven’t even gotten to the part where the mustache becomes sentient and decides to take over the world. And since Linus is attached to it, he turns into a villain and then we save him with a dull razor, shaving foam, and love.”
“On with it, then,” Linus said, resigned to his part in Phee’s story. “I don’t know why it has to be a dull razor, but I must admit to being a tad intrigued.”
“There had better be explosions,” Talia warned her.
“Of the destructive and the emotional kind,” Sal said.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Phee asked, looking moderately offended. “There are going to be at least six explosions.”
“Real or imaginary?” David asked.
All the children turned toward Linus and Arthur with matching expressions of extraordinarily effective pleading. Arthur glanced at Linus, who shrugged. “One explosion,” Arthur decided. “But it cannot cause any damage.”
“Hurray!” Lucy cheered as David beamed. “I’ll make it happen in the air. Phee, you tell me when it’s time, and I’ll handle the rest. David, you’re gonna love this. Arthur and Linus never let us explode things.”
“Or people,” Arthur said.
“Or people,” Lucy said with a grimace.
“I can’t believe this place is real,” David whispered in awe.
Phee nodded and cleared her throat. “Back to the story. There I was, not knowing that everything was about to change because of a line of hair on a man’s upper lip. At first, it looked like a smudge of dirt, but before long, it grew to the size of a sickly caterpillar.” She leaned forward, wings rustling. “And then … it began to whisper.”
“Ooh,” the children breathed, rapt attention on Phee.
“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” Linus whispered to Arthur as Phee continued.
Arthur chuckled, laying his head against Linus’s. “It was not. I happened to find it delightful, but then everything about you is.”
Linus rolled his eyes fondly. “Foolish, besotted man.”
By the time Phee finished (complete with a single explosion high in the sky which turned into fireworks that rained down streaks of gold and green and red), the children were tucked safely into their makeshift beds, Lucy struggling to stay awake, head lolling then shooting back up. They applauded her—including Linus, who might have clapped harder than the rest of them—and she bowed before sinking into her spot next to Chauncey. Little conversations sprang up between them, each quieter than the last. David laughed over something Talia told him, lying on his side, cold blanket tugged up to his shoulder.
Arthur sat propped up against the side of the gazebo, looking out onto the island beyond the garden, the moonlight causing the shadows of the trees to stretch long. In the distance, the crash of waves against the cliffs below could be heard. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, only a vast field of stars that seemed endless. Linus lay next to him, holding Arthur’s hand against his chest, fingers spread wide, the slow, calm beat of Linus’s heart a metronome for a song only Arthur could hear.
He was startled from his thoughts—disordered though they were—when someone said his name.
He looked up to find Sal watching him, Theodore tucked in next to him, his head resting on Sal’s stomach as it rose and fell, eyes closed. The other children were asleep, along with Linus who had begun to snore softly. “Yes?”
“We’re going to make it.”
Arthur swallowed past the lump in his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was rough, soft. “Is that right?”
Sal nodded. “Whatever they throw at us, whatever happens, we’re going to make it. We know you’re scared.” He laughed quietly. “I am, too, I guess.”
“Are you?”
“Yeah, but…” He looked down at his brothers and sisters. “Worth it. All of it.”
Arthur watched his son closely. “Even with…?”
“Worth it,” Sal repeated, stroking Theodore’s snout with the tip of his finger. “Linus told me something once, and I think about it a lot. He said it’s okay to not be okay, so long as it doesn’t become all we know.”
“He’s right,” Arthur said.
“Maybe you should remember that sometimes,” Sal said. “Might help.”
Arthur snorted in surprise. “Is that right?”
“Yes,” Sal said before yawning, the back of his wrist against his mouth. “Besides, we have one thing the government doesn’t. And it’s going to change everything.”
“What’s that?” Arthur asked as Sal closed his eyes. “What do we have?”
His son whispered two words before drifting off to sleep.
“Each other.”
TEN
Wednesday dawned warm and clear, the type of summer day when adventure called, to be followed by a well-deserved nap in a swaying hammock attached to palm trees.
Or it would have been, if this Wednesday had occurred anywhere else.
On Marsyas Island, this particular Wednesday meant something else entirely: preparing for war.
