Nevermor by Lani Lenore Read Free Book Online

her
rebellious brother, who didn’t care for rules.  He sat down next to her against
the wall, watching her as she tried to get a handle on her emotions.  She wiped
her tears away with the back of her hand, knowing they made her eyes look puffy
and old.
    He was quiet for
a few minutes as he waited for her to stop sobbing, looking sober and patient,
which was very unusual for him.
    “I’m fine,” she
said to him, but he still wouldn’t go away.
    “You have never ever cursed at me,” he told her.  That was probably true.  She was usually
very good at keeping patient, but she felt she couldn’t be blamed for it now. 
Still, she supposed it had been uncalled for.
    “I’m sorry for
that.”
    “What’d she say
to you?” he asked, brushing off her apology. 
    Henry had his
moments when Wren was certain he didn’t use his brain at all, but he was smart
enough to have figured this out.  When Miss Nora had kept Wren in her office,
it hadn’t been to chat about the weather.
    She didn’t want
to dump this burden on him, but she guessed she didn’t have much of a choice
now.  He had already seen her distress, and he knew that it wasn’t going to be
good news.  He had a right to know.
    “Those people
from yesterday want to adopt Max.”
    To her surprise,
Henry didn’t get angry immediately.  He sat there, letting it soak in.
    “But not us,” he
confirmed.
    She shook her
head sadly.  “Nora already approved it.  They’re supposed to come back for him
by the end of the month.”
    Henry was quiet,
but she could see how his fists were clenched.  She wanted to tell him that
fighting wouldn’t work this time, but she only sat there with her arms around
her knees, looking somber.
    “She said
something about me too, didn’t she?” he assumed, his voice unnaturally calm. 
Wren sighed, knowing she had to give in.
    “She doesn’t
think she’ll be able to find a place for you after what happened, and if not,
she plans on sending you away to work in the mines.”
    “ Damn it ,”
Henry said under his breath, but she was still able to hear.  He was quiet as
he let the anger well up in himself – until he finally burst.  “We have to
leave here.”
    “Where are we
going to go, Henry?  Everything is ruined.  No one will want us now!”
    “We can live on
our own!”
    “We can’t !” 
The sharpness of her tone seemed to shock him, but she had finally reached her
limit after all this time, and she could not be stopped.  “You might think that
living on the streets, stealing and picking pockets to survive, will be fun but
what about Max?  That’s no sort of life for a young child.  We’ll be alone in a
sea of faceless orphans and we’ll die that way!  No one cares about us!  No one
wants us!  I’ve been trying to make the best of what we have here, but now—!”
    She stopped, not
because she had said everything she needed to say, but because her sobs had
sprung up again, making it impossible for her to go on.  Wren felt alone and
heartbroken.  Even the ones she had tried to keep close seemed far away from
her now.
    Wren couldn’t
tell if any of that had gotten through to Henry, because she couldn’t bear to
look at his bruised face.  They sat quietly, hearing the drip from the leaky
faucet echo within the hollow room.  It had a trembling, melancholy sound. 
When he spoke again, she had her answer.
    “What about all
those things you used to say about us going somewhere else?” he asked.  “Maybe
there is somewhere that we can go – in the woods, or across the ocean…”
    “Those were
fairytales,” she told him, crushing his fantasy beneath the weight of her
words.  “We’re both too old to believe that now.”
    Henry didn’t say
anything else, and Wren didn’t look at his expression, but she knew that he was
hurt.  She could hear the gusts of his breath exiting his nostrils as he pouted
angrily.  Then, he abruptly got up and left the washroom, slamming the door
behind