Chapter Text
1998: Arlington, TX
Mitch stood so still by the garage door that his Daddy didn't see him. Mike looked busy, opening cupboards and peering into drawers. He didn't seem mad but very, very frustrated by his search, like it was getting on his last nerve, which was something Mommy said sometimes.
Sometimes she said another thing, about camels and straws, but Mitch couldn't figure that one out.
Daddy slammed a drawer and said the Bad Word super-quietly. Mitch covered his mouth so he wouldn't giggle, but really he felt bad that Daddy had to look all over the place and still couldn't find what he wanted.
He knew what Daddy needed, just not where Mike had left it, so Mitch decided to ask the Whisperers. They always knew where to find things.
Mitch didn't remember what the tool was called but he knew what it looked like. He made a picture in his head and asked, Where?
The Whisperers were nearly always near him, and could answer him at once. Sometimes the words they said were weird, but Mitch usually understood.
Room of mud. High above, they told him. After Bad Frank.
Thank you, Mitch said. The Whisperers liked good manners.
Their answer made sense, too. Bad Frank was their neighbor two houses away. Mitch played sometimes with his daughter Annie, but not always, because Autumn wanted to play too, and it got to be not much fun since Autumn was a Silver and Annie couldn't see or hear her, so one girl or another got left out.
Also, Autumn was more fun. She had a good imagination.
"Room of mud" only meant mud room, the space between the kitchen and back door where the washer and dryer lived, with shelves up above them. "High above" must mean those shelves.
Mitch could see what had happened perfectly, just like watching a movie. Bad Frank was awful and Mike did not like him. He checked the box with the tool in it to make sure it still had all the pieces, because Bad Frank sometimes could be careless and other times "forgot" to bring things back. Even while he talked politely to Bad Frank, the way grown-up neighbors were supposed to, Daddy's thoughts filled up with all the mean things Bad Frank did, and how he'd called the people who were supposed to help kids, but they never did anything. That was why Daddy put the box up on the shelf, too upset to think about what he was doing.
"Daddy," he said, which made Mike stop searching and look only at Mitch, love flowing out from him like water.
"You left the handle-thing with the spoolies in the mud room," Mitch told his father.
Daddy gave him that funny look, the one that wasn't mean (Daddy wasn't ever mean) or mad (Daddy did get a little mad, sometimes, but not scary-mad, or mad in a shouty, hitting way like Bad Frank did, and he hardly ever raised his voice at Mitch, unless Daddy needed him stop doing something right away, for safety). Maybe the expression on Mike's face meant "confused." About what, though? Mitch wasn't sure.
"Did you see me leave it there?" Mike asked.
Mitch just shrugged. Of course he hadn't seen Daddy leave the tool where it didn't belong, he'd learned it from the Whisperers, but instead of telling a fib, he said, "The socket wrench."
That he knew the right name all of a sudden earned him another look--and that look could definitely be called confused, but also worried.
Mitch didn't want Mike to feel worried, not about him. Daddy worried too much already. Two nights ago, listening from the top of the stairs, he'd heard Daddy say to Mommy something about a "specialist."
He didn't know what a "specialist" was (though it sounded scary and poky), so he scampered back down the hall to knock softly on Jessa's door.
"I thought you were asleep," his sister told him.
"Couldn't," Mitch answered. "I felt itchy."
The thing he felt wasn't really itchiness, not like a mosquito bite or chicken pox. It was more of a prickly, crawly, buzzy feeling inside him, like his skull was a hive filled up with honey bees.
Jessa had been reading in bed, but she slipped in an orange sticky note to mark her page, then shut the book.
"I could call Autumn," Mitch told his sister, He gave her his special look, that most times got him what he wanted. "But I'm shivery, and she'd be too cold to cuddle."
"Look at you, with those eyes!" Jessa laughed softly, so as not to alert their parents that she and her brother were both up after bedtime. She folded back her covers, though, to let Mitch crawl in beside her. "You're completely shameless, Mitchy. How are you the pretty one in the family?"
"No, Jess, you are!" Mitch insisted. He liked the thought of being pretty, but knew boys weren't allowed. "You're the girl, and you have pretty long hair, like Mommy's."
"Nuh-unh. Not even. Not when you have those eyes, and those eyelashes, and that cute little pouty mouth. People call me nice, or sensible, or smart. They call you beautiful."
Mitch didn't bother to argue. He'd heard people say it all the time, "What a beautiful little boy!" or "Is that Mike and Nel's boy? He's like a little angel."
Mitch didn't believe it. Grown-ups sometimes liked to tease kids, and they were probably teasing him, because he wasn't beautiful, or an angel, or anything special, just Mitch, and being Mitch meant being too little and weak for his age, and too awkward with sports and making friends. It meant he was a scaredy-cat, and didn't like boy-things as much as the other boys did."
Maybe that was what the specialist did, that his parents talked about. Maybe specialists fixed weird little boys, so his parents wouldn't be worried, and other kids would like him, not just the Silver children."
When he told Jessa what he thought he'd figured out, his sister nodded and told him, "That's about it, Mitchy." She waited a minute, just watching him, before she said, "You don't need to be fixed, Baby Brother. Don't even think it."
Mitch wasn't sure about that, but he knew Jessa was a very sweet sister, not like a lot of big sisters sometimes were. He rolled up in her pretty comforter, that had black poodle-dogs, those big balloons like in the The Wizard of Oz, and the pointy metal tower that people could climb up in, Jessa said. Those things meant Paris, she told him, and Paris was a big city across the ocean.
The Whisperers told him he'd go to Paris someday, but Scott wouldn't go with him. The only Scott he knew worked at Winco Foods, and Mitch wouldn't want to go anywhere with him because he sometimes said mean things when Mommy and Daddy couldn't hear him.
That was a good thing since Daddy (who was usually gentle) might do the thing Tyrone, from across the street, sometimes said, which was "rip him a new one."
A new what, Mitch didn't know, though it didn't sound good.
The night went on and on, with the numbers on Jessa's alarm clock getting big, then small again, then bigger. Mitch couldn't sleep, even with his sister right there beside him. He kept thinking how Mommy and Daddy needed to fix him, so he'd be just like everyone else, instead of embarrassing, but finally he slept there in Jessa's bed.
While he was asleep, the Whisperers sent one of their dreams, a nice one this time, all about being a grown-up, in a room filled with machines and pretty songs, and of having a wonderful mustache, even better than Daddy's.
After that, Mitch slept deeper, and didn't wake up until morning.
The specialist hadn't come to fix him yet, and Daddy still looked worried, so Mitch put on his discovery-look, like the people with lightbulbs over their heads in cartoons, knowing that would set Mike at ease.
"Oh, I remember! You told me the name Daddy. Socket wrench! I only forgot for a minute."
Mike gazed down at him, the little worry-wrinkles still there between his eyebrows.
"The handle is the wrench," Mitch went on, "And the spoolies are the sockets."
Good boys like to know stuff like that, he reminded himself. They fix things with their daddies.
Only Jessa was much better at fixing things than he was. She helped Daddy all the time, and she knew how to use a screwdriver and hit a nail into wood with a hammer. The one time Mitch tried to use a hammer like everyone else in his family could, he accidentally hit himself in the face, and his lip got sore and big.
"Remember? You opened the box after Annie's daddy brought your tools back."
"That's right," Mike said, "I wanted to check if any pieces went missing. Frank can be..." He stopped for a long time, probably looking for words that would be appropriate for Mitch to hear.
"Appropriate" was a big word Mommy had taught him, that meant a thing was okay at the right place and time.
As in, it wouldn't have been appropriate last month to tell Tyrone what the Whisperers told him, that in a couple days Tyrone's pretty dog, Sammy, with the feather-tail, would get out from his fence and then get hit by a motorcycle.
Mitch got a bad picture of that in his head, of Sammy lying all still on the road with blood on his nose and Tyrone crying and crying, so hard that Mitch cried too.
Mommy said Tyrone would get mad if Mitch told him that, and wouldn't believe him, though Tyrone was usually really nice. Mitch knew not to tell his story, even though it was real. All the things the Whisperers said were real, unless Mitch figured out a way to fix them.
Tyrone would think he was fibbing just to be mean, and that would be the end of his neighbor liking and trusting him.
Instead, Mitch figured out a smart thing that was also appropriate. He showed Tyrone the bad place in the fence where Sammy could get under. Tyrone fixed the bad place right away, and then Sammy was safe.
"Frank isn't always reliable," Daddy finished, but his frown didn't go away.
Mike wasn't like Mitch. The Whisperers didn't tell him stories or give him dreams at night, but he could do a different thing, that Mommy called "being a good judge of character." That was a grown-up way of saying Daddy could be around someone and know if they were a good person or a bad person from the way they looked and the things they said.
Daddy sometimes told him, "We aren't the kind of people who hate, Mitchy," but Mike knew Frank was mean to Annie and her Mommy, and really didn't like him. A lot, a lot didn't like him.
Frank, Mitch knew, was a bad, bad man. Mommy and Daddy both wanted Annie, and Annie's Mommy, Caroline, to get away from him. They offered to help with that, but sometimes Caroline thought too many thoughts, and she couldn't decide.
"You forgot the socket wrench box in the mud room," Mitch told Mike, "High up on a shelf, because, um..." Mitch searched for a word, something that wouldn't sound weird from a six-year-old like him. "Uh, 'cause Annie's daddy is a poop-head."
Mike laughed suddenly. "You know, Mitchy, I think you're 100% correct. Frank's such a poop-head that it distracted me, and I put up the case without thinking. Good memory, buddy!"
Mitch knew "buddy" was supposed to be a sweet name from a father to a son, but he liked it better when Daddy called him "honey," or Mommy called him "sweetheart." Jessa hated being called "princess," but Mitch wouldn't have minded.
"Ready to help me, Mitch?" Daddy asked, after he'd found his tools.
The truth was, Mitch really didn't want to. He suspected watching Mike would be boring, and that the engine-stuff would smell bad. It also scared him a little when Daddy lay down on the slider thing and rolled right under the car, as if their regular car that he rode in nearly every day (he wasn't good with school buses) might somehow turn into a monster, and eat Mike up, or crush him underneath.
He'd asked the Whisperers to tell him not to worry, that Daddy would be safe, but mostly they talked to Mitch when they wanted, not when he did.
Mitch sat cross-legged by a front tire, holding the magnet-bowl in his lap to keep the nuts and bolts safe so they didn't get lost. He'd been right, the garage did smell bad, and being there was also so boring his mind started to wander, even with Daddy talking cheerfully to him, explaining what he was doing.
He couldn't help but think how much Jessa would have enjoyed this, but Jessa had gone camping with her Girl Scout Troop, up in some mountains somewhere, so it was Mitch's turn to spend "quality time" with Daddy instead.
Grandma Fenton wanted Mitch to join Cub Scouts and said she'd buy his uniform and other things, but the Whisperers told him that Scouts never did anything he liked, and when he was bigger they wouldn't want boys like him--meaning boys who needed to be fixed, Mitch guessed.
Mitch liked to do all kinds of things with Mike: playing Candyland or Chutes and Ladders, doing errands when both of them sang in the car, swinging on the swings at the park, with Daddy pushing him higher and higher until it felt just like flying, swimming at the pool or finding books at the library. Mommy loved him very, very, very much, and was the best Best Mommy Ever, but his Daddy was different. Like, if Mitch was being chased by mean bears, Mike would fight them with nothing but his hands until Mitch was perfectly safe. Daddy had a well of love so big and deep inside him, if it had been a real well it would go far, far down into the earth, or even deeper, maybe all the way to the center and out the other side.
What Mitch didn't quite understand was why, though lots of that love was for Mommy and Jessa, the biggest part had always been for him.
"Here it comes, Mitch!" Daddy had slid back out, which, to Mitch, was a huge relief, and now Mike sat on the concrete floor. The garage floor wasn't squeaky-clean like the inside floor, but Daddy had on his "honey do" pants so that didn't matter. "Honey do," wasn't honeydew like the round green fruit, or even Dr. Bunsen Honeydew in The Muppets, but kind of a grown-up joke that Mommy might say something like, "Honey, do me a favor, please, and see why the dryer isn't working." They werey Daddy's fixing-things pants, his gardening pants and the ones he wore to paint. That was why they had lots and lots of different, interesting splotches of color on them.
After Daddy slid out, thick, dark stinky stuff glug-glug-glugged down into a big black tub that Mike had pushed into the place where he'd been lying. That was it, the "motor oil," that Daddy sometimes just called "oil."
The oil wasn't actually the car's blood, like Mitch had thought it might be before Daddy told him that no, it wasn't, because cars weren't alive that way, even though their car had a name, which was "Antonio" (to be fancy), or "Tonio" (for shorter), or even just Tony. Motor oil was only oil, like what they used in the kitchen, only thicker and stronger, to help Tony's insides move around smoother than smooth, so that Tony could take them places.
"Warm in here," Daddy said, wiping his forehead on one of the soft blue not-paper-not-cloth sheets that looked a little like paper towels, but weren't. Mike called them "shop towels."
Mitch had learned never to tell Grandma Fenton that her dress looked like a shop towel, even if it was the same fuzzy blue-and-white. Grandma Fenton got mad about that kind of thing. It wasn't appropriate.
"Yes, Daddy," Mitch answered. A lot of kids he went to school with called their Daddies "sir" and their Mommies "ma'am," but Mike and Nel weren't like that. They didn't even care if Mitch called them by their names.
"You doing okay, honey?" Daddy asked.
Mitch nodded absently. He felt really, really hot, and he didn't like the glug-glug sound of the stuff draining down from Tony's insides. A kind of film swam over the top, he noticed, like a rainbow, only dark.
He heard the Whisperers in the distance and tried to listen really, really hard. They needed to tell him something important, but something else--not a Silver or a Whisperer, probably a Bad One--had stopped them from reaching him.
That scared Mitch. Usually the Whisperers were right there, telling him all the things he needed to hear.
He tried hard and they tried hard, but it didn't really work. Instead he saw some big boys pushing his head down into a toilet, in what looked like a boys' bathroom. Maybe in a school? Yes, the big kids' school. That was so icky and so frightening he started crying, and the big boys laughed at him, calling him names like "Squeaky" and a word Mitch didn't know, only it started with the f-sound.
Mitch felt like he was drowning, both in the scary future and right there in the garage., like he was sinking, all that dark sticky liquid swallowing his head. He knew it wasn't just oil now but something pretending to be like it.
That's what the Whisperers tried to tell him, but their voices had gone all fuzzy and the pictures in his head were blurred. Mitch understood that they were trying to warn him as well as they could, but either the oily stuff and the dark rainbow got in their way, or they didn't know the right words, the same way he didn't always know the words they whispered to him.
Suddenly a big loudness blasted through: Look out, Mitch! Be careful! Be careful! they yelled, through crashing thunder and bursts of a snapping, sizzling noise.
He wasn't actually drowning, Mitch knew that now, but everything got dark anyway.
Mitch found himself lying on the comfortable couch in the living room. Mommy wiped his face with a cool wet cloth, which felt wonderful because he was hot and sweaty.
"How do you now, my baby?" Nel asked, stroking back his hair. "You fainted out in the garage--I swear that place has two temperatures, too hot and too cold. Daddy brought you inside here."
Mitch couldn't answer. He reached for her, even though he was too old to be picked up. He was still little, though, so Mommy didn't care about that. She lifted Mitch in her arms and carried him to the old rocking chair by the fireplace.
Usually that chair rocked all the time, because Patience, their oldest Silver Person, liked to sit there. She'd knit, hour after hour, on a baby-sized yellow sweater that never got any bigger, no matter how many stitches she made. Right then, because Patience was always polite, she'd moved over to Daddy's La-Z-Boy.
Patience often sang to Mitch. She’d taught him “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme,” and other songs too, usually with old, old music and sad words. Though her face was wrinkled and creased, like foil that’s been smooshed up into a ball and then spread flat again, her voice had a clear, high sound that seemed to hang in the air.
Sings Avi these, the Whisperers told Mitch, but that confused him because he didn't know anyone named Avi, though he thought it was a pretty name.
The Whisperers surprised Mitch then by showing him one of their Special Pictures, that usually looked like movies, only playing inside his head, not on a screen or a TV. Mitch always felt right there, like he was standing off a little to one side watching everything happen, though he couldn't move very much or talk at all, usually. Sometimes someone almost saw him but then thought they didn't, so he might as well have been invisible.
It felt funny being invisible, where no one could see or touch him.
Deep Avi, the Whisperers told Mitch. Sing here.
Avi? Mitch asked, slightly confused.
Here! The Whisperers insisted, and dropped Mitch into what he thought was a room at first, only it wasn't. It looked like the inside of a great big bus, made so people could live there, with benches for couches, comfortable chairs, a TV and even a tiny kitchen.
Mitch thought that bus was the best thing he'd ever seen, and really hoped he could have one when he grew up.
He didn't know why he recognized Avi right away, but he did, although he knew they'd never met each other. Avi had a kind, handsome face with beautiful green eyes, a nice thick beard and a very deep voice. To six-year-old Mitch's surprise, another, grown-up Mitch sat beside Avi on one of the long benches, underneath a line of windows with their curtains partly drawn to keep out some of the brightness. Mitch recognized him too, mostly because he looked so much like a mix of Mommy and Daddy, only very skinny and also, somehow, very pretty. He reminded Mitch of the Do Not Touch things that sat high up on shelves in the room Grandma Fenton called her "parlor," too breakable to play with.
Mitch, Daddy, Mommy and Jessa didn't have a parlor in their house, only a living room like everyone else Mitch knew. Probably only old ladies had rooms like that, to keep their "Do Not Touch, Especially You, Mitchell" treasures in.
Avi got up to go get something, but Grown-up Mitch just watched out the window as everything blurred by, because the bus was going fast. At first he had a soft, day-dreamy expression, but then that look sharpened and his head tipped a little to one side, like all his attention had gone into listening to something almost too far away to hear.
Mitch wondered if he had that same look when the Whisperers talked to him.
Hi, there, Grown-up Mitch looked right at him, which he hadn't expected, any more than he expected to hear a voice in his head. I guess I should have remembered this, but I've gotta say it's unexpected. Did Mike just do the oil change?
Not sure what to say, Mitch nodded.
I don't quite know how to tell you this, but don't go to school tomorrow. Use your acting skills and be fake-sick if you have to. Be convincing. An almost-smile touched Grown-up Mitch's mouth. I'd get Jessa on my side, if I were you.
You are. Kind of.
Grown-up Mitch gave a soft laugh, Yeah, I guess. Just be sure to tell Mike, or have Jessa do it, because Mike is trusting, but Nel is ruthless. I swear, Mom reads minds. She'll pick up on fake-sick from a mile away.
They stared at each other as the same thought struck them both, What if she can really read minds?
Okay, Avi's almost back, but Mitchy, if you can't get out of going to school, be sure to bring Autumn with you, and be really, really careful, okay?
Grown-up Mitch's eyes had a funny look in them, not laughing-funny, but one he recognized as something his own face did when he felt worried and scared. Why did he ask about Daddy changing oil, like that told him what happened next?
The Whisperers can't tell me what's wrong, Mitch told him. They sent me here.
Well, shit. Way to pass the buck, Whisperers. Grown-up Mitch put both hands over his face, though only for a few seconds, like he wanted to hide from everything but knew he couldn't.
Mitch thought those hands looked beautiful with their shiny black nails and silver rings. All of grown-up Mitch looked so pretty, from the silky hair that hung over one eye, to the soles of what he knew were called platform boots, because the part underneath was thick and would make you look taller. Even with his mind caught up in other things, even with the cold, sick feeling of being so scared in his tummy, knowing that would someday be him made Mitch happy.
Grown-up Mitch's hands had gone down to his lap and now he watched not-grown-up-at-all Mitch, seeing the stuff going on in his head, maybe.
You know the Bad Ones in the shed and your closet? he asked.
And outside my window, too, Mitch said. The one that makes faces.
Oh, fuck. Yeah. Yeah, I remember. All at once, Grown-up Mitch looked really, really tired. Tomorrow--your tomorrow, I mean--something like that will come into your classroom. He's worse though, because he's free to move around, he's not stuck in one place, so if you can get yourself a sick day, do it. Ms. Travers is a stone bitch and wouldn't help you if she could. Does she still have that damn sign up? "Mitchy's crying box?"
Mitch nodded, watching the grown-up face he'd have someday look just as scared and sad as he sometimes felt. Try to understand, honey, there's nothing wrong with you. Seriously, everyone's a little weird, even if they don't know it. Remember, when you get older and other kids tease you, that in a few years, you'll be loved especially for your voice. Oh, and when Scott asks you to go to California, don't question that, just do it. And... Oops, here's Avi for real.
"What's that look, Cherub?" the handsome man with the beard asked Grown-up Mitch. He carried what looked like a present in one hand, a medium-sized box, not too big or too small, wrapped in green paper with bells on it. He had a pleased-but-a-little-shy look on his face.
"Hark how the bells!" Other Mitch said, and both grown-ups laughed, like that was a special joke between them, though Grown-up Mitch's voice shook after talking about such hard things, and his eyes shone just a little too bright.
Avi reached out to give his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "What's up, Mitchy? You okay?"
Grown-up Mitch shook his head at the same time he said, "Of course."
"Your mouth says 'yes' but your face says 'no.'" Avi ran a finger along the sharp line of Grown-up Mitch's jaw. His hands looked strong, like Daddy's hands. "Tell me?"
Grown-up Mitch shook his head again. "It's literally nothing. Just a memory from my wacky past. You know me. Overly-sensitive Mitchy."
"Let's be overly-sensitive together then." Avi set the box gently into grown-up Mitch's lap. "My overly-sensitive self sensed you needed a present."
"It's a little early in the month, Dragon Daddy."
"Not at all," Avi answered. "On the East Coast, it's already past sunset. Meaning it's the first day of Channukah."
Grown-up Mitch ducked his head but at the same time smiled, showing his nice white teeth. "My first Channukah present ever! You're sweet to me, Avi. I feel bad, I don't have anything for you yet."
"Gifts aren't conditional, Angel. Open it?"
"I can't resist a present." Grown-up Mitch was a take-your-time un-wrapper, careful with the tape and paper, then with the blue box inside. "Blue for Channukah, right?"
"Of course," Avi answered. His voice sounded serious, but his eyes smiled. He lifted out the gift, a gold-colored metal bowl with two different blue-colored stripes on the outside and a pretty swirly pattern.
"Wow. Thank you, it's beautiful," Grown-up Mitch said, but he looked a little confused as he took a fancy carved stick out of the bowl. "I sense it does something?"
He smiled across at Avi, and Avi smiled back, then blushed a little, a nice pink color going over his cheeks, as he gently took the stick back from Grown-up Mitch and their fingers touched.
"It's a Tibetan Singing Bowl," Avi said. "This is the mallet..." He held up the fancy stick. "I don't know why--it doesn't look much like a mallet to me--but you run it around, just inside the lip..." He returned the mallet to Grown-up Mitch's hand, closing his own hand around the outside. "Like this..."
The bowl sang then, with a high clear sound prettier than anything Mitch had ever heard.
"I dunno," Avi said, "It reminded me of you. If you don't like it though..."
'That's just..." Other Mitch set the bowl back into its box, moving the box to sit beside him on the bench. "You're funny." He wrapped his arms around Avi, and after a second, Avi hugged him back. "Of course I love it, Dragon Daddy," he said, with his head resting on the shoulder of Avi's soft-looking green shirt. "It's from you, and you're beautiful. So is the present. Thank you so much."
Avi got a look, with his eyes closed and his head tipped back, that said he didn't need a gift from Grown-up Mitch, hugging him tight had been enough.
"Hey!" A very, very tall man came down a hallway and into that part of the bus. "You touchin' my guy, Bassman?" He said it in a fake mean voice that wasn't really all that fake. He laughed and smiled, but though it looked to Mitch like the tall man and Avi were friends, it also looked like he really, really didn't like Avi hugging Grown-up Mitch. His blue eyes looked sad and mad at the same time.
"Scotty, look what Avi gave me!" Grown-up Mitch said, then made the bowl sing again until the pretty sound went away. "I know what it reminds me of--it's Patience's voice. Isn't that the best? It's Patience. God I love you, Big Bass Daddy!"
Avi blushed more, and looked more happy, probably not even thinking about who Patience might be.
"Anything for my beautiful angel cherub-baby." Avi made it sound like he was joking, but he wasn't. Grown-ups were weird. It seemed like they never said what they wanted to say, only got mad or sad or confused because they never knew what was really going on.
The tall guy's eyes looked even sadder and madder.
"Oh, stop it Sabrina," Other Mitch slapped his arm. "Don't act weird."
"What? I'm not," the tall man said.
But he was.
Without another word, the Whisperers took Mitch away.
Rocking chair splinters, not soon, the Whisperers told Mitch, like they didn't remember Grown-up Mitch, Avi, Scott or anything else he'd just seen and heard. He liked the rocking chair well enough, but whether it got broken--when it got broken, or why--wasn't something he cared about, really. It was just a chair.
He'd liked Avi, but Grown-up Mitch didn't seem to know how much Avi liked him, or how mad and sad that made Scotty-Sabrina. He thought the Other Mitch tried hard to look so beautiful, and to be nice, but for some reason he never thought that it had worked, any more than he ever thought he looked good, or that anyone but Mommy, Daddy, Jessa and the Silvers would like him. He was pretty sure Grandma Fenton didn't like him much, because he never seemed to say the right things to her, and she'd said she liked "manly boys." Mitch wasn't sure how he was supposed to be manly but also a little kid.
Sometimes Grandma Fenton said mean things to Mommy about not raising her kids right, and Mommy's voice wouldn't sound sweet and nice anymore, but cold and snippy in a way that reminded Mitch of what Mommy called her "sewing scissors," which were very shiny and very, very sharp, so Mitch wasn't allowed to touch them.
Grampa Fenton wasn't like that. He was sweet like Mommy and quiet like Mitch. For years, Mitch thought he lived in the garage, where he had a workbench like Daddy's and lots of tools. He liked to make things, like the kid-sized table and chairs that he'd built a couple years before, and the whole play kitchen he'd made for Mitch and Jessa, with lights that came on when you opened the oven or the refrigerator doors, just like the real thing. Mommy said Daddy liked to "hide out" in the garage with Grandpa Fenton and leave her "at Mom's mercy," but she really wasn't mad. Really she felt happy that Daddy and Grandpa were such good friends, and that he thought Mitch and Jessa were the best kids who ever lived.
Nonna Grassi, Mitch thought, maybe loved him too, because she gave big, tight hugs whenever she saw him, which felt like hugging a pillow. She also yelled a lot in Italian, and Mitch could never quite decide if that was funny, scary, or just interesting. Nonno Grassi loved him too, of course, but he was a Silver.
"What are you thinking, honey?" Mommy asked.
Mitch thought he'd maybe been quiet for a long, long time, and that made her worried.
"Do you ever hear the Whisperers, Mommy?" Mitch didn't usually come right out and ask questions like that, but felt like he needed to.
Mommy didn't ask what he meant. "Maybe. When I was little. I used to think someone talked to me out of mirrors." She gave a soft smile. "I thought they were dreams."
"Sometimes," Mitch said. "Last night I dreamed I'd have an awesome mustache when I grow up, and that was nice. Sometimes the dreams aren't nice. Sometimes they're scary. Sometimes the Whisperers tell me funny things, but sometimes..."
"Sometimes?" Nel prompted.
"Sometimes it's hard to hear the things they say--hard like too quiet, but hard creepy too. Mommy, don't make me see the specialist."
"How did you...?" She gave a little smile, though the rest of her face stayed sad. "Someone's been listening at the top of the stairs. I thought I heard the patter of little feet." Mommy must have put the warm fuzzy socks Mitch liked best onto his feet after Daddy brought him inside. She wrapped her hand around one of his feet now and gave a little tug. "Please don't worry about that, honey. That kind of specialist doesn't hurt. They're to maybe make you less sad, and less anxious, and to help your head and your tummy not hurt."
"I don't need to be fixed. Grown-up Mitch said so. He said everyone is weird, and that's okay."
"Who is...?" Nel started, then understood. "Grown-up, Mitch."
"He's very nice, and very pretty, and he has a nice friend named Avi who gave him a special bowl." Mitch thought hard, trying to remember what Avi called it. "A betting singing bowl."
"Tibetan," Mommy corrected, but she looked like she'd started thinking about something else--which it turned out she was. "Mitchy, what happened in the garage, sweetheart?" Mommy asked. "Did it get too hot, really? Were there fumes? Daddy was worried about you. He thought it was his fault, and he didn't know what to do."
"It was hot, and it smelled stinky, but mostly the bad thing in the oil scared me."
"And you fainted because you got scared? Sweetie, I had to leave work. Dr. Vasquez is a wonderful boss, and so understanding, but there's a limit to what even he can put up with. He needs someone reliable to help him and get patients' teeth shiny clean. If I can't be there, he'll have to hire someone else, and I can't pay for your piano lessons if I'm not working."
Mitch slid off her lap and stood up straight as he could, even though he still felt dizzy and the living room looked too narrow and kind of crooked. He knew he must be what Mommy called "high maintenance" (though she'd never said that to him, just about other people) meaning someone who wanted help all the time with things he should do for himself.
You're a big boy, Mitch thought. You should be brave.
Jessa might have said no, he didn't need to be, that it was okay to be like that when you were six--but maybe she didn't understand everything? Jessa was also cheerful and tough (in a good way) and didn't have to worry about being high maintenance. Jessa would never make Mommy lose her job.
"You know the Silver People won't hurt you, my love. Please don't be scared of them."
Mitch nodded carefully. He'd told Mommy about the Bad Ones again and again, but Nel thought they were either Silver People or that thing grown-ups joked about, "the monster under the bed."
He used to ask Nel if she saw them in his closet, or just outside the window, or inside the garden shed with the buzzy clacking things that Daddy said were cockroaches. Mike tried so many times to spray the cockroaches away with the poison stuff Mitch wasn't supposed to breathe, but they always came back again because of the Bad Thing that lived there and couldn't leave.
Mitch both liked and didn't like the cockroaches. On one hand they were dirty and icky and he hated the noise they made. On the other, nobody expected a little boy to go into a shed where nasty bugs lived, so the Bad Thing--that could never hurt anyone else in his family because they couldn't see or hear it--stayed, as Tyrone sometimes said, "shit out of luck." Sometimes it glared at Mitch from the doorway, or out of the shed's little window, making its face extra, extra mean, but it couldn't come out even into the garden, and only Mike ever went in the shed, so ha ha ha, Bad One.
He knew the Outside-the-Window Bad One couldn't hurt him either, though it sometimes tried to lure Mitch out when he was sleeping, but he'd only fallen for that once, and woke up before he even touched the window, which he wouldn't have been able to lift up anyway. Now he pulled the curtains shut before dark, so he didn't see its dirty, wrinkly white face or gray gropey hands, and stuck cotton in his ears, so that was okay.
The worst had always been the Bad Lady in his closet. She had yellow eyes, a scary snake tongue and, maybe, poison teeth. They looked poison anyway, since they were slimy and dark green. She'd scratch on the walls or rattle the door and sometimes pushed Mitch's hanging-up clothes back and forth, back and forth, along the closet rail, with a sound like big rusty chains being dragged over a dungeon floor. She could come out, too--into Mitch's room at least, if the door got left open, and she really, really hated Mitch.
Jessa took care of her, mostly, by tracking down the closet door key and then moving Mitch's hanging-up-clothes to her own closet. To make things even better, she spilled a whole big bag of Lego onto the floor, then yelled into the dark, "I hope you step on them!"
Mitch heard the Bad Lady hiss once, but not after Jessa locked the door.
He started crying, not to be babyish, but because he loved his sister so much, and because Jessa had listened to and believed him.
All those bad thoughts made Mitch's tummy hurt, and his head too. He felt squashed and hollow from being so sad and ashamed. He wouldn't cry any more this time, but the squashed feeling got worse and worse and worse, like an elephant had sat on him. If Mommy saw the Silvers, just like Mitch, Jessa and Grandma Fenton, and knew a lot about them, why couldn't she believe in the Bad Ones?
Maybe she didn't have the energy to worry about one more thing.