Page 33 of In This Iron Ground
He felt Hakan nod against his neck. Felt Koko settle behind him. He closed his eyes again. Damien felt like the land inside him had been scorched, fields and forests reduced to nothing but exhausted ash. But Damien could feel, when he lay very still and concentrated on Hakan and Koko’s breath, a wind picking up.
There was rain in the horizon that foretold good tidings. A softening of the earth.
CHAPTER FIVE
As relieving as being removed from the McKenzies’ was, it was still jarring. Damien was left with a feeling of vertigo for a long time, like the sensation of falling as you hit sleep.
His body seemed unconvinced that the omnipresent threat of the McKenzies was truly gone. They were an evil he had known, and now the fear had been transferred to the shadows. He was jumpy with hypervigilance everywhere but at the Salgados’. It was exhausting to be on edge so much of the time, but it took time for his bones and heart and brain to accept the change in environment.
Even when the feeling began to diminish, the nightmares remained. The Incident, as he called the day with the pills in his head, had seemed to have shaken the earth beneath him. It had unearthed all the buried skeletons Damien had been desperate to hide. Every night he would wake up panting, feeling pinned down by the ghosts of ropes, of hands, of Mrs. McKenzie’s cold blue eyes.
It wasn’t until years later that Damien found out that the McKenzies were never tried legally, as is common in types of cases in which physical evidence is disjointed and contaminated and the burden of proof falls on the victim’s shoulders. Knowing that the defendant’s lawyers would rarely hold back even against children, the trauma of trial was more often than not chosen as the bigger sin to be avoided.
The McKenzies, at least, were removed as foster carers and blacklisted by social services. In truth, Damien hadn’t needed vengeance or even justice. He was just happy they wouldn’t be able to do it to anybody else.
Damien moved into Oak House Foster Home the day he was discharged from the hospital. He was surprised that the place looked very much like a house and not like those cold places shown on TV. It had a large living room, a combined kitchen and dining room, three rooms that could each house two young people up to the age of eighteen, and a yard.
There were currently five young people, including Damien, and a rotation of staff that always left three in attendance. There were laminated rules on the wall.Don’t Hit, Don’t Swear, Don’t Break Things (on purpose).There was a routine that offered structure but wouldn’t be met by punitive measures if broken. It was neat, tidy, safe.
The day he arrived he’d felt too exhausted to be truly anxious. He’d been emptied by the last few days. It would take a while to replenish his fear.
The staff members that greeted him seemed nice, but they were obviously the kind of people who didn’t put up with nonsense. Damien didn’t mind. He liked their expressive faces and clear rules. There would be no constant second-guessing at Oak House like there had been at the McKenzies’.
The first fellow foster child he was introduced to was Ty. He was small, even more so than Damien, with dark skin and a silent demeanour. Ty took Damien to the room they would share. It was neat, looking not-entirely lived in. The room was a mirror image of itself. Each side had a bed, bedside table, wardrobe, desk, and chair. There were some boxes under the bed and two shelves on the wall to store possessions. Damien didn’t really need them. He didn’t have much.
He was taken out again to meet the two girls living in the room next to his. They introduced themselves as Elissa, twelve, and Frankie, thirteen. They both had pale skin, Elissa having messy blonde hair and Frankie a dyed black tipped with purple.
“Too bad you’re not older. Jack won’t give us alcohol anymore,” Frankie said when the staff member was out of earshot. Damien had blinked in response.
He’d met Jack not long after that. Jack was the oldest in the house at sixteen and had a room to himself. He barged into the house noisily, causing Damien to jump and look at the boy. Jack had pale skin and the green of an old bruise around one of his eyes. His hair was brown and shaved on one side of his head.
“What are you looking at?” was the first thing he said to Damien, who tamped down the sudden urge to laugh.
It wasn’t funny, but Damien could see exactly how life had shaped Jack. He was almost a stereotype. Damien sort of liked him straightaway. He was used to being disliked, and Jack didn’t look like the type to be deceitful.
“Jack. Be nice. This is Damien,” one of the staff members said.
“Youfucking be nice,” Jack said and then winked at Damien. Damien tried not to smile, not wanting to get into trouble. Jack snorted and stomped to his room. The staff member followed.
They all watched the ensuing argument. The staff member told Jack to keep his door open when it slammed shut.
“Can’t I get some goddamn privacy? It’s like a fucking prison in here. Let me jerk off in peace, you pervert,” Jack’s voice said. Frankie and Elissa giggled. Ty looked small and bored.
I guess this is home, Damien thought.
It was an improvement, at least.
*****
Living at Oak House was what it was. That might sound asinine to most, but after living a life that wasn’t his for such a long time, it was a relief.
Damien got used to the routines and quirks of the foster home. He developed a semi-friendship with Ty. They’d wake each other up from nightmares, and Ty never asked questions. Damien appreciated that. He got along with the others too, despite never becoming close to them. There was no pretending they were a family in Oak House. Damien was free to wash himself of the addiction of hope.
Damien even got along with Jack, although the older boy would get angry sometimes, spiralling into what the staff members would call ‘rages’.
Once, after being told he couldn’t go out that night, Jack threw a lamp across the room. It hit Damien square in the head, knocking him back. Everything stopped around him as he sat in a daze.
“Shit! Damien, are you okay?” Jack was the first to come to life, moving towards Damien, but was stopped by one of the staff members. “I just wanna check on the kid,” he said, but Damien was already being helped up by one of the other adults.
