Page 2 of In This Iron Ground
They’d thrown all the drawings away and Damien hadn’t cried or anything, even if his teeth hurt later from clenching them shut. As much as he didn’t really like the McKenzies, he didn’t want to be passed on again. He didn’t want to make them angry, though it seemed to be something he was especially good at.
Damien flipped open the comic book carefully, where superheroes with powers they hadn’t asked for fought for a cause. Damien wouldn’t mind getting superpowers, even if they hurt. If he could choose, he’d pick time travel. He’d go back in time and stop his parents from getting into that car. He’d be a different person if they hadn’t died.
He might not have become so rotten inside.
**********
Damien stared at the scratched wood of the desk. He could hear his classmates laughing and playing outside, in another dimension. Where Damien was, however, it was silent. It was a familiar place. He didn’t have to look at his teacher’s face, sitting behind her desk in front of him, to know what the expression would look like. It would be one of the many versions of exasperated pity he was used to. The “Come on, you can do better” look.
“Damien, are you listening to me?”
“Yes.”
“What did I just say?”
“That I’m failing.”
“Damien…what I’m saying is that your grades are not reflecting your ability. I know you can do better. Look at this.” She pulled out a piece of paper and slid it into Damien’s line of sight. It was a piece of homework, covered in green ticks.
“Now, look at this.” This time, the piece of paper was messy with his own handwriting and covered with the teacher’s red ink.
He remembered that piece of homework. It had been from the day he’d been sent to his room for knocking a glass of juice over. He’d been fidgeting too much and being annoying, and Mrs. McKenzie had told him to stop several times, but he kept forgetting. He’d been sent to his room and he’d been too worried to get his backpack once he realized he’d forgotten it downstairs. He’d hoped the McKenzies would forget too, but Mr. McKenzie had asked him if he’d done his homework. Damien hadn’t been able to lie, scared they would check.
He’d gotten the chair. They would tie him to it sometimes, when he was bad and didn’t sit still. It didn’t help him concentrate, though. It just made things worse.
“Sorry,” Damien told the teacher with a shrug. There was a moment of silence.
“Do I need to call your parents?” she asked. Everything went flat and still.
“Sure. You got a Ouija board?” Damien said. He could feel the confusion in the pause before it clicked.
“Oh—sorry. I—sorry, Damien, I forgot. Your foster parents, then.”
“Not foster parents. Fostercarers,” he bit out.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” The silence piled up. He listened to the kids in the other dimension. He wanted to close his eyes.
“Well…Damien, I just want you to push yourself a little harder, okay? I’m only saying this because I know you can do it. You need to try.” Her voice was soft and cajoling. Damien didn’t reply. After a moment, she sighed.
“Okay. You can go,” she said. Damien didn’t linger.
He headed to the school library where all the other losers spent their lunchtime. It wasn’t as good as the public library, but it would do.
He grabbed one of his favourite books and went to sit in a corner. He was small, made of bird bones and pale skin covered in freckles. He folded easily into cramped spaces where he could disappear for a while.
He cracked the book open. It was big and heavy, filled with diagrams of flora from around the world. Damien liked to look at the pictures and learn about the properties of each plant. You could do a lot with plants. They had a sort of magic. He’d tried asking the McKenzies if he could take up gardening, but they’d told him that wasn’t a good idea. He’d track dirt everywhere. Maybe when he learnt not to be such as mess.
Damien was trying. He tried to be silent and still, but he had to try harder at that too. It was hard to disappear completely.
Damien wished he could.
**********
Damien didn’t like going to sleep. The world followed him there, tucked in the folds of unconsciousness. It would be distorted and corrupted by the night and come out in nightmares that woke him, desperate for air.
Most of the time, he could keep the noises that crawled out of his chest subdued. Others, they would surface like undead, putrid creatures. Damien was defenceless against them. The hard soil in his chest would open, and he’d be buried underneath.
It was bad to make noise. Especially at night.
