AFTER HAVING FINISHED all the gardening that could possibly be done, Isaiah decided to start organizing the insides of the house for once. After further inspections, he’d noticed there was some clutter that had built up in some of the tiny rooms which they didn’t use for much else than storage. He figured he might find some of the things he’d used to like, but other than some useless tools, he only found a few wooden horses his hands had once sculpted. Now that he had Indra (still not introduced nor commented on by his grandfather) they seemed far less interesting.
“I’ve cleared out every room now – except for your office.” He said, as he walked into the kitchen – warm and filled with the sweet steam of pumpkin soup and cumin. He took it all in, the sight of the small, iron stove, the cabinets with the little, blue flowers he’d used to count while waiting for supper.
“Oh, it was not necessary at all. Now please, sit down and rest a little. Supper will be ready shortly.” Theodore smiled, winking before returning his attention back to the pot.
“I am more than happy to help. If you’d like, I could clean the office for you too…” he suggested. Usually, he was not allowed down there. Much like the garden had always been to him, it was Theodore’s sanctuary – a place he could engage in his studies undisturbed. Having cleaned every other corner of the house, the decluttering still felt somewhat incomplete.
“Well, perhaps tomorrow – if you have the time. It is becoming a bit of a mess but...”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure it won’t take too long.” He assured him. If there was something they had a lot of now, that surely was time.
As the evening turned into night, his grandfather went to bed. Being oddly active himself, and with nothing else to attend to, Isaiah thought it a good idea to start clearing out the office. He’d never actually been there before, so walking down the stairs felt like stepping onto forbidden ground. Halfway down, he suddenly remembered that it was not the first time at all. Once as a child, he’d felt awfully curious about the mysterious office. He’d been quite disappointed discovering there was nothing but papers and books there, and some minutes later, Theodore had fetched him and told him quite firmly that it was not a place for a child and how easily he could have fallen down the stairs and hurt himself. This time, he’d been given permission to do it the next day, but with an invitation to enter (as well as generally doing whatever it was that he wanted), he couldn’t see how it would be considered an intrusion.
Reaching the end of the stairs, the room felt much smaller than he remembered it, with a large, red-like, wooden desk filling most of the space. The four, short walls had shelves packed with books – some of which he’d read himself while Theodore was still schooling him, but most of them unknown. These were the things he noticed, only after realizing how much of a mess it was. The desk had a thick layer of scattered papers on top of it, and as he moved his candle around, he noticed all the corners of the ceiling were filled with dense spider webs. Almost instantly he regretted having volunteered to clear it out, but then reminded himself who he was helping, and that this was the last room he’d have to clear out to finish his house cleaning.
He started by picking up all the papers from the desk. Collecting all of them, he respectfully contained his curiosity knowing that letters could be very private. Still, he thought it was quite uncharacteristic for his grandfather to write letters in the first place, and he’d never seen him sending or receiving any. As he thought about this, he spotted his own name on top of one of them, and the rare sight of it in writing made his heart jump. “If something has your name on it, it would quite obviously be meant for you.” He thought, and so he read.
“Dear Isaiah,
I am writing to you this day, to apologize. I am remorseful and very uncertain if it was the right time, and the right way to let you go. I, of course, knew it would be hard having you taken away from me, but the sorrow is far heavier than I had imagined. My mind has been troublesome these past years. Since you’ve been gone, it has gotten worse, and I am starting to worry I might be losing it all together, as my consciousness increasingly seems to be fading away from me. I don’t know where it goes when it is gone, but it is a painless place – so, please, do not be concerned. These moments of clarity might be coming less frequently, and they are rather painful if I am to be completely sincere. Something I fear, I should have been more often while you were still here.
If you ever come back home, you should not trust or listen to me like you’ve done before. By then, you should be a clever and grown man and will know what to do. Know, there are things I’ve kept from you. Your father and your mother—”
The letter stopped there. The last words sluggishly scribbled, not matching the rest of his otherwise elegant handwriting. Isaiah would have recognized it anywhere, but the words, he did not want to believe were his. Suddenly he was filled with a fear he was yet to know, and as he noticed the date of the letter, it spiraled through him further. Day three-hundred-and-fifty-two, year thirty-one. It’d been written less than a year after his departure. Flicking through the rest of the letters, he saw it was the only one addressed to him. The only other name he recognized was that of “Master Raziel Mongoya”. In an attempt to read, he realized all of them were written in a strange, incomprehensible language and after desperately trying to detect something, he finally gave up.
Walking up the stairs, his ears rang like distant bells and he felt increasingly lightheaded. As he reached his room, it was amplified and what had been a wholesome pumpkin casserole nearly made its way back up his throat. With the letter in his hand, he reread it again and again on his bed, hoping there was something he’d missed or misread, but the words remained unchanged. Though he’d noticed his behavior a little unusual, he’d assumed it was just due to age that went beyond common adulthood. Besides, he had always been a little absentminded, but far from mindless. Now, he couldn’t help but wonder if the condition had come because he’d felt lonely – isolated for years and abandoned by the only family he had. Even if he had sent him away, he should have had the sense to say no. He should have seen the way Tzelem had manipulated them with his tales, and so, perhaps, all of it could have been prevented. At last, as Isaiah fell into a dreamless sleep, it was the last, incomplete sentence that haunted him “your father and mother…”
*
“Good morning!” Theodore said, quite cheerfully, as he walked into the kitchen the next morning. Yet again, oblivious of his grandchild’s concerns, as well as the change of events that were about to occur.
“I found this in your office yesterday.” Isaiah held up the letter, unsure if such an uncharacteristic directness was truly a good approach.
“You know you’re not allowed down there.”
“You told me I could clean it.”
“Clean it, yes. Not snoop around – I raised you better than that.” His tone was irritated but casual, and he didn’t take note of the dark circles underneath Isaiah’s eyes as he walked past him and filled his tea pot with water.
“I saw my name on it and I was worried about you. Apparently with good reason.” Isaiah argued. It was the first time he’d ever raised his voice at him and he hoped it might catch him off guard and make him talk – bring out some confession, but he did nothing of the sort. His expression so blank it was hardly an expression at all.
“I have not written any letters for you. You left me here and did not tell me where in Araktéa’s name you were going.”
“Look.” Isaiah said, and Theodore gave a brief, squinting glare to where he was pointing to on the paper – to his name.
“I can’t keep track of all my letters, but that one is not for you.”
“Of course it is for me…” He walked past him while shaking his head absentmindedly.
“You are always making such a scene – calm down and have some breakfast.”
“You have written that you are about to lose your mind.”
“Well, of course I am, and there is no wonder about it with a son like you!” He, too, had raised his voice now and Isaiah felt the lump in his throat choking his words.
“There must be something we can do. I can ride to the village and find a doctor.” An unconcerned smile, accompanied by a deep breath, filled the old man’s face.
“No doctor can fix me, Ares. This is my punishment and I always expected it would come. In a very different manner – certainly – but nevertheless... it’s been expected.”
“Punishment for what?” Isaiah asked, stunned that he’d just called him by his father’s name. He’d never made that mistake for as long as he’d lived. It wasn’t worth bringing up, of course, as they needed to focus on the mind matter.
“We need to try.”
“Sometimes it is better to accept one’s fate. This is one of those times.” At any other time, and with another fate, Isaiah would have accepted the suggestion. But not now.
“We will ride out this instant.” He demanded, fetching his grandfather’s thickest coat before Theodore got the chance to respond.
“I said no.”
“I don’t care! According to you, you cannot be trusted as for now. We are going!”
“You’ll have to hit me in the head with a rock then, for I won’t be going anywhere.” Isaiah sighed.
“You said… you said there was something you wanted to tell me. About my father and mother…” He tried softening his voice, but his grandfather’s eyes were anything but appeased.
“How many times must we go through this? I am your father, and your mother was a disturbed woman, whose life you should not obsess over!” Isaiah took a step back, never having seen him even half this angry before.
“I’ll leave myself. I will…. fetch someone.”
“If you leave again, you are no longer welcome in this house. Do not come back.” The words didn’t hang in the air between them for long, before Isaiah stormed out the door. Still, they hung long enough to grow heavy. The silence had left enough time for them to be taken back or corrected – and yet, they hadn’t been. Instead, they’d become the end of their argument, words both of them would be reliving and wishing to change for weeks to come. As Isaiah walked out into the rain, and sat down on Indra’s back, he told himself it wasn’t actually him. It was a disease and he would find a way to fix it.
”I’ll have to introduce you two later. We just need to find help first.” He assured her. If he hadn’t known how to make up for his errors before, it was as clear as day now. The mind was the most precious thing one had. “Without it, men are nothing but animals – eating, mating, and avoiding danger in a constant flux of survival.” He remembered being taught that. Now, Isaiah couldn’t avoid danger anymore. He’d need to face it for the sake of both their sanity, and as soon as he’d calmed himself, the idea almost felt uplifting. Almost, but not at all entirely, and only for a few moments in hopeful ignorance about what saving someone’s mind might actually require.