place.
The children revealed themselves to be different almost from the very beginning. Eden was a quiet and mysterious child. She kept secrets that he could find no sense in keeping—like where she had been for hours at a time, even if she was only down at the sorting center helping to fold clothes or over at the gate watching the morning crew arrive. She sang quietly to herself. She did anything Eric asked of her, dropping whatever she was doing to follow him out into the mountains of trash. But she had agency of her own, despite her obedience to her brother. When Hades went to his shed she would be there trailing behind him, strangely frightened that she was unwelcome in his workshop. She would watch him for hours as he sketched and built and experimented with his sculptures.
One morning he found her alone there, copying one of his design sketches. He had snuck up behind her and watched with fascination as her surprisingly skilled hand took in the shape of the iron dragon, never faltering, never needing to be erased. When she had followed his design as far as it went, she began to add things, change things, stripping away the bulkiness and clumsiness of Hades’ original plan, adding details he hadn’t considered. When she had discovered him watching she burst into tears, figuring somehow that she was in trouble.
Rarely she let him put his arms around her. When he held her that day she confessed miserably that she had always wanted to help him build the trash animals. When he asked her why she hadn’t told him before, she couldn’t answer.
If the murder of her parents had made Eden a reserved and damaged child, it had awakened something wild in Eric. He was exactly the opposite of the girl. Eric wandered in the garbage from sun-up to sundown, playing imaginary games, talking aloud to himself, engaging in one-man wars with the workers. He made elaborate plans to harass the staff—spying and keeping surveillance records, organizing booby traps, playing them off against each other until fistfights erupted that he’d watch with glee. He collected treasures from the garbage and buried them in secret locations, tinker boxes of machinery parts, jewelry, notebooks and maps. He was outgoing and curious. He questioned everything. He would return to the house as the sun was setting, ragged-haired and feral-eyed, starving and short with his words. But when Hades played the radio in the kitchen in the morning Eric would play air guitar and sing aloud, displaying an impressive memory for lyrics.
At night Hades read to the children in the tiny living room, sunk into the couch with one on either side, a scotch resting in his lap. He couldn’t think of another way to educate them. He read to them from Dickens and Wordsworth, James and Haggard. When Eric showed interest, he read them Patrick Suskind’s Perfume and the dark tales of Poe. He indulged Eden with Shakespeare, which Eric hated.
Whenever Hades was confronted by a decision about the raising of the children—how to answer their questions about the world, explain away their fears, how to direct them towards making the right decisions in their simple black-and-white lives—he found himself working more through experiment and chance rather than personal experience. All he remembered of his own mother and father was the glow of the house fire that consumed them, being so young when they disappeared from his still-expanding world with their tenderness and unconditional love in tow. After them had been the street, for how long he didn’t know, where he’d lived like an animal without a use for things like fairness and respect. The only way Hades had got off the street was through demonstrating his natural talent for brutality. A man had died to earn him his place in the care of some of Sydney’s most evil men. No, there was nothing in Hades’ past that he could use as a model for a healthy childhood. He’d learned about respect by beating it into people, and fairness
The children revealed themselves to be different almost from the very beginning. Eden was a quiet and mysterious child. She kept secrets that he could find no sense in keeping—like where she had been for hours at a time, even if she was only down at the sorting center helping to fold clothes or over at the gate watching the morning crew arrive. She sang quietly to herself. She did anything Eric asked of her, dropping whatever she was doing to follow him out into the mountains of trash. But she had agency of her own, despite her obedience to her brother. When Hades went to his shed she would be there trailing behind him, strangely frightened that she was unwelcome in his workshop. She would watch him for hours as he sketched and built and experimented with his sculptures.
One morning he found her alone there, copying one of his design sketches. He had snuck up behind her and watched with fascination as her surprisingly skilled hand took in the shape of the iron dragon, never faltering, never needing to be erased. When she had followed his design as far as it went, she began to add things, change things, stripping away the bulkiness and clumsiness of Hades’ original plan, adding details he hadn’t considered. When she had discovered him watching she burst into tears, figuring somehow that she was in trouble.
Rarely she let him put his arms around her. When he held her that day she confessed miserably that she had always wanted to help him build the trash animals. When he asked her why she hadn’t told him before, she couldn’t answer.
If the murder of her parents had made Eden a reserved and damaged child, it had awakened something wild in Eric. He was exactly the opposite of the girl. Eric wandered in the garbage from sun-up to sundown, playing imaginary games, talking aloud to himself, engaging in one-man wars with the workers. He made elaborate plans to harass the staff—spying and keeping surveillance records, organizing booby traps, playing them off against each other until fistfights erupted that he’d watch with glee. He collected treasures from the garbage and buried them in secret locations, tinker boxes of machinery parts, jewelry, notebooks and maps. He was outgoing and curious. He questioned everything. He would return to the house as the sun was setting, ragged-haired and feral-eyed, starving and short with his words. But when Hades played the radio in the kitchen in the morning Eric would play air guitar and sing aloud, displaying an impressive memory for lyrics.
At night Hades read to the children in the tiny living room, sunk into the couch with one on either side, a scotch resting in his lap. He couldn’t think of another way to educate them. He read to them from Dickens and Wordsworth, James and Haggard. When Eric showed interest, he read them Patrick Suskind’s Perfume and the dark tales of Poe. He indulged Eden with Shakespeare, which Eric hated.
Whenever Hades was confronted by a decision about the raising of the children—how to answer their questions about the world, explain away their fears, how to direct them towards making the right decisions in their simple black-and-white lives—he found himself working more through experiment and chance rather than personal experience. All he remembered of his own mother and father was the glow of the house fire that consumed them, being so young when they disappeared from his still-expanding world with their tenderness and unconditional love in tow. After them had been the street, for how long he didn’t know, where he’d lived like an animal without a use for things like fairness and respect. The only way Hades had got off the street was through demonstrating his natural talent for brutality. A man had died to earn him his place in the care of some of Sydney’s most evil men. No, there was nothing in Hades’ past that he could use as a model for a healthy childhood. He’d learned about respect by beating it into people, and fairness
Similar Books
