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throat reddening. Didn’t she understand that talking about it only made it more real? Made it something that he couldn’t ignore?
    “It couldn’t do any harm,” Tabatha soothed. “You might feel better. Can’t keep stuff pent up for long, it goes bad inside.”
    Nicholas’s eyes were fixed on the dents in the table. Unblinking. Then he couldn’t bear it anymore.
    “I hate them.”
    The words came out blistering with pent-up emotion, and as soon as he had uttered them, tears came. He couldn’t stop them. “I hate them for leaving me here.”
    Tabatha nodded and leaned in closer to the table. “It’s alright,” she murmured.
    “It’s not!”
    Nicholas struck the tabletop again, beating the wood angrily with the blade.
    “Why did they have to go? They wouldn’t even tell me where they were going! They should have taken me–”
    “Don’t think that.” Tabatha took the hand that he was using against the table and held it tightly. “It’s okay to hate them, it’s okay to feel alone. But you’re not alone.”
    “Easy for you to say.” The tears spilled fiercely. “I just wish...”
    He fell silent again.
    “What do you wish?”
    “I want it to stop.”
    “It will never stop,” Tabatha told him shrewdly. “But I can promise that, over time, it will be more bearable.”
    “You don’t know that.”
    “I do. Five years ago I lost my brother.”
    Tabatha met Nicholas’s stunned gaze.
    “At the time I thought the pain and misery would never end. And to a point it hasn’t, but I’ve learned to cope with it. I don’t pretend to be wise in anything, and I’m not exactly known for having a clever head… But I know enough about losing a loved one to tell you that you’ll start to feel better. It just takes time.”
    Nicholas wiped at his cheeks and nodded slowly. Some of the weight that had been crushing him seemed to have lessened slightly.
    “I know what’ll cheer us both up,” Tabatha said brightly. She jumped up from her chair and disappeared into the walk-in pantry. Nicholas heard a few crashes and a number of out-of-breath shouts before Tabatha emerged once more. She brandished a worn wooden box, setting it down on the table in front him.
    “It’s my dad’s, he lent it to me especially,” Tabatha said proudly. “It contains just about every old magic trick you could imagine. Want a peek?”
    Nicholas smiled.
    “My, but if that isn’t the first time you’ve smiled in days,” Tabatha gushed.
    Before he could think anything of it, she opened the box.
     
    *
     
    Sam Wilkins arrived mid-afternoon and Nicholas was grateful for his company. They sat on a bench in the small, sun-dappled back garden. The fresh air, mingled with the giddy perfume of the flowers, improved Nicholas’s mood.
    “I trust things aren’t too unbearable with young Tabatha?” Sam asked, eyes twinkling beneath the rim of the fedora.
    “It’s fine,” Nicholas said, though Sam had a point. Tabatha’s incessant fawning had become increasingly trying as the days wore on. Still, her kind words had helped, and Nicholas couldn’t bring himself to complain about her, no matter how aggravating she sometimes was.
    “Good, good.”
    Sam removed the fedora and placed it on his knee, wiping his brow with a handkerchief.
    “And you’re well? No more nightmares?”
    Nicholas shook his head. He inwardly cursed Tabatha for telling Sam about the bad dreams; the last thing he wanted was for him to think he was some kind of bed-wetting kid. But Tabatha had heard him crying out in his sleep more than once and clearly felt it important to inform Sam.
    “It’s a struggle, lad, I can’t put it any plainer than that,” Sam sighed. “You need anything, you come straight to me.”
    “I know, thanks,” Nicholas said. “I’m okay.”
    “Good to hear,” Sam replied. “You’ve got your mother’s strength. Never let anything get her down, that woman. Not even when she and your father were scraping a living and barely