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He remembered the boys, a swarm of them, misting up the school windows with their breath as they looked down at the boy who, crossing the quad, appeared to Bron like a candlestick, with walnut skin glowing ember-like against the falling snow, his gangling arms dripping at the sides like melted wax. Thescuffle and scrape of chairs as they all returned to their seats, and then the opening of the door. The headmaster and boy stepping through. The boy introduced himself with an American drawl, his name sounding like “Hairy”—the voice rang in Bron’s ears even now, as clear as water. And a cacophony of sniggers, quickly quietened by the headmaster’s authoritative stare, had him thinking that this new apparition was an outcast, just like him. Eventually, the boy would take the only available chair, that nearest to Bron.
The sudden burst of confidence he’d felt remained a mystery to this day. But the presence of a new body beside him had his innards burning. What was he to say to this boy who came from outside these walls, who smelled so strongly of the wet green earth? Was this what America smelled like? “Hi, I’m—” He’d used his old name. The one he’d been given at birth.
Harry was not interested in making friends; he tucked his pointed chin into the folds of his arms and all but ignored him. But, for whatever reason, this boy had been sent here, and Bron felt it in his bones—Harry was destined to be his friend, the very thing he’d been lacking at St. Mary’s: the Helen to his Jane.
He’d drawn the boy’s portrait as another attempt at winning his attention: his head, placed as it was upon his open palm; the furrowed brows, full and tight-knit; and the mount of his russet hair curling like a thousand scribbled doodles. He could still picture it. The hair that he’d amplified to a fully-fledged tendril of flames.
“Show me the drawing, then,” the boy had said after shaking his hand. Bron handed it over tentatively. “Cool pic—it’s like I have a super power or something.”
“I was thinking of the burning bush from the book of Exodus,” Bron explained.
“Cool, or like Medusa or something. Snakes!”
And then the two boys who’d come round to them: “Hey there, Harry was it? You don’t wanna go mixing with boringBrontëover there. Only thing he’s interested in is that girly old orphan book.”
“Or, you know,” the other piped, grabbing for the book that’d always sat, perfectly angled, in the corner of Bron’s desk, “looking at our bums.” They both laughed.
Bron had snatched the book back, tucked it safely away in his rucksack.
“Bron,” repeated Harry in that American voice that made theosound like an outstretchedah. “That’s a nice name.”
And suddenly, what had been given to him by his schoolmates as a taunt through the years became the name he’d use as his own, liking the way it sounded in Harry’s mouth, the warmth with which it was said. Brawn. Finally, after years of searching, he’d found his confidante.
Bron shook the memory away.
“Friends?” he said to Ada. “I don’t know … maybe. I mean … not really.”
“You know I petitioned to advertise for a substitute sister rather than an au pair? But Papa wouldn’t allow it.”
“I see.”
“But would you be my brother or my sister?”
He blinked twice. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, are you a boy or a girl?”
“Oh,” he said. This was it, his first lesson. How best to explain it to her? “Well, it’s not always as simple as being a boy or a girl. Some people might identify as neither. Some might identify as both. There’s a whole spectrum from which to draw. It’s pretty wonderful, really, if you think about it.”
“Yeah, I know, but what are your pronouns?”
“Oh well, I mean …”He, she, they—the list hovered on his lips but failed to hit the air. Trying each on for size, he imagined what it would be like to be referred to asshe. And then she imagined what it would be like to be referred to ashe. Finally, they imagined what it would be like to be referred to as neither, butconcluded that making such a decision would be too much right now. What if he changed his mind?
“Heis fine, thank you. But it isn’t set in stone.” Ada tucked her chin close to her chest, unable to meet his gaze. She was pulling at a loose seam in her dress. “Is that all a little confusing?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “No, it isn’t. He—nice and easy then. Oh …” She snapped her head up. “I meanshewould be easy too, or … or so wouldthey. I think. I guess I’m still learning.”
“That’s fine,” he reassured her. This was the first time he’d ever been asked. “I’m still learning too. We all are.”
“You’re just like me, I suppose.”
“I am?”
“Yes,” she said, crouching to the floor and lying there like a plank of wood. She was reaching for something beneath the bed’s grand base, inching in further and further until half of her had disappeared. Her voice emerged diffused. “You don’t care what other people think as long as you get to be you. I was adopted, you see. Given up at birth. I have always known it—I’ve never even met my birth parents. But I still call Papa my father and Darcy my brother because it’s what I know to be true. They might just be words, but they mean a lot to me too. Just like your pronouns, I guess. Ah—here it is!”
She dusted herself off and presented to him a matted thing resembling a sock puppet. It was stitched at the edges, though fibers burst through where the thread had come loose, and a yellow clump of string spiraled out the top as hair. Two mismatched buttons for eyes, one larger than the other, and in the middle of its chest was a red blot of paint that, given the pin struck through it, must have been its heart.
“I knew I’d forgotten something down there. Oh, don’t look so shocked—it wasn’t meant for you. It’s just a trick I played on my last tutor, Molly. She was very superstitious of … well, everything. I don’t suppose you are? But where was I? Oh yes. It’s a constant battle, discovering who you are …”
