Prologue

February, 2005:

 

The hospital was a busy place at the best of times, but this seemed a little extravagant. Katy sat behind the nurse’s desk, her white volunteer-smock rumpled and red hair messy with the long morning she’d had while doctors and nurses and people on gurneys were rushed past. One particular group sent the strong-but-now-familiar stench of the homeless as one unconscious girl accompanied by the firemen who had attended to her before the ambulance came was brought past, and a skinny teenage boy simply stood in her wake with his head in his hands. Katy looked around for someone who was meant to take care of the boy, but all the nurses were busy with the girl she assumed was the boy’s sister.

 

“Kat?” A large, well-manicured hand jabbed Katy in the shoulder and she looked up at nurse Roberts, her face impassive. “That kid’s sister’s going into the OR; get him out of the way of everything, okay? And try to calm him down a little.”

 

Katy nodded silently and got up from her place so Roberts could sit down in her fun-swivelly-chair, and she tucked her hair behind her ears as she shuffled over to the boy. He looked about the same age as her, so this should be easy, right? He still hadn’t looked up by the time she was standing right in front of him, so she touched his shoulder. His head snapped up so quickly that Katy took a step back. Tears were streaming from his eyes and his whole face was red, but she did her best no to stare at him. She had never seen a boy cry like this before. “Are you alright?” she asked.

 

The boy stared blankly back at her, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Katy fought a cringe and gestured to some of the chairs in the waiting area. “Do you wanna sit down?” she tried again. Still watching her warily, the boy slowly drifted over to the chairs and sat down in one of them. Katy looked at Roberts to see if she was done, but the older woman shook her head sternly. Right. He wasn’t exactly calm yet, was he? She sat down next to the boy, fighting not to wrinkle her nose at his sour smell. “What’s your name?”

 

Staring down into his lap, he muttered, “Markus Myška.”

 

Katy felt her eyes squint a little bit; that name sounded familiar in context, not content, but she smiled nonetheless. “I’m Katy Kopecky, nice to meet you.” The boy’s eyes flickered up to her for a moment and then back down to the hands tangled in his lap. “Do you know what’s going on with your sister?” she asked searchingly. “I could find out for you, if you’d like. She is your sister, right?”

 

Scuffing the linoleum with his worn sneaker, Markus muttered, “They take Klára.”

 

Katy’s heart thudded and her eyes widened. “You’re Czech!” she announced rather unnecessarily. Markus blinked at her, puzzled. “Hold on! Um…Mluvíte anglicky?” she asked slowly.

 

Now it was Markus’s turn to look shocked, and he started speaking to her in rapid Czech, but Katy had to put her hands up. She only knew about three phrases, but thankfully they were useful ones. “Nemluvím česky,” she said apologetically, and Markus’s face fell back down to his knees. “But my dad does!” she assured him. “He’s from Ostrava, and he’s a registered translator! You have no idea what I’m saying!” Katy blushed and laughed, but Markus didn’t get the joke. “Um, listen; I’m gonna go call my dad, but then I’ll be right back!” she said slowly, gesturing rather awkwardly to try and make Markus understand. He nodded slowly, though she didn’t think he actually got it.

 

“He tell you anything about those girls?” nurse Roberts asked. Katy shook her head and reached for the phone, dialing her home phone while one of the firemen wandering around stopped to talk to Markus. He pointed over his shoulder at Katy, who waved at herself and the phone. The man nodded at her, seeming to understand, and took a seat near Markus.

 

“Daddy?” Katy said into the phone the moment someone picked up. “No, I’m not done yet; I just need you to come down and help us with something…”

 

***

 

When Music Boy had been gone for three weeks, Markus Myšková woke up like it was any other day, except it was much different. He wasn’t in a shelter, or on the streets. He was in a bed. He had been having a very pleasant dream about a girl back home in Prague: Irena Wagnerová. He could remember everything about her as if they had last met yesterday; her sparkling green eyes and the shining black braid that ran all the way down her back. She had been trying very hard not to cry the day they left, and so in his dream he had done a magic trick his Tati taught him.

 

“Look, Irena, there’s something behind your ear!” he said, pretending to sound alarmed as he pointed at the girl’s ear. Her eyes widened and she reached back there, but became puzzled very quickly.

 

“There’s nothing there, Markus,” she said with a confused shake of her head.

 

Markus grinned and brushed his fingers through the hair behind her ear. “Of course there is, Irena, it’s right here!” Irena grinned excitedly, and he opened his hand with a flourish.

 

She blinked, large eyes no longer shining with unshed tears. “There’s nothing there.”

 

Markus closed his hand again and raised it up near her lips. “It’s invisible,” he said. “Close your eyes and I’ll make it real.” Her eyes dutifully closed, and he quickly kissed her before running off down the street to where his family was waiting for him. Josef and Klára were standing arm-in-arm at the end of the drive, watching him and laughing. He daren’t glance back and look at Irena, or he’d never be able to go.

 

It still irked Markus that he hadn’t done something cute and spontaneous like that to show Irena how much he had loved her. Instead he had only shook her hand like some big man and walked off with her crying behind him. What a way to go. Irena probably had a hundred boys chasing after her now and wouldn’t be able to remember Markus even if someone showed her a picture of them together.

 

What did it matter now, anyway? Markus sat up against the headboard of his bed and picked at a hole in his pajama pants. He had been living with Mrs. Jonesová ever since Klára had gone to the hospital with her brain bleeding. The old lady was nice, and she told Markus that he could call her his mother if he wanted to, but he really didn’t want to. He would be leaving soon, he just knew it. Klára would get better, and they would let Jopie go too, and then Nikolas would show up from wherever he had run to in terror when Markus told them what happened.

 

They had messed up Klára’s surgery; that was what Markus gathered from the father of the red-haired girl, at least. He spoke Czech and English, and Markus envied him, as he was able to explain what had happened. When the bad man attacked her, he threw Klára into a wall, and that made her brain start bleeding. But it wasn’t so bad that she felt it right away, but after a few weeks it got bad enough to kill her. She had been lucky to be at the fire station when it happened, the man said, but Markus knew it wasn’t luck. He had been with Klára when she woke up screaming and clutching her head, and he had run after her when she rocketed to her feet, desperate for someone to help her.

 

The doctors had saved her life, but she had fallen into a coma. The red-haired girl’s father had been able to explain it in a way so he could also explain it to Jopie, who was being held in a place called Pediatrics for her cough. He had crawled right into Jopie’s bed with her and hugged her tight, like Klára used to. “Jopie, you remember when we would watch Shrek on the special DVD?”

 

Jopie nodded against his chest.

 

“And once, when we were watching it, Tati had to go to the bathroom, so we paused it, but he was actually going outside to have a cigarette?”

 

Again, she nodded.

 

“And he was gone so long that the screen-saver popped up, so that the movie wouldn’t start over?”

 

“Markus, I don’t�"”

 

“That’s what Klára’s doing, Jopie. She’s got her screen-saver on, because the doctors had to pause her for a while and fix her brain. But…but they paused her for too long, so now she’s turned on her screen-saver to keep her brain okay. Get it?”

 

Jopie was quiet for a long time. She didn’t even cough, which made Markus happier than he had been in a long time. “Yeah, I get it Markus.”

 

“Good.”

 

“So when is she gonna play again?”

 

Markus bit his lip. “I don’t know.”

 

***

 

The lights were very bright. That was the first thing Klára noticed when she came to consciousness in an unfamiliar room. Her head didn’t hurt quite so much on the inside anymore, but it felt like someone had filled it up with hot air and she was floating. The small beeping and whirring noises of the room entered her head slowly, bounced around a bit, and then finally registered in her mind as actual sound. She had to take several deep breaths before summoning up enough strength to open her eyes. She looked around; she was definitely in a hospital, though she couldn’t quite remember why. She remembered her head hurting quite a lot, and a whole lot of commotion and jostling, but after that was nothing.

 

She turned her head slightly and furrowed her brow, wondering what she felt missing. It took an enormous effort just to raise her hand, and what felt like an eternity to touch it to her head. She felt thick white bandages, the pillowcase, and skin. Her hair was gone. It shocked her much more than it should have, were she fully conscious, and her hand dropped back down just as a young black man in green scrubs knocked and entered the room.

 

He started at the sight of her looking back at him, but then smiled in a rather generic but no less comforting way. He said something to her, but she couldn’t quite understand the words. She shook her head, her stomach turning with concern. Was she supposed to know what he was saying? He came a bit closer and put his hand around hers; it was comforting, and she relaxed. He spoke very slowly, but it didn’t help until he started using his hands as well. From what he did, she gathered that he was leaving and would return. She nodded, and he left. She drifted off for a while, with nothing to do to occupy her time; when she woke reawakened there were several people in her room, one of them being Markus.

 

Klára’s heart leaped up into her throat; she had been so occupied with figuring out what was going on that she hadn’t even thought about any of her siblings. Where were Jopie and Nik? Markus seemed to sense the question in her eyes and sat on the edge of her bed. “You were asleep for a whole week, Klára,” he said, and Klára felt another twist of guilt. “Jopie’s here too, but she’s almost well again. Nik ran away and I can’t find him, but I’m trying, okay? So don’t worry, I’m a big man now and I’m gonna take care of us while you’re getting better.”

 

“Markus,” a man sad softly in the corner of the room, seeming to sense how confused and worried Klára was. “Don’t smother your sister.” He stepped forward and smiled; he was middle-aged with graying brown hair, and had a very friendly smile. She realized only moments too late that he was speaking to her in Czech. “How are you feeling, Klára?”

 

Klára moistened her lips with her tongue and swallowed; her throat was dry as sand. “Thirsty,” she said honestly. Markus pulled a cup out of nowhere with a very long straw and helped her take a drink of room-temperature water.

 

Once she was settled, the man sat down on the edge of her bed and smiled that warm smile of his. “What else? Do you know where you are, Klára?”

 

Again, Klára wetted her lips and looked slowly around the room. “A hospital.”

 

The man spoke over his shoulder to another man, one in a white coat and nice clothes. Something in English, and then he turned back to her. “Do remember what happened to you?” he asked.

 

It took Klára a very long time, searching the fuzzy corners of her brain. She remembered running, needing to be somewhere, the pain in her head and lungs and even eyes. What �" or who �" had she been so dead-set on seeing? Then Henry’s face hit her like a ton of bricks, and how hurt he must have been when she didn’t show up, and he was gone. She looked at Markus with sadness and fear boiling up in her chest. “Henry’s gone, isn’t he?” she asked sadly. He nodded sadly.

 

She put her hand on her forehead and closed her eyes, breathing out a sigh as the man in the lab coat and the man who spoke Czech both started talking to her about complicated things, like physical therapy and malnutrition, when all she wanted was half a country away.