Crispin is nine then, Harley seven, Mirabell six.
He and his younger siblings are confined to a second-floor drawing room for the duration of the celebration, where they are showered with fabulous new toys, fed all their favorite foods, and watched over by Nanny Sayo, who is Japanese. Petite and pretty, with a soft, musical voice, Nanny Sayo is quick to laugh, but any test of her authority is met with the displeasure of a stern disciplinarian.
Following the wedding, all the many servants at Theron Hall are respectful of the children and even treat them with affection. But it seems to Crispin that when these people smile, the expression in their eyes does not match the curve of their lips.
Yet life is good. Oh, it is grand.
The children eat only what they like.
They go to bed only when they wish.
Each rises to his or her own clock.
They are schooled at home by a tutor, Mr. Mordred. He is deeply knowledgeable in all subjects. He is most entertaining and can make any topic interesting.
Mr. Mordred is a jolly man, not exactly fat but well-rounded, and sometimes he tells little Mirabell that she looks good enough to eat, which always makes her giggle.
Perhaps the best thing about Mr. Mordred is that he doesn’t press them hard on their lessons. He allows them to break frequently for play, in which he often leads them.
When they are mischievous, he sometimes encourages them. When they are in a lazy mood, Mr. Mordred says that any child who isn’t lazy must not be a child at all but instead a dwarf masquerading as one.
On his left temple, Mr. Mordred has a black birthmark shaped exactly like a horsefly. When any of the children puts a finger to this oddity, Mr. Mordred makes a buzzing sound.
Now and then he pretends to mistake this image of a fly for the real thing. He twitches as if annoyed and slaps at the imagined insect with the flat of his hand, which always makes the children burst into laughter.
If Crispin were burdened with such a birthmark, he would be self-conscious about it, even embarrassed. He admires Mr. Mordred for finding reason to be amused even by this disfigurement.
One day, three weeks after the wedding, Crispin and Harley and Mirabell spend a couple of hours sprawled on the library floor with bundles of new children’s picture books and lots of cool comic books that Giles has bought for them. When at last they become bored, Nanny Sayo retrieves the scattered reading material to stack it on a table.
At one point, Crispin turns and finds himself standing over the woman as she kneels to gather the discarded comics. He is looking down the scooped neck of her blouse, where he sees on the curve of one breast a birthmark identical to that on Mr. Mordred’s forehead.
As if she is aware of his attention, Nanny Sayo begins to raise her head. Crispin turns away, flustered, before their eyes can meet.
Although he is only nine, he is embarrassed to have been staring at her breasts, the sight of which has affected him in some new and disturbing way that he can’t define. His face burns. His heart knocks so loud he thinks Nanny Sayo must hear it.
Later, in bed, he wonders how Mr. Mordred and Nanny Sayo can have the same birthmark. Maybe it’s something contagious, like a head cold or the flu.
He feels sorry for Nanny Sayo, though at least her disfigurement is in a less visible place than Mr. Mordred’s.
That night he dreams of Nanny Sayo dancing naked in firelight. She has several horsefly birthmarks, not just one, and they are not fixed. They crawl across her skin.
Crispin wakes in the morning with a fever, plagued by nausea and aching muscles.
His mother says that he’s just caught a virus. Antibiotics won’t help him cast off a virus. He must remain in bed a day or two until it passes. She sees no need to call a doctor.
During the day, Crispin reads and takes short naps and reads again. The book is an adventure story set at sea and on various tropical islands.
Although the author has kept the tone light and has never put the young leads in any danger that they couldn’t handily escape, although no characters in the novel are named Crispin or Harley or Mirabell, near twilight he turns the last page and reads this line: And so the little bastards were slaughtered, Mirabell and then Harley and last of all young Crispin, slaughtered and left to rot, to be fed upon by rats and sharp-beaked birds.
In disbelief, Crispin reads the line again.
His heart races, and he cries out, but the cry largely dies in his throat. He drops the book, throws off the covers and erupts from bed. As he gets to his feet, dizziness overcomes him. He totters a few steps, collapses.
When he regains consciousness, he knows that little time has passed because the formerly pending twilight has just arrived. The sky beyond the windows is purple pressing toward a red horizon.
His dizziness has passed, but he feels weak.
He gets to his knees, claws the book from the bed, and dares to read the last page again. The words he saw before are gone. No mention is made of Mirabell, Harley, Crispin, slaughter, rats, or sharp-beaked birds.
With trembling hands, he closes the book and puts it on the nightstand.
Wondering if a delusion born of fever had put the words before him on the page, he returns to bed. He is more worried than afraid, but then more confused than worried, and finally exhausted.
A chill overtakes him. He pulls the covers up to his chin.
When Nanny Sayo rolls a service cart into his room with a bed tray that holds his dinner, Crispin first intends to tell her about the threatening words in the book. But he is embarrassed to have been so frightened by something that, in the end, proved to be entirely imaginary.
He doesn’t want Nanny Sayo to think he is, at nine years of age, still a big baby. He wants her to be proud of him.
His sick-boy dinner consists of lime Jell-O, buttered toast, hot chocolate, and chicken noodle soup. Anticipating that her patient might not have much appetite, that he might take his dinner in fits and starts, Nanny Sayo has put the chocolate and the soup in separate thermos bottles to ensure that they stay warm.
When Crispin expresses disinterest in the food, Nanny Sayo leaves the footed tray on the cart.
She perches on the edge of his bed and urges him to sit up. As Crispin leans against the headboard, Nanny Sayo takes his hand to time his pulse.
He likes watching her face as she stares solemnly at his wrist, counting his heartbeats.
“Just a little fast,” she says.
A curious disappointment overcomes him when she lets go of his wrist. He wishes she would continue to hold his hand, though he does not know why he has this desire.
He is consoled when she presses one hand to his forehead.
“Just a little fever,” she says, though it seems to him that her palm and slender fingers are hotter than his brow.
To his surprise, she undoes the first two buttons of his pajama top and places her delicate hand on his chest. She has already taken his pulse. He doesn’t understand why she would need to feel the thump of his heart, if that is indeed what she’s doing.
She moves her hand slowly back and forth. Slowly and smoothly. Smoothly.
He almost feels that she could make him well just by her touch.
Removing her hand from his chest, leaving the buttons undone, she says, “You’re a strong boy. You’ll be well soon. Just rest and eat all your dinner. You need to eat to get well.”
“All