chapter one

Chapter One

“Christopher…”

Christopher Greene lifted his head and peered through the veil of sunshine. He could see nobody, yet his name was definitely there, wafting among the hum of the bees, laced among the routes of the dandelion umbrellas and the seedless dandelion stalks. Someone was calling him. He closed his eyes and dug his fingers into the cool mulch of the garden, feeling the contradictory cold soothe his raw knuckles. He knew when someone called him. He had trained himself to hear his name even though it was barely ever spoken. He, a farmers son, a nobody, the only recognition he got was from the deep valleys and his garden. Was he only imagining it? Only one way to find out. He let out a hissing breath and pushed himself up.

The walk to the villa was a long and winding one, and well trodden by his calloused feet. A stranger would lose his way but Chris knew the path by heart.

Take a left on the fork, five paces, cross the river, go straight.

While he walked he fussed with his rebellious hair, trying to smooth out the wild curls and untangle the burrs. His face felt tight and dry, his fair skin sunburned mercilessly from long days in his garden. He scratched at the crusted mud on his forehead and cheeks, slapped dirt out of his jeans. When he crested the hill and caught sight of the villa, flanked by unruly knots of hedges and sporting a scrubbed-clean glow of white paint and wilted flowers in window boxes, he regretted not wearing a shirt.

He hesitated at the top of the hill, his toes kneading the tussock nervously, the wind playing with his disobedient hair and cooling the sting of his sunburns. His father may have made the villa his second home but Chris never felt welcome, and looking like this he definitely wouldn’t be. But there was his name again, bellowed by Christopher Senior, a burly man with a face like a pasty dumpling and a windpipe like a square-dance caller. Chris squinted down at the villa.

There. Standing at the giant doorway of the villa and filling nearly every inch of it was Christopher Sr., his hand cupped to his mouth.

“Christopher Greene!”

Chris winced, patted his sunburns gently, and tore down the hill. His bare feet made a satisfying slap-slap-slap noise as he pattered down the well-worn trail and the chains around his neck jingle-jingled in response. In his mind, he tried to figure out why his father would call him down to the villa midday, when he knew Chris would be out in the valley. But no matter what he concluded, the answer wasn’t good. Wasn’t good at all.

His father’s squinted black eyes followed Chris’s progress down the hill, watched him tap in the password into the keypad and scrabble through the wrought-iron gates. Chris jogged down the stone pathway to the verandah, the stones hot from sizzling in the sun and nearly burning the skin on his feet.

He stopped in front of his father, looking up at him expectantly. Christopher Sr. took Chris by the shoulder and looked him up and down, a frown making pucker lines appear on both sides of his mouth. Chris blushed though it was fairly unnoticeable on his sun kissed, dirty face.

“You could’ve had the decency to put on a shirt and shoes,” Christopher Sr. said. “And brush your hair.” He reached over and scratched some caked mud off Chris’s forehead. “And wash your face.”

Chris looked down.

“Ah, well, no time for that now I guess.”

“Is that Christopher?”

The voice came from behind Chris’s father, inside the villa. Christopher Sr. turned around and bellowed, “Yes, it’s him, dear.”

Dear. Then that must have been Margaret Dumberkew herself. Chris had met her before, but that didn’t stop him from being nervous. Margaret Dumberkew was the widowed wife of Reagan Dumberkew, a late explorer. The island Chris stood on was in fact named after him: Dumberkew.

There was a click-click-click of heels on tile and then Margaret Dumberkew appeared beside Christopher Sr. in the doorway. Her hair was rolled up in massive curlers and looked like hollow wheels of blonde atop her head, and she clutched the top of a towel which was wrapped around her body.

Chris stiffened, half resisting the urge to bow or salute, half bracing himself for the disapproving glare from a late hero’s wife.

It never came.

Margaret’s face opened up with a gigantic Barbie smile, like a mountain cracking straight down the middle into a shining gorge of white teeth.

“Christopher Junior,” she said, taking Chris’s hand and shaking it vigorously. “How are you? Come in!”

Christopher Sr. stepped into the villa to allow room for Margaret, with Chris in tow, to squeeze through.

The inside of the villa made Chris feel as though he was standing in a great church with floors of polished tile and a high roof with ceiling fans and an indoor balcony. Chris felt tiny, miniscule, a speck. At his home, he could reach up and touch the ceiling, palm flat. He liked the sense of claustrophobia in the back of his mind as he walked in. There he only got the sense of a flea drifting through space, only with more air freshener and lemony-smelling cleaner polluting the air.

Margaret turned her pearly toothed smile back to Chris. “I would ask you to remove your shoes if they were muddy, but looks like you’re already ahead of me.”

Chris looked at his feet and blushed again.

Margaret laughed softly. “Well, wipe your feet on the mat and follow me.”

Hastily, Chris wiped off some of the dirt that clung to the soles of his feet and padded after Margaret and Christopher Sr., his sweaty feet making little Velcro noises on the tiles along with the slap of his heels.

Margaret led him to the kitchen and pulled out a chair from a massive table. Chris sat down hesitantly. Across from him sat Sally Dumberkew, Margaret’s daughter. Reagan’s daughter. Reagan Dumberkew. Chris felt as if he were in the presence of royalty.

Sally beamed at him. “Hello, Christopher,” she said.

Chris half-smiled back.

“No shirt, no shoes, no service.”

Chris looked to her, aghast. Sally burst out in good-humored laughter. “It was a joke, Chris!” she said. “Loosen up!”

Chris was wondering what to say in response when Christopher Sr. clapped his meaty hands together with a noise that reverberated through the spacious kitchen, causing the attendants and private chef alike to jump out of their skin and fumble the dishes they carries. The chef shot Christopher Sr. a loathing glare. Christopher Sr. promptly ignored it.

“Alright,” he said. “I have an announcement to make.”

Sally leaned forward in her seat. Chris didn’t move at all.

Margaret’s grin broadened and she twined her fingers with Christopher Sr.’s.

“We’re getting married!”

Sally let out a happy squeal and leapt from her seat, the fringe of her floppy thatch hat bobbing up and down and her skirt rustling noisily. “That’s wonderful! Congratulations!”

Chris didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. He just sat and stared blankly ahead.

Margaret stopped smiling. “Christopher?”

He still didn’t move. He felt rooted to his seat like a plant that grew around a pot.

“Chris?”

Chris looked up, blinked. “Ok.”

Again, Christopher Sr. placed a hand on Chris’s shoulder. His voice lowered sympathetically. “Son, I know this is sudden…”

Chris shrugged him off. “I’m not mad,” he said. His voice was level but emotionless. “Why would I be mad?”

“It’s hard to tell,” Christopher Sr. said, giving Chris an apologetic glance. “You don’t really say much.”

Sure he didn’t say much. He got beat up and he didn’t say much. He had his fist kiss and didn’t say much. He was jealous when his first girlfriend was lost to someone better than him and he didn’t say much. He could have won or lost a million dollars and not say anything at all. Not one word. Not one smile, tear, whoop, scream. Inside he could be feeling anything, everything, nothing. But he wouldn’t say much.

“I know I don’t,” he said simply. That doesn’t mean I’m not thinking anything.

Inside, he honestly didn’t know what he was feeling, be it anger or joy. Perhaps he was perplexed, surprised. Him? A Dumberkew? He wasn’t worthy of being a Dumberkew, or being related to a Dumberkew. He was a Greene. Would Margaret and Sally become Greene’s too?

Christopher Sr. shifted uncomfortably. “We’ve been dating a long time now, and we just thought…” He scratched his head, pressed his lips together. “I thought…”

Chris shot him a look. Shut up, I’m thinking. “I know.”

“This is good,” Sally said, a bit warily. “This is a good thing. …right?”

“Right,” Margaret said.

“Right,” said Christopher Sr.

“Ok,” said Chris, and he stood up and walked out of the kitchen. It would have been a more dramatic departure if the chef hadn’t seen him without a shirt on and started freaking out about a “half-naked ruffian in my kitchen!” and dropped his dishes for a second time. Chris scrambled through the door.

Five minutes later he was walking through the woods that fringed the valley, parting the thorns and foliage with his calloused hands. He needed some time alone to let his thoughts settle, so he plopped himself down in a clearing and let them do just that.

His thoughts were mostly confusing, but eventually the realization dawned on him.

I am going to be a Dumberkew.

Not a Greene. A Dumberkew. Was that good? He thought it was. It was an overpowering feeling. He smiled, as if he was among his favorite willow tree in his garden.

Chris Dumberkew. Christopher Junior Dumberkew. Christopher Junior Alastair Dumberkew. It did, he mused, have a sort of harmonic quality to it.

Would he be known as a hero, too, for being related to Reagan’s wife and only daughter? The thought broadened his smile.

Yes Sally, he thought, this is a very good thing.