Sleeping Soldier Saturday, Chapter 2
Jul. 22nd, 2023 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerOnward in The Sleeping Soldier! The book is set to release on August 7 (preorder here), so we'll get through chapter 4 before then.
***
Caleb O’Connor first discovered the Schloss in October of his freshman year at Hawkins. His girlfriend Carol found a book in the library called Victorian Mourning Art, packed with photographs of dead babies (“Sleeping Beauties,” the caption intoned) and sunbursts woven of human hair.
There was also a photograph of a life-size waxwork: the Union soldier Russell Krause, so perfectly sculpted that he looked, at least in that black-and-white photograph, like a man asleep. His Civil War kepi perched on his curly dark hair. Thick dark eyebrows, round boyish cheeks, sweet soft lips that might easily part under the impress of a kiss.
“That’s right here in town,” Carol said, and Caleb jumped. He had forgotten that she was there, that there was anything in the world except the photograph of that beautiful boy. “See,” she said, and read aloud the caption: “This exquisite waxwork gave rise to the pretty legend that it was not a waxwork at all, but the boy himself, cursed to lie in an enchanted sleep that would last for a hundred years, unless he was awakened by a kiss of true love. It lies in state in Russell Krause’s childhood bedroom in the Schloss, high on a hill overlooking the Wabash in Aurora, Indiana.”
And there, on the facing page, was a photograph of the Schloss, with the street address underneath. “That house must be just up the hill behind Riley,” Caleb said, and then, with an effort, he grinned at Carol. “We ought to break in for Halloween. You could kiss him and see if he wakes up.”
“Oooh!” she said, and shuddered deliciously, and kissed Caleb. And he tried not to worry why her kiss didn’t thrill him like the photograph.
Of course they didn’t break in. But they stood a long time at the wrought iron fence gazing in at the Schloss: an enchanted palace, with the last few climbing roses peeping out among ivy turned scarlet with autumn.
They went back often. They both loved old things, old books, old houses, and this Gothic brick pile with its black fence and hexagonal tower fired their imaginations. It was ghostly in the moonlight at Halloween; soft in the first snowfall after they returned from Thanksgiving break. As the snow grew old and tired, the Schloss grew grim and brooding; and then the snow melted, and the ivy turned green, and the house looked almost friendly when the windows gleamed gold in the reflected sunset.
The roses were in bud when Carol first tried to break up with Caleb. “I think really we’re just good friends,” she said. “Don’t you? And we’ve been dating because people think that men and women have to be in love, if they’re good friends. Don’t you think so?”
“No! I love you!” Caleb cried, panicked, kissing her with a passion of terror, because if he couldn’t love Carol, then he would never fall in love with any girl.
He clung to her. By the time the buds swelled into bloom, their friendship was as dead as their romance had always been.
But even as he clung to Carol, even as he swore to himself he loved her, Caleb pursued a summer job in Chicago. Cities, he knew, were the place to meet other men like him. Even in his own mind he couldn’t bring himself to put it more clearly than that.
Caleb’s first week in Chicago, Jeremy picked him up. “Care for a light?” he asked. Caleb rarely smoked, but he did carry a lighter, and Jeremy’s fingers brushed Caleb’s as Jeremy held his cigarette to the flame…
He introduced Caleb to all his friends, Francis and Jeb and most of all Michael. All summer Caleb could talk about his homosexuality, the secret that had almost crushed him as he tried to keep it even from himself.
Then, at the end of the summer, he went home to Lafayette for a week to see his older brother Billy, home on leave before he shipped out to Korea. (Caleb’s sister Susie was there too, of course, but she was always there: she and her husband lived just a couple blocks from Caleb’s parents.)
Caleb’s family asked about his summer—and he could tell them nothing at all. He couldn’t say anything about Jeremy, about Michael, anything at all the things that he had learned about himself, everything that he hoped and feared for the future, because what he feared most of all was that they would learn he was a homosexual, and he would lose them.
His loneliness redoubled once he was back at Hawkins. In his freshman year, he had been so much taken up with Carol that he had neglected to make other friends. And now, of course, she was not speaking to him.
And it was hard, anyway, to force himself to make friends who would reject him if they ever found out who he truly was.
When Christmas break came, Caleb stayed on campus to help shift the books to the new library. It was a chance to make much-needed cash—and to avoid his family. He went to Lafayette for the briefest flying visit over Christmas, returned on December 26th, and thought with relief that he would have the campus to himself for a couple of days. It was less painful to be alone in solitude than when surrounded by people.
Caleb checked his mailbox in passing. That was where he found Michael’s Christmas present, wrapped in brown paper and twine. He carried it up to his room, and discovered a short cheery letter from Michael and a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.
Of its own accord, as if the previous owner had often opened the book to these words, it fell open to one of Caleb’s favorite passages.
… the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness of the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
and his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.
Caleb, to his own mortification, began to cry.
He wished he could go to Chicago. He wished he was anywhere but here, in this little dorm room that he usually loved, in this empty building on this empty campus where he was all alone.
He snapped the book shut and hid it in his suitcase with Brideshead Revisited. Then he shoved his suitcase under his bed and put on his coat and escaped down a side staircase, because he didn’t want to risk running into Gerald the residence hall director at the front desk.
At first he walked at random, head down and shoulders hunched against the cold. He came without design to the wrought-iron fence of the Schloss, which loomed up dark from the snow, and with the split-second impulsive stupidity of misery, he decided that he would try to break in.
Well—not break in, exactly. In high school, Caleb and his next door neighbor Greg used to sneak into abandoned houses, and they only went in if they found a window unlatched, a door unlocked, a key under a flowerpot. “Because then it’s just trespassing, see?” Greg explained. “And that’s just a misdemeanor.”
Whether this was true or not, Caleb didn’t know. He would have followed Greg anywhere, regardless.
He didn’t really intend to trespass in the Schloss. He would just try the front gate, and it would probably be locked, and that would be the end of it, and…
With a shriek the gate swung open.
Caleb stopped in the open gateway, his heart pounding. He stood a few moments, his breath smoky in the cold air, and then walked into the tangled yard.
Down the front path. Up the front steps. The wood creaked ominously under his feet, but it seemed sturdy, not swaybacked or spongy like some of the steps he had climbed with Greg. The fan-shaped transom window reflected the dim spots of the streetlamps halfway down the hill.
He tried the doorknob. The front door swung open with a screech.
Again Caleb stopped, breathing in the musty air. It didn’t smell bad, only old, and stagnant, and cold.
He stepped inside, and closed the door behind him, his heart beating and his eyes wide. His vision slowly adjusted to the dimness of the hall, lit only by the moonlight through the transom.
Even in that dim light—perhaps especially in that dim light—it was beautiful. Black and white tiled floor, high soaring ceiling, grand staircase with a richly carved railing with a naked nymph for a newel post. Those prudish Victorians sure liked to stick naked statues everywhere…
The stairs creaked.
Caleb froze. Old houses creak, he told himself, and swallowed, and lifted his eyes slowly to look up the stairs.
A sound cracked out like a gunshot. Caleb leaped back and crashed against the wall, flattening himself there with his eyes fixed on the stairs.
Boots: that was all he could see at first, tall dark boots at the top of the stairs. The boots descended, step by crashing step, bringing into view light blue pants, then the hem of a dark blue coat.
A riding crop snapped against the thigh. To Caleb, pressed paralyzed against the wall, the sound of the snap seemed to trail the sight, like thunder after lightning.
A wide belt, with a revolver at the hip. Shining buttons all up the front of the coat. Broad shoulders, a round boyish face, the black brows snapped together in a fierce frown. A kepi perched on curly black hair.
It isn’t, Caleb thought. It can’t be…
Again Russell Krause snapped the riding crop against his thigh. “And what,” he asked, “is a tramp like yourself doing in my father’s house?”
***
Caleb O’Connor first discovered the Schloss in October of his freshman year at Hawkins. His girlfriend Carol found a book in the library called Victorian Mourning Art, packed with photographs of dead babies (“Sleeping Beauties,” the caption intoned) and sunbursts woven of human hair.
There was also a photograph of a life-size waxwork: the Union soldier Russell Krause, so perfectly sculpted that he looked, at least in that black-and-white photograph, like a man asleep. His Civil War kepi perched on his curly dark hair. Thick dark eyebrows, round boyish cheeks, sweet soft lips that might easily part under the impress of a kiss.
“That’s right here in town,” Carol said, and Caleb jumped. He had forgotten that she was there, that there was anything in the world except the photograph of that beautiful boy. “See,” she said, and read aloud the caption: “This exquisite waxwork gave rise to the pretty legend that it was not a waxwork at all, but the boy himself, cursed to lie in an enchanted sleep that would last for a hundred years, unless he was awakened by a kiss of true love. It lies in state in Russell Krause’s childhood bedroom in the Schloss, high on a hill overlooking the Wabash in Aurora, Indiana.”
And there, on the facing page, was a photograph of the Schloss, with the street address underneath. “That house must be just up the hill behind Riley,” Caleb said, and then, with an effort, he grinned at Carol. “We ought to break in for Halloween. You could kiss him and see if he wakes up.”
“Oooh!” she said, and shuddered deliciously, and kissed Caleb. And he tried not to worry why her kiss didn’t thrill him like the photograph.
Of course they didn’t break in. But they stood a long time at the wrought iron fence gazing in at the Schloss: an enchanted palace, with the last few climbing roses peeping out among ivy turned scarlet with autumn.
They went back often. They both loved old things, old books, old houses, and this Gothic brick pile with its black fence and hexagonal tower fired their imaginations. It was ghostly in the moonlight at Halloween; soft in the first snowfall after they returned from Thanksgiving break. As the snow grew old and tired, the Schloss grew grim and brooding; and then the snow melted, and the ivy turned green, and the house looked almost friendly when the windows gleamed gold in the reflected sunset.
The roses were in bud when Carol first tried to break up with Caleb. “I think really we’re just good friends,” she said. “Don’t you? And we’ve been dating because people think that men and women have to be in love, if they’re good friends. Don’t you think so?”
“No! I love you!” Caleb cried, panicked, kissing her with a passion of terror, because if he couldn’t love Carol, then he would never fall in love with any girl.
He clung to her. By the time the buds swelled into bloom, their friendship was as dead as their romance had always been.
But even as he clung to Carol, even as he swore to himself he loved her, Caleb pursued a summer job in Chicago. Cities, he knew, were the place to meet other men like him. Even in his own mind he couldn’t bring himself to put it more clearly than that.
Caleb’s first week in Chicago, Jeremy picked him up. “Care for a light?” he asked. Caleb rarely smoked, but he did carry a lighter, and Jeremy’s fingers brushed Caleb’s as Jeremy held his cigarette to the flame…
He introduced Caleb to all his friends, Francis and Jeb and most of all Michael. All summer Caleb could talk about his homosexuality, the secret that had almost crushed him as he tried to keep it even from himself.
Then, at the end of the summer, he went home to Lafayette for a week to see his older brother Billy, home on leave before he shipped out to Korea. (Caleb’s sister Susie was there too, of course, but she was always there: she and her husband lived just a couple blocks from Caleb’s parents.)
Caleb’s family asked about his summer—and he could tell them nothing at all. He couldn’t say anything about Jeremy, about Michael, anything at all the things that he had learned about himself, everything that he hoped and feared for the future, because what he feared most of all was that they would learn he was a homosexual, and he would lose them.
His loneliness redoubled once he was back at Hawkins. In his freshman year, he had been so much taken up with Carol that he had neglected to make other friends. And now, of course, she was not speaking to him.
And it was hard, anyway, to force himself to make friends who would reject him if they ever found out who he truly was.
When Christmas break came, Caleb stayed on campus to help shift the books to the new library. It was a chance to make much-needed cash—and to avoid his family. He went to Lafayette for the briefest flying visit over Christmas, returned on December 26th, and thought with relief that he would have the campus to himself for a couple of days. It was less painful to be alone in solitude than when surrounded by people.
Caleb checked his mailbox in passing. That was where he found Michael’s Christmas present, wrapped in brown paper and twine. He carried it up to his room, and discovered a short cheery letter from Michael and a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.
Of its own accord, as if the previous owner had often opened the book to these words, it fell open to one of Caleb’s favorite passages.
… the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness of the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
and his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.
Caleb, to his own mortification, began to cry.
He wished he could go to Chicago. He wished he was anywhere but here, in this little dorm room that he usually loved, in this empty building on this empty campus where he was all alone.
He snapped the book shut and hid it in his suitcase with Brideshead Revisited. Then he shoved his suitcase under his bed and put on his coat and escaped down a side staircase, because he didn’t want to risk running into Gerald the residence hall director at the front desk.
At first he walked at random, head down and shoulders hunched against the cold. He came without design to the wrought-iron fence of the Schloss, which loomed up dark from the snow, and with the split-second impulsive stupidity of misery, he decided that he would try to break in.
Well—not break in, exactly. In high school, Caleb and his next door neighbor Greg used to sneak into abandoned houses, and they only went in if they found a window unlatched, a door unlocked, a key under a flowerpot. “Because then it’s just trespassing, see?” Greg explained. “And that’s just a misdemeanor.”
Whether this was true or not, Caleb didn’t know. He would have followed Greg anywhere, regardless.
He didn’t really intend to trespass in the Schloss. He would just try the front gate, and it would probably be locked, and that would be the end of it, and…
With a shriek the gate swung open.
Caleb stopped in the open gateway, his heart pounding. He stood a few moments, his breath smoky in the cold air, and then walked into the tangled yard.
Down the front path. Up the front steps. The wood creaked ominously under his feet, but it seemed sturdy, not swaybacked or spongy like some of the steps he had climbed with Greg. The fan-shaped transom window reflected the dim spots of the streetlamps halfway down the hill.
He tried the doorknob. The front door swung open with a screech.
Again Caleb stopped, breathing in the musty air. It didn’t smell bad, only old, and stagnant, and cold.
He stepped inside, and closed the door behind him, his heart beating and his eyes wide. His vision slowly adjusted to the dimness of the hall, lit only by the moonlight through the transom.
Even in that dim light—perhaps especially in that dim light—it was beautiful. Black and white tiled floor, high soaring ceiling, grand staircase with a richly carved railing with a naked nymph for a newel post. Those prudish Victorians sure liked to stick naked statues everywhere…
The stairs creaked.
Caleb froze. Old houses creak, he told himself, and swallowed, and lifted his eyes slowly to look up the stairs.
A sound cracked out like a gunshot. Caleb leaped back and crashed against the wall, flattening himself there with his eyes fixed on the stairs.
Boots: that was all he could see at first, tall dark boots at the top of the stairs. The boots descended, step by crashing step, bringing into view light blue pants, then the hem of a dark blue coat.
A riding crop snapped against the thigh. To Caleb, pressed paralyzed against the wall, the sound of the snap seemed to trail the sight, like thunder after lightning.
A wide belt, with a revolver at the hip. Shining buttons all up the front of the coat. Broad shoulders, a round boyish face, the black brows snapped together in a fierce frown. A kepi perched on curly black hair.
It isn’t, Caleb thought. It can’t be…
Again Russell Krause snapped the riding crop against his thigh. “And what,” he asked, “is a tramp like yourself doing in my father’s house?”
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Date: 2023-07-23 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-24 05:24 pm (UTC)