“There’s something Peter would’ve wanted you to have.” Cyrus gestured at the desk.
Splayed across it was a collage of my cousin’s personality—animal bones, a handful of stolen watches. His knife blades gleamed; his textbooks were in disrepair. The rabbit’s foot from his successful, extravagant mors curae was still on its keychain, the fur ragged from years in his pocket. In the center of the mess were his climbing gloves and chalk bag.
“You must see what I mean,” Cyrus said. He took two steps toward the desk. When he turned back to me, a leather-sheathed knife was in his hand.
“Ziggy,” I said.
“So you remember.”
“Yes.” Ziggy was absurdly large for a throwing knife: a ten-inch blade, two inches wide, impossible to carry hidden. Bad throws had dented its crossbar, scuffed its rosewood handle. But Peter had loved the sumptuous scimitar curve, the way it splintered plywood targets.
Throwing knives are impractical, with a tendency to bounce and break. As weapons, they are pure theater.
Ziggy was an opera.
“You taught him so much,” Cyrus said.
Not enough. “He was a dedicated student. He’d throw until his arm gave out, then keep going with his left.”
“You were his savior.” Cyrus extended the knife toward me, sheath first. “Please.”
“Thank you,” I said, reaching out. But when I took hold of the sheath, Cyrus pulled back, drawing the knife.
Now he had a naked blade, and I had a piece of leather. I was also sitting down, an unwieldy box on my lap, a skein of wraps tangling my left hand. Always first with the mind.
“Uncle Cyrus.”
“Do you remember his riddles?” he asked, eyes bright. “The silly ones, when he was small?”
Beside me was a pair of boxing gloves. On the wall a recurve crossbow—unloaded—and a machete. A half dozen of Peter’s smaller throwing knives lay on the desk, unsheathed and ready, but my uncle was between me and them.
Words were my best option.
“He loved tricking people. Riddles are the only way a little kid can trick an adult.”
“There was one about falling,” Cyrus said.
I shook my head.
“He must’ve told it a thousand times.” The unwavering knife was level with my throat. “It went, ‘Why did the blind man fall down the well?’ ”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you figure it out?”
A well, a blind man. Not much to work with.
But the meaning was clear—I’d led Peter, unseeing, to his death.
“I don’t remember.”
“That’s the problem with riddles,” Cyrus said. “It’s not like digging a grave, where all it takes is enough shovelfuls of dirt. You either see a riddle’s answer all at once, or you’ve got nothing.”
I had nothing—except another of Peter’s riddles buzzing in my head:
Why did I bury my flashlight?
Because the batteries were dead.