Chapter 1
Tobal awoke in the hospital confused and groggy. His muscles ached from being in bed too long. He did not know where he was or what had happened. Gradually memory returned. He groaned and reached his right hand up to touch his face. He felt his entire face covered with gauze and panic began to grip him. Everything was black and he couldn’t see. Desperately he tried sitting up and was reaching up with both hands to rip off the gauze when he felt an arm pushing him gently but firmly back down as an alarm started going off somewhere on his left.
“Take it easy son,” Uncle Harry said pressing him back down into the bed. “You’ve got to rest. You’ve gone through a rough time boy.”
“What happened?” Tobal asked weakly.
“Some young lady almost gouged your eye out,” chuckled his uncle dryly. “She scratched the hell out of your face. Peeled it like an apple. Doc says you are going to have some nasty scars. How did you get her that mad at you anyway?”
“I don’t remember,” Tobal whispered. A flush of heat and embarrassment crept into his face as memory returned, tightening his skin and causing a burst of pain to flash across his face. “I was dancing and bumped into her, then I turned around and her dress tore. The next thing I remember is her clawing at me like a wild animal.”
“I can’t see!” He panicked clutching and tearing at the bandages.
His uncle calmed him down once more pulling his hands away from his face and the bandages.
“Well, it’s the bandages, that’s why you can’t see,” his uncle continued, “there was something on her fingernails, to strengthen them or something and they peeled away some of your skin. We don’t know why but it’s raising hell with the healing process. The doc tried pulling the skin back together and sewing you up but there will be some scarring. It’s going to be awhile before you get healed up. Don’t worry about it, doc says your eye is going to be fine, but it was a close thing and he doesn’t want any infection setting in. You rest now, just lay back and sleep a little more. We’ll talk about it later OK?”
Tobal heard someone move near his uncle and felt something tug at his arm as the nurse injected something into the IV tube fastened to his wrist. He felt a wave of dizziness sweep over him and barely heard the creak of his uncle’s wheelchair as it left the room.
He awoke to the smell of violets in the room.
“It’s about time you woke up,” came Fi’s cheery voice from the edge of the bed.
He moved his head cautiously and opened his left eye. Fi was sitting in a chair near the hospital window. She set down the magazine she had been reading and moved closer.
“How are you doing,” she asked in a concerned tone? “I’ve really been worried about you.”
She reached out and gently touched his arm. He pulled it away. Fi was the last person he wanted to see right now.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I just woke up.”
He looked around the room for the first time. There were flowers and get well cards. The room felt hot and made his skin itch.
“Is my uncle here?” He asked in a more friendly tone and tried to smile but winced instead.
“Oh,” her hand involuntarily leapt to her mouth. “Are you alright?” She rose out of the chair and came toward the bed with her arms out to enfold him in a hug.
He roughly pushed her away, feeling a pang in his chest and a burning in his eyes.
“I’m fine,” he said bitterly. “I just want to be left alone, ok?”
There was a hurt and wounded look in her eyes and the beginning of tears.
“Can I come back later then?” She pleaded. “I’m really sorry about what happened. I came yesterday but you were in surgery and then sleeping. Maybe I can come over to your Uncle’s and we can talk.” She smiled bravely.
“Uncle Harry doesn’t like visitors.” He lied weakly. “Maybe we can get together back at school after Christmas break. How does that sound?”
“Sure, back at school,” she said softly and reached for her purse. Tobal didn’t see the tears in her eyes or hear the break in her voice as she turned away. “Take care of yourself Tobal.”
He watched as she left the room. All he knew was that he wanted to be left alone. It never occurred to him how rude he was being until much later and then it was too late. He never saw Fiona again. He never even said goodbye.
A few hours later Uncle Harry came and took him home to the estate. In the weeks that followed he got cards, letters and emails from his friends and schoolmates, invitations to parties and dances. He threw them all away without bothering to even look at them. It was vain and shallow but he had always depended on his looks. Now he felt afraid and unsure of himself. He didn’t know how his friends would react when they saw him. He hadn’t seen his own face yet and he was not sure that he wanted to.
Thanksgiving came and went. There was no real celebration in the Kane household unless it was a private celebration held by the staff. His uncle was an embittered cripple and widower confined to a wheelchair. It was only Tobal’s injury and depression that prompted his uncle’s apparent interest now.
Tobal knew that it would not last. Uncle Harry was his only living relative. His parents were dead and he had no brothers or sisters. There was a time he had felt much closer to his uncle but that was long ago. It seemed Uncle Harry was as preoccupied as Tobal was.
“I don’t understand what the Federation wants with a cripple,” he snarled at dinner.
Lt. Col. Harry Kane was being re-activated and he was not happy about it. “I need to go away for a few days and see what they want. Can you handle things around here by yourself? Maybe you could have some friends over. How bout that girl friend of yours?”
Tobal squirmed uncomfortably and felt his face flush with heat. “We, ah, broke up,” he said lamely.
His uncle snorted in disgust. “Well suit yourself.” He turned and wheeled himself out of the room. “I’ve got to get ready.”
Three days later his uncle returned and Tobal hardly recognized him. Overnight his uncle looked ten years older. His shoulders were more stooped and bags had formed under his eyes giving him a haunted look. It didn’t take long to realize his uncle was avoiding him. The tension in the house was unbearable.
Other times Tobal tried to deliberately avoid his uncle. As the days passed he never knew if his uncle was in the house or called away on some important military business and he hardly cared. They had never been that close. His only curiosity over the years had been how a simple Federation Officer had managed the nearly impossible feat of enrolling him in Tavistock Educational.
One day he asked his uncle at dinner about it. “It was what your parents would have wanted,” was all uncle Harry would say. Tobal never knew if his parents had moved in such high circles or if it was his uncle. It never seemed important before. He didn’t know why it seemed so important now. All he knew was he didn’t want to go back.
He dreaded the coming of Christmas because it marked his return to school. That was his truth. The weeks passed with several trips to the doctor and still he was not allowed to see his face or remove the bandages on his own. There seemed to be some problem with the healing process although he was told there was nothing to worry about.
It didn’t seem right and he worried about it. He took long walks in the bitter cold to get his mind off things. His uncle’s estate was just a few clicks north of New Rome. New Rome was a city-state in what had once been central Minnesota. It was an area with many lakes and lots of privacy. The privacy came with a big price tag. Again Tobal wondered at the source of his uncle’s obvious wealth.
This time of year the lake was frozen over and he took long walks on the snow and ice. Bundling up against the bitter cold wind helped him forget his face was covered with bandages. Feeling the painful cold in his fingers helped him forget the painful lacerations on his face. With his uncle gone most of the time he was pretty much left to his own devices and he liked being outdoors.
There was something fresh and clean about being alone and outdoors that gave him comfort. The ice and snow crunched loudly under his boots and the sun glared brightly. Today there were sun dogs on either side of the sun with a rainbow arch partly visible. His breath came out in clouds and burned a bit in his lungs. He turned off the lake and headed toward the stables. He had been spending a lot of time there lately and liked working with the horses. They were better company than his old friends were and they didn’t care about how he looked.
As Tobal moved away from human contact he turned more and more to the silent companionship of animals and nature. If his uncle noticed he never said anything and neither did any of the staff.
By Christmas Eve he was fretting and fingering the bandages on his face, itching to tear them off. He’d been instructed to leave them on one final week and today was the day they came off. With trembling fingers he went into the bathroom, found surgical scissors and began cutting the layers of gauze away from his face. He was tired of looking like a mummy. The gauze wanted to stick to his skin and he felt pain as he gently tugged at it, lifting the last of it carefully off his right eye. The bright bathroom light stabbed into his eye and sharp blinding pain flashed through his head.
He closed his eyes against the pain and waited until it faded away. His fingers touched the newly healed skin and he carefully opened his eyes and looked into the mirror.
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