It wasn’t uncommon for Julian to disappear for a few hours at a time. He usually timed it so that it was at a time when it wouldn’t be noticed, so he wouldn’t really be missed, but sometimes he underestimated how aware the people closest to him were. Or, sometimes they came home early from their own outings. Or sometimes they worried because he wasn’t texting back.

It wasn’t devious, it never was. Sometimes, Julian just wandered. On more than one occasion–though far less common now than it used to be–he’d pack up his violin and head out for a bit.

The attic had been noise proofed, for the most part, but ‘quiet’ didn’t mean ‘silent’, and that meant ‘too loud’.

Once, Julian had been very good at playing the violin.

He used to make music. Now, he just made noise.

These days, he couldn’t play the way he wanted to, and so the best thing he could do instead was spare the very full house the pain of shrill, screaming strings, and the jerky twangs volunteered by the involuntary twitch of his wrist.

When he was younger, he’d always appreciated the way he could tuck the violin under his chin, press it close to his throat, and let it speak for him. He’d said a lot of things back then, even if no one really heard them. What a shame that now he had something good to say, the violin could still only scream for him.

Of course he missed playing. It was second nature, even if the violin shrieked instead of sang, no matter how tenderly he tried to coax softness from the strings. Maybe it sounded pretty to someone else, but sounded wretched to him.

He thought the kindest thing to do was make sure that when he played–if he played–he did it far away from anyone’s ears. He’d found many places throughout the city, quiet and private, and tucked away from the rest of the world.

If Julian were going to play anything, he would have played there.

But, the violin stayed in its case, hidden away in his room, out of sight and nearly entirely unmoved for months.

Even if he hadn’t been looking for a place to play, he still wandered. Sometimes, Destiny City–but even that was less now, too.

Mostly, he went to Dering.

Over the summer, he’d made more time to visit. Now that school had started up again, his visits were more limited to the weekends. There wasn’t much to be said about it; if he came back after a few hours and someone asked where he’d been, he’d tell them.

He just never really had much more than that to report.

He went to his wonder. He didn’t really talk about what he did there, unless further prompted. Mostly, he tried to take care of it, but it wasn’t like there was a building to restore–it was just a forest. Even after all the time he’d been a Knight, he’d found next to nothing manmade there.

Stairs, a hidden passage, and two rooms–one full of old instruments, and one concealing the Code. In two and a half years, he’d made no more progress than that.

But, he wanted to.

Julian had a few things up on his wonder but he tried to keep little up there because the moisture was so bad. The fog was a near-constant presence, and Julian worried that the humidity might start damaging things. Nothing had been damaged–yet–but he worked very hard to keep things safe, even if it was extra effort. Most of his tools were in the underground tunnel, on the other side of the instrument room. He had a rake, a lopper, some shears. A shovel, though he’d hardly used that. A lot of biodegradable leaf bags.

In the absence of knowing what to do, Julian had stayed close to the secret entrance to the Code and worked from there. He didn’t know much about the natural state of forests but he’d researched. Leaf litter was supposed to be good, unless it was so dense that it wasn’t composting properly, in which case it was killing the chances for anything else to grow. The dense layer of leaves had a faint, earthy smell. And then, a foul, rotten one. The fog crawled over the worst of it, as if the Wonder was trying to hide its shame.

Julian just wanted to help.

The articles he’d read suggested removing the dense layer of fallen, rotting leaves, to give the soil a chance to breathe–so, Julian did that.

Most of the work he did on his Wonder was just that–bagging dead leaves and moving them somewhere else.

He often worked himself into exhaustion, but that was okay. The forest needed a lot of help. And, he hadn’t been a very good Knight at all, so he had a lot to make up for. Besides, whether it was here or at home, Julian was prone to spells of sleep. Naps–embarrassingly unplanned and entirely unpredictable–had become a frequent nuisance. In a single day he’d fallen asleep on the couch, at the dining room table, and even hunched over the kitchen counter while waiting for the microwave. And he’d done the same thing in different places the next day, and the one after, and so on.

At least on Dering he had an excuse to be tired.

His hands were blistered beneath the gloves, and that was okay, too. He wasn’t very good at cleaning, but he tried, and he endured, and he thought if he worked hard enough, one day it might be enough. Even when his body ached, he pushed through it. He knew it could handle the strain. It could handle a lot of things. It just needed guidance.

Julian did his best. Someone else probably could have done better.

But, slowly, the Wonder began to come to life. The fog was a little thinner in the areas he’d cleaned, but it receded so slowly that it didn’t feel like much of a success. The air smelled cleaner, though. Soft grass began to grow, and with it, tiny, white-flowered weeds.

It was a small victory for something that was endless labor. But, Julian was proud.

If anyone else had come up here and seen it, they wouldn’t have been impressed. It didn’t look like he’d done much of anything. The mountain of rotting leaves was the only testament to his labor, and he found that with each trip, that mountain seemed to shrink a little more.

He wasn’t sure what happened to the leaves. It’s not like there were animals here to eat them, or some secret magic to dissolve them. Julian wanted to think that, in its own way, it was Dering itself lending some aid.

Julian had resigned himself to wishful thinking. The Code still hadn’t spoken to him.

But that was okay. He understood why.

Nobody needed to say it out loud.

Julian kept going back, anyway.

He didn’t report on these conversations, if they could be called as much. He never said anything important. The Code never said anything at all.

It would have been more wasted breath.

But, that didn’t deter him. In the silence, Julian still tried to find purpose.

The bar was low, but it was still a hurdle. He jumped, like always. He didn’t always land on his feet. But he got up again, and he tried again.

Even if he didn’t have anything to show for it.

Well, except for a half-disappeared mountain of rotting leaves, and the slow start of a soft, grassy carpet.

And, the fog was a little less suffocating. Still cold, but it no longer felt like weak, wet hands pushing him away.

So, maybe that was progress, too.

It wasn’t like Julian would have known to stop if it weren’t. He’d never really known what was good for him.

Or what wasn’t.