PAGE 1
P1WIDE, the cabin porch.
Snow falling on the beat. The fire in the window. The crew round the steps, very quiet. Vigolas standing in front of Kompis, who is sitting on the step with Mingus.
(No balloon.)
P2CLOSE, Vigolas
his mouth working.
VIGOLAS
…Say it. · · Your name. · Just say it, and it'll—
PAGE 2
P3CLOSE, Kompis
gently.
(Drawn as a black bar in Kompis's balloon. Not barred: just not landing where Vigolas is.)
P4CLOSE, Vigolas
staring at him. The word arriving. And sliding off, like water off oilskin. He heard it. It's gone.
VIGOLASwhite
…I heard it. · · I heard you say it. · · And it's gone.
PAGE 3
P5CLOSE, Levla
on the porch rail, very quiet, knowing this exactly.
LEVLA
…Like being told. · · On Skatt. · · What's taken that way doesn't stick when someone tells it back. · · It just slides right off you.
P6CLOSE, Vigolas
rounding on him.
VIGOLAS
…Then sell it me! · · Put a price on it! · I'll pay—
LEVLAvery gently
…It wasn't sold, captain. · · It was spent.
PAGE 4
P7CLOSE, Vigolas
grabbing a stick of Emma's chalk off the porch, writing on the boards, fast: big letters.
VIGOLAS
…Write it. · Somebody write it for me.
P8CLOSE, the porch boards.
Emma has written it in chalk, carefully, in capitals. And Vigolas looking at it, and the letters swimming: not changing on the board, but not holding in his eyes, sliding off his sight like a word in a dream.
VIGOLASbarely audible
…I can see there's letters. · · I can't read them.
PAGE 5
P9CLOSE, Vigolas
sitting down hard on the porch, his back against the cabin wall, his hands in his hair.
VIGOLAS
…Seven lives. · · I lost my ship's name. · My mother's face. · Something small at the Great Root, I still don't know what. · The taste of the sea. · · I never minded. · · Not really.
P10CLOSE, Vigolas
looking across at the boy on the step.
PAGE 6
P11CLOSE, Kompis
getting up off the step, Mingus padding after him, coming to sit down on the boards beside Vigolas, shoulder to shoulder against the cabin wall.
P12CLOSE, Kompis
a small smile.
KOMPIS
…You is fine. · · You've called me worse.
PAGES 7–8 — SPLASH
P13SPLASH (double page). EVERYTHING BUT ONE WORD.
The porch of the cabin in Heartbeat, snow falling on the beat, gold window. Two men sitting side by side against the log wall, a golden dog across both their laps.
And all round them, drawn as soft ghost-panels in the falling snow, everything Vigolas still remembers about the man beside him, every one of them perfect and whole: a spy on a black-sand beach on the first day, choosing him · a boy with a nosebleed holding a thread · a gun-boy on his knees in a burning village · Bror's first shot · the Knot tied round a star · a boy in the sea yelling a dog's name · a hand on his shoulder in Thanatos when everyone had fallen.
And in every single ghost-panel, wherever Vigolas's own mouth is shaping a name, the balloon is blank.
VIGOLASsmall, in the middle of it
…I remember everything. · · Everything but what to call you.
PAGE 9
P14CLOSE, Kompis
looking out at the snow.
KOMPIS
…Then you remember the important bit.
VIGOLAS
…The name's the important bit! · · It's the first word I keep! · · It's the one I say when—
P15CLOSE, Vigolas
stopping. His voice cracking.
VIGOLAS
…when I'm scared. · · When it's dark. · · I say your name and you come.
PAGE 10
P16CLOSE, Kompis
quiet for a long moment. Then his hand finding Vigolas's shoulder.
KOMPIS
…I'll come anyway. · · You don't have to say it. · · I'll just come.
P17CLOSE, Vigolas
his face crumpling, turning away so the crew won't see.
VIGOLASmuffled
…Don't be nice about it.
KOMPIS
…I'll be exactly as nice as I want.
PAGE 11
P18CLOSE, Rougeina
at the edge of the porch, arms folded, watching. Then speaking, low.
ROUGEINA
…I carry eight names nobody else can hold. · · Now you can't hold one everybody else can. · · It's the same hole, captain. · Just turned round.
P19CLOSE, Vigolas
looking at her.
VIGOLAS
…How do you stand it?
ROUGEINA
…Every day. · · Out loud. · · Whether it sticks or not.
PAGE 12
P20CLOSE, Isa
a beat late.
ISA
…Then say something. · · Every time. · · Even if it's "you".
VIGOLASa wet laugh
…"You." · · For the rest of my life?
P21CLOSE, Kompis
grinning sideways at him.
KOMPIS
…I've been called worse by you on a good day.
PAGE 13
P22CLOSE, Mingus
across both their laps, lifting his head, looking from one to the other. Then getting up. Walking to the cabin door. Sniffing at the gap under it. Then at the doorframe. Then looking up, at the empty dark hole in the lintel where a nail used to be. Whining.
P23WIDE, the porch.
Nagel, standing at the end of it in the snow, a gaunt iron man with a crack down his chest, looking at the dog looking at the empty hole. Then at the two men against the wall.
NAGELa long creak
…The dog sniffed. · · …Up.
PAGE 14
P24CLOSE, Nagel
creaking down the porch toward them, every step blackening the boards in a little ring.
NAGEL
…I've listened at that door a billion beats. · · Every night, by that fire. · · Him, saying it.
P25CLOSE, Vigolas
looking up at the iron man.
NAGEL
…The name. · · Over and over. · · To the dog, to the fire, to nobody. · Practising it, I think. · · Like it was his.
PAGE 15
P26CLOSE, Kompis
going still, turning very red.
KOMPIS
…I don't say my own name to a fire.
NAGEL
…You do. · · In the cabin, you do. · · Every beat it resets, a boy sits by that fire and says his name to the dog so he won't forget he has one.
P27CLOSE, Kompis
a hand over his mouth. Remembering the Nursery. Being a number. Being eight.
KOMPISbarely audible
…They took it, in the Nursery. · · I said it to him every night. · · So I wouldn't lose it.
PAGE 16
P28CLOSE, Vigolas
staring at Nagel.
VIGOLAS
…You can't put it back. · · You said. · You can't pin back what's gone.
P29CLOSE, Nagel
crouching in front of him, iron creaking, the firelight in his rivet-eyes.
NAGEL
…No. · · What the command took from you, I can't give back. · · That's yours. · It's gone.
PAGE 17 — THE HOOK
P30CLOSE, Nagel's hand
iron, flaking, lifting toward Vigolas's forehead. Stopping an inch away.
NAGEL
…But I heard it. · · A billion times. · · I've got it too.
P31FINAL PANEL, close on Nagel's face
a seam for a mouth, a dented flat head, snow on it, the firelight in his eyes steady.
NAGEL
…I can't give it back. · · · …I can give you mine.