The Gray House

by Mariam Petrosyan

  The place did indeed turn out to be useless. But there was something in it. Something unusual, mysterious, existing outside of reality. He stayed. Took a bed in the guesthouse, doing odd jobs and waiting. He knew something was going to happen.

  He spent six months there, making acquaintances with the local hobos, chatting up old crones at the market, and befriending stray cats infesting the guesthouse. The residents of the Roach Motel were of two sorts: temporary and permanent. The first kind they called tumbleweeds, the second, transients. All of them lived in the present day, never mentioning the past and never planning for the future. To have enough food on the plate for the night, that was the one and only goal worthy of their attention.

  He worked odd jobs all over the place. It was easier in the summer. He helped the photographer install the bulky cardboard backdrops, depicting sailboats and dolphins, on the river beach. Made bracelets from colored wire for the two sisters who then sold them among other trinkets on the same beach. In the mornings he raked the sand in front of the riverside diner before it opened.

  Autumn came, and the first downpours turned the river murky and wild. Trash overwhelmed the beach, the cafés and diners closed. There still were the gas station and the car wash, but they had enough help without him. He went there only rarely. They never let him into the repair shop. Neither him nor the other transients. Car parts were worth their weight in gold in Blackwood, so even the most run-down repair shops hired armed guards.

  He was surprised when one day these two guys from the repair shop turned up at the Roach Motel and asked for someone to help with a car. He was even more surprised by the reaction of the tenants. Some immediately made themselves scarce, others pretended they couldn’t hear or understand a single word. They marched him away before he could figure out what was going on.

  There was a black car in the yard behind the shop. The first decent-looking car he’d seen in the last six months. The first not appearing to be ready to fall apart right that moment. No dings, no dents, no stickers covering the rusty patches, no flaking paint. They said he was to wash it. Nothing more. The hose was right there on the ground. Also a bucket and two sponges.

  He knew he was in trouble even before he took a peek inside. The car wash was right around the corner. It was useless to ask why they couldn’t just drive the car over there. Useless straight off, and even more so after he saw what he saw. They helped him detach and haul out the seats. That was it. When he found a severed finger under one of the rubber mats, he didn’t try to hide it, just threw it in the bucket full of dirty water. For four hours straight he washed blood out of the car. He was sure they were going to kill him as soon as he finished.

  Later that night, back in the Roach Motel, Filthywings told him that his troubles were only beginning. And that he needed to disappear. He knew it himself.

  “Would you like me to darn your shirt?” Mockturtle asked. She was always kind to him.

  He gave away all of his belongings—the hotplate, the kettle, the warm coat he had won in a raffle. Picked up his backpack and left the Roach Motel. Its denizens, it seemed, breathed easier. Now they wouldn’t have to witness his death and be upset by it.

  When he put enough distance between himself and the guesthouse he sat on the low railing in front of some house and thought about what he was going to do next. His legs hurt. In fact, they were getting worse. He wasn’t going to get far on foot. Hitchhiking meant endangering other people who didn’t have anything to do with what happened. Buses were out for the same reason. Besides, their usefulness was very limited. They moved at a speed barely above that of a trotting horse. He could only wait. They had promised to pay him the next morning for washing the car. When he didn’t show up for his money they’d start looking for him, and the search wouldn’t take long.

  He knew that if he managed to survive this, he was going to remember it as an exciting adventure. Even though there wasn’t anything particularly exciting about his stay at the Roach Motel, and his daily quest for a paying gig wasn’t very adventurous either. Or was it? He tried to remember everything that seemed amazing to him here. Everything that was unusual.

  The talk of the Forest, for one. The first he heard about it was from a chatty drunken tumbleweed who spent one night at their place, wouldn’t shut up the whole time, and in the morning left him the hotplate and a compass before moving on.

  “You’ll need that, mate,” he said. “You could find yourself in the Forest at any time, and what are you gonna do then, huh? At least this way you’ll know which way is north.”

  The hotplate was now with the girl who had mended his shirt, but the compass was still in the backpack somewhere.

  The jokes about the Forest became commonplace for him after about a week at the Roach Motel. He had learned to ignore them. He had learned to ignore many things. The mushrooms that seemed to sprout in the dark corners overnight. The local rats, whistling as they ran by. The wondrously multicolored feathers that the somber guesthouse kids played with. “Who knows when you might end up in the Forest?”

  He closed his eyes and tried to end up there. The smell of the strange mushrooms, when they pried them off the walls, enveloped him. Was that how the Forest smelled? Black Forest. Blackwood.

  “If you are here, please come,” he said.

  “That’s not the way to call it,” someone said.

  He opened his eyes and sprang up in panic.

  It was pitch-dark. No streetlight, no illuminated windows of the house. Only the leaves, rustling and whispering. And also coolness. The air felt different, no city could have air like this, no town or village. The fear that took hold of him turned it chilly. How could he have wished to end up here? He hugged the backpack, thinking only of the coat that he’d so stupidly left back in the Roach Motel. So warm. To take the compass and leave the coat. What an idiot. What good would knowing which way was north do him now?

  He rummaged in the backpack, even though he knew that there was no coat there, no flashlight, not even a book of matches. He was doing it just to give himself something to do, to push away the panic. His fingers stumbled on the compass. He took it out, brought it closer to his eyes, and realized that he could see it. Not just the glowing needle, all of it, every last mark. He flipped open the notepad. In a way that was different than under sunlight, he could still somehow see the writing and, what’s more, read it. The Forest glowed. Not for everyone, only for those who could see in the dark. It appeared that he could.

  A giggle nearby spooked him. He turned around and then, unexpectedly for himself, tumbled into the grass and came back up three paces from where he had been standing, under the eaves of the nearest tree. He did it smoothly and instantaneously, in one fluid motion. Unconsciously. As soon as he leaned against the tree he forgot everything. It wasn’t just a warm safe place, more like an embrace. The tree embraced him like only a tree could, soothing, protecting, sharing its strength with him. He forgot to think about the invisible danger, giving himself fully to this feeling of oneness. As he pressed his face against the scratchy bark, he started crying.

  “Welcome home,” someone said.

  That someone came out from behind the next tree and stopped. He was wearing a T-shirt with Yellowstone Park written on it and smiling. Or maybe scowling. And he wasn’t entirely human. His eyes glinted green in the dark, like a dog’s.

  “Hello, Blind,” Noble said, recalling everything he had not been able to remember for the past six months. “How did you find me?”

  Blind laughed.

  “I didn’t. It was you who found me, you forgetful Jumper.”

  GINGER’S TALE

  She lived there too. In Blackwood. But she wasn’t staying at the Roach Motel all the time, oh no, you could keep that filthy hovel. Only forgetful Jumpers and total losers lived there, and she was neither, thank you very much. Blackwood was a dump, for sure, but it was clearly close to the border, otherwise she’d never have even shown her face there.

  She needed a guide.
Someone to tag after. Someone who’d help her cut the loose ends and go over completely, the proper way. She knew it was possible, and she also knew she couldn’t do it by herself. She wasn’t a complete flop, but she wasn’t quite at that level either.

  She worked at the eatery. At least she had enough food, and it was fairly decent. She washed dishes because she could swear at the dishes all day long and they wouldn’t mind. Objects are better than people that way. So she washed dishes, and the rest of the time she prowled around looking for a guide. Except she didn’t quite know what he was supposed to look like. Unfortunately.

  Which was how she stumbled upon the Grayfaces.

  That’s what everybody called them. Total creeps. They bleached their hair, wore mascara, and painted leaf-like patterns on their cheeks. The patterns were supposed to be green. Or maybe blue. Whatever, their creations looked like filth from a distance, so the name stuck. They dressed in the whitest shirts, black leather jackets, and blue jeans, horribly expensive, with buckles of their belts made, as some said, of platinum, but at the same time went around barefoot, and their feet were always dirty. They called themselves Forest Folk. Imagine that, those goblins and the Forest!

  But she shouldn’t have laughed at them. Grayfaces never forgave. They caught her, beat her up, and took her with them. They lived in one of the old mansions on the outskirts of town. The basement they made into a bowling alley. There was supposed to be billiards somewhere higher up too, and above that probably living space, but they never let her see it. Only the other girls were allowed there. Their own. The fake platinum blondes with prickly leaves on their cheeks.

  She didn’t like to recall the days she’d spent there. Very soon she started to doubt that she’d ever been brave or foolish enough to scoff at one of them to his face. Grayfaces made her forget how to scoff, how to swear. How to talk at all. But the most horrible thing they did was make her forget how to Jump. She was no longer a Jumper. She was robbed of the only thing she was ever proud of in her life, because a Jumper who retains memories is a rare beast indeed, and she was that beast until she ended up with the Grayfaces, who broke something inside her. It had been known to happen before. She’d heard the stories when she was still very little, scary tales of those who did not return, not because they didn’t want to but because they couldn’t, but once she herself became a Jumper she stopped believing in them. It was simply too easy when you knew how. Might as well believe that you could forget how to talk. Grayfaces made her wiser. She saw now that it was at any rate possible, either of those things and both of them. All she could do now was wait. Wait and clean up their puke for them. They threw up constantly, because the dope they were doing made their stomachs reject normal food. She would have most probably died there, because they didn’t give her much food either, but it so happened that one of their painted girlfriends decided to torch the house along with everyone in it. There was no damage to the basement, but the whole thing was distracting and Grayfaces let down their guard that night, so she was able to give them the slip.

  She went into hiding for ten days, until her face healed up. Then she stole some clothes. In a sheepskin vest, a flower-patterned skirt, and an idiotic wide-brimmed sun hat she looked like her grandmother. It was just what she needed, to look like someone else. She dyed her hair and went around in huge sunglasses, rounding out the disguise. Now all she required was money, and then she could get out of town.

  And that’s when she saw him. He was raking the sand on the beach in front of the diner. At seven in the morning. When she saw him she was speechless for a while. Not because he was so unbelievably beautiful; it’s just that he reminded her of Grayfaces. Or rather, the other way around. In that instant she understood who it was they were trying to emulate. And also how lousy they were at it. It came as a shock. The fact that they would use eye shadow and makeup pencils in hopes of becoming this. It was a point of particular glee for her that his hair wasn’t even white. And, of course, no leaves or flowers on his cheeks. But she did understand what they so desperately wanted when bleaching their hair and drawing the patterns. For the first time she did understand. When she saw a live elf.

  She was sitting on the jetty, her skirt fanned around her, feet in the water. He walked by, picking up debris left on the sand by the bathers. He only looked at her once. Violet eyes. They weren’t human. She knew then that those eyes could change color, from light gray to deep indigo.

  She froze, afraid that she might spook him, and her heart was beating like crazy until he moved far enough away to not feel her burning stare anymore. He had this strange walk. It was as if walking was unfamiliar or uncomfortable for him. Or maybe it even hurt his feet. He was wearing flip-flops and dragging the trash bag after him along the sand.

  Here he is. The guide, she thought. And trailed after him at a distance, afraid to lose sight of him.

  After a week of living in the Roach Motel next to him she learned that he didn’t remember who he was, wasn’t aware of any secret passages, and generally knew nothing about anything. He didn’t even notice that people were shunning him. She kept a tireless watch, but nothing came of it.

  His room smelled of forest. His mattress was stained by blobs of squashed berries. There was no dust in the corners, only dried leaves. Where he washed his face in the morning edible mushrooms sprouted by the afternoon, his windowsill was encrusted in a thick layer of guano. The entire Roach Motel sustained itself on mushroom soup, and still he didn’t notice.

  She would smile at him when they met. He would greet her politely. Sometimes he smiled back. His teeth were on the sharpish side, but that didn’t make him any less beautiful. She wasn’t exactly pretty even before donning the rags that made her look like an old hag, so she never tried to talk to him. People like him did not talk to people like her. That would be unnatural.

  One time she came to him while he was asleep. He slept alone, even though the Roach Motel usually packed them six to the room. She tried not to make any sound as she entered, and sat for a long time looking at the fireflies hovering over the edges of his mattress in a luminous rectangle. That night she decided that she had had enough. She was almost ready to kill him. She fought with herself and, exhausted by the fight, fell asleep right there in the corner. When she woke up she was in the Forest. He helped her go there without even realizing it. Because wherever he was, the Forest was always nearby. Oh, how she hated him for that.

  In the Forest she spent no more than ten minutes, but that was enough. She knew she was going to dream of going back there for the rest of her life. But she still remained just a Jumper. And an unstable, touchy Jumper at that. In the time since all of this happened, she learned that she’d gotten incredibly, fantastically lucky. To actually find a guide was an almost impossible task. Especially a guide like this. Unless he himself wanted it, that is. But there was still one thing she was proud of: she never asked him for anything. Not then, and not since. And she never would.

  SMOKER

  (CONTINUED)

  Vulture’s story was the first. It was about a witch. An old and disgusting witch, and all she dreamed of was dancing on the graves of all her relatives. Only a brief dance like this, performed once every few years at best, would make her happy. Nothing else ever brought joy to her life. But in order to be able to do her dance and be joyful even for a moment the witch needed to take great pains, because people didn’t just drop dead all by themselves, and unless they were helped along she herself might not live long enough to celebrate the dance she yearned for. With time, the witch accumulated so many exquisite ways of sending her closest relatives to a better world that she easily could have published a bestselling book on the subject. As the years went by and the witch grew older there were fewer and fewer relatives left, until finally it all came down to one single grandson. With him she had to work really hard. He was hiding underground, in the caves of the dwarves, and it was a very dangerous place, so dangerous that even witches never risked going there. But this one did,
so strong was her desire to do one last dance on a fresh grave. And so she followed her grandson into the dwarf caves, but got lost there. Dwarves lured her under the magic hill, where time flowed backward, and the evil hag turned into a small girl.

  Here Vulture got distracted describing the various properties of magic hills and spent a lot of time telling us about what happened to those unfortunate enough to end up under them. Those who got lost like that could become old in an instant, or crumble to dust, or get back their youth and good looks, could turn into an animal, a plant, or even something that didn’t exist in nature, but whatever it was, the process was irreversible. Even if they were to cast off the spells of the magic hill, they’d never be able to return to their former selves.

  Vulture’s tale was interrupted by R One. For some reason he urgently needed to know what the old hag looked like.

  Vulture said she was hideously ugly.

  “And then?” R One said. “I mean, now?”

  Vulture said he had no idea. “But they say she looks about four years old, at most.”

  “Who is ‘they’?” R One shot up.

  “The dwarves,” Vulture said, and the tone of his voice was so icy that it was clear he wasn’t in the mood to answer any more questions.

  R One got the message and went silent. But the old man who Lary said was the guard perked up instead. He giggled and inquired if there were any dwarves in the audience.

  No one answered him.

  That was the end of the tale. Either Vulture took offense at being interrupted, or there really wasn’t anything else he wanted to say.

  The next speaker turned out to be Black. I was surprised, because as far as I knew he’d never participated in Fairy Tale Nights. I was even more surprised at the tale itself. It didn’t sound very fairy, and I suspected that it wasn’t a tale at all. Black talked about the Outsides. About his adventures there. He told us how he, assisted by Rat, or rather Rat with his assistance, because he was more of a silent member of their partnership, swiped an old crumbling bus from the back of the garage of a nearby school. And that right now the bus was standing in the vacant lot next to the House, hidden under the trash, and waiting. What exactly it was waiting for, Black did not elaborate, but it wasn’t hard to guess.