Meet Me in the Strange

by Leander Watts

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Was he her ex-boyfriend, I asked myself, as we left the moon rock chamber. That had to be it. The way he seemed so jealous—threatened by me even though I had nothing really to threaten him with. Mad, edgy, almost-frantic jealousy: that was the feeling that came off him in waves. She was his in some way I didn’t understand, and he would do anything to get her back.

  Between the power of Django’s glister-sound and Anna Z’s alien rants, the invisible lunar rays and now these threats and squidy soft talk, I hardly knew who I was anymore. All my old ways of thinking—true or false, push or pull, freaky or normal—seemed useless. So I did what I was told. I obeyed the voice. “Go. Start walking.” I went out, down, and onto the street, in a waking-dreaming daze.

  “You don’t have any choice. Do you understand? No choice. You’ve got to tell me where she is.” It was like he didn’t really want to know, though, because he hardly gave me a second to talk. We went down the block, with him beside me like a bodyguard. Soon the Archbishop’s palace was behind us, and we headed into an area where there were far more people on the streets. And more places for them to spend their money: little stores, coffee houses, tourist traps, restaurants, and antique stores.

  He went on, “Fate, destiny, call it whatever you want. The hand of the gods. The stars lining up a certain way. The pull of the tides or the magnetic fields. Doesn’t matter what you name it. What it means is this: it’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen only one way. My way. You’re in it now, and you’re going all the way to the end with me.”

  He couldn’t seem to keep quiet, which was fine with me, because I had no idea where to find Anna Z, even if I was willing to squeal on her. No question, if and when he got a hold of her, things would get pretty bad. He seemed to love her and hate her at the same time. So I let him talk and tried to clear my head enough to make a plan.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “Did she do her Alien Freak Show routine? She always does. Did she tell you she was all stitched together, scar tissue, wires and bolts inside, hunks of this body and chunks of that one? ‘Everybody loves the freak show.’ Right? Did she say that too? ‘They all want to know where the real me ends and the fake me begins. Is there anything left? Not much, just the voice, half my brain, the left eye, some of the spine, the right hand, and some guts. The rest is fake, spare parts stolen from corpses.’” His voice changed as he imitated Anna Z, getting high and quavery. It didn’t sound anything like her, at least not the way she’d talked to me.

  “Dead or alive, fate or dumb luck, one way or the other, you’re in it with me. And you’re not getting out until I have Anna Z back. That’s all I want. That’s all I need. You understand? And then nobody gets hurt. I’m actually doing you a huge favor. I know how she gets, with all those stories. I know what it feels like. But trust me on this. You have no idea what kind of grief I’m saving you from.

  “That’s right. Saving. You’re dead if you don’t do it my way. But if you do, you’re saved. From me, and from her, and from everything she’ll drag you into.”

  My father had said we should have guards to keep us safe. Once in a while the kids of businessmen did get grabbed for ransom. I heard about a girl—her father owned one of the big shipping lines—who got snatched and sold back for a fortune. Once we’d gotten rid of our last tutor though, Sabina said that she was an adult and there was no way she’d put up with a paid goon following her around. And my silhouette was so small I always doubted any kidnappers even knew I existed. Still, here I was being marched down the street like a prisoner going to the scaffold to be hanged.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “Listen close. She’s no man-made monster. I know her better than anybody in the world. She’s the real thing. She speaks with forked tongue, but it’s still her tongue, the one she was born with. There’s not a single part of her body that’s fake. Not even a filling in a tooth or a press-on fingernail. She’s never even dyed her hair. It’s all real—top to bottom, inside and out. I know this for sure like nobody else. She’s a hundred percent authentic all herself.”

  Of course I had to escape from him. Every minute that passed got me closer to something horrible. That much was for sure. I don’t think he really wanted to kill me, at least not that day. Later, though, once he had Anna Z back and didn’t need me. Then he’d squash me like a stinkbug. But that day, he was still trying to find out what was what and how much I really knew. He gave me lot of pretty crazy threats, but obviously I had something he wanted. So as we marched down the canal side, over the Bridge of Tears toward the Hessian Quarter, I was running a dozen different plans.

  None of them, as it turned out, would’ve worked. Too clever, too much like spies and secret agents. I could eavesdrop at the Angelus. I could disappear there like a ghost. But this was out in the street. And my captor was bigger than me, way stronger too, and dead set on getting me to a place where he could squeeze the truth out, like juice from a blood orange. I could try tricks and ruses, but I knew that I didn’t have what it takes.

  So my body took over: I just started screaming. It was that simple. My brain wasn’t working very well so my body took over. A hundred people were passing us by. Another thousand were on the streets all around us. There was no way he’d kill me right there in public. And as soon as the screaming started, he got very freaked out.

  “Shut up!” he growled. “Shut your mouth!”

  I screamed louder. He started shouting back. Seeing how it was working, my brain clicked on, and I turned up the volume even more. That put even more panic into him, with me wailing away right there in the middle of the San Gregorio plaza. People stared, of course. Some tourists pulled out their cameras. And a little rat-faced lady started yelling for the Guardia to come and get rid of us.

  That was all it took. He might be able to make me do whatever he wanted. But he couldn’t stand up to a Guardia patrol with their handcuffs and shock rods. So he let me go. Spitting out threats about coming after me later, he headed off across the bridge and into the crowd on the far side of the canal. People gaped at me, though not for very long. Free, and safe for the time being, I shut up and headed as fast as my shaking legs would go toward San Panteleone.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  There was still some sunlight in the sky. The moon was already up though, a thin pale ghost rising over the eastern skyline. With the darkness gathering and the cool of evening, I calmed down a little. My heart finally slowed to normal as I heard the far-off rumbling of drums. San Panteleone was famous for its music: peasant folk groups from the old days, jazzy dance bands, fiddlers and panpipers and, for the kids, loud basement clubs around the edges of the fair. I wasn’t quite close enough to tell what kind of music it was floating through the streets. Most likely it was a blend, with the motors of the rides thrumming in time with the dance tunes and shadow-marches.

  I was still carrying the album from Luigi’s. The fear-sweat from my hand had soaked the bag along the bottom. I shifted it a quarter turn and held the flat package to my chest, like an amulet to keep me safe. So far it had worked, and I wasn’t about to change my luck. The Witch-Babies and their Ancient Altar would go with me throughout the entire night.

  Closer to the fair, the strands of sound pulled themselves apart. I could tell now the squeal of girls on the Wizard Wheel from the squeal of a reed-pipe. The booming rhythms were both mechanical and musical. A band organ played its maniacal tunes, as loud as any amplified barytons or gambas. The sound was relentless, hundreds of pipes wailing in complex fugues and rondos. And nearer to the fair, I could tell the difference between firecrackers and bursting balloons.

  THIRTY-NINE

  There was no charge to enter the fair, though a price was attached to everything else. Visitors could get a peek at Doctor Contorto, knotting his limbs like pieces of rope. But if they wanted to see his most amazing stunts, they had to lay down a little cash. A nautch dancer from India did her slinky routine. The best parts of the show—more skin and the snakiest m
oves—were only to be seen inside her canvas-sided booth. The joyrides lurched with lights flashing, and the bumper-cars bashed and smashed. To have the real fun, to feel the spin and the bang, people had to pay. I could have done that. I never was without enough money. And a week earlier, before meeting Anna Z, I might’ve. But I’d come for only one reason, to find her, and fun-rides didn’t seem very fun that night. Still, the familiar scents, as I went deeper into the fair, had a reassuring effect on me. Roasted garlic, burned out Roman candles, steamy pesto bread, spilled red wine, ouzo, and cauldrons of scalding olive oil.

  Named after one of the city’s patron-saints, the fair was supposedly a religious event. And a person could buy holy water bottled at far-off Fatima, Knock, and Lourdes. There were Virgin Mary dolls wrapped in cellophane, plaster icons, and booths filled with sacred heart medallions. These had their place, which got farther and farther from the fun with each passing year.

  The center of the fair was the great Tombola. I went straight there, or as straight as I could in such a heavy-duty crowd. I bought ten tickets to gamble and edged my way up to the front. The wheel spun. People yelled and moaned and whimpered as it slowed. A man with a megaphone and a voice like a poison toad called out to close the betting.

  A big cheer and a bigger groan greeted the winning number. I pushed more tickets onto the board. The wheel spun again, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. People were shoving and yanking so I didn’t pay it much mind. Then I felt warm breath in my ear and turned to see Anna Z gazing at me.

  As soon as I saw her I tossed away my tickets and started jabbering. “There was a guy. He’s looking for you. He said he’d kill me. I think he was serious.”

  She told me to be quiet, though in the press of frantic gamblers I doubt anyone could’ve heard anything we said. Taking my hand, she led me out of the crowd to an alleyway between booths where we could talk. She leaned with me into the shadow, and her voice fell to a whisper.

  FORTY

  “Okay, okay, just calm down a little and listen. I’ll tell you the whole thing but you’ve got to listen and not interrupt. Just let me talk, and then we’ll figure out a plan. He really is serious business, serious as brain surgery. So we have to get this right. I didn’t think he’d find me so fast, but he did and now we don’t have a lot of time.”

  “But who is he?”

  “His name is Lukas.”

  “I don’t understand. Why is he so—”

  “Just let me talk. I saw the whole thing on the plaza. You and my brother. Wait, wait, don’t say anything. Let me explain. Yes, he’s my brother. His name is Lukas. I knew he wouldn’t do anything drastic right there in public, so I was waiting for the right time. Then you started in screaming, which was pretty wild and exactly the right move. I didn’t expect you to melt down like that, but Lukas can’t stand that kind of thing. He gets very freaked when he’s not in control. It won’t work again. He’ll have a better plan to shut you up. But it worked just fine then. So I followed you here, and we’ve got tonight to get it right.”

  “He’s really your brother? I thought he wanted to kill you. Or me. Or both of us.” My thoughts were getting ahead of my tongue. “Why does he hate me so much? What did I do?”

  “Listen to me, Davi, I ran away from home. From him, my brother Lukas. It feels like about a year to me, or a whole lifetime, since we saw Django. That was the day I ran away. And that’s the whole reason this is all happening. All he wants is me, back again. Me back home, the two of us like it’s been forever. Me and thee, he and she. Sister and brother and no other.”

  “Is that from a song?” I was shaking, the confusion filling my whole body. “What are you talking about?”

  “You can say goodbye right now, if all this is too freaky, and you don’t want to get mixed up any more. You can say it and I’ll be all right. I’ll keep running by myself. But that’s not what I want. It’s time for me to be free. Gone, gone, maximum gone. Just like Django said, remember? ‘Push the spheres. Push the skies. I’ll be your ears. I’ll be your eyes.’ What I want is to be free, us together, you and me.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Of course there were a lot of things I liked about Anna Z: the look on her face when she was deep into music, the look of her body when she was lying on my bed, the feel of her breath in my ear when she was whispering secrets, the way she turned toward me, instead of away like most people. But there was no question, the thing I liked most, or even loved, was the sound of her voice and the feel of her words going into me.

  Some of the time it was just gibberish. Or a mix of song lyrics, folkie-tales, truth, and whatever came buzzing through her head. She liked the sound of her voice too, and the fact that I’d listen without telling her that she wasn’t making much sense. That night, leaning together in the shadows, with the sounds of the fair storming around us, I listened and I loved it. I also knew that I had to find out what was really going on. Beautiful, wild gibberish is great, but Lukas was no overcooked fantasy. He looked dead serious when he said I would surely die if I didn’t tell him where to find Anna Z.

  I listened some. I let her roll for a while. Then when she slowed down to take a breath, I said, “Stop. Okay? Just stop for a second. I need to know what’s going on. Everything.”

  She took my hand, like we were standing on the edge of a huge cliff and she was afraid she’d jump off if I didn’t hold her back. “It’s bad. It’s real bad.”

  “Tell me. Just say it.”

  She started in again with another spiel of words, and I told her again to stop it. I had to know what was true or Lukas was going to tear me, and maybe her also, to pieces. She began one more time. I ended it again. She gave me a long, sad sigh, as though I’d closed up her favorite game. Light from rides was flashing on the lens of her glasses, so I couldn’t see her eyes.

  She let loose another of her heartbreaking sighs then gave me the facts. The sound of her voice changed, the pressure and the speed fell as she talked.

  “Lukas is really my big brother. I ran away from home again. The first time, he found me within twenty-four hours and locked me down for a month. He needs to be in control. He’s the king and I’m the queen, but you know, queens don’t have any say over what happens to them. That’s the way it’s always been between us. The second time, last year during the moon landing, I managed to stay away for a week. Then he tracked me to an abandoned building that kids were using for a squat. Two of those kids ended up in the hospital with broken arms. Jules, the kid who organized the squat, nobody saw him again. This is my third time on the run, and if he catches me now, I don’t think I can survive it. This is for real, Davi. I don’t think I’ll make it if he finds me.”

  FORTY-TWO

  My first idea was to talk to the Guardia. It had to be against the law to hold a girl prisoner like her brother did. “That won’t work,” she said. “I already tried it. I’m underage, and Lukas is my legal guardian. He knows how to play the courts and judges.”

  “I have money,” I told her. “I can hire a lawyer. My father knows some of the best in the city.” She shook her head, sadder than before. Law was useless.

  She put her arms around me and started crying. For a second, I thought this was just more show, a new routine she hadn’t used on me yet. But if it was fake, she was the best actress in the world. Tears: real. The weakness in her body: real. A change in her voice too. The words came now even quieter and more unsure.

  “We’ve been together, the two of us, since we were little. Our parents died from some kind of plague that the sailors brought from Egypt.” This sounded a little made-up, but I didn’t press her on it. “We had a foster mother for a while. Sweet Jesu, she was awful. Mean and stupido and she didn’t care about us at all. We called her the Wicked Witch of the Yeast because she ran a bakery shop. Then Lukas figured out a plan of escape and we did it.” This too sounded kind of vague and made-up. “He got a hold of some of the family money, and we moved together to a place in the Hessian quarter, out beyond the B
lack Lagoon, where we’ve been ever since.”

  I asked her if I could buy Lukas off maybe, pay some kind of ransom. I was sure I could get plenty of cash. This made her furious, and she pulled away, snuffling and wiping at her face like the tears were poison. She turned her back to me and jerked free when I tried to touch her.

  FORTY-THREE

  “How can you talk like that? Haven’t you been listening to anything I was saying? He’s been treating me like he owned me since I was little, since before I can remember. And now you want to buy me like I’m a slave or a pet or something? Nobody owns me! Understand? I need help. I need a friend, and I thought you were the one.”

  “I am. But I just want to—”

  “The guy I ran off with the first time was perfect slime. He promised me all sorts of nice things and said he’d protect me. He claimed he had a place where I could stay and be safe. But when it came down to it, money talked, and he took a handful of cash and called Lukas and that was that. You understand, Davi? He wanted to make me into something that could be bought and sold, and Lukas was willing to pay the most. So Mr. Slime just got rid of me and went looking for another girl to sell.

  “When I ran away the second time, I had a better shot at it. The kids at the squat were okay for a while. I thought I’d be safe there, and for a while I was. But one of them squealed me in to my brother. The kid was doing way too much white gong and wanted some easy money. So he sold me! You understand, Davi? One of the kids where I’d gone to escape and be safe sold me back to my brother for money. Some of them tried to help. But I told you, Lukas broke them up like little sticks and threw them away. And Jules, he was the one I liked the most there, ended up vanished. Into the North Canal, I think.