by Alison Levy
“Not at all!” he eagerly replied. “I’m just glad to have something to do!”
Rachel noted with dismay that his voice was shifting back to the lighter, more casual air he’d started the conversation with. “My department was the first to be cleared by the systems check, so I’ve spent the last six months just sitting at this desk. It’s wake up, go to work, sit at the desk, go home, and repeat. I’d really like to have more to do, especially in the evenings.” He cleared his throat. “How about you? Are you busy most evenings?”
Rachel rolled her eyes. This time he was dropping hints so blatant that it made her skin twitch. From the moment she’d first met him, he had been trying to draw her eye. Still, this was the most forward he had been with her in all the months they’d known each other.
“Yeah, the collectors have a lot to do these days,” she said as casually as she could. “Seems like I never have enough time for all my work. Well”—she spoke a little faster, trying to wrap things up—“I appreciate your help. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Hey,” he added brightly, “Kash came through here last week with his unit. I asked him about you.”
Rachel pinched her eyes shut and silently swore. So that was it. All Paavo’s previous flirtations had been dampened by the fact that she’d had a boyfriend; now, that obstacle was gone, and he was ramping up his efforts. Kash Dhruv, did you really have to run your mouth about our breakup to this guy? The thought of him soured her already bad mood. It had only been a month since her final confrontation with him; she wasn’t ready to be reminded of it.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, her voice a tad sharper than she intended. “Can we please drop the subject?”
She sensed Paavo pulling back in response to her tone. A few tense seconds passed before he braved the silence with a small, “Sure.” He sighed, his disappointment tangible. “I’ll look into this gatekeeper thing for you.”
“Thanks again for your help,” she said, her voice as plain as she could make it.
“No problem. I’ll get back to you soon.”
Rachel ended the call and, with a sharp exhale, dropped her phone onto the seat beside her. Dhruv. She’d kept him out of her thoughts for weeks, and now, thanks to a few minutes on the phone with Paavo, he was all she could think about. Fuming, she clicked off the wall screen, forgoing the weather report. She grabbed her phone, her coat, and an umbrella before heading for the door. The people at the Central Office weren’t the only ones with access to an oracle. She knew where to find one. It was safe to say that he wasn’t formally trained like the Central Office’s people, but if she asked him the right question, he might say something useful. He also might collapse in a babbling heap, but she was short on ideas and desperate to redirect her brain away from Dhruv, so she was willing to take the chance.
“Daemon!” she shouted. “I’m leaving! You stay put!”
She stepped onto the porch, zipped up her coat, and closed the door behind her. The rain was thrashing the overgrown lawn into muddy soup. The galloping deluge was so thick she couldn’t see the end of the walkway. Taking a deep breath, she opened her umbrella and ran.
The downpour soaked every inch of her clothes not immediately under the umbrella in mere seconds. She ran at top speed to the edge of the pocket dimension and bolted into the shadow that divided it from the larger world. A quick step through the darkness, and she burst into the familiar alleyway.
She stopped in her tracks and lowered the umbrella. No rain. Just bright, sunny skies.
“Shit,” she cursed. She looked down at her sopping wet boots and pants legs and realized that despite the sun shining overhead, the chill in the October air made it unlikely that they would dry quickly. She shook off the umbrella, folded it, and tucked it under her arm. Just like that, she would be cold for the rest of the day. Peachy.
5
ORACLE
Someone was coming.
The feeling was faint, a flickering spark in a thick fog, but it was there. He was so adrift in the overflowing sea of his own mind, he rarely felt anything with such certainty. The feeling drew him, pulling him up from the depths of his delusions and giving him the slightest glimpse of sanity. His madness clung to him and weighed him down, keeping him mired in its cacophonic ooze, but beyond the edge of the fog, he sensed the waking world like a silhouette behind a curtain. Patches of reality began to intrude upon his crazed senses— the stink of the river, the jab of the rocks beneath him—as he slowly became aware of his neglected body. A dozen aches and pains stung him, but because he was still half-wrapped in his numb lunacy, the sensation was distant. He hovered there, barely connected to himself, and waited.
She was coming. Coming to see him.
RACHEL SLID DOWN the long embankment and shuffled her way to the belly of the bridge. The tail end of the morning commuter rush was passing over her head, and the wind that whipped up from the surface of the water was colder than an October wind should be, nearly freezing the wet ends of her clothes. She wrapped her arms around her torso and hugged herself for warmth as she trudged on.
A handful of people, ageless and sexless within their bundles of clothing, sat huddled in the small spaces, quiet and still in the shadows cast by the lights above. They glanced silently at Rachel from within their many layers of clothes with bland curiosity, but made no move either toward or away from her.
Glancing sidelong at them, Rachel was eerily reminded of the daemon in her attic and the way it looked at her from the depths of its coat. Like the daemon, these unfortunates seemed to go through life with only one foot in reality—just enough to make physical contact but not enough for others to notice them.
A wool blanket with many holes covered a vaguely human form that was set well apart from all the others. Rachel cleared her throat loudly as she approached, causing the blanket to stir. From one end of the blanket, there emerged a shaggy mop of hair so caked in filth that it shed clods of dirt every time the head beneath it moved. Beneath the hair was an equally dirty face, overgrown with a monthslong beard. The lips within the beard were deeply chapped, so much so that multiple scabs covered the broken skin. The man’s age was difficult to determine in his unkempt state, but Rachel estimated him to be younger than most of the others under the bridge.
An aggressive stink—part river pollution, part body fluid— surrounded him like a toxic cloud. Many bruises, some old and some new, dotted his face and neck, signs of the harsh life he lived. But even amidst so many marks of hardship and sorrow, his electric blue eyes were full of energy, so much so that they seemed to vibrate with intensity. When he spotted Rachel, the haze of delirium that was his daily existence seemed to lift and a spark of recognition lit up his eyes.
“Girl doesn’t belong here,” he rasped. “Wrong world.”
Rachel first stumbled across him while chasing a defective daemon along the edge of the river. At the time he was face down and lapping the river water like a thirsty dog. Rachel didn’t notice him as she ran after her mark until she accidentally tripped over his legs. They locked eyes as she rose, and immediately the man started on a rambling tirade. Rachel was no stranger to abnormal behavior—her sister suffered from a rare condition that often caused her to act in unfathomable ways—and would have ignored him and gone about her business except that the homeless man’s rant included a great deal of personal information about her life. Within seconds, he was shouting the names of Rachel’s immediate family, along with a slew of Arcanan words. The daemon slipped away, leaving Rachel on the riverbank with her mouth hanging open as the crazed man raved about her homeland, relatives, and favorite swear words.
After that day, she’d begun to notice him all over the city. For some reason, the delirious oracle had latched on to her; he kept putting himself in her path. On those rare occasions when she sought him out, he was always in the first place she looked. Typical of oracles who did not have control of their abilities, he appeared to live in total mental chaos and did not hesitate to
share his insanity with passersby. But for all his outbursts, he had never been violent and had never caused Rachel any serious trouble. She hoped he could help her now.
Seeing the deplorable conditions in which this man lived, Rachel wished she could do something to help. Unfortunately, she was sorely unqualified to help an undisciplined oracle, and those who were qualified weren’t authorized to interfere in the life of a noncitizen. To speak to him at all was really a borderline violation (not a serious offense, but certainly worth a scolding), but she was willing to take the risk. She had a job to do.
She smiled at the man. “Hello, Mr. Oracle. I brought you something to eat.”
She handed him a plastic bag containing an overstuffed beef fajita that was still fairly warm despite her long walk to the bridge. He eagerly took it from her with both grimy hands, tore off the wrapper, and shoved one end into his mouth. Two of the scabbed wounds on his lips tore open and leaked blood into his food, staining the white tortilla, as dribbles of oil and sauce escaped his mouth and further stained his already filthy beard. Rachel flinched at the thought that the salt and spice in the fajita were getting into his wounds and probably hurting the poor man pretty badly. But the oracle showed no hint of pain; he devoured the fajita in less than a minute and, once finished, reached for the drink in Rachel’s other hand. He gulped down the soda—pausing only to belch—and then carefully set aside the cup like it was a precious thing made of paper-thin glass.
“Finished?” she asked.
“Good,” he said. “Good food.”
“Okay. Can we talk?”
Staring at her with an intensity that made her skin crawl, he pointed between her eyes with one dirty finger. At the end of the finger, a hangnail was held to his skin by a large scab.
“Girl doesn’t belong here.”
“I know.” She backed away from his outstretched hand. “Listen, it’s my job to find these two people, but I have no idea where to look.”
“Green monster,” he mumbled as he picked loose pieces of meat and bell pepper out of the fajita wrapper. “Wears a lady’s coat.”
“Yep,” she confirmed. She was impressed with his insight but also annoyed that he was focused on the wrong case. “I got that daemon without a problem. It’s two humans I’m looking for.”
He licked the fajita sauce from his fingers, not seeming to mind that he was ingesting quite a bit of grime along with it. “Keeper,” he said thoughtfully. “Looking for a keeper.”
“Yeah, a gatekeeper,” she agreed, eyebrows raised. “Do you know where she is?”
“Looking for her,” he continued to muse, his mad blue eyes —shocking blue, unnatural blue—darting around without purpose. “Lost the other ones. All dead. Last branch of the tree.”
“Right.” The smell of him was starting to make her nauseous. Fighting the urge to gag, she leaned a little closer to him and pressed, “So where is the gatekeeper?”
“Dog under girl’s house,” he said. “Puppy. Cute.”
“Uh, yeah. So, what about—”
“Good food. Good, good food. From the market?”
“How about the man?” she urged. “Tell me about the man.”
“From the market?”
“The food’s from a Tex-Mex place a couple of blocks from here,” she irritably replied. “So—”
“Market.”
“I—”
“Market.”
“What market?” she said. “What are you talking about?”
“Little market,” he said. “Family owns it, foreign. Little boy, lizards. Supposed to be a restaurant but it’s a market. Red and blue over the door.”
“Red and blue over . . . oh!” An image suddenly popped into her mind. The corner market a few blocks from the portal to her house, the one where she bought most of her food, had a scarlet awning over its door with a beautifully intricate sky-blue design on it. The market was run by a husband and wife, both of whom spoke with noticeable accents. They had a little boy, six or seven years old, probably American-born, who sometimes played with plastic dinosaurs behind the counter. Was that the market the oracle was talking about?
“What about the market?” she asked.
“Market,” he mumbled. He lay down and pulled his holey blanket up over his shoulders. “Food. Keeper. Girl doesn’t belong here.”
His words devolved into random syllables as he curled into a fetal position. The erratic spark in his eyes dimmed, fleeing from the brightness of reality into the depths of senselessness. His lips moved silently, forming the shadows of words, and his head bobbed gently, as if mimicking the motion of the wind.
Rachel sighed and shook her head. “And that’s the end of that. Thanks for the help, Mr. Oracle. Sorry to bother you.”
He murmured quietly to himself and rolled over, turning his back to her.
Rachel shook her head in amazement. That this man could rest so easily in his situation was astounding. She almost envied him.
“See ya,” she said before turning around to head back the way she had come. “I guess I’m going to the market. Wish you’d told me what to look for there.”
The oracle gave no response other than a soft snore.
6
MARKET
Rachel opened the market door and stepped inside. The heat pumping through the vents welcomed her and wrapped her in its airy joy. For the first time all morning, the numbness in her legs brought on by her rain-drenched pants began to thaw. Her muscles warmed and her skin dried. She exhaled through a smile.
One of the owners, the husband, sat at the cash register flipping through a magazine as Rachel walked in. He was a handsome man in his late thirties with black hair and weatherworn skin. He was thin but had a lively look to him, an inner glow that shone through his russet-brown eyes. A series of small scars covered his hands; Rachel guessed that they were the mark of a kitchen accident, possibly an oil burn. It made her wonder if the oracle’s comment about a restaurant had been correct.
A glimmer of recognition flashed through the man’s eyes when he saw her enter. “Hello, crazy girl,” he said pleasantly with his thick accent.
“Hi, Mr. El Sayed.”
Crazy girl. He had been calling her that for three months now, ever since he saw her wrestling a daemon into submission on the curb near his store. Of course, he couldn’t see the daemon, he just saw a young woman cursing wildly as she grappled with the air. To his credit, he didn’t seem to hold it against her. As long as she paid for the things she got from his store and as long as she kept whatever delusions she might have to herself, he always politely welcomed her into his place of business. Rachel genuinely liked him.
His son was behind the counter too, sitting cross-legged on a child-size chair. The boy’s thick black hair was getting a little long; it dangled into his big brown eyes as he hunched over a notebook of lined paper in his lap. His full lips curved into a natural smile even as he struggled to write a perfect letter K. Engrossed, he absentmindedly sucked his teeth. He was clearly working hard, because he hadn’t even noticed Rachel yet. Usually, he was all smiles and happy greetings when she came in.
Rachel glanced around the store for a clue as to why the oracle had sent her. All she saw was the store as it always was: no wanted man, no gatekeeper. She muttered darkly under her breath and cursed herself for putting her trust in a madman. Feeling the owner’s eyes on her, she tried to think of something to say, some excuse for her presence.
“I want to make some burgers for dinner,” she said, suddenly realizing that it was true. “Can you hook me up?”
“I am out of beef,” Mr. El Sayed said.
“I’m good for beef, but I need tomatoes, cheese, and buns.”
“Buns are with the bread, cheese is in the refrigerated section, but I have no more tomatoes. Those kids,” he said, his grip on the magazine tightening, “they snuck in yesterday while I was in the back room, and they smashed the tomatoes all over the floor.”
“Same kids who spray-painted the
front door last week?”
“Yes.” His jaw clenched and his eyes flamed. “Three of them this time. When I catch them, they will wish they had never set foot in here.”
Rachel had heard more than a little grumbling about these three kids around the neighborhood. In recent weeks, vandalism and theft had been the fate of nearly every business within a six-block radius of the Bell household, the center of operations for the incurable delinquent Bell brothers. Michael, fifteen, and Ian, thirteen, had stepped up their level of mischief since they started including their youngest brother, Freddie, twelve, in their outings. From the gripes she’d overheard, it sounded like the police knew these boys by name and had no shortage of complaints about them, but, unfortunately, they also had a lack of evidence.
Rachel had known a like-minded boy in her hometown. When he was caught vandalizing a neighbor’s house, his mother marched him into the next town meeting and volunteered him to every family in Kritt who needed their house painted. It took him months to finish, and by the time he was done, he had lost all interest in paint. Last she heard, he was happily working on his family’s farm, pulling his weight without complaint. That was as it should be.
“I’ve noticed that the businesses around here that keep guard dogs haven’t been vandalized,” Rachel said. “Those three brats might be scared of dogs.”
“I noticed this as well,” Mr. El Sayed said, nodding.
“Have you thought about getting one? I’ve got a stray under my porch that could use a home.”
“I cannot,” he said with a wave of his hand. “My wife is allergic.”
“Oh.” Until that moment, Rachel had not noticed Mrs. El Sayed’s absence, but as she glanced around the store, it became apparent that she wasn’t there—unusual. “Where is Mrs. El Sayed today?”
“She is upstairs. She is not feeling well.”
“I’m sorry. I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“I think it is the weather,” Mr. El Sayed said. “The sudden cold upsets her.”
