by Cyn Balog
“Thank you, ma’am,” I say, tipping my hat. I marvel for a moment at the enormous vehicle. Of course. A bus! I’ve been on a bus only once, on a trip to New York City with Mama and my stepfather to visit some DeMarchelle relatives. This isn’t the least bit similar. I offer my arm to the kind young woman, but she must not notice, for she struggles to step up on her own, hefting the baby on her hip with one hand and grabbing the handle with the other. The old woman swats my hand away and grumbles something unintelligible. The young man laughs coolly and steps inside.
I step into the well, climb the stairs, and feel a hand land firmly on my chest. An old woman with a stony face is at the reins.
“Good day, ma’am,” I say.
“Ticket?” she barks.
Instinctively, I reach into my pants pocket, where I always kept my money before, all the while knowing what I’ll find there. Nothing. I haven’t had any money in a hundred years.
The driver shakes her head and points out the door. She clears her throat. “No ticket, no ride.”
Bowing my head in shame, I step from the bus and it immediately crawls away, leaving me in a swirl of heat and foul-smelling exhaust. Not to worry, I tell myself. This situation will soon be remedied when I meet with Mr. Harmon.
For the next hour, I wander in the direction the young lady pointed in, until I come to Hart. In the meantime I see many indications that this isn’t the world I left. I’ve seen a few motor cars outside the homes of my charges, but I had no idea how omnipresent they were; they’re simply everywhere. Most seem to be congregating around a sprawling building, bigger than a mountain, with Walmart emblazoned on its front. I pass several people, but they all ignore my greetings; I hope that they’ll be more friendly to me when I’m wearing new clothes.
The homes are less well cared for on Hart; they’re smaller and remind me of the row homes from my old neighborhood. In comparison, the houses in Julia’s area are castles. Perhaps I’ll fit in better here, I think as I walk along the cracked sidewalk to number twenty-six, a small duplex with a crumbling brick facade. I climb the worn steps. There are four doorbells on the front, between two doors. I press the one that says 2B. After a moment with no answer, I buzz it again.
I wait for at least five minutes, buzzing intermittently. I wouldn’t normally linger so long. A few times, I turn back to the street, ready to leave, but then I realize there is nowhere to go. The thought makes me shiver, even in the sun.
I’m relieved to see movement behind the dingy once-white lace curtains on the windows. I remove my hat and say, “Good morning,” as the door opens, but my voice falters when I see the individual behind the torn screen door. He’s a younger man than I expected, perhaps thirty, and he’s unshaven and wearing a partially open bathrobe, even though it’s after eleven on a weekday. His eyes are bleary, covered by a mass of black hair, and he’s holding a lit cigarette, the smoke from which billows out to meet me. Surely there is some mistake. “Mr. Harmon?” I ask.
He stares at me, his heavy eyelids drooping over his unfeeling eyes. I know that look; I saw it on my stepfather more times than I can count. Drunk. At eleven in the morning. Disgusting. Shades of that cramped one-bedroom apartment above the deli in Newark crowd in. Combined with the foul smoky air, the effect is quite smothering. When he opens his mouth, I almost expect him to sound like my stepfather. But his voice is his own, not as raspy, higher-pitched. “You’re that fellow.”
It’s not exactly unfriendly; it’s simply stated as fact. But I’m glad when he opens the screen door and lets me pass through. Inside, the smoke mingles with the thick stench of an animal and the salty smell of urine. A cockroach scurries into a crack in the wall behind Mr. Harmon’s head. I swallow. “Yes, I’m—”
“I know who you are.” His words slur together, but not nearly as much as I expect based on his ragged appearance. “I got the whole rundown.”
He leads me up a narrow corridor to another door. Inside, the stench is more putrid than ever. We stand in a small living room with bare walls, threadbare carpet, and nothing more than a misshapen green sofa and a small—what did Chimere call that item? Ah, a television set. Julia has one in her room. This one seems a little worse for wear.
Mr. Harmon holds out his arm, as if presenting a lavish estate. “Welcome to paradise,” he says, chewing on his cigarette.
“Indeed.” I don’t mean to say that aloud, so it comes out as a murmur as I inspect the place.
“You were expecting more?” he asks. Several more cockroaches scurry between his feet. His bathrobe isn’t lush and roomy; it’s thin and barely meets his knees, stretched like a baby blanket over an adult. He is wearing long white socks, and the hair on his calves is so thick it curls over them.
“No,” I say. I suppose that from my attire he has no idea that I was raised in a very similar situation. Though Mama had kept the cockroaches to a minimum; I catch sight of a pile of dishes in the sink and note that Mr. Harmon appears to be breeding them. “This will be sufficient. Thank you.”
“There’s only one bedroom. You can sleep on the couch,” he says, waving his hand at the small misshapen green thing across the room. “When you get back to sleeping, that is. I didn’t for a while.”
“That’s fine,” I say. I lift the lapels of my jacket. “Do you happen to have any—”
He shakes his head. “Nah. I mean, I got a couple of T-shirts you can borrow. I’m not exactly well-off, you know.”
He disappears for a moment and I hear things crashing around, drawers opening and slamming shut. He returns and tosses me a few yellowed, wrinkled rags that I suppose are shirts. I hand them back to him. “I … I think I will manage with what I have.”
He shrugs.
“Sir,” I begin, as gently as possible, “I was told that you’d volunteered to take me in because you—”
I stop when he laughs long and hard, spattering a bit of black smoke-laced spittle in my face. “Volunteered? Like I volunteered to join the Sandmen a hundred and fifteen years ago? Right.”
“I’m sorry. I must have been mistaken.”
“Yeah,” he says bitterly. “So once I get done babysitting you, my debt to them will be fulfilled and I can go on with my life … or death.” He snorts. “Depending on how you look at it.”
I fidget for a moment, unsure of what to say. There are questions I want to ask, but they all seem improper now.
Without a word, he slips into the kitchen and opens the door to his icebox. “You want a beer?”
“No, thank you.”
“You sure? It’ll help you sleep.” He comes back with a bottle, takes a long swig, and jabs a finger at me. “You’re fading.”
I look down. My hand has taken on a ghostlike quality; I can see the floor through it. “What …?”
“Always happens a couple minutes before you go back. You know, to the other side.” He lifts a hand and wiggles his fingers dramatically, then sniffs and wipes his nose on the sleeve of his robe. “Have a lovely trip.”
The next thing I know, everything fades to blackness. When the light dawns again, I’m back in Julia’s tree. The sun is strong, filtering through the leaves above me. Chimere is smiling at me, batting her eyelashes. “Was that first taste of human life everything you remembered?”
I stretch out on the branch, my body relaxing among these more comfortable surroundings. “It will take some getting used to.”
“Oh, of course. But right now,” she sighs, “I need you to attend to your student.”
I study her face. It’s quite serious. “Is something wrong?”
“Perhaps. Considering we don’t know where he is.”
CHAPTER 11
Julia
At the end of last period, I throw my books into my locker and linger there, hoping Ebony will come by and we can resume the conversation about the party without the presence of my hip tumor. I spend enough time there to begin growing roots, which is moronic, considering school is out and most students wouldn’t spend another se
cond here than is absolutely necessary. And I have the late-afternoon shift at Sweetie Pi’s. Which means …
Ugh. Seeing the hip tumor.
I slowly turn and trudge to the doors, thinking, So what if I don’t go with Ebony? I could go with him. He’s one of my best friends. In fact, he is my best friend now. That wouldn’t be so bad.
I cringe, remembering how things were when Griffin was alive. People knew me, yes. He might have made me appear normal, but Griffin and Bret were also like insulation. They made me feel safe, like part of the crowd. I didn’t mind it much then. At least if I was with them, I wouldn’t have to worry about being seen as the victim. I was just Julia. But now … now I can’t stop thinking that as long as I’m with Bret, people will tie me to Griffin. I’ll forever be the dead guy’s girlfriend.
At the food court, I look toward Gyro Hut and see Bret’s reddish hair peeking out from behind the pita-warmer. Quickly, I rush behind the counter, throw my stuff into my locker, and put on my apron. I’m not in the mood for dishing out soft serve today, especially since I know that Mondays are our slowest days and Bret will be over here just the second he sees my—
“Hey, Tzatziki!”
Kill me now.
I can’t pretend I don’t hear him. The mall today is quieter than a library, and he’s shouting at earsplitting volume across the court. I turn, smile, and wave, then pretend to stack plastic cups into a model of the Empire State Building, working with great care and precision, as if this is something my manager asked me to do. As if the future of Sweetie Pi’s depends on this statue. If I look like I am busy, he will leave me alone, right? No luck. He immediately jogs over to me.
“Not funny, not funny at all, Ipster,” he says, wagging a finger at me like I’m a bad toddler.
This raises the question “What are you talking about?” but asking would require me to speak to him more, something I don’t feel like doing. But he’s not the type to go away if I play mute, either. “What are you talking about?” I finally say.
He reaches into his apron and pulls out his Rubik’s Cube. Well, it looks like his, but I can’t be sure, because there’s something very different about it.
It’s completely solved.
“You did it,” I say. “Congrats.”
He gives me a tsk, tsk, tsk noise, still acting as if he’s talking to a two-year-old. “You know I didn’t.”
I shrug. “You didn’t?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
I glare at him. “I seem to think you were the one who told me that when it comes to dumb, I don’t have to play.”
“Touché,” he says with a grin, pocketing the cube again. “But the fact still remains that you and Griffin were the only ones who had the combination to my locker. I left it in my locker over third period and when I got back, voilà.”
“So wait … you think I broke into your locker?” As if I’ve wanted anything to do with him these past few days. And please, I wasn’t the type to play practical jokes. That wasn’t my thing.
But it was Griffin’s.
“Don’t give me that ‘who, me?’ look. It was you, wasn’t it?”
The blood begins to drain from my face, but then I remember: this is Bret I’m dealing with. “Nice try. If you want to freak me out, you’re going to have to do better than that.”
He gives me the evil eye. I return it.
“Did you really expect to show me that and make me believe Griffin is back from the dead? You are lameness times a thousand. Go back to your tzatziki.”
Bret doesn’t move.
“Go away. You are annoying me,” I finally say, turning back to my cups.
Bret’s still standing there, frozen. The smile is still on his face, but it’s a cautious one, as if he’s wary about becoming the butt of someone’s stupid gag and can’t quite figure out how to respond. I know him well enough to know what that look means.
He’s not joking. And if he’s not joking …
And I’m not joking …
The only person left in this equation is …
Dead.
Which is impossible. So … right. It’s got to be Bret. Bret playing a joke on me. That’s the only logical answer.
“Go away,” I say again, this time more forcefully. “Or I’ll sic Griffin on you, since he’s obviously back from the dead.”
He laughs. “Fine. Gang up on me.”
“I have work to do.”
“Stacking cups?”
I sigh. “That’s the thing with you and Griffin. You never knew when to quit. It’s not funny anymore.”
“Oh. But you’re hilarious,” he says playfully.
I slam a stack of cups down. “Stop it, okay?” I don’t think I’ve ever raised my voice around him.
He takes a step back. The smile is still there, but only a hint of it. “You didn’t go into my locker?”
I shake my head.
He shrugs. “I don’t believe you,” he singsongs.
I throw up my hands. For a second, I think about telling him about my dream, not about the kiss, but about seeing Griffin there. But I don’t. Dreams mean nothing. And this is Bret. If I told him that, he’d never let me live it down. My even entertaining the thought that Griffin is still here would give him enough material to make fun of me for the next hundred years.
“Fine, don’t believe me. But maybe it’s one of those little mysteries of life,” I say.
He smirks, and I sigh, feeling like I just went fifteen rounds in a heavyweight title match. But hey, at least I survived, I think. Before Griffin, the first punch would have been a total knockout.
Before Griffin, lots of things would have been a total knockout. I remember that a few months before Griffin died, I’d gotten a rejection to the summer session at the Architectural Journal, something I’d lusted after for a year. Normally, I would have cried my eyes out for a week. But when I started to have my breakdown, he pulled me into his arms and said, “So what if they don’t want you? Screw ’em. You’re better than all of them, anyway.” I tried to whimper that he was wrong and that it was the end of the world, but he gave me his stoniest look and said, “Girl, I’m going to count to ten. And by the time I do, you’d better be over it.”
That always worked with me. After all, I was the one wishing people would keep the past in the past. The best way to make sure that happened was just to throw it there, as far as you could, and never look back.
As Bret heads back to Gyro Hut, I know I’m being a jerk. But I can’t help it. I can’t help thinking that as much as I want someone to understand me, going that route with Bret is all wrong. I want someone else to talk to. Someone real. Ebony. Someone, anyone else. More than ever.
CHAPTER 12
Eron
A bit after dusk, my student launches himself through the leaves like an act in a talent show and skids onto the branch next to me. “What’s up?” he asks nonchalantly, as if everything is perfectly normal.
But everything is not. Chimere and I have spent the last three hours fretting over this.
“I believe I did tell you,” I say, trying to keep my voice even, “that we frown upon your venturing away from the homes of your charges?”
He nods and grins. “Yep. I figured you were doing a lot of frowning upon me today.”
“This is not some game. These humans rely on you.”
He laughs. “That’s just what Chimere said.”
“Mr. Colburn, your indifference is not—”
“Look, old man, give it up. There was something I needed to do. And now it’s done. And the world is not exploding. So stop giving me grief.”
I glare at him. “Something you needed to do? What could you possibly …” It dawns on me at that moment. “There is nothing you could have needed to do outside the realm of your charges. The only thing you need to do right now is take care of them. Do you understand? You are no longer human.”
“Ha! That’s what Chimere said, too. You guys must share a brain.”
I rub
my face with both hands, exasperated. “Please tell me that you did not touch anything in the human world to alert a human to your existence.”
He makes a gesture with his thumb and index finger. “Just a little something.”
I throw up my hands. “You are the most incorrigible soul—”
“Look,” he says, his voice serious. It’s startling how quickly his manner changes. “Julia is in trouble. I needed to help her.”
I prick up my ears. Julia in trouble? “What kind of trouble?”
“That guy … the one she was getting with in her dream … He’s making a move on her.”
I sigh. Though the thought is quite discomforting to me, too, it isn’t anything that we, as Sleepbringers, need to concern ourselves with. “And? Life goes on without you. You must let it.”
He shakes his head. “He’s not a good guy.”
“I thought you said he was your best friend.”
“Yeah, he is. That doesn’t mean I trust him.”
I suppose it’s understandable that he would say these things; after all, he did witness a rather disturbing exchange between his beloved and his best friend, even if it was only in a dream. I recall my anguish at seeing Gertie in the arms of another man, so I can’t blame him. As a Sleepbringer, though, he’s likely to see Julia do many more things that he deems unwise, things he has no place interfering with. And yet the look on his face reflects mad, animal rage; he is clearly still thinking more like a human than a Sandman. “If your friend is ‘not a good guy,’ as you say, there is only so much you can do to protect her. I will show you how to speak to her in her dreams; you may be able to exert some influence over her that way. Touching anything in the human world is strictly forbidden. Much more of that will land you in the Last Place. And you do not want to be there.”
He grinds his teeth into his bottom lip and exhales loudly. Then he reaches over and rips a branch from the tree. I bring up my hands to shield myself from it, in case he should throw it my way, but he doesn’t; he simply tosses it onto the ground. “Can’t suck any more than this does.”
