Welcome to Bordertown

by Holly Black

  “Then I’d stay with her.”

  Seamus nods. “I don’t think it a worthwhile endeavor, but I understand how you feel the need of it.”

  “Is it possible?”

  “They say anything is possible—somewhere.”

  “I thought … if I could get to Bordertown, then I’d be close to the Faerie Realm. And the Summer Country … it lies past it, doesn’t it?”

  Seamus is quiet for a long moment.

  “In the old days,” he finally says, “you would have been a perfect candidate for entry into Bordertown. It always welcomed those who had nothing left for them here in the fields we know. But there’s no way back to Bordertown—not that I’ve been able to find in thirteen years.”

  “But if I could get there …”

  “You would get no further. The Truebloods of the Realm are very strict about who can cross and who can’t. The Realm is closed to mortals, and no one can pass through Elfhaeme Gate.”

  “I have to try.”

  “I know you do. And I wouldn’t hold you from going. But something is blocking the Way. Or maybe the city just doesn’t exist anymore. It isn’t mine to say.”

  “I don’t understand. How can a city be destroyed and it’s not on the news?”

  “I didn’t say it was destroyed. It’s … sometimes I think it’s more an idea than a place—though it was certainly real for many of us at one time.

  “Bordertown has always been a paradox. You can get there if you really need to be there—or you can’t. You can stumble into it by chance—or you don’t. It could be right there”—he points at a mirror on the side of the hall—“just past our reflection. Or it isn’t. The truth is, the city’s always followed its own rules, and they can change with a shift in the wind.”

  “So what do I do?”

  He gives me a long, serious study.

  “Here’s what I think,” he says. “The old wisdom tells us that ancient power spots and sacred sites are gateways. I believe that the true openings lie inside us. In our own hearts, minds, and lives.

  “Perhaps all you need to do is set out on a journey in search of it, believing that when the journey ends you will be there. Not perhaps. Not maybe. Leave no room for doubt. Go with the understanding that the path you take will bring you there. And if it feels like you need a ritual, then make one up. But don’t make it easy. Easy doesn’t earn you anything.”

  “Just like that.”

  Seamus gives me a sad smile. “It’s never ‘just like that,’ Joey. Even you know that much.”

  * * *

  After my conversation with Seamus, I don’t talk to anyone about it. I go back to Baltimore with the Hills and Uncle Herbert. I go back to the rambling house, to the room I shared with my wife. Just before dawn, I pack a knapsack and leave a note on the kitchen table:

  I’m sorry. I have to do this. Don’t look for me to come back because I don’t know if I will.

  —Joey

  I’m waiting outside the bank when it opens. I close my account, stash the money in a bag under my shirt, and then set off.

  - 4 -

  Where do you go when you’ve got a destination in mind but no idea how to get to it?

  I do what I did when I was a kid. I ride the rails. It was tough enough when I was a kid because things had already changed from the old days when hoboes crossed the country on the freights. Things have changed even more now, but it’s not impossible. And there’s no better way to travel unnoticed.

  I don’t want to be noticed.

  I feel it’s important to just disappear, like it’s the first part of the ritual I have to make up. I don’t see the other pieces yet, but this first one feels right.

  I eat off the land—fishing, setting snares before I go to sleep—or from fast-food outlets. I clean up in public restrooms. I take a few bad spills coming off the trains. Sprain my arm once. Dislocate my shoulder. That’s a bitch to reset, pushing myself up against a pole until the damn thing finally pops back into place.

  I manage to avoid the security guards in the freight yards. I’m not always so lucky with the other guys on the road. But I grew up fighting and it’s not something you forget. After a while word gets around and the would-be toughs stay out of the way of the crazy Indian.

  Most people I meet on the rails don’t want to fight. Most of them don’t even want to talk. That’s fine with me, too, because I’ve got nothing to say.

  The loss is always there, Seamus said. The hole in the world where once she was.

  That doesn’t begin to describe the emptiness I feel.

  I ride the rails.

  I start carving acorns out of found pieces of wood. When one is done, I toss it from whatever train I’m on.

  Seven months go by.

  * * *

  I’m on another train, sitting cross-legged in front of the empty boxcar’s door, watching the landscape. It’s desert country again. Badlands. New Mexico, maybe. It doesn’t matter. It’s just one more place where I am and she’s not.

  I finish the acorn I’ve been carving. I hold it up to my eye for a long moment, studying the smoothness of the nut, the tough texture of the cap with its little stem. I toss the carving out the open door, snap my jackknife closed, and stow it back in my pocket.

  “Didn’t like that one?” a voice says from behind me.

  I turn and look for who spoke. I find him sitting in the shadows, an old man with a bedroll under his butt. He’s got a battered tweed cap on his head, and he’s bundled up in a greatcoat. I can see how you might want something like that when the sun goes down, but right now it’s got to be in the high eighties. He has to be melting in that thing.

  “I didn’t see you there,” I tell him.

  The old man smiles. “I get that a lot. Maybe I should change my name to Surprise.”

  “It’s as good as any other, I suppose.”

  “Think I’ll stick with Rudy. What’s yours?”

  You don’t meet many talkers on the old hobo trails, and I’m not used to having conversations anymore. But we’ve got a ways to go before the train will slow down enough to jump off, and I’ve already carved my acorn for this ride.

  “I’m Joey,” I tell him.

  “Nice to meet you, Joey. So you like to whittle?”

  I shrug. “It passes the time.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it. Another might be that it’s a piece of a ritual.”

  “What?”

  “Did you know that when you work magic, it shows? It puts a charge in the air. How strong the charge is depends on how close you are to finishing what you started.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I already told you. My name’s Rudy. I’m like you. Just a guy riding the rails. And, like you—like every one of us living this life—I’ve got more to me than the homeless guy you see when you look my way. Come on. This can’t be anything new for you. You know none of us were born doing this. We came to it because we’ve got nothing else left. Or in your case, because it’s something you need to do to make something else happen.”

  I glance out the open door, but we’re still going too fast for me to survive a jump.

  “I don’t know what you think you see,” I begin, but he waves a hand to cut me off.

  “And I don’t know,” he says, “what’s happened to you that makes you treat everybody as an enemy. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve got knowledge. I’ve got skills. Maybe I can help you.”

  “Why would you?”

  He smiles and throws my words back at me.

  “It passes the time. And really, what have you got to lose?”

  Nothing, I realize. So I tell him. Not what brought me here. Not about the hole in my life that can’t ever be filled.

  “I’m trying to find a place called Bordertown,” I say.

  “Bordertown? Yeah, now there’s a place. It can fill up your spirit and it can break your heart—sometimes both at the same time. Being in Bordertown is like mainlining a drug. Go there on
ce, and all you’ll ever want to do is get back. Problem is, sometimes it’s just not there anymore—or at least it isn’t for you.”

  “But it is real?”

  “Define ‘real.’ ”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Man, how would I know what you mean? My real’s not necessarily the same as your real. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not just being cute. The thing is, we all live in the world that we see and expect. They don’t always match up—you understand what I’m saying?”

  I shake my head.

  “Let me put it this way,” he says. “You look out that door and you’re seeing New Mexico go by.”

  “So?”

  “So what if I told you I see Alaska? Or India? Or the heart of Moscow?”

  “I’d think you were either yanking my chain—or you’re crazy.”

  “Sure, that’s the easy way to look at it. But what if I’m really seeing a landscape you don’t?”

  “That’s impossible.”

  He nods. “Right. And if you keep your mind closed like that, you’ll never get to Bordertown. I mean, think about it. Is Bordertown, or even the Perilous Realm, any more probable?”

  “I guess not.…”

  I look out the door, trying to see something other than mesas and badlands. Mountains in the distance.

  “I can’t see it,” I say. “I just see New Mexico.”

  “Did I say it wasn’t New Mexico?”

  “But—”

  “I was making a point.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I get it. And I’ve been trying to open my mind. But I’m just not seeing any differently than I ever did.”

  “I think you’ve been doing pretty good. You can see me, can’t you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on, Joey. You’re a smart guy. You’re walking around under the blessings of a dozen or so Green Men. You were married to a Green Man’s daughter. You’ve been whittling acorns and tossing them out of trains from one side of the country to the other. Did you seriously not expect to call something to you?”

  All I can do is stare at him. I never told him any of that stuff.

  “Let me show you something,” he says.

  He stands up, and what I thought was a bedroll is actually a pile of leaves. Now that he’s moved out of the shadows, I can see that his eyes are a mix of gold and green. His face is ruddy and round, with deep laugh lines. He comes to where I’m sitting by the door and waits expectantly until I stand up beside him. He puts his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat and pulls out two fistfuls of carved acorns. Smiling at me, he lets them fall from his hands to the track bed that’s speeding by below.

  “Where did you … how …?”

  I don’t have the words to finish my questions. All I can do is stare at his hands.

  “I think I liked the earlier ones better,” he says. “You seem to have put more intent into them. Now you’re kind of doing it by rote, but it doesn’t really matter. They still fulfilled the boundaries of your ritual.”

  “I …”

  “Don’t talk,” he says. “Listen. Look at those beautiful mountains.”

  We stand in the doorway watching the landscape continue to go by.

  “You know it’s not going to be any easier in Bordertown, right?” he says after a few moments. “Being there’s not going to make things better, or help you to forget—unless you drink some of that Mad River water, and then you’re only going to find out why they call it that.”

  “If I can get that far, then I can—”

  He points out the door.

  “Pay attention here,” he says. “Listen to the wind. Look at that mesa. Smell the clean air out there. Isn’t it so much better than the diesel fumes and the metal and wood and grease of this boxcar?”

  “I guess.”

  “Sure it is. Now here’s where you get off.”

  I start to turn to him, but his hands are on my back and he pushes me out the boxcar door.

  * * *

  Rudy’s push sends me flailing into the air. I know I’m going to hit hard and badly.

  Except the air seems to catch me. I’m floating. Bright sunshine all around me, the train wailing by.

  And then it’s dark. When I touch the ground, I land like a leaf. There isn’t even an impact. I feel gravel under me, and I roll over to see a night sky above. It’s filled with constellations I don’t recognize.

  The train, Rudy, New Mexico—they’re all gone.

  When I sit up, I see I’m in a train yard. I don’t know where, but I can guess. In one direction I can see a fence, beyond it blocks of dark buildings. In the other direction it looks like a dump, cars and trash piled high.

  I get up and start walking across the tracks to the fence. I was planning to climb over, but then I see someone’s already cut a hole in it that I can squeeze through. On the other side I find out why the buildings are dark. The city’s been abandoned—or at least this part of it has been. I can see lights in the far distance, so I start to walk through the deserted streets.

  I’m almost to the lighted area when I hear wheels clattering. I see a white kid on a skateboard, rolling back and forth on a little patch of asphalt, which must’ve been a parking space back before everybody left this area and nature made its comeback. As I get closer, I don’t see anything unusual about him. No elf ears. No big wings sprouting out of his back. He’s maybe sixteen, with a rat’s nest of hair, baggy pants, a Green Day Dookie T-shirt, and a pair of Nike Air Max. He stops goofing around with his skateboard when he sees me and waits for me to approach.

  “Hey,” I say. “Think you could direct me to a hostel or a flophouse?”

  He laughs. “Just get here?”

  “Yeah.”

  He waves his hand to take in the empty buildings that surround us.

  “Take your pick,” he says.

  “I was hoping to clean up and get something to eat.”

  He pushes back his hoodie and gives me an interested look.

  “You got any money?” he asks.

  “Not much.”

  “Worldly money?” When he realizes I don’t know what he means, he adds, “You know, from the World. Where you came from. The reason I ask is, it’s not worth as much here. You got any coffee or chocolate?”

  I nod. There’s probably a half-pound of French roast and a handful of chocolate and granola bars in my knapsack.

  “Then you’re cool.” He steps on his board and it jumps into his hand. “Buy me a meal and I’ll show you the ropes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  He was starting to turn, but he looks back at me.

  “That can be a loaded question here,” he says. “Usually you wait until someone offers it to you. And,” he goes on before I can say anything, “be careful handing out your own. Just give up something like a nickname.”

  “And that would be because?”

  “Magic’s unpredictable here, but that doesn’t mean it’s not potent in the right hands. Names are power. If someone has your full true name, they can make you do stuff that maybe you don’t want to.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “But if you need a tag, you can call me River.”

  Full true names are power? I don’t really buy it. But to be safe, I just give him the shortened version of Joseph.

  “I’m Joey,” I tell him.

  “Come on, Joey. Let’s get you something to eat. Me, I’ll have a sandwich and a beer.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say. “How old are you?”

  He laughs. “You think anyone gives a shit about that? You’re in Bordertown now. We’ve got our own rules, and how old you are isn’t part of any of them.”

  “I guess I’ve got a lot to learn.”

  “You have no idea,” the kid tells me. “No idea at all.”

  * * *

  He’s right. I don’t. Bordertown’s shabbier than I expected, run-down and wearing at the edges, but it’s also got that makeshift cool that
you’ll always find in a certain part of any city. The place where the oddball stores, restaurants, and clubs are all just a little hipper.

  Most people look as human as you’d find anywhere, though they’ve got a more individual and varied fashion sense, which seems vaguely out-of-date. I was expecting something like a FaerieCon, with everybody dressed up in their faerie gear. And yeah, there’s a bit of that here, more velvet and lace and glitter than you’d see back home, but there’s also everything from a Victorian steampunk kind of look to a mash-up of a punk rock concert with a hippie festival.

  But the elves. I get a real pang in my heart when I see my first honest-to-goodness one. Tall, slender, and pale, with the high, pointed ears and the silvery hair. I just think about how much Juliana would have loved to see one. To be here.

  They don’t call themselves elves, or faerie, River informs me. They’re Truebloods, which, I’ve got to admit, sounds a bit too white supremacist for my taste. I didn’t imagine there’d be racism in Bordertown, but apparently there’s a real hierarchy here, starting with highborn and lowborn elves, then halflings, with humans at the bottom. Which would make a guy with my skin color at the bottom of the bottom.

  River shrugs. “You can get all in a twist about it, or you can just let it go. So long as you stay out of the way of the Truebloods, and don’t piss off one of the gangs, no one’s going to care.”

  Says the white kid.

  He never asks me why I’ve come, and I don’t volunteer the information. I do tell him I’m interested in the Realm—they don’t call it Faerieland here—and he just laughs.

  “No kidding?” he says. “You and every other newbie. But forget about ever getting over there. I mean, seriously. Forget about it. You might be thinking, ‘Hey, I made it to Bordertown, which is like a miracle all by itself. Getting into the Realm is just one more impossible thing I’m going to do.’ But it’s never going to happen. And if you try, you’ll just bring a world of hurt down on yourself.”

  He doesn’t know about the world of hurt I carry around inside myself every day, but I just nod.

  River hangs around with me until midmorning, which is when he realizes that the flow of free food and drinks has dried up.