The Rest of Us Just Live Here

by Patrick Ness

  “At least you can’t see the scar,” I say.

  Jared’s hands have helped the stitches already come out, but without slabs of make-up, there’s still a hoof-made gash in my face. It’ll heal more, I know, but the scar ain’t going anywhere.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Mel says. “Once the redness is gone, it might even look kind of amazing.”

  “Nobody really sees scars after the first time,” Henna says. “Not anyone who matters, anyway.”

  “Yeah,” I say, flatly, “people who make fun of my face probably aren’t my friends.”

  Henna reaches up and traces her fingers lightly over it, running down from the tip below my cheekbone, over the wider part on the flat of my cheek, to the little curlicue on the side of my chin. “It’s still you,” she says. “Everyone will be able to see you.”

  She keeps her fingers there for a second. Yeah, I really want to kiss her again.

  “Um,” the scraggly man says, back at the main counter while his prescription gets filled. “Could I get a pack of Marlboro?”

  Mel grabs a pack off the rows of cancer-addled faces and tumoured lungs in the racks behind her and rings it up. The man is still so obviously shy of us, he fumbles with his money, dropping a five-dollar bill on the ground. I lean to get it, but Henna’s better placed. She lifts it up to him.

  “I know you,” the man whispers, not looking her in the face. He slides the five plus another ten at my sister.

  “You do?” Henna asks.

  The man looks at her once, then away again, shyly. “Teemu,” he says.

  Henna slumps like her clothes suddenly weigh an extra hundred pounds. “Erik?” she says. “Erik Peddersen?”

  The scraggly man nods.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Henna says, under her breath, but out of surprise, not scorn. The scraggly man blushes anyway.

  “Strange shit going on,” he says, still not making eye contact.

  “I don’t think it’s vampires,” Henna says.

  “No,” Erik says, firmly. “They’d have come for me if it was.”

  There’s an empty, silent moment, where no one’s blinking and Erik is obviously growing more uncomfortable. Then “Number Nine,” says the voice of Pratip, the pharmacist, over the loudspeaker, and Erik immediately heads off without looking at us again. We watch him go.

  “Friend of your brother’s?” Mel gently asks.

  “In his band,” Henna says. “Haven’t seen him since it all ended. Guess he had a hard time coping.”

  She pulls her good arm into herself, almost visibly shrinking. I put my own arm around her, and she leans into me. I kind of hate myself for thinking how nice it is.

  “That won’t be us,” Mel says, meaning Erik. “Whatever happens, that’s not going to be us.”

  And she says it like she’s demanding a promise.

  “Your sister is like a cute little robot,” Tina, our manager, says. “I just want to eat her right up.”

  Meredith sits alone at a booth in Grillers. Jared’s piled the table in front of her – the part not covered in homework and school hardware – with enough cheesy toast and blueberry lemonade to ruin every Jazz & Tap class she’s ever taken.

  “I want a kid,” Tina says, looking at her hungrily from the waitress station.

  “Get one from Ronald,” Jared says, stealing a fry from a plate.

  “He’s infertile.” She whispers it louder than her normal speaking voice.

  “You should adopt,” Jared says. “Adoption is a moral good.”

  Tina makes a face. “Yeah, because Ronald’s exactly the kind of guy who makes a good impression on a social worker.” She sighs, looking around Grillers. “Grumpy night. Everyone’s in a bad mood.”

  She’s right about that. I’ve had more complaints tonight than I’ve had in the last six months. One guy even sent back his water.

  “There’s a weird feeling in the air, isn’t there?” Tina says. “All those kids killing themselves at the high school.” Jared and I exchange a look but don’t correct her. “You can feel it when you’re driving home at night. God knows what could be out there in those woods.”

  Tina would have been twenty or so when the soul-eating ghosts came, so just that little bit too old to be directly involved. Still, you always wonder how much people know and just don’t say. Or pretend not to know. Or purposely forget.

  Meredith leans out of her booth to catch my eye, even though she sat in Jared’s section. He’s more generous with the blueberry lemonade. I go over to her.

  “What’s up?”

  She shows me her pad and swipes through a bunch of web pages. “There’s nothing about it on the main news sites, not even if you search.”

  “You shouldn’t be looking anyway. Leave it to me and Mel to take care of–”

  “But if you go to the right places,” she says, ignoring me and opening a few locked-door discussion rooms on weird boards for things like obscure Japanese toys and underground video games. She turns the pad to me, several windows open.

  I want to keep scolding her, but I can’t help but scan the pages. Lots of references to blue eyes and indie kids dying and the Immortals. Lots about the Immortals.

  “Most of it’s speculation,” Meredith says. “‘Immortals’ could mean a lot of things, but people are thinking maybe a kind of multi-dimensional thing. Or elves. Or angels, even. And the blue lights are an energy that kills you or brings you back to life or something. I’ll bet that’s what the deer were running from.” She sinks her chin down to her hands on the table. “Nobody knows for sure because the indie kids aren’t talking to anybody but themselves. It’s happening a lot of places, though. In some version or another.”

  “Just like the vampires,” I say, almost to myself. Then I see her worried little face. “But you’ve got nothing to worry about. They never come after little mites like you.”

  “What if they cancel Bolts of Fire?” she asks, and you might think this is a ten year old asking a selfish question when people are dying. Not Meredith. She’s asking if everything’s going to be all right. It probably will be, but when did “probably” ever help anyone?

  “Jeesh, people are cranky tonight,” Jared says, coming over with the coffee pots. “Want anything else, Merde Breath?”

  “Fresh cheesy toast?” she asks in a small voice.

  Jared smiles. “Coming right up. Mel and Henna just pulled in by the way.” He glances at me. “Nathan’s with them.”

  I take the coffee pots from him and walk back to my side of the restaurant. Tina’s already pouring out a Ronald tale of woe to Mel and Henna by the front door. “…and his toenails are like something out of a fable–”

  “Hey,” I say. They say “Hey” back. It’s kind of like verbal tag, isn’t it? Hey, here I am, are you here with me, Yes, we are here with you, and everyone feels good because “Hey”.

  I tip my head to Meredith’s booth. “She’s worrying. Looking stuff up.”

  Mel sighs. “I told her not to, but I’m not surprised.” She heads over to our little sister.

  “Staff discount on whatever you guys want,” Tina says. “Make somebody happy.”

  “Thanks, Tina,” I say. She smiles and just stands there, looking at me and Henna. Then looking some more. Then looking some more. Then finally saying, “Oh!” and heading off to force more cheesy toast on customers.

  “You okay?” I ask Henna when Tina’s gone.

  “Yeah, you?”

  “Good. Weird. Good.”

  She smiles. “Me, too.”

  I swallow. “Listen, Henna–”

  “I know. Unfinished business.” She looks down at her cast, covered in ink by all the signatures. The biggest one is Jared’s. The smallest one is mine, but it’s the only one she allowed on the palm of her hand. “I’ve been thinking,” she says. “Do you remember what I said, just before we hit the deer?”

  Oh, shit. “Not really.”

  She knows I’m lying, but doesn’t say. “You said you loved me
. And I said I didn’t think that was true.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “But I don’t think you know it either, Mikey.” She taps her cast. “I do want to kiss you again, though.”

  I half-grin. “In the name of exploration?”

  “Three of your tables want their bills,” Tina says, reappearing. “They seem kinda pissy about it, too.”

  Henna’s already heading over to Mel and Meredith, who are lengthily pretending to order from Jared. “I thought Nathan was with you,” I say, as she goes.

  “Still outside,” she says, shrugging.

  And I wonder if she’s kissed him in the name of exploration.

  I get my three tables their bills. Only one of them leaves me a tip. I seat an angry-looking older couple who are already asking about the senior discount before they’re even in their chairs, and this regular fireman who comes in every Saturday, orders the same thing, and just asks to be left alone as long as the all-you-can-eat shrimp keeps coming. I look back at Meredith’s booth as I punch in their orders.

  Still no Nathan.

  I check around for Tina, then step outside, wiping my hands on a towel, feeling the pull of a loop that I want to wash and wash and wash them. I don’t see Nathan anywhere, just oil stains, the traffic-resistant pine shrubs that border us, and a big open sky with a full moon beaming down. I head around towards the garbage area, two big bins in a little brick hut that Jared and I are inevitably scheduled to wheel out every Sunday night. They smell unbelievably bad, even after we pour buckets of bleach into them.

  There’s no one there either. I keep walking, still wiping my hands – just being near the garbage area would do that to even a normal person – not sure why I’m so curious or what I’m even thinking. I don’t even like Nathan.

  I probably wouldn’t want to see him killed, though.

  I’m beginning to get properly worried – I’m going to wipe my fingerprints off with this rag – when I turn the last corner and see him, his back against the brick of the restaurant outside the emergency exit. He’s having a cigarette, but he doesn’t look like he’s hurrying.

  I stop in a shadow. Still wiping my hands, yes, but trying not to make a thing of it.

  Nathan’s got a funny old face when no one’s looking at it. Like he’s almost an entirely different person, the saddest person I’ve ever seen – which is saying something – and sure, he lost his sister and he moves around a lot and he used to be an indie kid–

  He used to be an indie kid. The little “mascot”, he said.

  And it’s because I don’t like him, albeit just for stupid, jealous reasons, but the first thing I think isn’t: Maybe we could get him to find out what’s going on from some of our indie kids here.

  It’s: What does he know that he’s not telling us?

  Because he made a joke out of it, didn’t he? He showed up and the indie kids started dying. Someone clever would point that out themselves and say how worried they were that they’d start being blamed, especially if they were to blame.

  But then, so would someone who really did show up innocently.

  He grinds his cigarette out with his foot. Then he picks up the butt and looks around for somewhere to throw it away so he’s not littering, which, okay, is maybe not the action of a killer.

  Still.

  He throws it in a trashcan down by a car, then stands looking into the windows of the restaurant. He doesn’t do anything, doesn’t wave at anyone or try to catch anyone’s attention, despite having a view of almost all of Jared’s section and definitely the booth where Meredith, Mel and Henna sit.

  He looks sad again. Or sad still, whatever. He turns into the night, gazing at the cars driving by, at the stars and moon that still shine there.

  What are you waiting for, former indie kid?

  With a sigh, he disappears behind the other side of the restaurant, heading towards the entrance. Where, once inside, he’ll no doubt pass the pissed-off seniors and annoyed fireman who are wondering where the hell their waiter’s got to.

  I hurry back in, still wiping my hands, wondering what I’ve seen. Wondering if I’ve seen anything. I probably haven’t.

  But what was he doing out there? And what do we know about him, really?

  CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH, in which Satchel, mourning her friends but pressing on feistily, keeps researching her amulet with the card catalogue; the mysterious boy appears in her bedroom one night and his first words are, “I’m sorry”; he tells her he is the Prince in the Court of the Immortals; his mother, the Empress, wants to take over this world, sensing great food here to feed their immortality; they seek to open more fissures, find more permanent Vessels in which to live, but the Prince has fallen in love with Satchel from afar and can’t stand idly by while her world is enslaved; “I’ve come to help,” he says; they kiss.

  “And so it is with great pleasure and excitement,” my mom says, standing at the podium, smiling into the bright lights of the cameras, “that I announce my candidacy to represent the people of the Eighth Congressional District of the great state of Washington.”

  There’s applause from her supporters and from the party officials gathered around her. She smiles back at us, but just with her mouth, and I realize my dad is the only one of us clapping along. I elbow Mel, and she and I and Meredith start slapping our hands together, looking like the perfect family we totally aren’t. I’m even wearing a suit.

  Mom’s satisfied and turns back to the cameras. In truth, there aren’t all that many. There’s one main feed that’ll supply footage to the network affiliates if they want it, one camera from the local independent station that mostly shows reruns, and another supplied by the party itself for internet campaigning. There are some print and web journalists, too, but all in all, I think interested public are outnumbered by politicians and family.

  “State Senator Mitchell?” a local journalist asks when the applause has died down.

  “You don’t really need the ‘State’ in front of it, Ed,” my mom says, smiling wide.

  “What do you have to say about Tom Shurin, your expected opponent?” Ed the journalist continues.

  “I say that I welcome a vigorous and clean campaign based on the issues I outlined in my speech,” my mom says, smiling like a president. You may not like politicians much – I don’t – but she’s good at her job. I can’t remember a single one of the issues from her speech, only the vague sense that she really cared about them. Which she once told me is the perfect result. If you’re too specific, people will purposely mishear you so they can be outraged about whatever thing that usually outrages them. You want to get them on your side emotionally, apparently, where they ask fewer questions.

  They want us a bit dumb and a bit afraid. Which for the most part, I think we are.

  “What about the rest of your family, Alice?” a nastier voice says. I recognize it. It’s this woman who runs a bitter-but-annoyingly-significant little blog about how local politicians are morons for not agreeing with everything she thinks. “We wouldn’t want a repeat of the tragedies that scuttled your run for Lieutenant Governor.”

  I see Mel’s face set in some fairly unfiltered hatred that I hope the cameras aren’t capturing, but my mom doesn’t miss a beat. “I have a normal American family, Cynthia, and just like any family, we try to face our challenges with grace and dignity. I love my children more than anything in the world, and I would never do this if I didn’t have their complete support.”

  I wonder if that’s true.

  “And,” my mother goes on, her voice actually emotional, “I would take great issue if any press decided to go after my children.” Her voice goes tough, but it’s politician tough, and I wonder again if it’s true. “They’d have one ferocious mama bear to deal with first.”

  Her campaign team bursts into spontaneous applause.

  “How you holding up, Dad?” Mel asks him as the press conference winds down.

  “Hmm?” he says, looking at her vaguely. He’s
in a suit as well, of course, and from the smell of him, reasonably sober. He takes a drink of the coffee provided while my mom does a few friendly interviews. “Oh, you know,” he says. “Another year, another campaign.” He pats his pockets, but doesn’t look like he expects to find anything there. “We’ll get by.”

  My mom comes over in her power blue dress and her power pearl necklace. “Thank you,” she says, and it’s so genuine, we all feel a little embarrassed. “You did great.”

  “You’re welcome,” Mel says, wary as ever. “Mama bear, huh?”

  My mom gives a tight smile. “I’m really not going to let them get to you, Melinda. You have my word.”

  “You can’t control that,” Mel says, “but thanks. It’s a small race, I don’t think they’ll bother.” My mother stiffens a little at “small race” and Mel immediately closes her eyes. “Not what I meant.”

  “I know,” my mom says. “You two will be out of here before it really heats up.”

  It’s the first time she’s acknowledged this. She sounds kind of sad.

  “We’ll get by,” I hear myself saying. “We’ll get by.”

  We’ve taken separate cars to get here; my mom coming up from the capital with her team, my dad under orders to clean up enough to get there for the evening. He can do it, if you push him, and my mom really, really knows how to push him. Who knows what their secret married life is like? I can’t even imagine it, don’t ever want to, and feel like I have less clue about it as time passes. But whatever, it seems to work for them.

  Mel drives Dad and Meredith back home. I ride with my mom.

  “The best thing is that it’s only six months to the election so it’s a short campaign,” my mom says, pushing on through the dark. “Normally for a seat this big, I’d have had to be running for at least the last year.” She glances over at me. “Which would have been worse.”

  “You’d still have run, though.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I probably would have. And you and your sister judge me for that, I know.”