“Where did you train? Did you go to school for music?”
“Life is school, honey. You ought to know that. Or maybe you aren’t from around here. Where’d you stagger in from?”
Valerie lacked the strength to relive her past day and the events that brought her to the city. The memory was too raw. “I’m from Briar Valley,” she replied. “I just need fifty crowns to get home.”
Rico nodded. “Um hmm. I’m saving up too. I’m writing a show right now that’s my ticket out of this neighborhood. I’ll move uptown, or maybe head down the coast. Sky’s the limit.” He bundled up the towels and handed them to Valerie to carry. “Can’t leave a mess up here. The boss will already be mad we used her bathroom. Best not make it worse.”
Valerie trudged down the stairs, then realized she was missing her bag. “Hey, did you see a bag when I came in?”
“We can check the alley,” Rico replied. “Could be those bastards ran off with it.”
“It has my wallet and my car keys,” she said.
“You’ve got a car? Wow. You are high class.”
They emerged next to the storage room downstairs and Rico directed her to where the laundry was deposited. He then guided her back into the bar. The place had cleared out, but there were still a handful of drinkers determined to make the night last. Valerie scanned the space and noted the long bar and the dozen booths around the perimeter. A young woman was playing a guitar while singing something mournful and lovely at the front of the small, curtained stage.
“Is that your bag?” Rico asked. “Looks like you might have gotten lucky.” He pointed toward a booth in the back where a lone man was sitting with a drink in his hand and watching the guitar player. Her bag was on the bench opposite him. It was the swordsman from the alley. “Better go and get it from him,” Rico said.
“What’s his name?” Valerie asked.
“That’s Damon,” Rico replied. “He showed up a few weeks ago. He rents a room next to my building. Tonight was the most I’ve heard him talk. Usually he just sits back there and broods. Seems all right though.”
Valerie pushed back the oversized sleeves on her sweatshirt and crossed the dimly lit bar to the booth where her alleyway savior was sitting.
“Hey,” she managed.
The man looked up. His eyes were glassy, but he slowly focused on her face. “Ah. The alley cat.”
She had thought him twice her age when she saw him outside. Now that they were indoors, she could see he was only in his early twenties. His world-weary expression made him look older.
“Can I have my bag back?” Valerie asked.
The swordsman lifted his glass and emptied it, then grabbed the bag and slid it to the center of the table. “Do what you like. I was just leaving.” He slid out of the booth and stood.
He was tall and smelled of cedar and also vaguely of gasoline. But perhaps that was just the alcohol. He wiped his mouth with a knuckle and moved past her.
“Wait,” Valerie said.
The man turned.
“Thank you. For what you did in the alley.”
“It was nothing,” he replied. “I’m sure you would have been fine either way.”
Valerie didn’t agree, but she didn’t feel up to arguing. Something about his eyes made her keep her mouth shut. It was like he wasn’t even looking at her, but looking through her to some past tragedy. Her argument would have been about the here and now. A place he wasn’t currently occupying.
“See you around,” he muttered, and headed for the door.
Valerie scooped up her bag and rummaged through the contents. She located her car key and wallet. She opened the billfold and discovered that her money was missing.
“What the—” She searched the rest of the bag, but the fifteen crowns she should have had left was gone. She looked to the doorway where the swordsman had disappeared, then back to the table where he had been sitting. The corner of a ten-crown note was protruding from under one of the empty glasses. She lifted the glass and discovered its five-crown companion as well. She scanned the collection of empty glasses on the table and swore. “That bastard.”
She considered snatching her money back from the table, but at that moment, a server arrived to gather up the glasses. She gave Valerie a sideways glance. “Everything all right?”
“No. Not remotely,” Valerie replied.
The server stood there with a confused expression on her face, waiting for further explanation, but Valerie gave none. She winced as the girl gathered up the money and stuffed it into her apron.
“Now what do I do?” she muttered.
She wandered back to Rico, who was perched on a stool near the taps. Janet, the owner, was behind the bar watching her approach.
“How are you holding up?” Janet asked. “You need us to call you a ride?”
“You have a phone?” Valerie perked up at the comment. “Can I use it?”
“Sure. We share it with the place next door. In the hall through there.” Janet waved the rag she was using toward a doorway at the side of the bar.
Valerie wasted no time in locating the payphone. A drunken man was slurring into the receiver but seemed to be wrapping things up. Valerie rummaged through her bag once more, searching desperately for change. She managed to locate a single coin stuffed far down in the recesses of her wallet. “Thank God,” she said and fixed the man at the phone with a look that he couldn’t misinterpret. He muttered a few more things into the phone, nodded to Valerie, and handed off the receiver.
Valerie held the handle gingerly, unsure of what foul organisms might be living on it, but tapped the lever atop the phone, inserted her coin, and began to dial. The phone rang for what seemed like forever before someone finally picked up.
“Hello?”
“Thea? Is that you? It’s me, Val.”
“Val? Oh my God, where are you?”
Valerie felt a rush of relief wash over her at the sound of her friend’s voice. “Listen, Thea, things have gotten so messed up. I need help.”
“I know. I heard you got arrested. Everyone’s talking about it.”
That news spread fast.
She tried to focus. “Look, I’m at a . . . at a bar just outside the city, but they’ve impounded my car. I need some money to get it back so I can get out of here.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“I know but it’s an emergency. Does your family have someone here in the city that I could get help from? I’ll pay you back, I just need to get out of here and . . . Maybe I can come stay with you for a bit?”
“I heard about Henry,” Thea said. “Is it true what they’re saying?”
Valerie swallowed and tried not to let the mental image of her brother’s bloodless body completely derail her. “It’s true. Can you help me, Thea? I need to get out of here and get somewhere safe.”
“I’ll ask my dad, okay? Hang on.”
“No, wait! Thea! Thea?”
Valerie clutched the receiver and eyed the payphone suspiciously, wondering if it might cut her off any second. It had suddenly become her only lifeline.
An eternity later, Thea came back on. “Um, Val?”
“What did he say?”
“Look, I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”
“What? Look, I just need help to get out of here, then I can figure out what to do to fix things.”
“Dad says you’ve been renounced by the Sterlings. They sent word that you’re supposed to be arrested if anyone finds you.”
“The Sterlings are the ones that should be arrested,” Valerie argued. “Jasper Sterling lied to the courts. He murdered Henry.”
“That’s not what they’re saying,” Thea whispered. “They said Henry tried to kill Jasper and he had to defend himself. They’re saying you just went crazy on him after and tried to stab him in the back.”
“What? Who’s saying that?”
“Everyone. It’s all anyone’s been talking about. He’s a Sterling, Val.”
“I have to go. My dad is coming.”
“No. No, no Thea. Please, I need your help. Please, just fifty crowns. Let me borrow it and I swear I’ll give it back right away.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Thea. Wait—”
“Valerie?” A man’s voice came on the line. “Where are you? What are you doing calling here?”
“Mr. Johansen, I’m sorry, I need help.”
“If you want help, you’ll have to turn yourself in to the Sterlings. We can’t be caught up in whatever you’ve done. Don’t call here anymore.”
Then the line went dead.
9
Stranded
Valerie stared at the phone receiver as though it held some dark and evil magic.
Her only hope had evaporated into silence and all that was left in her hand was this vile snake of a device. What had it done?
“You have to put money in it,” a voice said.
She turned to find an old woman with hardly any teeth pointing at the payphone. “In the slot there. You can’t call nobody unless you pay.” She waited patiently for several more seconds, then cleared her throat. “So, you using it, or what?”
Valerie let the receiver fall from her hand and it swung into the wall, ricocheting off and spinning several times on its cord before thumping into the wall again.
She shuffled past the old woman in a daze. What was happening to the world? What devil had she angered that had caused her life to crumble in such a violent wave of catastrophe?
Even Thea had abandoned her?
It was hopeless.
She wandered back into the bar without conscious thought. She took a seat on a stool at the end of the bar and let her bag drop to the floor next to her. Crossing her arms on the bar top, she laid her head on them and closed her eyes. Nothing mattered. She would just stay here and die.
“I take it the call didn’t go well?” Janet asked.
Her footsteps approached along the inside of the bar. A glass clunked onto the wood near Valerie’s head, followed by the subtle splashing of something being poured into it.
“I’ll give you just one free one,” Janet said. “Because I need to finish off this bottle. And because I have a hard rule around here. No sleeping on the bar.”
Valerie looked up and stared at the drink next to her. She wasn’t legally allowed to have hard liquor for another few weeks, but after a day like today, what was left to lose? She’d do about anything to dull the pain of this day. She took a sip, puckered her face slightly, then went back for more. The glass was empty a few moments later.
She found Janet eying her. The woman’s face was care-worn and unsmiling, but there was a hint of compassion in her eyes. “You have a place to go tonight?” she asked.
“I thought I did, but I was wrong.”
“Figured that might be the case.” Janet said. “We’ll be closing up soon. I’ve got a fold-out cot in the storage room that you’re welcome to use for the night. Can’t very well pitch you back into the alley where we found you. Not after Rico and Carlyn invested so much time and soap into you.” She put a rag and a bottle of cleaner on the bar. “Here.”
Valerie stared at the spray bottle. “What’s this for?”
“You can help me clean tables while I close up.”
“You want me to clean? I was almost murdered tonight. And that wasn’t even the worst part of my day.”
“Good. Then this won’t be either.” Janet pushed the cleaning supplies toward her. “I told you. You get one free one, which you’ve had. Everything else around here is earned.” She called toward the stage. “Ain’t that right, Rico?”
Rico paused in the act of helping the guitarist pack up her gear. He had removed his wig, revealing short black hair that was cut close to his head. “You know I know.”
Janet smirked, then turned back to Valerie. “He’s a good kid that one. Hard worker. But that’s anybody who makes something of themselves around here.” She collected the empty bottle of liquor and tossed it into a bin with a dozen others. Then she moved off to settle someone’s tab.
Valerie’s head was still aching and her body was sore, but she scooped up the rag and bottle of cleaner and groaned her way over to the nearest empty booth. She wrinkled her nose as she eyed the puddles of beer and a cup of what might have been tobacco spit that someone had left behind. Getting her hands dirty wrenching on a car was one thing, but other people’s fluids?
She took another look around the bar. There was no one to relieve her of this task. She finally aimed the spray bottle at the table and doused every suspicious surface with soap.
As she was wiping, Rico wandered over and leaned against a neighboring booth. “Don’t worry. She’s strict but she’s fair. If she likes you, maybe she’ll keep you around, let you work the kitchen or something. You could make that fifty crowns you need to get out of here.”
“Work the kitchen? Like a servant?” Valerie said.
“Well, not if you think you’re too good for it,” Rico said. “Just trying to throw you a bone.” He pushed off the booth and walked away.
“No. Wait,” Valerie said. “I’m sorry.” But Rico simply flipped a hand in the air and moved back to the stage. Valerie sighed and went back to wiping tables.
It took another twenty minutes until Janet had cleared the last of the patrons out, and a few more till she was satisfied with the state of the bar. She finally approached Valerie and extended a hand for the now filthy cleaning rag. “Come on. The rest will keep till morning. Let’s get you squared away.”
She led Valerie back to the storeroom where they had first tried to clean her up. Janet tossed the dirty rag into the laundry hamper, then plucked a green canvas camp cot from the wall and extended the legs.
“It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, but it beats the floor.” She retrieved a pillow and blanket from above the laundry shelf and handed those to Valerie. “I can’t promise no one has ever gotten sick in here, but we do a pretty good job of cleaning up. That being said, I’d appreciate any business you need to do be conducted in the employee washroom. You’ll find it through there.” She pointed to a door that was partially open, revealing the corner of a basin sink. “The back door stays locked all night for safety purposes and I’ve got the key, so once you’re in, you’re in. If you decide in the middle of the night that there’s someplace else you’d rather be, you’ll just have to wait till morning.”
“I’ll be locked in?”
“I’ll be upstairs if you really need me, but I lock my hall door too and I sleep like the dead so I can’t promise I’ll hear you knocking. If you want out, I’m happy to let you wander off into the night right now. Your choice.”
Valerie considered the heavy door that lead to the back alley, then hugged the blankets tighter. “No. I’ll be fine here.”
“Thought you’d make it work.” Janet moved to the back door and put a hand to the lock but paused as Rico made his way down the hall. “You going out the back tonight?”
“You all good here?” Rico asked, leaning in the door to assess Valerie.
“She’ll make do,” Janet replied.
Rico fixed Valerie with a long stare but then simply nodded to Janet. “Night then.”
“See you tomorrow,” Janet replied. She locked the door behind him and made her way to the stairs.
“Janet?” Valerie said.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Janet replied. “I’ve been left stranded a few times over the years. Sometimes it feels like the tide has gone out and taken everything good in your life along with it. But a tide has to rise too.” She flipped the light switch and climbed the stairs in the dark.
Valerie listened to the sound of Janet’s footfalls fading overhead, then got herself settled on the cot with the blanket and stared up at the ceiling of the storeroom. It was only her secon
d night away from home, but it felt like years.
Twenty-four hours ago, her brother had been sleeping in the passenger seat of the Guardian. When the sun came up again, she would no longer be sharing a day when he was alive. The thought hurt, deep in the core of her, like she was betraying him by continuing to live a new day that he couldn’t. What right did she have to live that he didn’t?
A million regrets flooded her mind.
She should have turned the car around before they reached the city.
They should have gone home. Found a new fight.
But she had chosen this one and lost.
She rolled over on the cot and tried to get comfortable. The room smelled of laundry detergent and bleach. She clamped her eyes shut, hoping to keep out the memories of her day, but he was still there.
His carefree smile. His confident swagger.
Gone.
Valerie didn’t notice when her turbulent mind switched from awake to asleep, but she did know that all of her dreams were filled with swords.
10
Then
“Why can’t I learn Charging Rhino?” Valerie asked, watching her brother slash at the wooden pell her father had erected in the yard.
“Because you aren’t your brother.”
Henry Terravecchia II was an intimidating man, barrel chested with a voice that brooked no argument, especially from ten-year-olds.
“Fix your stance. Opening position.”
Valerie stepped back and planted her rear foot, then raised the wooden practice sword.
“Burning Sky,” her father commanded.
Valerie sighed and stepped into the form she had been working on all morning. Her arms ached as she swung the weapon overhead, making the flurry of lateral cuts. Her breath erupted from her in short bursts as she swung.
As she worked through her steps, her eyes drifted to where her brother was cutting at the wooden post with aggressive overhead cuts. His muscles were like iron. He didn’t even look winded.
Sword Fight Page 10
