There’s more shops here, more room for them without the big screen, and plenty of people bustling around. I’m almost up at the water tower when I feel my happiness drain away. There, where Ol’ Stick Man should be, with his crazy hair and his optimistic comb, is another picture of Eva. A large head-and-shoulders thing, again with her head in her hands. Big eyes staring at me. Less questioning, more demanding, but perhaps that’s my paranoia. I’m beginning to think she planned this whole thing.
My mood is definitely damaged. I lick the remains of syrupy pancake off my fingers and find a bin for the plate. Yes, there’s no harm in being tidy even in alternate worlds apparently constructed at the whim of a manipulative plant woman. I decide to return to the High Track. It’s as good a place as any to collect my thoughts. Halfway up the number 3 staircase, it occurs to me that the picture could just as well be of the original, and that this makes a lot more sense. Not, ‘oh, yes, anyone could run out and do that’ sense, but more sense than Eva being in charge. This makes me feel a little better. Which, I realise, is not a logical reaction. Just that Eva gives me the irrits.
I reach the top of the stairs, check on the box—it’s still there, happily sitting under some fluffy grass—and find me a comfortable place to sit. There are long wooden seats up here, where you can stretch out your legs, almost like deckchairs. I lie back, hands behind my head, and devote myself to the contemplation of my predicament.
The thing about me is that I’ve never wanted to travel. Born in Barlewin, lived out my not-yet-all-that-long life in Barlewin, saw the Tenties come and the big screen go up and... shit, it’s my home. And if I’m being completely honest, that’s why I work for Guerra.
Should probably make that ‘worked.’
It’s easier. It means not having to commute, to convince someone else of my worth and status. It means I can stay in Barlewin. Not even the other side of the High Track counts, in my mind, the side that thinks it’s becoming gentrified, part of Wilton. Nobody’s tried to have a crack at the area under the High Track. Can’t say that I blame them. That’s where Guerra stores his stuff. And that’s where his saddest customers live. Every now and then the two populations—up and coming and down and desperate—meet and it never ends well. So Barlewin’s not for everyone. Even my parents have moved on, but not me. I guess I’m a homebody. Though that isn’t turning out so well just now.
I must have momentarily drifted off, because the next thing I know, there’s something poking me. I open my eyes to see a man with another of those red striped candy cane sticks. The angle of the sun makes it hard to see what he looks like, but he don’t seem menacing so much as curious. I sit up a bit and offer my hand.
“Hi,” I say.
The man uses the stick to poke at my feet. I draw them up and sit cross-legged as he perches on the end of my seat. His clothes are more like robes, coloured in green and black. Clean, I think. Well, he don’t smell, anyway; with those colours it’d be hard to know if there were stains or not. His hair is longish and pretty wild. He has one of those beards that make you think Old Testament or serious hippy. And all this time he hasn’t said a thing.
“My name’s Kern Bromley,” I offer. “Most people call me Brom.” And then, because it just occurs to me, “Have I taken your seat? I’m sorry, I was just a bit—”
“Lost,” says the man. And yes, he’s right.
“As it happens.”
“Lost, lingering, leftover.”
I smile, because quite frankly there’s no reply to that. He has a deep voice, and somehow reminds me of someone. That kind of tickle at your brain where you know you recognise the face, but you don’t know why.
“Korbin,” he says. And he sticks out his hand. It’s a strong grip, and for a moment I wonder if he’s ever going to let go, but he does at last. I resist the urge to wipe my hand on the seat rest. Not that Korbin’s in any way grubby. Just odd, very odd.
There’s a faint sound of singing drifting up and over. Korbin stands and turns to face the sound. He takes a few steps, realises I’m not moving and impatiently gestures for me to follow. I mentally shrug. Why not? It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.
We walk in the direction of where Guerra’s admin would be. Korbin gives the box a tap with his red striped cane, but gives it no further attention and we walk on. The singing is getting louder. We’re heading close to the water tower and up where the farms are, or should be. I’ve never been on this part of the High Track. But I do know there’s another staircase further up, and I decide that I’ll attempt an exit stage right.
Before I get the chance, a flock of women come into view. They’re wearing the same robes as Korbin, though the greens are brighter. They have bits of green in their hair too. And flowers, much in the way of the Eva graffiti. The thought makes me shudder, but really, there’s no need. It’s just a bunch of women singing. And, to be fair, doing a fine job.
“Prophets,” says Korbin. He steps to the side as they approach. I expect them to stop, talk to him, he was so determined to find them, but they keep going, their song drifting away as they continue back up the path of the High Track.
“Green. A good day.”
I see the stairs to the right. I want, very much, to walk down them and away, but Korbin has his eye on me. I saunter along. There’s nothing doing, no aggro, no tension. Until Korbin pushes me down the stairs and I find myself being bumped and thumped and generally mangled on the way down.
It’s a long way.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Green Jay
THERE IS A Tentie hovering over me and I feel as if I cannot breathe. I’m not sure if I have lungs to breathe with, or if my skin does my breathing for me, but the feeling is still there, of suffocating, of being overwhelmed. I try to push it away, but I am weak. The Tentie understands, though, and moves back to give me space.
“How long?” I ask.
“Three days,” says the Tentie.
I try and sit and it makes me dizzy. The Tentie watches me closely and I make myself sit straight. I won’t let myself lie down while it is still here.
“What is your name?” I ask.
“Rose-Q.” She offers me her hand and I take it, because I have no need to fear them as real humans do, and because she has already injected me with substances of herself. There is something in me that wasn’t there before. Something new. I’m not sure if it’s harm or help.
Rose-Q seems kind enough, though I know I should be cautious. I should not be surprised that some Tenties associate with Guerra, but I am. I thought of them as angels; strange, ugly angels. The way they cared for me. T-Lily especially. But this is a different Tentie. And it was foolish of me to imagine they were all the same.
Not that she is cruel. She seems to be making sure that I am as well as I can be. Rose-Q is not the same one that I fell into three days ago. At least I don’t think so. Her head is barely tentacled, and the small hole that releases their coloured clouds is visible on the top of her head. Her face is very beaky and her eyes are small. She hovers, ready to bring me what I ask for, and I ask her to take me out into the sun. She pauses, not sure if it is a trick, but she agrees, because she knows my body needs it, and because she sees that I am too weak to run away. She doesn’t know about Blue Jay, though he is safer away from here.
I have dreamed of him. I think, perhaps, he may have visited me. Although that may not be true, it may just be wishes. In the sun I will be better.
Rose-Q helps me stand and we walk, slowly, so slowly, out into the sun. There is a long bench outside, almost a bed, and Rose-Q helps me onto it. Already I feel better. I let the warmth fall into me. I bask. I wonder if I am more of a lizard than a plant and the thought makes me want to giggle. I close my eyes and there is still some brightness left. I am almost happy.
Crow
I CAN’T DECIDE if coming through to this fucked-up world felt worse than my trip down the stairs. Of course the stairs feel worse right at this moment, being the most recent and all, b
ut perhaps they’re only in second place. A very close second place, mind you.
Who does that?
The more I think about it, lying here on the cold, hard metal of the landing, the more Korbin reminds me of Guerra. Not that Guerra would have got his hands dirty. It would have been someone else who did the pushing back in my world. Carine, maybe. Definitely not Guerra. But then Korbin seems to be a lone operator. I decide that at some future point in time, I’ll climb back up the stairs and reinstate my rights as a citizen on the High Track. But for now, I think the most prudent way forward would be down, so to speak.
I sit, I stretch. All body parts seem functional, with the possible exception of my head. No pools of blood, which I suppose can only be a good thing. My jeans are ripped and one of my knees is scraped and bloody. It hurts to buggery when I stand, and walking down the rest of the stairs becomes a foolish exercise in throwing my body around in the least painful way possible. On the bright side, I still have a body to throw around, and it seems amenable to the directions I’m putting to it.
I make it down the stairs and all the way to the other side of the water tower, away from the gaze of the graffiti girl. If all things were in their rightful place, I’d be at the farms now. And from the look of things, this actually seems to be the case. Can’t say I’ve visited the farms a lot, so I couldn’t tell you if the particular placement of trees and whatnot are exact. But it seems right to me. The shipping container’s clearly visible. I go looking in search of some sane human company.
The farming area is much bigger than I remember it. I mean, it’s not exactly large-scale agriculture here, just a few people deciding that there’s better things to do with the space than fill it with weeds and rubbish and dog shit. And it’s the one place, believe it or not, that Guerra hasn’t made his influence felt. I mean, you’d figure it’d be a prime target for the growing of certain herbs, but no. Rumour is they refused, way back in the day, and Guerra’s left them alone ever since. I guess it’s too small-scale for him to bother, and that probably suits them just fine. I mean, it’s not much more than a community garden.
All this reminiscing has made me a little homesick. It’s only been a few hours, but even this morning’s pancakes seem a long time ago. There’s a person up ahead: a woman, I think, but I’m not sure. She’s wearing a huge hat. She turns, sees me. Hesitates, and then starts running towards me. It’s probably a good thing. I keep walking, which means throwing my hurt leg out without bending the knee too much, and trying not to put too much weight on it when the other leg moves. I smile, try and look normal. Hope there’s not too much blood about my person, and especially not on my face. It might have been good to check before I came visiting, but still. And then I’m leaning on her and then there’s another person, a man this time, and I’m half being carried over to the house. And it seems to me I’ve reached a kind of haven.
When, eventually—after introductions, food, tea, bandages and sympathy—I tell them what happened, they’re all understanding. As if this throwing-down-the-stairs thing is a semi regular occurrence.
“Did you hear the prophets sing?” the woman asks. Turns out her name is Judith, which, in my humble opinion, is a nice, regular, comforting name. She has cut her hair short, but it gives the impression that, at any minute, grey and black curls might spring out.
The man, or Ed as he likes to be known, humphs a little. He isn’t going to be a talker, I don’t think.
“The women in robes?” I ask.
Nods all around.
“Yes, I heard them. They were very good.” It was a strange, beautiful moment up there on the High Track with Korbin. But I don’t want to get too carried away.
“And the colours?” asks Judith.
“Green,” I say. “With a little black. But mostly green.”
Judith smiles and even Ed manages to look happy. “A good day,” she says.
“That’s what Korbin said.”
“That’s what he called himself?” asked Ed.
“We call him the Barleycorn King,” says Judith.
“It suits him,” I say. And it did, in a mad-king kind of a way. Which, after all, was pretty much the vibe I got. I wait, to see if there is more. I don’t want to ask directly if he really is mad or why the fact that the prophets were wearing green was good. I don’t want to seem too strange or unknowledgeable.
We sit and contemplate the peculiarities of the Barleycorn King for a while. The silence becomes awkward and I realise it’s about time to go. “Thank you,” I say. And I straighten up as gracefully as I am able.
“You can’t leave!” says Judith, horrified.
“It’s not that bad,” I say. “Mostly cosmetic.” And, while I’d like to stay for longer, it would just seem weird if I did.
“I could stand some help around here, this afternoon,” offers Ed. “Nothing too demanding. If you’ve got time, that is.”
“He can’t,” protests Judith. “Look at him. He can barely move.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “And,” in an admission that amazes me, “I’d be happy to help.”
I realise that it’s mostly pity that’s got me this far. That, and something about my encounter with Korbin. And possibly because Ed, in particular, wants to keep an eye on me. But right now, more than anything else, I can’t quite seem to think of my next move.
Gardening, as you may guess, is not my natural milieu. Soil and worms and bugs and shit. Ed’s got me sitting down, putting small seeds into small containers of dirt. It’s quite soothing in its own way, and probably not something I can stuff up. I’m wearing a huge hat like the one Ed has on, except more battered, and that’s saying something. It creates a small, shaded world. The chair is uncomfortable, else I’d be asleep, and I have to put my left leg out to the side ’cause it don’t really want to bend. The scabs on my hands are still gross and probably won’t respond well to added dirt, but they’ve calmed down to the point where they blend in with all my other bodily aches and pains.
Ed’s pottering around doing his thing. Judith, for the time being, is somewhere inside. They’re not so much old as contented. I mean, older than me, yes; older than, say, Guerra; but I like the way they’re doing their own thing. Though any minute now, I’m going to be asked where I live and whether there’s someone who’ll come get me. Questions I just don’t have answers for. I’ll go in a bit. When I can work up a plan.
Ed’s bending over some complicated bit of tubing and swearing softly to himself.
“Could you get me a hammer from the shed, Brom?” he asks. And obliging as I am, I hobble over to the old shipping container that I seriously doubt has ever had any connection with the ocean. In any case, it seems fairly bonded with the earth now; there’s vines growing up and over and all manner of junk has found a home resting against the side. I pull back the door and, contrary to appearance, it slides open easily.
It’s even darker inside, cool and musty. But it’s well-organised and it’s easy to see where the tools are kept: over to the left above a shelf. I head in that general direction, still moving like Frankenstein’s monster. And then I see it. A Time Locked Box. Looking, frankly, as battered as the one I’d been carrying.
’Course, this could be meaningless, harmless, entirely coincidental. But it’s not gonna be, is it? Not the way things have been turning out lately.
CHAPTER NINE
Green Jay
I’VE SEEN BLUE Jay a few times now. I’m not sure how many, because I’m fuzzy and tired. Sitting in the sun helps, but the Tenties always bring me back inside. I’m sure that they’re drugging me, that Guerra has asked them to drug me. Something that keeps me hazy and only half-conscious. I have dreams of plants and lizards. At times, I’ve thought I was dying. But when I didn’t fall back any further, I realised that Guerra has also asked the Tenties to keep me alive.
And I am still myself. I am still Eva; I am still Green Jay. Olwin Duilis knows nothing of this existence, I have moved far enough away from her to be free. Tha
t is a lie, and I know it, but it’s something I want to cling to. I try and minimise my contact with the Tenties, try to keep the drugs levels to a minimum, but it’s almost impossible. I need them to keep me alive.
Blue Jay is hiding up here on the High Track, I think. We only see each other for moments and we cannot talk loudly. I tell him about the package, tell him how Brom has disappeared with it. I tell him he must find it, though I don’t know how. I cannot help him. I don’t understand what Brom would want with it, except that he’s a crow.
Except to torment me.
Blue Jay sits beside me, holds my hand. There are only moments. There is no time to lie in the sun as we used to. He has to get the box. He has to.
Guerra visits me from time to time too. He thinks that I am sleeping, that I can’t hear him. He talks—not to me, as I thought at first, but to someone who can’t be seen. Someone I think is actually his phone. I peer out from between my eyelids, try to see, but I cannot tell. The voice I hear is normal, not electronic, not scattered. He is a lonely man. I suppose he has to be. Who can he trust, who can he confide in? When he visits me he paces, talking to his phone. But sometimes, he stops and listens to the voice.
Today, for the first time, he sat with me while I was outside. I was sad, at first; it meant Blue Jay could not visit. But then the annoyance turned to interest. I was stretched out on one of the wooden lounges and instead of taking another seat, he sat at the end of my lounge, by my toes. He talked to his phone and she talked back and then, almost as if by accident, he put his hand on my leg. I was startled, but I managed not to jump, not to withdraw my leg. I would have if he had done anything else, or if his hand had moved. It didn’t.
It almost made me laugh, having this strange hand on my leg, but nobody really there attached to it because Guerra was all caught up talking to his phone. Maybe it was a type of intimidation. That is Guerra’s way. But I wonder if he was pretending I was the girl he talks to. After all, if I could be another Olwin Duilis, perhaps I could also be the girl he dreams of.
Green Jay and Crow Page 5
