The Space Between (14 page)

At school, the teachers still called on him, but he’d stopped trying to answer the questions about colonialism or factors. Their voices came from far away and all the assignments seemed pointless and much too hard. The knot in his throat that kept him from talking didn’t feel like bitterness or defiance. It was just another part of the sensation that everything in the world was moving except him. Even breathing had begun to make him feel very tired.

In January, he’d had the idea for the first time.

By February, it had become a plan.

The bathtub seemed the best way, but there was something awful about being found naked. He’d stripped to his undershirt, left his jeans on. He spread towels on the floor around the tub, in case they made a mess lifting his body. He didn’t want to make the whole thing any harder on Charlie than he had to.

Blood loss was both terrifying and gentle. The overhead light began to shimmer and the lines of the room seemed to run together. Truman had lain back in the bright bathtub water and closed his eyes. And that was where Charlie found him, barely twenty minutes later, but already Truman’s heart was slowing down, a weak butterfly in his chest, fluttering, faltering, on its way to stopping.

The bathroom door was flimsy and narrow. It closed with a sliding bolt and when it didn’t open, Charlie had kicked the panel below the knob until the bolt gave way and the screws peeled out of the drywall.

Truman didn’t remember the noise the door made when it banged against the wall. He didn’t remember Charlie dragging him out of the bathtub, squeezing Truman’s wrists so hard that later, there were bruises. The bathroom was awash and they were both pink with bloody water.

He remembered the ceiling light, and his dream of the black-haired girl. Everything else only fell into place later, when he lay in a dark hospital room, piecing together what had saved him.

Alexa had been on her way out to buy cereal. She’d heard Charlie yelling, calling for someone to help and had gone right back into her apartment and dialed 9-1-1. Truman had always wondered about that. Wondered what made her go straight for the phone, how she’d known to make the call instead of waking up her mother or running downstairs to get the super, but he’d never asked her about it. It was just one more link in the dubious chain of events that had saved his life.

All the tiny, lucky things.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

W
hen I come out of Truman’s apartment building, Moloch is standing on the steps. His back is to me and his hands are in his pockets. He’s looking out over the snowy neighborhood like it offends him.

“Are you following me?” I say, adjusting my grip on my bag. “Because you’re wasting your time. I’m not giving Truman back.”

Moloch combs his fingers through his hair and turns to face me. I’m expecting another one of his sly, aggravating smiles, but his expression is strained. In the daylight, he looks younger and more uncertain than he did last night. “Look, I just figured someone had better warn you. Things have gotten kind of ugly.”

I survey the empty street, the parking lot of the Avalon apartment complex. Everything is exactly as it was yesterday, only whiter. “I think the snow looks nice.”

That makes him laugh, but only in the harshest, shortest sense, and then he stops. “I’m not talking about the weather. You just—you can’t go wandering around like this.”

“I’m not wandering,” I say. “I’m being thorough. Truman was the last-known person to see my brother.”

Moloch takes a deep breath, blowing the air between his jagged teeth. “And how are you getting on with that?”

“Not well. He told me to leave. To get out of his room, actually.”

“Then thank the devil for small mercies. Honestly, that kid is a piece of work all on his own. He doesn’t need you hanging around.”

I look away, glancing up at Truman’s bedroom window. It regards me blankly, curtainless and covered in smudges. “I think he’ll die if I leave him alone.”

I expect Moloch to scoff at that, but he just shrugs. “More to the point then, you don’t need
him
.” Then he shoves his hands in his pockets and looks down at me. “I think you should get out of Chicago.”

“What are you talking about? I can’t leave
now
—not until I find Obie.”

“Daphne, you have to listen to me.” Moloch’s voice is low. Urgent. “A collection crew found one of you girls frozen and bloodless a block from the Garfield Street L this morning. It was a bad scene. I’m skipping town tonight, and so should you.”

I stand numbly on the steps, shaking my head. “How could something like that happen? Lilith didn’t say anything about it last night. She showed me a door I have to find. Is there any way you can help me look for it?”

Moloch’s eyes shift toward the street and then back to me. “If you think I’m hanging around here, you’re crazy. I’ve got one more local job tonight, and then I’m getting out of town. If you need sage advice or rapier wit before then, catch me over on the West Side.” He gestures in the direction of the train. “Otherwise, I’m good as gone and you should be, too.”

“West side of what?”

For a moment, he just stares at me. Then he produces a pad of yellow sticky notes and pen. He scribbles something on the top note, then peels it off and sticks it to my lapel. “There’s a decent club in North Lawndale after dark. If you need me, there’s the address. Now tell me you’re going to get out of here.”

I pluck the paper off my coat and shake my head. “I can’t, not until I find Obie’s apartment and search it.”

Moloch sighs. Then he takes the note back and scrawls another address. “Look, that’s for a hotel. This way, at least I know that you’ve got a place to stay.” He shoves the note into my hand, looking sober. “Just, please be careful.”

And he turns without another word and walks away down Sebastian Street.

The hotel on Moloch’s list is to the north, a tall, cadaverous building called the Arlington.

The woman at the front desk gives me a key, which opens the door to a filthy little room on the sixth floor. There’s a narrow bed, a tiny bathroom, threadbare curtains squirming with a pattern of roses. The wallpaper is peeling down in strips.

In the bathroom, there’s a cramped shower stall and a pair of scratchy towels. I’m forced to admit that in the wake of my first day on Earth, I don’t smell very good. I undo the top buttons of my dress with some difficulty and yank it over my head.

When I step into the shower, the water is delightful and shocking, falling over me in a warm cascade. It soaks my hair and when the spray hits my scalp it feels like tiny, glorious points of light. I touch a little bar of soap sitting on the edge of the tub. Its wrapper is lying crumpled on the linoleum, and the soap slides under my fingers, coating them in a slippery film.

I hold the soap and run it over my skin, touching it to my arms, my ribs, my collarbone, my face. It smells strongly like something I don’t recognize. When I hold it close to breathe the smell, there is a tingling feeling in my nose and the back of my throat. The soap makes bubbles on my skin, and the shower washes them away, the suds streaming down my legs and ankles until they gather at my feet and disappear. At home, everything was clean and I never had to think about it. Here, clean is something you have to work at.

When I turn the knob, the spray above me shuts off.

There’s a low, sucking gurgle as the last of the water runs down the drain. Then I’m just standing there, dripping wet and suddenly very cold.

By the time I change into my dress, I’m shivering a little. I go out into the main room to find my sweater. A battered television sits forlornly on the dresser, bolted in place. The silhouette reflected in its dark surface is not my own.

“What are you doing here?” my mother says, her voice brittle. There’s a glare on the screen and I can’t make out her features. “You need to come home.”

I stand frozen in the middle of the room, hands half-raised to dry my hair with the towel. “But I’m still looking for Obie. Last night you said we had to find Estella and the door.”

“That was last night. The city isn’t safe anymore.”

“I know. Moloch told me. He said I shouldn’t go wandering around, and I’m not—I’m being careful, but I can’t leave yet.”

“Of course you can.” Her tone is absolutely frigid. “This isn’t some kind of game.”

“I can’t just forget about Obie,” I say to the dark television. “And you can’t just change your mind!”

My voice sounds plaintive and much too loud, but I don’t care. Yesterday, she showed me the door, she gave me Estella. We were conspirators. We had a mission. Now, she’s telling me to walk away, to give up on my brother, and slink back to Pandemonium like nothing happened.

“What was I thinking, sending a child?” she says. “This was a terrible idea.”

I don’t tell her that I’m not a child. I don’t tell her that sometimes, things worth doing involve risk. “If you won’t help me, I’ll find the door without you. And if I can’t figure it out myself, maybe Truman knows what Estella is.”

Lilith laughs morosely. “Don’t count on it. He has other things to worry about just now.”

“What are you talking about? He’s fine. I left him asleep in his room.”

Her silhouette is unreadable, half turned away. “And I’m sure you would know better than I.”

The way she says it makes me go cold. Without stopping to think, I shove my feet into my boots and yank my sweater on over my head.

“Wait,” she cries. “Don’t you dare go running off!”

I throw my damp towel over the television to drown her out, then reach for my coat.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A
t the train station in Cicero, snow is everywhere, filthy from the city. I start for the Avalon Apartments, almost running, but as I reach the intersection, there’s a harsh chorus of screeching above me and I stop and look up. A flock of crows has gathered overhead, rising noisily from an alley between two buildings. They swoop around me in a wide circle, flapping and cawing. One wheels past, uncomfortably close, and in its round eye, I see a reflection of my mother. I jerk away, half-choked by the storm of feathers. The tip of one wing slaps hard against my cheek.

Their flight is raucous and frantic, herding me away from Sebastian Street, and I bat at them, trying break through their noisy circle. “Stop—just stop it.”

“Go back,” says my mother’s voice from somewhere in the dark flurry of feathers. “Go home.”

Then, as the crows get louder and the circle grows tighter, I realize they’re not chasing me away from Truman’s apartment at all, but away from the alley. I pull my coat up over my head and fight my way through them.

Wind sweeps down through the narrow space between the buildings, kicking up trash and sparkling clouds of snow. I burst into the alley and then, open-mouthed, surrounded by crows, I let the coat fall.

Truman is standing in the dead end, under the fire escape, cornered there by three boys with hard shoulders and worn-out jackets. Two of them are holding wooden bats and as I watch, the third grabs Truman by the front of his sweater and shoves him against the wall.

“What are you doing to him?” I ask, and my voice seems to be coming from outside myself.

The boy closest to me turns and stares. “What the hell?”

“Daphne.” Truman’s voice sounds tense. “You need to leave. Right now.”

The crows take off in a disorderly flock, and then I’m just standing there, alone in the mouth of the alley. “They want to hurt you.”

He takes a deep breath. “I know.”

The boys are all staring at me, squaring their shoulders to make themselves bigger.

“Well, I can’t stop them if I leave. Why are you doing this?” I say to the one who has Truman pinned against the wall.

He glances over his shoulder. “I sold this punk forty bucks worth of booze last week. He said he’d pay me later, and guess what—he didn’t. Now, I want my money.” He adjusts his grip, pressing a scabbed hand to Truman’s throat. His eyes are hard and without depth.

“Twenty-five,” Truman says, looking angry and resigned. “It’s twenty-five and you know it.”

I consider the two of them. The thick, broad-shouldered boy and Truman against the wall with a hand at his throat and no reason to lie. The number itself is immaterial. If he owed forty, I would pay forty, but I have no patience for deception. With exceptional care, I take the roll of money from my pocket and count it out—two ten-dollar bills and one five.

I offer it, and am increasingly uneasy when no one takes it. “Here,” I say, waving the bills. “Here’s your money. Now give me Truman.”

But the boy only watches me, eyeing the rest of it. When he doesn’t look away, I snap the rubber band around the roll and put it back in my coat.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa—look at you,” he says. “Don’t you maybe want to spread some of that around?”