The Space Between (21 page)

Just a baby, blinking up at me with eyes like aluminum. Its face is a fat, pale moon, framed by the deep black of its hair. It reaches for me with tiny hands. Its fingernails are the cool polished silver of chrome.

It’s a demon.

“Oh my God,” Truman whispers into the box. He’s crouched on the floor beside me, staring down like he’s waiting for a bomb to go off.

“Not God,” the baby whispers in a weird, creaking voice, dusty like the room. “I’m Raymie.”

It’s shocking to hear her speak. In the city of Pandemonium, I’ve seen a lot of things, but never this.

I don’t remember growing up, or how I came to exist. My memory doesn’t stretch that far back. All I know is that demons are born from chaos. They’re born from rage or blood or fire, or ruined holy water. They’re born from eggs. They come into the world as wisps of smoke or in grotesque forms that splinter off and multiply. There are all kinds of origins, all different ways to be born, but the only story I’ve ever heard that talked about an actual baby is the story of my brother.

In the cardboard box, this baby is looking up at me patiently. When she raises her arms, I reach to pick her up.

Beside me, Truman is crouching forward like he doesn’t know whether or not to run. “Wait.” He acts like he’ll grab my sleeve, but then doesn’t. He doesn’t tell me what I’m waiting for.

I lift the baby from the box. She’s wrapped in a piece of dingy cotton, thick with dust. She feels cool and heavy.

“Who are you?” she asks me, mouth full of sharp gray teeth. When she shows them, Truman gasps.

“Daphne,” I tell her, holding her against me, touching her hair. My hand comes away covered in cobwebs and I understand that this is why my brother had to leave. He made his choice when he learned he’d be a father.

Raymie puts three fingers in her mouth and sucks. Underneath the piece of cotton, she’s wrapped in black plastic. There are holes for her arms and thick gray tape at her neck to hold the top shut.

I stand up, holding her to my chest. “I’m taking you out of here,” I say. “We need to clean you up and then get you some food.”

As we retreat toward the door though, Raymie begins to squirm, the plastic crinkling against me as she moves.

“No,” she says in her thin, creaking voice. “No, don’t leave my bed behind.”

“Get the box, please,” I tell Truman.

He starts to speak and I think he’ll object, but he reaches down and lifts the box by one flap. He opens out the bottom, folds the box flat and then folds it in half again without looking at me or the baby.

Once we’re out in the road though, he turns to me. His eyes are helpless and a little shell-shocked. “What are we going to do now?”

“Do? I don’t understand what you mean.”

“What are we going to
do
? How are we going to take care of her? She’s a baby.” He measures the space of Raymie with his hands. “I don’t know anything about babies and I don’t think you do either. She needs clothes.”

“She’s already dressed.”

“Daphne, she’s wearing a garbage bag.”

The baby is so dirty that she leaves smears down the inside of my forearms and all over the front of my blouse. She keeps sucking her fingers, which are gray with dust.

At the Arlington Hotel, I run water into the bathtub and mix in soap. When I ask Truman to cut Raymie out of her garbage bag, he gives me a doubtful look.

I use the thief’s knife to slit the gray tape at her neck. The plastic falls away in layers and I dunk her in the tub. Her face goes under the water for an instant and then pops up again just as fast. She is blinking rapidly as the water streams away from her eyes.

“Jesus, be
careful,
” Truman says. “You’re going to drown her.”

But Raymie is sitting up now, unconcerned. “What’s this?” she asks, patting at the water, at the bubbles, the steam.

“This is a bath. It’s water and soap. Do you like it?”

She nods, clapping the soap between her hands in white fluffs and watching the bubbles burst. On her face is an expression of deep concentration.

“Maybe Raymie should have some other babies to play with?” I ask Truman. “We could find some people who have babies.”

Truman starts to speak, then stops again like he’s trying to decide how to phrase something. “Raymie has a mouthful of metal teeth and a better vocabulary than most of my friends. She does not want to play with other babies and even if she did, other babies don’t want to play with her.”

“This is difficult. I don’t really know how to treat babies.”

“Neither do I,” he says, giving me a long look. “So it’s a good thing Raymie is basically not a real baby.”

“I’m not a baby?” Raymie asks, catching a cluster of bubbles and trying to eat it.

“No, you are,” I tell her. “You’re just a different kind. Special.”

She looks at me with suds dripping from her chin. Then she nods. “Special,” she repeats, like the idea pleases her.

Her hair is bristling crazily around her face and she’s pale and grimy, but solid. The dust on her skin makes her look abandoned—discarded, even—but she doesn’t look starved.

“Raymie,” I say, wiping her face clean with a washcloth. “Do you know how to count? Like one, two, three, four?”

Truman is watching us like we’ve both gone crazy, but Raymie nods. “I can count like in the song. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, and four for a boy.”

“Do you know how long were you in the shed, then? How many days?”

Raymie shakes her head. “It was dark all the time, like one long night.”

“Christmas,” says Truman suddenly, and we both look at him. “Were the Christmas lights still up when you went into the shed?”

“No,” she says, with grim conviction. “The lights had already gone.”

Truman nods. “Okay, what about hearts?”

Raymie glances at me and scowls. “A heart is a muscle,” she tells me. “It has four chambers—two atria and two ventricles. It pumps oxygenated and deoxygenated blood.” And this, I can’t disagree with.

But Truman shakes his head and holds up his hands, joining them together with his thumbs pointing down and his fingers curved to make the shape of a candy box. “Like this,” he says.

Raymie watches his hands, still scowling. “That’s not a heart, that’s a valentine.”

“Okay, fine. But were there valentines like this when someone took you to the storage shed?”

She nods and I smile encouragingly. I’m waiting for her to go on, when Truman turns and walks out of the tiny bathroom. He sits down on the bed, raking his hands through his hair and staring fixedly at the wall.

“Jesus,” he says in a small, dry voice, like the words are stuck in his chest. “That’s not even possible. She was in there for almost a
month
, with no food and no water. How is that possible?”

“Well, she’s a demon,” I tell him, leaning sideways to talk through the open door. “We’re almost impossible to kill through adverse conditions or neglect. I mean, you have to actually want us dead. This is more like someone just ignored her for awhile.”

Raymie nods in staunch agreement and piles bubbles on top of her head like a hat.

“Who put you in the shed?” I ask her, cupping my hands, pouring water over her to rinse the soap off.

“My mother.” She scrubs at her eyes. “She told me I’d be safe and to wait for my father. But he never came.”

Something is humming uneasily in my chest. It beats against my ribs like a bird, and I kneel beside the bathtub, looking down at her.

If I hadn’t found the key, she’d still be sitting there in the dark and the cold, waiting for her father. How long? Maybe forever. I imagine Raymie’s mother, bringing her to Asher Self-Storage, tucking her away to wait for a man who can’t come for her, who’s chained to a table in a dark church.

I have a litany of reassuring stories, things to tell myself—that the situation is not completely dire and Truman’s dream is definitive proof that my brother’s still all right. But deep down I know that Truman may be right. A dream is no substitute for the real thing. Maybe Raymie is not a clue after all, just a complication.

“I want to be dressed again,” she tells me.

Her plastic bag is in tatters on the floor and I can’t put it back on her. In my head, I make a list of all the things we need, soap and shampoo, clothes for Raymie and for Truman, and the list makes things seem orderly. The world, falling into place.

“I’m going shopping,” I tell Truman. “Raymie ought to have clothes, and I’m going to get you a toothbrush and some socks and shirts. What else would you like?”

He smiles at me and shakes his head. His eyes are very blue. “Nothing. Don’t buy me anything.”

“You need things, though. I’ll get you a comb, at least. Is there anything else you can think of?”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding toward Raymie. “Yeah. Maybe a toy?”

CHAPTER TWENTY

I
find a drugstore without much trouble and wander the aisles, choosing things and putting them in a plastic shopping basket. The store is mostly empty and the overhead lights are harsh and florescent. The whole place smells like cleaning products.

I find sleepers for Raymie and a toothbrush for Truman and a white cloth rabbit with black button eyes. The orderliness of the shelves is comforting. It helps me think. By the time I’m done comparing the relative merits of two different sun bonnets, I’ve decided that we have absolutely no choice but to leave Chicago.

It’s dark when I start back to the hotel, and the street is a sea of headlights and traffic lights. It bothers me how nervous I’ve become. I feel skittish and on edge. Every shadow of every building could hide the monstrous form of Dark Dreadful.

When I open the door to our room at the Arlington, Truman’s sitting on the bed with Raymie. They’re watching television while he holds her in the crook of his arm and explains about fish, how they live underwater. There’s a towel tucked around her like a nest.

I tip the shopping bags out onto the bed. “Here, I got some things for both of you.”

Truman sets Raymie on the pillow, bundled in her towel, and begins to pick through my purchases, examining a black book bag with shoulder straps. He holds up a fuzzy baby suit with long sleeves and built-in feet.

“Do you like it?” he asks Raymie.

“Maybe. What’s that?” She points to a synthetic duckling appliquéd on the front. “The yellow thing?”

“A duck,” he tells her. “Are you telling me you know how many chambers a heart has, but you don’t recognize a duck when you see one?”

Raymie shakes her head. “My father knows about hearts. He told me all the kinds of muscles and blood and bones. Why is there a duck?”

“It’s a decoration. You know, something fun.”

“No.” Raymie shakes her head. “I don’t know fun.”

Truman stands over her, still holding out the yellow sleeper. “So, do you want to put it on?”

She looks over at me. “May I?”

“Yes, that’s why I bought it.” I pop a plastic comb out of its packaging and toss it into my black bag. “Now we need to get you dressed and pack our things.”

Truman is wrestling with the yellow sleeper, trying to remove the price tag, which is fastened on with a little plastic cord. I yank it out of his hands and snip the cord with my teeth. Then I tuck Raymie into the suit, zip it closed, and deposit her on the bed. Looking down at herself, she pats the appliqué duck with both hands, then begins to rifle through the pile of recent purchases.

“What’s this?” She holds up a small vinyl package.

“It’s a sewing kit,” Truman says. “See the little scissors, and all the thread?”

Raymie clutches the package to her chest, rocking back and forth with it.

“It’s not a toy,” I tell her, offering the rabbit instead. “That’s for Truman to fix his clothes. This rabbit is for you.”

Raymie considers the rabbit, watching it flop in my hand. When I shake it at her, she drops the sewing kit and takes it. Squeezing it against the front of her sleeper, she bites the top of the rabbit’s head. She’s still looking at the little vinyl package on the bedspread though.

“Did you have a good time watching television with Truman?” I ask, tidying my purchases—one pile for Truman, one for Raymie.

“I like him,” she says. “He’s lost, like my mother.”

Truman is examining the four-pack of socks and the T-shirts, but that makes him look up. “What does that mean? What’s she talking about?”

I collect the new toothbrushes and drop them in my bag. “Nothing. It’s not important. Right now, we need to be concentrating on our next move. On leaving town.”

“Will you take me with you?” Raymie asks, gnawing on the rabbit.

I stare down at her. “Of course I’ll take you. I’m not going to just leave you here.”

“Last time, I stayed,” she says. “We were pretending to move away, but I stayed with the things. My mother said to wait until someone came for me. It was a trick.”