Dust City Read online

  “Good.” Jack puts his hand out below the table. “Have you got them with you?”

  I’m beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. “Would you two prefer to be alone?” I start to rise, but Jack waves me down.

  “Sit! You’ll draw attention to us.”

  Siobhan stares at Jack’s open hand. “If I give you these,” she says slowly, “you’re not gonna do anything stupid. Right?”

  “Define stupid.”

  “Let me put it another way . . .” She lowers her voice further. “You only have to be in here another six months. It’s not that long. You’re not planning anything, right?”

  “Trust me,” he says. I can even smell the sincerity on his breath. “I’m not planning anything. I just feel—I dunno, sorta naked without them. And they are good to have around. Just in case.” I can see his fingers, opening and closing below the table.

  Siobhan looks to the guard standing by the door. Lucky for us he’s ignoring our little confab. He’s paying more attention to Roy, who’s only just now stumbling in, coughing and wheezing. His woozy eyes search the unfamiliar faces. Ripples of apprehension churn the air. Roy Sarlat has that kind of effect on a room.

  “Fine,” says Siobhan. “Here ya go.” Her hand comes out of her purse with a small leather pouch. It’s stained with oil and tied shut with a rotten shoelace. I wonder what’s inside of it. Judging from way Jack’s eyes are sparkling, it must be something pretty precious.

  “Great,” he says. The moment the pouch is in his hand, it vanishes, spirited away into some secret pocket sewn into his uniform. It’s an apt demonstration of his skill as a thief. It’s the whole reason they sent him to St. Remus in the first place. “Thanks, babe,” he says. “I think I could kiss you.”

  Siobhan smiles. “So go ahead already.”

  He pulls her forward and wholly in spite of myself, my ears prick up. It’s some old instinct, kicking in when I least want it to. I hear oceans of saliva, crashing together like tidal flows. Finally, their lips part. It’s about all I can take. I wave a forepaw and rise up from the chair. “That’s it. You guys do whatever you like, but I’m leaving.”

  Both of them look at me, apparently bewildered to find I’m not into Visitors’ Day voyeurism.

  Jack stretches across the table. “Sorry, big guy. We’ll cut it out. You can stay.”

  But my mind is made up. “Nice meeting you, Siobhan.”

  She looks me up and down. “Jack’s right,” she says. “You seem like a nice guy.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jack stands up halfway off the bench. “C’mon, stay. You need to get outta the room sometimes—and I mean besides goin’ to class or seeing Doc.”

  “No point to Visitors’ Day when you don’t have any visitors.” I turn my back and lope off.

  I’m only a few tables away, when my pace slows. There’s one table left without an inmate. Over on the visitor’s side sits a green-eyed she-wolf. She’s chocolate brown all over except for her ears, which are tipped milky white. There’s a hefty camera slung around her neck and she looks my age, sixteen, maybe a little older. She smells like cherry blossoms—subtle and sweet. I love that scent. She looks up at me and every hair on my back stands up all at once (I hope she doesn’t notice).

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hello.” She lifts the camera in front of her face and there’s a flash. The whole world turns white and for a second I figure she’s only a hallucination. When the spots fade, however, she’s still here. “I hate the whole say cheese thing,” she says. “Makes you look completely unnatural.” Her voice is like gravel and honey. She leans forward, her eyebrows raised, and whispers to me. “But, uh, I think you might have the wrong table.”

  My thick canid brain sends a message to my feet—Idiots! Keep walking, she just told you to scram—but the wires get crossed and it’s my forepaw that springs to life, reaching across the table. “My name’s Henry.”

  “Fiona.”

  Our fingers are about to meet when somebody raps me on the shoulder. I turn around and there’s Roy—with his sulfurous yellow eyes, his jigsaw puzzle grin, his dead white hair, slicked back from his brow and still smeared with goblin blood.

  “That’s my sister,” he says.

  Oh. “I was just—”

  “You were trying to talk to my sister?”

  “I was—uh . . . just . . . um . . .” In my peripheral vision, I see Jack and Siobhan on their feet.

  Roy snarls. “Don’t lie, Hank-man. I can smell it all over you.” He balls up a fist, full of every bit of anger and humiliation he suffered outside at the hands of Gunther, and punches it deep into my unsuspecting gut.

  I double over, coughing and gasping for air. Only Roy’s not done with me. As my head falls forward, he comes up with a knee, smashing me full in the face.

  There’s another flash of light—decidedly more agonizing than the one from Fiona’s camera. I see an explosion of stars that erupts like a fountain of fairydust.

  After that, there’s nothing to see at all.

  3

  NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF

  FAST CLOUDS AND A GHOSTLY MOON HAUNT THE SKY. TREES LOOM OVER ME like bridges. I drop to all fours, padding into them, letting them swallow me up. They’re electrified with wind, so soon all I can hear is the rush of leaves . . .

  Shadows and moonlight cling to the inside of my eyelids. Everything’s heavy, smothered beneath too many blankets. My head’s been replaced with something weightier. An anvil, maybe, a team of blacksmiths hammering away at it. So yeah, I don’t feel so good.

  A hot stream of fluorescence trickles through. I sniff with my snout, but the only thing I can smell is the nothingness of a room wiped clean, so I pry open my eyes. A ceiling sags above me, a water stain creeping out from the corner. The left side of my face is puffy and tender.

  “Good,” says a familiar voice. “You’re awake. I was about to call an ambulance.”

  I turn my head and a swallow of breakfast bubbles up, headed in the wrong direction, but I manage to keep it down. The kind face of Mrs. Lupovitz floats into view, a gray and motherly cloud.

  “Lie still,” she says. “Mr. Sarlat gave you a nasty concussion.” She winces over me. “Look at that face!” She turns to a glass cabinet full of small brown bottles and plastic vials. “I’ve got just the thing.”

  She opens the door and takes out a plastic canister of fairydust, glistening and silent in its tube. The powder lurking within is a soothing, ocean-blue variety. Just looking at it dampens some of the throbbing in my skull. But I won’t let her give me any. “Leave me alone,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You ought to take something.”

  Mrs. L finds an edge on the tiny cot, which is way too small for my beastly heap. Her soft, old-lady haunches press against the small of my back and for some stupid reason a photo of Fiona’s face flashes into my head. Roy Sarlat’s sister. Just my luck.

  Mrs. L hooks her claws into my shoulder and turns me. Another batch of renegade bile surges up from my stomach. “I don’t want anything,” I tell her. Maybe it doesn’t make sense, but when your mother was killed in an accident involving a truck full of fairydust, it leaves you with a generally poor view of the stuff.

  Mrs. L waves the vial in front of my face. The label’s printed with a bright, oblong halo, circling around two stylized letters: an N and a T. Below the image are the words NIMBUS THAUMATURGICAL, INC. It was a Nimbus truck that crushed my mother.

  “This is just about the mildest blend available,” Mrs. L tells me. “A basic analgesic. That means a painkiller that works by—”

  “I know what analgesic means.” I turn back to the wall. “Just let me sleep it off.”

  Mrs. L shakes her head. “Sleeping is absolutely the worst thing you can do. Either you take this now or I’ll be forced to call the hospital, and believe me, they’ll make sure you take something ten times more potent than anything I’ve got here at the Home.”

  I ignore her. I shut my
eyes and watch the darkness swim around inside my head like heat off a summer highway. Sometimes I can be pretty mulish.

  “Do you have any idea what you look like right now?”

  “Why? What do I look like?” The vanity card. Well played, Mrs. L.

  “See for yourself.”

  I pop my eyes open to find I’m staring into a mirror. I’m not pretty: a big, bad wolf, one half of his face busted open like rotten fruit.

  “I guess . . . I guess I can have a little.”

  “There’s a good boy.” She uncorks the vial and I get a whiff of a stale, chemical tang. Like scorched plastic, long cooled from the fire. She sprinkles a thimbleful into the chub of her old-lady palm. “Ready?”

  “Okay,” I say. “Go ahead.”

  Mrs. L puckers her lips and blows gently. The dust leaps up like a living thing. It swarms around my head like a flock of determined gnats, toying with me, swelling and teasing around my eyes and ears. Instinctively, I recoil, but the dust is buzzing and relentless. When I close my mouth to stop it wheedling in between my lips, it merely regroups, streaming up my nostrils and clogging my throat.

  Mrs. L strokes my paw, soothing me. “Don’t fight it,” she says. Her voice is a cup of sugar. “Open up and take a breath. Otherwise, it can be rather unpleasant.”

  No kidding. A din fills my head like a screaming television tuned to a dead channel. The dust is in my brain, drumming up random thoughts. Colors, sounds, scents appear and fade at random—a siren; my father’s face; the humid scent of hot soup in winter. Then it’s all gone, and there’s this alarming coolness in my chest. All at once, I’m reminded why fairydust is so popular, why it’s such big business, why it’s in every supermarket, pharmacy, and back alleyway in the city. Because it works.

  The pain in my face evaporates, draining out of my head and retreating from behind my eyes. My swollen skin tightens like a fresh bedsheet, clinging to my skull, good as new. Mrs. L waves the vial again, tauntingly, with a hefty dollop of I-told-you-so.

  “See?” she says. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

  Sure, Mrs. L, tell that to my mom. No matter how harmless it is, it won’t change the fact that my mother was mashed to death under a truckload of the stuff.

  When I come out into the hall, Gunther’s waiting.

  “Welcome back, Whelp,” he says. “I was wondering how long you’d be out.” He checks his watch. When he looks up again, a surprised grunt comes out through his nose. “Looks like you’re all patched up.” He thumps closer to examine me, looming over my face. He’s huge. Apart from giants, who mostly keep to themselves up in Eden, goblins are the largest creatures in the City. Somehow, they’re considered hominids (but just barely).

  “What’re you looking at?” I ask him, rather boldly.

  He frowns, which is not pretty. His face is a shipwreck of bloodshot eyes, blubbery gray skin, and a mouthful of tusks, haphazardly dashed over a fat skull. Meanwhile, his torso protrudes with a gravity-defying paunch, hanging so far over his belt that when he comes round a corner, you see the squat pip of his belly button bursting through his uniform long before you see the glob himself. It’s a belly so bloated that you expect him to topple over. But he never does. Gunther’s legs are as unshakable as monuments.

  The drum of his belly nudges against my chest. “You sure you wanna be talking to me like that?”

  I look down. “Sorry, Gunther.”

  “Good boy.” He grabs my chin and twists my head back and forth, examining my face. “Let Mrs. L patch you up, huh?” He chuckles. “Thought you were scared of the stuff.”

  I shrug. “I’m not scared.”

  Gunther laughs. “Whatever you say.”

  “Why are you here, anyway? I’m not in trouble, right? Roy started it.”

  “I know. I tossed him in lockup hours ago. I’m not here about that. I’m here cuz Doc sent me to fetcha. Your session started half an hour ago.”

  Instinctively, I look to my wrist, peeling back the woolly blossom of hair that bursts from the cuff. I’ve been out for hours. He grabs my shirt and hauls me after him. “Quit stalling. We don’t wanna keep the good doctor waiting.”

  Every wall in Doc’s office is lined with brimming bookcases. The air slumps around everything like an old tarp, musty and still. In the corner, half lost in gloom, is Doc himself. He’s a charcoal-hued mountain wolf with thick, aging streaks of gray. It’s as if his hide is wrapped in a dark river, running fast and shallow over long, wet stones. It gives him an impression of speed, like Doc’s always moving a little quicker than the rest of us.

  “I’ve been informed,” he says, without looking at me, “you were caught in a bit of a bust-up this morning.” In the stillness of his office, Doc’s voice has a soothing quality, crumbly and sweet like a rich pastry—one that’s slightly burnt around the edges.

  “Yeah,” I say. My tail dips shamefully between my legs. “With Roy.”

  “Mmm . . .” Doc nods but he doesn’t turn around. His attention remains focused on the easel before him. Doc’s always painting. Nature scenes: trees, meadows, valleys, rivers—all done in photographic detail. “He’s a difficult case, that one, our young Mr. Sarlat. Yet I’ve found that if you dig deep enough, you’ll find he always has some reason, albeit misguided at times, for his acting out.”

  “He thinks I was hitting on his sister.”

  “You see?” Doc’s brush pecks the canvas one last time and he turns to me. His face is cadaverously thin, balding with age. “I knew there had to be something.”

  I lope to the plush green wingback Doc reserves for us inmates. “All I did was say hi,” I explain. “That’s all.”

  “Mmm . . .” Doc drops his brush into a murky jar and places his palette on the desk beside a fortress of paperwork. “Now,” he says, taking a seat behind the desk, “where were we?” He flips open a file—my file—and plucks up a fountain pen. He skims the words for a moment and then jots something down. I wish I knew what he was writing.

  “How have you been this week?” he asks.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “You look tired. Have you been sleeping? How’re your dreams?”

  “Nightmares. I can deal with them.”

  “I see.” His pen scribbles something new.

  I turn my attention to his painting. It’s a single tree. The bark’s peeling away from the trunk in strips. Halfway up, it doubles over, a bit like Doc himself. The uppermost branches kiss the earth, mistaking themselves for roots. The genuine roots twine and lollop over one another like a pile of worms before finally burrowing into the earth.

  “The juniper tree,” he tells me, following my gaze. “I’m quite proud of this one.”

  “Looks creepier than your usual stuff.”

  “It’s a real tree, in fact, growing right here in the city. Fascinating root structure, don’t you think? That’s what attracted my interest. I always find I’m drawn to the roots of things. Foundations, underlying causes . . .” He trails off, lost in thought.

  “Must be nice to get a break from this place once in a while.” Doc comes in a couple times a week. I’m not sure what he does with the rest of his time.

  “Mrs. Lupovitz tells me you took a fairydust remedy following your injury.”

  “She said I had to. I had a concussion.”

  “That’s good. I’m proud of you, on account of your misgivings about dust in general.”

  I slump in my chair. “Why’s that surprise everybody?”

  “Well,” says Doc, “after what happened to your mother—”

  “What’s she got to do with this? I took some dust, okay? No big deal.”

  He dashes something else into my file. “You know, Henry, fairydust is a perfectly natural remedy.”

  “Except that it’s not. It’s mostly chemicals, right? It’s not like old magic.”

  “Perhaps.” Slowly, he replaces his glasses, edging them up his snout. “Oh, dear,” he says, looking at the clock. “You were a tad late getting to me
today. We’ve had so little time, and here I’ve gone and done most of the talking.”

  “That’s okay. I wasn’t really in the mood.”

  Outside, I’m met with a cool rush of wind. It’s an early foretaste of winter. The breeze is swift and fluid, streaming through the shag of my hair. The shadows, however—the ones cast by the walls and gates that hold us in—are dull and solid and lifeless.

  Above them, higher than even the intricate peaks of the City’s skyscrapers, is Eden. It hovers there, a huge, lazy insect, the spires of a thousand fairy palaces bristling like antennae. Sometimes, I wish I could see them up close. But I know I never will.

  None of the animalia are allowed in Eden.

  4

  BETTER LIVING THROUGH ENCHANTMENT

  THE THREE MAIN SPECIES AT ST. REMUS ARE WOLVES, FOXES, AND RAVENS. Each group has its own unofficial leader. The ravens have Eddie Aves; the foxes, Jim Vulpino; and for the wolves, it’s Roy. These guys are chosen based on the only criteria that makes any sense in here: strength and speed. Not necessarily in that order. Every day during Open Hours, out in the yard or over in the sports field, you can pretty much count on a race.

  They break out spontaneously. The newest birdbrain comes in and challenges Eddie to a low-soaring competition and of course, some of the other birds’ll try their luck. Eddie always wins. Same goes for Jim and Roy. The three of them have their own private dynasties going. At least that’s how it’s been as long as I’ve been here.

  Now and again, there’s an interspecies race. A free-for-all. Once upon a time, that sort of direct competition wouldn’t happen. But thanks to the zillion generations of evolution that brought animalia on par with the hominids, races between the species are possible.

  In the ancient days, nobody would’ve thought to pit a raven against a wolf. The size difference alone would’ve made the thing ridiculous. But evolution is all about brain power, that’s what Mrs. L teaches us. And to have the right kind of brain, large enough to be capable of speech and all the rest of it, you need a big fat head to house it. And to lug a brain and a head like that around, you need the body to keep up. So these days any raven is practically the same size as any hominid.