Meet Me in the Strange

by Leander Watts

  “So don’t ever talk about buying or selling me ever again. Money isn’t going to help. It only makes things worse. It always does. Money is dirt and dirt makes things dirty. There’s no way around that. So be my friend, Davi. Help me figure out a plan to get away and stay away. Safe, forever. Can you do that? Be my friend. I really need a friend now, Davi. And you’re all I’ve got.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  It was impossible for me to say no to that.

  “Of course I’ll help you,” I said, though I had almost nothing to offer. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll make a good plan.”

  What did I have that would be of any use? Stacks of records, piles of fan mags, posters on my walls. Those would keep her safe for about a half second if her brother showed up at my room. Asking Sabina for help might be okay, but I didn’t trust Carlos and hardly knew the rest of her friends. That left me with myself: who I was and what I knew. And besides music, what I knew best was the Angelus.

  I’d been sneaking around there since I could walk. I knew it better than anybody, even the hotel detectives my father had to keep things running smoothly. I knew it better than the cleaning people and room service waiters because they had their special areas and I could go anywhere. The plumbers and electricians had access to the tunnels and the attics and closed-off corridors. But they never sat in the main lobby, watching the guests come and go, or went backstage to see the tango dancing in the fifth floor ballroom.

  What I had to offer was the Angelus, which would be safe for Anna Z for a long time. Maybe forever. There were rooms where no one, absolutely no one, ever went. I got food for myself whenever I wanted. The cooks and serving maids wouldn’t ask any questions if I took a little more. And best of all, her brother couldn’t just wander around the halls all day. No matter how well he dressed, Lukas wouldn’t pass for very long as a normal guest at the hotel.

  I explained this all to Anna Z, still standing in the shadows at the fair. Girls screamed as the rides spun them through the air. Boys yelled, some drunk and some pretending to be drunk. Drums and trumpets from a marching troupe echoed all around us. Anna Z asked me if I’d really do that for her, really take her to the Angelus and give her a safe place. When I’d said “yes” for the third time, she put her arms around me, strong and tight, and put her lips on mine. This was the first real kiss I’d ever had. I didn’t drink wine or do fly-spell, but I knew then what they felt like. And buzzed that way, I headed with Anna Z back to the Angelus.

  FORTY-FIVE

  It took a long time because we avoided every street and bridge where the lamps burned brightly. A torchlight procession of acolytes came chanting from San Panteleone, and we had to detour far around their path. People spilled from the doors of taverns and nightclubs. Two members of the Guardia came walking toward us at one point, and we hurried down a totally unlit alleyway. All this moving from darkness to darkness added to the sense that we were going to a place unknown. Yes, of course I understood the ins and outs of the Angelus better than anyone. Still, with Anna Z there, the entire hotel would have a new and unknown feel.

  Reaching the hotel from the walkway along the canal, we went down a narrow backstreet and slipped in through the cook-and-baker’s entry. Only one old man might have seen us come in, and I think he was asleep. Taking Anna Z’s hand, I led her quickly through a low passage and down two flights of stone stairs.

  Once, when Sabina and I had escaped from our tutor—a vicious little crow of a woman, with black, pinprick eyes—we spent an entire day hiding in this part of the hotel. We came back at supper time, filthy with cobwebs and coal dust. Our tutor made life for us even worse after that, until we made up some outrageous lies to tell our father. Maria-Claire vouched for us and that got the tutor fired. For the time being, this set of layered basements was where Anna Z would have to stay.

  I took her to one of my secret hideouts. It had been a while since I’d spent any time there. Still, it would be fine until I prepared a better place. There was a couch, a few broken-down chairs, a fridge that didn’t work, and a pile of books from my pirate phase. A few years back, before I moved on to the Witch-Babies, the Starry Crowns, V-Rocket, and then Django, I’d spent all my time reading about Moorish pirates. I even got some clothes together to make a costume, though I never once wore it where anybody would see.

  The hideout had no windows, and the steam pipes weren’t hooked up so it might get cold. But the lights came on. There were some blankets on the couch and a little electric heater I’d brought in when this was one of my winter hideouts. I showed her down the hall to a bathroom that luckily still had running water. I told her I’d go get some food. Anna Z thanked me with words and another kiss. I went off a different way than we’d come, working my way in a maze-loop to the lower kitchen.

  FORTY-SIX

  When I finally got back to my room, the sun was just coming up. I stood at the east window and looked out at the city. I was exhausted of course, having been up all night. Almost getting killed by Lukas, going to the fair, Anna Z’s trippy spieling and sneaking through the back streets with her. All of those had seriously messed with my mind. It didn’t explain, though, what I saw—or thought I saw.

  The Alien Drift was real. That’s what hit me as I gazed out at the sunlight growing, glowing behind the tops of buildings. What I saw looked like spirit-bodies floating in the sky. Or bombs made of misty light, dropped from unseen, unheard zeppelins, drifting slowly down on the city. Or human spears thrown from heaven.

  The sky that morning looked like a thin foil of hammer-beaten metal. What I saw was the cosmic drifters, the living x-rays, passing through and making that shimmering metallic light. They were real, crossing over. Gold and silver souls making the bright wave.

  Rays and waves made the whole of the invasion from beyond. Aliens aren’t bug-eyed space-things. They’re not just actors in rubber masks or dwarves with cheap makeup and funny clothes. There aren’t any talking dragons from Alpha Centuri or little green men. I could forget about flying saucers and The Mole-boys from Mars. The big-eyed, bigheaded aliens aren’t any more realistic than a fairy godmother. It’s about energy, light and sound, and that’s all. People make aliens into two-legged humanoids with heads and hands, or blubbery slug creatures, because it’s too hard to deal with the truth. It’s all radiation passing through us. Light and sound making movies in our heads. And that’s all.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Waking up, I heard the bells of St. Florian’s. That was normal. Feeling hungry and stiff was normal too. Then it all came flooding back, and I turned my head to look out the window. The metallic light was gone. The human sky-shapes had passed. It might’ve been any other day of my life. Except Anna Z was downstairs, far below, and I had a job to do now—keeping her free and safe from her brother.

  I surprised myself by not going straight to the subbasement. Maybe I was afraid that she’d taken off already, changed her mind about trusting me and fled. So I did what I needed to do.

  First I cleaned myself up a little. Hair, teeth, clothes. Then I went to Hermann, the head of the hotel detectives and told him a lie about Lukas. Hermann was a big man, always in a shabby suit and smelling of old coffee and stale bay rum. He listened as I explained that there was a scary guy Sabina had invited to one of her séances. Hermann knew about the comings and goings of her spiritualist friends and didn’t like any of them. This guy, though, I told him, was not just a fool and a fake, but a real criminal who’d threatened my sister. She wouldn’t let Hermann know any of this, because she didn’t want our father to get upset and shut down the séances. But I’d seen the whole mess, I told Hermann, and this guy really shouldn’t be let into the Angelus, ever. He believed me, and he actually thanked me. He took a description of Anna Z’s brother and said he’d make sure he didn’t make any trouble.

  Next I went up to the northwest tower to see if my other old hideout room was still good. This one was the total opposite of the one in the basement. Bright and big, with windows facing thre
e directions, it was a suite that many guests would’ve loved to stay in. My father had closed it up, however, years before. And no one was allowed up there. Even when we were sneaking around together, Sabina refused to go to the suite.

  I used my set of passkeys, got into the tower stairway and climbed two flights of red-carpeted steps. I opened up the suite, and other than the musty smell and the fine layer of dust, it was perfect.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Usually I grabbed something in the east kitchen. Fabian, the main chef there, always treated me right. And the waitresses who’d been working at the Angelus since before I was born took care of me too. They’d make me up a plate of pasta or cold roast pork or garlic bread and red olives and cheese. I’d eat at one of the tables for the staff or take my food to one of the back offices if I felt like being alone.

  Now, with a box of food made up for me by Maria-Claire, a carafe of coffee, and even a new fan mag I got from the hotel news dealer, I went down to Anna Z’s hiding place. I was nervous as I fiddled the key into the door. I didn’t think the whole night before had been a dream, and I was about to wake up. I just wasn’t sure if she’d stayed.

  A little spasma of panic went through me. The couch was empty. I whispered her name, though shouting it wouldn’t have made us any less safe. The lights were on, and I saw a complex pattern of footprints on the dusty floor. I said her name a little louder now, and she peeked out from the closet. I asked if she was okay and she nodded. Setting down the box and the carafe, I went over and took both her hands in mine.

  First thing, I described to her what I’d seen in the sky. She said it was electrum light and that she’d seen it before. “Electrum is an alloy, a mix of silver and gold.”

  It was clear she didn’t have a million words in her that afternoon, so I didn’t dig deeper, though of course I would have to soon enough. We drank coffee, ate sweet rolls and prosciutto and cheese. Actually, she did most of the eating, making me wonder when her last meal had been.

  When she’d gathered up the last crumbs on her fingertips and licked them clean, she wanted to know what was next. I told her I had a better hideout for her, safer because absolutely nobody ever went there. Of course she asked why this place was so different than all the other suites. “I’ll explain later,” I said. “Right now, we need to get up there without being seen.”

  FORTY-NINE

  This was a lot harder than just me going to the suite. The cooks and maids, the detectives and lobby staff were so used to seeing me wander the Angelus, it was like I was invisible. Anna Z was a different story. I thought about dressing her in a disguise, maybe a wig from the hairdresser’s shop and some of Sabina’s clothes. This would be too big of a production though. I thought about waiting until well past midnight when the hallways and elevators were mostly empty. And this seemed not a bad idea. What we came up with though was much simpler: I took a maid’s uniform from the laundry, grabbed a cleaning cart loaded with sheets and towels, and Anna Z passed through the hotel totally unnoticed. She was the right age to be a maid, and with slumped shoulders and mop bucket, it was like no one could see her.

  With a little map I drew for her, she went off on her own. Fifteen minutes later, we met up at a stairway in the northwest tower.

  “Nobody noticed you?” I asked.

  She shrugged, still pretending to be a downtrodden chambermaid. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll get rid of the cart,” I said.

  Anna Z told me to turn around and quickly shucked off the baggy dress. I heard the slink of cloth pulled over her legs and the clunk of shoes tossed to the side. “Okay. You can turn back now.” She was herself again. After undoing the braid and shaking out her hair, she took a long breath and let it go slowly, blowing out the last of her nervousness.

  Four flights up then silently along the hall, we went hand in hand. I let go to pull out my passkeys, and we slipped inside the suite. Anna Z went straight to the window and looked out at the city. From that height and angle, it was beautiful, the best view in the entire hotel. The spires of St. Florian’s stood up like wands made of silver and gold, or electrum as Anna Z called it. The Duce’s Dome was far off, but gleamed and glittered in the afternoon sun. Two canals lay before us, slim black serpentine rivers crawling toward the sea.

  She asked, of course, why this suite was never used. I told her, in as few words as possible. “This was where my family used to live. Sabina remembers it a little, or at least she claims to. I was born there, in the bedroom, supposedly. My mother died a week later. And my father moved us out, closed the suite up, and we’ve never been back.” Because I had no memory of being there, or knowing my mother, it called up no bad feelings for me. “When I need to be by myself this is always the place to go. It’s safe here, and secret, and I can really be alone.”

  FIFTY

  So we got past that for the time being. She understood that I didn’t want to say any more about my family, just like she didn’t want to explain any more then about her brother. I’d figured out a good plan, we’d made it happen, and she was safe in the suite.

  I went back down to the maid’s storeroom in my wing to get together clean towels and a toothbrush and some shampoo. Then I stopped in my room to grab a few books for Anna Z to read until I’d hooked up a stereo with headphones. Passing Sabina’s door, I heard a murmur of voices. I knocked and she asked who it was.

  “It’s me, Davi. Come on, open up. I need to talk.”

  “Go away,” she said, annoyed as usual. “And stay away.”

  I knocked again, making it plain I wasn’t leaving until we’d talked. Carlos opened the door and gave me a look that was half-amused and half-menace. “What’s so important?” he asked. “Did you buy a new teeny-mag? Or do you have some cool pictures you need to show off?”

  I was stubborn, or maybe a little braver that day, taking his sneers and dismissive digs. So after a while, my sister gave up and said I could come in for a few minutes. I got right to the reason for my visit. “How do you know Anna Z?”

  “Who?” She poured about a gallon of contempt over that one small word.

  “The girl who was here yesterday. The one with the glasses and all that hair. What do you know about her?”

  Sabina looked over at Carlos, and he looked away. “She’s trash, coming around here where she doesn’t belong.” They had met her, as she’d told me, at Santa Lucia’s. They’d talked mostly about people they knew, places they’d been. Then they’d gotten into the séances, and Anna Z wanted to know all about them.

  Carlos didn’t say a word about Anna Z. He fiddled with one of my sister’s candles, lighting it, blowing it out, relighting it. This silence struck me as odd. He always took the lead, and here he was letting Sabina do all the talking.

  She wrinkled up her nose, as though Anna Z was a poor farmer’s daughter who smelled of pigs. Then, with one of her nasty little laughs, she told me how impressed Anna Z had been with the hotel. Apparently, Sabina thought it was funny that somebody without much money, who’d done almost no traveling, could look down on their so-called High Necromantic Rites.

  I didn’t care about that at all. Trying to talk to the dead seemed a big fake, the kind of thing young kids did to scare themselves at sleep-over parties. Sabina was older than me, but right then, I felt like the grown-up, interested in something a lot more serious than ghosts and Ouija boards.

  I got up my nerve and asked, “Do you know somebody called Lukas? He’s about your age, and I think there’s something wrong with him in the head. Very weird. Very intense.” I described his look. Both of them seemed uneasy, not exactly afraid, but definitely in no mood to say any more. I asked them again. They both lied—I’m sure of that—telling me that they had no idea who or what I was talking about. Before I could press any harder, Carlos showed me to the door. Sabina went back to poking around in her tea leaves.

  FIFTY-ONE

  I read in the evening paper that they’d be showing Frankenstein at the End of Time on the late
show. We needed to see it, together. I was positive of that. It was a sign: they were showing an Apollonautic monster movie at midnight on our first full day together. So I snuck a small TV out of a room the maintenance guys had set up as a lounge. They’d complain to each other, but not to anyone above them. They’d taken the TV and weren’t about to protest their stolen goods being stolen.

  A little before midnight, with a big plate of anise cakes I snagged from the kitchen, we wrapped ourselves in blankets to keep warm and sat down to see the show. It was a story that had the creature and the doctor, but in the world they moved through, there were no Gothic towers or craggy mountain peaks. This was more like a moonscape, with colonists in high-tech bubble cities. Beyond the bubble the world was empty, cold, and barren.

  The best sequence was with the creature escaping from the bubble, out into the empty nowhere-land and the doctor following. The creature either needed no air or could breathe the vacuum. And with the lower gravity, he moved graceful as a dancer. The doctor had to wear a special suit, with a glass dome helmet and clunky boots. So as the doctor chased after the creature, it was like they’d been reversed. The one who was supposed to be a man looked like a clumsy monster, and the one who’d been monstrous glided across the moonscape like a beautiful vapor-trail ghost.