In the end, though, that was what she did.
But she spent too long lingering in the mall's entrance-way, where the time flow was half-normal and all the flyers for the good sales were posted. So when she emerged, she was just in time to see the red taillights of the last ride home fading down the road. Two miles she had to walk down the miracle mile, with steel behemoths blasting by so close they staggered her with their backwash. The brickyards and vacant lots were full of bright eyes and tiny cries. Something shifted in the shadows, and she was sure it was following her. Wolf-boys! she thought, terrified.
To make matters worse, Peter never showed up the next day. At lunch Jane made a few cautious inquiries and discovered that he was known for cutting classes. "That's Peter for you," a nisse said carelessly. "As fickle as they come. You have to love him for it."
* * *
So it was that immediately after school Jane ventured out into the part of town beyond the landfill in search of Peter's digs, to give him the cassette and a good piece of her mind.
Peter lived in a declining commercial district. He had a dingy third-floor walk-up above a bankrupt discount stereo store. A length of wire stuck out where the buzzer had been but the lock on the door was busted anyway so Jane went on up. The stairway smelled of boiled linen and old paint. The linoleum in the hall before his flat was cracked and buckled. She knocked.
"Come in."
She opened the door.
He was lying pale in a rumpled bed, head back and naked. His ribs stuck out, and she could see one ash-gray nipple. A chance throw of the tangled sheets over one thigh hid his privates from sight. "Just set it down on the table," he said without opening his eyes. "Add two bucks for a tip and put it on my tab."
Jane stood there, not knowing what to say. Peter had a light fuzz of hair on his chest, with a fine line marching straight down the middle of his stomach. A black-and-white television set on a chair in one corner muttered to itself, video on, volume turned all the way down. "I… I don't think I'm the person you're expecting," she ventured at last.
Peter jerked up into a sitting position, and all in a panic grabbed at the sheet to wrap it about himself. Then he sank back down on the bed, all his energy expended. "Oh, right. The tape. Hey, I'm sorry, I—well, you can see I'm not exactly in shape for school."
"You look terrible," she told him.
"I feel terrible," he agreed.
A toilet flushed. Gwenhidwy the Green emerged from the bathroom, snapping her skirt together. She saw Jane and stopped. "Hello," she said pleasantly. "Who is this?"
"It's a friend from school," Peter said. "Jane Alderberry." His eyes were closed, their lids almost translucent. His lips were white.
Jane didn't know which amazed her more—that Peter would call her his friend, or that he knew her name at all. She held out her little package. "I just came to bring this. It's yours. From Peter."
"How sweet." Gwen accepted the tape, admired it briefly, and made it disappear. She glided to Peter's side and, crouching by the bed, stroked his forehead. "Poor baby. Does this help?"
"Your hand is cool," he murmured. "So cool." He reached blindly to draw the fingers to his lips so he could kiss them.
Jane felt her heart go out to them. They were both so beautiful, so perfectly in love, so doomed. Her own life was tawdry, complicated, and inconsequential compared to theirs. She felt for them a sentiment so delicate and strong that it too could only be called love.
Suddenly Peter's eyes snapped open. "What time is it? Have we missed it? It must be coming on right about now."
"Hush." Gwen smiled. "I'm keeping track of the time." She went to the television set, put her hand on the volume control. "Just about now, in fact."
There was a talk show on. Everyone on it was tall and gracious, clothes accessorized, their hair and teeth and nails each as perfect as the other. Jane didn't watch much television; it was all elves and money, with maybe the occasional dwarf thrown in for relevance and contrast. The shows might as well be broadcast from another universe, one where nobody ever had body odor or crook-teeth or a dead mouse caught in their hair. They didn't have much to do with her own experience. "Well," she said awkwardly. "I guess I'll go now."
"No, stay!" Gwen cried. "It's my moment; we want you to share it too, don't we, Peter?"
"I want whatever you want. You know that."
"You see? Oh, I think there's still enough time to light up. Peter, where did you put the pipe?"
"On top of the dresser."
Gwen got out a long-stemmed pipe with a frowning meerschaum Toby bowl and dropped in a chunk of something black. "Hash," she explained. She sat down on the edge of the bed between Peter and Jane, lit a match and inhaled, drawing its flame down over the hashish. Without asking, she passed it to Jane.
The tip of the stem was still damp from Gwen's lips. Gingerly, Jane put it in her mouth. She inhaled deeply and her lungs filled with harsh, rasping smoke. She choked and coughed. Cloud upon cloud of smoke gushed out of her, impossible volumes filling the room, and still she could not stop coughing. She prayed she wouldn't disgrace herself by spilling the pipe.
Peter laughed. "Whoa! Hold it in, hold it in!"
But Gwen took away the pipe and pounded her on the back. "There, there," she said comfortingly. "Went down wrong, did it? Next time, don't draw in so much, you'll be fine."
"Yeah." The word buzzed and echoed in Jane's ears, reverberating deep into her skull where everything was sparks and swirling gray. For an instant she had no idea where she was or what she was doing, and to cover she said "Yeah," again, even though she was not at all clear on what she was agreeing to.
"It's on!" Gwen leaped up and turned up the sound on the TV.
* * *
Afterward, Jane was unable to separate what happened on the screen from what happened in her head. It was a documentary on Gwenhidwy, of that she was sure, filled with lingering slomo shots of her long, green hair swirling when she turned her head first one way then the other, like a transient planetary ring around her smile. Stoned, the narration was impossible to follow. The music swelled up and down—or was this just Jane's perception of it?—peaking with demon synthesizer shrieks and bottoming into baroque spinnet.
Something was being said on voice-over.
"A goddess? Oh, la!" Gwen cried. Peter emerged from the bathroom, newly dressed and looking ten times healthier than before. He sat down by Gwen and leaned his head against her shoulder. Absently, she stroked his hair.
Looking back and forth from Gwen on the screen to Gwen on the bed, Jane could not decide which impressed her most. The television Gwen was more voluptuous, leaner, with crisper cheekbones and the kind of glossy beauty that took video technology to perfect. But the real Gwen was so much warmer, so vital and spontaneous, so… real.
Peter stared at the screen, hopeless with yearning. Jane tried to imagine what it would be like to have a boy look at her that way. It must feel very strange.
At that very moment Gwen's face, lips moist and parting, was superimposed over footage of last year's wicker queen twisting in the flames. Jane turned to her and forgetting her manners entirely asked, "How can you stand it?"
Gwen smiled, as if possessed of some great secret. "I have Peter," she said. "Hush now, this is the best part."
When the show ended, Jane must have said something, for Gwen looked enormously pleased. "Oh, let's not go overboard," she said. Feet sounded on the stairway and she flung open the door. "All right! The pizza's here."
It was late when Jane finally staggered down the stairs, still high and a little dizzy, her throat cottony and dry. The night air seemed velvety warm, soft and inviting. Gwen followed her to the door. They were going dancing later, Peter and Gwen. Gwen loved to dance.
"You'll come back and visit again, won't you?" Gwen's eyes were large and dark. There almost seemed to be—although there couldn't be, not really—a note of pleading in her voice.
Jane could refuse her nothing.
* * *
&nb
sp; The next morning everyone in the schoolyard was talking about Gwen's special. Jane was filled to bursting with her visit to Peter's flat. Seeing Gwen's show with Gwen herself was just about the coolest thing she had ever done in her life. But she didn't want to say anything about it until lunchtime. She wanted to keep it her own special secret for just a little while longer.
But then something happened that drove all thought of Gwen from her mind.
It was obvious that the day was going to be different as soon as Jane stepped into her homeroom. Strawwe the proctor sat perched on the edge of Grunt's desk, tense and thin-lipped. That meant a test at the very least.
Strawwe wore a tricorn hat, flat side frontwards, as his badge of office. His hair was pulled into a pony-tail so tight he couldn't blink, and he was perpetually goggle-eyed as a result. He tapped his thigh with a steel-edged ruler once for each child who entered. When the last student was in, he nodded to Grunt.
After Grunt had called attendance, he cleared his throat. "The Three B's," he said. "The Three B's are your guide to scholastic excellence. The Three B's are your gold key to the doorway of the future. Now—all together—what are they?"
"Be-lieve," the class mumbled. "Be-have. Be Silent."
"What was that last?" He cupped a hand to his ear.
"Be Silent!"
"I caaaaaan't heeeeear you."
"BE SILENT!"
"Good." He put his fingertips together. "Now, class. Children. Dear, dear little children. We are privileged today—most privileged—to have a distinguished visitor coming here to visit us in our class from the Board of Industrial Corrections. Do you know who he is?"
Nobody said anything.
"That is correct. You do not know. You must wait for me to tell you."
Now Strawwe slipped from the desk and began silently gliding between the rows of students. It took an effort not to cringe when he appeared suddenly in the periphery of vision, or when the shadow of his ruler fell across Jane's knuckles, hesitated, hovered, and finally moved on. She didn't dare look at him as he passed. For such inattention, a sharp blow to the ear was the least of what she might expect.
A board creaked underfoot just as he reached the front rows, and a head covered with tight red curls turned reflexively at the sound.
Whack. The ruler slashed down, and Jane heard Hebog suck in his breath sharply. He didn't cry out, though. Dwarves were tough.
"Mis-ter Hebog. It appears you are a little short—" Grunt paused, to let a tiny smile blossom on his puffy lips. "—of attention today."
The tension broke and everyone roared with laughter, Jane included. Too late, she caught hold of herself and stopped. But even the other dwarves were laughing. Three of them were black dwarves, of course, but it was depressing even so.
When the laughter died down, Grunt said, "The Three Ins! Recite them!"
"In-dolence, In-solence, In-gratitude," they chanted dutifully.
"That is correct." A sense of Presence was building in the hall outside, an ominous pressure tinged with ozone, as if a storm cloud were gathering just over the horizon. "And when you are, despite my best efforts, indolent, insolent, and prone to ingratitude, you may then be required to answer to—" The proctor materialized by the door, opened it a crack, and nodded. "—the child catcher."
Strawwe flung open the door, and the child catcher stalked in.
* * *
He was an eerily handsome creature, artificially tanned, and wearing an imported silk suit. His strong hands were sheathed in black leather gloves. His hair was stiff and bristly—there must have been a touch of wolf in his blood—and his ears were aristocratically laminate. He smiled with square, even teeth. But he said nothing.
The class stirred uneasily.
Standing before the desk, the child catcher dominated vision. Grunt and Strawwe vanished in his presence. Above him the clock over the blackboard provided a secondary focus of attention, its disk the only curved line in a surround of right angles, the nervous once-a-second leap of its thin red hand the only movement in a universe where all motion had died long ago.
Now the child catcher took something from his pocket. It was a scrap of cloth, coarse and scratchy-looking, of a color somewhere between olive and brown. One black glove clenched it tight and raised it slowly to his long, lean nose. His eyes darted back and forth across the class.
Slowly, deeply, he inhaled.
Memory flooded Jane.
She was back in the dormitory in Building 5 of the steam dragon works. This was one of her earliest memories, and one that had always puzzled her. It was morning, and the forges were going full blast as they had for the past two weeks, their roar a constant in the background. She stood by her bed, folding her blanket. All the children were bustling about, preparing for Blugg's morning inspection and eager for breakfast.
Suddenly her vision blurred and doubled. Simultaneously she was standing here by the bed and sitting in the back row of what she did not then recognize as a classroom. Strangers were all about her. A tall, dark creature was staring at her from across the room, his eyes two pinpricks punched in reality.
Her hand froze on the blanket, its material coarse and scratchy, of a color somewhere between olive and brown. It seemed infused with some terrible significance. In all the world only it seemed truly real, an anchor to reality; if she let go of it, she would fall headlong into her vision and be lost forever.
Rooster punched her shoulder. "Yo, droopyhead. What's with you?"
She shrugged, and was back in the classroom. The child catcher was lowering the scrap of cloth from his nose and staring straight back at her. He raised a long arm, cuff links sliding smoothly into view, pointing toward the back row, and for the first time spoke.
"You. Young lady. Please stand."
Paralyzed with fear, Jane watched as the girl to her immediate left tremblingly stood. It was Salome.
The child catcher stared at her. One eyebrow rose quizzically, and his nostrils flared ever so slightly, as if there were something about the situation he did not entirely understand, but was sure he could puzzle out. He started to take a step forward.
Out of nowhere, somebody farted.
It was a horrifyingly drawn-out monster of a fart, one that brought all eyes to the front row. It smelled of methane and wild onions slathered over a base of boiled cabbage, with a nose-pinching tang of sulfur to give it depth. The air took on a distinctly greenish hue as it slowly expanded to fill the room. Several of the girls giggled nervously and clapped hands to mouths. The ruder feys held their noses.
"Mister Hebog!" Grunt cried, aghast.
Strawwe, returned to existence, had already reached the front row and yanked the struggling dwarf from his seat. Grunt seized the opposite arm and the two of them ran him full tilt at the blackboard. His skull hit the slate with a resounding crack, and a thin line zigzagged crazily away from the point of impact.
The child catcher watched it all with a politely detached smile.
Grunt stepped back, and Strawwe hauled the dwarf to his feet by the back of his collar. He held him so that Hebog stood on tiptoe, red-faced and choking. In a trice he had been whisked out the door, toward the detention hall.
Jane felt a soft touch on her wrist. She whirled, and no one was there.
At a frantic gesture from Ratsnickle, meanwhile, Salome had slipped back into her seat. It was exactly the sort of opportunity Ratsnickle would spot first, the chance to sit down and be forgotten. Salome appeared dazed. Softly, wonderingly, she said, "Hey. I didn't think he'd… Hey."
The child catcher cleared his throat. "Now where was I?" His shrewd eyes studied the last row, lingering this time on Jane. "Ah, yes."
Again, he drew the scrap of cloth from his pocket.
When he inhaled, Jane felt a shuddering wind blow through her insides. She shivered with cold and a strange sense of violation. The child catcher was still staring at her. His eyes narrowed.
Slowly the scrap of her old blanket came down from his nos
e.
The sounds and smells of the classroom faded away, like noise from a dying radio. Jane felt a panicky inability to catch her breath. The room was still and airless. Her classmates sat as motionless as so many brightly printed cut-out figures.
The child catcher turned to Grunt and took him between thumb and forefinger. He gave the pedant a shake, then laid him flat across his own desk.
Unhurriedly the child catcher went down each row, plucking the children from their seats and draping them across one arm. When the stack grew thick, he would return to the front of the room and set it down atop their teacher. He saved the back row for last, taking up everyone but Jane herself and carrying them to the front. Jane trembled and tried to avoid his eye. The last child to go was Ratsnickle, still smirking. The child catcher put Strawwe down atop him, bug-eyed and indignant.
He pulled a chair from back of the desk, and sat down.
"Come." The child catcher gestured to Jane. "Sit on my lap, and we'll talk."
Jane had no choice but to obey.
His legs were hard and bony under her; Jane felt awkward perched upon them. She stared at the back wall. One gloved hand squeezed and massaged her shoulder. "I have the power to seize you here and now and take you away by force. Do you doubt me?"
Jane shook her head, unable to speak.
"I am an agent of Law, Jane, and it is important that you understand and acknowledge my authority over you. A compact was made when you were small, a binding contract whose terms you have unlawfully tried to escape. You will say that this was your right because you had suffered an injustice, and that it was an injustice because it was not your signature on the deed of indenture." He shrugged. "But you were—you still are—a minor, and legally your signature would mean nothing. If an injustice exists, it is rooted too deeply in the past for you to do anything about it." He took her chin in his hand and turned her face to his. His eyebrows were dark and thorny. His eyes were as flat and calm as two mirrors.
"You can see that, can't you?"
Jane squirmed, but said nothing. He could kill her, he could send her back to the dragon works to labor forever. He could never make her agree it was right.
The Iron Dragon's Daughter Page 11