Dust City

by Robert Paul Weston

  “There’s none of that left anymore.”

  “Aw, now don’t be like that.” He reaches out and places a cloying paw on my elbow. It makes me itch all over.

  I spin to face him, baring my teeth and pushing him off. “I said no!”

  He stumbles backward and I can see I’ve scared him. He backs away, sheepish. “Sorry, guy. Didn’t know you’d take it so hard.”

  “Leave me alone, okay?”

  He nods. “Sure, but who knows? Maybe I’ll see you again. Maybe we can do business some other time.” He smiles again with his improbably perfect teeth. “Don’t forget Old Jerry.” He turns his back and moves off toward the lamplight of the main street. The sole of his broken shoe claps against the ground. Strangled applause from an audience of one.

  I turn to the dark end of the alley and after only a few steps I find it. A plain wooden door with a number scratched into the frame: 1020.

  11

  ELVEN INCENSE

  THE DOOR ISN’T LOCKED. OR RATHER, THE LOCK’S BEEN SMASHED AWAY, leaving only a splintered wound in the door frame. Inside is a stairway paved in brown carpet that’s more like fungal residue than floor covering. Luckily, the smell isn’t as bad as I might’ve expected. The scents in a place like this are too stale to properly offend the sniffer. I start up, step by step. Every one of them sighs, moist with rot.

  After seven short flights, I’ve arrived. 7B. This must be where Siobhan lives. I wonder if she’ll remember me. I hope so (as a general rule, folks don’t take kindly to a wolf at the door).

  I knock. There’s a series of clicks as the bolts are unlatched, unhasped, unhinged. There are a lot of them. But they still have one left, because the door opens barely an inch, anchored by a thick chain.

  “Yeeees?”

  All I can see is one narrow strip of an elf. I look her in what I can see of her face—a bloodshot eyeball, a wrinkled forehead, and a thatch of white hair.

  “I’m looking for Jack?”

  The eye regards me from behind the lens of a pair of fussy, gold-rimmed spectacles. My snout detects the scent of mothballs emanating from the figure. In fact, the eye is so clouded with cataracts that it might actually be a mothball. Talk about cheap prosthetics.

  The mothball eye blinks, carefully moistening itself.

  “Nobody here called Jack,” croaks the elf. The voice rattles like old bones. This is definitely not Siobhan. “You got the wrong place.”

  “Oh,” I say. I hold up the slip of paper. “He told me he’d be staying here.”

  The ancient elf doesn’t bother reading the address. “I can’t help you, sonny. But maybe you want my granddaughter.” The door shuts with a forceful certainty that doesn’t at all jive with the bloodshot eye and the rickety voice.

  I wait.

  A moment later, the door opens again, but with the chain still on. This time a pair of clear, brilliant-blue, almond-shaped eyes appear, and I hear a voice I remember. “It’s Henry, right?”

  “Siobhan?”

  “He’s not here. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Could I wait for him? He has something of mine.”

  Siobhan doesn’t move. She doesn’t blink. She looks straight through me. “You don’t know where he is?”

  I hold up the slip of paper again. “He told me to come here.”

  Siobhan stares at the paper, and her glare softens. “Okay.” She loosens the chain. “You can come in.” Siobhan stands aside as I duck under the miniature elven door frame. Inside, the ceilings are low. I’ll have to stick to all fours.

  “Get outta the way. I gotta lock up.” With a sudden jab, Siobhan shoves me farther inside. She kicks a wooden stool against the door to reach the top.

  “Here,” I say, “let me do that.”

  Together—me up top and her below—we seal the tiny apartment away from the musty stairwell of Pine Street.

  “So,” she says, when we’re finished. “Henry—?”

  “Whelp.”

  “Henry Whelp.” If she’s nervous to have a wolf hogging most of the space in her narrow home, she doesn’t show it. She sticks out her hand.

  “Siobhan Thymus.”

  My hairy, grizzled, coal-black paw shakes her long, pale, elven fingers. It’s like shoving a dirty baseball mitt on a baby.

  “Henry Whelp,” she says, “meet Pearl Thymus, my great-grandmother.” With the flat of her hand, she points toward a darkened corner of the room. I see the mothball eye that greeted me at the door—a pair of them, in fact—shining out of a scarf and a knitted shawl. A pair of old-style elven slippers, coiled into spirals at the toes, peek out from beneath a paisley dress.

  “Jiminy,” says the old woman. The mothballs gleam with excitement and she claps her hands. “A wolf!”

  “Gram!” Siobhan glares across the room. She turns to me. “You’ll have to excuse her. She’s real old. Wasn’t a lot of integrating between the species back in her day.”

  I pad over and put out a paw. “Pleased to meet you, madam.”

  She blushes, the varicose veins on her cheeks swelling with blood. Instead of taking my paw to shake, however, she turns it over as if it’s a piece of bruised fruit in a market. “Hmm . . .” She pores over my palm, nodding like a fortuneteller. Her spectacles slide comically down the bridge of her nose, and when she looks up at me, her face is full of mock astonishment. “Oh, my! What big teeth you have!” She giggles and kicks her slippered feet.

  “Gram!”

  The old elf claps her tiny hands. “I always wanted to say that!”

  Siobhan sighs. “Let’s talk in the kitchen.” She tugs me across the room, ignoring her grandmother’s spastic feet. As I’m pulled away, I glance back at the old lady. She pretends to sour her face and pokes her tongue out. It’s hard not to like her.

  Siobhan’s kitchen consists of one large cupboard, one tiny fridge, and a stove with a single burner. It’s a sad-looking room, the bare walls stained with generations of steam and grease. Siobhan fills a tiny teapot with water, sets it on the burner, then turns to face me with a worried look. “So you really don’t know where he is?”

  “I thought I’d find him here. He has something of mine.”

  “Well, you know Jack,” she says with a touch of bitterness. “He comes and goes.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  “Three days. It’s a long time, even for him.” She carefully pours the hot water into three porcelain mugs. “It was so nice having him around. He’s really good with Gram. She loves him.”

  “Almost as much as she loves wolves?”

  Siobhan laughs. “Almost.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “At school, Rowan High. It was one of the first schools to be truly integrated, at least among the hominids—elves, dwarves, humans. Even a few nixies and maybe a brownnosing glob or two, if you can really call either of them hominids. At Rowan there was never the stigma there used to be, like back when Gram was a girl. We elves live a long time, remember. Jack and I had a few classes together. But he only made it as far as the tenth grade, which you probably already know. That’s when he started getting into trouble, stealing stuff. It came out that he’d sort of been a kleptomaniac for a long time. But for whatever reason,” she shakes her head, “I stuck with him. Now I’ve just been accepted to Mid-City U, and he’s on the run from the cops. Hell, I even helped him escape.” She rolls her eyes. “What a pair.”

  “Siobhan?” Gram’s voice crackles from the next room. “Where’s my tea? Don’t forget the honey. The liquid kind, please! None of that hard stuff! Rots your teeth!”

  Siobhan rolls her eyes again. “They both rot your teeth, Gram!”

  “Then it’s a good thing I don’t have any left!” The old elf giggles and Siobhan gives me an exasperated look.

  A moment later the three of us are sitting around the front room, candles glowing in every corner and elven incense smoldering on the table. It smells sweetly of summer rain and eucalyptus. The three of u
s sip from mugs of chamomile and milk. I’m hunched on the floor since there’s no chair brave enough to contend with me.

  Siobhan looks at me. “I’m sorry, I forgot to ask. You said Jack has something of yours. What is it?”

  “A file.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Hold on a minute.” She puts down her tea, gets up, and paces into the bedroom. When she comes back, she’s got it in her hands. “He left it here. I thought it was just another random thing he stole.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. It was something important. And it belongs to me.”

  She shakes her head, silently admonishing her boyfriend for his thievery. “He never stops. Not even with his friends.” Sighing, she hands me the file.

  Between my fingers, the manila feels cool and rough.

  “What’s inside?” she asks.

  “Letters,” I tell her. “From my father.”

  12

  DEAR HENRY

  SIOBHAN MADE A BED FOR ME OUT OF BLANKETS AND CUSHIONS, HEAPED on the floor in Gram’s bedroom. But I told her I was too jittery for sleep, so instead I’m loping around outside with Dad’s file rolled up in my pocket. I’m looking for a quiet place to read.

  Although it’s late, the main strip of Elvenburg courses with vehicles, but every shop is closed. I stalk off through the neighborhood’s great green archway, dull and blackened by the night. I end up in the only place that makes sense: under the Willow Street Bridge. Off-color trestles ascend from the ground like thick-waisted giants. At the base of each one there’s a lonely lamppost and a slatted bench. I take a seat and flip open the file.

  Dear Henry,

  You must think I’m a monster. I probably am. I didn’t write this letter to tell you I didn’t do the things they say I did. Because I did do them. And I didn’t write this letter to explain why. Because I don’t know. I just walked into that cottage and I killed that girl and her grandmother. I tore them apart like paper. I’m a monster. All those years and years of evolution, they don’t matter. When it comes right down to it, I’m still the same wolf I would’ve been a zillion years ago. I’m a beast.

  But that’s me, Henry, not you. You’re a decent wolf. You don’t have any of that old-time bloodlust in you. They told me about what you did, how you caused that accident. And about where it happened. I think I understand why you did it. Maybe you thought it was a kind of revenge. But I know you’re not bad, Henry. Not like me. That’s all I wanted to say. You’re one of the good ones.

  Dad

  After he was taken away, I cut off all contact with him. I always thought he did the same with me because he understood I wanted nothing to do with a murderer. Now I find out he was writing to me. Why wouldn’t Doc want me to know about this?

  Dear Henry,

  It’s been a while. I understand if you don’t want to write back. I understand that. But I can’t say I wasn’t hoping to hear from you. I was. I want to tell you that I started seeing a shrink. He’s a new one. And he’s a wolf this time. So I think he understands me.

  They tell me he has a good reputation around town. He must have, because they gave him his own office. He’s only here part-time, but every time he visits, I feel better. He and I really get along. He’s smart, too. He’s an artist. He paints pictures in his office, if you can believe it. Mostly trees and water and things. He says it helps him concentrate.

  Sounds familiar: A smart old psychiatrist who visits part-time and paints pictures in his office. Maybe that’s why Doc never gave me the letters. Maybe treating father and son simultaneously is some sort of conflict of interest.

  Life in here isn’t so bad. It has its awful parts, of course, but I guess you don’t want to hear about that. For the most part, since I’m a big guy, the others leave me alone. I guess I’m telling you because I don’t want you to worry. Or maybe you never do. Maybe you hardly think about me at all.

  But I was telling you about the shrink. He’s really helped me get a handle on things. I never really talked about what I did, about what happened to me leading up to it, but the more I talk to him, the more I begin to understand. That’s why I need to tell you something, Henry. About what happened before—

  “You wanna buy some dust?”

  Instinctively, I slap the file closed and spin around. It’s the fox from the alleyway.

  “Old Jerry’s got the finest of the fine, pure and certified nixiedust.” He’s staring at my lap, where I had the file open. How long was he standing there? I was so absorbed I didn’t even smell him. But I do now. He smells awful.

  He cocks his head to the side and wrinkles up his face. “Have we met?”

  “I told you. I don’t want any.”

  Jerry places his two forepaws on the back of the bench and squeezes. “Then what’re you doing here? This is my spot.”

  “Yours?”

  “I remember you,” he says, pointing at me. “First you say you don’t want anything from Old Jerry, but now here you are. Isn’t that funny?” He leans forward. “Come sit on this here bench round midnight and it means you wanna buy from Old Jerry, see?”

  “I just wanted somewhere I could—”

  “Old Jerry can get you whatever you need.”

  Whatever I need. I think about that, looking up at pillars of the Willow Street Bridge. When I turn back to Old Jerry I can see the hope of a sale sparkling in his eyes. “Okay,” I tell him, “if you can get me anything, then how about this? Bring back my mother. Because a long time ago, she was killed right here, right under this bridge. Can your dust do that?”

  Jerry shakes his head in a kind of disappointment. “You know,” he says, “if every fairy there ever was came back right this second, and if every one of them waved their wands, it wouldn’t do you a lick of good. That’s cuz old-time fairy magic is all about destiny, see? Once you’s dead, that’s it. That’s your destiny over and done with. Everybody knows dust can only work on the livin’. There ain’t no magic, old or new, that can do what you’re asking.”

  “Then I guess you can’t help me,” I tell him.

  Jerry nods. “I guess I can’t.” But instead of wandering away, the old fox tramps around the bench and eases down beside me. “You’re just a pup. You don’t remember what it was like with them fairies coming down. Sure, it was nice, but they never tell you the truth about real dust, now do they?”

  “What truth?”

  “There’s the good, which they always talk about, and then there’s the bad.” He pauses a moment before explaining. “Ever’body figures the old-time stuff is all milk and honey. That’s cuz nobody looks in the mirror an’ says, ‘Gee, I think I was destined for something far worse than this.’ No sir, they all think, ‘I was destined for something better.’ But some folks—maybe Jerry his old self, and maybe some big bad wolves like you—maybe folks like us were never destined for something like that. Maybe our destinies have always been in that other category. You ever consider that?”

  I shake my head.

  “That’s why in nearly every fairy story you hear from the old days, it’s always them hominids who got the lion’s share. When’ja ever hear about them fairies waving their wands for us, eh? For the animalia.”

  He’s right. In all the fairy stories I’ve ever heard, it’s always the humans on the receiving end. It’s never us.

  “The way I see it, maybe this new stuff is for the best.” Jerry taps a paw over the pockets of his ratty coat. “What I got in here is what you could call democratic magic. Magic you and me both can partake of, y’see? How about it, pup? How’bout a little whiff?”

  I tuck the file under my arm. “No, thanks.”

  For the first time, Jerry bares his teeth, but as I rise to my full height, his body relaxes. “Damn,” he whistles, swallowed up in my shadow. “You’re big for your age.”

  “Runs in the family,” I tell him, and lope off into the shadows. My conversation with Jerry has brought back memories, things I haven’t thought about in a long time.

  Once, I knew a real fairy.
Just after my mother died, she visited Dad to offer him comfort. At the time, I didn’t realize how strange that was. It was unheard of for a fairy to visit with a poor wolf out in the slums of Darkforest. And although I may not remember my real mother, I do have a few clear recollections about that fairy. Her name was Faelynn, and she’s more real to me than my actual mother.

  She always came in without a sound, drifting into my bedroom when she thought I was fast asleep. Once or twice, I padded to the top of the stairs, listening to the voices below me. I could hear them, Faelynn and my father, talking, laughing, clinking their mugs of tea. Faelynn had a voice that crackled like a dying fire. It wasn’t what you expected from someone who was all delicate limbs and gossamer glow.

  I remember the profile of her face. The insectlike thinness of her body. I especially remember her rings. She wore all of them on one hand, her left. All five were set with deep blue gems, the color of an empty sky just before dusk. My whole life, that particular shade of blue has been my favorite color.

  Just before the fairies left for good, Faelynn began to sing to me. She drifted into my room when she thought I was asleep. Her moonlike glow warmed the walls until it felt almost like dawn. When she sang, the roughness of her voice vanished. She sang beautifully, and always the same comforting lullaby.

  Sleep, little cub,

  and quiet your eyes.

  Bottle your tears,

  and soften your cries.

  Dream, little soldier.

  I’ll never be far.

  I’ll find you, my soldier,

  wherever you are.

  13

  THE NTH DEGREE

  I LOPE SOUTH, ALL THE WAY DOWN TO DOCKSIDE. PERIPHERY STREET, THE road that rims the city’s outer wall, is smooth and silent. I’m looking for a quiet place where I can sit—without being accosted by dust-dealers.