Dust City

by Robert Paul Weston

  Someone runs for me—I can’t see who it is—and grabs my arm. “C’mon,” says Fiona. “Let’s go while we can.” She drags me away, and we clamber through a grimy mist and over countless fallen statues. I can’t help but feel pity for them, especially when I see Matt. “Sorry,” I tell them, though not a single one can hear. “That was her fault.”

  “Come! On!”

  Near the door we see Skinner and the globs pinned under the statue of the giant, under its oppressive weight in gold. The first glob is staring blankly at the ceiling, cradling his bitten hand and taking slow, deep breaths. The other one’s facedown, not moving.

  But Skinner is all action. He’s struggling uselessly to free a pinned leg. He spits at us angrily, but the saliva gets stymied between his twisted lips, dribbling down like the spew of an infant. “You,” he says bitterly, pointing at us with his only weapon, a bare finger. He strains against his leg to reach us, but we veer wide of him. There’s nothing he can do.

  Skinner and I regard each other. His eyes flash with hatred. There’s something deeply wrong with that dwarf.

  “Let’s go!”

  Moments later we’re out on the street. We run through Dockside until we’re out by the periphery wall. The edge of the city falls away, a sheer cliff to the desert below.

  “Okay,” pants Fiona. She’s leaning on her knees, the adrenaline of our escape subsiding. “Where to now? The police?”

  “No.”

  “But we have to tell them.”

  “I already tried, but Skinner’s right. No one believes it. Besides, I just busted out of jail to come here, I can’t exactly go running to the police.”

  “Oh,” she says. She cocks her head sideways and stares at me. The lamplight makes her curls glow all over. “You busted out of jail? To come save me?”

  I shrug. “Matt helped.”

  She throws her arms around me and gives me a long, wet kiss. I return the compliment and when we pull ourselves apart, all I can do is stare happily into her face, tail wagging like a fool. “Thanks,” I tell her. “It was definitely worth it.”

  She takes my paw in hers and we lean on the wall overlooking the emptiness. Not too far off is one of the deadwood forests, where countless branches jut upward like broken teeth. The trees glow a cool white under a moon that is just now past its apex, miles above Eden.

  Fiona nods to herself. “We’re gonna have to go up there, aren’t we?”

  “As soon as we figure out how. Right now we need someplace quiet where we can plan our attack.” I pull her away from the wall and start off in the direction of Elvenburg. “But don’t worry. I know a place.”

  34

  BAG OF BEANS

  GRAM’S EYEBALL SWIVELS SUSPICIOUSLY THROUGH THE GAP.

  “Siobhan!” she yells back into the apartment. “There’s a wolf at the door again! And this time he’s brought somebody with him!” She whistles quietly, and in a lower, lascivious voice she says, “A lady friend!”

  Fiona snickers behind me, but I’m all nerves. “Let us in, Gram, we’re in trouble!”

  “Sorry, I can’t reach the chain,” she sings. “Have to wait for—aha!”

  Siobhan throws open the door. “Jack?!” But when she sees that it’s Fiona I’ve brought her hopeful posture collapses. “Okay,” she says quietly. “Come in.”

  Fiona and I lower our heads to squeeze through the door. We end up on all fours, the two of us filling the kitchen. Gram squeezes into the corner and takes a perch in her rocker, coiled slippers dangling over the edge. Fiona and I search each other’s faces as our snouts fill with the scents of this humble elven apartment: floral incense—rose hip and blossoms of spatterdock—and the lingering steam of brewed tea. We pick up subtler scents, too, ones only a wolfish snout could detect. Siobhan’s dimly iridescent skin, for instance, which smells of an evening breeze. It’s practically the scent of moonlight.

  “You haven’t seen him, have you?” she asks us. “It’s been two weeks now.”

  “Jack can take care of himself,” I tell Siobhan, although I’m not sure I believe it.

  She nods. “Maybe, but what about you two?”

  Only when she says it do I notice how wretched we look. Our faces are blotchy with grime, our clothes are torn in too many places to count, and—with me especially—fresh bruises are swelling up all over the place.

  “We’ve had a rough couple of days,” I say, which inevitably leads me into a lengthy explanation of what’s happened to us.

  When I’m finally finished, Siobhan’s only response is, “I better put on some tea.”

  Gram, meanwhile, has been bored to sleep. She’s dozing in her rocker.

  “So,” says Fiona, “what it comes down to is this. We have to find a way—”

  There’s a wet thump against the apartment door. It’s followed by a slow, hard pounding, like whoever’s out there is using a baseball bat instead of knuckles.

  Ba-doom!

  “Quick,” Siobhan says. “That could be the police. You two gotta hide.”

  “Where?!” says Fiona. “We’re too big.”

  Siobhan points at the window. “The fire escape. Can you fit through there?”

  “We’d better.”

  Ba-doom!

  It’s a struggle to get us through the window, but we make it. Beneath our weight, the web of black metal complains with creaks and groans. We huddle together, making ourselves as small as we can (easier for Fiona than me), and watch through the glass as Siobhan stands at the door.

  Ba-doom!

  The wood shudders visibly. Siobhan cracks the door open and peers out. Instantly, she slams it shut again—and then undoes the chain and hauls it open.

  It’s Jack.

  Only there’s something wrong with him. He looks . . . strange. He falls into Siobhan’s arms, but she’s unable to support his weight. The two of them crash to the floor and it sounds like someone just dropped an anvil. I squeeze myself back in through the window and find Siobhan on the floor beneath her boyfriend, gasping for breath.

  “Get him . . . off me,” she rasps.

  I reach down and roll him over, and all I’m thinking is, Why is he so heavy? His eyes gape wide at the ceiling, glossy and bulging. Then I see what’s wrong with him. The left side of Jack’s body shimmers. It’s made of gold.

  His left arm is stiff. It sparkles yellow. The color spreads under his sleeve to his neck, stretching his skin with its weight, pulling so hard it looks like his flesh is about to tear away.

  “Siobhan,” he rasps, but he can’t say any more. His voice is grainy and coarse, like his throat’s full of sand. Fiona comes in through the window and the three of us kneel around him. He nudges his head against Siobhan’s knee.

  “Don’t worry,” she says, stroking Jack’s face. Her voice is bare. “We’ll get help for you.” She turns to Fiona. “Call an ambulance. There’s a phone in my room.”

  Fiona nods and hurries off. Siobhan gives me a serious look. “You can’t be here when they come.”

  From the corner of the room, Gram comes to life. “The cabinet in the bathroom has some of my old fairydust. It’s for my arthritis. I get so stiff!”

  “Gram, no!” Siobhan screams. “This is serious!”

  “Skinner did this, didn’t he?”

  Siobhan nods. “Skinner.”

  At the mention of the word, Jack’s eyes open. He manages to peel his head up from Siobhan’s lap. The skin about his neck cracks like old leather. There’s a dribble of blood. It runs over the gold and blots into the collar of his shirt.

  “Henry,” he says. “You’re here.” His forehead is sticky with sweat. It’s hopelessly pale. “That’s perfect,” he says, smiling weakly.

  Siobhan pushes his damp blond hair off his forehead. “Don’t talk, J,” she says. “Take it easy.”

  But Jack’s stubborn. “I read your pop’s letters,” he says to me. “I’m sorry, but I did. When he talked about the fairies still being around, I thought I could find one my
self.” He sputters and an eddy of spit foams from the corner of his mouth. He smiles. “I figured I’d find myself my very own fairy godmother. You know how it is, get myself a brand-new destiny.” He rolls his eyes to Siobhan. “I don’t want to be a thief anymore.”

  “You don’t need a fairy godmother to stop that.”

  “Maybe,” he whispers.

  Gently, Siobhan lowers his head back to her knees. She places one hand on his cheek. “Aw, Jack,” she says. “I never cared either way.”

  Fiona returns from the bedroom. “They’re coming,” she says.

  Jack shuts his eyes. “I’ve seen some weird things,” he says. “Awful things.”

  “So have we,” I tell him.

  Jack’s eyes pop open. “I know. I think I was one step ahead of you guys the whole way.”

  “You were?”

  With his one good hand, Jack reaches into the folds of his shirt. He comes out with a familiar object. An oiled leather pouch, tied with a dirty shoelace. It’s his bag of beans. He rolls it into my lap and smiles at me. “You’re gonna need these.”

  Fiona puts a hand on my shoulder. “We gotta go.” In the distance, we’re both tuning in the clamor of sirens. They’re coming this way.

  The leather pouch is heavier than it looks. It has a strange weight to it. And I know exactly why Jack gave it to me. There’s only one problem.

  “I don’t know how to use these.”

  Jack shuts his eyes again. “Don’t worry,” he whispers. “They’re magic.”

  35

  BIG AS BEDSHEETS

  WE’RE STANDING ON THE NORTHERNMOST EDGE OF THE CITY. THE PERIPHERY wall falls away at a ferocious incline, nearly straight down to the desert below. This end of the city is notorious for its secluded streets, its quiet, vaguely middle-class neighborhoods. After a certain hour, these streets are as deserted as the badlands that lie beyond—which is precisely why I chose this place. Even the wind has forsaken it; the air’s got the stillness of dawn.

  I lead Fiona to the bulwark. “C’mon,” I tell her. “We’re going over the wall.”

  I still haven’t explained what’s in the pouch Jack gave me, but for some unfathomable reason, Fiona seems to trust me. She follows me to a gap in the wall. The stairs beyond it are barely there, just a series of slim blocks cantilevered into a dizzying brick face. The only barriers offering a pretense of safety are the wooden poles pounded into the end of each step. They’re strung together with a balustrade of dry rope. It’s an entirely unreliable barrier against an accidental (not to mention deadly) plunge over the side.

  “Stay close to the wall,” I say, but Fiona doesn’t need advice. I can hear her paw sliding down the rough surface, pressing tight to the bricks. It starts getting cooler as we descend. By the time we reach the bottom, we’re both shivering.

  I explain to Fiona that we need to find some open space, and then I lope into the darkness. After only a few minutes of walking, I stop.

  “Oh, no.”

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “We need water. Maybe a lot of it. I should have thought of that.”

  Fiona’s silent for a moment, but she’s looking around. She points to a gathering of deadwoods, standing in an eerie puddle of moonlight. “What about over there?”

  “Why there?”

  “If the trees are surviving, there must be groundwater of some kind. Maybe we could dig for it.”

  It’s a good idea. We change our tack, heading for the copse.

  “Are you going to tell me what this is about ever?”

  “If we find water,” I tell her, “I’ll show you.”

  Up close the deadwoods reveal their age. The bark is stretched like old parchment. Fiona and I fall onto our knees to rake away the soil. It isn’t long before the theory bears fruit. The lifeless topsoil gives way to a boggy mud. Soon, eddies of dark water seep up to fill the pit. I stop digging and fall back on my heels. “That’s enough. I think.”

  Fiona watches me. “Enough for what?”

  I take out the sack of beans. I can see she’s still puzzled and unimpressed. I’m nearly as confused as she is. How much should I use? How much will get us there? I pass the sack back and forth between my paws, gauging the weight.

  I gaze up at Eden, a vast airship on a static voyage. Jack used the sliver of a single bean to escape over a thirty-foot wall. Now then: Exactly how far away is Eden? Of course, it doesn’t take long for me to give up the calculations. “What the hell,” I whisper, emptying the whole bag into the pit.

  Fiona cringes. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Quick,” I tell her, ignoring the question, “cover it over again.” We shove the soil back into place as if refilling a grave, firming it down with a few hard smacks. “When you see a good strong vine,” I say, repeating Jack’s words, “grab hold tight and it’ll pull—”

  Before I can finish the ground swells up with enough force to chuck me sideways. Instantly, the rising earth is as tall as I am. It spreads fast, separating me from Fiona.

  “Forget what I said! Just run! Get outta the way!” I skitter backward, crabwalking myself into the trunk of a deadwood. I can’t see Fiona at all now. A mountain of earth is climbing higher and higher between us. I shout her name, but there’s no answer. Or if there is, I can’t hear it, not over the growl from beneath my feet.

  The first sprouts tumble and burst from the ground like serpents, already thick as saplings. Half of them rocket straight up, while others coil down, weaving themselves into mangrove-like roots. And the noise of it—the earth-shaking, skull-rattling noise—it’s immense. The ground’s quaking so much I can’t get to my feet. I’m down on all fours, not for speed but for stability—I need both right now.

  The mound of earth widens in a flash; a wave of soil chases me, uprooting the trees as it comes. I hear them creaking and toppling behind me, gnarled dominoes falling by the hundreds. I’m out in the open now at full gallop. Ridges crackle up and snake out in every direction, the lightning-fast forks of an instant root system.

  Maybe using the whole bag wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Hen . . . are . . . you?!” Fiona’s voice is clutching at me through the gaps in the noise. I see her, wobbling toward me on all fours, stumbling drunkenly over exposed roots and shifting earth. All the while, a monstrous column of deep green is erupting behind her.

  “. . . crazy . . . I . . . and . . . is that thing?!” I can easily guess the beginning of her question.

  “It belongs to Jack!” I scream at her.

  At last, the growth is beginning to stop, the bone-shattering thunder is subsiding. But the thing’s still rising. Tendrils whip upward, twining themselves into the main stalk. Leaves as big as bedsheets quiver in the wind. We stand and watch, and I see this thing for what it is: the beautiful otherworldliness of magic. Looking at it, rising up into the clouds, I’m hit with a strange nostalgia. What if this is it? I used up the whole bag. Could this towering thing before me be the last of it, the end of the old magic? But no, I think. There’s more up above us—and we’re about to go find it.

  Fiona, however, isn’t pleased. There’s a scowl on her face when she punches me in the shoulder.

  “Ow!”

  “I don’t believe you!” she cries. “Did you really think I could actually grab hold of one of those things? It would’ve torn my arm off! I would’ve been killed!”

  “How was I supposed to know? It’s not like I plant one of these things every day! What exactly were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know. Fair warning, maybe.”

  A furrow of clouds gathers above us. The moon, the peaks of the city’s buildings, the top of the stalk itself—everything is obscured from view. Eden has been swallowed up entirely. There’s no way to tell if Jack’s enchanted plant will get us where we’re going. But there’s one way to find out.

  “We’ll have to climb it,” I say.

  “No kidding.” Fiona points her camera straight up and flashes
off a few pictures. “This way,” she says. “When they find me splattered on the ground down here, they’ll know what killed me.”

  As we move closer, we’re forced to climb over uprooted deadwoods lying everywhere. The plucked-up roots resemble skeletons, with moist soil clinging to them like rotting flesh. Up and down the huge stalk, tiny vines and more conventionally sized leaves blossom sluggishly. The ground bubbles with roots, burrowing after precious water. There’s a low creak from the stalk itself, as the huge thing finally comes to a stop. Its trunk is a mosaic of shadow, brightened here and there by spillover from the city’s neon. There’s plenty to hang on to. I grab a hefty vine and pull. It doesn’t sag, not even when I lift myself off the ground.

  “Seems pretty solid, but we should hurry.”

  “Wait,” she says and gets out her camera. “I’m never gonna get another shot like this.” She snaps a picture of me, hanging from the base of something that can barely be explained.

  “Perfect,” she says. “Now let’s go.”

  36

  A THOUSAND OCTOBERS

  THE TUNDRA LIES FAST ASLEEP BELOW US. IT’S DIFFICULT TO TELL HOW MUCH farther we have to go because of the ceiling of clouds fanning out above us. Fiona’s climbing higher, her clothes buffeting in the wind.

  “This is crazy!” she yells back at me. “I can’t believe we decided to climb to Eden! I can’t even see where I’m going!”

  My arms are beginning to tremble, but Fiona looks strong, pulling herself up with a determined steadiness. “Keep climbing!” I call up to her. “We can’t stop now!” What I don’t say is that we have to get there before this thing crumbles like it did back at St. Remus.

  Fiona growls at me and yanks herself up, climbing even faster. I take a moment to rest, straightening my arms and hanging off the stalk like a fly—tiny and eminently swattable. The city looks peaceful from up here, a quilt of twinkling lights, silent as the stars. When I look up again, Fiona’s gone, vanished into the clouds. I follow her, letting the mist swallow me up.