Dust City

by Robert Paul Weston

  “How do you feel?”

  “Henry?”

  “Why won’t he say something?”

  “Can you speak?”

  “I think so,” I tell them, but my throat’s coarse and full of phlegm. I cough it up and spit sideways, over a silver railing.

  “Gross!”

  “Woah there, big guy, if you’re gonna start puking, give us fair warning, huh?”

  I must be dead. That sounds like—

  “Jack?”

  “I’m right here.” I feel a little pink hand patting my forearm. “Guess you sorta saved my life. When Skinner kicked it, the spell was broken. Thanks for that.” Jack’s face comes into cloudy focus. Sly, boyish, full of mischief. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” he says.

  “I’m not dead?”

  He grins at me. “You think heaven looks like the wolf ward at City General?”

  “Who told you I was going to heaven?”

  “You’re alive—and thanks to you and your girl, so am I.”

  “Fiona?”

  “She’s right here.”

  Other faces emerge from the glare. They orbit me like planets. Siobhan, Mrs. L, Detective White, Fiona. “Glad to have you back,” she says.

  “What happened?”

  “You’ve been unconscious for days now,” Mrs. L tells me. “We’ve all been waiting.”

  Fiona places her paw over mine. “You’re kind of a hero.”

  “I am?”

  “Well, we both are, actually.”

  “I certainly don’t feel like one.”

  White leans on my bed. “When we scraped you outta that alley, we found a roll of film in your pocket.”

  I look at Fiona. “The one you gave me.”

  White tosses a newspaper onto my chest. “Check it out. All thanks to you two.” On the front page there’s a photograph of me, taken in this room while I was still out. Fiona’s standing beside me, holding my paw, gazing at my face (she’s a hell of a lot more photogenic than I am). The headline says: WOLFISH YOUTHS UNCOVER CONSPIRACY. White taps the page with her finger.

  “Nimbus Thaumaturgical,” she says. “The whole company is under investigation. As we speak, the police are digging up the deadwood forest out east.”

  “What about the—” I’m not even sure what to call them. “The animals. The experiments. There was a fox called Jerry.”

  White shakes her head. “We found them, but it doesn’t seem like there’s anything we can do about it. Nimbus threw all their science at turning them into those things. It’s doubtful there’s enough magic left—in the ground, in the trees, anywhere—to change them back.”

  I remember how noble they looked, pacing in their cages. Pure and regal. Blood memories come to life. But it’s hardly any comfort.

  I turn to Siobhan. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

  She smiles. “You gave Gram a scare, but she claims she enjoyed it. Says it was like being the heroine of her very own fairytale.”

  I have to laugh at that. Like I said when I first met her, it’s hard not to like that old woman. “And what about Roy?” I ask Fiona. “Is he okay?”

  “I told you,” she answers. “Guys like Roy always pull through.” She leans in, nearly nuzzling my face. “Actually,” she whispers, “he gave me express instructions. As soon as you come around, he wants to see you.”

  “I’m not sure,” says Mrs. L, “it’s such a good idea for Henry to be up and moving around right away.”

  Siobhan shrugs. “Don’t worry. Jack can steal us a wheelchair.”

  Roy’s lounging on his hospital bed like an emperor, limbs spilling over the railing on either side. There’s a shunt taped into his arm, but otherwise he looks like his old self. Spread across his lap are two expansive trays, each covered with plastic bowls full of peas and carrots and an unidentifiable mash. Fiona parks me at the foot of his bed.

  “Hank-man,” he growls. “You came back to us.”

  “Hi, Roy.” I wring my paws together in my lap. If I weren’t sitting on my tail, it’d be dipping very low right about now.

  “Relax,” he says. “All I wanted to say is this: no hard feelings.” He rips into a crusty dinner roll, nodding as he chews. “I mean it,” he assures me, spraying a blizzard of crumbs all the way to his feet. “Bygones, right? Let’em be.”

  “You mean that?” This is not the Roy I remember. Something’s changed. I sort of imagined he summoned me here so he could pummel me back into a coma. I would’ve taken it, too. I deserve some kind of payback after what I did to him. And there’s nothing Roy relishes more than a plate of icy revenge. But then I figure it out. “You don’t remember what happened, do you?”

  “’Course I do. You nearly killed me. But no big deal.” He waves away any offense with a glass of orange juice. It spills a yellow glop on his propped-up pillows. “Turns out it was exactly what I needed.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He looks to his sister. “Bring him around, Fifi.”

  “Fifi?”

  Her eyes shoot daggers at me. “It’s what my mother calls me,” she says. “Roy gets special dispensation cuz he’s my brother. You, one the other hand”—she pokes the back of my neck—“are not a relation.”

  “Hey,” says Roy, “I was talking here?” As soon as I’m within reach, he snatches my wrist, squeezing until the bones creak. I assume this has all been a trick. He’s been lulling me closer, calculating his revenge the whole time. But then I see his face isn’t slung with its usual scowl. His eyes are wide and innocent.

  “I wasn’t out the whole time,” he says. “Now and again, I came around.” He fills himself with a long breath. “This one night, I woke up and everything was dark. The only light was coming from way down the hall. Emergency lights, I figured. But they were weird colors, blue and green and gold.” If he was trying to draw me in, he’s succeeded. I prick up my ears. “The light was moving,” he tells me. “Moving all over, spreading like a fire. It was getting brighter, too, coming down the hall. And I admit it, I was scared. The light came right up and then around the corner, right in through the doorway.” He pulls me even closer. “Do you know what it was?”

  I don’t have to guess. I saw the very same thing.

  “I don’t know,” I lie. “What was it?”

  “A fairy, Hank-man, a real fairy. She was here. Right here—floating right over my bed. She came here to see me. Me—a big dumb wolf. Can you believe it?”

  Fiona looms over my shoulder. “Tell him, Henry. It was all a crazy dream, right? I mean, you and me saw first-hand what really—”

  “No-no-no.” Roy wags his head with a little of his old rage. “I know all about what you saw and what you found—Skinner and the nixies and the dust-makers and all that. And sure, maybe that’s all true, but I know what I saw was real. It was no dream. And you know what that means? That means they never got rid of all of them.” He looks up, searching the air around the room. “Me,” he says softly. “She came to visit me—Roy Sarlat. And she’s still out there, I guess. Lookin’ out for me.”

  “Who knows? Maybe you’re right.”

  Fiona flicks the back of my head. “Don’t encourage him.”

  Roy’s still lost in his memory. His eyes go glassy, and his grip on my wrist loosens a little, though he’s not ready to let me go. “You know what she said to me? She said, ‘What do you want?’ That’s all. ‘What do you want?’ And I thought, ‘This is it—this is my once-in-a-lifetime chance.’ So I thought about it real hard for a real long time, and in the end it was easy. I want things to get better, Hank-man. And that’s what I told her. She turned to me and said, ‘Then you know what you have to do.’ So I said to her, ‘Yeah, I think I do know.’ I gotta treat folks better, stop throwing my weight around so much.” He yanks me closer. His lips are flecked with crumbs. “And you know what I told her then? You know what I said to her?”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘I gotta be more like Henry.’ That’s what I told her.
I even said your name. She smiled at me and she waved her wand, and all this dust came out. I mean, the real deal, the true pure stuff. And the next thing I knew the lights were back on and I was wide awake.” He throws an apple into his mouth and chomps it whole.

  Fiona sighs. “Who woulda thought my big lug of a brother was blessed with such a vivid imagination?”

  Roy lets go of my wrist, patting it with the gentleness of a child. “I guess that’s why I wanted to see you. If it wasn’t for you landing me in this place, I never would’ve met my fairy godmother.”

  43

  THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SPECIES

  IF YOU LOOK AT IT FROM THE TOP OF SEAWAY HILL, THE DEADWOOD FOREST IS vast. Thousands of trees strain up from the earth, yearning toward Eden. Seeing them now—uprooted, lying prone on flatbed trucks, cordoned off by the garish yellow of police tape—it seems so obvious. All those trees are the final remnants of the old magic.

  This morning, the newspapers reported that the assets of Nimbus Thaumaturgical have been frozen. It’s unlikely their new slate of fairydust will ever leave the warehouse. There’s even speculation that the company will file for bankruptcy in the coming weeks. They say it’s only a question of time. So it seems things are really going to change. There’s one thing, however, that’s still the same.

  I turn away from the deadwoods and face the prison. Loping up to the gates, I’m watched by the guards, who glare at me with leery eyes.

  Dad comes out in chains. The same two globs I remember lock him to the chair on the far side of the glass.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  He smiles. His face fissures into a million cracks. “I heard about what you did.”

  “I didn’t do much.”

  “A lot of guys in here carry around hefty scores they’d like to settle with Skinner. Nearly all of them wanted him dead—I know I did. But none of us could figure out how to get it done.” He taps the glass with one claw. “You made me a hero in here. I’m the pop of the kid who killed Skinner.”

  “Actually—”

  “Don’t spoil it for me, son. That dwarf was a cancer, and now he’s gone. That’s cuz of you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Things’re gonna change now. You’ll see.”

  I press my palm to the glass. “They aren’t changing the way I thought they would.”

  Dad doesn’t say anything, but he knows what I mean. “They halved my sentence, at least.”

  “You told me they’d let you go. If it turned out you were telling the truth.”

  He gives me a watery, apologetic smile. “They have to be cautious. Like it or not, I’m still a wolf. We come with a reputation, one that goes way back.”

  “A blood memory.”

  He laughs through his snout. “That’s a poetic way of putting it.”

  “So how long?” I ask him. “How long before they stop being cautious?”

  “They’re going to give me a retrial, in light of all the new evidence they’re digging up. There’s a good chance I’ll be out of here in a couple years’ time.”

  “A couple years?”

  “Even if I wasn’t in control that night, it was still these claws and these teeth that killed those folks.”

  I nod, and for a moment we both sit in silence.

  “I know how it was now,” I tell him. “There was nothing you could do, was there?”

  He shakes his head and there’s a long silence between us.

  “You think they’re really gone?” I ask him.

  “I suppose they are. Then again, the fairies were always mysterious creatures. Magical. Beautiful. Maybe too beautiful for a city like this one. Maybe the old-time magic is too good for folks like us.”

  “Maybe.”

  Again, we’re quiet.

  “I’m sorry I never wrote back to you.”

  Dad shrugs. “Doc was trying to protect you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Even if he had given them to me, I wouldn’t’ve written back. I was ashamed of you. I was afraid I was like you, a killer. And I almost was. Even before—and after—they gave me their dust, I did some awful things.”

  “As long as you know they’re awful, and you try to make amends. That’s what’s important.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Dad nods. “Then you are like me, son. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.” He laughs. “Besides, up here”—he taps his temple—“and in here”—he taps his chest. “That’s what counts, and all of that you got from your mother. Lemme tell you, if she were here right now, she’d be so, so proud.”

  Fiona and I stand at the railing that overlooks the reservoir. I was luckier than my father. For the most part, I was released, granted an honest reprieve from St. Remus. For that I owe much to Cindy and Mrs. L, and even to Detective White. Thanks to their vouching for me, I was transferred to a cushy, minimumsecurity halfway house for juveniles. It’s way up north, and get this: There are no guards, no walls, no fences, and most of the guys inside aren’t even wolves. It’s mostly hominids and hedgehogs, locked up for a couple weeks for shoplifting. They give me a very wide berth. There are a couple of mules I can almost relate to, but much of the time I keep to myself. The place has its advantages. From dawn to dusk I pretty much get free rein, which explains why I’m out here in the middle of the morning with Fiona, standing on the southern edge of the city, watching the river drift out to sea.

  “They’re not letting him out, are they?” Fiona asks.

  “Not right away.”

  Her gaze lifts from the ships and up to Eden. Just below it, the sun is blinding. “They really hate us, don’t they?”

  “Edenites?” I ask, though I know that’s who she means. “Not all of them.”

  She thinks for a moment. “Maybe it’s always gonna be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “None of us getting along, not really.”

  I know what she’s talking about. Until the last couple of weeks, I never knew how serious it could be, how deep the divisions could run. It’s shocking when you see it first-hand, the way we have.

  “No,” I tell her. “You have to believe it’s going to change.”

  “I don’t know. I used to think all of us getting along was a foregone conclusion. It’d happen eventually. That’s what a lot of folks believe.” She leans forward, pushing her elbows into the railing. “But then I met you and you dragged me through all this and now I’m not so sure.” She stares into the sky, shielding her eyes with a paw. “Once you’ve been up there you get a different perspective on things. Everything looks different.”

  “What are you saying? You regret you ever met me?”

  She shifts closer until our bodies are pressed together, side by side. “Don’t be silly.” She hooks her arm into mine. “Let’s say for now that the pros outweigh the cons.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  She huddles closer. “I just never knew how much they could hate us. It’s like the City’s split in two.” She shakes her head. “Think about what they wanted to do to us. What would it have been like? I can’t even imagine.”

  The wind blows off the water, carrying with it a strong whiff of diesel and brine. There are fewer boats in the harbor now—now that Nimbus is out of business—but the fairydust trade still thrives. Already new companies are rising up, swelling to fill the gaps Nimbus left behind. I suppose folks will always crave their magic, even if it’s cheap, synthetic, and fleeting. Folks will never shake free of it, never stop hoping for it.

  Who can blame them? Is it any different from hoping the old-time magic will one day return? Is it any different from wishing the fairies were still here, still watching over us, still around to make our dreams come true?

  “I can’t imagine it either,” I say. “I’m just glad we stopped them.”

  There’s a smaller boat down in the reservoir, just now leaving the docks. The hull’s barely visible from up here, but the yellow sail stands out against the dark of the water. It’s unusual to s
ee a pleasure boat down there among the tankers. Dockside has always been a commercial harbor, a hive of import, export, and industry. The tiny sail bobs between two tankers, a minnow among whales. It’s headed outbound, upriver, toward the sea.

  I turn to Fiona. “Do you ever wonder what’s out there?”

  She looks at me quizzically. “The ocean?”

  “I know the ocean. But what comes after that?”

  “The rest of the world?”

  “Do you ever wonder what it’s like? I mean, do you want to see it?”

  She scratches her thumb-claw into the railing, etching away flakes of rust. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

  “What if there are more of them out there? More fairies.” The yellow sail catches a gust and surges away. “One day,” I tell her, “I’d like to find out.”

  Fiona lays her head on the bulk of my shoulder. “You’d have to take me with you, y’know.”

  I grin at her. “I’ll consider it.”

  She nuzzles her face into me and kisses my cheek. “You better.”

  The sun is behind Eden now, blackening its mass into silhouette. The towers and palaces resemble something new. It’s hard not to see them as headstones, monuments and cenotaphs to an extinct species. The most beautiful species of all.

  Behind us, the pavement quakes as a streetcar rattles past. It’s crowded inside. Elves, cats, ravens, humans, goblins, mules, nixies, dwarves, foxes, wolves—they’re all pressed in tight, all knitted together, all making their way to someplace they need to be. It reminds me of Roy’s wish. I really hope it comes true. I hope things get better.

  Fiona tugs my arm and we turn back toward the City.

  “C’mon,” she says. “Walk me home.”

  NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Ideas for novels may occur in odd places. I discovered the first inklings of Dust City in a dentist’s office. Lying among the waiting room’s glossy magazines was an improbable copy of a book called The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar. It was a well-thumbed copy, and I imagined some unfortunate student from the local university had accidentally left it behind.