by Janel Kolby
King swings his legs to the other side, his firm stomach on the concrete, and reaches both arms down. “Who’s done? Grab my hands.”
I stand on my toes and reach up. A hand’s-width gap between us. “The squirrel. He was watching out for us. I can’t reach your hands.”
“Stop playing. C’mon, jump.”
The squirrel is watching us now. “I’m not playing. If you’re not gonna tell him, I will. Good job, squirrel.” The squirrel flicks its tail again, then runs away.
King shakes his head. “Fine. Now, jump.”
“I can’t with my book.”
“Throw it here. I’ll catch.”
I slip out the book and position it carefully between King’s open hands. And. Toss.
He catches it and sets it beside him.
“Now jump.”
I do, but miss his hand. I try again—our fingers connect. Shake. Can’t hang on. I bend and steady my hands on my knees. Catch. Breath.
“Go at it again,” he says.
“What’s on the other side? Do you see anything? Any trees?”
King perches up on the concrete. “Sure, I see trees.”
“Bushes? Grass?”
“Naturally.”
“Anything else?”
“I see the Space Needle from here.”
I snap up. “You’re a liar.”
“Come see for yourself. I see the Space Needle, the city, the shipyard and the bay—”
“The ocean?”
“From high up here you can see everything. Except our tents.”
“Is that my surprise?”
“You get more than that. If you come up.”
My back tingles. “Any people? Do you see any people?”
“Some cars—but with people who don’t pay no mind. I told you it’s early. We’re clear.” He gets onto his belly again and reaches down. “Come on.”
Cars. I remember the soft fabric of the cushion on my cheek. Dad putting my blanket with the yellow stars on top of me. Hard walls protecting us from the wind and the wet as we slept. Then one day—an empty curb. Where our car used to be. We walked in the cold. Just the two of us. Legs tired. To find our car with my blanket. Then King, who led us here.
“You wanna see the Space Needle or not?”
I launch into the air, my legs weightless.
King grabs one of my hands with both of his, and for a moment I hang free.
“Climb!” he says.
I tuck in my knees and lean back, feet against the wall. King as my rope. King always my rope. But I’m older and heavier than I used to be. The soles of my boots grip the gritty concrete. I throw my loose arm up over my head and clasp onto his hands. One foot and another I climb. King’s arms bulge between elbow and shoulder. My foot clears the top, and I straddle over to the other side. King steadies me.
His hands around my waist make me shiver, and I don’t want him to let go. He doesn’t notice. At least I don’t think. He surveys around, then his shoulders relax and he loosens his grip from me. “What you think? Are you breathing?”
I am.
I have to force my eyes past his full-color lips, and the landscape sprawls in front of me—farther than I’ve ever seen.
Endless full pages.
Infinity.
King extends his arms at his sides like he’s going to take off. The hoodie beneath his blazer matches the sky. “Feel like a bird, don’t you?”
No. A ghost ascending to heaven. Seeing back through my life and peeking in at everyone else’s. The morning light shines on the big cluster of glass buildings, and they glitter like the locket around my neck. Just like a fairyland.
I remember the city now, and all its tall buildings. They look small from this distance, but the Space Needle is easy to pick out. “What’s that?” I point. “It’s new.”
“A Ferris wheel. You remember all this? You were a kid. Both of us.”
“You were never a kid.”
“Guess not.”
“I’m not either.”
“Naturally. Got your feel now? Wanna go back?”
I close my eyes and hear the familiar sounds—the trains, the planes, the trucks. That humming. I open. I see them all. And there’s the freeway. All those cars. Going. So fast. Going where so free?
“It’s rush hour,” he says.
“What’s that?”
“Rushin’ to get to work, you know. Lose their jobs if they don’t.” He spits over our side of the wall. Not a natural spit. One you have to force out of you. “Look at ’em all rush. Some gotta do it more than others. I had to get out before the rushing, so everyone could see my signs. Got ’em wanting a mattress even if they didn’t need one.”
“I doubt it was the sign they noticed.”
He looks at me and smiles. “What do you—” He stops himself.
In a single movement, he drops down several feet to the other side.
He holds up his arms. “This. Is. Beacon Hill.”
I take his lead and look around. Sure looks like a world I used to know—with streets, and cars, and shops, and everything. Still here after all this time. Not a ghost town. Every color represented. Not just blue, brown, and green. A different world. With real people. All that separated us was a wall.
I look from where we came, and I see garbage, though I know that’s not what’s beneath. Dad. With our tent that needs mending. My rock garden, which needs no water. And two buckets that need filling—one for cleaning, one for drinking. Out to the shipyard—there’s so much water my scalp itches. I want to bathe my head in it.
Kings smiles. “Ready to see the world?”
I’ve been waiting.
5
“NATURALLY, YOU GOTTA KEEP your name to yourself,” he says. “If anyone asks you. No need to make yourself familiar. Remember.”
I keep my head down. Focus on the sidewalk and King, enough for now. “Don’t you think I know that? I’m a ghost, right?”
He inspects his blazer. Brushes off the front. “I’m just sayin’.”
I smile at how good he looks in his blazer. “Why are you dressed so nice?”
“Gotta be. I’m with you.”
I concentrate on my surroundings. Allow my eyes to drift past the sidewalk to the street—bare, not covered in trees—exposed. I walk behind King and pull down my knit cap as low as his.
I can do this.
A car passes close enough to disturb the air around me. I move to the side, away from the flat-rocked street, and cross my arms in front of me. Forgot how fast cars move when they’re right up beside you. When the next one comes, I’m ready. The car is small and bright yellow, and the driver’s a woman who gives no mind to anything but what’s straight ahead of her. If I had a car like that, I’d pay attention.
Shops line our side of the street. All kinds. For food. Cutting hair. Fixing cars. Coffee. Each one flashes familiar, but not quite real enough to remember. I’m pulled to what’s on the other side: boxes of real solid houses with glass and brick and wood. The prettiest have gardens with real flowers. I don’t know why you’d ever have a house without one, but some don’t, and my eyes wander to those that do. I feel funny looking at them. The houses keep staring. Not at me, I don’t think, but King is distinguishing in his blazer.
“What you looking at?” he asks.
“The windows over there. You think we can make more windows in our tent?”
“People build windows to look out. Forget about the looking-in part. No matter how they curtain up, someone can always figure a way to look in.”
A loud beeping starts, and I jump.
“Watch out,” he says, holding me back from a wide alley. “A semi is backing up.”
We cross the street to go around the truck, and I get smaller as we get close to the houses. I keep small until we cross the street again. The white bag sways across King’s back.
“Don’t you have laundry?” I ask.
“Only girls have as much laundry as this.”
“I could do it myself once you show me.”
He turns around—his mouth a straight line. “You won’t need to. Once we find another place.”
Someone comes up ahead. A man, maybe. Tall in a suit. Yes, a man. As he gets closer, I rotate around King, feeling like the second hand on Dad’s watch, until King is between the stranger and me. The man’s brown leather shoes are in a hurry and pass us quick. I don’t look behind.
I reposition in back of King, who turns his head this way and that, then holds the bag with both hands. That means his knife is free in his pocket. He’s not concerned, so I won’t be.
Across the street, we pause at a ghost of a house with a big yellow machine roaring on top of its remains.
“Bulldozer,” I say. As yellow as the stapled paper on the trees. I saw it in a book once, or maybe even for real one time. I can’t remember. Memories get mixed up sometimes. I shiver as the bulldozer scrapes the ground, pushing splintered wood and chunks of cement into a pile. Louder than I ever imagined.
Once upon a time,
A house crumbled.
King wiggles my hand, and I realize mine is stiff. “It’s not an end,” he says. “Bet you anything the people who bought this place are gonna build something bigger.”
“What about who lived there?”
“Found some other place. Making their own ending. How we make ours.”
“What’s gonna happen to the Jungle?”
He shrugs. “Put a fence around it probably. Not our business. Look. Over here.” He points to a sign that reads Coin Laundr. The y missing. The place King cleans our clothes.
He opens the door. “See? It’s open.”
No one else is around. A line of machines down the narrow hall. None of them in use. All of them the same, except a rectangular one in the back, taller and brighter. I step.
“Rain, that’s just shiny junk. I’ll take you to a real place to eat.”
Junk? My stomach growls again. I go to the machine and put my hand on the glass. Memories of junk machines come back. Chocolate bars, chips, and candy. Gum—the worst of all—something you put in your mouth, then spit out. Not food at all.
Oh. MoonPies.
“Can I have a MoonPie?” I ask.
“You’ve had it before?”
“Used to for breakfast sometimes. Please?”
“Chocolate or banana?”
“Banana.”
King goes to the machine and inserts some coins, presses some buttons. The twirly wires push my pie forward. I squat near the swing door at the bottom and wait, place my book on the floor. I test out the door to make sure it’s working. The plastic wrapper catches on the end of the wire, and I watch it swing like the bottom door’s doing. King bangs the front of the machine, and it drops. I reach in and pull the wrapper open at the seams. Round and yellow as the moon. I break the MoonPie in half and hand him a piece.
King consumes it in two giant bites without tasting anything. A crumb lingers at the corner of his mouth, and I reach over to brush it, but he beats me to it.
He squints his eyes at me.
I take a small bite. Graham, marshmallow, waxy banana. I wait until the sweet marshmallow melts away on my tongue before I take another bite.
“Is this my surprise?” I ask.
“No.”
I take another bite, a little larger, then wrap it back in the plastic. In my pocket to share with Dad later.
King picks up the bag of laundry before I can stop him. I wanted to do it. I open my mouth, but then close it. I’m far from being a child, and that’s what I’d sound like if I argued. He might take me back home.
He opens the top of the machine and dumps it all in. He shakes, shakes, and drops the bag in, too, and closes the lid. More coins from his pocket get the machine going. How many coins does he have?
“Aren’t you supposed to put in soap? There’s some boxes here in the machine. See? Bottom row. This purple one says it has lavender. Would be nice to smell like lavender.”
“Nothing wrong with how we smell. Are you ready for your present?”
“I’ve been waiting.”
King points to a door near the junk machine. “In there.”
“You hid it there?”
“Go see. But first take off your boots.”
I do as he says, and line them side by side. I open the door a crack. “It’s all dark.”
“You can’t see nothing?”
“No.”
“Well, shoot, I guess you don’t have no present, then.”
“You’re lying. I know there’s something.”
“If you think so, go take a look.”
I open the door wider and step into the cave. My heart beats so fast Mom’s locket might bounce off my chest. Might even open. My eyes change to the dark, and I see something. A sink, a mirror, a toilet. But no tub. Instead, a clear glass box stands in the corner. “What’s that?”
His brow crinkles. “A shower. That’s your present.”
“Thank you. I love it.”
“You don’t know what it is. You don’t remember.”
I’m thinking.
“You have your sponge like I told you?” he asks. “It’s a bath—with rain.”
He reaches around me and flips a switch. A light comes on and blinds me for a sec. He takes off his own shoes, then goes to the box and opens a door. He pulls a knobby handle at the wall, and water bursts in a thousand tiny drops over his hand. Had to be pent up to explode like that.
“Rain,” I say.
“Just what I said.”
“No. Rain.”
He shakes the water from his hand and wipes his face damp. Water beads glisten on his neck. “I told you to keep your name to yourself. Shouldn’t be sayin’ it out loud like that.”
“My mom used to say with a name like Rain I’d be all right. Can’t be wet or cold if you are the rain. It’s the sort of name to say out loud.”
The sound of water echoes around.
He shakes his head.
A paper sign is taped to the outer glass of the shower. “Out of Order. Why does it say that?”
King clears his throat. “To stop people from using it. Signs aren’t for us.”
I squint at the sign. In my head, the words change until it reads for me: Happy Birthday.
“What if someone comes?”
“I’ll be out here. Push the lock in like this. See? So no one gets in.” He takes something from his pocket. Not his blade. A washcloth. And tosses it to me. “Not much, but you can use it to dry your hair and such.”
I take off my stocking cap, and my mermaid hair falls around me.
King stares. A look I’ve never seen on him.
My face reflects from the big mirror above the sink, and I try to see what he sees. How old I look. And that’s just the top half of me.
He presses his lips together.
“Is it true what the Winterfolk say?” I ask.
“What?” His voice is scratchy.
“Am I yours? I heard them say it.”
He sniffs tough to make his lip snarl.
A million times I’ve seen it.
“You ain’t nobody’s.” He wipes his cheek dry with his sleeve. “Don’t forget to lock the door.”
6
I STRETCH UP MY arms in the shower, and I’m thin as a grass blade. The water trails down to soothe my back, always tender from this pebble or that. My feet are the dirt, and they’re thirsty. I open my mouth and drink. Water on the inside, water on the outside. Never tried that.
I stay in my tent when it rains, zipped up tight to keep it dry. Mud gets in fast, as fast as mold grows. Black mold in corners and creases. Needs alcohol to scrub it out, and then more drying. Best to never let it in at all.
I’m all wet. Not one piece at a time—how I usually wash—but my whole body at once as if swimming. Rain presses my eyelids closed and tells me don’t open. Not ever. It wants to shush me to sleep.
I open anyway, and the water blurs my seeing. I wond
er—if I step on the holes in the middle of the floor, if I can stop the water from going down the drain. Then the water will fill up this box, and I can teach myself to swim.
Four knocks on the door. Four. I shake the water off my face.
King? No.
He would’ve knocked three.
The knob rattles.
I shut the rain.
“King?”
The door bangs. I don’t move. Not a single bit. There’s some yelling, but I don’t hear words.
I stay quiet, like those nights from somewhere over the blackberries—POP-POP!
Disappear.
Breathe in, not out. Breathe in again. And again. Lungs full of air with nowhere to go. But farther in.
And I wait.
For King outside to whisper, Not to worry. All safe.
His words don’t come, and I got to breathe. The blood’s too hot in my face. I breathe out. Slow as I can—a small leak. No one could hear anything but the drips from my hair, and I can’t help that.
Not a single noise outside that door, but I still wait. Sometime, someone will come. Someone with a key. I can’t go on standing here naked.
I open the glass door.
I use King’s square of a cloth to dab the drops away. Then underwear, tank, sweatshirt, and the leggings. I put my ear to the door and listen. Only the whirl of the washing machine.
“King?”
I hear breathing. My own.
“King?”
I turn the knob. The lock pops open. I open the door a sliver.
The washing machine’s louder now, and there’s no one I can see. Doesn’t mean there’s no one there. I sure know that.
I open wider.
My Fairy Tales book is on the ground in front of the junk machine where I left it. Our washing still going. Nothing else changed except King. Disappeared. Which means I’ll wait. Because I know he’ll be back.
I get my pink sponge from the shower. Squeeze out the water to nearly dry, and place it in my pocket with King’s cloth and the half pie of moon.
Where are my boots? They were right outside the door. I walk the room searching. King wouldn’t take my boots.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.
My head jerks around, and I drop to the floor.
The washing machine stops. That’s all it was. My washing’s done. But my heart still beats fast. It wants to go to that time I crossed the blackberries. Hands grabbed. Legs pinned.