The Space Between

  Lilith laughs morosely. “Don’t count on it. He has other things to worry about just now.”

  “What are you talking about? He’s fine. I left him asleep in his room.”

  Her silhouette is unreadable, half turned away. “And I’m sure you would know better than I.”

  The way she says it makes me go cold. Without stopping to think, I shove my feet into my boots and yank my sweater on over my head.

  “Wait,” she cries. “Don’t you dare go running off!”

  I throw my damp towel over the television to drown her out, then reach for my coat.

  BIRDS

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  At the train station in Cicero, snow is everywhere, filthy from the city. I start for the Avalon Apartments, almost running, but as I reach the intersection, there’s a harsh chorus of screeching above me and I stop and look up. A flock of crows has gathered overhead, rising noisily from an alley between two buildings. They swoop around me in a wide circle, flapping and cawing. One wheels past, uncomfortably close, and in its round eye, I see a reflection of my mother. I jerk away, half-choked by the storm of feathers. The tip of one wing slaps hard against my cheek.

  Their flight is raucous and frantic, herding me away from Sebastian Street, and I bat at them, trying break through their noisy circle. “Stop—just stop it.”

  “Go back,” says my mother’s voice from somewhere in the dark flurry of feathers. “Go home.”

  Then, as the crows get louder and the circle grows tighter, I realize they’re not chasing me away from Truman’s apartment at all, but away from the alley. I pull my coat up over my head and fight my way through them.

  Wind sweeps down through the narrow space between the buildings, kicking up trash and sparkling clouds of snow. I burst into the alley and then, open-mouthed, surrounded by crows, I let the coat fall.

  Truman is standing in the dead end, under the fire escape, cornered there by three boys with hard shoulders and worn-out jackets. Two of them are holding wooden bats and as I watch, the third grabs Truman by the front of his sweater and shoves him against the wall.

  “What are you doing to him?” I ask, and my voice seems to be coming from outside myself.

  The boy closest to me turns and stares. “What the hell?”

  “Daphne.” Truman’s voice sounds tense. “You need to leave. Right now.”

  The crows take off in a disorderly flock, and then I’m just standing there, alone in the mouth of the alley. “They want to hurt you.”

  He takes a deep breath. “I know.”

  The boys are all staring at me, squaring their shoulders to make themselves bigger.

  “Well, I can’t stop them if I leave. Why are you doing this?” I say to the one who has Truman pinned against the wall.

  He glances over his shoulder. “I sold this punk forty bucks worth of booze last week. He said he’d pay me later, and guess what—he didn’t. Now, I want my money.” He adjusts his grip, pressing a scabbed hand to Truman’s throat. His eyes are hard and without depth.

  “Twenty-five,” Truman says, looking angry and resigned. “It’s twenty-five and you know it.”

  I consider the two of them. The thick, broad-shouldered boy and Truman against the wall with a hand at his throat and no reason to lie. The number itself is immaterial. If he owed forty, I would pay forty, but I have no patience for deception. With exceptional care, I take the roll of money from my pocket and count it out—two ten-dollar bills and one five.

  I offer it, and am increasingly uneasy when no one takes it. “Here,” I say, waving the bills. “Here’s your money. Now give me Truman.”

  But the boy only watches me, eyeing the rest of it. When he doesn’t look away, I snap the rubber band around the roll and put it back in my coat.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa—look at you,” he says. “Don’t you maybe want to spread some of that around?”

  But the question is ludicrous. I don’t. I offer the money Truman owes him, shaking my head. “You can’t just take what doesn’t belong to you. It’s not acceptable.”

  “Daphne,” Truman says. He looks noticeably worried. “They’ll hurt you too. Don’t you know that? They’re just going to hurt you too.”

  But the boys only stand there, gaping dumbly, and I’m thinking about the lighter and the way my skin sealed up again.

  The one closest to me has turned, positioning himself between me and the mouth of the alley. Not blocking my path exactly, but like he’s about to. He says, “You might want to think it over. There’s penalties if you don’t pay the toll.”

  For a moment, I can only shake my head. I may be new to this world, and catastrophically inexperienced, but I’m not stupid. There is no toll. There is no penalty, no justification except that he wants to take something that doesn’t belong to him.

  When he moves, it is with uncommon ferocity, like I’m a deer he’s hunting, something delicate he wants to break for fun. He catches me by the elbow and the shock of his touch makes my whole body feel outraged. My hands fly into motion of their own accord, finding the pockets of my coat. The straight razor is flat on the end, but the other knife, the thief’s knife, is made to slide neatly between ribs. I spin away, and that’s all I mean to do, but suddenly, he’s cringing against the wall and the other boys are falling back around me.

  I have the point of the blade against his chest, already nosing through the heavy fabric of his jacket when Truman catches me by the wrist. “Stop.”

  “Why? He’s not your friend. I don’t think you even like him.”

  Truman looks at the other boy, whose eyes show white all the way around his irises. “But I don’t hate him either.”

  Because this seems reasonable, I lower the knife and fold it carefully shut. I reach for him, the boy Truman doesn’t hate, and pat his cheek. His skin is rough and he shies away from my hand but doesn’t speak or make a sound.

  “I only did this because you were about to make a terrible mistake,” I tell him. “I only stopped you because you weren’t about to stop yourself.”

  I mean it as an explanation, an apology, but he shrinks against the wall, a spot of blood showing on his jacket now, very bright, but also small. A negligible amount.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him finally, handing him the money, a five and two tens. “Just go home.”

  They leave at a run. One looks back, but the others only seem intent on putting distance between us.

  “Christ,” says Truman when we’re alone. “You’re insane, do you know that?”

  “I’m not insane. I’m just making sure you don’t die.” Aloud, the admission sounds uglier than I would have expected. Without my mother’s guidance, I’m alone. I need him to help me, and I can’t ignore the feeling that he needs me to help him, too. He looks drained, like the confrontation under the fire escape has taken a lot out of him.

  “Would you like some lunch?” I ask. “Let’s go have lunch.”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  I smile and touch the pocket that holds the roll of bills. “But I do. Please,” I say, and I mean it in all the ways that a single word can carry a multitude. I mean it so much I sound close to tragic. “I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

  The look he gives me is hard and hurt and complicated. Then his face relaxes and he holds his hands up, like people do when they want to show they have no weapons. When I start to walk, he follows.

  Neither of us speak for several blocks. We’re stopped at the corner, waiting for the light, when Truman turns, looking at something over my head. “What you did back there in the alley,” he says, staring past me. “That was pretty crazy.”

  “Crazy to keep them from beating you?”

  “You were so fast. Like you knew exactly what you were doing. You stab a lot of guys before?”

  “No, just that one. And I didn’t stab him, really—only punctured him a little.”

  I want to explain the hours I’ve spent with Beelzebub, watching him get ready, but I don’t th
ink Truman would understand. It’s hard to explain that this is normal, sticking knives into people. That where I come from, they do it all the time. It’s hard, because it suddenly seems like an awful thing to do.

  The light changes, the cluster of traffic moves on. I try not think about how bad I am. All my life, I’ve understood the nature of where I come from, but I never thought I might be wicked until now.

  MARCH 8

  2 DAYS 18 HOURS 22 MINUTES

  The diner was a festival of tile and chrome, and all the waitresses wore ruffled aprons.

  Truman hunched over his plate, mashing his hashbrowns into a paste. Across from him, Daphne was devouring bacon like she hadn’t eaten in years. He was profoundly not hungry.

  “Who were they?” she said suddenly, dipping the last of her bacon in a puddle of egg yolk and shoving it into her mouth. “Those boys—who were they?”

  Truman didn’t look at her. He reached for the salt and pepper shakers. They were made of cut glass, with metal screw-tops. The weight of them was comforting. “No one.”

  Daphne leaned forward, propping her elbows on the table. He could feel her staring at him.

  “Look,” he said, keeping his head bent. “I’ve known those guys a long time. I could have handled it.”

  “No, you couldn’t have. You would have stood there not paying them, and then they would have beaten you.”

  He shrugged, trying to keep his face under control. “So what?”

  She put down her fork, looking dignified like some kind of princess. “So it makes no sense to get beaten up over twenty-five dollars.”

  Truman stared back at her. His gaze was steady, but his hands felt jittery and he spun the pepper shaker on its base.

  She leaned closer, studying his face. “Or was it forty?”

  “Maybe. Yeah, it might have been forty. So what?”

  She took the saltshaker from him and tipped some into her hand. “That was money you owed them. Why would you lie about it? Did you want them to beat you?”

  “No,” he said, but his voice sounded defensive, even to himself.

  “Truman, you have to stop inviting peril.” She leaned back in her chair and licked the salt off her palm. “The world is actually dangerous, after all. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You’re eating salt.”

  She finished what was in her hand and shook out more. “It’s good. I like it.”

  “Your brother told me once that salt was one of the divine substances of the world.” Truman smiled, even though talking about Obie made his throat hurt. “He was always telling me about history and philosophy and stuff when I was . . . well, after.”

  “After what?”

  He picked up his toast, then put it down again. “Nothing. Just after.” His voice sounded empty and he stared at his hands.

  “Can I see them?” she asked.

  “See what?”

  “Your scars.”

  After a second, Truman nodded and turned his hands palm up. Daphne reached across the table and took his wrist. Then she rolled back the sleeve of his sweater and began to trace the scars with her fingertips. When she touched him, Truman felt a rush of exhaustion, relief, and also like if she kept doing it, he might cry. He pulled his arm away.

  “What made them?” she asked, and her voice was soft and almost tender. He had the idea that if she kept looking at him like that, he wouldn’t have to tell her. She would just see the truth, the whole ugly story, right there in his face.

  “I cut myself.” The words ached in his throat, but his voice was steady and calm, like there was nothing inside him.

  “Why? What made you want to—” She hesitated. Her smile didn’t change, but her eyes were knowing and a little sad. “To cut yourself?”

  “My mom died. I was a mess. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, and Charlie’s okay, but he isn’t like a dad or anything. After she died, I was just . . . I didn’t have anybody anymore.” He was grinning now, a liar with a movie star smile, but the smile wasn’t fooling her. His throat hurt so much he was afraid he might choke, and he squeezed the pepper shaker hard enough to make his knuckles go white.

  Solemnly, Daphne offered him the salt and he took it, holding a shaker in each hand, looking down.

  “But you did it because you wanted to die too.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I did it. Now, can we not talk about it?”

  She leaned across the table, watching him over her French toast. He stared back and stopped trying to charm her. The smile didn’t matter, the warm, easy voice didn’t matter. Her gaze was kind and steady. She was seeing right through him.

  When she spoke, her voice was almost a whisper. “I’m sorry. We won’t talk about it anymore. Have you finished eating?”

  He looked down at his plate. Two eggs over easy, two pieces of bacon, hashbrowns. All he’d eaten was the toast. “Yeah.”

  Daphne nodded, then put down a twenty-dollar bill and stood up.

  Outside, she smoothed the front of her coat and began adjusting the buttons. “There’s something I need to ask you.”

  Truman passed a hand over his eyes. “Look, I already told you, I’m really sorry, but I don’t know what happened to your brother.”

  “It’s not that. Can you tell me what Estella is?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Do you mean Estella like a person?”

  “No.” She stared up at the sky, looking anxious. “It’s a place, on a yellow sign, and there was a door where my brother lived.”

  Truman started to tell her he had no idea, but then something occurred to him. “Hey, it’s kind of weird, but in the city some of the really old street signs aren’t green, they’re yellow. Do you mean he lives on Estella Avenue?”

  She looked away and shook her head. “He didn’t tell me things like that. Anyway, I don’t think he’s even there anymore, but maybe we can find something that he left behind. A clue.”

  Truman sighed, resisting the urge to press his fingers against his eyelids. “A clue? Daphne, it’s not like he’s some kind of spy—he’s a hospital orderly. Why would he just disappear?”

  She stood in front of him with her hands clasped against the front of her coat and her chin raised like she’d just been called on to read aloud in class. “Please, I need to explain something now, and you have to listen very carefully.”

  He took in her grave expression and started to laugh. “It can’t be that confusing.”

  “Just listen,” she said. Her voice was higher than normal and Truman was surprised to realize she was nervous. “My father—you’ve probably heard of him—his name is Lucifer. He’s very famous.”

  Truman laughed harder, shaking his head. He took a crumpled pack of Luckies out of the pocket of his jeans, fishing for his lighter as he held a cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

  “That’s all right,” she said at his elbow. When he turned, she was staring anxiously up into his face, gaze steady and unguarded. Her lashes were so dark they were almost sooty-looking. “It’s perfectly understandable if you don’t believe me.”

  But in a strange way, he did believe her. Maybe not that she was the daughter of the actual devil, but Obie had been unusual, and now here she was. And she was pretty unusual too.

  “Here, I’ll show you,” she said, holding out her hand. “Give me a cigarette.”

  Truman raised his eyebrows and handed her one. The pack was almost empty.

  He offered to light it for her, but she shook her head, indicating that she wanted to do it herself. Sticking the cigarette in her mouth, she bit down on the filter and cupped her hand around the lighter.

  “Have you ever smoked before?” he asked, watching as she proceeded to ignite the tip of the cigarette and then shake the flame out again, looking mildly surprised.

  “No.” She tucked the now-smoldering cigarette back into the corner of her mouth and inhaled abruptly.

  “Well, take it easy then. You’re not going to like it and if you kee
p sucking on it like that you’re going to make yourself sick.”

  Daphne tilted her head and gave him a perplexed look. She wasn’t coughing. Her eyes weren’t watering. In fact, she looked like a perfectly normal girl, smoking a cigarette like it was something she did every day.

  Except, she didn’t breathe the smoke back out.

  It had to be a trick of the light. Or the breeze was coming from a funny direction, or she was only pretending to exhale just to mess with him. She was not holding the smoke inside her lungs, because that was a physical impossibility.

  “Okay,” she said. “Now I need to show you something. Are you watching?”

  Truman squinted down at her. “Wait, this isn’t already the thing?”

  She shook her head and rolled up the sleeve of her coat. Then, with the cigarette clamped between her teeth, she flicked the lighter again. As Truman watched, she held the flame to her wrist and kept it there as the skin began to blister.

  “Oh, God!” He grabbed her arm, jerking it away from the hand that held the lighter. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Her eyes widened and the cigarette dropped from her mouth. “Nothing. See?”

  She held out her wrist and he examined it, ready to wince at the scorched flesh. But she was right—there was nothing. He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, cradling her hand in both of his and staring down at her unmarked wrist.

  “How did you do that?”

  She smiled finally, her industrial death-metal teeth glinting in the sun. “I’m a demon. It makes me durable.”

  Truman bent closer, brushing his fingers over the inside of her arm. The skin was smooth and warm, with no interruption in the texture, and his heart was suddenly beating much too fast. It had been a long time since he’d wanted to touch anyone, including Claire. Daphne’s hair smelled like soap and something light and summery. Flowers, maybe.

  He dropped her hand and stepped back, trying to shake the feeling of having been here before, having held her hand and then let go. “You wanted to go to Estella Avenue, right?”