The Space Between

  “I can’t just take a whole night from someone. This is his.”

  The horde of tiny Liliths smile up at me maliciously. “And clearly an experience worth cherishing. He doesn’t need it and you do. Don’t tell me you’ve got no appetite.”

  She’s right. The hollow feeling in my chest is there, not unbearable, but growing. I look away, shaking my head. “I’m not doing that.”

  “Your sisters were never this squeamish,” she says, twinkling in the scattered glass, already disappearing. “Take him home then and let him sleep. In the morning, make him tell you what he knows.”

  I step into the shadow under the broken lights, where Truman is still slumped with his palms braced against the shelter. I touch him, resting my hand on his back, and he leans his forehead against the wall.

  “Who are you?” he mutters, mouth close to the cement. “Why are you here?”

  I don’t say anything, just take him by the elbow and lead him out under the light.

  “Who are you?” he asks again, more insistent.

  “I’m Daphne.”

  He keeps clearing his throat, like if he could just get something out of the way, he could speak. Say everything.

  “I won’t hurt you,” I tell him, but it’s only a whisper. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  He looks around, blinking but not seeming to focus. “Jesus. Where are we?”

  “The wrong platform,” I say. “We need to get back on the train.”

  He scrubs a hand across his face, shaking his head. “I can’t.”

  “You need to sleep. I’m taking you home.”

  “Not the train. I can’t.” He says it in a soft, harsh whisper. “Please.”

  I stand at the top of the platform stairs, looking out over dark streets. When I close my eyes, the map is a colored spiderweb in my head, stars showing up where we are, where we came from, where I want to go. His home is close enough, only eight blocks. If he were well we could walk it easily, but he’s too unsteady, and even going down the steps is an ordeal. I have to put my arm around his waist so he won’t trip.

  At the bottom, I let him go and we stand facing each other under the streetlight. As I pull my coat straight, something small and white begins to fall, drifting in front of us. At first, I think it must be tiny scraps of ash.

  The flakes keep falling, landing on my cheeks where they sting hotly, then turn to water. And in a rush of delight, I realize that I know what this is. For the first time in my life, I’m seeing snow.

  I turn slowly, holding out my hands and letting the snowflakes scatter on my face and get caught in my hair. “Look,” I tell Truman, pointing at the sky. “It’s snowing.”

  He just shivers harder and doesn’t look up. His head is bowed and he holds himself tightly, arms crossed against his body.

  “You’re cold.” I slip out of my coat, meaning to offer it, but my shoulders are narrow and he’s much bigger than me. “Here, you can wear my sweater.”

  When I pull the Freddy sweater over my head, the air stings my bare arms. The sweater fits him much better than it does me. He doesn’t have to roll the sleeves up over his hands.

  “Does that help?” I ask.

  He nods, but his breath is unsteady. It leaves his mouth and nose in clouds.

  We make our way down the dark street, my arm around his waist the way I’ve seen the Lilim do with some of the bone men, but this is different. It’s not about want or desire, and every now and then he pitches forward, tripping over his own feet. I catch him as best I can, but he’s heavy and several times he falls hard on the pavement. By the time we reach Sebastian Street, his hands have begun to bleed.

  On the fourth floor, Truman fumbles in the pocket of his jeans, and when he can’t get his key into the lock, I do it for him. I’ve got him by the arm, but once we’re inside, he pulls away and I follow him down the hall. His room is small, with one window and a mostly empty bookcase. There’s a narrow, lumpy-looking bed pushed against the wall and Truman collapses on it, sighing and rolling onto his back.

  “Can you help me?” He whispers. His voice is slurred. “I need to take off my shirt.”

  “Why do you need help?”

  He starts to laugh, a hitching, inexplicable sound. “I can’t—I can’t move my arms.”

  I help him pull the sweaters over his head, first my Freddy sweater, then his gray one. They’re warm inside from being close to his body. When I sit down beside him, the mattress creaks under my weight and he rests a hand over his eyes. Below it, the line of his mouth is soft and lovely and terribly sad.

  I study him, brushing his hair away from his forehead, remembering the feeling of his fingers twined with mine. Trying to find the boy who reached for me in the terminal.

  At my touch, he uncovers his eyes and looks up. “Do I know you?”

  “No.”

  “That’s funny.” He smiles, just a little. “You look . . . familiar. If I don’t know you, why are you doing that to my hair?”

  I watch my hand, stroking his hair away from his face again and again. “It’s nice. It feels soft.”

  Truman laughs like he’s trying not to cough. “Nice. It does feel nice.” He takes a long breath. “Please, don’t stop.”

  And so I keep touching him, feeling the softness of his hair, the warmth of his body. I press my fingers against his temple and find the whisper of his pulse.

  “Why are you taking care of me?” he asks with his eyes closed.

  I don’t know how to answer. I’m not the kind of person who’s supposed to be taking care of anyone. Even the question feels wrong, so I let my hand fall and stand up. “Stay here. I need to wash your face.”

  He nods without opening his eyes.

  I cross the hall to a cramped bathroom. There’s a washcloth beside the sink and I wet it under the faucet. I don’t look at the mirror, in case my mother appears with more ideas about what exactly I should be doing to help Truman.

  When I go back into the bedroom, he’s still lying where I left him. I wash his face as gently as possible, but his breathing doesn’t even change. His palms are raw from falling so much and when I touch his hands, they feel hot. His face looks better clean, and the hollowness inside me beats against my ribcage like a living thing.

  I hate the empty feeling, but more than that, I hate the way my mother smiles knowingly, like this is simply to be expected. Like there’s no way I can control it. Hunger echoes inside me and I need to prove—to myself and to my mother—that I can resist the pull of his sadness.

  Leaning down, I press my mouth to Truman’s.

  His lips feel cracked against mine, but warm, and I move closer. Hunger fills my throat and I can almost taste the complex flavor of his sorrow. I breathe it from his lips and as I do, I know without a doubt that I could drink it if I let myself, draw it out of him like venom. But it isn’t mine to take.

  He sighs in his sleep, and I pull away quickly and turn out the light. In the dark, I lie down beside him on top of the blankets, turning on my side and folding my hands under my cheek like praying. I close my eyes, something I have barely ever done.

  So close to Truman, I can hear him breathing.

  BRANCHES

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Outside, the light is getting brighter. In the street, the snow has turned wet and grimy, spraying away from the tires of passing cars. I stand at the window and watch the sun balanced on the horizon. From so far away, it looks edible. It gets higher, becomes a tangerine and then a piece of hard candy lighting up everything. Truman’s still on the bed. He’s been sleeping for hours and I wonder if I should wake him up. He looks pale in the early light and I don’t want to disturb him, but I’m getting hungry.

  In the pockets of his jeans are an assortment of things. There’s half a package of breath mints, keys on a metal ring, a blue plastic lighter, a crumpled receipt for coffee and cigarettes, a dollar bill, and two safety pins.

  I eat the mints, which taste overpowering and do almost noth
ing to satisfy my hunger. Then I sit on the edge of the bed, rolling the wheel of the lighter with my thumb and watching the flame spring up, then disappear again as soon as I let go. When I touch the metal to the inside of my arm, it hurts the way light reflects off glass. The skin turns red and blisters, then almost as quickly, it smoothes over, seals back up. Is perfect again.

  Beside me Truman starts to mutter, whimpering against the mattress. I take his hands in mine, one and then the other, palms turned up. Something’s wrong with his left. Even when I press the fingers open, they won’t straighten. They stay curled, like he’s always holding something.

  His wrists are lined with long welts that overlap and connect with each other. It’s as though someone has drawn branches on the insides of his arms, carved them carefully into his skin.

  I touch the branches, making him sigh and cough, but he doesn’t wake up.

  I wonder what I would do if he died right here. Then what? Then I would take my bag of things and leave this room. I’d find myself a hotel, and another person who knew my brother. It took six hours to find one boy. I can find someone else if I have to, someone more resilient, less damaged. I’ll find someone better, like Moloch said, and all I’ll have left behind is a body and twenty-four hours of my time.

  Truman looks strangely peaceful lying facedown on the mattress and I don’t want to leave him.

  “Don’t be dead,” I whisper with my mouth close to his ear.

  “I’m not.” His voice is husky and kind of shocking, muffled against the bed.

  He takes a breath and begins to cough in the middle, then sits up, raising one hand to his temple, feeling the purple lump where his head hit the floor in Dio’s bathroom.

  We sit in the tangle of blankets, looking at each other but not saying anything.

  “Hey,” he says finally, squinting against the sun. “What are you doing here?”

  “I brought you home. It was snowing and I stayed. Is that okay?”

  He regards me blearily and nods, not like a person nodding in agreement, but like he has to because there’s nothing to say. Then he swings his feet off the bed.

  “Um, I’m going to take a shower,” he says, sounding awkward.

  “Okay.”

  He stands up slowly, like he’s getting his bearings, before stumbling across the hall to the bathroom. I hear the door close behind him and then the shower comes on.

  I look at his rumpled blanket, the dent in the pillow. When I put my hand in the depression, it feels warm. If I were home, a girl like Petra would have already slipped in to smooth away the creases. I straighten the sheet, pat the blankets flat, but it just looks lumpy and uneven.

  From out in the apartment, there’s the scrabbling sound of someone working the lock to the front door, and then the sounds of stomping feet, jangling keys. I stand up.

  Out in the hall, the man from yesterday is standing in the entryway, boots leaving puddles on the mat. Charlie, Alexa called him. When he turns and sees me, his eyes get wider, but nothing else changes.

  “Hi,” he says. He’s in the process of taking off his coat and has stopped, arms held awkwardly behind him. He looks like he’s waiting for something.

  “I brought Truman home,” I tell him.

  “Found him, huh?”

  I nod. “He’s in the shower.”

  “But he’s okay?”

  “Mostly.”

  Charlie breathes out. Then he takes his coat off and hangs it on a hook. He jerks his head sideways. “Hey, do you want some coffee, or some breakfast, maybe?”

  I nod, trying not to appear overeager. The only thing I’ve eaten since yesterday is Truman’s package of breath mints and I’m ravenous.

  The kitchen is small and grimy, linoleum peeling up from the floor in all the corners. Charlie keeps his back to me, running the faucet, opening cupboards and drawers. He pours water into a plastic device on the counter and presses buttons until the air smells fragrant. Then he hands me my coffee in a ceramic cup and sets a milk carton in front of me, but still doesn’t say anything.

  The coffee is hot and velvety, with a flavor that reminds me of something burned until it got clean. It reminds me of home.

  “I’ll make you something, if you want,” he says, leaning on the back of a chair. “You like eggs?”

  “Yes,” I say, but I have no idea if it’s the truth.

  He digs around in the refrigerator and starts lining things up on the stove. I recognize the egg carton from television and it makes me smile. Eggs are my favorite grocery.

  Charlie breaks three of them into a bowl and gives them a cursory stir with a fork. Then he leans against the counter, watching the ceiling and not my face. “So, what happened to him last night?”

  “He almost died.”

  Charlie doesn’t even look surprised. He just nods and turns away, twisting a knob on the stove. On the wall above the doorway is a wooden crucifix attended by a metal savior. Jesus, they call him.

  I keep my eyes down while Charlie cooks. I want to watch him use the stove, but he’s making so much noise that looking at him doesn’t seem right. I stare at my coffee until he puts a plate in front of me. On it, there are two slices of toasted bread and a mass of yellow. He sits facing me and I begin to eat.

  “Eggs okay?” he asks, after I’ve taken several bites.

  “They’re good.”

  He smiles across the table like something’s unwinding inside him. He’s unshaven, the bristles glowing reddish along his jaw as the sun keeps rising, shining into the kitchen from a window above the sink.

  “I’ve tried,” he says suddenly. “I know it doesn’t look like it. But I tried to so hard with him.”

  There’s the sound of the bathroom door opening and suddenly Charlie is picking at his fingernails, pointedly not looking toward the hall.

  When Truman appears in the doorway, they don’t acknowledge each other. He doesn’t come all the way into the kitchen, just leans there with his hands in his pockets. He looks better this morning, clear-eyed and alert, and his color is much better. His hair is damp and clean, falling over his forehead in a way that makes me want to brush it back.

  I stand up, smoothing the front of my dress automatically, even though it’s ridiculous to think of decorum when I’m looking at a boy who does nothing but shiver and tremble and damage himself in useless ways.

  “Do you want some breakfast?” Charlie says finally, still looking at the table. “I’ll throw in a couple eggs for you if you want.”

  “Thanks. I’m not . . .” Truman swallows, his voice trailing away.

  When he starts to fall down, he does it slowly. Then he’s sitting on the floor, hanging his head between his knees and breathing hard like he’s been running.

  Charlie pushes back his chair. “You want to tell me the last time you ate something besides cereal?” His eyes are warm and kind and sad.

  Truman just sits in the doorway, taking deep breaths and pressing his hands to his face. “Look, I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

  When he tries to stand, he has to reach for the wall to get his balance. I cross the kitchen and tuck my hand into the crook of his elbow. The skin is cold and slick. He doesn’t protest and I lead him back down the hall.

  In his room, Truman pulls away from me and lowers himself onto the mattress. He rolls over so that his back is to me, and draws his knees up. Through his T-shirt, his shoulder blades are like something by Rodin or Bernini.

  “Are you asleep?” I ask, trying not to sound loud, but I can’t help it.

  The room is hollow with how quiet Truman is. He doesn’t answer. If he is breathing, I can’t hear it.

  “Are you all right?” I take a step toward him, and when he doesn’t move, I touch him gently on the arm. His skin feels warm and he flinches.

  I stroke his hair the way I did before. It’s still damp. He smells different now. Clean, like water.

  “Could you please not do that?” he whispers.

  “You liked it last nig
ht. You asked me not to stop.”

  “Yeah, well last night I was wrecked. Now, I’m asking you to stop.”

  I take my hand away. His eyes are closed and his mouth looks tight, like he’s biting down on something to keep from crying out. It’s hard to know how to touch him. His bones look delicate under his skin.

  “What’s wrong? Will you talk to me?”

  He rolls over, looking up into my face. “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “I’m Daphne.”

  And he smiles at me for the first time since he’s been awake, a sad, tired smile. “That doesn’t mean anything, okay?”

  “I have a brother, though. His name is Obie.”

  “Obie.” Truman’s eyes are flat, suddenly. Far away. “From the hospital?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. Can you tell me where he is?” All at once I feel desperate for whatever information he can give me, even some small, offhand recollection, some little story.

  Truman sighs and pushes himself up on one elbow. “Look, I haven’t seen Obie in more than a year, okay?”

  And for a moment, I just sit looking at him, because a year is a long time. I understand that. A year is a very long time, and part of me is still certain that I saw Obie only recently—a week ago or a month. But that was Pandemonium, and in Pandemonium, centuries slip by like no time at all. Here, time matters and any number of terrible things can happen in the space of a single year.

  “Please,” I say, trying to make Truman see how much this matters. “You have to help me. I think something awful’s happened to him.”

  He shakes his head, looking helpless—almost apologetic. His eyes are a clear, icy blue like running water, and it’s in this moment I know for sure that I’ve found him. Last night, that was someone else, dazed and unresponsive. This is the boy who looked up at me in the terminal. The boy who reached for my hand.

  Only now, I’m the one reaching for him. I turn his arm to expose the inside of his wrist, tracing the branches with my fingers, but he twists away and won’t look at me.