The Gray House

SPHINX

VISITING THE SEPULCHER

I am looking into the eyes of my own reflection. Intently, without blinking, until my eyes start tearing up. Sometimes I am able to achieve the sense of complete detachment, sometimes not. It’s either a decent way of calming your nerves or a waste of time, depending on your inner state when approaching the mirror and the lessons you carry away from it.

The mirror is a mocker. Purveyor of nasty practical jokes unfathomable to us, since our time runs faster. Much faster than is required to fully appreciate its sense of humor. But I do remember. I, who used to look into the eyes of a bullied squirt, whispering, “I want to be like Skull,” now meet the gaze of someone who looks much more like a skull than the eponymous character. To compound the joke, I am now the sole possessor of the trinket that was responsible for his nick. I can appreciate the humor born behind the looking glass because I know what I know, but I doubt many would wish to pay for that knowledge by spending countless hours talking to mirrors.

I know an achingly beautiful man who runs from mirrors like they were a plague.

I know a girl who has an entire set of mirrors around her neck. She looks into them more often than she looks around, so the world for her exists in little upside-down fragments.

I know a blind person who sometimes freezes watchfully in front of his reflection.

And I remember a hamster attacking its own reflection with the fury of a berserker.

So don’t tell me there isn’t magic hidden in mirrors. It is there, even when you’re dead tired and not good for anything.

I stop detaching and catch the eyes of my reflection.

“Jeez,” I say. “What a monstrosity . . . At least put some clothes on, my friend.”

The monstrosity, naked, covered in scratches, eyes crazed with insomnia, looks back reproachfully. He’s got a Band-Aid over his right eyebrow, his left ear sticks out, flashing red, and dried-up blood covers his busted lip.

Chastised by the mute reproach, I turn away.

“All right. Sorry. You’re perfect. Just a bit out of sorts is all.”

I wiggle the bath towel from the hook onto my back and smooth it out over my shoulders with my teeth. Now draped in the fluffy white toga, I can emerge from the bathroom.

“There are people who live their lives as if running some kind of experiment,” Sightless One said about the recent events. Beats me why this desire to experiment takes over so many at once. With no breaks in between. Noble, then Black, and finally me. There’s a certain logic to it. Is this the way flu epidemics start? This virus of aggression and apprehension flies from one person to another, multiplying unstoppably. A dark period in the life of the pack, and one hard to snap out of.

I freeze, close my eyes, and try to identify it, this abomination that managed to sneak in from who knows where. To know its smell, corner it, return it back to where it belongs. But I feel nothing, apart from the two sleepless nights pressing down on my eyelids. Well, that and the smell of someone’s socks, apparently buried in the pile of boots and sneakers. The shoe cemetery needs to be dealt with at some point, before we start getting mice addicted to the toxic vapors.

I open the door. The room is empty and quiet, which makes it seem smaller than it is, even though it should be the other way around. But this is not how it works here. Considering that Humpback always brings trees with him wherever he goes; that Alexander is shadowed by an invisible choir belting out the “Lacrimosa”; that Noble is always in his ivy-walled castle and only puts down the drawbridge when he feels like it, while Jackal is capable of spawning another half-dozen of himself at any moment; and that it’s a blessing that at least Lary is not dragging the corridors inside when he walks in the door, and Tubby only does his magic when cooped up in his pen . . . Considering all that, it’s not surprising that our room, overflowing with all those different worlds, would seem smaller now than when we’re all in it.

I sit on the bed. I’m hungry, but I need sleep even more. I rest my forehead against the bars and switch off for a while. Until there’s a quiet rapping on the door and the swish of rubber tires.

It’s Smoker.

He’s glowing, renewed after visiting the Cage. He’s a nice guy, he doesn’t bring anything here except himself. And his nightmarish questions.

I give him a one-eyed birdlike look. The other eye can’t see from behind the hanging strip of Band-Aid.

“Hi!” he exclaims, but darkens immediately. “What happened here?”

I feel pangs of guilt. Those who are returned from the Cages should be met jubilantly. This is how it goes, ever since the times when nobody went there of their own accord. And I’m a tired scarecrow right now, incapable of performing the requisite rituals.

“Had a disagreement with Black. How are you doing? Everything all right?”

Plump, rose-cheeked Smoker, with those shiny bangs all the way down to his eyebrows. He passed the test of the Cage. Of course he’s all right, I can see it clearly, but I have to ask to make sure. Cages are not good places. Not the worst in the House, but still pretty bad. I’m glad Smoker didn’t have a reason to find that out. Even though being glad about it is not a good idea.

“Everything’s great,” he confirms. “It’s like I’ve been reborn! All thanks to Jackal.”

“I’m happy you feel that way.”

He wheels next to the bed and looks at me probingly.

“Why did you fight with Black?”

Meaning: how on Earth have you and Black managed to have a fight. Even though my expertise in that area is an undiscovered country for him, he finds it easier to imagine me fighting as compared to stolid, emotionless Black, which is the way he sees him. Also, he’s deathly afraid of hearing something along the lines of “You know, kid, we just had a certain difference of opinion” as the beginning and end of conversation. He’s afraid because that’s exactly the kind of explanation he usually gets, and it makes him depressed. It interferes with his need to feel grown up. He has all the reasons to be afraid right now. The temptation to get rid of him with a pair of meaningless sentences is overwhelming. The explanations will only invite more questions, and then eventually I will run out of answers. But Smoker is impossible to get rid of. He opens his palm and all of himself is right there on it, and he just hands that to you. You can’t throw away this naked soul, pretending like you don’t understand what it is you’ve been offered and why. That’s where his power comes from, out of this devastating openness. I’ve never met anyone like that before. I sigh and silently bid good-bye to the idea of getting some rest before the pack is back.

“You see . . . Noble decided to try Moon River. The effect of this stuff on the human consciousness is unpredictable to the extreme. Some just feel sick. Others start behaving strangely. There are those who experience absolute bliss. Which doesn’t look nice on the outside. I knew a guy who after a dose of River started talking in iambic pentameter. And then there was one who completely forgot how to talk . . .”

Smoker’s attention is so rapt that I’m barely in time to stop myself from expounding on all side effects of River I’ve had the opportunity to learn about.

“You get the idea. Drinking it makes you a human guinea pig.”

He nods. “I understand. It’s a drug. So what happened to Noble?”

I shoot a quick look to the wrinkled covers in the corner of the bed. The place where the dragon was sitting. Frozen. Lifeless.

“He went stiff. Turned to stone. Wouldn’t respond to anything. That’s not a particularly bad reaction, by the way. The important thing in those circumstances is to stand back and not interfere. Except someone needs to be nearby. Just in case.”

Smoker sighs with relief. He wasn’t here to look into the wide-open eyes of the live statue for five hours straight. Or to hear Lary’s whining and Jackal’s prophesies. There is nothing scary for him in what I’m saying.

I am trying to stick the damned Band-Aid back in its place by rubbing it against the bars of the headboard, but no such luck. Breakfast will be over soon. Time to wrap up the story.

“Black volunteered to stay with Noble over lunch. When we returned, Noble wasn’t here. This moron hauled him over to the Sepulcher. I’ve no idea if he lugged him all the way there himself or asked Spiders for help. But it doesn’t matter, really. That’s about it.”

Just as I expected, this is clearly far from “it” for Smoker. He looks so shocked that I begin to suspect that something must have filtered through from my side, something bad. I felt like I was talking without bringing any emotions into this, and anyway I am already far removed from the way I was yesterday, but some feelings are very hard to hold inside, they find a way out. My dislike of Black is one of those. As is his dislike of me, naturally. Smoker doesn’t need to be burdened with this, but I might be too late, at least on my own account. He’s already caught some of it.

“I think”—Smoker’s eyes flee, hiding behind the lashes—“maybe he thought that would be for the best? Maybe he was afraid for Noble and decided that he’d better make sure. In the hospital wing they know how to take care of people after . . . after things like that.”

“Of course. They know a lot of things there. And Black wanted what was best. And what’s best, in his opinion, is that we get rid of Noble. He’s much too unstable.”

“That’s a strange way of putting it, Sphinx . . . It’s not like they’d eat him alive there.”

That’s the most unbearable feature of all newbies. They constantly need obvious things explained to them. I feel like an idiot doing that. Especially when I’m wrapped in a wet towel. But I am also firmly against avoiding it, since sooner or later we always run into problems stemming from things left unsaid. From one of us being misunderstood.

“The medical records kept in the Sepulcher,” I forge on bravely, “have these stickers on them. Yellow ones, blue ones, and red ones. They are also put in the personal files. I’m not going to talk about yellow and blue right now, but one red stripe means that you are antisocial and unbalanced. Two, you have suicidal tendencies and require a psychologist. Three, you have a psychiatric disorder and require inpatient treatment, which the House is not capable of providing.”

Smoker frowns, trying to remember if he saw any stripes in his personal file. I want to laugh, although heaven knows there’s nothing funny about this.

“One,” I say. “You’ve been thrown out of your group, that’s a sure way to get it. But everyone has one, so don’t worry. Here only Tubby managed to avoid it.”

“And Noble has . . .”

“Three. And I’m afraid that, barring a miracle, someone is going to finally notice them this time.”

“Does it mean he has schizophrenia, then?”

I take a huge breath, but then the strengthening roar and clatter of an avalanche rolling down the hallway reaches my ears and all the nasty words stay where they were. Smoker also hears the sound of the imminent arrival of the well fed.

“Oops. I guess I better go someplace,” he says. “While there isn’t anyone there.”

He manages to sneak out just as the avalanche reaches our door. Jackal, riding his Mustang, is the first to burst in. Yogurt mustache, a pack of sandwiches under his arm.

“Why, hello, Sphinx! Doing a one-man strip show? Could have waited for your friends!”

Humpback shoves him aside, places a packet of juice on the nightstand, and goes on to take Nanette out for feeding.

“Yummy sandwiches, look!” Tabaqui tempts me. “I can even put some sauce on top.”

Alexander, a bunch of clothes in his hands, pushes his way through.

“This is cheese and this is cream cheese,” Tabaqui persists. “All lovingly made by these very hands!”

“Smoker’s back. Why don’t you ask him if he’s hungry?”

With a triumphant yell, Tabaqui backs out of the door and, by the sound of it, proceeds to break down the door to the bathroom.

“Smoker! Light of my life! Are you in there? Talk to me!”

Alexander finishes buttoning my shirt.

“Are you going to go see Noble?” he asks.

Sure. That’s about the last thing I need right now. Go to Noble and explain to him the circumstances leading to his current whereabouts.

“Leave me alone,” I snap. “Can’t you see I’m not in a condition to drag myself over there?”

He just holds the jeans for me. He doesn’t argue, he doesn’t question me, and this makes me that much more miserable.

Jackal, the sunny go-getter with the yogurt mustache, the exuberant noisemaker, is back. Along with Smoker, who’s chewing on a sandwich from that packet, and Humpback, who slaps Smoker’s back excitedly, preventing him from enjoying his food with a barrage of questions about his time in quarantine.

“How’s the Cage? Is the blasted thing still standing?”

Smoker nods. “Of course it is. Still there. What could possibly happen to it?”

I observe the lightning-fast disappearance of the sandwiches and swallow hard.

“You’re so thin,” Lary observes with concern. “Was it hard for you over there?”

Smoker nods again, then mumbles through the layers of the sandwich, “Hate those yellow flowers!”

Which precipitates another explosion of reminiscences from Humpback and Jackal about the hours they spent in quarantine.

“So the last time I was there, I . . .”

“One night is nothing, I was in for four in a row once . . .”

“Yellow is child’s play! Now blue, on the other hand . . .”

While they are all comparing notes, I suddenly discover Blind’s hand on my shoulder.

“I think,” the Great-and-Powerful pronounces thoughtfully, “that it might be a good idea for you to walk down to the Sepulcher. Have a talk with Janus. You two are friends, after all.”

Another one. The destination is the same, the quest just got harder, and Blind, unlike Alexander, I cannot just brush off. I mean, I could, but that would be unwise.

“Is that an order?”

Sightless One is surprised.

“Of course not. Just a suggestion.”

He lets go of my shoulder and walks off, not giving me even a moment to grumble. Time to run to the Sepulcher. And I mean run right now, before Tabaqui joins the well-meaning advisers, before Humpback tells me all he thinks about it, and before Lary volunteers to accompany me there. We’ve been living side by side for far too long. Our sides have merged, and we all share common habits now. Soon we won’t even need to open our mouths anymore to express an opinion, everyone will already know everything.

The classes drift by silently, not involving me in any way. Rain is drumming on the windowpanes. The gray ribbons of the raindrops snake down the glass. So sleepy. I catch myself dozing off with my eyes open, and I even see something like a dream.

A dimly lit passage through subterranean corridors. There’s a window ahead of me. A dull, flyspecked rectangle of whitewashed glass. Wolf is sitting on the sill. With his back to me. He has on his old patterned sweater with holes in the elbows.

“Wolf!” I call to him.

He turns around and looks at me. The familiar white scar over the lip. His lips don’t move, but I hear his voice.

“This mouse hanged itself under the pillow in my hole,” he whispers.

I’m shaken awake by Skank’s yelp and see her round, piggy eyes right in front of my face. She looks frantic.

“Where is the mouse?” she demands in a shaky voice, directing the end of the pointer at my nose. “Where is it?”

Then I’m thrown out and therefore free to do as I please. Or, rather, as I do not please. I have to go to the Sepulcher. I swing by the dorm in hopes of finding the remains of Smoker’s feast, but there is nothing but crumbs left, so I slink away, defeated. The corridor rolls by, refusing to tell me anything new. Well, maybe it does, but I float through it like in a vacuum, deaf and blind to its pronouncements. I am pleasantly surprised that this turned out to be possible after all. This goes on until I reach the Sepulcher. Here I shake off the fog. Beyond this threshold is a domain that does not suffer being trod upon in this state of almost terminal exhaustion. The Sepulcher demands an appearance of vim and vigor. Even if you’re already a corpse.

The hallway is immaculately clean and blindingly white. And soaked in this horrible mediciney smell. I am intercepted by two female Spiders rolling out on the glistening floor.

“What’s this? On whose authority? Get out!”

And my unrecognizably plaintive voice pleads, “Just for a moment. A teacher sent me. It’s very important.”

“To the head of the department!”

A plump index finger directing me farther down the corridor.

My tail is sweeping the floor, my lips are stretched in an obsequious grin. I take off again.

The Spider queens stare suspiciously. A person like me is only to their liking when he’s bound, suspended from the ceiling, and stuck all over with wires and tubes. To better suck out his blood. An armless creature running free is a disgrace, verging on a crime. In my mind I give them the finger. My rakes are not capable of that feat, of course. The rest of the way I take at a trot.

Janus’s office. Jan is the nicest, most conscientious Spider there is. I love him dearly, but our relationship has soured a bit lately, so I’m worried. I rap the rake against the frosted-glass door and push it open a bit.

“May I?”

“Oh, it’s you.” He swivels around in his chair. A long-faced, big-eared graying ginger with an amazing smile that he rarely lets out. That’s why he’s called Janus. He’s two different people depending on whether he’s smiling. “Come in, don’t stand there.”

I enter. His office is not as white as the rest of the Sepulcher. You could almost imagine you were somewhere else. Leopard’s drawings in thin wooden frames on the walls. Janus’s office is the only place in the House where you can still see them in a civilized environment. Yes, whatever remains on the walls is closer, more accessible, and all around more fun, but a wall is a wall, it’s hard to preserve things on it in exactly the state they were meant to be when created. Especially if they do go ahead with that renovation, painting over everything everywhere—then the drawings will be lost forever. Only these will be left. These, and the ones I have stashed away. Here, all we have are the spiderwebs and the trees. The largest sheet shows a gloomy white spider, its face unmistakably that of Janus. It’s hanging forlornly from a thread in the middle of a tattered web. There aren’t many people who’d hang a portrait like that in their office. But Janus did. He hung it, and the others, even though they all reek of the hatred Leopard had for the Sepulcher. I approach the glass-covered white desk.

“Can I see Noble?”

Janus doesn’t answer. I can see he’s set against it. But he’s never going to say “Get out” straight off. That’s not his way.

“Who was it you had a scrap with? Come here, let’s have a look at you.” Jan pulls out a desk drawer and starts rummaging in it. “I said come here. Do you enjoy this?”

“Enjoy what?”

“Fighting. Hitting someone in the face with your feet.”

He finally fishes out something and dumps it on the table. A white-and-cyan package of surgical tape.

“That grimy thing over your eye, it needs to be changed.”

Jan gets up, puts me in the swiveling chair, and peels off the strip of Band-Aid on my forehead. I see that it really is on the grimy side. It’s not the end of the world, of course, but I need to be nice to Janus, so I sit quietly and allow him to do whatever he thinks has to be done.

“Now you see,” he mutters, picking over my wounds, “he needs to be by himself for a while. People do need that sometimes. You understand that, don’t you?”

I do. And he’s right. But let him explain this to Alexander. To Blind. To all of them.

“I understand.”

“Good. Go back to your group and tell the guys not to send anybody else. Later, maybe. But not now. Principal’s orders.”

I shudder. “Why? He usually doesn’t interfere with your business.”

Janus is purposefully looking at the landscape beyond his window.

“He doesn’t, and then again he does. In extreme cases.”

I feel sick. That’s a death sentence. I look at Janus and see him suddenly pull away from me, himself, his desk, and then the whole room, growing smaller, more and more indistinct. The walls glide past, carrying him farther and farther from me, while the pictures seem to grow and crowd me, the webs on them hanging from the ceiling to the floor in nightmarish distorted polygons. I close my eyes, but this only compounds the horror, because I start hearing voices. The barely perceptible whispers of those who got tangled in the web and perished here. Leopard. Shadow. This is a terrifying place. The worst in the whole House. It stinks of death, regardless of how well scrubbed and polished they keep it.

Someone is shaking me so hard my teeth are clattering. I see Janus’s face right in front of me. The web is gone.

“What’s going on?” he asks. “Are you all right?”

“Don’t do this,” I say.

He lets me go and straightens up.

“You can’t do this.”

Janus shakes his head.

“It’s not my decision anymore. I am really sorry. What’s happening to you?”

What’s happening to me? The Sepulcher is happening to me, which is peanuts compared to what lies in store for Noble.

“My apologies. This place gets to me very badly.”

He pours water into a glass and gives it to me. I drink it out of his hands, completely forgetting about the rakes.

“This place?” he asks. “This particular place?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Yes, I think so. It’s those weird superstitions of yours. Are you completely sure you’re not sick?”

I don’t answer. There is no one here who can be completely sure about it. If anybody, a Spider should know this. Janus looks down and bites his lip. He is terminally curious. I don’t have to wait long for the questions to start. He takes cigarettes out of the drawer and I realize that there might be more questions than I thought. Jan sits down on the edge of the desk.

“Where does this angst come from?” he asks. “Why? I see it too often to just dismiss it out of hand. When people start breaking out in a cold sweat in this very office . . .” He looks around, as if making sure that this is indeed still his office. “I’d like to know the reasons for it. I could understand if this were only happening to you. I‘d just refer you to a specialist and that would be the end of the problem.” He puffs on his cigarette, observing me closely. “You can answer or not, it’s your choice.”

“I’ll answer. But I don’t think my answer, such as it is, will satisfy you. This is a bad place. For every one of us. There are good places and bad places here. This one is bad. How it became this way is a long story.”

Janus patiently waits for me to continue.

“And since you’re not going to let me see Noble anyway . . .”

His forehead breaks out into a concertina of ripples.

“Are you trying to bargain?” he asks incredulously. “With me?”

“Yes, I am. Just so you know, I wrote a scholarly article once exactly on the topic that interests you, so I’m quite competent to discuss it. A long article complete with references to the classics and an inventive title, ‘Sepulcher: Outside or Inside Us.’ This, as you might have guessed, is me talking up my side. I understand it is common when bargaining.”

Janus looks at me with such sincere amazement that I almost laugh out loud.

“You’ve lost me,” he says. “What article? Where?”

“Just an article. In a magazine with a circulation of ten copies.”

He exhales, relieved.

“Oh. I get it. It’s your own magazine. What’s it about?”

“Everything. It comes out twice a year, so we’re never short of topics. The authors hide behind unrecognizable pen names, and everyone writes about whatever is of interest to him. I wrote about the Sepulcher, and the next issue featured a very lively discussion in the letters to the editor. Those might be even more useful to you than the article itself.”

Janus nods. “We’re haggling over two issues. A yearly subscription. It’s a pig in a poke. Two pigs.”

“In exchange for one visit to one dragon. I think that’s fair.”

“Nothing doing,” Janus says, clearly disappointed. “That would mean me abandoning my principles. Indulging my own petty curiosity. I’d be ashamed of myself afterward.”

“Your call.”

I sigh with relief, even though he did refuse. It’s good that he did. I didn’t really want him reading my creation. It revealed too much. Almost as much as Leopard’s drawings. I steal a glance at them and look away. It wouldn’t do to go down for the count again. I transfer my attention to Janus, do my best to keep my eyes on him. He looks around in an exaggerated manner, trying to see something that he wouldn’t be able to, no matter what. Then stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray.

“You look terrible,” he says. “Go get some sleep, grab something to eat, calm down, and then come back.”

He sounds irritated. My nightmares are getting on his nerves. They must be visible to the naked eye by now.

“Go,” Janus repeats. “We’re all tired. There are no classes tomorrow. I might let you see him then.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” I say patiently. “I’d be happy to do exactly that, except I can’t. Until I see Noble I can neither sleep nor eat nor look my people in the eye. I can’t just go back empty-handed and crash into my bed. I will have failed to do that which I was sent to do. How can you not see that?”

“You mean I have to cater to your whims now?”

“It’s not a whim. You know it isn’t.”

“He needs to rest. To be away from your people. You would only exacerbate his condition if you showed up in this panicked state.”

“He’ll have plenty of rest where you’re sending him. And it will exacerbate everything much more than I ever could. Do you know how we speak of those who leave the House? The same way we speak of the dead. You’re not letting me talk to someone who is going to be dead soon.”

Janus climbs down from the desk. Rubs his face. A gaunt, hunched figure, looking more now like Leopard’s drawing of him than I’ve ever seen.

“You know what?” he says. “If you spend one more minute in my office I’m going to start dreading to stay here alone. Imagining heaven knows what until I become convinced that this is indeed an evil place. I have no idea how you manage to force this on me, but I’m having a hard time fighting it.”

“I’m not forcing anything,” I say. “It’s the way I feel.”

“Let’s go.” He opens the door and holds it for me. “I am fond of my office and of my sanity. So the sooner you get out of here, the better for both of us.”

I get up.

“Are you going to let me see him?”

“That’s where we’re headed. Do you think I should ask him first if he’d like to see you?”

We’re walking down the Sepulchral corridor. He’s striding ahead—a slender white tower. I can barely move my feet fast enough to keep up with him. I am all wrung out like a sponge, someone could use me to wipe the floor. Sure, I’ve gotten what I wanted, but I have nothing left for the main event, the whole point of this enterprise. We turn a corner. Janus slows down by a long opaque cabinet, takes out a white lab coat, and throws it over to me.

“Wait here. I’ll just be a moment.”

I wait, staring at an installation of cacti in pink flowerpots hanging off a wire frame, somehow resembling a spiderweb. Another one. This blind offshoot of the main corridor, clad in the whitest linoleum, glistens under the lights, proudly presenting the essential quality of the Sepulcher—its total sterility. I could eat my dinner off it, if I wanted to. But I just lower myself down on it and lean against the wall. And try to calm my frayed nerves with a simple mantra. You are not a patient here. You’re just coming through. Running through. You can leave whenever you want. Remember it and hold on.

In that long-ago article on the Sepulcher, I picked apart the very word “patient.” Dissected it, broke it down into elementary particles. And deduced that a patient is no longer a human being. That those are two mutually exclusive notions. When a person turns into a patient he relinquishes his identity. The individuality sloughs off, and the only thing that’s left is an animal shell over a compound of fear, hope, pain, and sleep. There is no trace of humanity in there. The human floats somewhere outside of the boundaries of the patient, waiting patiently for the possibility of a resurrection. And there is nothing worse for a spirit than to be reduced to a mere body. That’s why it is Sepulcher. A place where the spirit goes to be buried. The dread permeating these walls cannot be extinguished. When I was little I couldn’t understand how this name came to be. We inherited it from the seniors, along with the horror this place instilled in them. We needed time to grow into it. A lot of time and many bitter losses. It’s as if we were filling a void, a space carved out by those who came before us that somehow turned out to fit us perfectly when we filled it completely. When we understood the meaning of all the names given long before our time and went through almost all the motions that had been already played out. Even our innocent little Blume was a great-great-grandchild of an earlier incarnation; our very own baby and at the same time a reappearance of an old ghost. I’m willing to bet that if someone were to discover the archives of its predecessors, he’d find plenty of screams of rage against the Sepulcher, identical to mine.

Janus steps out and nods at the door.

“You can come in. I’ll be back to check on you in a quarter of an hour. We’ll see how your presence reflects on him. If I find that he’s becoming upset, that will be the last time you are allowed anywhere near here.”

“Thank you,” I say, and enter.

The whiteness of the tiled walls is blinding. The room is tiny. Semiprivate—that is, for two. There are no windows. Noble is sitting up, blanket up to his knees, in an ugly gray gown with string ties hanging down from the collar. On the nightstand by the bed—a tray with a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of milk. The silly gown becomes him. As does everything I’ve ever seen him wear. Tabaqui has this theory that Goldenhead would remain beautiful even if he were to be dunked in shit. And the more benign tar and feathers would make him absolutely stunning. Someone who’s not used to the visage of the Dark Elf is usually overwhelmed in his presence, buried under a mountain of insecurities. But someone who is used to it, and is also very hungry, should be able to redirect his attention to, say, a bowl of oatmeal. Which is exactly what I do.

How beautiful it is! Small pink flowers run along the border of the bowl; a golden puddle of melted butter occupies its center. The oatmeal is already starting to acquire a tender crust, but obviously is still warm. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. I am mesmerized by it, consumed by the desire to attack it, to chomp and smack my lips and lick the bowl clean, slurp in the milk, and then fall asleep right there. It’s funny, the more vividly I imagine all this, the hungrier I get. My legs are about to give under me. I am this close to fainting. Noble stares at me in surprise.

“Hi,” I say tersely, not able to peel myself away from the sight of the bowl. “How are things?”

Yeah. I’m clearly babbling. What things? That was a stupid question. But I had to say something, hadn’t I?

Noble grimaces.

“What things? What are you talking about?”

I am silent. A sullen, hopeless silence. The oatmeal is getting cold. Noble frowns. “Are you hungry, by any chance?”

How polite and thoughtful of him.

“Purely by chance—very much so!”

“In that case . . .”

But I’m already not listening. I fall upon the oatmeal like a hawk and exterminate it. Apparently I make use of a spoon, because when the meal is finished I notice it stuck in the grip of my right rake. The wrong way around, so it’s a mystery how I managed to eat the whole thing with the thin end. But that’s not important. I miraculously avoid being suffocated, I still tremble with the now-satisfied craving, and I can gratefully lower myself down on the edge of the bed.

“Noble. Thank you. I know it may sound corny, but you have just saved my life.”

Noble’s chin quivers.

“I noticed. I’m sorry, but it was rather obvious.”

I too begin to appreciate the humor of the situation. The putative savior and bringer of consolation showed up bruised, stared at oatmeal with crazy eyes, and then devoured it as soon as he got half an invitation. Inhaled a sick man’s lunch.

“Oh. I guess that wasn’t very nice,” I admit.

Noble bursts out laughing. I join him. We laugh until tears come, loudly and hysterically. A pair of mental cases. I’m afraid the oatmeal might ask to get out. But the merriment switches off just as abruptly as it started. Noble darkens.

An uncomfortable silence. Exactly what I was dreading all along. There is a wall growing between us. And an iron door with a crest on it—over three stripes bright red, a two-headed overgrown lizard rampant.

“Who was that bastard?” Noble begins, and his tone is painting the fourth stripe: Prone to violence, represents danger to himself and others, requires strict isolation.

“It was Black,” I interrupt hurriedly before a fifth or, heaven forbid, sixth stripe becomes visible. “And don’t look at me like that. It’s my fault too. I should have smelled a rat when he suddenly was so eager to be left with you. If it’s any consolation, I have just about sent him to his grave.”

“And he, you,” Noble scoffs.

“He’d wish.”

Silence again. It would’ve been better if he’d swear and curse. He’s exceedingly good with the meaningful silences. Long ones, too. So we just sit there, and the silence envelops us in a suffocating cloud. It’s laced with something strange, though. Noble is more confused than angry. It might be the result of the treatment he’s getting, but then again it might not.

“What’s going to happen to me?” he asks, just as I lose the last shreds of hope for our conversation.

“I don’t know. It depends.”

That’s not entirely honest, but I can’t just lay it all out. That there’s practically no hope. Noble is still shocked, as if I did tell it like it was.

“Shit,” he says. “Of all the stupid, stupid things.”

My own uselessness is devouring me. Soon there will be only bones left. A familiar feeling, one I’ve had too often ever since Wolf died. Then it turned out that I could get used to living with it. Now I’ll have to drag myself through all of that again. Endlessly repeating to myself that it could have been worse. That at least Noble is alive.

“Listen,” he says, “have you ever used River?”

“No. Didn’t even try. Not River, not White Rainbow, and not Seven Steps.”

Noble looks at me oddly. He is dying to tell me something and at the same time is afraid of doing it.

“Would you believe it if I told you that I ended up in some godforsaken place and spent at least four months there?”

He asks me and looks away. His fingers are teasing the edge of the blanket, his lips are contorted in a grin, as if I have already started clucking in protest, made a sign of the cross with the rakes and fainted.

Would I? I examine him closer—and only now see that which I should have seen right away, were it not for the oatmeal. He looks older. Gone are the last traces of baby fat, the formerly soft cheeks have been chiseled out. His entire face looks sharper. Looking at him, it’s not at all certain that he’s not twenty yet. This indeterminability of age, the principal feature of a Jumper, is staring at me so blatantly that it’s all I can do not to swear out loud. You had to be someone like Black not to notice it.

My emotions are apparently on open display. His grin becomes even more self-deprecating.

“Yeah, just what I thought. Now you too think I’ve gone loopy.”

“No, I think that I have. That I’m completely off my game. Damn, not to recognize a Jumper from two paces! What an idiot!”

He blinks in confusion.

“Sphinx? What’s going on?”

I get a hold of myself. What the hell did I come here for? To demolish someone’s dinner? To parade my exhaustion around, not notice anything, and then, after being shoved face-first into it, to fly off the handle? He trusted his innermost secret to me, and this is how I repay him?

I close my eyes. These are things you’re not supposed to talk about. But I’ve already ruined just about everything, and this is the price I have to pay.

“The landscape looked kind of abandoned,” I begin hurriedly, with my eyes still closed, “a cracked blacktop, fields on both sides, houses here and there. Most of them boarded up. Nothing really memorable . . . except maybe the diner. More or less on the side of the road. I think it’s the first inhabited place for about every other Jumper. There are some who bump straight into the gas station, but not many.”

My head starts spinning. Very slightly, but it’s still a warning sign.

“I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to talk about this. I don’t know what happened to you afterward and where you ended up, but the beginning of the road to the Underside of the House is the same for everyone. Almost everyone. Am I close?”

I unscrew my eyes and see Noble’s eyes occupying half of his face. A sleepwalker who’s suddenly been woken up. Now would be the perfect time for Jan to come back and see this insane look. I turn around to check if the door has just opened.

“Noble. Enough. Get yourself together. I never said anything. Leave the blanket alone, count to a hundred. I don’t know, have some milk. Jan is coming soon. If you keep staring like that they’re going to pump you full of drugs and pack you off in a straitjacket.”

Noble nods spasmodically. I can see he’s desperately trying to follow my advice. Maybe even the “count to a hundred” thing. His face assumes this faraway look. He gets as far as eighty-six, by my estimates.

“But you said you’ve never had anything like that!” Noble blurts out. “How could you know?”

“See, Noble. The House is a weird place,” I say. “Here people have identical hallucinations. Or at least they start identically. And it’s not necessary to swallow or chew anything to get them. You know, I think that if any of the concoctions that the so-called experts are conjuring up here were to be brought into the Outsides and given to someone there, nothing would happen. Maybe a stomachache, but that’s all. Hard to be sure, of course, but that’s what I think. I could be wrong.”

“So I’m not crazy?” Noble recaps, in a calmer manner. “Or if I am, I’m not alone.”

“That last part looks more like it.”

This is where Janus finally comes in. Noble is carefully playing at nonchalance. I straighten up, concern and compassion incarnate. A grandma who finally got to pamper her favorite.

“How are you doing here?” Jan queries. “Fighting yet?”

We raise a unanimous protest. Jan notices the tray with the empty bowl and nods approvingly.

“You can stay just a while longer,” he tells me. “Half an hour at most.”

Jan disappears.

Now I could stick around with Noble until tomorrow morning if I wanted to. No Spider queens are going to show up to throw me out.

“I need a cigarette,” Noble whines as soon as the door slams shut behind Janus.

I send the rake rummaging through my pocket. It gets predictably stuck in there, scratching around like a trapped insect. Useless thing. Noble pulls me toward him, frees up the unfortunate appendage, and takes out the pack. Then in the other pocket we find a lighter. I climb off the bed and sit down on the floor, with my back against the nightstand. We puff in unison. Noble’s drags are greedy; mine, despondent.

“Go on.”

The sight of my shaking bald pate must be especially depressing when viewed from above.

“Sorry. Can’t. You don’t talk about these things.”

“Yeah, figures. The House Laws, may they be forgotten. Right?”

“The Laws don’t enter into it. That’s just how it goes. Take me, for example. I’m not superstitious, but it’s quite possible that, should I choose to share my experiences with you right now, my next visit to the Underside might not end well. I wasn’t planning on dropping by over there anytime soon, but you never know. No one knows much about things like that. And where you don’t know about something, you don’t talk about it.”

We smoke in silence. The floor under me is all covered in gouges left by the wheels of the bed. The walls are tiled to about three feet from the floor, blindingly white, reflecting the light from the lamps. I acutely feel that the circumstances are inappropriate, the setting is inappropriate, and the topic is inappropriate. But there is going to be more, no doubt. Noble is too unsettled right now to put on the brakes just because I asked him to. I have no doubt that, sooner or later, this way or that, this is going to rebound on me. The small of my back is freezing, the nightstand drawer handle is digging into my spine, but I’m exhausted beyond apathy and simply unable to move.

“How do you know about the others, then?” Noble asks. “Somebody must have been talking at some point.”

Now this is called “stalking the prey.” Even though we seemed to be talking about something else, but then what else is there? I lift up my head. From here I can only see his elbow and whispery tendrils of smoke. He shakes the ash off into the oatmeal bowl. Barbaric, that is. But better than having it all over the linens. I am jealous of him. Nobody ever explained anything to me back then. No matter how I phrased my questions. No matter from what side I tried to sneak in or how artfully I disguised the interest. In my case none of that made any difference whatsoever.

“Noble, listen,” I say soothingly. “Why don’t you try answering that question yourself. You’re not Smoker, after all. Think.”

This is Blind’s approach. Boy, would he be amazed if he heard me using it. He himself switched on the meaningful silences in situations like this one. I was supposed to hear the hallowed “Think for yourself” hidden in those silences, do my own thinking and then, provided I arrived at some insight, keep it to myself. Very convenient. If it somehow fell on the Pale One to teach someone how to swim, he’d just toss the subject overboard and wait for the results. I am the only graduate of this drastic method of learning. Sometimes I feel proud of my own resilience.

While I am deep in the recollections of the good old days of my apprenticeship, Noble suddenly brightens up.

“Fairy Tale Night?”

“Precisely!”

Blind’s education system had no use for positive reinforcement, but then, I’m not him.

“Do you know what it was called before?” I add. “Night of Permitted Talking. But that would be too obvious, you see.”

“The poems . . . The songs . . . ,” Noble mumbles. “Somebody might let something slip when drunk. Tabaqui’s drunken songs do sound very weird sometimes . . .”

I turn toward him and rest my chin on the edge of his bed. This is both comfortable and risky. If I lose control, I am going to fall asleep. Noble would never forgive me if I did.

“Right,” I say drowsily. “And? You’re making great progress. You’re exactly right about being drunk. And about the songs. Also you might want to visit the poets’ assemblies some Thursday evening in the old laundry room. Sit through an hour and a half of inane wailing and figure out some interesting details in the process. Though not an experience I’d like to repeat.”

Noble cogitates for a while longer.

“I’m coming up empty,” he admits. “No more insights. Unless there are people who are even less superstitious and can talk about it openly.”

I can see that he is indeed empty. His face looks tired. I decide to take pity on him.

“The walls. Do you always read everything that’s on them? Of course not, no one does. Except those who know what to look for and where. Now you, for example, are a card player. So you know where the latest scores are displayed, right? While nonplayers would never find them in a million years.”

Noble slaps his forehead.

“Of course! I was an idiot! All those hundreds of times . . .”

Done. For the next couple of days we are going to observe our packmate glued to the walls. We’ll have to pry him off at mealtimes. This is when it hits me again that he most likely won’t have that couple of days, and the thought paralyzes me. No walls, no poets’ assemblies. I completely forgot about this while trying to affect serenity, and went over the top. The loss is already gnawing at my insides. It won’t do to show this to Noble, who is still right here.

“Do you understand what this means? That it happened to you? It’s the House taking you in. Letting you inside. Now, wherever you might be, you’re a part of it. And let me tell you, it doesn’t like its parts to be scattered. It pulls them back. So all is not lost.”

Noble makes a face and flattens the cigarette against the long-suffering bowl.

“Do you really believe what you just said? Or are you trying to make me feel better?”

“I’m trying to make myself feel better, why? But as Ancient used to say, when words have been spoken they always have a meaning, even if you didn’t mean it when you spoke them.”

He laughs and rummages in the pack for a fresh cigarette.

“I have no idea who this Ancient character is, but if he really did say all that then I guess I can feel a bit better. ‘Ancient’ sounds important. Almost like ‘Aristotle.’ You can sleep here if you like. Looking at you, I’m not entirely sure you’re going to make it to the dorm.”

Sleep in the Sepulcher? Oh well, why not. I can see Noble doesn’t want to be alone here. I get up and go sit on the other bed. There are two of them here, just for the occasion. It even has linens on it, all tucked in and ready.

“You’re right. I’m not much of a conversationalist right now. And I also doubt I’d make it all the way back.”

I stretch out on the cot, on top of the slate-colored blanket. This is indescribable bliss.

“Thank you,” I whisper with my eyes already closed. “This is the second time today you are saving my life.”

He laughs again.

“Hey, Sphinx.”

I am not quite sure if he called to me right away or if I was already asleep for some time.

“Sphinx, listen, would I be able to go to the Underside from somewhere else? Like from the Outsides?”

I climb out of the sleep, clutching at it at the same time, like at a warm blanket being pulled off.

“What? Don’t know.” My own voice sounds alien to me, muffled by the nonexistent blanket. “I don’t think anyone’s tried. There wasn’t anyone to try. Also, you know what . . . Those lands, they’re not as harmless as you might think. There are some pretty scary places too. It’s just that I figure you weren’t stuck there for more than two months.”

I continue to mumble. It is important, the thing he’s asking about, I should try to explain . . . The sleep overtakes me, throws sticky cotton wool in my face, and it’s hard to speak. I crash into it. Into a heavy, suffocating dream, where a man with steel front teeth and a face covered in small scars calls me “little bastard,” thrashes me for the smallest of missteps, and threatens to feed me to his Doberman pinschers. He has five of them. Five scraggy, razor-faced, completely insane creatures in transport cages. My duties include feeding them and mucking out after them, and I hate them almost as much as I hate our common master. They hate me right back. I am thirteen, powerless and alone, and certain that no one is ever going to save me. It’s because of him that I learned to reach for beer when I was thirsty. There was never any water in his damn truck.

I awaken suddenly, screaming as if slapped, and jump up all covered in sweat. The hoary nightmare is still ringing in my ears with the throaty “ho-ho-ho” that makes me cringe in almost physical pain.

It’s dark, except for the nightlight above Noble’s bed. Goldenhead is hard at work over my cigarettes. He is still sitting up very straight, deep in thought. The tobacco smell has defeated the scent of the Sepulcher. No amount of airing is going to get rid of it now.

“Rise and shine,” Noble acknowledges me perfunctorily.

I lean back over the cot, still bearing the imprint of my body, over the damp spot where my head was, and wipe my forehead against the scratchy blanket. Then I go over to Noble’s side. There is an aching in my bones as if someone jumped all over me while I was sleeping. Come to think of it, that’s not far from the truth. Noble hands me a short stub of a cigarette.

“Sorry. No more left. I was bored. Here, they brought dinner.”

And they never said anything, either about the smoke or about my prostrate figure. Beauty is a horrible weapon. It even has an effect on Spider queens. Not much else does.

Noble inserts the cigarette end into my clamp, avoiding looking me in the eye.

“You were screaming. And talking. Scary stuff.”

I take a drag, scratching the itchy spot on my forehead under the tape with the rake-prong.

“It’s the Sepulcher. It gets to me. Almost always does. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep here.”

“Who was that man? Does he exist?”

The tiles reflect our voices in a barely perceptible echo.

“Could be. On the Underside. Unless someone snuffed him. Let’s not talk about it.”

“Let’s.” Noble pushes the hair from his face and finally looks at me full on. Like this is the first time he sees me. “It’s late. I guess you must be going. Provided they did not lock the front door.”

I really must be going, but I am loath to leave him here, in the place where Steel-Toothed just came for a visit, albeit in a dream. Noble is scared, which means he’s more susceptible to demons of all kinds, should they like to drop in. On the other hand, I need to replenish the stocks of food, cigarettes, and other useful items, and also tell people I was going to be spending the night in the Sepulcher.

“Right. I’ll go check the door. If it’s locked, I’ll come straight back. If it isn’t, I’ll go see the guys. And bring some chow.”

Noble nods.

“OK. It’s really bright out there, be careful.”

I make a wave with my rake and open the door into the shining snow-bound corridor.

The Sepulcher at night is a haunted castle. I hate its bluish lights. They turn faces into death masks. I reach the end of the side corridor and turn the corner. Now my sliding reflection is caught between the glass doors of the cabinets on both sides. I walk briskly. There’s nowhere for me to hide, but I am somehow sure that it won’t be necessary. And that’s how it turns out. The night nurse’s area is illuminated like a giant aquarium, and in its center floats the gorgon’s cold face. If she were to open her eyes I’d have to turn into stone, rely on the inability of certain predators to notice stationary objects. But the Spider queen is asleep. Her eyes are closed, only the round-rimmed glasses glint menacingly.

Not only is the front door not locked, it’s even open a crack. It catches me by surprise, but once I’m out on the landing I see the orange points of light glowing rhythmically and stop worrying. They’re here. And they’ve been here for a long time already. Their bags are full of food. They brought bottles of water, blankets, the coffeemaker, and probably even utensils. Someone rises to meet me. They are all accustomed to the dark by now, so I am the only one here who can’t see anything, but judging by the sureness of his movement, this someone must be Blind.

“Janus says it doesn’t look good?”

Could be either a question or a statement. You can never tell with Pale One.

“More or less.”

“Let’s go.” He addresses those left sitting against the wall. “Get up. Sphinx will show the way.”

Which I do. Our grotesque cavalcade floats past the aquarium with the illuminated gorgon, past the glass cabinets and opaque doors. We are nothing but long, transient shadows. The most extravagant of them is the one consisting of two, Tabaqui atop Lary’s shoulders. It’s the tallest and the most disheveled. Neither Black nor Smoker is here, but Alexander is lugging sleeping Tubby, whose reflection in the cabinet doors resembles nothing so much as a massive backpack. I let them go ahead and bring up the rear, looking at them with love and admiration. This is my pack. It can read minds and grab meanings out of thin air. It is both awkward and awesome. Thrifty and quarrelsome. I allow myself to dissolve in the tenderness toward them—Black isn’t here, so there’s no one to knock the sentimentality off me. But Lord Almighty, how few we are. I catch myself falling behind instead of blazing the trail and quicken my steps. Out of the corner of my eye I catch the last reflections in the last cabinet—Alexander under his softly snuffling burden, Sphinx right behind him, and then one more silhouette, flashing the white sneakers as it steps in sync with us until I turn around and it vanishes. I feel much better. And then, solely for that last invisible one, I start composing a poem out loud. It comes out incredibly silly, just the way Wolf liked them.

Green locusts falling from the sky today,

The gray suburban hills are full of voices.

It takes two sacks to walk from fields back home,

Just two, filled to the brim with chirping noises . . .