The Gray House

TABAQUI

DAY THE SEVENTH

You boil it in sawdust: you salt it in glue:

You condense it with locusts and tape

—Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark

Winter is the time of the great cat migration. They don’t come one by one; no, they arrive all at once, each taking their posts by the familiar doors, waiting for permission to enter. When Noble and I wheel out of the dorm in the morning, the first thing we see is a rat’s corpse. The one offering the bribe is sitting unassumingly beside it. An extremely skinny, extremely mangy ashen-striped tigress in white socks. Mother to countless offspring and a bane of rodents everywhere.

“Hey, Mona Lisa!”

Noble reaches down excitedly to pet her. Mona vaults onto his knees and rubs her scrawny side against his sweater.

“Whoa, that’s a big one,” Lary remarks from somewhere behind. “King sized.”

Meaning, of course, the late rat. We let Mona in the room and proceed to the canteen. The basic arrangement is repeated in front of the Third. Two more rat carcasses and cats waiting over them. There’s only nine of us at breakfast. Whenever it is snowing, Tubby goes into hibernation. He doesn’t do breakfast or lunch, snacking on whatever morsels we bring back, and only if we manage to shake him awake. Winter’s here.

Ginger comes in after classes, returning my socks and Noble’s sweater, and then she, Noble, Humpback, and I go down to the yard. It’s empty and snowy. The House dwellers do not like to frolic in full view of the Outsides, so the snow battle, if it’s to be at all, is postponed until darkness. We make a crumbly snowman and take it back inside. It drips sadly in the middle of the room, becoming a puddle with clumps of snow in it. Humpback declares that such is life.

Then we sit down to dry off and have tea. Ginger teases Humpback’s hair into a mass of braids, but only on one side. She gets bored, and also there’s interference from Nanette, jealous and showing it. Humpback puts the bird on top of his head, and she immediately calms down and stops screeching. I say that even one-sided braids look nice, and Noble says that he misses his hair like crazy, because the way it is now it can’t be plaited at all. I play the Snow Song—it’s not as good as the Rain Song and is also much shorter, but on the other hand it fits this winter day better.

At lunchtime Dylan arrives, fashionably late for the great migration. Sphinx’s favorite, son of Mona, coal black and the loudest singer we know. Except you have to wait until spring to hear his songs.

“And where’s your tribute rat?” I ask him.

He just turns around and walks away, the shiny back swaying as he goes. A supremely self-absorbed animal.

The floor is covered with sausage ends and saucers of milk. The windows, with the crystal patterns left by the frost.

It’s evening now, and it’s snowing again.

The crow and the cats are testing each other’s alertness. Humpback, one side of his head still in braids, is trying to soothe them with the flute. Lary powders his zits, cinches the belt, turning a bit blue as a result, and runs out in search of adventure. Noble wheels out immediately after. No one has come out for the snow battle, for some reason. I sit on the sill and wait, but it’s empty down there. Empty and dreary. I study the frost patterns on the windowpanes and discover myself in them, endlessly repeated, all kinds of me—on Mustang and without it, shaggy and well-groomed, there’s even one clad in the new vest. I scratch out a tiny window for that crystal me, to make his life easier and more pleasant. Sphinx frowns as he observes me do it.

“It’s kind of a superstition,” I say. “You see, there’s another me here.”

“Oh. Yeah,” he says, “you can find all kinds of stuff in there. Tell me this, though. When you were painting that dragon on the ceiling . . . you wouldn’t happen to have drawn it a heart? Shot through by an arrow? You know, accidentally.”

“No,” I say. “That would have been too corny. All I did was give it an eye. In accordance with the instructions received in a dream.”

Lary comes back. He’s still on the purplish side. Circles around the room a couple of times, sighing like a hungry ghost.

“I’ll bring her,” he says suddenly. “To say hello. You’re going to like her. She’s a really cool girl, you’ll see.”

We wait. Lary waits. Watching Humpback all the while, for some reason.

“Sure, why not,” Humpback says. “What are you looking at me for? It’s not like I make the rules around these parts.”

“You see, we love each other,” Lary explains. “You see? I mean, for real. Could you, like, have a friendly conversation with her when she comes? You being my friend and all.”

Humpback stares in horror.

“What about? What do I need to talk to her about?”

“Well, there’s knitting, for one,” Lary says eagerly. “You should see the sweaters she makes! Crazy! Almost as good as yours. Honest.”

Humpback wilts. Everyone knows he likes to keep that skill private. Everyone, including Lary. But apparently real love interferes with the basic functioning of memory.

“Friendship demands sacrifices,” I say soothingly when Lary runs out again.

Smoker asks who Lary’s girlfriend is. We shrug in unison. No one knows. All we know for sure is that there isn’t another Gaby in the House. There are plenty of other horrible creatures besides her, though, and Logs’ standards are notoriously loose, so we all fret a bit, Humpback more than others.

We don’t have to wait long. Lary comes back accompanied by this flaxen-haired stick of a girl, unsteady pencil-thin legs perched on top of high heels. She takes position behind Lary’s back and marvels at us from there. He reddens in apparent delight. Another second and he’s going to melt like a blob of tomato paste.

“Allow me to introduce Needle. She knits gorgeous sweaters. Like really gorgeous. I’ve seen the last two myself. They’re in huge demand. Cool, huh? Humpback?”

Humpback shoots me a desperate look. Then clears his throat and asks what gauge of knitting needles she, that is, Needle, prefers. You couldn’t hear him at two paces.

Needle smiles pitifully. It’s time to ride to Humpback’s rescue. And Lary’s, even though he’s a nitwit. I take charge. When I speak, everyone hears what I say.

“Patterns? What kind? Cables, twists? Herringbone? Oh, eyelets, how lovely!”

It takes me half an hour to establish that the girl’s favorite color is beige, that she was born in November and is therefore a Scorpio, that she likes tea but not coffee—at which point Lary pours two cups of tea into her—that she gets sunburned easily, can cook oatmeal but not much else, and also puts on a bit of mascara but no other makeup, thank you. Finally Lary takes her away, satisfied, and I can breathe easier.

“Thanks, Tabaqui,” Humpback says. “I’m in your debt. Whatever you need. I mean, whatever I can get.”

“Don’t mention it,” I say airily. “Even though chatting her up was no mean feat, that’s for sure.”

Noble returns. Also red faced and crazy eyed, almost like Lary. Green sweater decorated with white lizards running across the front, wet hair combed back to conceal the bald spots. I go to work on cracking nuts. Sphinx is swinging back and forth atop the nightstand, clanking its innards. Noble, looking very strange—which is by now usual for him, but this time even more strange than usual—makes coffee, cuts it with cola, crushed almonds, and cinnamon, then shakes out the contents of the basilisk eggshell amulet over the cup and gulps it without wincing.

I ask him what just happened.

Noble crunches the shell with his teeth and doesn’t answer.

We can’t help cringing, looking at the way he consumes his ghastly coffee and the stuff he’s thrown into it.

“I leaned too close to the fire,” he says finally. His grin is almost manic.

We wait for a while to see if he’s going to expire right then and there, and then Smoker asks where he managed to find an open fire to sit next to.

Noble just smiles mysteriously. As if the House is lousy with open fires, each one surrounded by scores of people betting on who’d manage to lean the closest, and Smoker is somehow alone in not having noticed that.

If I were Noble I wouldn’t be dressing up normal everyday stuff in so much romantic nonsense, annoying Smoker in the process, but he’s in love. So what can you do? They’re all a bit nuts. If he thinks that gobbling the basilisk eggshell, a unique specimen, by the way, would help him win Ginger’s heart, he can gobble it all day long. My only concern here is Smoker. He’s on edge as it is.

“Lary brought his girlfriend over,” I say. “Knitting Needle.”

“Really,” Noble says. “How interesting.”

Lies. He’s not interested at all.

Sphinx sighs.

“Noble. Next time could you please not lean so close to the fire?” he says. “Fire really is a dangerous element.”

“Oh god,” Smoker moans. “I am so tired of you all.”

I have a strange dream that night. A dead lake, grayish, calm as a mirror. Withered white stalks peeking out of the water. I sit by the edge and wait for some horrific creature that lives at the bottom to come out. There’s a rusted sword on the sand next to me. The mist is drawing in, enveloping everything. Suddenly I’m in the water . . . and here I wake up.

The night is not too dark, even though the moon isn’t visible. Noble is awake. He’s sitting on the bed looking at me, absentmindedly gnawing at the collar of his pajamas. And petting Mona, the striped rug draped over his knees.