The Gray House

THE LONGEST NIGHT

Guide to Mobility for Wheelers

29.b.

In some cases repositioning to the windowsill can be achieved by utilizing the services of a helper if the latter is already situated on said windowsill. For the person being repositioned this facilitates a quicker achievement of his goals. Safety tip: the weight of the lifter should exceed that of the liftee.

—JACKAL’S ADVICE COLUMN, Blume, vol. 18

Smoker, on the floor, flips through old issues of Blume, slowly coming to the realization that the overwhelming majority of the articles had been written by Jackal. Noble is counting the hours until the card players’ meeting in a secret location. Blind is also waiting. For the House to settle down. For the transition into the night. For the time when he can go out in search of the Forest. Humpback is inviting slumber by playing his flute. Sphinx listens. To him and to Smoker, who is arcing with irritation.

There are two toxic zones in the room. Around Smoker and around Black.

“I’ve got this hunch,” Tabaqui says, finishing up the pre-repose batch of sandwiches, “that we’re having the Longest tonight.”

“Could very well be,” Sphinx agrees. “I’d even say more likely than not.”

He jostles Blind with his knee.

“Hey! What do you think?”

“Yes,” Blind says. “Quite possible. It’s a bit early this year, for some reason. Or maybe we’re going to have more than one.”

“That’s a new one to me,” Tabaqui says. “I’ve never heard of that happening before. So, why and wherefore did you get this idea?”

Smoker studies them warily, suspicious that they are deliberately talking nonsense to make him feel stupid and provoke him into asking questions. So he isn’t asking them.

It’s night. Only two wall lamps out of the dozen are on. Everyone who’s left in the dorm is asleep. Except for Smoker. Smoker is on the floor next to the pile of magazines, deep in thought. He wants to do something he’s never done before. Take a drive around the House after lights out, for example. This could be the old magazines talking. He’s not sure. With bated breath he starts inching toward the door. He almost makes it when there’s tossing and turning on the bed. A shaggy head leans down from it.

“What?”

“Going out,” Smoker whispers back.

Tabaqui tumbles onto the floor.

“Horrible,” he mumbles. “Instead of sleeping peacefully I’ve now got to look after this dunce lest something happens to him. He’s going out, don’t you know. In the dark. Possibly in the middle of the Longest. Enough to drive a man crazy.”

“I’m not asking you to come with me. I want to go by myself.”

“Yeah, and there are many things I want too. You’re not going out alone. Either we go together or I wake up Sphinx and he knocks some sense into you. Your choice.”

Before Smoker is able to crawl any farther, Tabaqui is already at the door, aboard Mustang. Still in pajamas. Clutching his socks and a handful of amulets. Despite the threatening voice, Smoker imagines that Tabaqui is looking forward to a ride with him.

“All right,” Smoker says. “We go together.”

Then he has to concentrate on trying to climb into the wheelchair, and when he’s finally in he sees Tabaqui methodically stuffing his backpack. The backpack is already so bloated that it’s impossible to close, but Jackal continues to add to its contents.

“What’s all that for?”

“Sweaters, in case we get cold. Food, in case we get hungry. Weapons, in case we get attacked,” Tabaqui explains. “You don’t just drive out into the night unprepared, silly!”

Smoker doesn’t argue. He follows Tabaqui into the anteroom and then into the pitch-dark hallway, where Tabaqui orders him to switch off the flashlight.

“Otherwise we are going to be seen by everyone who’s already accustomed to the darkness, and at the same time we won’t be able to see them.”

Smoker obediently switches it off and darkness envelops them.

“Let’s ride,” Tabaqui whispers.

The house is spookily dark and seemingly asleep. Eyes do not get accustomed to darkness this deep. Walls loom suddenly ahead in places where they aren’t supposed to be. Tabaqui and Smoker move slowly. Sometimes they think they hear steps, either ahead or behind them. They stop and listen. The steps immediately stop as well. Maybe they’re just imagining it. Then they bump into something and switch the flashlights back on. It’s an empty wheelchair. There’s no trace of its owner, as if he’s been abducted by the spirits of the night. Tabaqui fingers his amulet.

“It’s like someone is trying to scare us on purpose, right?”

His voice is a mix of being terrified and reveling in it.

Smoker does not join him in the reveling part. He doesn’t like this empty wheelchair a single bit. Tabaqui spends some time studying it but is unable to determine the identity of the owner.

“It’s totally faceless,” he says. “Abandoned.”

They put on the sweaters, leave the wheelchair behind, and move on.

Barefoot Elephant in striped pajamas wanders past the Crossroads. His eyes are closed, his face upturned. His long pajama bottoms are collecting the hallway dust as he goes. Elephant is asleep, but his body slowly hobbles from one window to the next, stopping at each windowsill and feeling it with chubby palms before proceeding. The floorboards creak under his weight.

Blind floats along the corridors, not touching the walls. Even the wary rats don’t feel him approaching until he’s almost on top of them. He inhales the scent of damp plaster and the scent of the House denizens ingrained in the worn-out floorboards. When he hears steps he freezes until the night drifter passes by—a large animal in the thickets, crushing the ground underfoot and bumping into trash cans. Then he continues on his way, even more watchful and cautious than before, because those who wander at night drag dangerous secrets and fears after them. He approaches one of the dorms. Under the words carved with a knife, his all-seeing fingers feel for a crack. He presses his cheek against it. This way he can hear even the breathing of the sleepers and the groans of the bedsprings. Everyone’s asleep inside. Blind passes through more empty rooms and comes to another wall. There’s a place here where a large chunk of plaster fell down, and behind this wall nobody’s sleeping. Blind listens for a long time, paying more attention to the voices themselves than to the words they’re saying. He turns his head away at regular intervals, takes in the sounds around him, relaxes, and presses back against the wall.

Someone searching for a place to sleep sneaks down the ante-Crossroads stretch of the hallway. Someone pale and large-eyed, with patchy rust-colored hair.

Red is frightened. Asleep or awake, day or night. He’s dreading and waiting. He gnaws down the caps of his pens and chews up the filter ends of his cigarettes. He thinks and considers. This has got to end at some point. Plump Solomon, and Squib with his face red from the burn. They keep scaring him with their meaningful sniggers. Their smirks, their glances and winks. Squib, Solomon, and Don. The rest of them are submerged in the electronic ocean of sound. They float in it, swaying on the spot when they stand and jerking to the beat when they lie down, and they don’t care about anything that is not coming from the earphones plugged into the thundering emptiness.

They are always hostile, always hungry, always covered in spots from the sweets they consume to cheat hunger. They dye their hair and alter their pants with multicolored patches. Red is hopelessly older. Not in years, but in questions he asks himself. Young Rats are not concerned about tomorrow. Their life begins and ends today. It is today they need that extra piece of toast, it’s today they need that new song, it’s today they need to take the only thing that’s on their mind and scrawl it in huge letters on the bathroom wall. Rats suffer from constipation but they’d still eat anything anytime. And fight over food. And over who sleeps where. And after the fight is over they’d listen to more music and eat again, with even more delight.

With all their complaints they come to Red. With the most painful zits and abscesses they come to Red. Busted Walkmans, drained batteries, lost possessions—they all come to Red. Except Squib, Solomon, and Don. Those three despise him. With each day their whispers become louder, laughs more insolent, conversations more hushed. They keep him constantly terrified, relishing the effect immensely. Red wanders at night, sleeps in uncomfortable places, and dreams of slitting the throats of all three, one after the other. Sometimes he twists open all faucets in the bathroom and plugs all drains. Then takes a shower in his clothes and leaves, the squelching sneakers parting the waters. He goes to the card players. He plays, dripping water on the cards. The players don’t say anything, because he’s a Leader.

The outfit Red has chosen for tonight’s stroll is completely black. Only the white sneakers flash in the dark as he goes, two bright spots betraying his presence. A sleeping bag dangles off his shoulder. It’s blue with yellow dots. Red is looking for a secluded corner where he could sleep, wrapped in the warm cocoon. He stops at the Crossroads. Elephant is moving through the space, barely illuminated by the moonlight, inspecting the windowsills. Red watches him. Then puts the sleeping bag down, sits on it, and lights a cigarette. And waits. Patiently waits.

Four card players are cooped up in Vulture’s tent. It’s cramped inside. Every awkward movement makes the canvas shudder and the multicolored lights sway under the triangular roof. Shuffle’s collar is bristling with dull spikes. There’s a trail of blood down his cheek from a scratched boil. He touches his finger to the spot and examines it.

“Not that damn thing again!”

“Got anything to drink?” Noble says, rubbing his eyes, tired of the lightbulb rainbows.

Dearest is swishing something hastily in a tin cup.

“Soon, very soon, dearest. In the meantime there’s plain water, if you’d like.”

He hands Noble a flask. Noble drinks and returns it. Dearest sighs mournfully. The cigarette in Vulture’s teeth drops down a column of ash, showering the blanket in sparks. Crickets chirp in the speakers of the boombox.

Smoker and Tabaqui drive down the dark corridor. Suddenly a red cone flashes in front of them. It becomes blue the next moment. Then yellow. After cycling through six different colors, the cone blinks off, and it’s dark again.

“What’s that?” Smoker whispers.

“Vulture’s tent,” Tabaqui says.

They drive closer. Now the tent is shining and twinkling in every color at once, and it’s possible to hear voices from inside it. The entrance flap is pushed open and someone crawls out on all fours.

“Hey,” says the someone as he bumps into them. “I’m bailing out. Wanna play?”

“Hey, Shuffle,” Tabaqui calls back, turning to Smoker and handing him the backpack. “Listen, my friend, could you manage hanging around here by yourself for a bit? I need to talk to the guys, if you don’t mind.”

He tumbles out of Mustang and speedily crawls inside the tent.

Shuffle’s flashlight runs away, jumping from side to side. Smoker is alone. He listens to the voices coming from the tent and waits for Tabaqui until he runs out of patience. He drives closer, pulls out the brake, and slides down. Then he lifts the flap.

“Hey. Can I come in too?”

Beauty and Doll are kissing on the stairs. The trash can next to them and the cigarette butts strewn about concern them not at all. A pocket radio buzzes softly under Doll’s sweater. They devour each other with fevered mouths, opening wide like hungry chicks. Their kisses are passionate, interminable, and painful. From time to time they let go of each other and rest, touching their foreheads and furtively wiping their wet mouths. Their lips are swollen and sore. They only know how to kiss. Or maybe they don’t even know that.

The squat cylinder in the shortened pajamas lays siege to the stairs to the third floor. He is searching. Searching for that miraculous, wondrous being—lithe and fair haired, so pleasant to be next to. Tubby knows that it’s still here, inside the House. And that the place to search for it is where the stairs lead. He’s never been up there, so it follows that it’s exactly where the being could and should be located. Tubby’s inner voice has never steered him wrong, and now it urges him forward. Wheezing softly, he conquers the steps one by one.

The feeble flame of an alcohol burner flares up in the teachers’ bathroom. Shaking from both fear and cramps in his stomach, Butterfly is holding a spoon over it. Butterfly is all bones, sickly pale and covered in warts. A rubber mat protects his skinny buttocks from touching the freezing tiles. The open neck of his sweater reveals a meager chest hung with amulets and strings of garlic. Butterfly is nervous—about the dripping faucets, the imagined steps and whispers. He cringes from the damp and shields the burner from the drafts with his body. He has a cold. He also has diarrhea. Constantly shuttling to one of the stalls and back is too time-consuming, so he decides to move inside a stall with the entire setup, including the rubber mat, the burner, and a roll of toilet paper. He closes the door, throws on the hook, and feels safer, shielded from the dangers of this night.

It’s stifling inside Vulture’s tent. And as if it wasn’t hot and cramped enough, there’s also incense burning in two bowls. It makes Smoker’s head spin. The strings of lights flash on and off. Smoker already regrets having joined the company inside the tent. It’s too small to fit five. Tabaqui, on the other hand, is completely happy and content. He sips some indescribable swill from a coffee cup and regales Vulture with tales of people they’ve met on the way here, even though they haven’t in fact met anyone. Smoker starts nodding off.

“Hey, wake up,” Dearest whispers. “What are you having? Pretty Flower? Steps? Night Terrors?”

“Anything but Terrors,” Smoker says. The proximity to Vulture is terrifying enough. They are separated by Jackal, but still, he could reach out and touch Great Bird should he wish to. “Do you have any coffee?”

“Alas, no coffee.”

Smoker is handed a cup. He takes a gulp of something so bitter and astringent that his jaws immediately lock up. He chokes on saliva, unable to either swallow the vile liquid or spit it out. Tabaqui slaps him on the back. The rest are watching with interest. The lights keep blinking.

“There, there,” Vulture says with concern. “You really shouldn’t jump straight on everything you’re being offered, kiddo. A little taste is often enough.”

Smoker takes out a handkerchief and wipes off the tears.

“Horrible stuff,” he says when he’s able to pry apart his locked teeth.

For some reason Tabaqui puts on dark glasses.

Crookshank clambers out to the bank and sits down under the pole marking the largest cluster of underwater stones. The river was kind to him the previous several days, and he’s expecting his good luck to continue. Yesterday it brought him a tire, three bottles with messages, and an empty gourd decorated with triangular markings. What’s in store for today? Crookshank throws in the line and waits.

In the moonlit grass on the opposite bank a huge white elephant grazes, covered with a striped blanket. Must have run away from its masters. The elephant worries Crookshank because it can use its trunk to fish the floating treasure out of the river, and then he’d have to somehow get to the other side and claim it back. And it’s a very big elephant. What if I tamed it? It can reach a lot of stuff with that trunk. Would be very useful—to have my very own Elephant. That’s even better than a live dog. Excited by these thoughts, Crookshank puts the fishing gear aside. But the elephant is already trampling away, its wide back flashing in the brush. And the river is carrying something dark. It fetches against the largest stone and gets stuck there, bobbing in the current. Crookshank grabs the net. He’s hoping fervently that it isn’t a dead dog again. The dragonflies dart too low over the water, interfering with his aim. He swats several with a towel and eats them distractedly.

Saära lives in the swamp. He is alone there except for the frogs, the singers of clear songs. He sings too when the moon is out, and his songs are beautiful. That is all he knows about himself. Saära’s pale skin is wrapped tightly around his bones, mosquitoes never alight on him, knowing him to be poisonous. His lips are ghostly white. When he sings, the song distorts the whole of his face and his eyes go almost blind. His fingers tease and tear the grass, he trembles, shaken by his own voice, and he waits. The song always brings him visitors. The smallest of them sink into the mud before they can reach him.

Sixteen Dogheads sit in the grotto in a circle around a crate, illuminated by three torches and three Chinese lanterns. The seventeenth is standing on the crate. He is addressing them, slowly rotating a snow-white bone above his head. The speech flows over the sharp-eared heads and out the hole in the ceiling, up toward the twinkling stars. Dogheads listen, yawning and loudly biting out fleas.

“We seem to be confusing meters and kilometers,” one whispers to another. “Do you think this might have a global significance? What’s your opinion?”

“I can only see the moon,” his neighbor offers cryptically. “They say that the staff still had plenty of meat left on it before he snatched it.”

The youngest, in a copper collar, suddenly breaks into a howl, head upraised.

“Death to the traitors! Death!”

They bite his flanks to quiet him down.

The white bone shines, mesmerizing them.

The changeling dances merrily on the pile of fallen leaves collected here by stomper birds for their mating fair. The pile is ruined. The changeling laughs. Unable to stand the suspense any longer, a mouse bolts from under the leaves and scampers away, but the changeling is upon it in two short leaps.

“Quick, quick, go bite a tick,” he murmurs as he digs a shallow hole to bury the remains of the meal.

A sweet song reaches his ears. The changeling perks up and rushes toward the voice without hesitation. He bounds through the Forest like an arrow, but stops once his paws meet the sticky swamp mud. He shakes it off in disgust. The singing grows more urgent. It calls him into the swamp. To go or not to go? The changeling comes to a decision and rolls on the ground growling. One more turn, and one more. He rises up to a human height, yawns, and plunges into the heart of the swamp, treading carefully on the tussocks. The nocturnal dragonflies dart into his face. The singing keeps getting even more sweet, loud, and seductive.

The hunters grunt as they run. The loose ends of their headbands slap them on their backs. They run single file, one, two, three of them, noisily, scaring away the wildlife. The noise is deliberate. The one they’re hunting will take fright and betray himself. That’s when the pursuit will commence. The real hunt, the one they’ve dreamed about for so long. So they run, huffing, pounding the dirt with their boots. In fact, they too are frightened. But their quarry is not supposed to know that.

Back in Vulture’s tent, Smoker finally is able to stop coughing and choking on saliva, but doesn’t have time to appreciate it because almost instantly something happens to his vision. The objects around him momentarily lose clarity and float out of focus, and when they return to their familiar shapes it turns out that they have been assembled from myriad tiny colorful shards, like a bright minute puzzle. The faces of those sitting next to him undergo the same transformation. Everything is now composed of shining dots. They blink in and out and even slough off in places, and where they do there’s nothingness behind them. Smoker realizes that he’s going to see them all extinguished and that he just had the true nature of the universe revealed to him, which means that his life is most likely about to end.

“World falling down,” he manages to utter.

This remark has a bizarre effect on the others sitting in the tent. The fireflies constituting their faces begin to roil and swarm furiously, reflecting complex and strong emotions. And then Smoker’s fears come true. Everything shatters. Tabaqui’s face holds on the longest, but it too crumbles, leaving behind only two inky blots—the dark lenses of his sunglasses. The black spots hang in the void for a moment and then, just as Smoker is on the verge of losing his mind, become the center of another world as it assembles quickly around them.

A very bright, very sunny, very smelly one.

The sun strokes Smoker’s back, pressing him down to the ground. It’s a pleasant sensation. Except there’s no ground visible. It’s covered with a thick layer of trash, greasy and loose to the touch. Yet, somehow, incredibly alluring. Smoker longs to dive in it, take in more and more of its smell, separating the layers of new scents until there, in the midst of it, a truly astounding aroma opens. Something is preventing him from giving in to this temptation. Must be the black glasses floating in midair. The sun turned them into two blinding flashes, but when Smoker approaches them he sees himself reflected: a pair of black white-breasted cats, one in each lens. He opens his mouth in astonishment and lets out a loud yelp. His reflections cry back at him mutely.

“There he is!”

One of the hunters stumbles. From high up in a tree, where the branches are thickest, someone’s fiery eyes are looking at them.

“There he is! Up there!”

The hunters, jostling each other, surround the tree.

“Burn it? Or chop it down? Or maybe . . .”

The creature hisses, feeling its way along the trunk. The hunters rattle the tree with the butts of their rifles. The tree groans. One of them passes his rifle to another and tries to climb up. The creature in the branches hisses even louder and then spits at him. The hunter crashes down, swearing. The creature giggles and coughs. Suddenly it cuts the laughter short and slithers down into the high grass.

The hunters dash after it, screaming. The hard carapace and the fiery hair of their quarry recede in the distance.

“After him!” the hunters yell, their boots thundering and splashing mud.

The grass snails tumble down as they run past.

“Get him! Tally-ho!”

The one who got the acid in the eye shouts the loudest. The entire Forest seems to shake from their screams.

Someone who has spent his whole life hiding in the hollow of a tree has been frightened by the commotion and the knocking. He digs in deeper into the rotted wood of his hideaway and uses the hook on the end of a stick to pull the food pouches closer, one by one. Each pouch, three layers of silky leaves cemented with his saliva, and the food in the middle, is priceless. It won’t do to leave them to chance. He allows one of them, the smallest, to remain exposed and even nudges it toward the opening, hoping that the invader finds it easily and goes away, satisfied, without trying to sniff out the rest.

Crookshank jumps up and down excitedly, peering into the river. “Please don’t let it be a dead dog, oh, please,” he begs, casting the net. The object is heavy and unwieldy. Huffing and sniffling from the effort, Crookshank pulls and pulls, until he manages to haul it completely out. He studies the river’s gift intently, then bounds up with a shout of joy. It’s a sleeping bag. A splendid sleeping bag, completely intact! It’s blue with yellow dots. Crookshank wrings the water out of it and hauls it away to dry in his safe place.

White-lipped Saära winds down his song and lies in wait. Bare legs squelching in the mud. Closer. Closer. He stretches his neck.

A human. Dirty white pants, dirty white sweater. Long hair the color of soot. Quite young. Not a youngling, but not an adult either. Saära crawls closer and jumps. His own scream catches up with him in the air as he twists and flops limply before his prey. Prey? Ha!

Hoist with his own petard, how sad. Saära complains until the changeling interrupts.

“Now cut it out.”

Then he stops scratching at the ground and sits down in the middle of the mandala he scored into the pliant dirt with his claws.

“Why,” he says, “do you walk into the trap like some common prey?”

“Curious,” the changeling explains. “And beautiful. Sing another one.”

Saära fumes silently. Singing for nothing? Not luring, not yearning? Shame, shame for evermore!

“All right,” he says finally. “But only if you come down with me. And give me something valuable in return.”

“Deal.”

The changeling rises. His hair is dripping mud on his shoulders and down the back, making it look painted. And he already stinks of the swamp.

“Let’s go,” Saära says, backing into the narrow opening of the burrow. “It’s right here.”

In the Dogheads’ cave, with the condensation of their breath dripping from the ceiling, torches sputtering, and the Chinese lanterns melting from the heat, Spotted Face addresses the throng.

“Tighten the collar on him! Four more holes! Who’s with me?”

They whine and shuffle their paws.

“Two more! Four! No, one! All of them!”

“Casting of lots!” someone shouts, springing up and knocking the torch out of the bracket with his head. “The lot shall decide!”

They put out the torch, spraying the burning crumbs around.

The tin can lands on the floor. They impatiently bump their heads trying to distinguish the number on top of it.

“Four,” the youngest one giggles. He’s no more than a puppy.

Dogheads exchange confused glances. The fat white-and-tan breathes loudly, tongue hanging out. His collar is already tightened so much that there is precious little breathing room. Four more holes will rob him of it completely. They look at him ravenously and start advancing. He drops in a faint, with very little effort. They bark at him with disdain.

In the cramped burrow encrusted lovingly with shells, Saära sleeps blissfully, having had his fill of the visitor’s blood. The visitor gave it up voluntarily, so it cannot be said that Saära breached the code of hospitality. The guest sits next to him, drunk with the songs.

He touches sleeping Saära and says, “Hey, wake up . . .”

But the owner of the burrow sleeps. The guest gets on all fours and scrambles out. His frozen eyes reflect the light of the moon. He heads back through the swamp and through the Forest, he walks on and on until he’s tired. Then he finds a hole dug up by someone and lies down in it, hiding from the prying eyes under some branches and leaves. Once inside he starts remembering the songs he bought with his blood. He needs to repeat them before he forgets. His back is caked in drying mud. He sits up and puts his arms around his knees. The long white stems of his fingers intertwine. He recalls all the songs, from the first words to the very last ones, and falls asleep, satisfied. The Forest waves its dark branches over him.

Shielded by the darkness, the lovers kiss with wounded mouths. They have their own songs. The Forest, invisible, rustles over them too.

The short, squat creature reaches the locked door and scratches at it, whining pitifully.

The cat that is Smoker screams. Loudly and hopelessly. The dark glasses hanging in the air tremble slightly from his yells.

“Oh, come on,” a voice says testily. “Not another one. Is it ever going to end? I’m so tired of this!”

Smoker closes his mouth. At the edge of the trash bin he sees two large gray cats. They look dangerous, for some reason. He tries to say “Here, kitty, kitty,” but doesn’t seem to manage it. The cats look at him with obvious loathing. Smoker has never been able to discern cat emotions before, but now they are crystal clear to him. The trash smells more and more beguiling, but it appears that a good rummage in it is out of the question. Too many gawkers. He tries to put his thoughts into words once more.

“Help!”

“Quit shouting!” one of the cats snaps. “Pull yourself together. Get up here.”

The cat’s voice goes directly inside Smoker’s head. He jumps up obediently, only to flop back down into the trash. He jumps again. Same result. On the third try he manages to find purchase on the bin’s curving edge, pull himself up, and sit down uneasily, doing his best to prevent either his front paws or his bottom from slipping.

“Shameful,” the cat nearest to him hisses. The other one flows fluidly down the front side of the bin and darts into the bushes. There is some commotion there. Smoker leans over the edge, trying to see what’s going on, and nearly falls.

“Is he trying to catch something? Someone?”

“Of course he is, you stupid human,” the cat who remained with him replies. “Your shadow. You weren’t planning to die a cat, were you? Especially seeing as you make such a lousy one.”

I do not, Smoker thinks, offended, and remembers his reflection in the dark glasses. I’m a nice kitty.

The gray one snorts. Then suddenly shoots up, spreading his paws awkwardly, and plunges down. Come on, hurry up! his thoughts reach up to Smoker. Jump here, you goof!

Smoker glances down and sees the cats splayed on the ground, kneading it with their paws. They are tearing up a small patch of shadow, unaccountably darker than their own shadows.

“Jump!” they shout in unison, so loud that Smoker’s almost swept off the edge of the bin. “Jump into the shadow!”

He paces uneasily on the narrow strip of metal, not daring to make the jump that looks suicidal. The cats growl menacingly. It’s only the thought of what they would do to him if he doesn’t do as they say that makes Smoker jump. He yowls and tumbles down, aiming for the stretched dark spot of the shadow. The hard landing on all four paws knocks the breath out of him. Everything goes black.

Smoker opens his eyes. He is inside the stuffy tent. The blinking colorful lights are almost blinding. The flap is half-open, and his motionless legs stretch out through it. Smoker’s head is propped up by Tabaqui’s distended backpack. He feels sick. He moans, and Tabaqui and Noble, both holding the cards, turn their heads to look at him.

“I was a cat,” he whispers, his lips barely moving.

“That’s nice,” Tabaqui says. “Now get some sleep.”

Squib, Solomon, and Don pursue Red, illuminating their way with flashlights. Solomon is sweating and out of breath. Red, glancing cautiously about, knocks at Ralph’s door. The door is locked and there seems to be no one inside. Red crouches down and freezes. The three hunters stop to discuss the situation. Red listens to the emptiness of the room behind the door and gnaws at his fingernails, paralyzed with terror.

Elephant is asleep back in the Nesting, sucking his thumb. He dreams of the strange phosphorescent violet, like a small blue flame. He found it by accident on the Crossroads windowsill.

Ralph opens the door to the counselors’ hallway, illuminating the doleful eyes blinking in the sudden light.

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in bed?”

Tubby tries to crawl past him, into the opened door. Ralph intercepts him and picks him up.

“No, you’re coming with me.”

He starts descending the steps. Tubby twitches and grunts in his arms.

“Quiet,” Ralph says. “None of this nonsense. I’m going to have a word with your minders.”

Solomon switches off the flashlight, looks at Squib, and nods at the door of the teachers’ bathroom.

Red is trapped inside, between the sinks and the urinals, slipping on the wet tiles. He has nowhere to run. There are only stalls here, and they are unlikely to have locks. He tries one door, then another . . . Then he’s blinded by bright light. He doesn’t see who’s behind it, but he doesn’t have to. He knows. The light is getting closer.

Butterfly, on the seat in the sixth stall from the door, listens to the sounds. He was just about to flush, but then decided not to. He snuffs out the burner and sits there in the dark. He’s afraid that he’ll be betrayed by the smell.

Smoker and Tabaqui crawl out of Vulture’s tent. Vulture himself follows them and assists Smoker with climbing into his wheelchair. Smoker is too weak to refuse his help.

“Good luck,” Vulture says. “Do not get lost in the dark.”

“Lost? Us?” Jackal says indignantly.

Bird waves them good-bye and dives back inside the tent. Smoker has only one thing on his mind—get back to the dorm as soon as possible.

“I was a cat,” he whispers, steering his wheelchair in the wake of Tabaqui’s flashlight. “Nice kitty . . .”

“Look, it’s time you got unstuck from that,” Jackal sighs. “So you were, so what? You’re obviously not a cat anymore.”

There’s a bloodcurdling scream. Tabaqui drops the flashlight.

Red closes his eyes, shrinking away from the light hitting his face. Then flips open the knife. One thing he regrets is that he didn’t think to put the green shades on. But then again, who knew? He forces himself to face the flashlights. A dark bulk hurtles at him. Red jumps away and thrusts with the knife at random. Someone grabs his arm. A razor slash burns his cheek. The next one opens a gash on his collarbone. Red shrieks. Two hands jerk his head back. He breaks free, kicking out with his feet but meeting only emptiness. He manages to shield his neck, and the razor splits open his hand. Red sinks his teeth into one of the hands holding him, wiggles out of his jacket, and flops down. The flashlight beams dance on the floor. He crawls inside the nearest stall, slams the door shut, and gropes for the latch. To his surprise, he finds it and manages to fasten the door before it starts shaking under the assault from the other side. He takes a step backward and trips over a leg. Someone is lying there, between the commode and the wall separating the stalls. Red yelps.

The prostrate figure raises its head.

“Stop screaming.”

Red lowers himself down on the seat, shaking. His blood appears black in the light that trickles through the door.

Blind sits up.

“It’s still night, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Red says, sniffling. “They’re killing me. Three against one!”

As if in confirmation of his words, the door flies off the hinges. Blind rises unsteadily to meet Squib and Solomon. In the next stall the water rushes down noisily.

“Damn!” Squib says, taking a step back. “There’s someone else over there! And here is Blind!”

“Where did Red get to, then?” Solomon says, shining the flashlight in from over Squib’s shoulder.

“He’s here too. What do we do now?”

The flashlight carriers pause. Red slides down on the floor and presses against the wall, trailing blood.

Don, on the lookout, emits a piercing whistle, warning of the coming danger.

“Run!”

Solomon grabs Squib’s sleeve. They turn around and run into Ralph coming in the door.

Ralph is hampered by the flashlight, so he only manages to grab Squib. With a wave of the razor, Squib escapes. Ralph swears, picks up the flashlight that fell on the floor, and sweeps the beam around. The broken stall door. The tiles stained with blood.

First came the screams. Then, from out of nowhere, R One appeared with Tubby in his arms, put him down on the floor, told them to hold on to him, and ran back. Now Tabaqui and Smoker guard Tubby, who drones quietly, drools, and constantly attempts to crawl away.

“Something’s happened,” Tabaqui whispers. “We need to investigate. What did you think you were doing? Have you lost your mind?” He pinches Tubby and turns to Smoker. “Listen. We’re going to put him on top of you and you’re going to drive ahead with him. But you’ll have to hold him tight, or he’ll fall.”

“What about you? I don’t want to hold him.”

“I can’t. I’m too fragile.”

They struggle to pull Tubby up to sit on Smoker’s knees, and then Tabaqui quickly splits. Smoker attempts to wheel after him, but finds it impossible with Tubby in the way. He’s so uncomfortable that when Tubby again begins to wiggle, Smoker pushes him off, turns on the flashlight, and observes him speedily crawling away into the darkness.

There’s already a sizable throng by the doors to the teachers’ bathroom. Everyone shines their flashlights away from their faces, so it’s hard to tell who’s here. They all mostly illuminate the doorframe. Finally R One appears. He’s hauling someone who can’t walk by himself, and that someone is dripping. A sickening sound.

“Someone with a light, to the hospital wing!” Ralph shouts, adjusting his burden.

One of the spectators steps forward, casting a hook-nosed shadow on the wall. Vulture leaves, lighting Ralph’s way.

“Well, I’ll be! That was Red,” Tabaqui hisses, fiddling with Smoker’s shirt. “Where’s Tubby? Where did you drop him?”

Butterfly crawls out, shielding his eyes.

“Get your shiners away!” he says testily.

The beams point to the floor.

“My wheelchair was supposed to be here somewhere. Where is it?”

Butterfly scuttles in a circle, like a singed moth. Tabaqui bumps him with his backpack.

“Hey! What just happened?”

Butterfly mumbles something indistinctly. Tabaqui bumps harder. Butterfly hisses and tries to swat away the backpack.

“How would I know? I was taking a dump! I’ve got diarrhea! I haven’t seen anything. I was sitting on the can the whole time. Could be that Red got cut. Or maybe it wasn’t Red. I don’t know nothing. Get me my wheelchair!”

Tabaqui leaves him to his troubles.

“Useless,” he complains to Smoker. “He’s playing dumb.”

“Let’s go,” Smoker pleads. “I’ve had enough excitement for one night. Honest. I’m done.”

Tabaqui looks around, aiding himself with the flashlight.

“Still, where’s Tubby? I thought I told you to keep an eye on him!”

“I don’t know. He crawled off somewhere. Let’s go.”

Tabaqui shines the light in Smoker’s eyes accusingly.

“We were supposed to take care of him. And you failed. We have to find him.”

“All right. Let’s go find him.”

Tabaqui is in no hurry. He directs the beam at the departing stragglers.

“Wait a minute,” he mutters. “Now this is interesting. Look . . .”

Something heavy flies at them out of a dark corner. Tabaqui takes a hint and reluctantly switches off the flashlight.

“Have you seen that?”

“Tabaqui, what are you doing here?” says a familiar voice. “And why did you have to bring this . . .”

Tabaqui fidgets guiltily.

“Smoker and I just went out for a stroll. Couldn’t sleep, for some reason. And then—shouting, Ralph, commotion. So we came to look. Who wouldn’t?”

“All right, we’ll talk later. Take him back to the dorm.”

“We need to find Tubby first! Ralph told us. Tubby ran away. No wheelchair, no nothing. I mean, no anything.”

“Go back. I’ll look for him myself.”

“All right. As you wish, Blind,” Tabaqui says, turning around his wheelchair. “We’re going.”

They are not the only ones. Tires squeak somewhere in front of them. Those in front pick up speed from time to time, apparently confident that they are driving down the middle, and immediately crash into the wall. The noise they are making allows Tabaqui to correct his trajectory. Smoker, heartened by Blind’s order, dutifully struggles to reach the dorm as quickly as possible. If Tabaqui could have his way he’d linger gladly, but he’s not sure that Blind isn’t following them. So he’s in a hurry too. Butterfly, some distance ahead, wheezily brags that his diarrhea has just saved someone’s life.

Ralph walks out of the hospital wing and sees Vulture waiting for him on the landing. He is amusing himself with painting zigzags on the ceiling with the flashlight.

“You didn’t have to wait,” Ralph says.

“I figured you wouldn’t want to go back in the dark. I’ll walk you over.”

“Thanks.”

Ralph heads for his office. Vulture limps by his side, shining light on the floorboards underfoot. They stop at the door. Vulture directs the beam at the keyhole.

“You may go,” Ralph says, unlocking the door. “Thanks for your help.”

“Take this, R One,” Vulture says. He rummages in his pocket and hands Ralph something. “You’re going to need it.”

It’s a joint. Ralph takes it without a word.

“Good night,” Vulture says.

Ralph slams the door behind him and turns on the light. He studies his face in the wardrobe mirror. It features a strip of surgical tape, all the way down his cheek. The cut is superficial, but Ralph can’t stop thinking that he’s gotten away with something. Half an inch to the left and it would have been good-bye, eye.

“Sons of bitches,” Ralph says to his reflection. He walks to the window, pulls up the blind, and looks out. Then looks at his watch. Then shakes it. By his reckoning it should be morning already. The darkness outside is still impenetrable. But that’s not what’s frightening. Winter nights have a habit of lingering. What’s scary is the way the watch hands seem to be stuck permanently on one minute before two. And it’s the same with the wall clock.

“Calm down,” Ralph says. “There probably is a reasonable explanation.”

Except he can’t find it. He could swear that when he was leaving Sheriff’s room—the Rat Shepherd had a birthday bash, and it was a proper one—he looked at the watch and it was quarter to two. A lot of time has passed since then. It couldn’t have been less than half an hour for the hospital wing alone. Ralph stares at the long hand, hypnotizing it. The watch runs on batteries. Batteries run out. But . . . what about the clock, then? It keeps ticking, lulling him, enveloping in domestic comfort.

Ralph draws the blinds and takes a magazine off the desk. Thumbs through it standing up. Stumbles on an article about a popular singer, notes the time, and starts reading. The article about the singer, then three more—the world of algae, this winter’s fashions, sheep husbandry. He skims through the sports section and flings the magazine on the floor. The clock deigned to move to two exactly. The watch still insists on one minute to. Ralph looks at it, for what seems like another eternity, and then finally decides, with a sigh of relief, that it must be broken. And the clock as well. Yes, simultaneously. Well, it could happen, and it clearly did.

Ralph carefully takes the watch off his wrist and lowers it into the desk drawer. Vulture’s present sits untouched on the armrest of the sofa. Were he to smoke it, many things would become markedly less sinister.

“Something’s wrong with the time,” Ralph says loudly.

A faint scratching noise makes him spin around. He notices a slip of paper being pushed under the door. He reaches the door in a single bound and throws it open. Then curses himself and opens the outer one, but it’s too late. The night visitor has vanished. Ralph stands there for a moment, peering into the darkness, then goes back and picks up the sheet marked with the ridged print of his own shoe. The letters, evidently scrawled in a rush, straggle up and down and barely fit on the scrap.

Blind snuffed Pompey. Everyone saw.

Back in the Fourth, Tabaqui takes careful aim, drops the backpack on the sleeping cat, waits out a short pause, and then screams at those who jumped up on the beds.

“You can’t even imagine what just happened! Unbelievable!”

His shouting wakes up everyone who managed to sleep through the yowl of the cat.

Blind’s clothes stink of outhouse, of Butterfly’s sickness, of Red’s blood and fear. He treads slowly. His face is untroubled, like that of someone sleeping peacefully. His fingers run ahead and then return when he remembers the way. Now is the time of the crack between the worlds. Between the House and the Forest. He prefers to cross it in his sleep. When he’s inside it his memory stumbles over familiar obstacles, and the body stumbles with it. When he’s inside it he doesn’t have command over his hearing. He doesn’t hear things that are there, or hears the ones that aren’t. When in the crack he doubts whether he would be able to find those he’s seeking, and then forgets whom he was seeking. He could enter the Forest and become a part of it—then he’d be able to find anyone. But the Forest twice in one night is dangerous, even more dangerous than the crack that consumes his memory and hearing. Blind moves slowly. His hands move faster. They dart through the holes in the sweater’s sleeves—the sleeves were too long for him so he slit them with a knife all the way down from the elbows. His bare heels, black as soot, stick to the floorboards.

A beam of light hits him in the face. He walks right through it, oblivious. A hand catches his shoulder. Blind stops, surprised that he hasn’t heard any steps.

“Come with me. We need to talk.”

Blind recognizes the voice and submits to it. Ralph’s hand doesn’t let go of his shoulder until they are at the door.

The office is like the jaws of a trap for him. Blind hates it. The whole of the House is his domain, but the offices fall outside of it, those snare-rooms smelling of iron. Everything else he owns, but in them he doesn’t even own himself. In the offices there are only voices and doors. He enters and hears the click. The trap has sprung. He’s in a void now, alone with the counselor’s breathing. There’s no memory here at all. Only the hearing. He hears the window and the wind oozing through it. Also rustling, the way paper rustles. The paper in the three-fingered hand of Ralph.

“You were there. When Red was cut. I saw you.”

“Yes,” Blind says carefully. “I was there.”

“You heard those who did it. You recognized them, obviously.”

Ralph’s voice, sharp as a knife’s edge, floats back and forth, now near, now far. Battling the wind. There really is wind. It rings in Blind’s ears, touches his hair. Something strange is happening to him. It’s not supposed to be like that here. He hears the Forest in the stuffy office.

It’s right outside.

It creeps closer.

It scratches at the door and groans with its roots.

It waits. It calls.

Run away, over the wet moors, under the white moon. Find . . . Who? Someone . . .

“What’s going on? Did you hear me?”

“Yes.” Blind tries to blot out all sounds except the voice. “Yes, I hear.”

“You are going to leave them alone. Understand? We already got Red, and that’s enough. Yes, I know the Law. Three against one and all that. But I don’t care. This time the Law will have to be set aside. By you.”

Blind listens. To this strange person who lives in the House and doesn’t know what the House is. Doesn’t know about the night and its own laws.

“The night brought them to me,” Blind says. He feels like he’s talking to a child too small to understand. “The night woke me up and made me hear. Hear the three hunting the one. Why? I don’t know. No one knows.”

“You are not to touch them. I forbid it. If anything happens to them you are going to be sorry.”

Blind listens patiently. It’s the only thing that’s left. Listen when you can’t explain. Thorns are springing up on the road to the Forest. The internal clock had chimed morning long ago. But the night doesn’t end. Because it is the Longest Night, the one happening but once a year. And this conversation doesn’t end. They both have their own truths, him and three-fingered Ralph.

“Do you hear?”

He does. He hears streams disappearing underground. Birds and frogs vanishing in the air. Trees walking away. The sadness of it.

“Not a single hair on their heads. Or you’ll be out of the House before you can count to one. Got it? I’ll make it my personal business.”

Blind smiles. Ralph doesn’t understand that there is nothing except the House. How is it possible to be out of it, then?

“I know you killed Pompey. The principal could find out, too.”

So that must be what’s on the paper that R One is clutching in his hand. The crumpled whisper of a snitch? Red’s scream that chased away his sleep . . . The smell of blood and the broken door. He suddenly remembers who it was he was supposed to find. Tubby. The crack closes. The wind is storming the House, it’s cold outside, and it’s snowing.

“Stop smirking!”

Ralph’s hands jostle him unexpectedly roughly. There must have been some words he was supposed to say. But he doesn’t have them.

“I don’t have the words you want, R One,” Blind says. “Not tonight.”

The breath of danger becomes closer. He can’t explain anything. He follows the Law. He lives the way the House wants him to, divining its wishes. He hears what others can’t. The way it was with Pompey.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Ralph,” he says. “It will be exactly the way it must be.”

“You little brat!”

The air suddenly grows solid, becomes blobs of cotton wool. Blind’s stomach fills up with glass. The glass breaks with a crash and stings him from inside.

“Shhh,” Sphinx hisses at himself when he stumbles over a loose floorboard.

Humpback hurriedly aims the flashlight down. They are looking for Tubby, even though Blind actually promised to find him. That’s according to Tabaqui, who woke them all up to relate the saga of his adventures. Sphinx is reasonably sure he knows where Tubby might be located, and pities him.

It’s time for the morning to arrive, but the House doesn’t know that, or doesn’t care to know. The floorboards squeak disgustingly. A dog howls somewhere in the Outsides. It’s noisy behind the doors of the dorms, and the pipes sing in the bathrooms.

“Not many are asleep,” Humpback notes. “Practically no one.”

“It’s not every night that Leaders are being deposed,” Sphinx says. “Each pack probably had its own prodigal Jackal.”

They pass the teachers’ bathroom. It stares at them menacingly, as befits a crime scene. They spook two shadows who shrink from the light, whispering.

“First tourists,” Humpback sighs. “By morning it’s going to get crowded here.”

Sphinx is silent.

“Could it be that Blind has found him already?”

Humpback would like to keep the conversation going. It’s soothing to him. He doesn’t like being out at night.

“If he had, he’d have brought him. Half an hour is enough for him to find anyone, wherever they might be. More than enough,” Sphinx says.

“Why isn’t he back, then?”

“Ask another. I’m here with you, not there with him.”

It stinks of cigarette smoke on the stairs. On the landing below them, someone sneezes sleepily. Someone who’s listening to a portable radio.

“Going up?” Humpback says, surprised.

“There’s one thing I want to check,” Sphinx says. “I have a hunch.”

Tubby is asleep, leaning against the door to the third floor. Shapeless and miserable. He sighs heavily and mutters in his sleep. Humpback lifts him up, revealing a half-dried puddle and two chewed-up guitar picks. Tubbs was probably using them to try and pry open the lock. Humpback, naturally attuned to the suffering of the Insensible, is almost in tears as he wraps Tubby in his coat, narrowly avoiding getting tangled in his own hair. Sphinx waits, banging his heel against the railing. The stairway drafts nip at his bare ankles. Tubbs grumbles and sniffles but doesn’t wake up. The walk back takes longer. Humpback struggles to light their way because of bundled Tubby in his arms, and Sphinx can do nothing to help him without the prosthetics. The pocket-radioed someone sneezes again. The sky in the Crossroads windows is still pitch-black.

“Give me the flashlight,” Noble says, rolling at them out of the darkness.

Humpback, startled, barely manages to hold on to Tubby but passes the flashlight over gratefully.

“What are you doing here?”

“Taking the air,” Noble snaps. “What do you think?”

Two more, Sphinx says to himself, keeping count. Now there’s only Blind.

Vulture, limping, hauls something bulky in the direction of the Nest. It trails behind him on the floor. He stops and greets them in his usual immaculately polite fashion.

“Nice weather,” he says. “I hope you are faring well. Noble I already had the pleasure of encountering.”

“What about Blind?” Sphinx says.

“Alas, no such luck,” Vulture admits, visibly crestfallen. “Pity, I’m sure.”

The five of them proceed together. Vulture doesn’t let out a single word about Red. He talks exclusively of weather, and even when his flashlight illuminates Blind near the Third, he informs him only that “Oh, the weather outside is delightful.” Blind’s response is barely intelligible. Vulture bids them good-bye and disappears behind the door, carrying in front of him the bunched canvas of the tent and the poles crisscrossed with straps. The beam of Noble’s flashlight jumps and shakes.

“Where’ve you been?” Sphinx says to Blind.

The anteroom meets them with bright lights, falling mops, and shaggy heads in the doorframe. Humpback brings sleeping Tubby inside.

“There he is, our dear tubbylicious maniac!” Tabaqui’s voice enthuses. “Our beloved adventurer . . .”

Blind takes a detour into the bathroom. Sphinx follows him.

“Whose blood is that?”

Blind doesn’t answer. But Sphinx isn’t expecting him to. He lowers himself down on the edge of the low sink and observes. Blind, his face in the other sink, waits out a bout of nausea.

“The night has been going on for too long. Too long even for the Longest,” Sphinx says, mostly to himself. “I don’t like them in general, and this one in particular. I think that if everyone went to bed it would end sooner. So, whose blood?”

“Red’s,” Blind says darkly. “Later, OK? I feel really sick now. Our old friend Ralph just kicked the dinner out of me.”

Sphinx sways impatiently on the edge of the sink, licking a bleeding spot on his lip.

“Because of Red? Was it you who cut him?”

Blind turns his face, with two red sores in place of eyelids, in Sphinx’s direction.

“Don’t be absurd. Because of Pompey. If I understood him correctly. He knows. Somebody snitched. He was rustling a scrap of paper all that time.”

“Why now? I mean, tonight? Has he gone mad?”

“Could be. Certainly a possibility, if you listen to his blabbering.” Blind bends down to the sink again. “Or if he hasn’t cracked yet, he’s going to soon. Bet you he’s shaking all his watches right now, one by one, and changing the batteries in them. Trying to figure out who’s punking him. Who bit the morning off and gobbled it up.”

“Don’t laugh, or you’ll throw up again.”

“I can’t. He ordered me not to touch them. Bleeping Solomon and Squib along with Don. Couldn’t see them himself, but considers it his duty to intervene. ‘I know your Laws,’ he says. I don’t know our Laws. I don’t, and he does. I should’ve asked what he meant when he said that.”

Sphinx sighs.

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong. Solomon, Squib, and Don cut Red, and Ralph hit you because you wouldn’t promise to leave them alone? Why do I get the impression there’s more to it than that?”

“He punched me because he thinks I don’t talk politely enough,” Blind says, straightening up.

“Do you?”

“Depends.” Blind adjusts the sweater drooping off his shoulder. “Damn, I’m going to fall out of this thing. Is this what they call cleavage?”

“It’s what they call a sweater that’s three sizes too big. So was it because of Solomon, or because of Pompey?”

“Because of nerves. He got cut too. So of course he’s jumpy. And now those snitches . . . He made me wipe it all off before letting me go.”

Blind frowns and goes silent. Sphinx doesn’t like the expression on his face. He climbs down from the sink and comes closer.

“Something else?”

Blind shrugs. “I’m not sure. Maybe he didn’t notice. I mean . . . people don’t usually pay too much attention to the exact composition of someone else’s vomit, do they? What do you think?”

“They usually don’t. Why? Was there something to pay attention to?”

“Well . . . Honestly? The mice didn’t have enough time to get digested. And there wasn’t much in there besides. That could disguise them, I mean.”

“Blind. Enough,” Sphinx says, wincing. “Spare me the details. Let’s just say I hope with all my heart that Ralph wasn’t looking too closely at how you redecorated his office.”

“Me too. But the silence that followed was a bit strange. I’d even say stunned.”

“How is a stunned silence different from a regular one?”

“Different shade.”

“I see,” Sphinx says. “Well, if it’s the shade, we’re all screwed. It means he saw. And what his thoughts on that are we’ll never know. Which is for the best.”

Blind grins.

“He that increaseth knowledge?”

“Something like that,” Sphinx says.

“This Ralph fellow sure is meddlesome. Gadding about at night . . . sticking his nose in other people’s business. Bugging them with idiotic demands afterward. Irritating.”

Blind takes a step away from the sink, jerks the towel off the hook, and wipes his face. Sphinx studies the footprints on the tiles. Bloodred.

“Your feet could do with a washing too. Where did you manage to cut them?”

Blind runs his hand over the soles.

“I did, huh. I don’t remember where. That dump on the way, probably.” He adjusts the sweater again. “Look, I’m really tired right now.”

“Why do you always put on those rags?”

Sphinx is almost shouting. Blind doesn’t answer.

“Why do you walk over glass barefoot?”

No answer. Sphinx’s voice drops down to a whisper.

“And why the hell don’t you even feel that you’re bleeding until someone tells you!”

Blind is silent.

Sphinx sighs again and walks out quietly.

The light is still on in the dorm. Noble is smoking, wrapped in the blanket on the edge of the bed. Smoker, in a hushed whisper, recounts to Lary and Humpback the horrors of finding himself inside a cat’s skin. Tabaqui, his face still bearing traces of total bliss, is asleep, clutching the backpack turned inside out.