The Gray House

NOBLE’S TALE

He found himself in the middle of the road, a place where it was impossible for him to be. Strangely, this fact did not alarm him. Also, something odd happened to his memory. He remembered nothing at all, but he knew somehow that he had ended up here of his own accord, and that it was very important for him to find something.

He was dressed all in black, and in his backpack there was a book in a language unfamiliar to him, a change of clothes, a camera, and a notepad. The notes in the notepad had been clearly made by him, but he didn’t remember when or where. Walking turned out to be very tiring, as did even standing still, so he was mostly sitting on the shoulder and only getting up when he saw a car approaching. Most of the cars weren’t in what you’d call decent shape. At least on the outside. As he sat there he was thumbing idly through the notebook, trying to decipher his own notes. They were mostly illegible, accompanied by drawings with a profusion of arrows pointing in all directions and confusing him even more.

Finally one of the drivers took pity on him and agreed to give him a lift, “but only to the crossroads.” At the crossroads he found a bus stop and a tiny store with two tables inside, making it into a kind of roadside café. The store owner, a kind woman, called him “you poor forgetful little Jumper” and fed him potatoes fried in bacon fat. The smell of the sizzling bacon made him nauseated, but he was hungry and also didn’t want to upset her by refusing her kindness. From her he learned that the buses that stopped here went in three different directions, and one of the names rang a bell, faintly.

“A useless place,” the café owner said. “No work there, don’t even think about it.”

He smiled politely. Blackwood. The name of the “useless place” was calling out to him.

The place did indeed turn out to be useless. But there was something in it. Something unusual, mysterious, existing outside of reality. He stayed. Took a bed in the guesthouse, doing odd jobs and waiting. He knew something was going to happen.

He spent six months there, making acquaintances with the local hobos, chatting up old crones at the market, and befriending stray cats infesting the guesthouse. The residents of the Roach Motel were of two sorts: temporary and permanent. The first kind they called tumbleweeds, the second, transients. All of them lived in the present day, never mentioning the past and never planning for the future. To have enough food on the plate for the night, that was the one and only goal worthy of their attention.

He worked odd jobs all over the place. It was easier in the summer. He helped the photographer install the bulky cardboard backdrops, depicting sailboats and dolphins, on the river beach. Made bracelets from colored wire for the two sisters who then sold them among other trinkets on the same beach. In the mornings he raked the sand in front of the riverside diner before it opened.

Autumn came, and the first downpours turned the river murky and wild. Trash overwhelmed the beach, the cafés and diners closed. There still were the gas station and the car wash, but they had enough help without him. He went there only rarely. They never let him into the repair shop. Neither him nor the other transients. Car parts were worth their weight in gold in Blackwood, so even the most run-down repair shops hired armed guards.

He was surprised when one day these two guys from the repair shop turned up at the Roach Motel and asked for someone to help with a car. He was even more surprised by the reaction of the tenants. Some immediately made themselves scarce, others pretended they couldn’t hear or understand a single word. They marched him away before he could figure out what was going on.

There was a black car in the yard behind the shop. The first decent-looking car he’d seen in the last six months. The first not appearing to be ready to fall apart right that moment. No dings, no dents, no stickers covering the rusty patches, no flaking paint. They said he was to wash it. Nothing more. The hose was right there on the ground. Also a bucket and two sponges.

He knew he was in trouble even before he took a peek inside. The car wash was right around the corner. It was useless to ask why they couldn’t just drive the car over there. Useless straight off, and even more so after he saw what he saw. They helped him detach and haul out the seats. That was it. When he found a severed finger under one of the rubber mats, he didn’t try to hide it, just threw it in the bucket full of dirty water. For four hours straight he washed blood out of the car. He was sure they were going to kill him as soon as he finished.

Later that night, back in the Roach Motel, Filthywings told him that his troubles were only beginning. And that he needed to disappear. He knew it himself.

“Would you like me to darn your shirt?” Mockturtle asked. She was always kind to him.

He gave away all of his belongings—the hotplate, the kettle, the warm coat he had won in a raffle. Picked up his backpack and left the Roach Motel. Its denizens, it seemed, breathed easier. Now they wouldn’t have to witness his death and be upset by it.

When he put enough distance between himself and the guesthouse he sat on the low railing in front of some house and thought about what he was going to do next. His legs hurt. In fact, they were getting worse. He wasn’t going to get far on foot. Hitchhiking meant endangering other people who didn’t have anything to do with what happened. Buses were out for the same reason. Besides, their usefulness was very limited. They moved at a speed barely above that of a trotting horse. He could only wait. They had promised to pay him the next morning for washing the car. When he didn’t show up for his money they’d start looking for him, and the search wouldn’t take long.

He knew that if he managed to survive this, he was going to remember it as an exciting adventure. Even though there wasn’t anything particularly exciting about his stay at the Roach Motel, and his daily quest for a paying gig wasn’t very adventurous either. Or was it? He tried to remember everything that seemed amazing to him here. Everything that was unusual.

The talk of the Forest, for one. The first he heard about it was from a chatty drunken tumbleweed who spent one night at their place, wouldn’t shut up the whole time, and in the morning left him the hotplate and a compass before moving on.

“You’ll need that, mate,” he said. “You could find yourself in the Forest at any time, and what are you gonna do then, huh? At least this way you’ll know which way is north.”

The hotplate was now with the girl who had mended his shirt, but the compass was still in the backpack somewhere.

The jokes about the Forest became commonplace for him after about a week at the Roach Motel. He had learned to ignore them. He had learned to ignore many things. The mushrooms that seemed to sprout in the dark corners overnight. The local rats, whistling as they ran by. The wondrously multicolored feathers that the somber guesthouse kids played with. “Who knows when you might end up in the Forest?”

He closed his eyes and tried to end up there. The smell of the strange mushrooms, when they pried them off the walls, enveloped him. Was that how the Forest smelled? Black Forest. Blackwood.

“If you are here, please come,” he said.

“That’s not the way to call it,” someone said.

He opened his eyes and sprang up in panic.

It was pitch-dark. No streetlight, no illuminated windows of the house. Only the leaves, rustling and whispering. And also coolness. The air felt different, no city could have air like this, no town or village. The fear that took hold of him turned it chilly. How could he have wished to end up here? He hugged the backpack, thinking only of the coat that he’d so stupidly left back in the Roach Motel. So warm. To take the compass and leave the coat. What an idiot. What good would knowing which way was north do him now?

He rummaged in the backpack, even though he knew that there was no coat there, no flashlight, not even a book of matches. He was doing it just to give himself something to do, to push away the panic. His fingers stumbled on the compass. He took it out, brought it closer to his eyes, and realized that he could see it. Not just the glowing needle, all of it, every last mark. He flipped open the notepad. In a way that was different than under sunlight, he could still somehow see the writing and, what’s more, read it. The Forest glowed. Not for everyone, only for those who could see in the dark. It appeared that he could.

A giggle nearby spooked him. He turned around and then, unexpectedly for himself, tumbled into the grass and came back up three paces from where he had been standing, under the eaves of the nearest tree. He did it smoothly and instantaneously, in one fluid motion. Unconsciously. As soon as he leaned against the tree he forgot everything. It wasn’t just a warm safe place, more like an embrace. The tree embraced him like only a tree could, soothing, protecting, sharing its strength with him. He forgot to think about the invisible danger, giving himself fully to this feeling of oneness. As he pressed his face against the scratchy bark, he started crying.

“Welcome home,” someone said.

That someone came out from behind the next tree and stopped. He was wearing a T-shirt with Yellowstone Park written on it and smiling. Or maybe scowling. And he wasn’t entirely human. His eyes glinted green in the dark, like a dog’s.

“Hello, Blind,” Noble said, recalling everything he had not been able to remember for the past six months. “How did you find me?”

Blind laughed.

“I didn’t. It was you who found me, you forgetful Jumper.”