The Lost. Sarah Beth Durst

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      Chapter Six

      “Food, water, shelter.” Peter ticks off the items on his fingers as he hops from Dumpster lid to Dumpster lid. Claire scampers behind him as if she were part-squirrel. She has her old teddy and Prince Fluffernutter stuffed in a sequined purse that matches her shoes. I follow along on the ground, trying to step gingerly over the muck.

      “If you can get me home, we can skip all of that,” I say.

      “He can’t,” Claire said. “He’s the Finder.”

      “I find lost people. Like you.” He doffs an imaginary cap at me. “Bring them out of the void to Lost. Save them from disintegration.”

      “Once you’re here, only the Missing Man can send you home,” Claire says. “Everyone knows that.” She skips across cardboard boxes as if she weighs zero pounds. “But first, you have to find what you lost. The Missing Man helps with that, too. If you can’t find what you need here, he can go into the void and it will come to him. That’s his power.”

      “I didn’t lose anything,” I say.

      “They all say that,” Claire says.

      “What did you lose?” I ask her.

      “My front tooth. And my parents. They left me in a shopping cart in the grocery store.” She says it calmly, as if it’s old news. “The police couldn’t find them, and so I went to look for them myself. That’s when Peter found me and brought me here. I’ve been here ever since.”

      “How long ago was that?” I ask softly, gently.

      “Long enough,” Peter interrupts. “But first, home, home, sweet, sweet home!” Crouching on top of a Dumpster, he points down the alley. It leads to bright desert sun.

      Claire hops from the boxes and lands beside me. She sinks with a squish into the muck but doesn’t seem to mind. She slips her hand into my hand. “We can play house. Teddy will be the mommy. Prince Fluffernutter is the baby. He needs to nap.”

      I’m not good with kids. I never babysat, except for one disastrous evening that was supposed to be a favor for one of Mom’s library friends wherein I nearly called 9-1-1 because I thought the three-year-old had locked herself in the bathroom. She hadn’t. The door was just stuck. But she did squeeze every bit of toothpaste into the toilet and then cram it full of toilet paper. I was in tears by the end of an hour. Still, it’s not so difficult to squeeze Claire’s hand and say, “Sure. He looks sleepy.”

      “I know a lullaby,” she declares. In a sweet lilting voice, she sings as we walk toward the light, “Rock-a-bye baby on the treetop. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks...” I hear padded footsteps behind us and a low growl. Looking over my shoulder, I see yellow eyes in the shadows. One of the feral dogs. “...the cradle will fall.”

      I catch Peter’s eye and jerk my chin backward.

      He holds up three fingers. There are three dogs. My heart pounds faster, and I sneak another look. All three are large and muscled with yellowed fangs and fur in patches. In the bare patches, their skin is scarred.

      “And down will come baby, cradle and all...” Claire trails off. I am gripping her hand hard as the three dogs trail after us. “Ow.”

      I loosen my grip. “You have a lovely voice.”

      “It’s not a nice song, is it? Babies shouldn’t fall.”

      “It’s not nice,” I agree.

      “Wonder why it was written that way. Much better, ‘When the bough breaks, the cradle will fly, and up will go baby, into the sky.’”

      “He’d still have to land,” I point out.

      “Possibly,” Peter says. “Or he could sprout wings and fly.”

      “That’s silly,” Claire says.

      The end of the alley is only a few yards ahead. I can see the wide stretch of desert before us. The blue sky gleams like a jewel, the brightest color that I’ve seen here. For some reason, I feel like if we reach the desert, we’ll be safe from the dogs. I know it’s not a rational belief.

      Walking СКАЧАТЬ