The Lost. Sarah Beth Durst

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СКАЧАТЬ Peter says, equally conversationally. He walks faster, too.

      “Do you have special Finder powers you can use on them?” I wiggle my fingers to indicate magic. I am half-serious. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were magic. He reminds me of light on the water, flashing and changing and unpredictable and beautiful.

      Peter snorts. “Nothing relevant for this situation. I can enter and leave the void safely, like the Missing Man, and I can find lost people inside it. I sense the kernel of hope within them. Now, if I had the power to conjure up bacon...”

      I begin to feel my heart beat faster, my palms sweat, my muscles tense.

      I look at Claire. She has her knife in her free hand. I hadn’t seen her pull it out. Her lips are pressed tight together so that they’re pinched white around the edges, and I suddenly want to protect this scared little girl who guided me through the mob with no fear in her eyes. Even though I never wore a princess dress in my life, even though I played with paints and not stuffed animals, even though I never held a knife or helped a stranger through an alley, she reminds me of me.

      I don’t decide to act.

      I don’t think at all.

      I drop her hand, spin around, and shriek with every bit of air in my lungs. Scooping a trash can lid off the ground like the boy who held one as a shield, I run at the three dogs.

      The dogs hesitate for a moment. And then they spin and flee. I skid to a stop, and I hurl the trash can lid in their wake. It clatters against the brick wall of an abandoned building.

      Panting, I head back to Claire and Peter. Peter is staring at me, but all he says is, “Huh. Interesting.” He climbs off the Dumpster to join us on the alley floor. I take Claire’s hand. She smiles at me. And we walk into the desert.

      * * *

      I had seen the decrepit houses on my walk into town: Capes, Colonials, ranches, mobile homes. I see them now for what they are, homes that people lost. The foreclosure signs are proof. Once, they were loved, and there are memories within the peeling paint and chipped wood and warped aluminum and cracked shingles.

      Peter stops, apparently to chat. “Tell me about your dream house.”

      Claire and I stop, too. It’s hot but not unbearable. Just enough breeze to toss the red dust into the air. I breathe in air that isn’t thick with feces and dead animals and rotted food and unidentifiable garbage. The abandoned houses are an improvement over the alleys, which once again are invisible, blocked from view by houses and junk piles. I don’t understand why I can’t at least see the tops of the apartment buildings. A two-story house shouldn’t be able to block a twenty-story high-rise.

      “Your dream house,” he prompts. “One house that you always wished were yours.”

      I’m not sure why he wants to know this. All I need is a safe place to hide until I figure out how to get home, but I humor him. “I never wanted the white picket fence. Or a mansion.”

      “Then what did you dream of?”

      “A house with stairs I could climb up to an open room, a sunlit studio.”

      “Dance studio? Art studio? Photography studio?”

      Art, of course. I used to imagine a wide, sun-filled art studio where I’d have easels with works-in-progress and finished work on the wall. I’d have a potter’s wheel in one corner, and another section with fabrics and beads. But I don’t say this. “Why are we stopped?”

      He stretches his arms out expansively. “I want you to choose your dream home.” He looks, for a moment, like he can grant wishes. He’s smiling, but his eyes are serious, as if they hold a thousand secrets. He has magical eyes.

      I shake my head. “I want someplace that’s safe. A house that the townspeople won’t notice I’m in. And that won’t crash on my head if the wind blows. The rest doesn’t matter. I’m not planning to stay, remember?” I look at Claire, away from Peter and his captivating eyes. “You want to choose for me?”

      She points at a little yellow house. It’s nestled in between an oversize sprawling Colonial and a rusted mobile home. Its shingles are half–fallen off so that it looks like a mouthful of baby teeth, half-gone and waiting for grown-up teeth. The weeds are so high that they obscure the porch, and the front door gapes open.

      I like it.

      I don’t admit that. “All right,” I say.

      “I always wanted my own room,” Claire says. “I had three sisters and two brothers, and we shared. My sister Bridget always stole the covers. And Margaret snored. I used to make my own pretend room in the back of the garage underneath Daddy’s workbench. I’d move boxes around to make a nest and fill it with towels to make it comfy. I’d store snacks in case I was hungry. It was nice there.”

      I want to ask if she misses them, if she knows what happened to her brothers and sisters, if she ever wants to go back. I want to know if it was an accident that she was left, and if so, how could anyone not return for her. I wonder if her parents are alive or not and if they regret what they did. “Where do you live now?”

      She shrugs. “Nowhere. Everywhere.”

      A homeless six-year-old. My heart lurches. “You can have a room in this house, if you want.”

      Her face lights up as if the sun poured over it.

      “It’s just temporary, remember,” I caution her. I don’t want her thinking that I’m inviting her into my life long-term. I’m not her new mommy. I am a very long way from being anyone’s mommy. I’d have to be a lot less selfish and a lot less cowardly first. “But you can stay as long as I stay.” With luck, that won’t be more than a few days. I try not to think about how statistically unlucky I am. In a few days, I could be squashed by a chunk of falling satellite. Or mauled in a shark attack.

      Her face falls. “You feel sorry for me.”

      “And for myself.” I am not going to lie to her. I always hated when adults did that to kids—all the classic lies, like you can be anything you want to be and work hard enough and good things will come to you, and all the little lies, like you’re smart, you’re beautiful, you’re special.

      She considers that. “Okay.”

      Peter has run ahead. He’s scrambling over the junk in the yard and then over the roof. He climbs to the peak and scans the view. I am surprised more of the stray kids aren’t here, but there’s no hint of movement around any of the nearby houses. The kids must still be in town, or playing on other heaps of rust and broken glass elsewhere. I wonder how long we have until they return, if they’ll return. Perhaps the place has already been picked over. I wonder if they’ve left anything we can eat or use.

      He swings down from the porch roof and lands on the railing. It creaks beneath his weight, but it doesn’t collapse. Claire and I wade through the weeds in the front yard as he disappears into the house.

      “I wanted to see it first,” she pouts.

      “Let him scare away the rats, snakes, and whatever other wildlife is in there.”

      “You didn’t need him to scare away the dogs.” She mimics my charge at the dogs. Her mouth is open СКАЧАТЬ