But here was a living counterexample, shaking his head. Behind him, a ponytail swayed, dusting the tops of his shoulders. It was Rector’s turn to ask “Who are you?” but the words wouldn’t come. His mouth wouldn’t work. The outline of the other boy faded until it was something cut from a coal black shadow, backlit as he was by the mouth of something wide and white—the curved edge of the street above.
A hole. He’d fallen through a huge chuckhole in the middle of the goddamn street, Rector thought as the stars came back and everything went away except for Zeke.
Zeke, who was just saying Well done, dummy, when Rector passed out.
Seven
Rector dreamed, or maybe he didn’t.
He heard Zeke a time or two, saying his name. But Rector was tired of talking to ghosts, so he didn’t answer, even when Zeke was demanding, and even when he sounded worried. To hell with Zeke and his worries. Rector was dying, anyway; they could hang out and be ghosts together, and wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants? No good deed goes unpunished, or so he thought sourly as he tossed and turned and tried to tell the difference between asleep and awake, alive and dead.
He was lying on something firm, but possibly intended to be comfortable. Maybe this meant he wasn’t dead; but the room felt very small and close, as if he were resting in a coffin. Then his thoughts circled around to the conviction that nobody would pay for a coffin to bury his sorry corpse—and, anyway, dead people couldn’t possibly hurt this much, unless they were in hell. He was pretty sure of that. Read it in the Good Book once.
And with every ounce of his aching body, his rattled consciousness, his uncertain sanity … he wanted sap. He imagined he could smell it nearby—the tang of its cooking, the sharp whiff of the terrible yellow substance curling into smoke on a sheet of tin.
So he asked for some, on the off chance that anyone was listening … and, if so, that they’d be willing to share.
No one gave him any. But sometimes people talked to him.
For a while he heard voices conversing entirely in Chinese, and then came the dim sensation of being physically moved, forcibly relocated to some distant place in a cart, or a wheelbarrow, or something else that held him sprawling and left his elbows bruised. After that, he didn’t hear Chinese anymore. He heard English—mostly from men, but sometimes from women.
“Yes, that’s him. A little skinnier than last I saw him, but you can’t mistake that hair. ”
“Your boy said his name’s Rector. What kind of name is that?”
“No idea. He might’ve made it up, for all I know—but that’s what everyone called him. ”
His eyes opened slowly, independently of each other, one slim crack at a time. The left one stuck a little. His vision cleared enough to pick out the details of a woman. She was leaning over him, her face a little too close for his comfort.
It felt familiar.
He recognized her, and realized this wasn’t the first time she’d loomed over him, wearing a similar frown. His lips parted with the same degree of difficulty as his eyelids. He tried to say her name, but only a cracking wheeze came forth.
Briar Wilkes.
Zeke’s mother.
If he’d had the energy, he might’ve recoiled. She was mean—he knew it firsthand. She’d threatened his life, limbs, and soul after Zeke had gone under the city walls; and now that Zeke was dead, she had plenty of reason to follow through on those threats. He wanted to cringe away from her, to sink farther into the thin mattress (a mattress? Yes … it was definitely a mattress) to avoid her and her inevitable wrath.
“He’s waking up. ”
Briar Wilkes said, “If you can call it that. Hey, Rector, can you see me? Do you know what happened? Do you know where you are?”
He tried to shake his head, but it wouldn’t move. His best defense was a pitiful one. He quit the uphill fight to hold his eyelids open, and let them shut, so at least he couldn’t see her.
The other woman said, “It’s all that powder he’s burned up. It’s cooked his brain. Look at him, you can see he’s been using. ”
“Worthless kid. Should’ve tossed him right back over the wall. ”
“He reminds me of the men in the Salvation Army hospital. I told you about that, didn’t I?”
Miss Wilkes again. “How one of ’em tried to bite you?”
“That’s right. This boy, he’s not that bad yet. It’s not too late. ”
“You’ve got more faith in him than I do. ”
“Well, I never met him before. Could be he’ll convince me otherwise. ”