Blasted (34 page)

Unless it was her I'd seen in the mirror and the window at my grandfather's house. And who owned those eyes I'd seen under the bed?

“Ruby?” Blue was saying.

“H'm?”

“I said, it's unlikely that it's Shanawdithit you saw. Don't you think?

I shook my head. I knew I'd seen her; that was what mattered. “Yes, of course you're right. I was just a kid.”

“So, I want to hear more about your father's pre-wedding jitters,” Blue said, sitting up.

I laughed a little. “I can practically see him, what he must've looked like. All rumpled in that suit. He never could wear a suit. My mother never got over it. She was quite a belle, see, and she'd always bring it up – in that teasing kind of way, with an edge to it.
But then, Neil almost didn't marry me, did you, baby?
That sort of thing.”

“So it's in your blood, this restlessness.”

I stirred. “I suppose sooner or later I'll have to take myself in hand. My great-aunt said that. That I'd have to come back home some day and…” I trailed off.

Jason had said it: my life here was empty. At home, on the other hand, I had a reason to
be
, I had Grandpa to look after, I had… I had my own bed… The last time I slept at home, where had I gone? Where? What would have happened had I slept that last night? Would the blue men have come for me, sharp teeth gleaming in the moonlight, heads lolling, arms reaching, pale skins and alien eyes? I shivered.

“What's wrong?”

“Someone just walked over my grave.” I lay back down, closer to Blue. One of my hands clutched lightly at the material of his shirt. “Blue?”

“H'm?”

“Do you believe in the Otherworld?”

He paused before replying. “You mean ghosts, the dead walking, omens, strange occurrences, that sort of thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Only a fool wouldn't.”

I thought about that for a while. “How about the, you know,
them
?”

“Who? The little people?”

“Yeah, what did you call them, when you told me that story, you know, about the man and his rabbits?”

“Mimikwisowak.”

We fell silent. At last I couldn't stand it any more. “So, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“
Believe
in them?”

He stretched his long body out. “Back in the early ‘eighties, I was heavily into native traditions. I went up to this place, Heart Hill. We would go there in silence and fast for a day or two; it was that kind of place.”

I murmured as if I understood.

“You could see all over from the top of that hill. It's located on White Bear Reserve, you know, where my friend Bobby lives.” I remembered Bobby from a party Blue had had last year: a big, very quiet man. He had flirted with me and I hadn't been able to respond because I literally couldn't hear half the things he said. “I was visiting with my father. A three-day fast. And one night I heard little drumbeats,” and he beat the floor with his palm, little beats, very fast, “like that. Of course at first I thought it was farm machinery, some farmer up late working, but when I sat up to see, there were no lights from a tractor, nothing like that. So I just lay there. On the third day, the day I was going to finish fasting – it's what they call a vision quest. It was very difficult.” He paused a moment, thinking. “I did clear some emotional issues, heart issues.” The sun burned through shreds of cloud. “On that last day there were eagles flying around; it is a special place. Just before dawn – it was still dark – I was covered up, burrowed deep into my sleeping bag. I look out and the stars are shining, and I thought, oh, it'll be another hour or so before the sun comes up. I'll stay put – because I was afraid of the dark back then. And I wasn't used to being alone. I started concentrating on that drumming I had heard; I was wondering if there were actually little people who had been drumming, and all that, and as I'm lying there, I sort of feel something… in the air.” He paused. “I must have felt something because I'd been fasting, and I was becoming more sensitive to my surroundings. I'm lying there, and all of a sudden I feel these footsteps going right over my belly. Like a little person, walking over my belly. And it wasn't four-legged, it was two legs, eh.” He gave a little laugh. “Two legs. So it stepped over my body, and I remained covered, and I stayed covered until the sun came up.” He laughed again.

“So they were there, you felt them,” I said.

“Yes. They're real. I think they're real.”

“That doesn't make me feel any better.” I wanted so badly to tell him about what had happened to me my last night home, and I took a breath to speak. But no sound came out of my mouth. I tried. I tried again. I felt like I was sinking into coldness, through the earth. Earth was stopping up my throat. A tree was growing through my veins, roots and hands pulling me down. Down into the cold earth.

Blue sat up. “Ruby?”

I shivered and got off the floor. “Good morning,” I said, and went to bed.

CHAPTER 23

Fifty bucks isn't a hell of a lot for a person who wants to get, and stay, drunk. That evening I went around the corner to the liquor store, bought a twenty-sixer of Wiser's Deluxe, one with a miniature bottle of “Special Blend” attached to the neck. I hid it in my bedroom. I'd always been pretty good at concealing when I was drunk.

Two days later, Gil came to stay.

I just hated him. He had red hair, for one thing. I grew up knowing you can't trust people with red hair; they're all shiftless thieves my mother always said. Okay, she was bigoted against the Irish; that doesn't mean she was wrong about the red hair. And another thing – he smiled a lot. At me. All the time. Trying to win me over. I mean, you just can't trust a guy like that. He had long, clever hands and dark blue eyes and practically no body hair; he made me feel like a bloody hairy Viking, for fuck's sake. And he cooked. He checked the fridge first thing, and asked what in heaven's name we'd been eating. I hadn't been shopping in a few days, so it looked sparse and I felt caught out.

As the sun went down Blue produced beer and we drank a few. Then they went out on a dinner date. I locked the door behind them. The click of the metal bearings sent shivers down my spine. I turned on the television and tried to relax, a beer in my fist, finally settling on a re-run of
The Price is Right
. I'd liked the show as a kid, but now the endless drama of chance and guesswork, the terrified, hysterical screams of audience and contestants, the announcer shouting out, “A NEW CAR!!!” crushed me. Joy compacted into three-second bites; sorrow and failure were greeted with an ecstatic groan from the audience, as the unsuccessful contestant was shoved off the set, manic music shrieking away.

As the show wound down, my back began to crawl. It was the sensation of being watched. And then came the unmistakable snap of nightwings at the living-room window. In a row on the sill, a military lineup of the things, eyes gleaming. One, bigger than the others, strutted up and down, its yellow eye fixed on me; it pushed a smaller one along the sill until, without a sound, the little one fell away into the night air.

I moved toward the window, arms waving. “Get away.” It was nighttime; weren't birds supposed to sleep at night? “Get away from me!”

Instead more came, and more, crowding on the sill, a few even pecking at the glass, tapping like tiny hammers. I backed away. I grabbed one of Blue's hoodies from the back of the couch, unlocked the door, keeping my eyes on the crowded window, and fled into the night.

I ran through the streets, not daring to look up. I tried to keep under awnings and overhangs, out of sight of the sky. I don't know how long I staggered through the city, afraid and half-drunk. I found myself in a park, out of breath and heart hammering, limbs exhausted and floating. Chestnut trees spread their leaves over me like green, benedictory hands. There was a concrete bowl among the trees, a fountain in the middle, paths leading off from the circle in the four directions like an Irish cross; a skateboarder danced there. He wore a white Tshirt, swooped and swirled in a whirring, gyrating dance, so beautiful that even the sudden clatter of a missed board was a part of it. The chestnut leaves waved in front of the antique park streetlamps, green fans; a boom box, balanced on the lip of the fountain, pulsed. The skateboarder didn't speak; he didn't look at me but circled and came close and then arced away as skilled as a gull. I stopped where I was and leaned against the rough bark of a tree, sliding down until I was sitting on the ground, watching. Swooping, arms waving for balance, legs lifted for balance – balance. Gradually my breath quieted, my heart returned to normal. He wore ludicrous yet somehow appropriate flying goggles; his white T-shirt billowed like wings. He took a long glide alone, away – so slowly I wondered how he kept upright – then back again, double speed. The crouch, the sudden leap and twist, the clatter of the board. The easy glide, legs apart, arms hanging. I watched him for a long time.

Out of the darkness behind me I thought I heard, so faint, the small sounds of a child's crying, a child's sobs. Still I watched the skateboarder. The crying rose a little, fell away again. I stood. The wail was so small – maybe over there? I walked, the sound of the board following me. There was a breeze; the leaves hissed, unnatural underwater green in the lamplight against the night. The sound of the skateboard seemed to swell behind me. I almost turned back, but – was there a child lost in the dark? I stumbled forward, pushing my way through trees, growing closer together now in a thicket, but still that thin cry pulled me onwards. Now in front of me, now off to the side. Was that light ahead? The trees were opening up at last. I struggled through the branches, twigs plucking at my hair. The sound grew faint, almost disappeared. I was through. An empty street in front of me, rising sun glazing the concrete, harsh after the depths of the grove. The faint cries wailed somewhere behind me, louder, and I turned my head. Then just as suddenly, the sound stopped.

It was a wheel, a squeaky wheel, that's what I'd heard. Off in the distance, just where the street began to curve, I saw a squat, bulky figure covered in fluttering, brightly coloured rags, swaying from leg to leg as she walked and muttered, dragging a clattering bundle-buggy festooned with ribbons and aluminum pie plates. With every step the wheels of the buggy squeaked rhythmically, sounding like nothing so much as some randy neighbours' creaky beadstead. I squinted, unsure if my eyes were playing with me in the half-light, quickened my step toward her. “Izzie!” But she disappeared around the corner with a strange gesture of one thick hand, buggy scraping and rattling in the quiet. I broke into a run. When I got to the corner, the still air held a lingering stench of unwashed body, but she had disappeared from sight. “Izzie?” Nothing, not even a sound. A man riding by on the street glanced at me briefly from his rusty bicycle, then passed on.

I found an early-opening diner and sat there trying to find myself with coffee, and eggs and homefries swimming in grease. It was nearly ten in the morning when I headed to Blue's.

As I trudged up the steps towards the door, I heard laughter inside the apartment. He had people over. I dreaded walking through the door.

The morning light streamed golden and clear through the big loft windows. Blue sat with his legs folded under him on the carpet, looking up at a woman seated in a chair; her black braids swung on either side of her face, her teeth flashed as she smiled. A spherical brown man perched rolypoly on the couch, peering at the rest of them through glasses thick as the bottom of Coke bottles. Another woman with honey-brown hair and grey eyes helped herself to the remains of a feast that littered the low table, her long golden fingers poking among grapes. An old man with short, greying hair and black eyes spoke quietly to another man, huge and handsome, his body coiled with listening. About ten or more people in all, and my eyes noted colour, hair, skin, because they were Indians and that's what eyes like mine do. I'd crept in quietly and it took Blue a moment to notice me.

“Ruby! Come in, are you hungry? Eat some…” he looked at the ruined platters, “some grapes, or some grapes, or half a soggy cracker.”

“Hi.” I moved toward the group. “Where's Gil?” I blurted out.

“White people always feel safer in numbers,” someone said, and they all laughed.

Blue introduced me around. This was a native artists' group I'd heard him speak of, mostly multi-media artists and performers. One of them, the good-looking guy, I remembered from the party where I'd met Clyde. “Oh,” he said, smiling a thin smile, “are you one of Blue's strays?”

I felt my stupid smile go dead on my face. A silence – then a woman clucked reprovingly. Blue laughed, “He's an actor, they behave badly sometimes. Apparently they can't help themselves.”