Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

“Sorry,” I tell him. “Not today.”

He drops down on his haunches and whines.

“Pala!” Rushil whistles for him. “Leave Ava be.”

I make my way to the sloop and mash the hatch controls with my elbow. They start up with a healthy hum, but then a rattle clicks loose somewhere inside. The pneumatics shudder and shriek to a halt. A burned chemical smell wafts from the half-open hatch.

“Miyole?” I call up into the dark interior.

She doesn’t answer.

“Miyole?”

Still nothing. I settle the curry box carefully on the ground and spin the hand crank to open the hatch manually. The door ratchets down with a noisy, metallic ca-chunk-ca-chunk-ca-chunk.

“Miyole?”

I’m getting ready to boost myself up into the darkened berth when she appears, ghostlike, in the open hatch. Her hair and clothes are rumpled from sleep, and her eyes look feverish.

“There you are.” I try to smile for her. “Are you hungry? I got some curry for us on my way home.”

“You eat it.” Miyole stares blankly at the dirt behind me. “I’m not hungry.” And then she turns and disappears into the dark.

“Miyole, wait. Come back!” I call after her. I need to tell her I’m sorry. I need her to be herself again. But she’s gone, swallowed up in the dark again.

I stalk out from underneath the ship and kick a pile of scrap rubber as hard as I can. “Nine hells!”

“Bad time?”

I look up. Rushil stands a few wary feet away. His glasses reflect the streetlamps’ orange glow.

“No.” I clutch my arms to myself, suddenly embarrassed. “It’s just . . .” I gesture back at the ship. “She won’t eat.”

“She’s been through a lot, huh?” Rushil says, but it isn’t so much a question.

“So,” I agree.

“She’s kept herself locked up inside all day.” Rushil frowns. “It’s got to be hot in there without the ship’s environmentals running. I thought maybe you were trying to bake her.” There’s reproach under his teasing, not too harsh, but it’s there.

“I know.” I rub my eyes, exhausted. “I didn’t mean to be so long.”

“Did you find her?” Rushil asks. “Your aunt?”

I have my lie at the ready. “No.” I sigh. And then a truth, of a sort. “I don’t know if I can afford to keep looking. We have to eat.” I think about that man I saw at the train stop earlier, and the boy at Kalina pushing the coins into my hand. That’s not who I want to be, living off other people’s scraps.

“I can help with that, you know.” Rushil looks down and shuffles a foot in the dirt.

“No,” I say quickly. He’s already helping enough, waiting for our payment.

Rushil flinches, and I realize the word came out harder than I meant.

“All I mean is, I don’t want to be in anyone’s debt,” I explain.

Rushil nods. “I get that.” He looks out over the yard. “You have no idea how much I get that.”

A snuffle and scuff come from behind me. I turn and find Pala sniffing the curry container.

“Pala!” Rushil and I both shout at the same time.

The dog hops back and gives us a guilty, pleading look.

“No way.” Rushil shakes his head and points at the trailer. “You have your own food.”

Pala’s tail droops, and he slinks off into the dusk.

I pick up the container. “Do you . . . I mean, would you like some curry?”

“Yeah?” He raises his eyebrows.

“Right so.” I can feel the heat rising in my face, and I’m glad of the darkness. I don’t want Rushil to think I mean anything more than to return the kindness he’s done me. “I mean, Miyole doesn’t want any, and there’s too much for me alone.”

“I never turn down free food.” He glances over his shoulder at his trailer. “Let me go get some spoons.”

I watch him jog back to his house, and then I climb inside the sloop. Miyole huddles in a corner, on top of several of the snow jackets Perpétue kept in storage. I kneel next to her and brush the sweat-soaked hair from her face. I’ve never seen her look so small.

“Miyole?” I whisper. “Are you sick?”

She burrows deeper into the coat.

“Miyole . . .”

“No.” She opens her eyes and rolls over to glare at me. “I’m not sick. Leave me alone.”

I sit back, stung. “I’m sorry,” I say, and then I notice the fresh white bandages wrapped around her hands. “Who did this?”

“Rushil.” She closes her eyes. “Can I lie back down now?”

“Course,” I say. Rushil. First feeding us, then waiting on our payments, now this. How am I ever supposed to repay him when he keeps doing so many kindnesses for us?

When I drop back out of the hatch, Rushil has dragged over his two folding chairs and positioned them next to each other beneath one of the sloop’s wings.

“She okay?” he asks.

I hand him the curry box and collapse into a chair. “I don’t know.”

Rushil sits in the other chair. “You said her mum died?”

I look at him, and my face must show how I feel.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s none of my business.”

He opens the curry. “This smells amazing. Where did you get it?”

“One of those little places across from the station.”

“Chander’s? Grand Tasty?” He takes a bite and his eyes go wide. “Mmm. Not Durga’s, is it?”

“I don’t think it had a name.” I turn the spoon over in my hands. “I don’t mind, you know . . . if we talk about Miyole.”

Rushil goes quiet for a moment, digging around in the curry.

“My mum ran off when I was around her age,” he finally says. He takes a huge bite and hands the box back to me. “That’s when I came here to live with my uncle.”

“The one who died?” I ask.

Rushil swallows and nods.

“I’m sorry.” I take a bite and hand the box back to him. “You don’t have much family, then?”

Rushil shrugs and takes another bite of curry. “I do okay.” He holds the box out to me. “What about you?”

I nearly drop my spoon, startled. “What about me?”

“D’ you have any family other than that aunt of yours?”

My eyes stray to the sky, but the city is so bright, I can’t see the stars. Anger streaks through me. “Do you think I’d be here if I did?”

Rushil lowers the box. “Point taken.”

“Sorry. I just . . .” I look up at the ship. “All I have is Miyole.”

Rushil lays a hand on the arm of my chair, more serious than I’ve ever seen him. “I meant what I said. Any way I can help, I’m in.”

I stare at his hand a beat too long, those scarred knuckles, and then look up and clear my throat. “What I need is work. If the ship weren’t so bust, I could do runs. . . .” I shake my head and sigh.

“Maybe I could help you patch it up.” He cranes his neck back at the wing above us, adjusts his glasses, and grimaces.

I laugh. “Does it look that bad?”

“What? No! I didn’t mean it like that.”

I raise my eyebrows.

“Okay, it’s a little rough,” he says. “But I’m sure it’s got good bones.”

“The best.” I smile.