Marjorie Liu - Within the Flames

He squeezed her hand. “It could be worse.”

A short, sad laugh escaped her. “Yeah.”

And then she sucked in her breath. Eddie knew that sound. Full of pain, shock.

“What is it?” he asked sharply, staggering backward as she hunched over, her shoulder hitting his. Her entire body quaked with terrible violence, and a crawling sensation filled his throat.

Heat exploded against his skin, sparks of flames riding through the air. His left shirtsleeve caught on fire, illuminating the darkness.

Lyssa stood beside him, hugging her right arm against her body. She twisted, shielding her eyes from the light, and snarled.

“Put that out,” she said harshly.

“You’re hurt.”

She tried to knock him back. Eddie ignored the weak blow and moved in close. Fire shone golden and warm on her hair. She kept her face turned away from him.

“Lyssa,” he said again.

“It’s nothing. My arm. I told you, I have trouble with it, sometimes.”

“Let me see.”

“No,” she said, and shuddered. “All I need is time.”

He ripped off the remains of his burning sleeve and held it in his hand. “Are we close to where you were taking me?”

Lyssa nodded tightly. “Just down this tunnel.”

Eddie slid his arm around her waist. “Relax. I’ve got you.”

She was silent a moment.

“I’m glad,” she said.

According to Lyssa, the subway tunnel that Eddie soon found himself in had been the victim of bad planning, corrupt politics, and a more powerful real-estate developer who had wanted all that underground territory for his own projects. Sealed at both ends some time in the early seventies, it was blocked off from anything functional — except for two very old tunnels, hand-dug, that had been uncovered during the initial excavation.

Eddie and Lyssa emerged from one of those tunnels, dirty and tired, and sweating.

He heard voices in the distance. She bumped him sideways with her hip and steered him across rough, uneven ground. The remains of his sleeve had burned to almost nothing, leaving him nearly blind — again.

Lyssa stopped him. “We’re here.”

Eddie wasn’t sure what that meant — until, unexpectedly, she placed his hand on a steel bar that slanted down and felt like a rail.

“Hold on,” she muttered, and he listened to her move away from him, her feet scuffing upward as though climbing stairs. His sleeve turned to ash. Eddie let it fall away from his hand, and waited in the darkness.

Metal rattled. A loud groan filled the air.

Then, light. A flickering flame. Eddie focused on it and sighed.

Lyssa held a candle in her hand. It shed enough light that he could see the stairs beside him.

He joined her at the narrow doorway. She had already taken off his jacket and laid it neatly on the back of a small plastic chair.

“This used to be the workers’ station,” she told him. “Come in.”

It was one small room made of concrete, with a stone floor that had been carefully swept and covered in bright-colored rugs. A plastic table was set against the wall, covered in paper and pens, inks, tin cans full of brushes. Water jugs were on the floor, surrounding a small cooler. In the corner was a sleeping bag.

In his opinion, quite cozy. Surprisingly so. Homey, even.

Except for the scent of smoke, and charred walls.

Eddie walked in, carefully. If he’d been wearing a hat, he would have taken it off. He felt as though he were trespassing, that the ground beneath him was made of glass. He was certain, in his gut, that few people ever came here.

“You’re probably wondering how anyone could live like this.” Lyssa set the candle on the desk and started lighting others. She used matches, he noticed. Not her own power.

He joined her at the table. “No, I would have been happy for something this good, not so long ago.”

Lyssa glanced at him. Eddie said, “I told you I was homeless.”

“Yes,” she said, with particular gentleness.

“I ended up in Los Angeles. It wasn’t an easy place to survive.”

“L.A.,” she said, staring at him with a compassion that made him want to sit down. “I tried living there when I was thirteen. It was a nightmare. I went to Vegas next, but when you’re a kid, alone, there’s nothing for you.”

“Nothing you want to be part of,” he added. “You were younger than me.”

“Twelve, when I. . when I began. I didn’t know anything.” Lyssa looked down at the table and scattered paintings. “How’d you survive?”

“I stole,” he said, and hated those words, and the memories. “I got odd jobs. I ate from garbage cans. I did everything short of prostituting myself. Sometimes I wonder if I didn’t do that anyway, just not with sex.”

Lyssa didn’t say anything, just ran her fingers over a watercolor filled with flames and an empty white spot. Eddie said, “I’ve never talked about it.”

“How could you? No one would understand.” She finally looked at him. “It’s not just surviving. It’s keeping the secret. It’s keeping other people safe from you.”

“I don’t like to remember.” He took a deep breath, then another, and studied the watercolors and sketches in front of him. There were a lot, and each was extraordinary: castles on clouds, and dragons floating on ponds; and women holding spears, with flowers in their hair.

There was fire, too. Fire, in several paintings, and in one, especially, which Lyssa kept staring at.

“These are beautiful,” he said, which was inadequate, but he thought she might be embarrassed by too much praise.

“Thanks.” Lyssa went to the cooler and flipped it open. Inside was half a loaf of wheat bread, a small bag of apples, and a couple bottles of water. “I’m an illustrator.”

“Really?”

“Surprise,” she said, with a faint smile. “Mostly children’s books, some comic-book covers. I do spreads in magazines, every now and then.”

“I. .” Eddie stopped, and took a water bottle from her outstretched hand. “How?”

“I taught myself. I told you I hung out in libraries. I spent time around the art books, because I liked the pictures. . and I had done a lot of drawing before my parents died. My dad was a painter. Most of his work. . burned in the fire.” Lyssa cleared her throat. “I’d find old newspaper or scraps of scratch paper around the library. . pencils, pens. . and then I’d draw. I drew everything. There was a librarian in Salt Lake City. . Mrs. Shue. . who paid special attention to me. She gave me a sketchbook, and I used that to make money. I’d tell people I was in high school, raising cash for charity. . and then I’d draw portraits for whatever people wanted to donate.”

Eddie smiled in admiration. “And then?”

“Luck. I drew a portrait of a woman who ran a local comic-book store, and she liked what I did enough that she had me sketch some superheroes for an event she wanted to advertise. It wasn’t much, but it gave me confidence. And then Mrs. Shue started leaving out books on art school. I knew I couldn’t go, but I started researching how people make a living at that sort of thing. Building a portfolio, making contacts. It helped that my librarian was having some luck selling her own writing. She started making inroads at children’s magazines and recommended me to some editors.”

“You did it.”

Lyssa shrugged. “It was slow. I didn’t have anything better to do. I wasn’t in school, so all my time was spent trying to make a living at the only thing I was really good at.”

She made it sound as though it were nothing, but Eddie knew better. Brains, determination, talent. . she’d taken all that, and despite everything else against her. . had turned it into something beautiful.