Chris Adrian - The Great Night

“Well,” said the little man in the suit, “it’s a little more complicated than that .”

“I’m Will,” said the handsome fatty, sticking his hand out to everyone in turn. “Will’s my name.” The boy with the tail took his hand and shook it enthusiastically but didn’t say what his name was.

“My name is Lyon,” said the psoriatic. “That is Oak.” He pointed at Bunny Boy and reached out a hand to touch the little man in the suit. “This is Fell. We are all good servants of our Master, and therefore of our Mistress, and for these reasons we are trying to help you. You were in danger outside, so we brought you in. Our Master always bade us to escort mortals off the hill, if they wandered in. But there’s no way off the hill tonight.”

“I wouldn’t normally be helping you at all,” said Oak.

“Oh, I would have helped you,” said Fell, speaking directly to Henry. “I don’t quite know why, but I like you, my boy. I like you just fine!”

“What’s your name?” Will asked Henry. He snapped his fingers right under Henry’s nose, but they still seemed very far away. Henry felt like his head was floating up near the ceiling, and like watching everyone from above should give him not just a high perspective but a long one, and it should all make sense somehow.

“Henry,” he said. “I’m Henry.” He was floating but not floating, calling his name out from the ceiling and speaking it softly on the ground. He was there but not there, and that allowed him to act very calm. Funny, he thought, how often he had described his old self, to Bobby and his therapist, to coworkers and dates and even random tricks, as a dissociated creature, when he hadn’t fully understood what that word meant until just now. He was in his body but above and around it too, and it felt not like he could do anything but like anything could be done to him without his much minding or noticing, which seemed its own sort of superpower.

“This is …” Will said, indicating the girl with his thumb. “What did you say your name was?”

“Tallulah Marie Jingleheimer Schmidt,” she said. Henry tilted his head and frowned at her. “What are you looking at?” she asked him, which made him frown more. On closer inspection, she wasn’t that pretty after all, but there was something pleasing about her to look at. He thought it might just be that she was troubled looking.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Will. “Why won’t you tell us your name? And why are you being so hostile?”

“Why am I being so hostile ?” She waved her arms around, indicating everything around them.

“Well, we’re all in this together,” Will said.

“Not really,” she said. The door shook again, and they all looked at it. Will and the girl both shuddered again, and the three others all made a gesture, touching their thumbs and index fingers together to make a sign that looked to Henry like okay! but he could tell it was meant to ward something away.

“Somebody’s knocking,” Henry said.

“Can she … Can it get in?” Will asked.

“Maybe,” said the three creatures. Looking at them a little more closely, Henry could not figure out a better word for them. They became more abnormal the closer he examined them. He noticed little details — string for skin, purple eyes, a knee that was jointed backward — which made it increasingly clear that they weren’t actually human. Of course they’re not human , he said to himself, and he could not understand why that was both a relief and a terror, or why he could accept it with a calm that was equal, in his new binary state, to the shrieking panic he was also feeling.

“Iron was a good choice,” said Lyon. “I think perhaps it was my Master, watching over us in spirit. Who else would choose so wisely, and what other faerie is mighty enough to summon so much iron?”

“Master!” said Oak, running up to the front of the room and falling on his knees to prostrate himself before an empty high-backed chair set there on a dais. “Master, show your face!”

“Faeries,” said Will, looking at each of the three in turn and walking backward away from Lyon, who was standing close to him.

“There’s no such thing,” Henry said.

“Of course not!” Molly said, shoving Will away violently when he backed into her. “They’re not real. I made them up. I made you up. Do you know who that is out there?” She glared at him and then at Henry. “Stop looking at me! ” she said, and started crying before she ran away down the long hall, her footsteps echoing off the stone walls.

“Wait!” said Will, and she called back, “Shut up shut up shut up !”

“Mortals,” said Oak. “They always think they’re dreaming.”

“Maybe we are,” Henry said, though what was happening felt unreal in a completely different way from a dream.

“I don’t think so,” said Will. “But I’m still waiting to hear what’s happening. And shouldn’t we go get her? Something might be dangerous in there.” He pointed toward the darkness at the far end of the hall.

“Many things are dangerous there,” said Lyon, “but nothing as dangerous as what lies in the opposite direction. We should all go her way. There’s another door, down at the bottom of the hill, known only to my Lord’s most trusted servants.”

“Everyone knows that door,” said Fell. “And who cares if we’re eaten over the hill or under the hill? Eaten is eaten. Dead is dead. We may as well stay right here.”

“Our Lord is coming!” said Oak, still prostrate before the empty throne. “He’ll save us all,” he added, very quietly. Henry had been wondering if the boy was capable of talking without shouting. He walked across the hall and up on the dais, and laid his hand upon the wood. It felt like an infraction to touch it, he didn’t know why. He gave it a kick for no reason at all. “A great ass rested there!” said Oak, shouting again, and Henry shrugged. “But maybe …” Oak said. “Maybe you should sit.” He leaped up and sniffed at Henry’s bottom. “Is that what I smell?” He pushed Henry back into the chair, saying, “Look, the King is reclaimed by his throne!” and watched expectantly as nothing happened. It felt like a worse infraction to be sitting there, and there wasn’t any naughty joy in it. Henry stood up. “You didn’t change, my Lord,” said Oak, and started to cry.

“Yes I did,” Henry said. Oak had already run to get Will. He dragged him over to the chair and sat him down.

“This is really uncomfortable,” Will said.

“A mortal is a mortal,” said Lyon. “These ones are no different from any others.”

“Alas! Alas!” said Oak. The door shook again, and they all cringed, but Henry didn’t cringe. He was protected, he supposed, from whatever regular capacity for feeling made them sensitive to the thing that was trying to get them. He tried and failed to imagine what it looked like.

“What does it look like?” he asked. “This beastie.”

“Not a beastie ,” said Oak. “Haven’t you been listening at all?”

“The Beast looks different to everyone who sees it,” said Lyon.

“But is uniformly terrible to behold,” said Fell.

“Can we get moving?” asked Will. “I think I just saw a bolt jiggle.”

“I’ll just stay,” Henry said. “I’ve gone about as far as I want to.” That was true. He found, when he thought about it, that he was a little more afraid of what lay beyond the hall than he was of what lay behind the door.

“You can’t,” said Will. “Look, we should stick together. We’re all in this together.”

“You keep saying that,” Henry said. “But it isn’t really true. I don’t even know you. Or you, or you, or you.”