Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Does Humpback smile?

Blind knows where this superstition comes from. A big part of it is his habit of quietly assuming the inflections of anyone he's talking to. It happens by itself, almost unconsciously. By doing that he reduces the distance, makes the words easier to understand. Sometimes it makes even the thoughts easier to guess. But this habit by itself wouldn't make Humpback want to hurt him now.

“I had my dreams,” Humpback says. “They were my own. My secret place. No one knew about it. And then you barged in and ruined it. Forced that horrible child on me. She hides all the time and then jumps out when I least expect it, and starts biting and scratching like a wolverine. You turned my dreams into nightmares. I can't even be in a room at night anymore, I'm always expecting her to sneak in on me and tear at my face. I'm not even talking about being able to sleep. Only here, in the tree, and only for minutes at a time. I know why you did it. Because you can't stand it when someone escapes from you! Escapes to where you have no power!”

Blind laughs.

“What makes you think that you're the only one to have that dream? That it's a dream at all?”

Humpback suddenly reeks of danger. The scent is so strong that Blind grabs the nearest branch, even though it's not nearly thick enough to support him.

“If I were to push you off right now, are you going to reach the ground? Or will you evaporate on the way down?”

Humpback's voice echoes with the sound of Blind's fall and the twigs cracking. Or maybe it's bones.

“I’ll grab you, and we’ll fall together.”

“That's not an answer.”

“I didn't like the question.”

Humpback sighs heavily.

“Those aren't dreams, Humpback. Believe me,” Blind says. “But you must have already figured that out.”

Nanette pounds the trunk with her beak, imitating a woodpecker. Blind tears off a leaf that's been tickling his cheek and crushes it in his fingers. They become slightly sticky and bring in the smell of the Forest. It helps Blind regain his composure. You should always smell of things that surround you, that's one of the Forest survival tricks. Becoming a part of it reduces the danger. It's a bit like copying the inflections. Blind has long been a believer in this technique, ever since the time he devoured the walls of the House when he was little.

“If not dreams, what is it, then?” Humpback says.

“You know yourself,” Blind says indifferently.

Humpback is silent. Only his fingers move, rubbing the flute. The dappled rays of the sun are hotter now, they burn Blind's skin where they touch it, these solar bites wandering back and forth in the feeble breeze that ruffles the leaves.

Once, long ago, on this very junction where Blind now sits, he was hit by a crossbow bolt. It didn't pierce him, only hit and bounced off. He remembers how frightened he was. Not of the blow itself and not of the pain that followed, but because the one who did it remained invisible. He could not guess who it was, standing below with the makeshift weapon that was in vogue among the juniors, he could not even be sure it was one of his classmates and not a senior, and it's the thought that it could have been anyone that was scarier than meeting a barrage of arrows from a noisy, arrogant, obvious adversary. Why was he remembering it now? What makes one relive an event that does not, on the surface, have anything to do with the conversation he's having? Blind's hand slips under his shirt, the fingers caressing the stomach in the spot where the bruise used to be.

“How much time does it take to reload a crossbow?” he says.

Humpback's silence is more telling than would be his scream. Blind is amazed at his discovery. So it really was Humpback. Honorable and generous even at six years old. Protector of strays and bullied newbies. Blind had all the reasons to be frightened back then. The one standing under the tree with a crossbow turned out to be the one who could not have been standing there and doing what he had done. That's where the silence comes from. Humpback is ashamed, like a grown-up would be ashamed of an evil deed.

“How much time does it take to vanish?” Humpback says stiffly. “To fade away into thin air, like you never existed?”

“You didn't answer my question.”

“Nor you, mine.”

Blind spits out a strand of hair that somehow found its way into his mouth.

How can you explain something that is in the nature of things for you, and at the same time impossible and fantastic for everyone else? How can you express the knowledge, the experience that took you years to accumulate, in mere words? Yes, of late Blind finds that he is being called to do just that more and more often, but it doesn't make the task any easier.

“When I came here I was five,” he begins. “Everything was simple then. The House was Elk's House, and the miracles were of his making. As soon as I entered I realized that I knew more about this place than should have been possible, and that I was different here. The House opened itself before me, opened all of its dreams, its doors, its endless paths, all but the tiniest objects in it sang loudly to me when I approached. It was Elk's House, so how could it be otherwise? At night I ate pieces of its walls, believing that this brought me closer to Elk. He was the god of this place, the god of its forests, swamps, and mysterious ways. He used to tell me, ‘The world is boundless, it opens up outside the door, and there will come a time when you’ll understand it, my boy.’ What could I have thought of those words except that we were not allowed to talk, other than in riddles, of what only the two of us knew about?”

Humpback is silent. Only his breathing betrays his presence.

“Years passed,” Blind continues, “and I realized that all that had nothing to do with him. That he was not the creator of this place, or its god, that it existed separately from him, that the secret I thought we shared belonged to me alone. Then it turned out that there were others, but it made no difference anymore. Because for me it was always about him. And he simply didn't know. He lived his life on the Day Side, lived there and died there, and the House did not protect him. It would have protected me, because I was a part of it, but Elk wasn’t. The House is not responsible for those it didn't let in. It isn't responsible even for those it did, if they get lost, or get scared at the wrong moment, or don't get scared at the right moment, and especially if they think that what they see are just dreams. Dreams where you can die and then wake up. Those like you. Thinking that the Night Side is a fairy tale. The Night Side is strewn with their skulls and bones, with the tattered remains of their clothes. Every dreamer thinks this place is his. That since he created it, nothing bad could happen to him while he's there. Sooner or later it does happen. And one morning he doesn't wake up.”

Humpback swallows.

“What about you?” he says. “Did you know right away that it wasn't a dream?”

“I never had dreams before I came here,” Blind says drily. “I am not sighted, if you recall.”

Humpback shifts on his branch, sits differently. Clicks the lighter. He clicks and clicks, again and again, until there appears a cloyingly sweet, vanilla-scented cloud.

“So I'm a Jumper?” Humpback says indistinctly. The pipe gets in the way of words. He takes it out and adds, “That word always sounded funny to me.”

Blind shrugs.

“You can call yourself something else if you wish. The word is irrelevant.”

“And that little monster ...”

“Is Godmother,” Blind says. “I had no choice but to drag her over, and it's not my fault she turned into what she did. I've left her with you to wake you up.”