Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Sphinx realizes that the “almost” is in fact Smoker, so discombobulated by the encounter with Great Bird that he needed to flush it out by covering the walls of the House with nasty caricatures. It saddens him that without the rakes he can no longer make coffee for the two of them, and also that Vulture is nervous and seems to be preparing to ask him for something but can't muster enough courage, but most of all that Vulture has dressed up and brought chocolate, trying to conceal the purpose of his visit.

“I wanted to pass a warning to Blind,” Vulture says. “My Birdies, numbering two, say they saw Solomon last night. I thought Blind might want to be apprised of that.”

“He returned? In secret?” Sphinx says, surprised.

Vulture's shoulders twitch.

“I do not know. Perhaps. Birdies' tales are generally not to be trusted. However, they did see him independently and their descriptions seem to match. They say he looks fairly bedraggled.”

The news of the raggedy runaway Rat sneaking around the House at night does nothing to cheer up Sphinx, but nothing to scare him either.

“Sad story, if you think about it,” he says. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

The patter of the raindrops against the ledge quickens. The room is darkened. Sphinx gets up and goes to the window. Where the clouds haven't consumed the sky yet, it is still orange. The yard is flooded with otherworldly light, and Logs, ecstatic at this sudden gift of nature, jump about in the rain. Mustang with Jackal aboard does loops around and between them. Sphinx knows that Tabaqui's expression is incredibly smug now, making Logs suspect that he was somehow involved in the weather changing.

“Now tell me what it is you really came here for,” Sphinx says, turning around.

Bird has closed his eyes and turned to stone, the way only true birds of prey can. His amber-colored raiment seems to glow in the dusk.

“Sphinx, you are my only hope,” he says calmly and evenly.

The disconnect between his words and the way they have been said is disturbing.

“What happened?” Sphinx says.

“What happened, happened long ago. Only yesterday for me, but long ago for everyone else. We all need miracles, Sphinx. Some of them are possible and some are not, so we choose to pursue the possible. But then, after you've chosen, it turns out that you are not strong enough to achieve even that. Do you understand what I am talking about?”

Sphinx does. He would have preferred not to.

“Jackal is a close friend to you,” Vulture says softly. His words are almost drowned in the rustling of rain and the clamor from below. “Ask him for me. He will not refuse if you are the one asking.”

Sphinx comes back to the bed and sits down next to Vulture, to avoid looking in his face.

“He will,” Sphinx says. “Trust me, a thing like that he will refuse. He’ll pretend to not understand what I'm asking. He’ll just be Jackal. The thing is, he wouldn't even be pretending, not really, because that which distributes return tickets is not Tabaqui at all. And he—it—is an expert in handling situations like that, has been since way before you and I were born. And... I swear, there's no way of reaching it from here. Only from the Other Side.”

Vulture sags, resting his chin on his hand. He has already accepted defeat, but still says, “You are not that easy to refuse when you ask for something.” What he wants the most at this moment is to end this unpleasant conversation, leave Sphinx, and grieve alone, privately. That's what he wants. But he perseveres.

“Neither are you,” Sphinx says sadly. “Which is why I’ll do what you asked.”

“But he will refuse.”

“But he will refuse.”

Vulture's devilish yellow eyes stare at Sphinx.

“In that case,” he forces himself to say. “If you are so sure about that... Do not concern yourself. I believe you. If it were this easy, it wouldn't be a miracle. But, you know... Sometimes I feel, or rather I used to feel, that it was me who it was supposed to have happened to. Max and I ...”

Noble chooses this moment to wheel into the dorm, and Sphinx is almost ready to kill him for the unfortunate timing, but Vulture continues as if nothing had happened.

“We were too much of a single person for one of us to remain alive after the other went away. We were not simply close, we were one. After what happened to him, I figured that since one half of me stayed on, and kept staying on, then at least the life I was leading should have some meaning. Which it would, except for my utter worthlessness. I remain a mere Jumper even after all the poison I have forced into myself. On the Other Side the events control me, not I them.”

Noble is frozen near the door. He is looking down at the floor as he listens to Vulture. Sphinx glances in his direction and is filled with compassion. Judging by Noble's expression, he is unlikely to fully appreciate the fact that Vulture has just accepted him into the closest circle, made him one of those worthy of listening to his innermost secrets. Likely as not he thinks that Vulture simply didn't notice him.

“And the worst thing is,” Vulture says. “The worst thing is, if it were him instead of me, he would have succeeded where I have failed. He was so much stronger.”

The rain picks up, drowning the screams in the yard below. Beyond the window it's a uniformly gray curtain. Drops ricochet off the ledge, the windowsill is already soaking wet, and there's soon going to be a puddle on the floor. Sphinx wishes to simply watch all of this unfold. Or stick halfway out of the window, under the streaking, streaming wetness, and breathe it in. Washing off the pain that's not his own.

“So I keep thinking,” Vulture sighs. “How did it happen that the one who died was the wrong one?”

The canteen is in a festive mood. The atmosphere is cheerful, noisy, and squelching. The floor is covered in dirt and crisscrossed by the trails of rubber wheels. Those who got a dose of the rain showed up either wrapped in towels or, if they came up directly from the yard, simply soaking wet. Rats have their boombox blaring at full blast, and their table features a likeness of Iggy Pop cut out from a magazine and glued onto cardboard, at the place of honor in the middle. A patron saint, as it were. It is also his voice that's screaming from the speakers. Birds strut with black towels on their heads and warm themselves by means of sipping from mysterious bottles that they pass around under the table.

The table of the Fourth is more soulful than merry. Lary, in a striped turban fashioned from towels, slurps his soup with the pinkie of the hand holding the spoon sticking daintily out. Smoker scratches industriously in the infamous notebook, shielding it from prying eyes. Tubby is busy chewing on the napkin. Tabaqui, swaddled in a bath sheet from head to toe, occupies a chair while Mustang is drying next to him, and judging by its look it has a lot of drying still ahead of it.

Sphinx is barely able to sit down before Tabaqui already sidles up to him along the edge of the table.

“The love potion for Mermaid came out great,” he announces above the din. “One hundred percent guaranteed results.”

“What would she want with it?”

“What do you mean?” Tabaqui says incredulously. “For the parrot!”

Sphinx recalls that someone in the girls' wing keeps an aggressive bird, a female, that's learned to open its cage from inside. A big chunk of their hallway is now out of bounds as a result, and the inhabitants of the rooms near the parrot's den do not venture out except with opened umbrellas at the ready. Sphinx lately hasn't heard anything about the exploits of the old macaw and assumed that the problem had been dealt with one way or another.