Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

It had been two weeks already since he'd been referred here for prosthetic fitting. At first Grasshopper had thought that it would be over in a few hours. He'd be given arms—not real ones, of course, but at least somewhat useful—and then he'd be on his way. Only when he ended up in the hospital wing did he realize how little he knew of these things.

He liked it here at first. The unhurried life, the cleanliness, the silence. The Stuffage boys weren't picking on him and the nurses were friendly. Sepulcher seemed light, airy, and peaceful, the nicest place on Earth. Elk brought him books and helped with his homework, just like during his earliest days in the House. Grasshopper couldn't understand why this place was considered bad news. Where did the morbid name “Sepulcher” come from? The word itself used to scare him before he'd come here.

It was fine. Then he started feeling lonely. Especially when the snow came. He missed Blind. And something else too. Grasshopper, now bored, forgot about the books and moved to the windowsill. The nurses would shoo him off, but he climbed right back. He dutifully performed everything he was told to do with the prosthetics, even though he knew that he was unlikely to ever need those skills. They warned him to take care of the prosthetics, and that was when he knew he wasn't going to wear them. They'd just get broken in the very first fight, either accidentally or on purpose. To spend all this time in the Sepulcher was meaningless. So he was spending it looking out of the window.

“Just like a forest creature on a leash,” the nurse said as she came in. “You’ll soon be back with your friends, don't you worry. And it’ll be so much more fun playing with them too.”

He was waiting for her to tell him off for sitting on the windowsill again, but she seemed to have tired of that.

“Do you miss them?” she asked with concern.

“No,” he said without turning around.

It was light already, and the nurse turned off the lamp. He could hear the jangle of the cutlery and the groans of nightstands being moved. The yard was empty, as were the streets outside and the ruins of the snow fortresses. The nurse left, the door clicked shut behind her, and all was silent again. Then someone came in and stopped behind him.

“I wonder how cats go around in the snow when the snow is higher than cats?”

The voice was unfamiliar to him, but Grasshopper didn't turn around.

“They jump,” he said, still looking out to the yard.

“You mean dive in headfirst and jump out again every time? Or are they building tunnels?” The voice smiled. “Like moles?”

Grasshopper turned. There was an unfamiliar boy standing next to him, looking past him out the window. His lips were quaking with laughter, but his eyes remained somber. The most striking thing about him was the clothes. He had on the white top from the hospital pajamas and fraying blue jeans underneath. The sneakers on his feet were black with dirt. Laces undone. His hair was smeared with something white where it fell over his forehead. He didn't look like a patient. He didn't look like anyone Grasshopper had known. The sick were supposed to lie in their clean beds, while the healthy and the able were not supposed to sneak around the Sepulcher entering other people's rooms. But that wasn't the strangest bit. Where in the spic-and-span Sepulcher could one find that much dirt to soil his feet?

“The snow moles,” the boy said dreamily. “They burrow in the winter and come summer they turn into cats. And in the spring, just after the transformation, they emerge from the ground screaming. The March shrews. With their piercing shrieks.”

Grasshopper jumped off the windowsill.

“Who are you?”

“I am a prisoner of the Sepulcher. I wrenched the iron ring to which I've been shackled out of the wall and directed my steps here.”

“Why here?”

“Because I'm a vampire,” the visitor said sincerely. “I came to partake of fresh blood. You wouldn't deny a sick man, would you, my child?”

“What if I would?”

The boy sighed.

“Then I’ll just die. Before your very eyes. In horrible agony.”

This piqued Grasshopper's interest even more.

“All right. Partake, then. But not too much. Not so that I'd die. If you can do that, of course.”

“Very noble of you, my child,” the boy said. “But I am sated today, therefore I reject your offering. The bodies of nurses, bitten and drained, are even now marking the way from my dungeon to this door.”

Grasshopper imagined this vividly. A nurse, and another one, and another... All lying there, bitten, pale, their eyes rolled back.

“Hilarious,” he said.

“Like you won't believe,” the visitor agreed. “Listen, could you hide me here? They're after me. Wooden stakes and all that.”

“Sure,” Grasshopper said eagerly, looking around the room. “Except there isn't anywhere you could hide. You're too big to fit inside the nightstand. And if you go under the bed, they'd see you.”

The guest smirked.

“Leave that to me, O kindhearted youth. The old bloodsucker knows his business. Would you mind if your bed were to become a little bit higher?”

Grasshopper shook his head vigorously. The boy walked to the bed and started turning some kind of lever there. The bed did rise. The guest peeked under it, apparently satisfied.

“There are these elastic bands,” he explained. “Very handy. Unless they're too tight, of course.”

He approached Grasshopper and looked at him intently.

“I like you, young man,” he said earnestly. “And now let us say our good-byes.”

“You're going,” Grasshopper drawled dejectedly.

The boy winked. His eyes were brown, but of such a vivid hue that they seemed almost orange.

“Only as far as under the bed.”

He waved, got on all fours, and crawled under the mattress. Then he scrambled around there, swearing softly, and disappeared.

Grasshopper ran to the bed and listened intently. It was very quiet. You could only distinguish the guest's soft breathing if you bent down all the way to the floor. Grasshopper returned to the windowsill. He was deeply intrigued, but he knew that the nurses must find him in his regular position should they check his room. He rested his chin on his knee and peered into the window, watching and not seeing the yard and the boys now teeming there. He was afraid that anyone coming in would see his flushed cheeks and hear his thumping heart.

They came for him at the assigned time and took him to the playroom, where the prosthetics and the tasks to be performed with them were waiting. When he came back, the nurse was already in with lunch, so he couldn't check if the vampire was still under the bed. And after lunch came Elk.

“How's my student doing?” he asked, opening the door. He had a stack of books in his hands. The white lab coat made him look even taller.

“Chirping nonstop, like a budgie,” Nurse Agatha complained, wiping Grasshopper's mouth. “didn't eat a thing,” she added as she lifted the tray, inviting Elk to observe the smeared mashed potatoes and the wrecked meat loaf.

Grasshopper had indeed been talking without taking a breath. He dreaded pauses and silence. That's when the nurse would hear something else and look under the bed. He doubted the visitor was still there but couldn't risk it if he were.

“Curious,” Elk said, looking Grasshopper in the eye. “He's not usually the chatty type. He is an indifferent eater, though.”

“Well, he sure is chatty today,” the nurse said, putting the tray on the nightstand and covering it with a napkin. “It's your turn now. I'm getting a headache with this boy and his stories. Never in my life have I heard so much nonsense at once.”