Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Witch raised her hand in a farewell gesture. He nodded and took off again. He ran without stopping the rest of the way. The soaked jeans clung to his legs.

What does she know about me? What am I going to become when I’m older?

Blind wasn't in the room. Magician, his bad leg propped on a pillow, absentmindedly tortured the guitar. Humpback's bunk was topped by a triangular white tent. This tent, made from bedsheets strung over wooden slats, came crashing down every morning, and every night Humpback resurrected it. He liked his privacy.

Grasshopper looked at the tent. Someone was moving inside it now. The walls bulged and flapped. But the entrance was tightly closed, so that no one could peek in. Grasshopper sighed with relief. Humpback was in and busy with his own concerns, not keeping watch by the door armed with probing questions, as he'd feared.

Stinker was also busy, stringing pieces of apple, planning to hang them up for drying. Humpback's coat, wet and plastered with dirt, lay on the floor.

Wolf dangled his feet off the windowsill.

“What we need in the yard is a field kitchen,” he said. “For all the stray dogs. Then you and Humpback could don those white toques and the dogs would form a line. Each holding a bowl in its front paws.”

“Wolf, can you see how I'm going to be when I grow up?” Grasshopper said.

“Some things, I guess,” Wolf said, surprised. “Why?”

“No reason. I just thought you might know.”

“You're probably going to be tall. And thin.”

“And covered in spots,” Stinker squeaked. “All the seniors have zits. Face like a strawberry patch. You're going to be sort of spotty reddish blond. Oh, and sideburns. The unkempt kind.”

“Thanks,” Grasshopper said darkly. “What about yourself?”

“Who, me?” Stinker waved the unfinished string of apples in the air and closed his eyes dreamily. “Yes, yes, I can clearly see myself! Six years from now. A fine specimen of a man. No one is immune from the overwhelming charms of my piercing gaze. Women go weak-kneed and drop at my feet. In droves. All I need to do is lean over and pick them up, the poor darlings.”

“When you do that, try not to trip over your ears,” Wolf warned. “Or they'd think a mosquito fell on them.”

Stinker turned away, scandalized. Humpback's tent wobbled and produced a shaggy head.

“Wolf, this book is disgusting. This one run through with a sword, that one run through with a sword. I've had enough. I'm going to have nightmares about them now.”

“Then stop reading. It's your choice, no one's making you.”

Humpback pulled in his head and angrily fastened the flap. The tent shook again. Wolf and Grasshopper watched it with concern until it stopped listing to one side.

“They're going to take me to the Sepulcher for a day or two,” Wolf said. “Tomorrow morning. But only for a short while.”

“Why?” Grasshopper asked. “I thought you were cured.”

Wolf lay on the floor with his hands behind his head.

“They want to stuff me in this corset. So that I go around with the Sepulchral shell on my back. Like a tortoise. Old and wise.”

He tried to make it sound like a joke, but there was something in his voice that Grasshopper hadn't heard for a long time.

“Are you scared?” he asked.

“I'm scared of nothing,” Wolf said.

His eyes became very angry. Grasshopper winced.

“Please don't, Wolf... Your thoughts now smell different than your words. It's so obvious.”

Wolf propped himself up on his elbows.

“Say again? Thoughts have a smell now? And you can hear it? I'd understand if Blind was saying this stuff. But the only one who talks like that is you. How come?”

Wolf was mocking him, but the sharp thorns in his eyes had faded away, and Grasshopper relaxed.

“Just a shitty turn of phrase,” Stinker mumbled.

“Shitty yourself,” Humpback countered from within the depths of the tent, defending his friend. “It's beautiful. Grasshopper talks poetically.”

Grasshopper laughed. Humpback peeked out again.

“What do we do if they don't let you out? Could that happen?”

“In that case I’ll send over a note with precise instructions,” Wolf said.

Stinker perked up.

“We’ll follow them to the letter,” he promised. “The House shall be quaking all the way down to the foundation, or my name is not Stinker. We’ll chain ourselves to the gates of the Sepulcher. Douse each other in kerosene and play catch with matchbooks. Top-notch treatment guaranteed.”

“I believe you,” Wolf said earnestly. “You're just the type to pull it off.”

It was dark and lonely down at the laundry room. Grasshopper sat on the floor by the locked door, waited for Witch, and tried to think about nice things. And not about hearing someone's ragged breath nearby. Or how that someone seemed to be creeping closer. Or how that hole in the wall glinted suspiciously. Like there was an eye behind it.

The hallway here smelled of bleach. The feeble lamp hardly illuminated it, and the library stacks a little farther on were shrouded in complete darkness. Grasshopper tried not to look in that direction, to avoid seeing the inky shadows of the revolving racks where seniors dumped old issues of magazines. He didn't like those shadows a single bit. And the more they stayed motionless, the less he liked them.

The groaning of the elevator distracted him. Grasshopper listened intently. The doors clanked, and someone's steps swished over the linoleum floor. He got up.

Witch stepped out into the pool of light.

“Sorry I'm late,” she said. “Must be scary waiting here all by yourself.”

The shadows of the cabinets and the eye in the wall went right out of Grasshopper's head.

“What's scary about it? There isn't anyone here,” he said. “I have the letter in my pocket. And I gave that other one to Blind. Just as we agreed.”

Her hand slipped into his pocket and took out the envelope. Grasshopper expected her to hide it, but instead she ripped it open and began to read. Grasshopper kept his eyes down. The letter apparently turned out to be very long.

“Thank you,” Witch said as she finished reading. “I hope you weren't too cold back in the yard. It was darn freezing out there.”

“I wasn’t.”

He watched as she produced a small lighter and put the flame to the corner of the envelope. The fire sprang up in her hands. She turned it this way and that with the fingers, dropped the last remaining scrap, and stomped on it.

“So that's that,” she said, rubbing the ashes with her heel.

That was when Grasshopper got really scared. He knew that the letter was a dangerous thing to be carrying, but only now that Witch had burned it did he realize that he'd been walking around with that danger in his pocket and had even managed to forget about it sometimes.

“It's all right,” Witch said, guessing at his horror. “don't think about it. We’ll try writing each other less frequently. But you and Blind shouldn't be talking about it. Even when you’re alone.”

“Blind wouldn't be talking about it even if we were alone in the middle of a desert,” Grasshopper said. “Blind never talks about things that don't concern him. Or those that do, actually.”

“That's good. Come out into the yard from time to time. After dinner. Alone. If you see me there, don't try to talk to me, just walk by so I can put the letter in your pocket. Deal?”

Grasshopper nodded.

“Is it hard... being Skull's girl?” he asked, blushing at his own indiscretion.

“I don't know,” Witch said. “Compared to what? Probably not any harder than being Moor's girl, I guess.”

Grasshopper chewed on his shirt collar a bit.