Pasha Malla - People Park

The engines roared and off they slid toward the Islet. At night the crossing seemed slower and lonelier than it did during the day, a sluggish grumble through the dark. Though tonight Olpert hardly noticed time passing or the lakebreeze batting his face. Starx’s huge domed head kept rearing into his thoughts. And with him came the boy, or not the boy, just that single glazed and horrible eye: You did this to me, Olpert Bailie, you.

He felt gutted. All he wanted was sleep. Even the prospect of being pulled from bed, handcuffed, and escorted back to shore seemed worth it to collapse into his sheets, slip away, and, if only for a few hours, be nothing but not awake. But handcuffed by whom? His uniform precluded him from justice. Or the forces of justice had deemed him just — they’d even abetted his escape.

The water slurped the sides of the boat. Olpert pictured himself in a limp, tired way tipping over the railing — the icy throttle of the water, sucked under, the peace of sinking to the Cove’s dank, cold bottom. He’d never been much of a swimmer, it wouldn’t take much to drown. The engines chugged, the water churned. And just as Olpert was gathering himself to mount the railing the Islet’s lights shone down, the woodsy couple sidled up, and the ferry bumped into port.

OTHER THAN THE milky hump concentrated over Crocker Pond, the fog on the common had almost completely dissipated. The thinning clouds exposed a dull and flat and sparsely starred sky, not the big wet-seeming messy sort of night Gip was used to back home, which suggested other worlds and dreams. This was muddy, the low moon a halved apple afloat in a bucket of muck. It was in the light of this moon that Gip found his knapsack stashed sidestage.

He opened it, riffled through all the junk his dad had packed — and, with a grin, pulled out the Grammar . Yes, he cried. Yes!

Then he climbed into the gazebo. The illustrationist’s trunk sat front and centre where he’d left it, or it’d left him, the lid gaped, locks busted into useless tin crabclaws. Standing upon the ducktape X, Gip examined the trunk: its velvet lining was scuffed and threadbare in parts, but there was no sign of any trapdoor or hatch through which Raven might have slipped away. Such trickery wasn’t how illustrations worked anyway, Gip knew.

Gip tilted the Grammar toward the moonlight and flipped through to the 10th Situation: Abduction. A succession of line drawings presented a figure beside the trunk, brandishing an image, and the second —

The light extinguished. Someone had turned off the moon! No: a hulking figure had appeared stageleft, his torpedo-shaped head concealed a section of sky.

Gip Goode? said a big, round voice. We’ve been looking for you.

Gip Poole, said Gip.

Whatever, said the man. He was dressed strangely — coveralls that sagged at his waist, a tiny shirt that struggled to contain his massive torso — and approached cautiously, saying something about people who had questions for Gip. The moon peeked over the top of the man’s head, illuminating a scrap of paper tucked into a corner of the trunk.

My people just want to know what you know, said the man, plodding across the stage.

Gip hopped into the trunk, took the paper in his hands. Faintly he could make out an image: a drawing of. . furniture?

No, hey, pal — the man’s voice was rushed and panicked — what are you doing?

Gip grabbed the leather thong hanging from the lid and pulled it down. Darkness enclosed him. He could hear the big man charge across the stage, fists banged on the trunk, a voice hollered, Open up, you little knobdiddler! And then it all faded: the trunk’s bottom dropped out, the sides fall away, the lid lifted, and Gip hovered in space, and then through it he was falling.

WITH HIS FACE pressed to the microwave, eyes inside each of the structures he’d puttied around the holes, ducktaped hand on the POWER dial, Sam waited. The kitchen was still. There were no machines, there was nothing. If Sam had ever trunked him, Raven was gone. Only nothing remained. All that was left was to join this nothing. Sam wasn’t frightened: this is just what it was. This was the work. The house was quiet. Upstairs the others were in their beds. But now there was a noise outside — footsteps. Someone was coming up the walk. He’d have to hurry. Okay Adine, said Sam, and sucking in his breath widened his eyes until they ached and cranked the dial as far as it would go and the microwave hummed, and all Sam could see was light.

N THE KITCHEN tiles lay the man in Olpert’s stolen khakis who’d said his name was Sam, though that was all he’d said. When Olpert had arrived home he’d discovered this Sam staring into the microwave, his face pressed to it, the oven hummed, a smell of burning plastic and something wet and hot filled the air. Olpert said, Hi? and Sam wheeled to face him. His eyes were strange. They seemed to be bubbling. With horror Olpert realized he’d been cooking them: they hissed and sizzled while the microwave whirred and light streamed from twin holes bored in its door.

What are you doing, said Olpert, who are you, what are you doing?

I’m Sam, said this man in a hoarse, sick-sounding whisper, and fell to the floor.

Olpert unplugged the microwave, it died, and he knelt over Sam. His pupils were pinpricks, the irises glossed with a milky mucous, the whites raw. Olpert dampened a teatowel and pressed it to Sam’s eyes. Again he asked Sam what he’d been doing, and why. But Sam didn’t make a sound, even of pain.

There’s no ferry till morning, said Olpert. I’ll take you to hospital then. Okay?

He pulled the towel away. Sam’s eyes had the look of scorched jelly. You need to keep this on them, said Olpert, and he wrapped the towel around Sam’s head as a blindfold for a party game of bluff. He swept up the twists of plastic that littered the floor, sat in a chair at the kitchen table, and, with Sam sprawled at his feet, waited for the sun to come up.

Hours passed, the tang of burnt flesh and molten plastic faded, Olpert nodded off, awoke to the rattle and scrape of Sam’s breathing, noticed one of Sam’s hands was wrapped in ducktape — had it always been? — and dozed again. Morning arrived: through the blinds light striped the kitchen gold and grey. Sam sat up, turned his face toward the window, said, I can see it, it’s daytime, I can see the light! Though the hitch in his voice suggested dismay.

There’s a seven-o’clock ferry, said Olpert. We can walk out there now and wait for it.

Sam scratched at a scab on his jaw with his ducktaped mitt.

We have to get you to the hospital. Your eyes —

Shhh, said Sam, an ear cocked at the floor. He might be down there okay.

You need to go to hospital. It’s not my business but if you want me to take you I will. If not I’d like to go to sleep. Okay? I’m very tired. Are you all right?

The fridge came on with a hum.

Sam said, Help me, and extended his arms.

Help you, help you what.

Go to my room. Downstairs.