Dust City (3 page)

“Okay,” I say. “Go ahead.”

Mrs. L puckers her lips and blows gently. The dust leaps up like a living thing. It swarms around my head like a flock of determined gnats, toying with me, swelling and teasing around my eyes and ears. Instinctively, I recoil, but the dust is buzzing and relentless. When I close my mouth to stop it wheedling in between my lips, it merely regroups, streaming up my nostrils and clogging my throat.

Mrs. L strokes my paw, soothing me. “Don’t fight it,” she says. Her voice is a cup of sugar. “Open up and take a breath. Otherwise, it can be rather unpleasant.”

No kidding. A din fills my head like a screaming television tuned to a dead channel. The dust is in my brain, drumming up random thoughts. Colors, sounds, scents appear and fade at random—a siren; my father’s face; the humid scent of hot soup in winter. Then it’s all gone, and there’s this alarming coolness in my chest. All at once, I’m reminded why fairydust is so popular, why it’s such big business, why it’s in every supermarket, pharmacy, and back alleyway in the city. Because
it works
.

The pain in my face evaporates, draining out of my head and retreating from behind my eyes. My swollen skin tightens like a fresh bedsheet, clinging to my skull, good as new. Mrs. L waves the vial again, tauntingly, with a hefty dollop of I-told-you-so.

“See?” she says. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

Sure, Mrs. L, tell that to my mom. No matter how harmless it is, it won’t change the fact that my mother was mashed to death under a truckload of the stuff.

When I come out into the hall, Gunther’s waiting.

“Welcome back, Whelp,” he says. “I was wondering how long you’d be out.” He checks his watch. When he looks up again, a surprised grunt comes out through his nose. “Looks like you’re all patched up.” He thumps closer to examine me, looming over my face. He’s huge. Apart from giants, who mostly keep to themselves up in Eden, goblins are the largest creatures in the City. Somehow, they’re considered hominids (but just barely).

“What’re you looking at?” I ask him, rather boldly.

He frowns, which is
not
pretty. His face is a shipwreck of bloodshot eyes, blubbery gray skin, and a mouthful of tusks, haphazardly dashed over a fat skull. Meanwhile, his torso protrudes with a gravity-defying paunch, hanging so far over his belt that when he comes round a corner, you see the squat pip of his belly button bursting through his uniform long before you see the glob himself. It’s a belly so bloated that you expect him to topple over. But he never does. Gunther’s legs are as unshakable as monuments.

The drum of his belly nudges against my chest. “You sure you wanna be talking to me like that?”

I look down. “Sorry, Gunther.”

“Good boy.” He grabs my chin and twists my head back and forth, examining my face. “Let Mrs. L patch you up, huh?” He chuckles. “Thought you were scared of the stuff.”

I shrug. “I’m not scared.”

Gunther laughs. “Whatever you say.”

“Why are you here, anyway? I’m not in trouble, right? Roy started it.”

“I know. I tossed him in lockup hours ago. I’m not here about that. I’m here cuz Doc sent me to fetcha. Your session started half an hour ago.”

Instinctively, I look to my wrist, peeling back the woolly blossom of hair that bursts from the cuff. I’ve been out for hours. He grabs my shirt and hauls me after him. “Quit stalling. We don’t wanna keep the good doctor waiting.”

Every wall in Doc’s office is lined with brimming bookcases. The air slumps around everything like an old tarp, musty and still. In the corner, half lost in gloom, is Doc himself. He’s a charcoal-hued mountain wolf with thick, aging streaks of gray. It’s as if his hide is wrapped in a dark river, running fast and shallow over long, wet stones. It gives him an impression of speed, like Doc’s always moving a little quicker than the rest of us.

“I’ve been informed,” he says, without looking at me, “you were caught in a bit of a bust-up this morning.” In the stillness
of his office, Doc’s voice has a soothing quality, crumbly and sweet like a rich pastry—one that’s slightly burnt around the edges.

“Yeah,” I say. My tail dips shamefully between my legs. “With Roy.”

“Mmm . . .” Doc nods but he doesn’t turn around. His attention remains focused on the easel before him. Doc’s always painting. Nature scenes: trees, meadows, valleys, rivers—all done in photographic detail. “He’s a difficult case, that one, our young Mr. Sarlat. Yet I’ve found that if you dig deep enough, you’ll find he always has some reason, albeit misguided at times, for his acting out.”

“He thinks I was hitting on his sister.”

“You see?” Doc’s brush pecks the canvas one last time and he turns to me. His face is cadaverously thin, balding with age. “I knew there had to be something.”

I lope to the plush green wingback Doc reserves for us inmates. “All I did was say hi,” I explain. “That’s all.”

“Mmm . . .” Doc drops his brush into a murky jar and places his palette on the desk beside a fortress of paperwork. “Now,” he says, taking a seat behind the desk, “where were we?” He flips open a file—
my
file—and plucks up a fountain pen. He skims the words for a moment and then jots something down. I wish I knew what he was writing.

“How have you been this week?” he asks.

“Okay, I guess.”

“You look tired. Have you been sleeping? How’re your dreams?”

“Nightmares. I can deal with them.”

“I see.” His pen scribbles something new.

I turn my attention to his painting. It’s a single tree. The bark’s peeling away from the trunk in strips. Halfway up, it doubles over, a bit like Doc himself. The uppermost branches kiss the earth, mistaking themselves for roots. The genuine roots twine and lollop over one another like a pile of worms before finally burrowing into the earth.

“The juniper tree,” he tells me, following my gaze. “I’m quite proud of this one.”

“Looks creepier than your usual stuff.”

“It’s a real tree, in fact, growing right here in the city. Fascinating root structure, don’t you think? That’s what attracted my interest. I always find I’m drawn to the roots of things. Foundations, underlying causes . . .” He trails off, lost in thought.

“Must be nice to get a break from this place once in a while.” Doc comes in a couple times a week. I’m not sure what he does with the rest of his time.

“Mrs. Lupovitz tells me you took a fairydust remedy following your injury.”

“She said I had to. I had a concussion.”

“That’s good. I’m proud of you, on account of your misgivings about dust in general.”

I slump in my chair. “Why’s that surprise everybody?”

“Well,” says Doc, “after what happened to your mother—”

“What’s she got to do with this? I took some dust, okay? No big deal.”

He dashes something else into my file. “You know, Henry, fairydust is a perfectly natural remedy.”

“Except that it’s not. It’s mostly chemicals, right? It’s not like old magic.”

“Perhaps.” Slowly, he replaces his glasses, edging them up his snout. “Oh, dear,” he says, looking at the clock. “You were a tad late getting to me today. We’ve had so little time, and here I’ve gone and done most of the talking.”

“That’s okay. I wasn’t really in the mood.”

Outside, I’m met with a cool rush of wind. It’s an early foretaste of winter. The breeze is swift and fluid, streaming through the shag of my hair. The shadows, however—the ones cast by the walls and gates that hold us in—are dull and solid and lifeless.

Above them, higher than even the intricate peaks of the City’s skyscrapers, is Eden. It hovers there, a huge, lazy insect, the spires of a thousand fairy palaces bristling like antennae. Sometimes, I wish I could see them up close. But I know I never will.

None of the animalia are allowed in Eden.

4

BETTER LIVING THROUGH ENCHANTMENT

THE THREE MAIN SPECIES AT ST. REMUS ARE WOLVES, FOXES, AND RAVENS.
Each group has its own unofficial leader. The ravens have Eddie Aves; the foxes, Jim Vulpino; and for the wolves, it’s Roy. These guys are chosen based on the only criteria that makes any sense in here: strength and speed. Not necessarily in that order. Every day during Open Hours, out in the yard or over in the sports field, you can pretty much count on a race.

They break out spontaneously. The newest birdbrain comes in and challenges Eddie to a low-soaring competition and of course, some of the other birds’ll try their luck. Eddie always wins. Same goes for Jim and Roy. The three of them have their own private dynasties going. At least that’s how it’s been as long as I’ve been here.

Now and again, there’s an interspecies race. A free-for-all. Once upon a time, that sort of direct competition wouldn’t happen. But thanks to the zillion generations of evolution that brought animalia on par with the hominids, races between the species are possible.

In the ancient days, nobody would’ve thought to pit a raven against a wolf. The size difference alone would’ve made the thing ridiculous. But evolution is all about brain power, that’s what Mrs. L teaches us. And to have the right kind of brain, large enough to be capable of speech and all the rest of it, you need a big fat head to house it. And to lug a brain and a head like that around, you need the body to keep up. So these days any raven is practically the same size as any hominid.

According to Mrs. L, because of certain aspects of the raven’s wing structure, the birds were the first of the animalia to evolve the brains and thumbs and everything else. Wolves, foxes, mules—we were late to the table. Which is probably why we’ve kept up such a bad reputation. Even now.

In an interspecies race, each group brings its own particular forte to the table. The foxes are sly, of course. Tricky. Wolves are all about brute strength. Especially Roy. The ravens have the power of flight on their side (provided they don’t fly too high, in which case you can count on the globs up in the tower shooting them down with tranquilizer guns loaded with sedative blends of fairydust).

Jack always urges me to join in. He has a theory: Although Roy’s the bigger wolf—the biggest, in fact—his muscles get in the way. Jack tells me I’m sleeker, more aerodynamic. That’s my edge. But I’ve never raced. I never will. I just watch.

Out the window I can see a drove of them, coming across the field toward the courtyard. The globs are up in the tower,
eyeing them impassively, rifles at the ready. You’d think the ravens would take the win, air travel being what it is. But it’s not as fast as you think. A fox or a wolf down on all fours, like in the ancient times, can give them a run for their money. And they do. Jim and Roy are neck and neck for the lead, with Eddie flapping behind, followed by the rest of the motley herd.

When they hit the courtyard, gravel kicks up in clouds around them, enveloping the pack, but Roy, Jim, and Eddie punch free, leaving the others to skirmish in the haze. Jim tries a fake, but Roy doesn’t flinch. He’s too determined. He wins these free-for-alls nine times out of ten. I have no idea why Jack thinks I could beat him.

Indeed, it’s Roy who’s first to reach the wall of the rec center. He slaps it so hard I can feel a tremor come through the floor. He rises up and pumps a victorious forefist in the air. Eddie alights and hunches over, panting and leaning heavily on his knees. Jim, meanwhile, claps Roy on his back, but we can all see it’s a begrudging gesture. The others—the losers—fall in behind, sputtering like old engines.

“You could’ve won that,” Jack comments to me from across the room. He’s over by the TV that’s bolted high in the corner. He has the remote in his hand and he’s carefully pressing the buttons, but nothing’s happening on the screen. The TV’s stuck on the news.

I shake my head. “Not my thing,” I tell him.

We’re sitting around the rec center, a large L-shaped
room perpetually shedding its skin. The walls cast off paint in snowy flakes and the edges of the floor are feathered with hair balls and grit. Board games in sun-faded boxes populate the shelves near a pair of Ping-Pong tables. The pool table is piled with swollen paperbacks and garbage. It’s been like that ever since some fight broke out in here, years before my time. Apparently, the cue ball was used as a blunt instrument.

Most of the time, we loll away our Open Hours on the moldy couches, watching TV in a vain attempt to keep up with the world outside. That’s what we’re doing now: me, Jack, a few of the other outsiders—meaning beasts with not enough of their species getting into trouble to throw together a gang.

Jack shakes the wrecked remote. Something rattles inside it. “Do you know how to get this working?”

I shake my head. “The batteries are running out.”

“Can you reach up there and switch the channel? I’m not tall enough.”

I ignore Jack’s request. I’m watching a trio of mules play cards at the folding table. From an evolutionary point of view, mules were the last to get wise, so to speak. Their forehoofs aren’t anything like those of hominids or wolves. Mules evolved differently, with hooves that became jointed, crablike claws—ebony pincers, offset by a stubby opposable thumb. They have never been reviled like wolves, or mistrusted like foxes and ravens. As always, they are largely ignored. I’m guilty of it myself. I don’t even know these guys’ names.

I watch their forehoofs struggling to clutch the smooth, delicate surface of the playing cards. Their game is a silent one, a sort of three-way solitaire with each of them placing a card down in turn.

The TV’s on a commercial now. It’s a scene from up in Eden, bursting with lush greenery. I’ve seen this commercial before. I can mouth the words to the soothing voice-over.
“For more than a generation Nimbus Thaumaturgical has been on the cutting edge of research and development into fairydust products for both hominids and animalia.”
The camera pans over Nimbus Headquarters, a sprawling industrial estate built at the very heart of Eden. Then the camera magically penetrates one of the walls to reveal a bright laboratory.
“As the originators of fairydust processing, the Nimbus brothers were the first to harvest fairydust runoff from the city’s surrounding land.”
The perspective shifts to show the arid desert beyond the City walls. In the background, there’s a picturesque ridge topped with a copse of deadwoods. Karl and Ludwig Nimbus, the company founders, stand proudly in the foreground on the edge of a quarry.
“With or without fairies, you can count on Nimbus to provide you with the closest available product to old-time magic.”
The camera cuts to a pharmacy, the shelves brimming with colorful vials. Finally, there’s a shift to the haloed Nimbus logo and its ubiquitous slogan:
Nimbus Thaumaturgical ~ Better Living Through Enchantment.