Teeth (15 page)

Fuck.

Fuck me.

I start back to the house. A piece of seaweed flies out of the water and hits me in the cheek. He’s not supposed to be here. His dock is ages away.

“Go away,” I say. “Not now.” I wipe off the salty, slimy trail under my eye.

“Look at me,” Teeth says.

I turn around, only because his voice sounds so funny.

He’s just about as close to the shore as he can get, his tail fully visible, curled next to him on the sand like a cat’s. He holds out a big, plump fish, its neck neatly slit.

He’s shaking. His eyes are streaked red. I wasn’t even sure that he could cry. He looks like he can’t catch his breath.

“I’ll get you more if you need,” he says. “Take it. Hurry, please. Take it and go. I’ll get you another one tomorrow. Is that enough?”

I don’t know, but I say “Yes,” and I come to him and hold his head between my hands for just a second, because he’s still going, “Go. Please go. I need to . . . you have to go,” and he’s not taking his eyes off that fish.

That night, the screams. God, the screams. Like they’re pulling out pieces of him.

Somehow, that one additional fish is enough to tide Dylan over.

DYLAN KEEPS HOLDING ON, AND TEETH KEEPS DELIVERING, AND
by the next week the fish market is stocked again. This fishboy, I swear.

Everything is all right. My parents are still tentative with Dyl, but they stop watching me like I’m going to jump off the cliffs at any minute. Dylan crashes around in the house again. I feel like I can start going out again.

But things are weird with Diana now, since the fish famine. We don’t even talk much anymore. I think that other half of the fish is lying between us. The elephant in the room.

Sometimes we just sit in the library and read together.
It’s Tuesday afternoon and I’m bored even with all the books. This hasn’t ever happened before. I want to be outside.

Diana turns the pages at three times the rate I do, and lets me sit in the armchair by the window. It faces the water but not the dock. No Teeth from here today.

“The fishermen are hurting him,” I tell Diana. “Worse than they used to.”

“Interesting.”

I want to tell her that she looks like him, but I don’t know how to without it sounding like an insult. Who wants to be compared to a fish? I mean, besides Teeth.

As soon as I feel like I’ve stayed here long enough, I’ll head to the dock.

But first I need a break.

“Going to the bathroom,” I tell her.

Diana nods and doesn’t look up. “Be quiet, remember. Use the one close to my room. My mother has the other one tied up.”

I walk down the hallway, the carpet heavy and plush beneath my feet. I’ve never felt more out of place in my life. I guess this is how Teeth feels.

I can hear Ms. Delaney’s cries get louder and louder as I head down the hall. Every Tuesday. Why is she crying? Teeth and Diana both make her sound kind of heartless. She threw her son in the ocean. I’m beginning to hate humans.

There are two doors across the hall from Diana’s room. I know one is the bathroom.

Clearly, this was the wrong one.

I’m in a room twice the size of Diana’s with bright blue walls and a pale yellow ceiling, a red comforter crumpled over an unmade bed shaped like a race car. The fan is running on the ceiling, like whoever left this room is about to come right back. All the lights are on, even the tiny one on the nightstand painted with stars and moons and the words
GOOD NIGHT
.

The carpet is even thicker here, where it hasn’t been stepped on and worn down. The world’s smallest wheelchair is folded up by the foot of the bed, and there’s a little bloodred chair in front of the bookshelf.

The whole time it was right here.

The bookshelf. I go to it and there, right on the top shelf, are Mrs. Delaney’s diaries. But I don’t look. I don’t need them anymore.

Instead, I reach for the copy of
Runaway Bunny
. The spine is crumpled like an old piece of paper. Diana’s looked barely read.

I open the inside cover, hoping, hoping, and there it is. Blocky left-handed blue crayon letters spell out
DANIEL
.

Or I could have just looked up, because on the wall, there’s a framed embroidery, the same kind my mom made for me when I was born. It has a little train stitched across
the bottom and the words
DANIEL PETER DELANEY, TUESDAY, JANUARY 2ND
underneath.

Oh my God.

“What are you doing in here?”

Oh, fuck. But I turn around, and it’s just Diana. Thank God.

Except she doesn’t look ready to laugh this off. “What are you doing?” she says again.

“I came in here by accident—”

“Yeah, bullshit you did. Get out.”

I take a step back. I don’t want to go. “I’m sorry—”

“No. Get out.
Get out of my house.
”

I can’t shake the feeling that there’s nothing left for me in this house, anyway.

And like she’s reading my mind, Diana says as I’m going, in a voice as small as Teeth’s when he’s sad, “I thought you were here for me.”

I’m still panting when I flop down on the dock. Fishboy comes right out from under it, grinning. “Hey!”

“Hey.”

“Let’s go swimming. I found this cave.
Brand-new.
”

“I’m sure it’s been here for a while. Dude, I am in so much shit with your sister.”

“New for me, which means new. Come on. Let’s go swimming!”

I laugh. I kind of want to, but I’m already freezing just in my jacket. I think being with Teeth keeps me warmer than I logically should be—half-magic, after all—but I don’t know if even that’s enough to take the bite out of today.

“This cave better be really good. Very, very good.”

“It’s awesome. It’s little, though. And dark.”

“It is a cave.” And it’s already dark out here. I should be getting home. But I don’t want to, at all. I need to unwind after all the drama with Diana, and I kind of can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than here.

“Come oooon,” he says.

“Do you know how cold it is?”

“Obviously. I’m in the water, aren’t I? I’m always cold.” He flops on his back and paddles around with his tail.

“Don’t give me that shit. Your scales keep you warm.”

“Maybe I only told you that so you wouldn’t worry about me, did you think of that?”

I laugh. “That would be a new one.”

“Come on, Rudy. I won’t let you get cold.”

I don’t know why I listen to him. I thought I’d decided that that was a bad idea. But I’m smiling even while I’m gasping as I lower myself into the water. He’s giggling at me, so I smack the top of his head once I’m in.

“You’re all shaky!” he says.

“Yeah, it’s called shivering.”

“I do that sometimes after the fishermen get me. Come on. It’s not far.”

He swims with me instead of in front of me. He comes up for breath whenever I do, which I think at first is a weird way to be nice, until I notice the deep bruising between two of his ribs. It’s the darkest mark I’ve seen on him.

When we come up again, I pause him with my hand on his arm. “You okay?”

He’s panting hard. “What’s up with your teeth?” He moves his hand toward my mouth and I stop him.

“They’re chattering, and they’ll bite you,” I say.

“I’ll bite
you.
”

“You okay?”

“We’re really close to the cave, Rudy.”

I feel like I’m about to freeze to death in the water, so I nod. “Okay, come on.”

He brings me to one of the cliffs and hauls himself out of the water and through a hole. The opening is small. He grabs me by the arm and pulls me up. The ceiling is tall enough for us to sit, but we can’t stand up, which I guess is only a problem for me. The floor is the closest thing to real dirt I’ve felt since we moved here.

“This isn’t much, gotta tell you,” I say.

“No, no, wait. It gets better.” He gets down on his hands and starts to crab walk, dragging his tail behind him.

“You’re going to scrape yourself up,” I tell him.

“My tail’s tough.”

Okay. I crawl beside him. He moves more quickly than I expect.

“See?” I tell him. “You’d do fine on land.”

“Yeah, just chop my tail off.”

“That’s kind of an idea, you know?”

“I wouldn’t be a fish without my tail, Rudy.”

The farther we go into the cave, the heavier and colder the air becomes. I don’t think I’ve ever been this cold, and it’s a little scary. I feel like I’m going to need to stop and give up, but that won’t help, and the only way to get warm is to swim back to the land, and I don’t know how the hell I could do that right now. Too cold. Just too cold.

The cold is aching down to my bones, and I can’t hear anything but my teeth chattering.

Fishboy says, “You’re moving all over the place.”

“I’m shivering.”

“Don’t be scared.”

“I’m not . . . ”

“Look. Look up.”

I wrap my arms around myself, but it’s not helping. I’m just pushing my icy clothes into my skin.

“Look up,” Teeth says again. Gently.

I tilt my head up. When did the ceiling get so high?

It’s like we’ve entered some kind of natural ballroom. The ceiling, thirty feet above my head, is dripping with
stalactites and bare in places, and moonlight shines down and lights up this shallow pool in the middle of the room. Fishboy crawls his way over to the water and splashes in. “Isn’t this place cool? See, you can be on the land and I’ll be here, and we’re like practically right next to each other. See, I can totally reach you.” He touches my hand.

For the first time ever, his hand feels warm. He straightens up in the water. “Damn, Rudy. You’re cold.”

I try to nod but I can’t.

Holy fucking shit, I’m frozen solid.

No, I’m not. I’m breathing. Really slowly, but I’m breathing.

And then his voice changes, and he goes, “Oh, Rudy. You’re so cold. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ummm. Ummmm.” He’s looking around, his eyes darting from one blank wall to another. “Ummm, okay. Don’t worry, Rudy. Don’t worry don’t worry I’m going to make you okay!”

I close my eyes. My backbone hurts. I’m driving it into the floor with my shivers but I don’t even feel cold anymore. I don’t feel anything.

“Rudy,
I’ll be right back
!” And then he’s doing his stupid crawl out of the cavern and right back the way we came.

There isn’t even the seed of doubt in my brain. I know he’s coming. I keep my eyes closed, and I can see him here
already, with blankets or warm clothes or a fucking fire or something, I don’t know. Anything that will help. I know he can fix this. I know. I don’t know how I know.

Maybe I should have stayed in the mansion.

I know he’ll come back, but I’m worried it won’t be in time.

No. He’ll save me. It’s his turn. He would never ever miss his turn. I’m smiling just thinking about it. I’m smiling . . .

I hear the slippery sounds of him sliding back in, and he slurs something, but I can’t understand what he’s saying. Is that me? Am I dying?

No, it’s him. His mouth is full. I watch him come toward me, something glistening in his mouth. Then he spits an Enki onto the ground next to me. “Presents!” He smiles at me and touches my cheek. “Still with me?”

“Uh-huh.”

He doesn’t even pause before he slits the Enki’s throat with his teeth. No tears, no deliberation. He opens up its stomach and takes out a hunk of meat. He moves my jaw up and down to help me chew.

And it’s like he’s feeding me marshmallows right out of a campfire. I want to close my eyes and fall asleep. I want to be small enough to swim in my mouth, to fill my whole body with this feeling.

He feeds me another bite, and the warmth pricks its way
down to the tips of my fingers. I can sit up a little, and I do. “More.”

“Right here.” He puts another bite in my mouth. More. There’s a soft layer between my clothes and my skin. I’m a blanket right out of the dryer.

“Better?” he says.

“Mmmhmm.” I’m praying that he won’t stop, and he doesn’t. He keeps his eyes locked on the fish while he picks it clean of meat, searching each crevice and around each tiny bone. I can taste the slime on his fingers when he brings them to my lips. It’s not as gross as I would have expected—musky, salty, and alive.

By the time he’s halfway through, I’m practically okay, but I keep letting him feed me the whole thing. I don’t even grab for the meat myself once I can. I let him do it. I want to see if he’ll stop. Or break.

He’s smiling at me the whole time, bigger and bigger the better I get.

“All done,” he says, once the fish is cleaned out. And that’s the first moment that he lets go and looks a little sad. And I feel it, warm and heavy, in my stomach.

I grab his wrist and say, “You’re incredible,” because there’s nothing else to say.