The Grand Ballast (44 page)

Her yard had pumpkins. The
porch was draped in strings of lights shaped like black and orange
spiders. Two bloody mouthed zombies sat in rockers.

“
You decorate for
Halloween,” Bode said.

She grinned. “My kids like
it.”

Bode offered his hand.
“Bode Martin.”

She gave no indication she
recognized the name. “Charlie Ivers.”

They talked for a while,
and Bode began to relax. He remembered chatting with people who’d
come into the Little Comet—to buy tickets, or to ask directions, or
because their curiosity had been piqued by the small marquee
outside. How much he’d enjoyed small talk, temporary companionship.
To connect with someone, even for a moment. By the time Charlie
invited him inside for coffee, the incident with Sibyata’s ghost
seemed distant, almost laughable.

***

When he returned home,
Valen was dozing on the couch, still in his work clothes. Bode hung
up his coat, trying not to wake him, but Valen’s eyes opened at the
first creak of a floorboard. “You’re home,” he murmured. He pinched
the skin of his forehead then released it as he yawned

“
Yep.” Bode’s jacket slid
off the peg, and he readjusted it. Approached the couch. Knelt
beside it and crossed his arms on the seat, almost touching Valen’s
chest. “I met one of our neighbors. Charlie Ivers. She’s really
sweet.”

Valen had missed a few
spots shaving, and Bode saw a small, dark red nick beside a patch
of stubble. Bode leaned forward and kissed him, just above the
dirty hem of his T-shirt. Valen let out a breath. Bode kissed his
way up Valen’s bristled throat, until he reached his lips. Valen’s
mouth moved gently under Bode’s, until Bode forced that gentleness
out, and they kissed more roughly.

Valen studied Bode a long
while, and Bode had no idea what he was thinking about. “What?” he
asked finally.

Valen shook his
head.
“Sorry.”

Bode wished they could
sidestep the past. On this beautiful evening, with the pink sun
bursting in bright streaks above the buildings like fire. This
evening when Bode had forged a connection and banished a phantom.
Couldn’t he and Valen have a night—
this
night—of joy?

Come into my
arms
. Bode would lead, and together they’d
whirl past all the pits and faults of the world. Nothing but cliffs
and good dreams.

But they were always pulled
backward—Valen into a memory of traps and false promises. Bode into
the brutal magic of a man who had wanted to change the world. Who
had looked at a wasteland and seen a kingdom, and could draw you in
quicker than you knew, make you feel needed, splendid,
alive.

Love soothed and it hurt.
It could be the gentlest of gifts one day, and the next, a cruelty
more twisted than anything Kilroy Ballast could have reckoned. Bode
knew what it was like to find traps and curses in beauty. To find
good things in sordid places. To reach out time and again to touch
a seeming treasure, knowing sometimes it would last and sometimes
it would burn. “Tell me,” he said quietly.

For an instant, he caught
the damp wood smell of the equipment car. Faint rot and urine. He
heard the rustle of straw. Valen’s chains dragging against the
floorboards. Waiting to for Valen to speak. He’d thought he wanted
to know Valen. But maybe he’d only wanted to hear that someone else
had suffered worse than he had.

I’ll listen
now.

Valen shifted back, flexed
his fingers slightly, and pressed his cheek against the throw
cushion. “Tell you what?”

Bode’s chin moved against
his folded arms as he spoke. “What you’re thinking.”

Valen swallowed.

Bode had discovered years
ago, teaching classes at The Little Comet, that if he asked
students to tell him the story of their dance, they
faltered.

“
I’m
supposed to be in love with him,”
a
young Danielle had said as she pointed to her partner—a boy with
pimples and a somewhat off-putting dragon fixation.
“But he…he doesn’t love me back. So then my
character, like…”

“
Tell
me,”
he’d say at first. And once
they’d stammered through their bare-bones assessment of the story,
he’d say,
“Now show me.”

The students would go
through the piece. Usually the first time through, they’d be
thinking too hard. Trying to make whatever they’d just told Bode
show in their movements. But on the second or third attempt, once
they realized that the only way to make Bode see was to lose
themselves in the story, they let go. Those were the moments Bode
had felt luckiest to be alive.

“
Show me,” he said now,
gently.

“
I’m not
like you. I don’t know how to explain.” Valen’s long lashes swept
down. When they lifted again, Valen’s expression seemed
like
motion
, a forward thrust, a clutching, gasping effort.

Valen leaned forward and
brushed his lips against Bode’s forehead. Then he rolled onto his
other side, facing the back of the couch. He held himself like that
for several seconds. Bode unfolded his arms and placed a hand on
Valen’s shoulder. Valen exhaled. Bode stroked the damp skin between
his shoulder blades. Hooked his fingers under the collar of Valen’s
T-shirt and touched the base of Valen’s neck.

“
Look here,” he whispered.
Valen tensed again. Bode jostled his shoulder lightly. “Hey. What
are you afraid I’ll see?”

Valen rolled slowly toward
him once more. His face was wet; his breath came in sharp bursts.
Bode moved his hand over Valen’s cheek and down the side of his
neck. Jutted his chin forward on the cushion until his lips were
close to Valen’s. He shut his eyes and smiled. “It’s okay,” he
murmured. “I promise.”

“
I don’t know,” Valen
repeated. Bode rested his chin on Valen’s temple. Valen burrowed
slightly closer until Bode could feel the dampness on his cheeks.
Valen muttered something Bode didn’t hear.

Bode put as much love as he
could into his touch. He knew what a struggle it must be for Valen
to show Bode this. How frightening, to feel these walls coming
down.

To find your way to another
person, you often had to lose yourself.

Valen slid off the couch. Knelt in front of
Bode and placed his hands on Bode’s knees, his head in Bode’s lap.
Bode ran his fingers through hair grown longer than Bode had ever
seen it. Valen stayed there, breathing softly, and Bode held him as
best he could.

They stayed like that for a long time.

Valen whispered, “Did I do okay? With what
you gave me?”

Bode’s hand stilled. “What do you mean?”

Valen pressed his face to Bode’s thigh. “Was
I worth saving?”

Maybe Bode had loved him that day in the
Hydra Arena. Or maybe he had only wanted, desperately, to change
the outcome of that day. To do something bold. But now…to trade the
fervor of youth for a quieter, more grownup need was no sacrifice
at all. Each day, he watched Valen move through the kitchen, noting
the familiar way his knees and elbows bent. The smoothness of his
skin on cool nights, its stickiness on humid days. The way he
muttered as he searched for clean mugs in the back of the cabinet.
Fixed the whole box of pasta when he was only going to eat half.
Each day, their promise to each other meant more.

Bode slid onto the floor beside him. Folded
Valen against him, felt the solid heat of his body. “I love you,”
Bode whispered.

Those would never be meaningless words from
a forgotten era. They would always have the power to heal even as
they wounded. Valen clutched him until it hurt. “You too. So
much.”

You can stop fighting now. Stop fighting,
Valen, and live with what you’ve won.

TAKE THIS WALTZ

The years passed smoothly, unless Bode
wanted them to bump and judder. Middle age came. Creaks and groans
in their bodies, hair loss, minor injuries—and the house seemed to
burst pipes and lose shingles from the roof in sympathy. Bode
visited his mother frequently. He went to all of Charlie’s holiday
parties, and he invited Charlie and her kids over to his and
Valen’s place every Sunday night for dinner.

He ran a small dance studio in town. Some
weeks, the place was full, and others he was lucky to have two or
three students. The world trundled on. People who needed adventure
found it, and people who cloaked themselves in dullness lived and
died without knowing the difference. Bode kept his life simple.

He’d had to adjust to weight gain. Joint
aches. A general feeling of weariness. He stretched every day,
morning and night, but it only helped so much.

Some nights, the past did get the better of
him. He reached into his mind and pulled out the deaths he’d seen.
Driscoll. LJ. Kilroy. The boy from the farm. He laid those ghosts
side by side and looked at them until they lost the power to
trouble his sleep. Then he put them away.

One night, he reached for the boy from the
farm, and his hand brushed something new. He pulled out Valen—still
and peaceful looking. He stood shivering with the specter in his
arms, then laid Valen beside the boy from the farm and broke into
painful sobs. He staggered to his feet, bracing himself against the
dresser, and left the room.

He went downstairs. Searched the silent the
house, afraid to call Valen’s name and receive no answer. He found
Valen in the laundry room, putting socks together. Valen looked up
at Bode and smiled. “Hey.” Lines in his skin. A gentleness in his
gaze that hadn’t often been present when he was younger. A belly
overhanging his belt. He seemed to enjoy his life now—liked
planting flowers and knocking down drywall. Liked coming home and
watching TV or reading next to Bode.

His smile slipped as he saw Bode’s
expression. “What’s wrong?”

Bode opened his mouth, unsure what to say.
“I didn’t know where you were.”

Bode helped Valen match socks, and then they
went to bed together.

“
Come here, you.” Valen
pulled Bode into a crushing hug. Bode lay with his head against
Valen’s chest and listened to Valen’s soft, steady breathing.
Teased the music from it and lay there, perfectly content. “You
know I wouldn’t go anywhere without you.”

“
Me either.” Bode said it
into the warmth of Valen’s body.

Valen dozed off first, and Bode lay there,
fighting sleep, until he couldn’t anymore.

He walked along a glass bridge with darkness
on all sides—nothing to help him see except for an eerie light that
seemed to come from nowhere and catch the glass, making the edges
shine. He met Kilroy. Kilroy, young and clever-looking, in a red
jacket and black pants and boots. He held a silver-tipped cane,
which he tossed aside so he could take Bode’s hands. Music flared
around them.

“
Looking good, Bode.”
Kilroy grinned, whirling him. Around and around they went. The
music put little cracks in the shadows around them. Chips of
blackness fell away to reveal bright spots like stars. Kilroy
slammed his feet down so hard that webs appeared in the bridge.
Bode tried not to be afraid. He stomped too, and felt the glass
weaken and tremble. The dance was loud; the notes, the steps were
wild, and they were with one another until the glass
shattered.

Bode caught Kilroy’s feigned look of
surprise in the second before they both plummeted. Down, down… The
music changed to something faster—more rhythm than melody. Kilroy
vanished, and a spotlight caught Bode just as he fell into his
mother’s arms. The music now was gruff and utilitarian, and he and
his mother managed a stiff, staccato, mid-air Siberian jig while
marbles popped around them like soap bubbles and his mother stared
at him like he was a wonderful stranger. She disappeared.

Bode’s fall slowed, and he found himself in
a wash of gold light with the boy from the farm. The boy was in
full makeup, his dark hair combed smooth. They were in a ballet,
and every step the boy took seemed fueled by pain. Bode had to move
with him, catch him, carry him, shield him. The boy trembled as
they bent together into an arabesque. He glanced at Bode, and Bode
saw pale, damp tracks in the makeup on his cheeks. “Shhh,” Bode
whispered. He lifted the boy in a pas de deux, the boy’s foot on
Bode’s thigh, his leg extended behind him. The boy disappeared into
the shadows above with a soft sigh.

And then Sibyata.
A spider’s waltz. Sibyata waved her long limbs
joyfully, her eyes closed. She swiveled her head and kissed Bode
meanly, with teeth. She gave him a long, slow sting that traveled
through his mouth, up his nose, and into his brain. Then she
crawled back up an invisible thread into darkness.

He plummeted alone, and
then suddenly Driscoll was falling beside him in a stream of red
light. The light went off. They landed together, on their knees in
total darkness, on a surface that felt like asphalt. Sweeping his
hand across the ground, Bode discovered a rocky ledge inches to his
right. He brushed some pebbles over the edge and heard them snick
and clack as they fell. His heart began to pound. Two spotlights
came on suddenly, blinding him.

Not spotlight.
Headlights.

They were on an empty road
at night, at the start of a long curve. The guardrail began a few
feet ahead, and to Bode’s right was the drop into darkness. The
headlights dimmed. The music was a slow, fitful music box melody.
Bode knew he was supposed to dance, but he couldn’t get to his
feet. He was frozen, terrified of the cliff. He focused instead on
Driscoll in front of him. Driscoll also seemed unable to move. He
looked at Bode imploringly and tried to rise.