Vassa in the Night (19 page)

“Excuse me?” I say. “Have you not had your coffee yet? I could get you some.”

“Half is missing,” Babs says. “Half is what throws it all off. You can't do the math when you can't see the numbers, imp.”

“Half of what?” I ask, and I make kind of a show of being bored.

Babs glowers at me like she's daring me to keep playing dumb. “Your name,
Vassa.
Half of it is missing. Not what we might call in evidence. But I do believe I'll find it soon.”

I'd prefer not to have the slightest idea what she's talking about, but in fact there's a bare inkling in the back of my brain. I turn on the obliviousness full force.

“Oh, you mean how Vassa's not a regular name? You're kind of right. My mom made it up to be, like, a more American-sounding version of Vasilisa, or Wassilissa, or however you spell it. After her grandmother. I guess you could say the second half is missing, except she turned that into the Lisa part.”

Babs makes a face halfway between a wince and a grin. “Oh,
that
must be what I was talking about, then. I didn't know. Ah, you're becoming a bitty nuisance to me, but now the rule of three nights applies and quibbling won't avail. Can't simply pack you in a crate and ship you away.
Somebody
was counting on that, sure as entropy. Well I can assure you, imp, that I'll be making full use of our time together.”

And she turns her back on me with a theatrical pivot, heading toward the motorcyclist; he's already stopped, waiting for her.

I get the distinct impression that Babs is walking faster than usual, not bothering anymore to put on her doddering act for me. Maybe she's decided that there's no point in pretending with me now. We both know that a regular human girl couldn't have cleaned the snow without serious help, even if I'm still having trouble accepting that my dream could be real. I mean, the
night
saved me? Night sucked every blood cell out of the snow for me? It's not like there's any sane explanation available, though, so I might as well start believing the crazy one. Babs doesn't try to hide what she's doing once she reaches the motorcyclist, either. She lays both hands on him, rocking him lightly back and forth while he sits there impassively. His giant head wobbles from side to side. Then she gives a little push, and he's falling. Falling slowly as the moon turning its dark side to the Earth.

A kind of heavy impulse catches my eyelids, trying to close them at the crucial moment. I resist, determined not to let my gaze waver this time, and I'm looking straight at him as he vanishes with something like a wink in the texture of the world. He's gone.

Babs turns back and her stare is ragged and challenging, reminding me that she's got him under her power. Well, mostly she does. She can't control what he does in his dreams, or where we go together, or what he tries to reveal about her secrets. She can't stop us from learning to understand each other, at least a little.

Night sees you, Vassa,
he told me.
Night knows you.

I turn my back on Babs just as ostentatiously as she turned away from me a few moments ago. I turn away from the dawn, crawling up the horizon like mauve smoke, and look toward the darkest fold of the sky. “Hi, Night,” I whisper. “I hope you can hear me. You were amazing! Thanks so much!” And I blow it a kiss. Then, without looking around again, I stalk up to BY's open door, climb through, and head back to my own little closet-room, grabbing some random food on the way.

I know Babs was watching the whole thing. I know she's positively fuming and that she'll do whatever she can to get back at me. But I just can't make myself care.

Even so, I'm relieved to reach my room again and shut the door.

There's still the small matter of my right foot, cramped and bunched-feeling in my boot. I can't really avoid the truth any longer, and anyway I already know it. Erg is sitting next to me on the cot trying to lick strawberry marshmallow butter out of a jar lid, but the stuff proves to be so dense and viscous—like a puree of pink tires—that she can barely dent it.

I unlace my heavy, studded boots and pry them off; it takes some work to tug the right one free. Black, sharp-pointed toeish protuberances have gouged through my sock; when I peel that off the whole webbed, knobby swan foot splays across the blanket. I know I've always said that I don't want to be this pretty, but this isn't really the kind of uglification I had in mind.

Erg looks at my transformed foot, her blue eyes morose—but not at all startled—above the gluey pink streaks on her face. “I knew that would happen.”

I want to feel surprised, but I can't manage it any more than Erg can. “Then why didn't you warn me?”

“I did warn you! I told you not to go outside! Because I knew! You wouldn't listen to me!” I don't think I've ever heard her sound so genuinely angry.

“You didn't tell me
why,
though. How was I supposed to take you seriously when you just talked about mittens?” She's scowling at me, but the pink sludge gummed all over her front makes it hard not to laugh. “Erg, I mean, it would
really
help sometimes if you would just tell me straight out what the deal is. Right? How frustrating is it that you obviously know who that motorcyclist is, and you won't tell me anything?”

For a long while Erg just stares at me in disbelief. When she talks again it's slow and measured, as if she was calculating the best way to get through my thick head. “Vassa? You have had occasion over the years to observe the fact that I'm not human, right? You've thoroughly absorbed that? No lingering doubts?”

“Do you have a point, Erg?”

“Well, what
do
you think I am, then?”

A pain in the ass, perhaps?
A flurry of sarcastic replies wings through my head, but she's upset enough that I decide this isn't the moment.

“A magic doll. From my mom.” I don't admit the embarrassing part, though: that I've sometimes wondered if just a trace of Zinaida is still alive, deep in Erg's little wooden chest. Erg came alive at the same moment that my mom's heart stopped beating, so the conjecture's not as crazy as it sounds.

Erg sighs dramatically; very Zinaida-style, in fact. “Well, so maybe there are certain flavors of beans that we aren't allowed to spill! Did you ever think of that?”

We.

I have never before heard Erg use the word
we
to mean anything besides her and me, together forever. A doll and her girl, bound by the fact that they both appear to be pretty, brainless toys. My heart jars in my chest.

“Who's this
we,
Erg? The magic dolls' club? Or do you mean you and the motorcyclist?”

I saw her talking to him, so that's as good a guess as any—though I'm pretty sick of guessing. This business of her not being
allowed
to tell me what the hell is going on seems awfully convenient.

Erg hears the edge in my voice and wipes her sticky face on the mattress before scampering over to me and hopping onto my knee. “I'm your doll, Vassa. Even if you died, I couldn't belong to anyone else ever!”

“Does
we
mean the motorcyclist? Or are you talking about somebody I don't even know?”

Erg hesitates. “
We
means … the whole big category. Like me.”

Maybe I'm being unfair, but I still feel angry with her and her self-indulgent obscurity. Zinaida liked putting on displays of mysteriousness, too. “And that category includes the motorcyclist?” Erg just stares at me. “Erg, come on. How can he be the same as you? He's not a doll!”

“Actually,” Erg mutters, “he kind of is.”

As soon as the words are out her face changes. A look of absolute horror comes over her. Her golden wood seems suddenly paler, her blue eyes go wide and she flings her tiny hands over her mouth.

“Oh, no!” Erg moans. “Oh, nonono! Oh, I didn't
say
that! I was just thinking it and it came out! I didn't…” She's begging, whimpering, but I get the feeling that she's not actually talking to me anymore. Her eyes dart through the corners of the room. “Please. I was just thinking too loudly! I didn't want Vassa to hear!”

“Erg?” I say. “What's wrong?”

She throws herself down on my thigh, howling, and starts pummeling me as hard as she can, though it barely stings. Maybe those were some of the extra-special beans that she's not allowed to spill, but I still don't see why she's so upset about it. “It's your fault, Vassa! You wouldn't stop asking me questions!”

I stroke her slick back while she flails at me. It seems like she's mostly just generating drama for drama's sake, but I still don't like seeing her freak out this way.

“I don't actually understand what the problem is. But I'm still sorry. Okay? I won't ask you about him again. Okay, Erg?” I'm still puzzling through everything I've learned. He's not a man, but he seems to be, even to himself. He's caught up in the lie of
looking
like a man. He was part of
the all above us,
but now he's a kind of doll. He sleeps all the time; he flies in his dreams and he can bring me along. He seems to be on pretty friendly terms with the night, enough to understand what it's thinking anyway. But what can all that add up to?

Erg knows, but I can never ask her again. She's done a great job of making sure I can't ask her, unless I want to cope with her launching into a nervous breakdown.

She's a little bit calmer now, whimpering steadily. “Not just about him! Don't ask me anything about—”

“About things in the same general category as you? You mean, magic things?” I say. I realize too late that that's another question, even two questions, but Erg only answers me with renewed sobbing. “How about this: where did you sneak off to last night? Is that a question you're allowed to answer? I saw your footsteps in the snow, but before I could look for you the motorcyclist came right at me. And then I guess Tomin ran away like a wuss, and somehow I didn't get pulverized?”

Erg just rolls her face against my leg and keens, but suddenly one of those loose bits of information finds the right slot in my brain. The motorcyclist told me that Night
hears the messenger,
and all at once I'm pretty sure I know who that messenger is. She can talk to the motorcyclist. He obviously hears what she's saying even when he can't acknowledge me at all. She can probably talk to Night, too, and understand its language. They're all basically on the same team, and a pitiful little human like me can't expect to comprehend what they're playing at.

And—God, how obvious is it now?—that's where she disappeared to while Tomin was hanging around.

“You went to get him,” I say, and this time it's not a question at all. “The motorcyclist. That's why he drove at me like that. You were already riding around with him. You set up the whole thing.”

I don't mean for it to sound like an accusation, but it kind of does. Erg won't stop crying, it's awful, especially since I don't know whether to blame her or myself. “Want some breakfast, Erg? That marshmallow butter isn't nearly enough to fill you up, right?” I nudge her, trying to coax her to look at me. “Now,
that's
a question I know you can handle! Dollface?”

Finally, finally she turns her head enough to glance at me, her tiny lips trembling. “I'm not hungry.”

That's a new one. And it's perfectly calculated to make me sick with worry. “I bet you'll feel better if you eat something solid. We still have some of those lagoon toaster tarts. Let me open one for you?” Erg just turns her face back to my leg and snuffles; I tear into one of the foil packets anyway. “Erg? Pretty blue frosting? And when we get out of here I'll take you out for ice cream or whatever you want. Okay?”

“I don't feel well,” Erg murmurs. “You should let me sleep.”

I stare at her for a moment; I don't think it's even possible for her to get physically ill. This has to be an act. “Fine,” I say after a lull. “I guess we're both tired.” It's true, too. I was unconscious for a good chunk of the night, but somehow it wasn't restful at all.

I lie down and look at my feet, one pale and human with chipped silver toenails and the other with thick, coal-colored skin webbed across a fan of bones. Erg is still clinging to my leg. I'd like to hold her, but I'm guessing she's not in the mood to be cuddled.

Looking up at the peeling ceiling, I remember the stars that raced around me and the cities that glinted below. He was once part of
the all above us,
but now he's separated from it. Lost from something above, turned into a doll and a slave, blindly watching the stars inside his own mind. And didn't he say once that for him the sun is always buried under the earth?

So, what's above us when the sun is below? The cot creaks as I crane my head back. I almost expect the ceiling to open and reveal the answer to me, but in fact I know it anyway. I would have figured it out earlier, maybe, if I didn't have this silly habit of being more or less sane.

He used to
be
the night, or a piece of it anyway. And now that it's day again I miss him way too much for comfort.

When I see him again I'll know there's only one more night between me and survival—but it's starting to feel like I have way more to do here than just get out alive.

 

CHAPTER 12