Vassa in the Night (37 page)

I can tell by the look on her face that whatever she wants to know will be exactly what I most want to never say aloud, not as long as I live. But while she's gazing at me in that wrenching way, I know I'll do anything she asks. “Okay.”

“I already know what you think. I just need you to say it.”

“Erg. What
is
it?” Oh, but I can guess. Can't I?

“Who am I, Vassa? How did I become alive, I mean? Tell me everything. And don't just say magic! Because duh!”

I close my eyes. Somehow I can't stand to see her watching me, not while I say this. “I—well, this is what I
think
happened, okay? Because I don't know for sure, Erg. But my mom found out she was dying, so she went to Bea and had her make you, but you weren't alive then. Not yet. She put you in my hands right before the end, and I couldn't understand why she said you were magic, because you looked so completely ordinary. Just a little wooden doll, right? Or why she made such a big deal about keeping you secret. And when she said I had to feed you it just seemed like some kind of weird joke. I promised anyway, though, because I knew she was dying. I would have promised anything she wanted.”

I stop talking, because the next words are already taking shape just under my heart. They hurt so much even in silence that I almost think saying them aloud could choke me.

“Then what?” Erg says. Her voice is gentle. “Because this is the important part.”

Right. The important part. The forbidden beans that we don't spill, because the beanstalk that grows from them will skewer our chests, send its tendrils bursting through our arteries, feed on our blood … “I saw the line stop. The line for her heartbeat. I saw it while the nurse was dragging me out of the room, and I said I would kill them all if they kept me away from her. And then I stopped screaming, because I felt something kicking inside my pocket. I reached in and you started stroking my hand to calm me down, and I was so surprised that I just shut up.”

“So that's what I need to know, Vassa. What brought me to life? I mean, right at that moment?”

I don't answer. If there's one thing I owe Erg, it's the truth, even
this
truth. When I pull in a breath it judders through my lungs. Even with my eyes closed I can feel how intensely Erg is watching me. How she's waiting.

“My mom,” I say at last. “I think that's why she had you made. So that the last scrap of her life would have somewhere to go, and it went into you. So that part of her could
stay
with me. I think she made you—so she wouldn't have to leave me completely alone.”

Now I know why I didn't want to say this. It's because it sounds so childish.

It's because it sounds like a lie that I've been telling myself for the last six years.

Babs didn't manage to kill me, but maybe this will.

“Vassa,” Erg says. “I always knew you thought that. But that's not what happened.”

I know that now.
I can't say it, but Erg hears it anyway.

“Part of
somebody
went into me. It just wasn't your mom. Your mom died and there wasn't anything left over—except, you know, some memories. And her paintings.”

So who went into you, then? Who was it?
Stupid question.

“There was part—of somebody—a little girl—and that part hurt so much the girl couldn't carry it inside herself anymore. So it went into a doll. It made the doll alive. And the doll carried it for her. For six years.”

I don't want to hear this, Erg.

“But now she's ready to take that part back. I mean, I think she can handle it on her own now. All the doll has to do is tell her one more secret. That's all. And then the Night can be whole again, and
she
can be whole again. And we'll have done what we needed to do.”

“And you'll be dead?” I say. My voice cracks with bitterness. I finally open my eyes again. Erg looks at me gravely. She doesn't try to smile, because she knows I couldn't stand it if she did.

“Not exactly,” Erg says. “Not dead like a person would be. But I won't be a separate
me
anymore and all the magic will be—used up.”

Don't do it, Erg. Please don't do it. I can't lose you.

Now Erg does smile: a wicked, warped, heartbroken grin. “Like you can stop me from talking, Vassa?”

“I've never been able to stop you from doing anything.”

“Yup. You sure haven't!”

I almost laugh, except that I can barely breathe.

“Vassa, listen, once I tell you a secret—about the motorcyclist, and the stars—I won't have time to say anything else. So I want you to promise me something first.”

If I don't promise, will that stop you from doing this?

“You want to see your mom again, don't you? Even if it's just for a few little moments? That's what I need you to do. You need to go to where she is, and you need to tell her something.”

“You just told me she's completely dead. That there's nothing left of her.”

“That's not what I said, Vassa.”

You said that all that's left of Zinaida are some memories. And her paintings.

“So you need to go back into the painting. Because that's where she is. And because you've been there, too, really. All this time.”

I'd like to ask which painting Erg is talking about. I'd like to convince myself that I don't know what she means. But it's too late to pretend.

Erg is climbing up my hoodie now, her tiny hands bunching the fabric and her feet digging into my ribs. I won't help her do this, but I can't stop her, either. Instead I wait, trying to breathe, feeling the cool wind licking at my tears.

When Erg reaches my shoulder she burrows under my hair and hugs the side of my neck. “Do you promise me, Vassa? You'll do what I said?”

I can't, and I have to. Isn't that always the way? “I promise you—everything, Erg.”
If you're coming back into me, then I promise I'll do whatever it takes to deserve you.
I curl my hand around her to feel her little wooden body moving for as long as I can.

“Vassa? One more thing?”

I squeeze her.

“I didn't do any of this for Bea, Vassa. Truly not, even though I … remember her. I never forgot how much Babs hurt her, and I guess that gave me the idea. But it was
really
for you. And I think you know why, now, don't you?”

Then for a while she's talking not to me, but to Night, in a strange trilling tone that I can't make out—though it sounds like words. It
feels
like words. And then Erg whispers something into my ear. A set of instructions. I listen hard. If Erg is giving up her life for this, then I'm sure as hell going to get it right.

The tiny joints in her knees and waist go lax in my hand. When I lift her out her painted face has frozen into a secretive, faraway smile.

 

CHAPTER 24

She's right; I never would have figured it out on my own. It's not the kind of thing a human girl can pull off without help. But to be fair Night couldn't do it without help, either. It doesn't matter if I want to curl up on the floor of a closet for a month, repeating every word Erg ever said to me again and again and holding her lifeless body to my cheek. I need to get up and do this, and I need to do it for her. I give her head one quick kiss—those black lacquered curls with no one behind them now—and then tuck her away in my pocket.

Once this is done I'll never see the motorcyclist again, either, I know that. Just like Erg, he won't exist as a distinct being anymore; he'll dissolve back into the dark consciousness of the midnight sky. I don't know if he'll even be capable of remembering me. To free him is to destroy him as he is now, as something that could almost seem to be a man.

Almost, but not quite. Not ever. Because being human is a hard lesson to learn and you really have to start young, and practice constantly, if you're going to stand a chance of getting good at it.

My swans are dispersed and they've done more than their share of the work already anyway, so it's up to me to stop the motorcycle without them. I have to remind myself that the form on the motorcycle isn't a body in the usual sense; it's more a husk, an artificial shell. As I stand up my legs waver, but I could swear Night steadies me.

I go back into the store, clambering up to the sill where it leans three feet off the ground with sad-looking chicken toes poking out beneath. I get that rolling chair that used to sit behind the counter, both counter and chair now crushed beyond all recognition. The chair is still a heavy lump, though, no matter how mashed its frame is. The grubby mustard upholstery has been ripped into a dusty stew.

I pause to check on Tomin, sleeping peacefully on the floor. His chest swells in a tidal rhythm and the last three swans have come to cuddle near him, their necks draped across his shoulders and his arms around their silky backs.

Then I pick up that hulk that was once Babs's chair and drag it back outside. A blind watchman doesn't have much chance of avoiding stationary objects that might happen to wind up in his path. He goes around and around, his helmet gleaming and his engine whirring piteously. A slave who can't get free even now that his captor is dead. The idea is so sad that I have to shake my head to clear it so that I can keep going.

I watch him circle a few times, just to make sure I know his course. And then I shove the chair right in his path and step way back. It's only a matter of moments before the black bulk whips along its familiar orbit, the front wheel spitting up with the collision. The shining black rider leaps into the air, glimmers spinning on his visor. The bike twists against the glow of distant windows and then crashes down on its side. Metal screams on pavement, sparks fan out. If it were a regular motorcycle, I'd worry about the gas tank exploding—but like Erg said, that's not really a motorcycle. It's a doll, a mess of death and steel wrapped in an illusion; one thing I'll say for Babs, she did some impressive work. There has never been a drop of gasoline inside it.

I know that now. Since when did I get in the habit of knowing these things?

The motorcyclist doesn't fly off his bike. Instead they skid along together, a single dark tangle. A horse that is also its own rider. Babs made him that way, fused him with his machine. She made the motorcycle as an extension of his body. Why not? After all, she never intended him to have any life beyond driving in circles in her parking lot. Forever asleep and helpless, his presence taunting Night and drawing it close. By day—because it has to be day
sometimes
—she could store him in her apartment. Then Night would give up hanging around until it saw him again. She had a really neat system going while it lasted.

The bike grinds to a stop twenty feet from me, night within Night. A human would be screaming, but he's perfectly silent. Pain, for him, is not located in his body. His wheels are still whirring frantically and he makes an awkward effort to get up. When I reach him and rest my hands on his shoulders he stops struggling. I'm surprised he can feel me, but I guess we know each other now. “It's me,” I tell him. “It's Vassa. I'm here to send you home.”

Night sees me, Night holds me, and Night knows what the messenger told it to do.

When I lift the glossy black visor the motorcyclist lets out a thin whine of repressed pain, but he doesn't scream this time. I'd like to think it's because he understands: he only has to endure this suffering for a few more moments, and he'll be free. The stars stabbed into his eyelids wheel savagely golden against his black skin.

I raise my hands—hands that are burned and bruised and streaked with cuts—up into the darkness, and I call to Night the way Erg taught me to call.

Night lands like a pair of star-flecked falcons and enfolds both hands up to the wrists. When I lower them I can just make out the pale lines of my fingers through an inch of gray-black so dense it looks almost gelatinous, shot through by meteors and buzzing with the voices of far-off frogs. Night gloves me in the hush of dark creatures and moonlight scripted on puddles in the gutter. Its touch is cold, moist, and so smooth I almost think my skin might liquefy inside it.

Together Night and I reach forward. The stars rotate faster in protest, spitting golden fury, flashing scarlet. I can't feel their heat at all through the Night covering my skin. There's a sensation of pressure in my fingertips as we seize both the stars at once, one in each hand. I can feel their edges slicing the eyelids more deeply as they resist us, and I brace my knee against the motorcyclist's chest. On its own Night could dabble with breezes, catch flying dollar bills in light spirals, lift blood cells one by one from the snow. It has airy precision and sensitivity far beyond mine. What it doesn't have is the focused strength of human arms.