The Gray House

“Yes, we all do. But you, especially so. You are greedy, Blind. You take like a thief, and it’s so obvious. I sometimes think that you feed on our thoughts. That there is no you, only what you’ve taken from us, stolen from us. And that . . . loot—it walks among us, it talks to us, sniffs at us, pretending that it’s one of us. I feel myself emptying in your presence. I hear you saying my own words—words that I never said when you were near. Logs call you a changeling. They say you steal other people’s dreams. It’s supposed to be a joke, you’re supposed to laugh like it’s another one of their silly ideas, except I know it’s true, have known it for a long time. I know you’re a fake. You’re tiny shards of us glued together.”

“That grew into your Leader,” Blind prompts. He’s not being sarcastic or cruel. He doesn’t hear conviction in Humpback’s voice, only desire to hurt him. “I can assure you, Humpback, that I did once exist outside the House, without any assistance from any of you.”

Does Humpback smile?

Blind knows where this superstition comes from. A big part of it is his habit of quietly assuming the inflections of anyone he’s talking to. It happens by itself, almost unconsciously. By doing that he reduces the distance, makes the words easier to understand. Sometimes it makes even the thoughts easier to guess. But this habit by itself wouldn’t make Humpback want to hurt him now.

“I had my dreams,” Humpback says. “They were my own. My secret place. No one knew about it. And then you barged in and ruined it. Forced that horrible child on me. She hides all the time and then jumps out when I least expect it, and starts biting and scratching like a wolverine. You turned my dreams into nightmares. I can’t even be in a room at night anymore, I’m always expecting her to sneak in on me and tear at my face. I’m not even talking about being able to sleep. Only here, in the tree, and only for minutes at a time. I know why you did it. Because you can’t stand it when someone escapes from you! Escapes to where you have no power!”

Blind laughs.

“What makes you think that you’re the only one to have that dream? That it’s a dream at all?”

Humpback suddenly reeks of danger. The scent is so strong that Blind grabs the nearest branch, even though it’s not nearly thick enough to support him.

“If I were to push you off right now, are you going to reach the ground? Or will you evaporate on the way down?”

Humpback’s voice echoes with the sound of Blind’s fall and the twigs cracking. Or maybe it’s bones.

“I’ll grab you, and we’ll fall together.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I didn’t like the question.”

Humpback sighs heavily.

“Those aren’t dreams, Humpback. Believe me,” Blind says. “But you must have already figured that out.”

Nanette pounds the trunk with her beak, imitating a woodpecker. Blind tears off a leaf that’s been tickling his cheek and crushes it in his fingers. They become slightly sticky and bring in the smell of the Forest. It helps Blind regain his composure. You should always smell of things that surround you, that’s one of the Forest survival tricks. Becoming a part of it reduces the danger. It’s a bit like copying the inflections. Blind has long been a believer in this technique, ever since the time he devoured the walls of the House when he was little.

“If not dreams, what is it, then?” Humpback says.

“You know yourself,” Blind says indifferently.

Humpback is silent. Only his fingers move, rubbing the flute. The dappled rays of the sun are hotter now, they burn Blind’s skin where they touch it, these solar bites wandering back and forth in the feeble breeze that ruffles the leaves.

Once, long ago, on this very junction where Blind now sits, he was hit by a crossbow bolt. It didn’t pierce him, only hit and bounced off. He remembers how frightened he was. Not of the blow itself and not of the pain that followed, but because the one who did it remained invisible. He could not guess who it was, standing below with the makeshift weapon that was in vogue among the juniors, he could not even be sure it was one of his classmates and not a senior, and it’s the thought that it could have been anyone that was scarier than meeting a barrage of arrows from a noisy, arrogant, obvious adversary. Why was he remembering it now? What makes one relive an event that does not, on the surface, have anything to do with the conversation he’s having? Blind’s hand slips under his shirt, the fingers caressing the stomach in the spot where the bruise used to be.

“How much time does it take to reload a crossbow?” he says.