The Gray House

“Sure. If you can make me,” Smoker says. “The same way you made all of them back then. So that even Tabaqui would say that it never happened.”

A breathtakingly rude remark, so much so that my nose starts itching, and the areas of the brain responsible for talking and acting are telegraphing up new Howls, along the lines of “Traitors against the wall!” and “Take no prisoners!” I barely manage to subdue them.

Sphinx is looking straight at Smoker, and it’s unclear if he’s going to kill him right now or simply laugh. Just looking. He at Smoker, and Smoker back at him. The silence seems to drip in huge heavy drops.

“Goodness,” Noble says reverentially. “So much drama.”

I can’t hold on to an inappropriate and somewhat oily snigger, and it escapes.

Sphinx switches off the headlights and then puts them back on, directed at us. That’s the way the man blinks, what of it? The eyes are cheerful and a bit on the impish side. He would have laughed. Most likely. But on a day as hot as this one you can’t be sure of anything.

Alexander reappears and sits on his bed this time.

“Hello, polar explorer,” I say to him. “You’ve almost caused a conflict here. If there’s one thing we hate, it’s for things to be left unsaid. So if this is some sort of protest, just say so. Otherwise we have Smoker here speaking for you, and we’ve already learned by and by that he has a dust allergy.”

Alexander always looks terminally earnest. You almost start believing everything he says even before he’s said it. It is therefore a blessing that he says so little, because listening to really honest words is somewhat tiring.

“I hate the color white,” he says.

This tires me instantly and very deeply. The mental effort of it, I mean.

Alexander looks at us, obviously expecting that we’ve already understood everything, but since our faces display a profound lack of understanding, he adds, “I dreamed I was a dragon. I hovered above a city and singed its streets with the fire of my breathing. The city was empty, because of me there. And I . . . it scared me.”

I pull at the earring hard. It hurts, but also clears the mind. Both when I’m drunk and in cases like this, when I see things. Things like scarlet-winged lizards flitting between charred houses. Lizards that look like bonfires. Alexander said nothing about the color red, but I know. And I also know that when your true color is ripping you apart from the inside you can swathe yourself in a dozen layers of white, or black, and it won’t help a single bit. It’s like trying to mop a waterfall with a tissue.

“The white shirt isn’t going to save you,” Sphinx says, putting my thoughts into words.

Alexander’s stare is unblinking. I imagine that in another moment all the bones in his face are going to be exposed, and then the only thing for me to do would be to count them and go kill myself quietly. They’re almost out already. The bones, the gray skin, and the swampy puddles of the eyes, with tadpoles for pupils.

“But it wouldn’t hurt either,” he says uncertainly. “Besides, who knows?”

Sphinx doesn’t argue. Neither do I. Noble dives behind a magazine. Smoker yawns ostentatiously.

“It’s time, Sphinx. Time for you to bust the glass for us. Can’t you see what’s going on? Time to fly. This one’s already taking wing”—I nod at Alexander—“and the others are champing at the bit.”

“Bust it yourself,” Sphinx says. “I am not ten anymore. I forgot how it’s done.”

These words are the last straw. It’s as if this was the only hope I was holding on to. Even though it started as an old, half-forgotten in-joke.

“When I had a nightmare once and told about it, Sphinx said he was going to bite me if I didn’t shut up,” Smoker says casually. “I remember it very well.”

“I do too.” Sphinx nods. “I also remember that I promised it to Noble, not to you. You have a very selective memory, Smoker. It skews the events. Presents them in an unflattering light.”

“What if I dreamed I was a flying hippo?”

“It would mean you ate something nasty at dinner.”

“Why then for Alexander it has to mean that he needs to dress in white?”

“I don’t know,” Sphinx says. He climbs down from the nightstand and sits on the floor, leaning his bald pate against the bed. “And I’ve never said it had to mean that, if you noticed.”

Smoker laughs.

“Now this was a beautiful explanation. Exhaustive and succinct. I finally understand everything.”

His laugh is not exactly sane, but not completely mad either. Equal parts of both. He’s got a lot of laughing to do if he hopes to catch Noble in his best years, but it still grates. We all of us urgently need a breath of fresh air. While it’s still around. Because it’s quite possible that it won’t be around for long.

I put on the dark glasses, plunging the world into shadow, and ask Alexander to help me with strapping my backpack to Mustang.

As I drive up to the Crossroads I remember: