The Gray House

A lamp inside a pink shade switches on above them. The shade has the form of a glass flower, and there is a crack across the translucent bell. There’s something dark attached to the winding stem. Sphinx looks closer and realizes it’s a switchblade, hidden there to avoid the search. It’s an ingenious spot. He sees the knife, and also something on top of the frame around the locked serving window, something that’s been left there. He suspects that were he to stand up and look around he’d be able to see everything that’s been concealed around the canteen, all the invisible objects, dangerous and not, valuable and worthless, everything that counselors are trying and failing to discover. He is doing his best to avoid looking at people. Looking at them the way he used to, the way Ancient taught him to. Now is not the time. But when did he stop doing that? Simply looking. Simply seeing. Simply living in the present day. Not yesterday and not tomorrow. When did his hours and days grow diminished with the fears and regrets?

“How long have you known?”

“Since they settled on the date. Last Monday.”

The pink reflections of the lamp in Blind’s eyes, two tiny pink flowerlets. Under them, the somber grin. His fingernails tease and scratch the palm of the other hand. The hands are as restless as the face is calm. He used to know to look at Blind’s hands first, and only then at his face. There are a lot of things he used to do right, and doesn’t anymore.

“We have a Fairy Tale Night ahead of us,” Blind says. “It will also be Long. And then it will be morning. All things come to an end.”

Sphinx slumps against the wall and closes his eyes. He’s out of practice of seeing everything at once, and it’s tiring for him. Anyone who looks at him now would assume he’s dozed off, but even through the closed eyes he still feels the alarmed glances of the pack. Even Smoker’s, seemingly.

“I wonder if they are ever going to leave me alone,” Sphinx whispers.

As he opens his eyes he sees the canteen wobble in and out of focus. The wind is howling through the fence he’s sitting next to, as if playing on the harp with strings of rebar. The battered road overgrown with weeds, the telephone poles stretching out to the horizon, the sunset sky splashed purple—all of that combines into a semitransparent hologram through which he still distinguishes the shape of the canteen and the spectral figures ambling aimlessly around it. This overlapping of the two worlds, the real one and the ghostly one, makes Sphinx nauseated. He knows that if he concentrated on seeing one of them, the second would immediately blink out of existence, but something is not letting him choose between them, so he tries to keep both pictures going, even as the nausea and the vertigo grow more intense.

“Sphinx! Stop it right now! What do you think you’re doing? This is not a game!”

The habit of obeying Blind works at the level of reflex. A very old habit. The canteen fills out with color and volume, the road and the fields on both sides of it disappear.

“Sorry,” Sphinx says. “It happened kind of by itself. I didn’t want to.”

“Exactly,” Blind sighs. “You either want or you don’t. Choose the direction before you start running.”

Sphinx is amazed at how precisely Blind read his actions. That what he really wanted was to run. But not where the House wanted him to.

“I am so sick of being cooped up here.”

“Why didn’t you just say so? Easily accomplished.”

Blind stands up resolutely and pulls Sphinx after him, striding toward the inspection table almost at a run and sending the conspiratorial Logs scattering, frightened by the abruptness of his movement. Sphinx runs after him. He’s afraid that Blind is going to crash into one of the counselors and then they will regard it as the beginning of the assault. Fortunately Blind stops a couple of paces short of Sheriff’s blubbery belly.

“Could we please be excused?” he asks politely, earnestly staring into the empty space above the counselor’s head. “We do not have any backpacks with us.”

The queue does not raise any complaints, and neither does Sheriff, already beyond nervous. They are perfunctorily searched and pushed out.

“The entire House is yours,” Blind whispers as soon as the door closes behind them. “Except for the First, but you’re not exactly eager to go there, are you?”

“I’m not,” Sphinx says sullenly. “I’m not eager to go anywhere except my bed. I need to grab some sleep and get my head together. It’s going to be a long night.”

Blind slows his pace. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but there are some questions that I need to ask you too. The bed will have to wait. We can go to the Coffeepot. Or we can go to another place, where you’ll have enough time to sleep, watch the sun rise, have a breakfast, and collect your thoughts before we have our talk. Your call. The second choice would save us a lot of trouble.”

Sphinx stops and looks at Blind intently.

“No,” he says firmly. “I prefer the Coffeepot.”

“As you wish.”