The Gray House

The voice made me shiver slightly, and that’s how I knew it was Blind. Even though the voice was not entirely his.

“Horse pucky!” Tabaqui exploded. “Are you saying respect must be begged and wheedled now? Justice! Where’s justice, I ask you?”

He was either really very deeply upset, or he was playing it up brilliantly. Either way, I felt uneasy.

“Would you like to have it for a while?” I said and reached for the string.

“No way!” he squeaked. “An amulet belonging to someone else? You’re off your rocker, dearest! Better a cursed dragon tailbone!”

“Speaking of dragons,” Sphinx interjected. “We got distracted. So what about those, the two-headed ones?”

“Nothing.” A lighter clicked and I saw it was Noble lighting up. “I am the last son in the whole stupid lineage. One-headed, as you can see. We’re freaking extinct, and I’m certainly not complaining.”

The ending of this story caught me a little off guard. I laughed.

“Cool. So was this a curse or the dragon himself?” I said.

The burning cigarette end zigzagged in the air.

“I’ve no idea. I only know the tale, and that we have a two-headed lizard on our coat of arms, with a supremely idiotic expression on both of its mugs,” Noble said.

“You’ve got a coat of arms?” I said.

“It’s on every handkerchief and every sock,” Noble admitted with disgust. “I keep trying to lose them everywhere and they keep coming back. Would you like a sock or ten? I’ll throw in a free lighter as well. And let’s talk about something else, all right? Like what happens to those poor idiots floating in the river?”

“Who knows?” Sphinx said. “They float. Maybe they wash ashore somewhere. Or maybe the Moon really takes them. It’s not about them, it’s about the water in the river.”

“Moon River!” Tabaqui exclaimed. “I knew it! I knew this was about the dear old concoction!”

I recalled the beginning of that story: Those who manage to drink the water turn into fools

. I was just about to ask how come Noble didn’t turn into one when I felt his hand squeezing my elbow as a mute warning. An impossible trick, to move so quickly over a bed full of people. I was curious if he managed to shut up Jackal as well. Or did Tabaqui decide on his own to shut up? I definitely wasn’t going to ask that.

“How about we open the windows?” someone suggested. “It’s getting stuffy.”

The other end of the bed developed some movement, there were yawns and cigarettes being lit.

“And some more water. We ran out.”

“Let Smoker go get some. He’s not speaking anyway.”

“He won’t make it.”

“I’ll go,” someone suggested, jumping off the bed. “Give me the bottles.”

I heard bottles clinking. I grappled for the one sticking in my side, passed it over, and felt that I could breathe freely again. Turned out it had been making me really miserable all this time.

“Humpback, sing the one about the purple ghost. That’s a beautiful song.”

“I’m not in the mood. I’ll sing the one about being caught in the act,” Humpback said.

Someone jostled me and made me spill the wine again.

Please don’t hurt me, I’m a little old rat,

just a little old rat, I swear!

Only this piece of old yellow cheese,

and that’s the full extent of my sins,

I swear to you, yes, I swear!

“Wicked,” someone whispered and giggled softly.

Only a burrow, two runs in it,

my bedroom is at the very end.

There are four of us hiding inside,

I’m the oldest, Death will come for me soon.

Please, please, don’t hurt me tonight,

let me return, return to my hole!

Doleful sighs in the dark.

I fingered the pouch on the string. It was soft, worn, and sewn shut. There was something sharp inside, and it crackled where I was probing. Maybe it really was a piece of shell. Or a corn chip. My own movements felt sluggish, and my thoughts chased each other around in my head. I tried to assemble them into something halfway coherent, but I only ended up with some fuzzy snippets. Rip the pouch open . . . to see . . . Check Noble’s socks. Ask him why he didn’t want anyone to know about Moon River. At the same time I was conscious of the fact that tomorrow I wouldn’t remember much of what I was thinking tonight. Or much of anything really.