The Gray House

Blind was motionless, and the flame of the candles played in his wide-open eyes. He stood there for a long time. Then he lit a cigarette and moved on. He crossed the strip of light, not hiding anymore, went past the moonlit clearing of the Crossroads, the open door to the bathroom, the door to the staff room, the canteen. The stairs smelled of cigarette butts; he stepped on one of them, still warm, and slowed down.

Down the stairs. Another long, empty corridor, and at the very end of it—more stairs and the door to the basement. He swayed, and his feet slid on the steps. He steadied himself against the wall. Picked the lock with a piece of wire and entered.

The basement was dusty and stuffy. Blind sat on the concrete floor facing the door, buried his chin in his knees, and froze. His armpits flowed down into his jeans. The cigarette clung to his lips. A ringing in his ears. Three little bells and one cricket. He rolled over to the wall, rose up to his knees, and ran his fingers along the scratchy brick surface. Feeling for the emptiness behind one of them. At first he had needed to count steps from the corner to find the right one, but now he knew instantly. Blind carefully removed the brick. In the opening there was a bundle wrapped in newspapers. He shook the dust off his fingers and inserted both of his hands into the hiding place. The old paper rustled. He extracted the parcel, put it on the floor, and unwrapped it.

There were two knives inside. Blind liked to touch them. Sometimes he would cry when doing it. At one time the parcel had also contained a monkey skull on a chain, but he had given it to Sphinx, so now there were only the knives.

One was a gift. It had been given to him so long ago that he didn’t remember exactly when it happened, and remembered only that it had always been a secret—first so that no one would take it from him, and then just to keep it away from prying eyes. The knife was beautiful. The blade thin as a thorn and sharp on both sides. No one had told Blind it was beautiful, he just knew it. He’d never questioned the seniors of his childhood, and so one of them giving a child a toy like this did not appear strange to him at all.

The other knife was the one they’d used to kill Elk. It was neither beautiful nor particularly handy. A regular kitchen knife marred with rust. He always shuddered when he touched it, but at the same time his pain was dulled by the strange feeling of the impossibility of what had actually happened. This pitiful piece of iron in his hand couldn’t have killed Elk. A mouse never would gnaw down a mountain, a mosquito bite never would harm a lion, a sliver of steel never would destroy his god. So he kept the knife and visited it regularly, touching it to refill himself with unbelief again and again. To imagine that Elk wasn’t dead, that he’d vanished, disappeared, cast off the House that had betrayed him.

It was time to go back. Blind stuffed his knife in the pocket, wrapped the other one in the paper again, and lowered it into the hiding place. The brick slotted back into position. My sweater, Blind remembered.

I need to pick it up. He went out, clicked the padlock shut, and mounted the stairs. The stairway to the second floor he took at a run. He was almost out of time. The night was fading away. The Forest was quickly devouring it. The hallway, the doors, the silence. The first sounds of morning were on the cusp of bursting in, and then he would be invisible no more. It was an unpleasant thought, and it made Blind hurry up.

SMOKER

VISITING THE CAGE

I felt like a corpse the entire day after Fairy Tale Night, and only started showing signs of life late in the afternoon. And it came in stages. First I mustered enough strength to wheel down to the bathroom and meet a sinister red-eyed monster there, who then turned out to be myself. I had to do something with him, so I decided washing him would be a good start.

Alexander helped me undress. I wouldn’t have managed. My hands shook as if I had been drinking for thirty years straight. I refused to believe that one single bender was capable of reducing me to such a sorry state. After parting with my pajamas—they were so saturated with pine scent and alcohol that I easily could have used them to scare away mosquitoes—I went to sit in the shower and then returned to the dorm.

It was around six. I still wasn’t able to divine precise time without the aid of a watch. I clambered onto the bed somehow, took a pad from under the pillow, and started drawing whatever. The backpacks and bags on the bed rail, all in a row. Tabaqui’s head, peeking out of the blanket cocoon he’d wrapped himself in. Noble, yawning.