The Gray House

Smoker frowns, trying to remember if he saw any stripes in his personal file. I want to laugh, although heaven knows there’s nothing funny about this.

“One,” I say. “You’ve been thrown out of your group, that’s a sure way to get it. But everyone has one, so don’t worry. Here only Tubby managed to avoid it.”

“And Noble has . . .”

“Three. And I’m afraid that, barring a miracle, someone is going to finally notice them this time.”

“Does it mean he has schizophrenia, then?”

I take a huge breath, but then the strengthening roar and clatter of an avalanche rolling down the hallway reaches my ears and all the nasty words stay where they were. Smoker also hears the sound of the imminent arrival of the well fed.

“Oops. I guess I better go someplace,” he says. “While there isn’t anyone there.”

He manages to sneak out just as the avalanche reaches our door. Jackal, riding his Mustang, is the first to burst in. Yogurt mustache, a pack of sandwiches under his arm.

“Why, hello, Sphinx! Doing a one-man strip show? Could have waited for your friends!”

Humpback shoves him aside, places a packet of juice on the nightstand, and goes on to take Nanette out for feeding.

“Yummy sandwiches, look!” Tabaqui tempts me. “I can even put some sauce on top.”

Alexander, a bunch of clothes in his hands, pushes his way through.

“This is cheese and this is cream cheese,” Tabaqui persists. “All lovingly made by these very hands!”

“Smoker’s back. Why don’t you ask him if he’s hungry?”

With a triumphant yell, Tabaqui backs out of the door and, by the sound of it, proceeds to break down the door to the bathroom.

“Smoker! Light of my life! Are you in there? Talk to me!”

Alexander finishes buttoning my shirt.

“Are you going to go see Noble?” he asks.

Sure. That’s about the last thing I need right now. Go to Noble and explain to him the circumstances leading to his current whereabouts.

“Leave me alone,” I snap. “Can’t you see I’m not in a condition to drag myself over there?”

He just holds the jeans for me. He doesn’t argue, he doesn’t question me, and this makes me that much more miserable.

Jackal, the sunny go-getter with the yogurt mustache, the exuberant noisemaker, is back. Along with Smoker, who’s chewing on a sandwich from that packet, and Humpback, who slaps Smoker’s back excitedly, preventing him from enjoying his food with a barrage of questions about his time in quarantine.

“How’s the Cage? Is the blasted thing still standing?”

Smoker nods. “Of course it is. Still there. What could possibly happen to it?”

I observe the lightning-fast disappearance of the sandwiches and swallow hard.

“You’re so thin,” Lary observes with concern. “Was it hard for you over there?”

Smoker nods again, then mumbles through the layers of the sandwich, “Hate those yellow flowers!”

Which precipitates another explosion of reminiscences from Humpback and Jackal about the hours they spent in quarantine.

“So the last time I was there, I . . .”

“One night is nothing, I was in for four in a row once . . .”

“Yellow is child’s play! Now blue, on the other hand . . .”

While they are all comparing notes, I suddenly discover Blind’s hand on my shoulder.

“I think,” the Great-and-Powerful pronounces thoughtfully, “that it might be a good idea for you to walk down to the Sepulcher. Have a talk with Janus. You two are friends, after all.”

Another one. The destination is the same, the quest just got harder, and Blind, unlike Alexander, I cannot just brush off. I mean, I could, but that would be unwise.

“Is that an order?”

Sightless One is surprised.

“Of course not. Just a suggestion.”

He lets go of my shoulder and walks off, not giving me even a moment to grumble. Time to run to the Sepulcher. And I mean run right now, before Tabaqui joins the well-meaning advisers, before Humpback tells me all he thinks about it, and before Lary volunteers to accompany me there. We’ve been living side by side for far too long. Our sides have merged, and we all share common habits now. Soon we won’t even need to open our mouths anymore to express an opinion, everyone will already know everything.

The classes drift by silently, not involving me in any way. Rain is drumming on the windowpanes. The gray ribbons of the raindrops snake down the glass. So sleepy. I catch myself dozing off with my eyes open, and I even see something like a dream.

A dimly lit passage through subterranean corridors. There’s a window ahead of me. A dull, flyspecked rectangle of whitewashed glass. Wolf is sitting on the sill. With his back to me. He has on his old patterned sweater with holes in the elbows.

“Wolf!” I call to him.

He turns around and looks at me. The familiar white scar over the lip. His lips don’t move, but I hear his voice.

“This mouse hanged itself under the pillow in my hole,” he whispers.

I’m shaken awake by Skank’s yelp and see her round, piggy eyes right in front of my face. She looks frantic.

“Where is the mouse?” she demands in a shaky voice, directing the end of the pointer at my nose. “Where is it?”