The Gray House

“Listen,” he says, “have you ever used River?”

“No. Didn’t even try. Not River, not White Rainbow, and not Seven Steps.”

Noble looks at me oddly. He is dying to tell me something and at the same time is afraid of doing it.

“Would you believe it if I told you that I ended up in some godforsaken place and spent at least four months there?”

He asks me and looks away. His fingers are teasing the edge of the blanket, his lips are contorted in a grin, as if I have already started clucking in protest, made a sign of the cross with the rakes and fainted.

Would I? I examine him closer—and only now see that which I should have seen right away, were it not for the oatmeal. He looks older. Gone are the last traces of baby fat, the formerly soft cheeks have been chiseled out. His entire face looks sharper. Looking at him, it’s not at all certain that he’s not twenty yet. This indeterminability of age, the principal feature of a Jumper, is staring at me so blatantly that it’s all I can do not to swear out loud. You had to be someone like Black not to notice it.

My emotions are apparently on open display. His grin becomes even more self-deprecating.

“Yeah, just what I thought. Now you too think I’ve gone loopy.”

“No, I think that I have. That I’m completely off my game. Damn, not to recognize a Jumper from two paces! What an idiot!”

He blinks in confusion.

“Sphinx? What’s going on?”

I get a hold of myself. What the hell did I come here for? To demolish someone’s dinner? To parade my exhaustion around, not notice anything, and then, after being shoved face-first into it, to fly off the handle? He trusted his innermost secret to me, and this is how I repay him?

I close my eyes. These are things you’re not supposed to talk about. But I’ve already ruined just about everything, and this is the price I have to pay.

“The landscape looked kind of abandoned,” I begin hurriedly, with my eyes still closed, “a cracked blacktop, fields on both sides, houses here and there. Most of them boarded up. Nothing really memorable . . . except maybe the diner. More or less on the side of the road. I think it’s the first inhabited place for about every other Jumper. There are some who bump straight into the gas station, but not many.”

My head starts spinning. Very slightly, but it’s still a warning sign.

“I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to talk about this. I don’t know what happened to you afterward and where you ended up, but the beginning of the road to the Underside of the House is the same for everyone. Almost everyone. Am I close?”

I unscrew my eyes and see Noble’s eyes occupying half of his face. A sleepwalker who’s suddenly been woken up. Now would be the perfect time for Jan to come back and see this insane look. I turn around to check if the door has just opened.

“Noble. Enough. Get yourself together. I never said anything. Leave the blanket alone, count to a hundred. I don’t know, have some milk. Jan is coming soon. If you keep staring like that they’re going to pump you full of drugs and pack you off in a straitjacket.”

Noble nods spasmodically. I can see he’s desperately trying to follow my advice. Maybe even the “count to a hundred” thing. His face assumes this faraway look. He gets as far as eighty-six, by my estimates.

“But you said you’ve never had anything like that!” Noble blurts out. “How could you know?”

“See, Noble. The House is a weird place,” I say. “Here people have identical hallucinations. Or at least they start identically. And it’s not necessary to swallow or chew anything to get them. You know, I think that if any of the concoctions that the so-called experts are conjuring up here were to be brought into the Outsides and given to someone there, nothing would happen. Maybe a stomachache, but that’s all. Hard to be sure, of course, but that’s what I think. I could be wrong.”

“So I’m not crazy?” Noble recaps, in a calmer manner. “Or if I am, I’m not alone.”

“That last part looks more like it.”

This is where Janus finally comes in. Noble is carefully playing at nonchalance. I straighten up, concern and compassion incarnate. A grandma who finally got to pamper her favorite.

“How are you doing here?” Jan queries. “Fighting yet?”

We raise a unanimous protest. Jan notices the tray with the empty bowl and nods approvingly.

“You can stay just a while longer,” he tells me. “Half an hour at most.”

Jan disappears.

Now I could stick around with Noble until tomorrow morning if I wanted to. No Spider queens are going to show up to throw me out.

“I need a cigarette,” Noble whines as soon as the door slams shut behind Janus.

I send the rake rummaging through my pocket. It gets predictably stuck in there, scratching around like a trapped insect. Useless thing. Noble pulls me toward him, frees up the unfortunate appendage, and takes out the pack. Then in the other pocket we find a lighter. I climb off the bed and sit down on the floor, with my back against the nightstand. We puff in unison. Noble’s drags are greedy; mine, despondent.

“Go on.”