It has been thirty-two hours exactly since the junk man’s last drink. He is not adjusting well. He is yellow and gray and woozy. A shadow of himself. He shakes and groans and sweats and shivers. He cannot hold water. His heart strains in his chest.
“Just hold on.” You need to be okay if I am not here, her heart pleads with him.
Not if, says a voice deep in her soul. When.
“I am so hot, my child. And yet I am cold. I am dying, or perhaps I am dead.”
“If so,” she squeezes harder, “perhaps it is temporary.” She smiles at him. She is not a particularly pretty girl, but he loves her face—its over-wide forehead and over-small nose. He loves each freckle and those black, beady, glittering eyes.
“Temporarily dead,” he muses. “I remember . . .” He holds his breath. He presses his hand to his chest.
And the junk man’s daughter feels an opening in her heart. It is made of light. It is not death she fears—indeed, why should she?—but it is the thought of her own oblivion that keeps her up at night. There are so few people who see her, who notice her, and most that do forget her within a moment.
To be remembered by somebody.
To be longed-for.
To be missed.
This is her hope. It is all she wants.
“Come on, Papa,” she whispers. “Temporarily dead. There is more to the story. It’s in there somewhere. You can do it.”
And in a flash, the junk man remembers. He remembers everything.
14. Then.
The Constable sent Marla the egg woman to see to the mother of the dead baby.
“I won’t do it,” Marla said.
“She won’t see me, that’s for damn sure,” the Constable said. “And someone needs to look after her. After all, considering your history—”
Marla slapped him as hard as she could across his right cheek. And then she slugged him in his belly. The Constable wrapped his arms around his middle and doubled over.
No wonder no one wanted this stupid job, he thought.
Marla sighed. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll do it. Never mention my history again.”
And she walked away.
People didn’t mention Marla’s history. It was too sad.
The mother of the dead child had taken no food or drink, save liquor, for over a week. When Marla arrived, the woman was in bed. The room reeked of sweat and sick and an overripe chamber pot. The husband had given up days ago, opting to drown his grief in the company of men at the tavern, rather than increase it in the presence of his raving wife.
Marla took the pitcher to the pump and filled it. She emptied the chamber pot and changed the sheets and opened the windows to let in the day. The mother of the dead child scowled and howled and made a feeble attempt at fighting, but she was too weak.
And anyway, no one could best Marla in a fight. No woman, no man, no soldier. No one.
Finally, when the grieving mother was in a clean gown on clean sheets, Marla propped her up on a pillow and started spoon-feeding a soup with eggs and chicken and chervil. Easy to digest. Good for the soul.
The mother sipped it dutifully.
Finally: “You had one, didn’t you?” the mother said. “A magic child.”
Marla took a long breath through her nose. Her face was stone. She didn’t answer.
“How old were you?” the mother said.
Marla closed her eyes. “Fifteen,” she said. “I was fifteen.”
The woman’s eyes were red and damp. “Hell of a thing,” she said, and Marla nodded. “Yours still alive?”
Marla stood. She needed to get out. Right now. She forced herself to stay. Turning to the woman in the bed, she held her eyes for a long time. “There’s no way to know. They don’t exist, remember?” But the woman’s face was pleading. And insistent. Marla sighed. “Probably not.”
She filled up the water jug one more time, and hid the whiskey and made sure there were enough foodstuffs nearby. She kissed the mother on each cheek and told her that every day would be a little easier.
A lie, of course.
She left without another word.
She did not tell her that her breasts still leaked for a child who went away forever.
She did not tell her that her heart, once big and passionate and full of heat, was now a tight, tiny stone, rattling in her cold, empty chest.
She did not tell her that every night she saw her girl, her taken girl—pale lips, milky eyes—at the top of a dark tower, flung out against the spangle of stars in a limitless sky.
She did not tell her that every night she dreamed of flowers. Red flowers, red flowers, red, red, red, red.
15. Now.
The junk man’s daughter slides along the back of the low, one-roomed building that houses the Constable’s office. The alley lights are out again—energy crisis. It is always an energy crisis. She appreciates the dark. Pressing her hands against the wall, she curls her fingers into the bricks. The sun is down and the moon isn’t up yet. The night air is a puckering cold, but the wall is still warm, and so are her hands. She can hear the Constable inside, explaining things to the Inquisitor.
“I don’t care what you think you’ve heard, sonny,” she hears the old man say, “there ain’t been a whiff of magic anywhere in the county since the last batch of those babies, and we both know full well what happened to ’em, don’t you dare think I don’t remember. You can’t make a stone bleed and you can’t make an ox lay eggs and you sure as hell can’t find magic where it’s not. Now you can write that down on your report and send it on up to your superiors. You got bad information is all. And not the first time, neither.”
A scribble of pen on paper.
An old man’s harrumph.
The junk man’s
