“I don’t usually eat, myself. Never got the habit. And this is ghost food from one of the restaurants by the boardwalk. I guess I’m not surprised a live person can’t taste it.”
“It was nice of you to try. Thanks. So, if you live up here away from people and don’t go to the restaurant or the bar, what do you do all day?” She thought about that for a second. “Night, I guess. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know. I scavenge. The streets. The canals. The beach. Wherever.” He opened his hands to his packed-to-the-rafters room. “It keeps me sharp and awake, not in denial like the people in the restaurants stuffing their faces forever. Where do you think I got the things for our tree fort? Where do you think I got the telescope?”
Zoe smiled. Valentine almost looked happy talking about his stuff. Her smile faded when she thought about it and understood that this was all Valentine had. An endless night of picking through the world’s castoffs. She tried not to show how sad that made her. “Where are we?” she asked.
Valentine nodded at the floor. “This building we’re in is where people used to make and fix the buses that took people away. But we don’t need them anymore. No one leaves, so all that’s left are the ones that bring in new souls.” He looked out one of the windows at the apartment buildings that crawled over the hills and disappeared into the far distance. “I don’t know how big the city is. Big. Bigger than the living world, maybe. It grows and changes all the time, trying to squeeze in new souls. It’s pretty modern up here, but over those hills, there are people that speak Latin, and others, I don’t know what they speak, but they write with pictures. I’ll look out for you, so you don’t have to be afraid, but you can’t let down your guard here. Not for a second.”
“Well,” said Zoe, having no idea how to respond.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that at once.”
“No, it’s all right. I want to know the truth.” She looked at the hills where Valentine had been staring a moment before. “If it wasn’t so scary here, I’d like to see the people who write in hieroglyphics.”
“We can’t do that,” Valentine said. “But I can give you what you came here for. I can take you to see Father. I know where he lives.”
“I’d love that.”
“How’s your ankle?”
“Much better.”
“Then let’s go.”
They crossed the roofs under the moon, back the way they’d come the previous night, and descended the fire escape to the street. Then they turned inland, headed toward the heaps of giant apartment buildings she’d seen from the roof. At the corner Valentine stopped her. He turned up the collar on her coat so that it covered more of her face. After studying her for a moment, he ran his hands down the sides of a telephone pole and wiped smeared dirt across Zoe’s forehead and cheeks. He ended by popping a final dot of dirt on the end of her nose with his thumb. “Now you look more like one of us,” he said.
She soon lost track of time as they walked. In the day that was exactly the same as the previous night, the idea of seconds, minutes, and hours became fantastical, like something from a fairy tale. She tried counting the streets, but they were so twisted around she had no idea where one stopped and another began. But they were definitely in an older part of the city. They crossed tall stone walkways lit by bent gaslights and descended long flights of cobblestone staircases to narrow catwalks just inches above murky canal water. Since she couldn’t make out streets, Zoe tried remembering landmarks along the way. There was a half-burned billboard with the remains of a woman’s smile beneath one of the stone walkways.
As they walked, Valentine dragged his boots through debris in the gutters and picked up anything he could find that was shiny, sometimes throwing it away and sometimes pocketing it. She understood now how his little house had become so crowded. His delight when he found something he liked was almost like that of a kid, Zoe thought. In fact, even though he was older, in some ways Valentine felt more like a little brother. She guessed it had something to do with his being dead so long. He never had the chance to go out into the world and grow up like Zoe and her friends did. He started collecting junk when he got to Iphigene and never stopped because there wasn’t anyone to show him that there was anything else to do. He’d been cheated of so much. It didn’t seem fair, but then what was fair in this strange place?
At the bottom of a staircase, in a circle of stones made where twisting buildings left an open patch of land, were the remains of what looked like a campsite. Ragged beds, tables, chairs, and lamps had been dragged outside.
“Why would people take their stuff outside where it rains?” asked Zoe.
Valentine didn’t even turn his head.
“Not all the apartments are that nice. Some people prefer the street.”
The camp was all just wreckage now. Splintered wood and gutted mattresses. The place hadn’t been dismantled the way police would do it. It was torn to pieces, as if by angry animals.
Zoe’s bad ankle hurt and Valentine had to help her limp over heaps of trash that filled some twisting streets by some of the old apartments. They were back on a street that looked more like a normal modern city. “Sorry about the trek,” he said. “Truth is, you can take that big street over there most of the way back to the ocean.” He pointed over his shoulder. “But I thought if Hecate’s dogs had maybe heard about you, it would be good to go the long way round.”
“It was a good idea,” said Zoe, panting. She sat and retied the rag Valentine had put around her ankle. She still limped a little but she could walk just fine.
“Anyway, we’re here.” Valentine nodded to the nearest building. The address was 5,111,304 Ouroboros Street.
The apartment building across the street wrapped around the building, tightening it in the middle so it was shaped like an hourglass.
“This is where Dad lives?”
“Yep. Fifth floor, all the way in the back, on the right.”
Zoe nodded, feeling both excited and nervous.
“Before you go in, there are a couple things you need to know. I’m not going in with you for the reasons I told you about last night.”
“Just because,” she said.
“Right. The second thing is that when we’re out like this, if something happens and we get separated, you head straight back to my house. Got it?”
“I don’t think I can find my way back the way we came.”
“Then take the street that leads to the boardwalk and come back that way. And if you’re ever alone, don’t ever, no matter what happens, ever go down any unlit streets. Dim is okay, just not unlit. There are souls a lot worse off than me and you don’t want to see the worst of ’em. The dying dead. More important, you don’t want them to see you.”
“Okay,” she said. Zoe wanted to ask more about the dying dead but knew it wasn’t the right time.
“I’m going to go wait over there.” Valentine nodded toward an alcove at the side of a nearby apartment building. “Take as long as you need.”
“Thanks.” Zoe leaned forward and quickly pecked him on the cheek. He stiffened a little, but didn’t pull away. She took that as a good sign, then hurried into the building.
There was an elevator in the lobby, but when she looked closer she saw it was just an open elevator shaft. Someone had moved a bed and chair into the opening and it looked like they’d been living there. She found stairs around the corner and climbed to the fifth floor. At first, the building seemed utterly silent, but as she climbed, she began to hear small sounds of habitation. Footsteps. A drawer opening and closing. The tinkle of a glass on a table.
Zoe’s heart raced as she stepped onto the fifth-floor landing. Her ankle hurt but she couldn’t help herself, and ran all the way down the hall to her father’s door. She knocked but didn’t hear anything from inside. She knocked again. “Dad?” she whispered to the door. No response. She quietly turned the knob and the door opened.