When I looked down into his face, I was surprised to see his eyes gazing out listlessly over the terrain in front of Stacks. He didn’t seem a bit squiffy from flame water right now. He was a Wugmort who seemed totally lost, when I would expect Domitar to be as secure in his future as any Wug could be.
“Times are changing and Wugmorts must change with them, Vega,” he said in what sounded more like a general pronouncement than specific advice. “But we must carry on here. No budge jobs ever at Stacks. Quality work through and through. ‘Buck up right and proper’ is our motto so long as I’m in charge here.” He hiccupped, covered his mouth and looked embarrassed.
I looked over my shoulder at the entrance to Stacks, my curiosity, always close to the surface, compelling me to ask a question. “Domitar, what did this place used to be?”
He didn’t look at me, although I saw his body stiffen with the query.
“It has always been Stacks,” he said.
“Always?” I said skeptically.
“Well, since I have been alive.”
“But you haven’t been alive as long as this place has been here, Domitar. I bet it’s hundreds of sessions old, maybe more.”
“Then what good would an answer to your query be?” he replied.
The words seemed harsh, though truthfully his tone was one of resignation.
“Do you think the Wall will hold the Outliers back?”
Now he glanced up at me. “I am certain it will.”
The way he said it troubled me greatly. Not because I didn’t think he believed his own words. It’s because I could tell he absolutely believed them to be true.
“Mealtime is over,” he said, his normally harsh tone back in full force.
I headed back to Stacks. But when I turned around, I saw Domitar was still squatting next to Harry Two and petting him. I saw him pull out a piece of bread and cheese and feed it to my canine. I even thought I saw Domitar smile.
Times indeed were changing in Wormwood.
DUODEVIGINTI: Home Again
WHEN I ARRIVED at the Loons with Harry Two, Cacus Loon met me at the door. He took one look at my canine, and his response was as coarse as it was predictable.
“That ugly, foul beast is nae comin’ in these proper digs,” he cried out in a voice made hoarse by his smoke weed habit.
I looked down at Harry Two, who was by far the most handsome creature of the three of us, his face far cleaner than Loon’s, his coat far more reputable than mine.
I said, “He’s a canine and they are acceptable inside Wug homes. I’ll take care of him, and his food, water and cleanliness will be my responsibility.”
“There ain’t a chance in Hel of that beast staying in me home.”
“It’s not your home. It belongs to Roman Picus.” I knew this would provide me no help, but Loon made me mad just by breathing.
He swelled up his chest. “Oh, so you think Roman Picus will allow that disreputable thing inside his digs, do you? Well, you clearly don’t know the Wug as I do.”
“I can talk to Morrigone about it,” I ventured.
“You can waggle to any Wug you want, and the bloody answer will be the same.”
He slammed the door in my face. I looked down at Harry Two, who gazed up at me with complete adoration, unaffected by Loon’s brutish tirade. I stood there thinking for a few slivers and then decided that perhaps a silver lining had appeared unexpectedly from out of the darkness.
I went inside, marched up the stairs to my kip, collected my few belongings and stamped back downstairs. Loon looked at me dumbfounded, while a puzzled Hestia gazed at me from the kitchen doorway, wiping her coarsened hands on her dirty apron.
“Where you be going?” Loon asked when he saw the bundle representing all my posessions slung over my shoulder.
“If my canine isn’t welcome here, I have to find other lodgings.”
“’Tain’t none,” he barked. “Full up other digs, they are. Every Wug knows that. Stupid prat!”
“I know of a place,” I shot back.
“Not on the High Street, not a kip to be found.”
“On the Low Road there is,” I countered.
Loon gazed at me darkly. “Are you meaning what I think you’re meaning?”
Hestia meekly came forward. “Vega, you can’t go back there. You’re too young to live on your own. You’re not yet fifteen sessions. That’s the law.”
“Well, I’m not giving up my canine, so I don’t really have a choice,” I said. “And I’ll be fifteen sessions soon enough.” I aimed a warm smile solely at her. She was totally under her male’s rule, but she had always treated John and me decently. “I thank you for your hospitality over these last sessions.”
Loon spat on the floor and Hestia turned and went back into the kitchen.
He said, “We’ll see what Council says about this.”
I stared him down. “Yes, we will.”
I walked out and Harry Two obediently followed me down the cobblestones. Wugs here and there watched us go. I guess with a bundle holding all my possessions over my shoulder and a young canine playfully nipping at my heels, I made an unusual sight.
I reached the Low Road and we turned down it. It was so named because it was apt to flood when the hard rains came and it was also old and worn down. Its few shops were not as well perused and what they sold was inferior to what one could purchase on the High Street.
The plain wood-fronted home was tiny, nondescript and weathered, but to me it would always be beautiful and warm and inviting. I knew it well. I used to live here with my mother and father and John. We only left and moved to the Loons when our parents were taken to the Care.
I stopped and looked at the small front window. There was a crack from when John was a baby and threw his cup of milk against it. Glass was hard to come by in Wormwood, so we had never fixed it. I moved closer and looked through the window. Now I could see the table where I ate with my family. It was scuffed and covered in cobwebs. In a far corner was a chair I used to sit in. In another corner was a stack of family belongings that we never took with us because we had no room for them. Against another wall was a cot. The cot I used to sleep in.
I tried the door. It was locked. I took out my pieces of slender metal, and the lock was quickly sorted out. I opened the door and Harry Two and I went inside. I was immediately cold, colder than I had been outside. This surprised me, but only for an instant.
It was said that the spirits one leaves behind are always cold, because they are alone, with nothing to warm them. We had left much behind here. Here, we were a family. Here, we had something together that we would never have apart. That we would never have again, in fact.
I shivered and pulled my cloak closer around me as I walked the space. I squatted down and picked up some things in the pile while Harry Two sniffed around his new home. In the stack were odd bits of clothes that would no longer fit my shrunken mother and father. They wouldn’t fit me for that matter, for I had grown much in the last two sessions. I passed over the clothes and turned to some drawings that I had done as a young. There was a drawing I did of my brother.
Then I saw the self-portrait I had sketched. I could see my breath in the air as I looked down at the picture. I was maybe eight sessions old, which meant my grandfather had been gone for half my life at that point. I did not look happy. In fact I was frowning.
I unpacked, found some wood out back and managed to build a decent fire using one of my two remaining matches. I opened my tin and had my meal at the small table. I shared my food with Harry Two, who gobbled his share down. Now that meals were my responsibility, I would have to work harder on collecting, bartering, selling and hoarding, especially with Harry Two and John —