Gossamer (4 page)

To his surprise, though, he had become oddly fond of the unkempt apartment and its unhappy occupant, a thin, sad woman who lived there alone and lit one cigarette from the end of the previous one. During his night visits he searched for pleasant fragments to touch and had found them, to his own surprise, in a folded sweater, a book left open, a broken seashell on a shelf, a badly framed snapshot of a small boy with a chipped front tooth. He brought those things to her, the memories they held, and gave them to her in dreams. Now and then she smiled in her sleep and he felt that he had done a tiny, invisible good deed.

Strapping had been surprised by the dishes, for he had been taught that dishes are thick with touchable fragments of happiness: pieces of birthday parties, holiday meals, families gathered at tables. But the woman's dishes, unmatched, stacked at random on an open shelf in her shabby, unclean kitchen, held only fragments of regret and sorrow. He found fear there, as well, for although the dishes he touched that night had been whole, they still contained fear fragments that involved smashing and breakage, tears and threats. No good dreams there. It was the stuff of nightmares, and he had finally turned away and left the kitchen, fluttering back to the small living area with its threadbare, filthy rug, the butt-cluttered ashtrays, and the outdated
TV Guide
on a table ringed with stains. An empty beer bottle stood on the table beside a half-eaten sandwich, but Strapping ignored those things.

He went once again to the painted shelf on the wall, to the seashell displayed there. It was the one object that he enjoyed the most, for touching it brought a breeze shot through with sunshine, the tangy whiff of salt, a child's laughter pealing across the breeze, and cool foam on bare feet sinking into their own outline in gritty sand at the ocean's edge. Collecting all of that at once was weighty. But Strapping was strong. He touched the shell, smoothing his touch around its perimeter, gathering the fragments to bestow the woman once again with the dream she loved and needed most.

This time, when he felt the shell, he felt too the sand-smudged hand of the child who had picked it up. He felt the warm lint-lined pocket of the boy's shorts as he placed the seashell there with others he had collected. Strapping gathered those things for the dream, so many things that he became heavy with them and had to move slowly to the room where the young woman slept.

As he leaned to breathe the dream into her, and felt the fragments—sand, sun, shell, foam, feet, pocket, salt, smile, all of them—begin their slide of transfer, the slide that would culminate in the barely perceptible burst of sparkles, he perceived, and added, the name of the boy. He was John.

Strapping fluttered back to watch her receive the dream. It was the part he enjoyed most, seeing the effect, the smile in the sleep, the happy sigh. It made him aware of how important his work was.

Tonight, upon receiving the dream, the young woman called out in her sleep, using the boy's name. "John!" she cried softly. She turned, her eyelids fluttering, and though Strapping could tell that she was basking in the dream and feeling the long-ago sun-filled day that he had brought back to her through the seashell, he sensed also that it had reminded her of a terrible loss.

10

He scowled when the woman called him Johnny. She held a paper in her hand, and he could see that his name was on it. His name was also printed in thick letters on a tag that flapped from the handle of his suitcase. JOHN. So why did the woman call him Johnny, a dumb nickname, a wimp name? He began to hate her for it. But he wouldn't let her know. He kept his face frozen, expressionless. He had mastered that. No one knew any of his feelings. He stared at the floor.

The social work lady was going over the paperwork with the woman. The woman would have to sign for him, as if he were a package from UPS—what a joke that was! The last people had signed for him too, and then returned him. Defective merchandise: you could always return that. Didn't fit. Wrong color. Missing parts.

Screw loose. Hah. Maybe that was his defect, the thing that got him sent back.

He had asked for Coke but the woman gave him lemonade. Holding the glass, he wandered into the next room, an ugly room with old-fashioned furniture and framed photographs of grouchy, old-fashioned people wearing stupid clothes. There was a man in a uniform, smiling, and the photo was tinted so the man's lips were pink, like a girl's. It wasn't even a good uniform like a Green Beret's or a Navy Seal's. John would be a Navy Seal if he could, someday. They swam carrying knives, then came to beaches at night and killed enemies there very silently before swimming away again. John wanted to do that.

There was a piano. Ruffled curtains, flowered wallpaper. He hated it all. And where was the television?

"Johnny!" It was the woman. He'd already forgotten her name, and didn't care. He wouldn't be here that long. He didn't need to call her anything. Especially if she kept calling him Johnny, not his name. He would call her Nothing. That would be her name. Hah.

He didn't reply.

He poked a key on the piano, a white one at the far end, and heard the high sound it made.

"Johnny?" she said again, and now she was in the doorway, looking at him. "The lemonade stays in the kitchen. It's just a rule I have, so things don't get spilled on the furniture or the piano."

Rule I have. Rule I have.
Fine. He had rules, too. One was don't smile back, even if they smile at you, and she was smiling at him now. She reached for the glass and took it from him.

"Do you like the piano? I took lessons on this very same piano when I was your age. My mother had to nag me to practice, but I'm glad she did."

He poked a key at the other end, and the sound was deep.

"If you like, I could teach you while you're here. I used to give lessons. I still have some old books around."

John shrugged and turned away.

"Have you met Toby?" she asked.

Oh, great. Someone else? One place he'd been had four kids besides him. One kept twisting his arm when no one was looking, then called him crybaby.

Toby was a crybaby name. He looked over then, thinking that, and saw that it was a dog. Not even a real breed, not a rottweiler or pit bull or anything. Just a mutt.

He reached out toward it without thinking, but it backed away. It was scared of him. Good. He liked it when things were scared of him. It gave him power.

"Toby," the woman said to the dog, in a sweet, teasing voice, "be nice. Don't be scared. This is Johnny."

He glared at her. "
John,
" he said fiercely.

"Oh. I'm sorry. Here, John," she said to him, and reached into the pocket of her apron. She gave him a bone-shaped biscuit. "He's not used to boys. It's just been the two of us. But give him that and he'll be your new best friend." Then she turned and took the lemonade glass to the kitchen. The social work lady was at the door, holding her briefcase and preparing the fake goodbye smile she always used when she left him someplace new. He didn't look at her.

He looked at the dog. It stared back at him with big brown eyes. He had not been at a house with a dog before.

John knelt. "Here," he said, and held the biscuit toward Toby. Nervously, tentatively, the dog leaned forward. Its ears were upright, alert, its eyes on John's hand holding the treat.

A pink tongue appeared. Just as the dog was about to take the biscuit, John pulled it away. He laughed harshly, and Toby looked confused.

"Thought you'd get it, huh? Thought I liked you?" He spoke in a low voice so the woman wouldn't hear him. She was at the door, waving to the car the social work lady drove. It was a business car, with the city seal on its door. She probably didn't even have her own. She was probably married to some jerk who wouldn't let her have a car, who said she was a dumb broad, too dumb to drive. She had to take a bus to work, he figured.

Carefully he put the dog biscuit into his pocket. "I might give it to you later," he whispered to the dog. It was a good game, to get someone to believe you, even a dumb dog. Get them to trust you. Then surprise them. Hah. He'd keep pulling the biscuit away forever.

He pounded once with both hands on the piano. Then he went to the kitchen, picked up the glass from the table, and gulped the rest of the lemonade. If he didn't, she would take it away from him, hoping he would cry so she could hit him.

She was holding his suitcase now, and smiling at him. He frowned and wiped his sticky mouth with the back of one hand.

"Where's the TV?" he asked in a loud voice.

11

Sinisteeds rarely sleep. No sprawled snoozing Heap for them. They are a restless herd, these dark creatures who contain within them the most profound of all our fears, the hidden things, old guilts and failings that we will ourselves to forget. Their constant pawing and snorting is accompanied by an atmosphere of foul-smelling sweat, for they glisten with it. Their energy is boundless. They toss their heads and flare their nostrils, tasting the air, searching for the places where they will spew their loathsome holdings, waiting for deepest night, the time when infliction takes place.

They are not bound by rules or limits, as the dream-givers are. They prey on the most vulnerable. They have no mercy.

And they were aware of the boy. They were making ready for the boy.

***

Most Ancient called a meeting. The dream-givers gathered early in the evening, before dark fully fell, before they went out on their nightly work.

"A warning to you all," he announced. "I dislike bringing this up. It is not something we like discussing. But I'm feeling some early warning signs. Small tremors in the earth. I want you to be alert."

A murmur rippled through the Heap. Littlest One listened carefully. Around her, she heard the
ssssss
sound. The dream-givers were saying the word under their breath.

Sinisteeds. Sinisteeds.

"They're convening," Most Ancient said. "I believe they have a victim identified. They've been on the prowl."

"Prowl?" Trooper asked. Trooper was a large, muscular dream-giver, forceful and decisive. "I'd say
rampage
is the word for it. I had to deal with one quite recently. It inflicted a terrible nightmare on a young man in my assigned house. Did a lot of damage. I've been doing remedial dreams ever since."

"I've had some trouble as well!" another voice called. Littlest peered toward the back of the Heap to see who was speaking. It was Dowager, so precise always, speaking now in a clipped tone. "I've been able to ward them off, but I've definitely felt some approaches. And I saw scorch marks on the wall of a bedroom."

"Scorch marks?" Littlest whispered in a questioning voice to Thin Elderly, who was beside her. "What are scorch marks?"

"I'll explain later," he whispered back.

"Anyone else?" Most Ancient looked around. Some heads nodded. A few hands went up.

"Well. We've always had these individual forays, of course. Trooper, good work. You do deal well with these. If any of you need help, feel free to call on Trooper for a little extra muscle.

"But what I want you all to be on the lookout for are signs of a pending group attack. I'm feeling a gathering starting. A Horde.

"This happens only rarely. Over the years, occasionally, they have focused on one victim, someone particularly helpless. Then they mass and descend. Perhaps only the oldest of you here have ever experienced it. Anyone remember the last Horde attack?" He looked around. "No one? Well, it's been a very long while.

"I don't mean to worry or alarm you. And I don't see it as
imminent.
But we must be on the lookout. Somewhere out there they are beginning to sniff—to sense—a victim. Let's be vigilant. Let's be on guard."

Subdued, the dream-givers rose from the Heap and began to set out for their night of work. There were apprehensive murmurs among them. Littlest could hear the whispered sound,
ssssss,
that meant some of them were still saying the name under their breath.

"Sinist
eeeee
d," she whispered to herself, testing the sound of it.

But Thin Elderly, looking down at her, shook his head in warning. He put his finger to his lips. Chastened and a little nervous, Littlest reached up, took his hand, and held tightly to it as they set out.

12

"I can't stay in a house with no TV," he said again. He was standing beside the piano with his hands clenched. The dog nosed at his sneakers but the boy didn't notice.

The woman knelt beside him, though she knew already not to reach out with a touch. Earlier she had tried to put her arm around him but he had flinched and pushed her away.

"You know," she said in a calm voice, "there are a lot of other things to do. I'll read to you, or you can read to yourself. There are plenty of books. Some left over from my own childhood.
The Bobbsey Twins?
I suppose that's more for girls. But there will be some book you'd like, I'm sure."

He rolled his eyes. "Get me a Game Boy, then, if all you have are stupid books," he said.

"A what?" she asked, laughing. "I don't even know what that is. But if you like games, we can play games. Ever played Monopoly? I always lose, but I'm a pretty good sport. I have a Monopoly set in the cupboard over there, and Scrabble, and some others. I keep them for visiting children. I have a lot of grandnieces and grandnephews."

"I'm gonna run away," he announced. "Even if that door is locked I know how to open it. I'm out of here."

"Listen," the woman said, and tilted her head. "Hear that?"

They could both hear the sound of the heavy rain that had started to fall, and in the distance some rumbles of thunder.

"The door isn't locked. You can simply open it and walk through," she told him, "but it's nasty weather outside, and I'd be worried about you, about where you would sleep and what you'd find to eat.

"Why don't you wait until morning? At least this evening you'll have a nice dinner and a warm bed."