InkStains January (5 page)

He walked for a while, and everything was new
but dirty, promising but silent.

Eventually, he discovered he was not alone. A
girl stood in the street. She wore a faded dress and had blonde
hair. She stared at him.

“
Hi,” he said.

“
Hi.”

“
I’m Bobby. What’s your
name?”

“
I don’t have a name
yet.”

“
How can you not have a
name yet? What does that mean? When do you get a name?”

“
When you name
me.”

“
That’s silly,” Bobby said.
He was often honest and free-spoken. “You just don’t want to tell
me. Fine. I don’t care.”

She frowned.

He said, “Name yourself.”

“
I always like
Jenny.”

“
There you go,” Bobby said.
“You have a name after all.”

She smiled.

“
Where is everyone?” he
asked.

“
There isn’t
anyone.”

“
This is a city,” he said.
“There’s always someone.” He glanced toward the highest buildings,
but recognized nothing in the skyline. He looked all around in
every direction.

“
You haven’t given the city
anyone yet,” Jenny said.

He laughed. “You’re weird. I like you.”

“
I like you
too.”

They stood there, in the middle of the
street, between unfamiliar towers of concrete and steel, staring
awkwardly at each other.

Finally, Bobby asked, “How do I get
home?”

“
Go back the way you
came.”

“
I’m in a fairy world,
aren’t I?” Bobby asked. He’d always had something of an
imagination.

“
Not exactly.”

The sun was dipping in the sky. He really
should go home. It felt unnatural, this vacant section of city.

“
I’ll be here again
tomorrow,” she told him.

Bobby went back the way he came. The station
remained empty. The turnstiles accepted his token. He reached the
empty platform, and soon a subway stopped and its doors opened for
him.

After climbing aboard, after the doors slid
shut, he looked out at the platform and saw Jenny standing there
looking sad. She turned her head to watch him leave but did not
wave.

The next day, the subway did not stop at the
abandoned platform. They passed it so quickly, you couldn’t even
read its name in the tiled wall.

Bobby asked about the abandoned station, but
no one knew anything – not the conductor, not the cop, not the guy
selling the dailies and bottled water. He went to the library but
found nothing. The librarian even went so far as to tell him there
were no abandoned subway stations; although old maps might show
some, she said they were traps in the maps, not real, meant to
deter map thieves.

Bobby didn’t know if he believed in map
thieves until he become one himself, slipping an old subway
schedule into his back pocket before leaving the library.

The librarian gave him a funny look but
didn’t stop him.

A year passed, but Bobby
was never able to convince the subway to stop at a station no one
believed existed. He stopped trying. He took to books instead, and
sketching the girl’s face with pencils. He started writing poetry
for her, and stories about all the hidden, magical corners of
cities. He wrote about tiger trainers and actors and old men making
chocolate. He sketched the faces of the hidden city’s policemen,
mobsters, bankers, and politicians. He wrote a great many stories,
few of them any good. And one day, after another year had passed,
sixteen year old Bobby was surprised when the subway stopped
at
Rue de L’illusion
.

This time, the platform was not empty, though
no one got on the subway and only Bobby got off.

Jenny was there. She wore a yellow sundress
now. She smiled and took Bobby by the hand and led him to the
streets.

“
You should give us taxi
drivers,” she told him. “And janitors. And I’d like to eat
something other than chocolate, you know.”

“
I can’t do that,” he told
her. But he carried his journals and sketchpads in a
backpack.

“
No one else can,” she told
him.

So she sent him home, this time with a kiss
on the cheek. She said, “I’ll be here again tomorrow.”

On the train, before it had even left the
station, Bobby started writing a story about Jenny. For next
time.

12 January

There’s nothing in the attic.

She moved in three weeks ago. She sleeps
fine. There are no strange noises, but there is one door she never
considered. In the ceiling.

It haunts her now. When she walks through the
short hall, to bedroom or bathroom or living room, she doesn’t
always glance up but she feels the weight of it. The not knowing.
The uncertainty. The possibilities.

There might be an antique she could pawn,
some rare Russian thimble or a Civil War era rifle or an
ivory-handled mirror. There might be evidence of a crime, the
secret books with details of shady deals, a murder weapon, a body
in a plastic bag stuffed into a trunk.

She has friends over one night for beer and
wine and food and music. Sometime near midnight, she tells them
about the unopened attic like it’s a ghost story. What if simply
opening the attic door unleashes some demonic entity bent on
possession and sex and death? What if she finds that tattered,
dusty remnants of a jilted bride’s gown and the bride didn’t want
to be disturbed? What if a spring-loaded, rust-coated trap is set
to spring?

No one opens the attic door that night.

She doesn’t have a step ladder. Eventually,
after a few weeks fending off questions about spiders, squirrels,
skeletons, and lost silverware, she drags a chair beneath the attic
entrance. It’s merely a thin piece of wood. She pushes it up and
out of the way. The attic is dark, and high above her. The chair is
barely enough for her to drag herself up.

She retrieves a flashlight first. With a
little bit of struggle, she hauls herself into the low,
slope-ceiling attic.

It’s not really much more than a crawl space.
She shines the light into the corners, disturbing dry cobwebs,
leaving eddies of shadow in the beam’s wake. There’s no floor, only
the narrow edge of 2x4s crisscrossing a sea of pink insulation.
There are no mice, no chests, no forgotten artwork, nothing by way
of treasure. There’s one discarded tee shirt, small enough for a
child, too small for her. It’s red, but the graphic on its front is
cracked, faded, and indecipherable.

Partly out of respect, partly cleanliness,
and yes, partly for fear, she takes the tee shirt with her when she
leaves. She climbs down without incident. The chair holds her. She
doesn’t fall. She closes up the attic and, as there’s no reason not
to, she forgets about it.

And why not? There’s nothing in the
attic.

But she had a dream once, as a child, that
she visited her godmother’s apartment in New York. In reality, past
the front door there had been a kitchen on the left, doors to a
bathroom and a bedroom on the right. But in the dream, another door
had been squeezed between them, opening onto a staircase climbing
to an attic that had never existed in New York City. Maybe twelve
at the time, she’d ascended into darkness and discovered an extra,
hidden room, with a window overlooking the greenest garden that
never existed and a very old roll top desk. Every time she visited
her godmother after that, despite that there were apartments on the
floor above, and more apartments above that, she would check, just
to make sure, that another unseen door didn’t simply appear. It
never did.

That extra door decided to make its real life
appearance in her rented house a week after she explored the empty
attic.

The extra door had appeared between her
bedroom and the bathroom. She knew there would be stairs. She knew
the house had a second, hidden attic, and it would not be
empty.

Once she saw it, she couldn’t look away, not
to get her phone to call someone, not to retrieve that flashlight,
not to put on proper clothes. A door like this only gave you one
chance to open it.

Finally, she grabbed the knob. It turned
easily. She knew there wouldn’t be a lock. On the other side:
stairs led up into darkness.

She ascended.

She left the door open behind her, though she
doubted it would matter.

At the top of the stairs she had to turn to
see the hidden attic. The top was lowered on the roll top desk. The
window looked out onto some other-worldly garden.

There was only enough light to see by. She
went to the desk and opened it. She found papers, a fancy fountain
pen, a letter opener, several old photographs of people she almost
recognized.

“
Cassandra.”

At the sound of her name, she turned around.
Her godmother stood at the top of the stairs, looking just as she
had all those years ago in New York.

“
My, you’ve
grown.”

“
Am I dreaming?” Cassandra
asked.

“
You are,” her godmother
said. “But you’re also awake.”

“
I’ve seen this room
before.”

“
I know. I’ve done a lot of
writing at that desk. I’ve spent a lot of time staring out that
window. But it’s not my room anymore, Cassandra. It’s my gift to
you.”

“
I should’ve stayed in
touch better. I can call you today.”

“
You can’t. But I’m here
now, Cassandra.”

“
For the last
time?”

Her godmother smiled sadly. “Yes.”

She looked at the desk, the window, the
garden, then back at her godmother, who was no longer there.

She stayed in the room a long time. There
were old letters to read, journal entries from her godmother
telling amazing stories about unbelievable things that were, in
fact, quite believable now.

She didn’t want to leave.

But she did. She still had classes, and
friends, and real world things to do. But anytime she wanted it,
Cassandra needed only look properly at the space between two doors
to find her private door and her hidden attic.

13 January

The city is a stark vertical landscape filled
with rough textures, sharp contrasts, grit and shadow, and the ever
present sense of mystery, magic, romance, and passion. And the rain
on the city: nails dropping from an amorphous steely cloud,
accentuating the city’s height.

Atop one of the anonymous tall buildings, two
warriors face each other, heedless of the elements, weapons ready –
sticks for one, long thin rods expertly balanced and just flexible
enough; a katana for the other, a heralded blade three centuries
old, sharp enough to slice the raindrops in half.

They are both well-trained, experienced,
strong, fast, agile, smart, the best of their kind. In their minds,
they already know how the fight will go. Through neither has moved,
they have already fought. They know every strike, every parry,
every evasion. They are intimately familiar with the strengths and
weaknesses of their adversary – and of themselves. Neither weapon
can be said to be better, nor either warrior. No factor remains
unaccounted for – the shadows, the roof’s surface, the weather, the
cacophonous city sounds rising around them, the struggles each
overcame to reach this place at this time.

They are not unseen. At least three recording
devices, from different sources, will capture their battle. A half
dozen faces hide behind curtains in windows across the alley. Two
men, a mile away in different directions, point telescopes at the
rooftop. There’s a helicopter not far off. And sinister, mystical
things have been aroused, creatures of darkness and of light,
gambling on the outcome – the stakes beyond the ability of mortals
to pay.

The rhythm of the city pulsates on the
rooftop, the sounds of traffic and sirens and a hundred thousand
televisions, stereos, the feet of dancers on a stage, the rumble of
trains on their subterranean tracks. There is, perhaps, time for a
breath, a complete inhalation and exhalation, before it begins. The
warriors will clash until death ends it.

In that heartbeat of time, a great many
things happen across the city: a boy steals his first kiss, a baby
comes screaming into the world, a chef serves the last meal of a
prisoner condemned, a fashion designer climbs into a yellow taxi,
lies are told, truths revealed, an old man alone in apartment
exhales his last air. It all combines with the lifebeat of the
city, that rhythm, which even now fuels the hearts of two warriors
on a rooftop.

There’s no bell to signal the start, no
whistle or gunshot or flag waved or handkerchief dropped, yet the
warriors move at precisely the same moment. They know every curve
of the battle, every breath of it, beginning and end. For a
thousand watching, the tension is intense, but the warriors are
completely at ease, relaxed, loose, and ready. Nothing can distract
them from their individual, identical intentions.

That first sound of their weapons connecting
is like thunder. The city rocks with it – and realms beyond, where
the betting is closed and everyone, creatures of both light and
dark, are about to lose. They’ve come close to see this final
round. They’ve followed the exploits of each warrior on their
various years-long quests. Some, in fact, have interfered; the
warriors bear scars as proof.

The first sound of their weapons clashing
resonates long and deep, the echoes causing every other city sound
to recede, the rain to pause, the cameras to flicker, the windows
to crackle like spider webs.