Dust City (27 page)

He shakes his head and there’s a long silence between us.

“You think they’re really gone?” I ask him.

“I suppose they are. Then again, the fairies were always mysterious creatures. Magical. Beautiful. Maybe too beautiful for a city like this one. Maybe the old-time magic is too good for folks like us.”

“Maybe.”

Again, we’re quiet.

“I’m sorry I never wrote back to you.”

Dad shrugs. “Doc was trying to protect you.”

“It doesn’t matter. Even if he had given them to me, I wouldn’t’ve written back. I was ashamed of you. I was afraid I was like you, a killer. And I almost was. Even before—and after—they gave me their dust, I did some awful things.”

“As long as you know they’re awful, and you try to make amends. That’s what’s important.”

“I’ll try.”

Dad nods. “Then you
are
like me, son. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.” He laughs. “Besides, up here”—he taps his temple—“and in here”—he taps his chest. “That’s what counts, and all of that you got from your mother. Lemme tell you, if she were here right now, she’d be so, so proud.”

Fiona and I stand at the railing that overlooks the reservoir. I was luckier than my father. For the most part, I was released, granted an honest reprieve from St. Remus. For that I owe much to Cindy and Mrs. L, and even to Detective White. Thanks to their vouching for me, I was transferred to a cushy, minimumsecurity halfway house for juveniles. It’s way up north, and get this: There are no guards, no walls, no fences, and most of the guys inside aren’t even wolves. It’s mostly hominids and hedgehogs, locked up for a couple weeks for shoplifting. They give me a
very
wide berth. There are a couple of mules I can almost relate to, but much of the time I keep to myself. The place has its advantages. From dawn to dusk I pretty much get free rein, which explains why I’m out here in the middle of the morning with Fiona, standing on the southern edge of the city, watching the river drift out to sea.

“They’re not letting him out, are they?” Fiona asks.

“Not right away.”

Her gaze lifts from the ships and up to Eden. Just below it, the sun is blinding. “They really hate us, don’t they?”

“Edenites?” I ask, though I know that’s who she means. “Not all of them.”

She thinks for a moment. “Maybe it’s always gonna be like this.”

“Like what?”

“None of us getting along, not really.”

I know what she’s talking about. Until the last couple of weeks, I never knew how serious it could be, how deep the divisions could run. It’s shocking when you see it first-hand, the way we have.

“No,” I tell her. “You have to believe it’s going to change.”

“I don’t know. I used to think all of us getting along was a foregone conclusion. It’d happen eventually. That’s what a lot of folks believe.” She leans forward, pushing her elbows into the railing. “But then I met you and you dragged me through all this and now I’m not so sure.” She stares into the sky, shielding her eyes with a paw. “Once you’ve been up there you get a different perspective on things. Everything looks different.”

“What are you saying? You regret you ever met me?”

She shifts closer until our bodies are pressed together, side by side. “Don’t be silly.” She hooks her arm into mine. “Let’s say for now that the pros outweigh the cons.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She huddles closer. “I just never knew how much they could hate us. It’s like the City’s split in two.” She shakes her head. “Think about what they wanted to do to us. What would it have been like? I can’t even imagine.”

The wind blows off the water, carrying with it a strong whiff of diesel and brine. There are fewer boats in the harbor now—now that Nimbus is out of business—but the fairydust trade still thrives. Already new companies are rising up, swelling to fill the gaps Nimbus left behind. I suppose folks will always crave their magic, even if it’s cheap, synthetic, and fleeting. Folks will never shake free of it, never stop hoping for it.

Who can blame them? Is it any different from hoping the old-time magic will one day return? Is it any different from wishing the fairies were still here, still watching over us, still around to make our dreams come true?

“I can’t imagine it either,” I say. “I’m just glad we stopped them.”

There’s a smaller boat down in the reservoir, just now leaving the docks. The hull’s barely visible from up here, but the yellow sail stands out against the dark of the water. It’s unusual to see a pleasure boat down there among the tankers. Dockside has always been a commercial harbor, a hive of import, export, and industry. The tiny sail bobs between two tankers, a minnow among whales. It’s headed outbound, upriver, toward the sea.

I turn to Fiona. “Do you ever wonder what’s out there?”

She looks at me quizzically. “The ocean?”

“I know the ocean. But what comes after that?”

“The rest of the world?”

“Do you ever wonder what it’s like? I mean, do you want to see it?”

She scratches her thumb-claw into the railing, etching away flakes of rust. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

“What if there are more of them out there? More fairies.” The yellow sail catches a gust and surges away. “One day,” I tell her, “I’d like to find out.”

Fiona lays her head on the bulk of my shoulder. “You’d have to take me with you, y’know.”

I grin at her. “I’ll consider it.”

She nuzzles her face into me and kisses my cheek. “You better.”

The sun is behind Eden now, blackening its mass into silhouette. The towers and palaces resemble something new. It’s hard not to see them as headstones, monuments and cenotaphs to an extinct species. The most beautiful species of all.

Behind us, the pavement quakes as a streetcar rattles past. It’s crowded inside. Elves, cats, ravens, humans, goblins, mules, nixies, dwarves, foxes, wolves—they’re all pressed in tight, all knitted together, all making their way to someplace they need to be. It reminds me of Roy’s wish. I really hope it comes true. I hope things get better.

Fiona tugs my arm and we turn back toward the City.

“C’mon,” she says. “Walk me home.”

NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Ideas for novels may occur in odd places. I discovered the first inklings of
Dust City
in a dentist’s office. Lying among the waiting room’s glossy magazines was an improbable copy of a book called
The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales
by Maria Tatar. It was a well-thumbed copy, and I imagined some unfortunate student from the local university had accidentally left it behind.

Tatar’s book speculates on why children—or
anyone
for that matter—would be attracted to the terrible violence found in the stories collected by the famous Grimm brothers. After some thumbing of my own, I began to wonder: What would the modern world look like if it had evolved directly out of the magical folktales of medieval Europe?
Dust City
, I suppose, is one possible answer.

Novels, however, are rarely written in dentists’ waiting rooms. As such, I’d like to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to all the people who helped along the way: my editor, Jessica Rothenberg, whose insightful feedback did wonders for shaping the story; Jennifer Notman, my editor here in Toronto, at Penguin Canada; my agent, Jackie Kaiser, her colleague, Natasha Daneman, and the wonderful folks at Westwood Creative Artists; Ben Schrank and the enthusiastic team at Razorbill/Penguin in New York; Natalie Sousa, whose cover designs are always beautiful and astonishing; my friends and family, who tolerate how often I vanish into meandering realms of reverie; and Mitch Kowalski, the earthquake aficionado who runs the Toronto Writers’ Centre, without which I would almost certainly never bang out a single word!

Finally, my thanks to Ralph Manheim, translator of
Grimms’ Tales for Young and Old: The Complete Stories
, which sat on my bookshelf as a reference text (and a source of inspiration) while I was writing. The Grimm Brothers’ epigraph at the beginning of
Dust City
is taken from the 1983 edition.