Vassa in the Night (20 page)

It takes me a long time to fall asleep. I stare up at the ugly vacancy of my tiny room with its dim lightbulb always smoldering above. I keep wishing that I was back on that motorcycle, holding him close, my hair merging with the wind. I mean, I know a night-doll-monster-beast isn't the most conventional choice for a boyfriend, but does his inhumanity really have to be a deal breaker? I've never cared much about what's normal before—being Zinaida's kid meant that
normal
was always a pretty alien concept for me—so why would I start now? Being not-human must give him a unique perspective on life, and I could learn way more from him than from your standard-issue guy. Tomin would be the socially acceptable choice, but he put all his energy into saving himself while Night and the motorcyclist were busy helping me instead. Right?

Right?

I wish there was someone here to argue with me. I wish somebody would barge in and lecture me on what a big mistake I'm making; then I could flip out. Yell at them for being so uptight and narrow-minded that they can't appreciate a really intriguing, sensitive night-doll-monster-beast when they meet one. Erg is out cold on my leg, though, and nobody else shows up to oblige me. I can hear whispery shuffling noises on the roof overhead; it must be my swans snuggling as close to me as they can.

I'm still arguing feverishly with my judgmental imaginary friend when the air seems to phase into gray, and I realize that I'm not in bed anymore. I'm walking—it's clear that I've been walking for quite a while now—through a dull gray forest with light much too unfocused to come from any sun.

“Just because somebody starts
out
human it's no guarantee they're going to
stay
human, anyway!” I proclaim. Even to myself I sound pretty ridiculous. “Look at my dad!”

I wave my hands in the air, but they don't go very high because I'm holding a leash on each side. The leash in my left hand leads to an enormous swan, waddling patiently even as it cranes its neck to stare back at me, and the leash in my right …

I'm walking my dad. I know it's him even though I never saw him again after he left us for his
appointment.
He was in such a hurry to get away that he didn't even hug me goodbye, just waved from the door—with an expression on his face like he was desperate to reach a bathroom—and bolted. Chelsea's told me a million times that it really wasn't about us. She thinks that what he was running away from was his disappointment with himself, with the way he hadn't lived up to his own inflated expectations; he came from a family of big shots and he took it for granted that he'd be one, too.

Still, it's pretty hard not to take something like that personally. He looks like an oversized German shepherd now. I knew about the dog part, of course, but not the specific breed. He has a lovely thick coat, if I say so myself. His pink tongue sways as he pants up at my face; I can't tell if he remembers me.

“Ah, yes,” Pangolin says, and reaches down to scratch my dad behind one floppy ear. “An elegantly composed metamorphosis, his. I'd imagine he went to considerable expense to pull it off so handily. What fine, fine claws he has.”

“Hi!” I say, startled. “I was getting worried about you.” As soon as I say it I know the truth: I wasn't nearly worried enough. He and Picnic should have left the store last night. At the very least I should have checked for their departing footprints in the snow; I'm the one who encouraged them to wake up Babs, after all. “Are you okay?”

Pangolin scuffs at the path's dead silvery leaves with curling toes. His moist snout waggles up at me and his tail thrashes. “I regret to say that Picnic and I are not … entirely content with our present circumstances. Though if I may say so, we would be far less satisfied if we were members of that peculiar species you mentioned just now.”

“Human, you mean.” I'm getting used to how things work now; he doesn't have to answer. Picnic looks reasonably humanesque, but I've learned that doesn't necessarily mean much. “Seems like it's really going out of style. Getting downright passé. So I guess you think what my dad did counts as self-improvement?”

“Perhaps I would describe that as a, shall we say, a
lateral
move. Believe me, I don't mean to impute any truly crippling inadequacy on the part of those…” Pangolin pauses and snuffles with embarrassment. “No one denies that such creatures can attain … a small measure of dignity, miss, despite the limitations of their nature. Certain modest accomplishments can be theirs. You, for example, are currently operating in a milieu that quite recently was denied to you. I did tell you that I thought you might manage it with practice.”

It takes me a few moments to get past his explanation of my non-crippling inadequacy and sort through the rest of it. “You mean we're asleep?”

“You seem to have improved your qualifications with considerable dispatch,” Pangolin agrees with approval. “Sleep
and
dreams now fall within your compass, miss. I thought you showed a certain potential, but I hardly hoped you would develop so much in such a short time. I won't make any
personal
inquiries, but I do suspect you may have had some assistance.” He stands on tiptoe, leans in and sniffs close to my neck, huffing humid vapors at my skin. “I smell a formal connection that might explain how you exceed the limitations usual to your kind. A bond. Indeed, you are not legally free
not
to exceed them. You are subject to certain obligations.”

The countless trees suddenly give a synchronized shake in the unmoving air and silver leaves wheel down on all sides. My dad whines and I reach to pet him without thinking. His fur feels coarse and oily. On my other side the swan glows with snowy light against the hunched shadows among the trees. Pangolin's giving me a lot to think about, and after brooding for a moment I'm not sure I want to understand what he's telling me any better than I do already.

“What's wrong with your present circumstances, anyway?” If Erg's taught me one thing, it's how to change the subject.

“Ah,” Pangolin says, and shuffles. His claws shred the leaves into whispering confetti. “Ah, well. Our current habitation is not the most choice. Lacking various comforts. Picnic wished me to tell you that we find it less than perfectly congenial. We might prefer to relocate.”

“Are you asking me for help?” I say. Then in the next instant I'm sorry I said anything. My situation is crazy enough as it is without throwing in a rescue mission. So why can't I just shut up?

Because it's my fault they got busted, is why. I'm responsible. Shutting up is a luxury I don't deserve.

“Are you trying to tell me that Babs has you trapped somehow?” I ask.

Pangolin sort of ruffles his neck, scales rippling. His glasses fall off his snout and vanish into the leaves, and he dives down and starts rooting for them. Of course he's asking me for help. That's why he's here. My swan snakes its head down through silvery drifts and comes up with the glasses askew on its beak and a wicked expression, maybe even a
smile,
on its face.

“Pangolin?” I say. “Can you tell me where you are?”

He doesn't even look up, just keeps snorting around on all fours, the tails of his suit jacket flapping. It's apparently one of those difficult questions, the kind with wrong-flavored answers. The kind that Erg would say
we
don't discuss. Beside me my dad suddenly barks. His voice seems weirdly shrill for such a big dog. Then he bursts out whining and tugs hard on the leash.

Every direction in this forest looks exactly the same as every other direction, but I still know where he's trying to take me.
This isn't the dream I wanted,
I want to say.
Can I please send it back?

I wake up sweat-slicked and shivering, the tatty blanket knotted around my legs. Tea-colored light smudges the walls and I lie there, too queasy and tense to move. Unidentified shadows creep along the newspaper screen that hides the toilet, clouding the faces of dead presidents. I have to do
something,
and there's nothing I can do—except, maybe, go in for futile, random, completely half-assed heroics, and fail dismally, and get myself killed. Best plan
ever,
Vassa!

I push up onto my elbows and see Erg's head sticking out of the silver packet that held those lagoon toaster tarts, her little glossy face haloed in crumbs, blue filling gobbed onto her slick black curls. That's great that she got her appetite back so quickly. For a while I just stare down at her as she sleeps, thinking about what Pangolin told me. That “formal connection” he mentioned can only mean one thing, but I'm not as clear on the part about my obligations. Feeding Erg, sure, but what
else
am I required to do? Erg's been working hard to keep me safe since we got here, but she didn't actually try to discourage me from entering BY's in the first place. On reflection, that does seem kind of out of character.

I can't stop myself from wondering, suddenly, if her real agenda has anything to do with me at all. But there's no point in asking her; I'll never get the truth. And she has her excuse perfectly prepared. Why, of
course
she can't tell me anything important, of course she goes into hysterics if I need information. Jeez, Vassa, don't you know there are
rules
?

I don't want to resent Erg. Really. I don't want to distrust her. She's done so much for me, and in my own useless way I totally love her. But considering that there are
certain obligations
that I'm not
legally free
to blow off, it does kind of feel like she owes me a lot more honesty than I've gotten so far.

“Erg?” I say. I shake the packet gently, listening to its metallic rustle; it sounds like the leaves that kept falling in my dream. “Erg, wake up! I need your help with something.”

Erg's blue eyes are instantly open, the look in them sad and skeptical. She wasn't asleep at all.

“I
always
help you,” she says, and for the first time ever I realize that she might resent me, too. “Don't I, Vassa? I carry things around for you that you sure couldn't handle by yourself!”

I'm not clear on what that last part is supposed to mean, and right at the moment I'm not much interested. “Picnic and Pangolin are in trouble. I think they're in that apartment or whatever it is where Babs lives. And it's kind of my fault, since I told them to try it? I don't know why I thought they'd be safe, but I was totally wrong.”

Erg just stares up at me from her foil packet, utterly unsurprised. If she knows so much, then why do I even bother speaking?

“So can you help me get in there?” I continue after an awkward silence. “It's going to be tricky with the door so near the register and everything. Babs is probably right there, and then there are the hands to watch out for.”

Erg still doesn't say anything, but her lips are curling into a funny half smile.

“I thought maybe you could distract them,” I finally say. “So I can sneak in?”

Erg wriggles out of the foil packet and bounces onto the back of my arm where it rests on the mattress. “Wow, that's so sweet of you, Vassa! To do something that totally dangerous just for Picnic and Pangolin. Because
naturally
that's the only reason you would even dream of going in there. I mean naturally. It would never, ever occur to you that you might find out something about your boyfriend.”

“My what?” I say, although we both know that we both know. “Who are you talking about, dollface?”

“Vrum, vrum?”
Her little face is twisting. “Golly, where does Babs keep him during the day, anyway? I can't
begin
to imagine.”

She's bringing him up for a reason, I'm pretty sure. Letting me know without saying it in so many words. “So … do you think we
could
help him? Is that … I don't know, is it possible?”

“Help him do what? That's the real question,” Erg observes cryptically.

“Get free. All those guys on the motorcycles are trapped. I
know
they are.” Like me. What makes me think I'm in a position to free anyone when I obviously can't free myself? “Doll, you want to help him, too, don't you? You
seem
like you like him. Do you?” If anything I'd guess that she likes him too much; she seems just a shade too interested whenever the subject comes up. Could Erg be capable of getting a crush on someone?

Erg considers that, and I realize I've never heard her say that she personally likes or hates anyone. She only ever says what
I
feel.

“Well, I
understand
him, anyway,” Erg says at last. “I guess you could say that I relate to him?”

“Do you feel trapped with me?” It's never occurred to me to wonder that before.

Erg looks away. “So you need me to create a diversion? I can do that for you, Vassa. Sure I can!” She pauses and then stares back at me, her blue eyes hard and wounded. “Since everything
else
I've done isn't enough for you. Is it?”

Now it's my turn to glance away. Maybe I was being really unfair to her. Maybe I've been unfair to her for years. A streak of feverish yellow floor gleams under my door and I can just glimpse a sliver of gray-pink wrist through the gap. Skin whispers on wood and a frosted nail bends down to peer in at us. When it sees me looking back the hand hops away, willfully casual, just as if I hadn't caught it spying. “Do you have a better idea? Because right now—even if I
do
get away tomorrow, I'd be leaving everyone else here completely screwed. I really don't see how I can do that!”

She bends down and nuzzles the back of my hand with her cheek, sticky with swimming pool–colored gunk. “Babs thinks she's
always
the one who wins,” Erg observes, and again I'm surprised by how caustic she sounds. “She thinks she can get her way every single time. But we'll show her!”