(no subject)
“Hey, no prob, man.” I shrugged.
“No, no prob.” He shouldered against the door frame, forcing me back into the hall, and leaned there, hands in his pockets. “But I owe you one.”
I swallowed. He had yellow eyes. You’d think I would have remembered him clearly for that, but for the life of me, I couldn’t place the rest of his face.
“Um, look, don't worry about it. Thanks anyway, though…”
The yellow eyes narrowed minutely.
“Come outside for a minute.”
“Wait, I’m sorry, I… I, ah… I don’t remember your name…”
“Jasper,” he supplied, and grinned. His eyes stayed cold. My guess was they always had and always would. He had sharp, white teeth.
“Sloane,” I said, and offered him a hand, which he took.
“Marvelous to see you again.”
I don’t suppose I was frightened. His eyes really didn’t allow for that kind of thing. He gave you a look, you did what it meant, no questions.
“Let’s go,” he said. We did.
It was August, nightfall, the wind blowing lead-grey clouds across the moon. The trees whispered as we walked down the street, their shadows flickering across the street lamps; the bushes leaned close, peering at us through the chain-link fence. My companion’s feet made no sound on the pavement.
After a few minutes, the first tattered edges of town came into view-the rail yard, the corrugated granite sheds and warehouses, the ragged modular apartment blocks, then the graffiti-spattered back sides of Main Street’s stores. Trash bins clustered under the fire escapes, their peeling black paint glinting in the light, casting twisted shadows on the edges of the rear parking lot, which was empty save a rust-eaten microbus and a pick-up truck with a scrap-lumber bed.
“Recognize this?” Jasper murmured.
“Yeah.”
The last of those run-down apartments had been my home for the fist six years of my life, before the family upgraded to the white house on the outskirts of town. This parking lot had been my backyard, its fire escapes my tree houses, its dumpsters my leaf piles and jungle gyms.
“But you still don’t recognize me.”
His cool, inscrutable half-smile looked sinister in the street light’s sodium glow.
“I’m sorry…”
“How about now?”
I came very close to screaming.
As a child, I wanted to be a vet when I grew up. I wanted to whisper to horses, or barring that, be raised by wolves. The landlord didn’t allow pets, so I adopted, by default, the pestilential wildlife that flourished among the restaurant garbage bins nearby.
I had a particular fondness for cats. There was one, a starved tabby thing that I had discovered during a game of hide and seek, with which I developed something of a friendship. Crawling into the filth beneath an empty box car on the far side of the parking lot, I had been startled when a sooty rag deep in the gloom had hissed at my approach. It turned out to be a kitten, of course, half-starved and hideous, but I loved it instantly. I left food out for it every night, sandwich scraps from my lunch box, cafeteria milk that was unfit for human consumption anyway, the odd tin of real cat food I had bought with saved allowances. Somehow it sustained itself on this erratic diet, filling out into a sleek, dappled shadow with luminous yellow eyes.
The stare of those eyes was the only thanks it gave me for my inept foster-parenting. It always shied from my touch, never ate from my hand, never purred or came running out to greet me when I made my daily visit. But I would sit there, respecting its space, in the lee of the box car, watching those yellow eyes gleam eerily from the blackness underneath. We would stare at one another, unblinking, until dusk, when my mother would call me in for bed.
Several months later, my father got a job out of state and we moved away. I wasn’t too worried about the cat. It had grown independent, often leaving my offerings untouched, preferring instead the fresher delicacies provided by the local rodent population. The following year, when my mother and I found ourselves back in town, I kept an eye out for the cat when I passed by, but never saw it, and assumed that, like my father, it had moved out to more habitable digs. Years went by, and I forgot the incident entirely-the box car, the food scraps, the yellow eyes in the shadows.
Or perhaps I hadn’t quite forgotten the eyes.
Before I left, I had given the cat a name. The name was Jasper.
“No, no prob.” He shouldered against the door frame, forcing me back into the hall, and leaned there, hands in his pockets. “But I owe you one.”
I swallowed. He had yellow eyes. You’d think I would have remembered him clearly for that, but for the life of me, I couldn’t place the rest of his face.
“Um, look, don't worry about it. Thanks anyway, though…”
The yellow eyes narrowed minutely.
“Come outside for a minute.”
“Wait, I’m sorry, I… I, ah… I don’t remember your name…”
“Jasper,” he supplied, and grinned. His eyes stayed cold. My guess was they always had and always would. He had sharp, white teeth.
“Sloane,” I said, and offered him a hand, which he took.
“Marvelous to see you again.”
I don’t suppose I was frightened. His eyes really didn’t allow for that kind of thing. He gave you a look, you did what it meant, no questions.
“Let’s go,” he said. We did.
It was August, nightfall, the wind blowing lead-grey clouds across the moon. The trees whispered as we walked down the street, their shadows flickering across the street lamps; the bushes leaned close, peering at us through the chain-link fence. My companion’s feet made no sound on the pavement.
After a few minutes, the first tattered edges of town came into view-the rail yard, the corrugated granite sheds and warehouses, the ragged modular apartment blocks, then the graffiti-spattered back sides of Main Street’s stores. Trash bins clustered under the fire escapes, their peeling black paint glinting in the light, casting twisted shadows on the edges of the rear parking lot, which was empty save a rust-eaten microbus and a pick-up truck with a scrap-lumber bed.
“Recognize this?” Jasper murmured.
“Yeah.”
The last of those run-down apartments had been my home for the fist six years of my life, before the family upgraded to the white house on the outskirts of town. This parking lot had been my backyard, its fire escapes my tree houses, its dumpsters my leaf piles and jungle gyms.
“But you still don’t recognize me.”
His cool, inscrutable half-smile looked sinister in the street light’s sodium glow.
“I’m sorry…”
“How about now?”
I came very close to screaming.
As a child, I wanted to be a vet when I grew up. I wanted to whisper to horses, or barring that, be raised by wolves. The landlord didn’t allow pets, so I adopted, by default, the pestilential wildlife that flourished among the restaurant garbage bins nearby.
I had a particular fondness for cats. There was one, a starved tabby thing that I had discovered during a game of hide and seek, with which I developed something of a friendship. Crawling into the filth beneath an empty box car on the far side of the parking lot, I had been startled when a sooty rag deep in the gloom had hissed at my approach. It turned out to be a kitten, of course, half-starved and hideous, but I loved it instantly. I left food out for it every night, sandwich scraps from my lunch box, cafeteria milk that was unfit for human consumption anyway, the odd tin of real cat food I had bought with saved allowances. Somehow it sustained itself on this erratic diet, filling out into a sleek, dappled shadow with luminous yellow eyes.
The stare of those eyes was the only thanks it gave me for my inept foster-parenting. It always shied from my touch, never ate from my hand, never purred or came running out to greet me when I made my daily visit. But I would sit there, respecting its space, in the lee of the box car, watching those yellow eyes gleam eerily from the blackness underneath. We would stare at one another, unblinking, until dusk, when my mother would call me in for bed.
Several months later, my father got a job out of state and we moved away. I wasn’t too worried about the cat. It had grown independent, often leaving my offerings untouched, preferring instead the fresher delicacies provided by the local rodent population. The following year, when my mother and I found ourselves back in town, I kept an eye out for the cat when I passed by, but never saw it, and assumed that, like my father, it had moved out to more habitable digs. Years went by, and I forgot the incident entirely-the box car, the food scraps, the yellow eyes in the shadows.
Or perhaps I hadn’t quite forgotten the eyes.
Before I left, I had given the cat a name. The name was Jasper.