Chapter 17 #2
It told the solange-eyed one what the girl had asked it to, and that was all it would tell him. He was a Smith. And while the girl loved him, the wind did not. Instead, the wind was wary of him, just like a human would be wary of a rip current or quicksand. Or perhaps a forest fire or a hurricane.
The solange-eyed one was a dangerous being. A powerful being.
He was an elemental force who had once loved the girl.
If he loved her still, then he would want her to remember, and he would want her good.
But the girl could be harmed if the solange-eyed one pulled her good out before it was safe.
Didn’t he know that?
Didn’t he know unlocking her good too soon would destroy it?
The wind blew a warning breath, knocking against the man.
He drew in a long breath. “No? None of her left?” He smiled, his eyes focusing on a streetlight flickering at the end of the block. “Then I suppose I’ll have to love this version of her.”
The solange-eyed man turned and ducked into the entry of a five-story white-brick building.
The windows were opaque. The wind tapped on them.
They bounced with that thick, muffled give that meant they were impervious to bullets and other human weapons.
It scraped at the lip of the door, but it was sealed with rubber.
The wind huffed and went in search of a crack.
It took too long. Much too long. The building was sealed as tight as a coffin.
The wind finally resorted to poking around in the dirt, hunting cockroaches.
It found one: a fat, brown-shelled, scuttling thing aiming toward the building.
Cockroaches always knew the way into buildings. Even airtight, impenetrable buildings.
The wind slipped through a crack on the cockroach’s back, rode its scrambling legs up a pipe, and climbed out a rusty drain into a kitchen sink full of dirty dishes.
“—you give your word?”
The wind drifted over a dirty pot crusted with hardened macaroni and flaking ketchup. It moved quietly, careful not to slip on the dish soap dripping from an overturned bottle. Even so, at its passing, a bubble grew and popped.
“What is my word worth? Nothing. No, I don’t give you my word. You will have to trust I want this enough not to betray you.”
The wind skirted past a dining-room table covered in Styrofoam take-out containers and empty bags of chips. The being who spoke had a voice like the groan of a rusted door pried open after years closed.
The wind shivered. It knew that voice. It was the mine.
The rocklike one’s first mine. It was a being as old as the rocklike one.
So old its spirit had calcified. The wind avoided this mine whenever it strolled the halls of Hell Gate.
It was a thing that may have once been human, or humanlike, but it wasn’t any longer.
Eons ago, the wind had blown through a long, tube-like cave, laughing at the music it had played.
In the limestone depths, it had stopped and peered into a dark pool, wondering at the ripples in the surface.
A giant spider was squatting at the pool’s edge.
Suddenly, a milky-gray, bulbous, eyeless creature had leaped out of the water and swallowed the spider.
It had disappeared beneath the water, leaving the wind to shiver at the smear of its cold, glossy flesh and its cavernous, wind-eating mouth.
What would’ve happened to the wind if that creature had swallowed it?
Would it have been lost in that deep, dark place forever?
The wind had raced from the cave. It hadn’t thought of the creature again until it met this mine. They were the same, with their milky-gray skin, their cavernous mouths, and their calcified souls.
It wanted to tell the solange-eyed one not to trust this mine. But instead, the wind huddled at the sticky edge of a cardboard container that smelled of sweet and sour sauce.
The solange-eyed one sat across from the mine. He was too large for the small wooden chair—his knees hit the bottom of the mine’s desk.
The wind peeked around the cardboard box and skittered back when it saw the mine’s gaping smile.
The solange-eyed one studied him the same way the wind sometimes saw humans studying paintings in museums. What was he looking for?
“A year?” the solange-eyed one asked. “Each time, it takes a year of my life?”
The mine tilted his chin like a man nodding off to sleep. “Yes. A year of your fate. I must warn you, if you are fated to die in six months’ time, then . . .” He gave a hollow, froglike cackle.
The solange-eyed one ignored the sound. “Then I will die as soon as I use it.”
“Exactly. It’s a risk.”
The solange-eyed one tapped a finger against the desk, thinking. The mine watched the tap, tap, tap. He was a slippery thing; a calcified creature.
“How is it that you aren’t under Jagger’s will?”
“Who says I’m not?”
The wind crept closer, inching from one overturned cardboard box to the next.
“A mine can’t harm Jagger.”
“But I’m not harming him. I’m helping him.”
The solange-eyed one narrowed his eyes.
The mine moved slowly, sluggish and sluglike. The desk creaked and groaned as the mine reached inside of it and pulled out a small stone dial. A sundial? No. Something else.
It was the size of a rose in bloom. Slate-gray and circular. Lines were etched into the stone. The wind couldn’t read though—not any of the languages of humans.
The mine pushed the stone across the desk. It made a rough scraping sound. The solange-eyed one kept his eyes on the stone’s slow movement.
“Four times,” the solange-eyed man said. “One for each direction.”
“If you stay longer than four hours each time, you are trapped. See?” The mine’s long fingernail tapped on the surface of the stone.
The wind peeked at where he was pointing. Words. Too many words.
“If I die, you won’t get what you want,” the solange-eyed one said. “I’ll make certain you never get it.”
What did the mine want? What?
The thing hissed, and the wind fled back behind the cardboard box that smelled of sweet and sour sauce.
“Do we have a bargain?” the solange-eyed one asked.
The mine opened his cavernous mouth in a smile that made the wind shiver. “A bargain. Yes. We have a bargain.”
The solange-eyed one nodded and then scooped up the stone. He stood and moved to the door, and the wind hurried after him.
It only wanted to escape—to flee the calcified feel of the hungry, cavern-mouthed mine.
As the solange-eyed one turned the doorknob, the creature said, “Smith? You fear her becoming like me, but it’s too late. She already is me.”
The solange-eyed one didn’t turn around or even acknowledge that he’d heard the mine. He only opened the door and closed it quietly behind him.