Grimspace

As I turn to leave the market, an old woman catches me by the arm. “Your shadow troubles you.”



I expect to find a fortune-teller soliciting me, reading cards or bones or peering into a cup to glimpse my future in sodden leaves. But this woman is simply garbed in black; she might be a cook or a housekeeper, certainly someone’s grandmother, for her back is bent and her face withered.



“My shadow’s fine,” I reply with a frown.



“She is not,” the stranger insists. “She has gone away and dreams another dream. You shift what lives inside your skin until she does not know you. And without her, I do not know how you will face this destiny hanging on you. So many ghosts walk behind you, so many ghosts…” She shakes her head and sighs. “I will light a candle for you at Mary’s shrine.”



At that she releases my arm, and I expect her to ask me to pay for her blessing or insight, but she merely wraps her black shawl around her head and hurries on, as if she’s tarried too long. I leave the market and head for home, feeling distinctly unsettled. Adele rented me a room in her building; the word “garret” seems to apply. My flat used to be storage space before someone took the bright idea to replace half the walls with beveled glastique. Consequently, my ceilings slant beneath the line of the roof.



She told me it used to be an artist’s studio; nobody’s ever actually lived up here before. But I don’t mind, the open vista and the altitude make me feel like I’m flying, which might make a mudsider uneasy, but I’ve spent so much of my life on ships, this place feels perfect. It feels like home.



When she brings a bowl of soup up for my lunch, I just have to ask, “Why are you being so nice to me?”



She gives me a Madonna’s smile. “Mary teaches us that’s how you change the world, one soul at a time, one kindness at a time. That’s the only way it’ll ever take root.”



“Didn’t they kill her for that doctrine?” I ask, taking the dish from her.



Adele shakes her head. “No, that was her son. They knew better than to martyr her. It was meant as an object lesson from the authorities, but it didn’t shut her mouth. She went on to live a good life.”



I’ve never been religious, never thought much on the oaths I swear, but I pause in spooning up a bite of soup. “That’s why she’s revered? For living a good life?”



I don’t mean to minimize its importance, but I can tell my tone struck a chord because she drops down on the battered old sofa that came with my apartment. “Isn’t that more than it sounds like, Sirantha? It’s easy to do right when everything goes right. But let everything go wrong, and see how difficult it becomes.”



“That’s certainly true.”



When she calls me Sirantha, I think of my mother although I haven’t seen her in fifteen years. I don’t even know if she’s still alive, but I don’t harbor any illusions she’d be glad to see me. I made my bed when I ran away from boarding school and signed a contract with the Corp, when I decided not to be the pretty soulless accessory they were grooming me to be. And maybe I still don’t know who I am, but it’s not what they wanted. And that’s enough, for now.



For some reason, I can’t bring myself to tell Adele I don’t have any faith. Mary is an idea, someone who lived long ago maybe, but she’s nothing I believe in. I’ve never seen any sign of divinity or everlasting grace, except perhaps a whisper in the movements of that glass-dancer.



Hard as it may be to swallow, I think this shot’s all we get. Science has proved there’s nothing to the talk of ghosts and spirits, no proof anything like the soul exists. And to my mind that’s an argument against the existence of an omniscient force. I think people believe whatever makes living easiest, and who am I to deny someone comfort?



So I just shut up and eat my soup.



CHAPTER 40



I haven’t been sleeping well.



It’s been six weeks, and I can’t get the old woman’s words out of my head. Sometimes I catch myself looking over my shoulder for my shadow, and I never find one. I tell myself it’s part of living on Gehenna, where there’s no direct sunlight. Most citizens take regular UV treatments to make up for the deficiency.



But that’s not the reason I wake up dripping sweat, hands fisted in my bedcovers. Where I sleep would give anyone else vertigo, mattress flush against the glastique wall. That’s not my problem, either. First thing I do is roll over and look out over the city, see how the ’ scrapers strive toward the unassailable sky. The skycabs and private hovercars swoop with silent grace, and I lie there listening to my heartbeat.



On another world, it would be dawn now, and I wake from the same dream, night after night, exactly this way. I run my palm over my biceps and feel the skin marred by scars, further roughed by goose bumps. I don’t know what to do.



He’s the last person I want to see when I close my eyes, and yet he’s there, always the same. Since I’m a new Jax, building a new life, I try not to let myself think about March, but he comes to me in dreams. I see him sitting on the edge of his bunk, elbows on his knees, head sunk into his hands. That’s all, really, but it doesn’t begin to encapsulate his solitude and despair. It’s like he’s one of the ghosts the old woman claimed she saw following me.



I hate how much I miss him. There’s a hollow where he used to be, and it echoes with self-imposed loss. This is the life I chose, first decision I’ve made since I was seventeen and ran away from finishing school, so I need to make the best of it.



I want to be happy, but my heart won’t let me. In crowds I see his face. When I close my eyes, I see his face. And in dreams—



With a muffled groan, I crawl off my mat and collect my bath basket. I don’t have a san-shower in my garret, so I go down and borrow from Adele. She lives just below me, and most mornings we breakfast together as well. Usually it’s darjing tea and toast with good marmalade.



She’s coded the door to recognize me, so I don’t wake her slipping in to take my shower. This morning I manage to get cleaned up and make the tea before she stirs. Scratching at her sleep-rumpled hair, she sits down at the small metal table that looks as if she salvaged it from a rubbish pile. Perhaps she did. But it’s meticulously clean, if dinged and dented.



Adele takes one look at me, and says, “You dreamed of him again, hm?”



I give a curt nod in reply, wrapping my fingers around my mug for warmth I can’t seem to generate on my own. It’s like I sweat away my heat in fitful sleep, then for the rest of the day I walk around with a chill I can’t dispel. Doubtless the old woman from the bazaar would say it’s something to do with my missing shadow.



She can tell I don’t want to talk about it, though, so she falls quiet, and we eat listening to the bittersweet melody of the music she calls folkazz. Before work, we go to the piazza and listen to them play, old-fashioned instruments with reeds and strings. I like it, but there’s a certain melancholy in their faces that says they know they belong to a lost era. Their music makes me think again of the ghosts that follow me.



Tonight, the children are especially querulous. If Gehenna experienced weather, I would say there’s a storm coming. Perhaps there is, a dry lightning tempest somewhere beyond the safety of the dome. Mattin will not climb off my lap, even to hit Lleela in the head, and that little girl has attached herself to Adele’s leg; she will not dislodge herself for toys or treats. The others seem less affected, but they do quarrel more over small infractions of rights or personal dignity. And none of them will sleep.



So we get no peace until the last of the dancers collects her offspring, then we walk home together through the titian-tinged streets. Though the hour is late, Gehenna looks exactly the same, like a whore who paints her face night after night and holds secret the ravages of time. I decline Adele’s offer to come in and trudge up another flight to my flat. There’s a lift in this building, but she tells me it hasn’t worked in years.



Even before I let myself in, I smell the scent of a man’s passage, but I don’t expect to find him standing in my flat. I know how it must look to him: poor, eccentric, squalid. But it’s mine. His back is turned to me, and he seems to be admiring the view. It’s strange to see him amid my eclectic furnishings, my sleep-mat, the battered sofa, a softly glowing lamp with a fringed shade. But he spins as he senses my presence, even though I don’t speak.



“It’s been a while,” Doc says, folding his hands behind him. “Hello, Sirantha.”



“I thought you would have gone by now.”



Long before now, actually.



“Oh, we tried.” And there’s certain heaviness to his tone that unnerves me. “We were so lucky to find Edaine. She failed basic academy training, but not through incompetence. One of her instructors took a fancy to her and gave her low marks when she refused to sleep with him.”



“Yes, I imagine that’s pretty rare. Would you like something to drink?” I keep my words neutral.



“No thank you. I won’t stay long.” He studies me for a moment, as if seeking something in my eyes or expression.



“How did you find me?” I thought I had well and truly disappeared.



That bothers me. If he found me, then the Corp could as well, not to mention bounty hunters. Gray men don’t always work as a unit. Sometimes they dispatch a solo quietly to neutralize targets on worlds they don’t control. It’s not unreasonable to posit one such might be searching for me here, even now, and I can’t be on my guard all the time. To make it worse, my presence might pose a danger to the children and to Adele. That I cannot permit.



“My old friend Ordo has excellent connections,” he answers.



I suspect that’s an understatement. Ordo Carvati can accomplish anything he wants in Gehenna. He’s from one of the First families, and he’s old money. It’s to Doc’s credit that he doesn’t flaunt his friendship with such a man.



“But he can’t find you another jumper?”



He hasn’t moved from the center of the room, and none of his body language tells me this is a friendly visit. In fact, I would say he doesn’t want to be here at all. That tells me a great deal about his state of mind.



At that he smiles, although there’s a sad slant to it. “He cannot make miracles. I know what March has said about you. And I’ve listened to Dina’s thoughts as well.” By his careful phrasing I can well imagine the way the other two cursed me. He takes a step forward, and the glow from my fringed lamp finally touches his face. “Two days ago Dina had a shunt installed. Ordo wouldn’t do it, so she went to a black-market surgeon.”



“A shunt?” I repeat blankly. “Why?” But even as I ask, I find myself fingering the jack hidden in my wrist.



“She says there’s no one else,” he answers.



Now I understand the heaviness in his voice. “That’s crazy. She isn’t trained.”



I can’t even imagine what grimspace would do to someone untrained, someone who doesn’t possess the J-gene. Don’t know whether it will kill her, drive her mad, or if all of them will be lost. I could find out, research the early days when they first discovered the Star Road, but something tells me knowing won’t make it easier to bear.