‘People who see them say they dress like they’re from another time,’ Linus says. ‘Sneakers, flares, old football jerseys. You usually only see one at a time. Two, maybe, I’m not sure.’
‘When they come down, do they take – anything – else?’
Linus smiles. ‘Oh yeah. People, right? Every year one or two claim it. Some say it’s the runaway husband’s excuse.’ Linus draws deep on his cigarette. Smoke wreathes about his face.
‘They come back with injuries.’ Marc thinks of the healing scars on Annie’s pale skin.
‘I don’t know if they’re even still up there, the Nowhere children.’ Linus shrugs. ‘They might have all died.’
‘You just said they come down dumpster diving.’
‘Impossible things can become real,’ Linus says. ‘They exist now. We brought them to life. Even if it is them who come down to steal expired Tylenol and baby food – how are they still children? How can they still be children after all these years?’
‘They’re not the same kids, obviously.’ Even Marc hears the edge in his voice. ‘This is what you were doing yesterday, Kimble?’
‘Marc,’ Kimble says, polite. ‘You got low blood sugar? You need a snack or something?’
Marc pushes himself away from the wall, turns and grinds out his cigarette. ‘Tail’s come off. Thanks for your time,’ he says to Linus. Many people have opinions about the Nowhere children, most of them want to be on TV.
Kimble smiles. ‘Please,’ she says quietly and puts a hand on Linus’s arm. ‘You don’t have to do anything. Just tell him what you told me last night. Otherwise my boss has dragged me out here to Colorado all for nothing.’
‘I guess it’s the tunnel,’ Linus says. ‘The one Leaf Winham got out by. I think I can find it again. But don’t know if I can go back there.’
‘Again?’ Marc asks, polite. ‘Back there?’
‘After last time,’ Linus says, apologetic. ‘Leaf Winham was trying to kill me when he died.’
Marc feels everything in his body go still.
Linus stubs his cigarette out on the wall, the black ashy stain right next to Marc’s. Sunlight catches his jaw, his collarbone, the tendons of his neck. Marc sees it suddenly, like a magic eye picture – the scars. They are almost but not quite covered by the rose tattoo. They spread and branch over Linus’s throat.
‘People always want to talk about that day,’ Linus says. ‘I guess it’s normal but I can’t. So I keep to myself. Like I said, I want to find it – and I don’t.’
‘It must be hard.’ Marc summons it, the shine, the thing that makes people trust and love you. He doesn’t like to do it – it’s manipulative, even embarrassing maybe. It raises old memories he would rather leave behind. He much prefers to let people pass on by, to be an empty house with blank windows. But right now he will do anything to get what he wants. So for a moment Marc lets himself feel all his love for Silvie, allows it to show in his face and eyes so that Linus sees it too and thinks he’s a real human being. ‘I’m not going to lie to you. We want to talk about it too, man.’
‘I don’t know.’ Linus’s words are slow. Marc feels it working on Linus, the magic, the sun.
‘It’s your call.’ Marc shrugs. ‘But this is your story. You should get the chance to tell it your way.’
‘I don’t know,’ Linus says again.
‘Ok,’ Marc says. ‘Different question. What would bring you back? What could – if you ever decided to – take us up there?’ Marc asks.
‘Ten thousand dollars?’ Kimble says, easy.
‘What?’ Linus’s eyes are wide.
Marc can see the child he once was. Doesn’t matter, he thinks, shoving down the guilt. Lizard tail. Lizard tail.
‘That’s right,’ Marc says. Neither he nor Kimble has ten thousand dollars but this is the kind of bridge they are used to crossing when they come to it. Though Kimble usually doesn’t set such a high figure.
Linus takes another cigarette from the pack, looks at it, then slides it back in. ‘Sometimes I think I dreamed it all. The fire, that day. Him, leaning over me. If the fire engine hadn’t come down the road at that moment, I would be dead. Leaf Winham cut his own throat when he saw them, you know. He was right on top of me so – his blood was all over, it ran down my face. It was so hot, I hadn’t expected blood to be … I still taste it, sometimes. I dream about it trickling down my cheeks, up my nose, into the cut he made in my neck.’ Linus fingers the scar at his throat. ‘You don’t know what it’s like up there. Reality – it gets kind of – thin. Maybe I’d like proof. Witnesses. Maybe if you film it – if we find that way into Nowhere – I’ll know I’m not crazy.’ He looks away. ‘I get stalkers, you know? Death threats. Marriage proposals. All for twenty minutes that happened so long ago.’
‘You were part of something important,’ Marc says. ‘People respond to that.’
‘I guess,’ Linus says. He rubs the back of his neck so the grey hair stands up like the crest of a parrot.
‘Do you mind if we shoot this conversation?’ Marc asks.
