In the end she can’t tell a story, Oliver is crying too loudly for that. Riley holds his hand tightly and listens to his pain. The needle moves, silver then red.
‘You want a drink?’ Noon asks, leaning on the metal table. She holds out her hand level, watching it. It was steady while she held the needle but now it trembles. ‘Blood makes me feel weird,’ she says, and Riley sees she’s pretty close to tears too.
Oliver groans in her arms. ‘I can’t leave him.’
‘He’ll sleep now,’ Noon says, and she’s right, Oliver’s nearly there already, eyes closing. ‘Nature’s anaesthetic. Put him down in the end stall. It’s Danny’s, he’s away out on the range right now.’
Noon carries the metal kidney dish with her. There’s a little of Oliver’s blood at the bottom and she tips it out onto the ground as they go. She bends and whispers something to the earth that Riley cannot hear.
The last stall on the row is lit by a storm lantern. It has a camp bed neatly made, a large jar of jawbreakers, the kind they have in old-fashioned drug stores, and a shoe box of rag-eared paperbacks. Riley looks at the spines. They’re all mystery and adventure. Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew.The Call of the Wild.
She puts Oliver down on the bed. He curls up tight as a snailshell and is instantly asleep. No blood seeps through the white gauze dressing.
‘Here.’ Noon gives Riley a handful of gauze and cotton wool. ‘Change the dressing once a day. Clean the wound. Put some of this on it.’ The tube of antibiotic ointment is three years expired.
‘Will he be ok?’ Riley asks. ‘Will everything be ok?’ She doesn’t know why she’s asking this person she hardly knows for reassurance. But Noon seems like she knows things.
‘I hope so,’ Noon says. ‘I left the bullet in. I didn’t think it was a good idea to dig it out.’
Noon hands Riley a flask of something from her pocket. Whatever’s in it feels like flame and makes her scream-cough in silence, eyes streaming. She tips her head back and empties the flask into her mouth again. The world flickers. ‘I don’t really drink,’ Riley says, feeling a dumb smile spreading across her face.
‘I can tell.’ Noon puts a warm hand on her arm. ‘Keep the rest of it to clean his leg. Now come on. You need food.’
‘Where’s food?’ Riley is suddenly so hungry it feels like her stomach is cramping and eating itself.
Noon smiles. ‘Follow your nose.’
Riley can smell it now. Meat. Fire. She turns and stumbles out of the stable, towards the scent. A hundred feet away through the apple trees a fire burns. There are people, too, but they seem insubstantial to Riley. Only the meat is real. Behind the fire a large barn rises dark against the night.
‘This is Home Barn,’ Noon says. ‘It’s where everything happens, pretty much.’
Inside, the barn is lit with storm lanterns. There are plastic lawn chairs scattered round, and some other kids who sneak glances at her, but they’re at least trying to do it politely, without her seeing. That’s good. People who stare when they first meet you are bad news. These all seem like people from a dream, anyway. Their clothes are ragged and oddly paired. A tall thin girl wears ski pants and a Christmas sweater with reindeer on it. She could be leaning against a fireplace strung with festive stockings if it weren’t for the sandals on her feet. Everett still wears his balaclava. There are other people here but Riley’s fading, she can’t seem to focus or count.
‘Sit.’ Noon pushes her gently into a chair by the big fire pit which roars red. There are rabbits on spits, eggs bubble in pans. Noon gives Riley a bowl with a rabbit thigh and a couple of fried eggs. Riley scoops up a handful and shoves it in her mouth. There are fresh herbs on the rabbit and meat juice runs down Riley’s chin.
Noon kisses her own hand and points to the east. It’s the same gesture, like a dance move, that Riley saw Everett and Cal make earlier. Then Noon tears the rabbit with her hands and teeth. Everyone does the same thing before they eat – they kiss their hands and release something eastwards, eyes lowered. Riley wonders why they choose to live here, in the shadow of the house, right next to the thing they’re afraid of. But it’s a good place, she can see that. No one will bother you here.
The food hits Riley like a drug. The night takes on a texture.People say things to her but she’s floating. She badly wants to eat everything on her plate but she forces herself to stop.
‘I’ll give the rest to Oliver,’ she says. They must be careful, she knows that. Riley and Oliver mustn’t take too much from these people. They have to give, not take – make themselves valuable somehow. That’s how things work. People don’t want you if you’re no use to them. Riley needs to be wanted, here at Nowhere.
Riley wakes Oliver gently. He starts to cry but he stops when he sees the plate of rabbit meat. She feed him scraps with her fingers. ‘Not too fast,’ she says, anxious. ‘Don’t make yourself sick.’
His head nods with exhaustion. Riley feels the familiar stab – love or worry or both, what’s the difference, really? She takes off Oliver’s sneakers and strokes his bare foot. Where are they going to get him another pair of socks?
‘Tickles, Riley, stop.’
‘Ok.’
She curls up gently behind Oliver and there’s nothing, after that.
5Adam
The coffee he makes is really bad, bitter and undrinkable. Adam tries to clean the filter. He doesn’t understand coffee machines. Christie left last night to stay at her sister’s. He hopes she’ll be back soon. The whole apartment seems to hold the energy of their last argument – in its corners, under the sink, in the closets. It’s like black needles in the air. Adam gives up and rinses his coffee cup.
Adam is an architect. He has always wanted to make things, unlike other kids who wanted to be firemen or rock stars. He knows brick, mortar, cement – but what he really loves is wood. Adam knows what wood wants, its temper and limitations. He knows how to make it beautiful and how to make it talk. He is shy, not as good with people.
Adam tightens and loosens and tightens his tie in the mirror until it’s damp and crumpled. By this time he’s late, so he swears at his reflection and runs out the door, trying to remember where exactly on the block he left the car.
