greasepaint for a circus clown
a microphone
a report card, not mine, 3 F’s
a few memories I didn’t want
a few memories I did
leg warmers
a baby blanket, pink
my purpose, maybe
Chapter Eighteen
I have lost track of time. It’s been several weeks, or months, since I first arrived in Lost, and while I appreciate the appropriateness of my inability to calculate the amount of time (given where I am), it also scares me. I wish I’d marked days on the wall of the kitchen, but I didn’t think I would be here so long.
I stare out the window of our house and watch the dying sun play over the variations in the land, the brambles and the cacti. It then catches the curve of the waves in the ocean, a mile away today. Low tide, in its own peculiar way. I don’t see the dolphin.
Claire is upstairs. She discovered a violin in one of the junk piles. It’s only a little warped, but neither of us has any clue how to play it. She has been experimenting with it. I listen to her coax out a melancholy cry that blends into other off-key notes. I kind of like it. It fits this place. Colin is conked out on the living room couch behind me. I don’t know how he can sleep through the screech of the violin, but he does. He’s been here every day since I helped him find what he’d lost—and since I failed to help the two people after him.
The woman in the sequins and diamonds... I brought a clock out of the void for her. She threw it at the wall and ran screaming out of the house. A blond-haired boy in a starched shirt tried to attack me when I emerged from the void with a set of keys for him. After that, I had more successes, and then more failures. But those, the sequin woman and the blond boy, were enough to convince Peter, who convinced Colin, that I needed protection. He shows up every day after Peter leaves to hunt for the Missing Man.
Every night, Peter checks the traps, the alarms, and the locks, before he climbs into bed with me. He sleeps with one arm tight around my waist, as if keeping me from falling off the side of a mountain. Often, in the mornings before he leaves to search for the Missing Man, he kisses me or I kiss him. He doesn’t press for more, and neither do I. We don’t talk about what will happen when he finds the Missing Man.
After a while, I leave the window. In the kitchen, I cook us some pasta and sauce. I still don’t switch the light on, though at least a couple dozen people know I’m here. Anyway, I’m used to the shadows.
I am setting the table for three when I hear a knock on the door.
Claire has heard it, too. The violin stops.
Peter,I think. But no, he wouldn’t knock. And the lost people always come in the morning. They don’t want to risk being in the outskirts of town at night—we’re too close to the void, and no one has forgotten how quickly it contracted.
I pick up the fire extinguisher as I pass through the kitchen, and I meet Claire by the stairs. She has her two teddy bears. I don’t need to look to know she also has her knife. I also don’t need to look to know Colin is with me. He has a gun. I adjust my grip on the fire extinguisher and call, “Who is it?”
“I have come back,” a man’s voice says.
Claire gasps. Colin issues what sounds more like a gurgle.
I peer out the bit of window beside the deli sign. In his dapper gray suit, the Missing Man stands on my porch. He has the same suit, cane, and briefcase. I back away from the door.Peter did it,I think, and I don’t know why I don’t feel overjoyed.
Claire wraps her arms around my waist. “Don’t go without me!” she whispers fiercely. “Promise me you won’t!”
He knocks again. “Ms. Chase?”
Colin darts in front of us, unlocks the door, and pulls it open. “You!”
Claire blocks me with her little body. “She isn’t sure she wants to talk to you. You weren’t nice to her, and wild dogs almost ate us.”
“I am relieved to hear they did not,” the Missing Man says. “Ms. Chase, you have every right to refuse to see me, but I think you will wish to speak with me. Indeed, I must speak to you. The Finder was insistent upon it, and he is...most persuasive at times.”
I crane my neck to see beyond him. “Peter’s here?”
“He wished us to have an opportunity to talk alone.”
“Oh.” I am still looking beyond the Missing Man, as if Peter is lurking right around the junk pile. I would feel much, much better if he were here. “About what?”
