“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
“Or,” Evan said, “Or, or, or, I’m a genius.”
Ty gave me a look.
“That’s the dad look,” Evan said, hopping up, pointing a wing at Ty. “Did you see? That, right there.”
I leaned back, well past the point where I could see the cards or coins, and rested against the corner of the desk.
“I’ve missed you guys,” I said.
Ty’s expression was hard to read.
Sympathy, maybe.
I hadn’t been on the butt end of his sympathy, not in my memories.
“You fell through the cracks,” Ty said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“What was it like?”
“Dark,” I said. “Like all of the ugliness of this world we’ve been introduced to, compounding all the worst parts of being homeless.”
“Worst parts?” Evan asked. “There are good parts?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Just like there are things that aren’t so bad about prison. There’s a reason some people keep sliding back to that life, being on the streets or in a cell. There’s aspects where you have peace of mind, or the ability to just stop worrying about whole aspects of your life because it either can’t get worse or there’s something in place for you. So you face real life, and maybe a part of you knows that if you give up, stop trying, then you would at least have that.”
“Are you about to backslide?” Ty asked me. “Slip back through the cracks?”
I thought about how I’d considered breaking the mirror, and the consequences when I didn’t have any place to go.
Any place but down?
“No,” I said. “I have too much to do.”
Again, a sympathetic look. The guy stuck in a binding circle, with too much to do.
I thought of my memories. I thought about how I’d known Ty before I was supposedly created, and I could call on memories to a time after I’d met Ty, but before I’d really gotten back into the swing of everyday life.
Living on a fucked up commune, that was another kind of place I might’ve backslid to… one I’d wanted to, even if it was for one moment of weakness.
But after I’d met Ty, had he had that same look of sympathy for the antisocial guy Alexis had brought in, a guy who spent more time looking out the window or at the ground than at people’s faces?
The memories segued too smoothly into reality.
That made me uncomfortable, somehow.
As if deep down in the Drains, I’d lost sight of something, and now I might never get it back.
I had a thought on the tip of my tongue. The sort of thing where I wasn’t sure if I should say it, because it might be awkward or stupid once it left my mouth, or I wasn’t entirely sure how to form the thought.
I said it anyway.
“You know what?” I added. “I did sort of make friends, down in the Drains.”
“Friends?” Ty asked. “In Bogeymantown?”
“Who?” Evan asked.
“That’s… hard to explain,” I said. “It was easier to make friends. I think… well, without the burden of bad karma, it’s easier. I imagine Rose is having a hard time of it.”
“I imagine you’re right,” Ty said.
“But this, I can’t agree with it, obvious bias aside,” I said. “This dead man’s switch feels like an even worse idea.”
“We were talking about it when you first showed up, and Rose kicked you out,” Ty said.
“What are the details?” I asked.
“I shouldn’t tell you the details,” Ty said.
“She redrew the circle around the barber,” Evan chimed in.
“Evan, cut that out,” Ty said.
“Pshh. I’m a part of the team, and I have as much say as you. If the circle isn’t taken care of, in a way that only she knows how to do, both for how the circle’s supposed to be and how it needs to be taken care of,” Evan said, “The Barber can get out. If it does, then she’s the only one who knows how to bind it again.”
“I have an idea of how to,” I said. “And here I am, stuck. I feel compelled to comment on how convenient that is.”
“It’s not like that,” Ty said.
“Just saying,” I said.
“Can we play more?” Evan asked. “While we talk?”
I scooted forward. Ty reached around the books to collect our cards, and shuffled.
Our cards were dealt.
I won with a three of a kind.
I gave that a moment’s consideration.
If I was going to win over Ty… could I win him over?
Under the pretense of needing to move and stretch a bit, I shifted position. I bent limbs in odd ways to intentionally make parts of me pop and snap. In the midst of it all, I changed my perspective relative to the mirror, and got into a position where I could gesture to Evan with one hand.
I raised two fingers, pointed at myself, and pumped my hands in the air, a mock victory celebration. I pointed at him, and drew a finger across my throat, pointing at the cards, and made a mock sad face.
Ty was right. Evan’s body language was impossible to read.
I fixed my position, resuming a normal sitting posture.
Another hand.
I folded. Evan won.
“I helped one of my Drains friends get up here,” I said.
“You brought a bogeyman into the world?” Ty asked, just a bit incredulous.
“Two, if you include myself,” I said. “And it’s a she, so bogeywoman?”
“I’ve wondered how you did it, but explain this part first. Who is she?”
“Doesn’t have a name,” I said. “I might not have made it if she hadn’t given me advice and pointed me in the right general direction. Faysal owed me favors, I called them in.”
“You keep answering questions with stuff that makes me want to ask more questions,” Ty said. “Okay, putting aside how you got out of the drains, or the form this advice took, or how you were in a position to call in favors from Faysal, do we need to worry about her? Raise.”
“Not any more than you need to worry about your next Other,” I said. “Call.”
“I’m out,” Evan said. “Fold.”
Ty moved my book. “Damn it.”
My win.
“In fact,” I said, “Evan, if it’s no trouble, could you run an errand for me?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Going outside is dangerous. Too many things want to eat me.”
“I named her Green Eyes. If you could get an escort at a time of day when it was fairly safe, could you stop by the lake? Just check on her, tell her I said hi, and I’d visit if I could?”
“Is she good looking?” Evan asked. He wiggled his body one way and his head the other, “Do you liiike her?”
“I don’t know her well enough to know. But she seems like a good sort, all things considered. I’m not in a position to be picky, so I won’t rule anything out in the grand scheme of it all,” I said. I extended my arms, showing off the tattoos.
“I think you do like her,” Evan said. “I think you might be in loooooove.”
I peered at my cards. “Raise.”
“Fold,” Evan said.
Don’t be so obvious about it, I thought.
“She’s a mermaid, though, so it’d be awkward,” I said, to distract Ty.