The floorboards were broad and ancient. “They don’t make ’em like that anymore,” Kate said. I was getting tired of her uncanny habit of reading my thoughts. I wandered the bar’s length. It ended in a room just big enough for a few booths and a pool table. A glass door led to a balcony that hung out over the water.
“You want anything to eat?” Kate asked from behind the bar, where she was busying herself polishing glasses and counting through liquor bottles. I thought of my tiny stash of cash, already depleted by the taxi to the ferry. “Don’t worry about it. On me.”
“You don’t have to do all this.”
She shrugged. “Can’t have you starving on my watch, city mouse. You get too skinny and the coyotes’ll drag you off into the woods.”
“Coyotes?”
“Big old things. Like wolves, but meaner. They eat people.” I stared at her, and she laughed. “Joking, city mouse. Joking.”
“They don’t eat people?”
“They don’t come near people. Lots of ’em in the woods around here, though. They do eat cats. And other pets that leave their good sense at home.” I thought of Dorian Gray, masticated in the jaws of a ravening wolflike creature, and winced. I sat at one of the bar stools—handsome, leather capped and ringed in brass, heavy and solid—and watched Kate as she bustled about the bar, engaged in various preparatory activities. She disappeared for a while through a set of swinging doors and came back with a hamburger on a white china plate, ringed with a pile of fries.
“Whoa,” I said, “you don’t have to—”
“Hush,” she said. “Ketchup?”
“Yes, please.” It was three hours later in New York—Henri and Raoul would have come home by now and seen my note. I thought, I should call them . Kate met my eyes.
“Eat up,” she said.
I should—I should— I shook my head. There was something I needed to do, but I couldn’t remember what it was and the hamburger looked amazing, so rare it was almost bloody—“I like it when they’re still calling for their mothers,” I said happily.
“I had a feeling,” she said. I ate my hamburger slowly, savoring each bite. A few people straggled into the bar; none of them so much as glanced at me, and I was relieved, for the moment at least, to be anonymous. The bar door swung open again, bringing with it a sudden heady smell—something wild and sweet, like the dried lavender Aunt Beast sometimes hung up in our apartment in the summer—and a skinny black-clad figure stalked past me, taking a stool a few seats down and slapping a pack of cigarettes down on the bar. Gnawing on a fry, I examined the new arrival.
It was a girl. Not much older than me, from the look of her. She was dressed in tight black jeans, more patch than denim, and a faded black T-shirt, three sizes too big for her and slipping off one shoulder. She kicked at the brass railing at the bar’s base with feet shod in decaying black sneakers. She wore no makeup, save for perfect stripes of black eyeliner that extended in matching upward flicks at the outside corners of her eyes; her knuckles were streaked with dirt; and her bare forearms were alive with black tattoos—a crow in flight, an old-fashioned schooner with its sails unfurled, a compass, a constellation I didn’t recognize—and crisscrossed with pale scars that stood out sharply against her dark skin. A tangle of black-dyed hair rioted down her back in a serpentine mass. Despite her state of dishabille, she held herself like someone who was used to being paid court. “That’s Maddy,” Kate said, jerking her chin toward the girl, and the girl lifted her lovely fox-sharp face toward me, and I saw the most striking of all her remarkable features: her immense, hypnotic, lion-colored eyes.
“Did you want to take a picture?” she asked drily. Her voice was low and rough, the voice of someone much older than she looked, and there was something at the back of it that made me think she had grown up
“You want anything to eat?” Kate asked from behind the bar, where she was busying herself polishing glasses and counting through liquor bottles. I thought of my tiny stash of cash, already depleted by the taxi to the ferry. “Don’t worry about it. On me.”
“You don’t have to do all this.”
She shrugged. “Can’t have you starving on my watch, city mouse. You get too skinny and the coyotes’ll drag you off into the woods.”
“Coyotes?”
“Big old things. Like wolves, but meaner. They eat people.” I stared at her, and she laughed. “Joking, city mouse. Joking.”
“They don’t eat people?”
“They don’t come near people. Lots of ’em in the woods around here, though. They do eat cats. And other pets that leave their good sense at home.” I thought of Dorian Gray, masticated in the jaws of a ravening wolflike creature, and winced. I sat at one of the bar stools—handsome, leather capped and ringed in brass, heavy and solid—and watched Kate as she bustled about the bar, engaged in various preparatory activities. She disappeared for a while through a set of swinging doors and came back with a hamburger on a white china plate, ringed with a pile of fries.
“Whoa,” I said, “you don’t have to—”
“Hush,” she said. “Ketchup?”
“Yes, please.” It was three hours later in New York—Henri and Raoul would have come home by now and seen my note. I thought, I should call them . Kate met my eyes.
“Eat up,” she said.
I should—I should— I shook my head. There was something I needed to do, but I couldn’t remember what it was and the hamburger looked amazing, so rare it was almost bloody—“I like it when they’re still calling for their mothers,” I said happily.
“I had a feeling,” she said. I ate my hamburger slowly, savoring each bite. A few people straggled into the bar; none of them so much as glanced at me, and I was relieved, for the moment at least, to be anonymous. The bar door swung open again, bringing with it a sudden heady smell—something wild and sweet, like the dried lavender Aunt Beast sometimes hung up in our apartment in the summer—and a skinny black-clad figure stalked past me, taking a stool a few seats down and slapping a pack of cigarettes down on the bar. Gnawing on a fry, I examined the new arrival.
It was a girl. Not much older than me, from the look of her. She was dressed in tight black jeans, more patch than denim, and a faded black T-shirt, three sizes too big for her and slipping off one shoulder. She kicked at the brass railing at the bar’s base with feet shod in decaying black sneakers. She wore no makeup, save for perfect stripes of black eyeliner that extended in matching upward flicks at the outside corners of her eyes; her knuckles were streaked with dirt; and her bare forearms were alive with black tattoos—a crow in flight, an old-fashioned schooner with its sails unfurled, a compass, a constellation I didn’t recognize—and crisscrossed with pale scars that stood out sharply against her dark skin. A tangle of black-dyed hair rioted down her back in a serpentine mass. Despite her state of dishabille, she held herself like someone who was used to being paid court. “That’s Maddy,” Kate said, jerking her chin toward the girl, and the girl lifted her lovely fox-sharp face toward me, and I saw the most striking of all her remarkable features: her immense, hypnotic, lion-colored eyes.
“Did you want to take a picture?” she asked drily. Her voice was low and rough, the voice of someone much older than she looked, and there was something at the back of it that made me think she had grown up
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