Flicker (42 page)

Chapter Sixteen:

Hold Your Breath

Lee watched Nasser
from the doorway
of the tiny bathroom. She’d taken him by the arm after Filo and Jason went downstairs and guided him through the mess. Now he stood at the sink,
his mouth set in a grim line. The tap
gushed
cold water,
and he stood
wash
ing and washing his hands, as if
they wouldn’t come clean of Filo’s blood.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Just some cuts and scrapes.”

“There’s a healing kit under the sink,” he said, stepping aside, though he didn’t remove his hands from beneath the tap. “Look for the clear stuff in the Tiger Balm tin. Spread it over the cuts, and they’ll be gone by morning.”

He didn’t look at her when he spoke, and she knew why
.

At first, Nasser had refused to open his eyes, insisting that it would be bette
r if Jason surveyed the damage.
But Jason was dealing with Filo, she reminded him, and
someone
had to look. He finally relented, peeling his eyes open slowly, as if it hurt him.

She’d gasped aloud when she saw his eyes: They had turned a dusky purple-black, t
he color of a painful bruise,
as if his eyes had been painted over.

“You ought to be worrying more about yourself,” she commented now. “I’m not the blind one. How are we supposed to fix that?”

“There’s a
certain
book of potions around here somewhere,” Nasser said. “I used to read it all the time. I’m positive there’s something in it that’ll help. Once we find it, the rest shouldn’t be too hard.” He shut off the tap. “Except I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“That’s okay
,” Lee said, passing him a towel. This time, when he glanced at her, she didn’t flinch. “Just tell me
what to do. I’ll be your eyes.”
 

* * *

Jason crept down the stairs, joining Filo on a step near the bottom. The stairwell was narrow enough that their shoulders touched; the nearness of Jason was at once familiar and strange.

“
He
y.” Jason’s voice was soft. He nudged Filo gently. “
You okay?”

Filo said nothing. He
just studied the warped floorboards and concentrated on breathing.
In and out. In and out.

For a moment, Jason was silent. Then he spoke in Old Faerie, his words slow and deliberate:
“I thought you were dead. The least you could do is talk to me.”

Filo answered in the same tongue.
“I’m trying not to waste my breath.”

“Oh.” Jason stiffened
. “I see.”

“
Come on.
Don’t be like that. I didn’t mean it that way.”

Jason shook his head,
looking sullen
. “I
really
wish you’d stop doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Hurting yourself
.
Look
at yourself
, Filo
. You don’t eat enough. You barely sleep. You get the crap kicked out of you by a different monster every week. When did yo
u stop caring
? About anything?”

“How
could you possibly know—”

“Because I know
you
,”
Jason
interrupted, pointing to Filo’s chest. “You’r
e just using your work
to distract yourself, to help you shove all your feelings into a little box so you never have to deal with them, and it’s going to kill you.”

Then Jason scowled angrily; the expression looked almost unnatural on his face. After all the time they’d known each other, Filo could only ever remember Jason as smiling or sad.

“I know what happened messed you up,” Jason continued. “But you’re not the only one. Think about Nasser.
He didn’t
want
to
leave you here
, Filo
, but it was too dangerous.
He’s been beating himself up
over it
for
two
years.
And Alice—l
eaving without you almost killed her. You have to know that.”

An image rose behind Filo’s eyes: Alice, her eyes bright with tears, begging him for the only thing he couldn’t do for her.
Come with me, Filo. Just come with me.
He blinked hard against the memory, forcing it back. “She made her choice. So did you.”

“And you
cut us out of your life because of it. You
hate us for it.”

“Damn
straight
,” Filo barked. That wasn’t strictly true. Nasser would have seen straight through it, but Jason wasn’t always so perceptive. “After you left, I could barely stand to look at you.
Y
ou made me sick.”

Jason looked taken aback, but said nothing. Filo plowed ahead.

“You think I’m crazy for staying,” he said. “Maybe I am. But at least I know my place.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nasser and Alice.” Filo clenched his hands
into fists
. “They go through the motions of being Seers, but their hearts aren
’t in it. They’re
focused on something they can never have.”

“And what’s that?”

“A normal life
.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be normal.”

Filo scoffed. “You don’t understand
.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not
like
us. At the end of the day, you can turn around and pretend that none of this crap exists, and pass for one of them.”

“I don’t want to pass.”

“But you could! It would be easy for you. Normals feel comfortable around you. But
we
give them the creeps.”

“That’s not true.”

Filo shook his head. “They avoid us, Jason.
They won’t
even
look in our eyes.
You’ve seen it. We can pretend, but they’ll always know.”

“Nasser and Alice aren’t pretending.”

“Then why does Alice sit in the subway station every day? Why does Nasser do those magic shows with you? It’s not for the money—it’s for a couple of smiles, approval from strangers who don’t have time to recognize what he is.”

“How ca
n you say that
?” Jason demanded. He was standing now, and Filo stood with him. “Alice saved our asses last night. Then Nasser patched you up—after
I
dragged you back here, you ungrateful
bastard
. And,” he added sharply, “in case you didn’t
know
, you’re heavier than you look!”

“I don’t have time for people who won’t even admit what they are to themselves,” Filo said hoarsely.

“Well, you could’ve fooled me!”

Filo’s lungs were starting to ache. “Nasser’s still clinging to that little taste of normal life that he got when he was a kid,” he spat. “Alice is waiting to know what being normal feels like. But they’ll never find it, and they won’t let it go. It’s
pathetic
, Jason. They should be ashamed.”

Jas
on grabbed Filo’s
shoulders and
shoved him against the wall. Filo reflexively knotted his hands in Jason’s shirtfront,
ready to defend himself,
though he felt abruptly lightheaded.

They stood that way,
glaring at each other, until something in Jason’s expression cracked. He released Filo and stepped back, looking as if he were staring into the face of a stranger.

“You know, Filo,” he whispered. “If you keep trying this hard to force everyone away, eventually they’ll leave for good. Then maybe you’ll finally be happy.” He turned and slowly descended into the shop.

Without a word, Filo sank down onto the stairs and watched him go.

* * *

The ingredients were laid out carefully on the table in the workroom: the book of pot
ions
; a shallow metal dish, half-filled with water; a plastic funnel; two glass
bottles
; assorted herbs; and Nasser’s knife. Lee had everything she needed. Only one question remained.

“Nasser? Just how finely should I be chopping these?”

“Very finely. The
pieces
have to be small and fairly uniform.”

“Right.” Lee gazed forlornly down at the pile of poorly-chopped herbs before her. “Well, I think I’m doing this wrong.”

He reached across the table and
pinched
some of the herbs. He rubbed them between his fingers and raised his eyebrows. “Oh. Wow. Here, don’t worry. I can fix it.” He crossed to her side of the table, somehow managed to find her hand, and gently took the knife from her. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“But you’re
blind!
”

“I don’t need eyes for this part.”

Lee watched as he swept the herbs together into a tidy pile, carefully positioned the knife, and started to chop. Unlike Lee, he was entirely fearless when handling the blade. His strokes were swift and steady.

“Look,” he instructed. “See how I’m holding it? Thumb here, forefinger here. Firm, but not too tight. And you have to be confident. Don’t be scared of the knife. Just pay attention to what you’re doing, and you won’t hack your fingers off, I promise.”

“If you say so.”

He set the knife down and stepped aside. “Now you try.”

She
positioned
her fingers correctly and
got
a good grip on the handle. When she started chopping, she was surprised by how much easier it was.
“Nasser,
” she said, after a moment. “
How did you end up at Flicker? The whole story, I mean.”

He didn’t answer right away. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, but as steady as the rhythm of the knife.

“Seeing things that nobody else does c
an make you nervous.
Twitchy. People notice when you stare at nothing, but when you’re just a kid, it’s hard not to look. Sometimes you can’t help but react to what you see.

“In school, I was fidgety. I didn’t pay much attention in class, since I was too busy looking out the wi
ndows at the faeries
running around outside. My teachers thought I had ADD or something, that I should be on medication. But my mom wouldn’t have it.
My parents used to argue about it, but she wouldn’t budge.
It was like she knew it wouldn’t make a difference.”

“Did she have
the Sight
?” Lee asked.

“It’s possible. She didn’t like
Jason and me
to
play
outside, but she’d never say why. Sometimes I’d catch her looking a certain way, toward creatures I hadn’t mentioned, like she could see them. Maybe it was
all
coincidence. Maybe not.”

“What about your dad?”

Nasser shook his head. “
He might’ve had a touch of magic, but
I don’t thi
nk he was Sighted. Not that I got the chance to ask him about it
.”

“Why not?”

“He left
us
when I was
eleven
. Just pa
cked a bag and drove off
in his truck
one night. We never heard from him again.” His tone was
more disappointed than bitter.

“What was he like?”

A strange expression crossed Nas
ser’s face, something like sadness
.
“Frustrated. I think he wanted his life to be more than it turned out to be. He hated that he had to do manual labor for crap pay, and he hated that we lived in a
tiny
house where the roof always leaked
, and he hated that I spouted nonsens
e about weird creatures and
Jason believed everything I s
aid. He yelled a lot.
I
like to think that he cared about us, but if he did, he wouldn’t have left. We were better off without him.”

“
I know what you mean,” she said. “My dad split when I was four.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded, then
realized
he couldn’t see her. “I don’t remember him at all. But I never wonder
ed
about him, either, unless
there was
some stupid father-daughter dance coming up at school or something. It’s like he stoppe
d being important when he left.”