Limbo's Child (32 page)

“So…why don’t you show me some?”

“Um…” he said nervously, “well, it will be hard in such a tight space, but yeah, I guess I could show you a few things.”

He scrunched back against the wall as far as he could, and then kind of stood up and crouched over so he could spin it. Lucy pushed herself back as much as she could, partly to give him more room, but mostly to make sure she didn’t get hit. She shouldn’t have worried. He started slow, throwing a few catches where he spun the yo-yo around a finger and then caught it on the string, then after a while, he really started to let loose. Lucy didn’t know a thing about yo-yos and she didn’t know many trick names beyond ‘walk the dog,’ but the kid spun that yo-yo around the tiny play fort like magic. He wove patterns in the strings that somehow didn’t end up in knots, and the yo-yo always had enough momentum to follow the complex loops around and come back to his hand effortlessly, but it wasn’t there long before it was out again, spinning like an electron in one of those old-fashioned models of the atom. She couldn’t imagine how he was doing it without getting himself and the yo-yo all tangled up in knots. It was amazing actually.

“Um…whoa,” Lucy said out loud, not meaning to.

“Yeah…I could do better if I had my Yomega transaxle, but one of my foster brothers stole it a while back, so all I have now is this old-fashioned imperial. Someday I wanna learn off-string and compete 4A or maybe even 5A, y’know, with the counterweight?”

She didn’t know actually. In fact, this was complete gibberish to Lucy, but she figured he was just trying to be modest.

“It’s incredible,” she said.

“Um…thanks,” he answered sheepishly.

“No seriously, you’re really good. How long have you been able to do that?”

“Um…since
forever
?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’ve always just been really good at making the yo-yo do whatever I wanted it do. It just came naturally. I don’t know, it just felt right – the only thing that ever really felt right in my life, y’know?”

She did know. That was the way she felt before her mother had died, but she didn’t appreciate it at the time. He pulled it back one last time and it snapped into to his palm like a faithful and well-trained pet. Then he unceremoniously pulled the string off his finger, shoved it in his pocket and sat down.

She decided to give him a little golf clap and said, “Bravo!” It was a joke between her mother and her, something she and her mother often did to each other when one of them did something menial like clean the dishes or finish the mopping. One of them would golf clap and say “Bravo! Encore!” while the other made grandiose bows and curtain calls. For a moment she thought she had embarrassed him, but he just blushed a little and smiled and hugged his knees. But the thought of her mother inadvertently made her sad and he could tell.

“You ok, Lucy?”

He put his hand on her shoulder. She felt something odd for a moment, a strange power or presence, but it passed and all she could see were the frightened eyes of this little boy. He seemed more relaxed and less anxious than he had before. It was important to have someone believe in you. Right now, this boy was the closest thing she had to a friend, and she was probably the closest
he
had to a friend. At that instant, she thought she knew now why chance or fate or whatever it was had brought them together. He needed someone to take care of him, and she suddenly felt as if she had a new purpose.

“Yo-yo, do you trust me?”

“Yeah.”

“I think we need to leave.”

“Yeah, I bet the nurse will be coming back any minute now.”

“No, I mean, I think we need to run away…together.”

“What?”

“Look, this long-haired woman, whatever she is, she’s still out there, and I can’t help but think she’s after us for a reason.”

Yo-yo suddenly got scared. “Yeah, but what?”

“I dunno, that’s what we have to find out, but one thing I do know, no one here is going to believe us or help us. Adults just won’t listen and soon they’ll put me in a foster home and then it will be too late. And if they find you, who knows where they’ll send you! We need to stick together. We need to go find the answers ourselves before that happens.”

“Where would we go?”

“I dunno…I have a house…near Ephrata, near the truck stop where…” she paused. This was bringing up bad memories. She just skipped ahead a little. “We can start there, it’s not far. We can get food and money and…and
clothes.
” As she said that she opened her robe to show off the lurid purple and pink pajamas. Yo-yo chuckled a little. “And then we can go from there. We can’t stay there for long, they will come looking for us, but we can start a new life and figure this whole mess out. Whaddya say, partners?” She stuck out her hand like she was making a sale.

Yo-yo looked at the outstretched hand nervously, then he grabbed it enthusiastically.

“Ok. Partners.”

“Good.” Lucy said simply.

“LUCY?!” came a voice from nearby.

“Oh, crap!” Lucy whispered. They both dropped the handshake and instinctively crouched down and became silent.

“Who is it? The nurse?” Yo-yo whispered.

“LUCY MILLER?”

Lucy listened to the voice carefully. “No, no I don’t think so…it’s not deep enough, but I better go.”

“Wait!” He clung to her arm.

“Don’t worry. We’ll make our escape after midnight tonight.”

“How?”

“Do you remember where I caught you in the park? Near the bridge?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll meet you there, just wait for me.”

“But how will you get away?!”

“LOOCEE?!!” came the voice again. They both cringed.

“It’ll be ok, just hide here for a minute until I’m gone and then head for the park. I’ll meet you there later. I
promise
.” And then she impulsively threw her arms around him and hugged him hard. “Don’t worry about me; I’ll find a way. Just wait for me. Ok?” She didn’t wait for him to answer but bolted from the play fort before she got in trouble again.

“But…” he stammered, but before he could finish, she was gone.
Lucy crawled out and to the edge of the play area and out of the gate and then popped up all at once. She didn’t want to be seen too close to where Yo-yo was hiding and give him away.

“Here I am!!” she said, standing up all at once. The second she said it she realized it sounded a bit too earnest, but it was too late to call it back.

The person calling her name was in a white lab coat with her back to Lucy. She turned all at once and Lucy let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t “Nurse Hamhands” but the young and pretty doctor from last night. Lucy liked this doctor. She was younger than her mom, with darker hair that was longer and curly, but she reminded her a lot of her mother: pretty, thin and kind.

The doctor sighed and walked briskly over to Lucy.

“Oh, girl, you are going to give us all a heart attack.” It was said more in jest than in anger.            “Sorry,” Lucy said, “I was just…
reading
.” She was nervously wringing her hands behind her back. She caught herself looking towards the play fort worrying about Yo-yo and instantly snapped her neck back.

“Aren’t you a little old for
Cat in the Hat
?” the doctor said walking up to her.

“Well…there isn’t exactly a lot else to read.”

“The hospital has an adult library too. Maybe I can rustle up something more challenging for you.” Then the doctor looked at Lucy’s pink and purple princess kitten pajamas admiringly with her hands in her lab coat. “Don’t you just look adorable in those!” Lucy winced a little and then tried to smile appreciatively.

“Thanks, I
LOVE
‘em!” she tried to sound grateful, but it sounded forced and sarcastic to her. If the doctor noticed she didn’t show it. She just smiled back. “So…what are
you
doing here? Where’d the nurse go?” Lucy asked as she looked around, hoping the nurse really had gone.

“Oh!” The doctor pulled herself away from the hypnotic kittens. “She’s busy. The ER’s in some kinda mess. Besides, I came on shift, and I figured you could use a break from Nurse
Marjorie
. I know she can be a bit
gruff
.”
That
was an understatement, thought Lucy. Then the doctor motioned for Lucy to lean in. Lucy did so and the doctor whispered in Lucy’s ear, “Just between you and me, we all call her ‘Nurse
Marjorie
Pain.’” Lucy sniggered and had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from breaking out into open guffaws. Despite the purple princess kitty pajamas, she really did like the doctor.

“C’mon,” the doctor said as she started to walk away, then over her shoulder added, “I’ve got some good news.”

“Good news?” Lucy hesitated a moment, then jogged a few steps to catch up with the fast walking doctor. She wasn’t used to someone not dragging her around by the hand. As they left the lobby area, she took one last glance back to see if she could catch Yo-yo, but she saw nothing. That boy could certainly disappear when he wanted to.

The doctor led her past the info desk and towards the elevators and casually pressed the button. “Yep. The hospital has a legal office that occasionally does
pro bono
work – um, that means for free.”

Lucy just smiled. She knew what
pro bono
meant. The doctor went on.

“Usually it’s there to help people manage the bureaucracy of insurance claims, but I thought I would give them a call, just in case.”

The elevator doors parted and an orderly got out, pushing an older woman in a wheelchair. They waited for them to pass and then got in. The doctor pushed the button for Lucy’s floor and once the doors closed started talking again.

“Well it turns out that they don’t usually work custody or child welfare cases, so I thought that was the end of it, but then this afternoon I got a call back from them. Seems your story got around and there is a lawyer there that has practiced custody and family law in the past who’s interested in helping you.” The doctor smiled at Lucy as the elevator hummed and vibrated.

“So what does that mean?” Lucy said, genuinely confused.

The doctor smiled, “What it means, Lucy, is that there are a lot of people here that care a great deal about you. We aren’t just going to let you get dumped into the system. We are going to try to get you an advocate and get you placed in the best possible home we can find.”

Lucy nodded. That seemed really
nice
.

“Don’t worry,” the doctor went on, “We are going to take care of you, Lucy.” Lucy wished for a moment the doctor would take her home with her, and then she almost felt guilty about her planned escape. She shook her head to get rid of that thought. Yo-yo needed her and she wasn’t going to lie back and take what came at her anymore.

There was a pause as both of them watched the numbers of the floors change.

“She seems really nice too,” the doctor said offhand.

“Who?” Lucy said.

“The lawyer.”

“On the phone?”

“No, I’ve met her in person.”

“She’s here now?” Lucy sounded surprised.

“Oh, yes,” the doctor continued, “The second she heard about you, she decided she had to come out and check on the situation herself. She drove in from Philly this afternoon. She’s up waiting to talk to you now.”

“Oh,” said Lucy. This was moving much faster than she had expected. These people really
did
care about her.

The elevator doors parted and the doctor got out first. Lucy followed her over to the nurse’s station. The doctor took a clipboard from one of the nurses and then signed it and handed it back. Then she looked down the hall. “Ah, there she is now.”

Lucy turned to look. Down at the other end of the nurse’s station was an elegant woman, professionally dressed in a black business suit with a calf-length skirt. She turned and walked directly toward them. She was very pretty and elegant looking, much prettier than the doctor even, like a fashion model. She even walked like a fashion model. She had short, dark-brown hair that was almost black at the tips, but more brown at the roots, which Lucy thought was a bit strange. She had on tinted amber eyeglasses, but behind them her eyes looked odd, unlike any eyes Lucy had ever seen before. Lucy was certain she had never seen her before, but there was something eerily familiar about her.

The woman ignored the doctor and walked right up to Lucy gracefully lowering her body in one smooth movement until she was face to face with Lucy. She was beaming with excitement, but not in a motherly way. It was hard to describe. It was more like a hungry look. She held out her leather-gloved hand in a stiff, formal manner.

“Why, you must be Lucy!” she said in the forced enthusiastic voice adults often use with children. Lucy took the gloved hand gingerly.

“Allow me to introduce myself, Lucy. My name is Amanda Tipping.”

Chapter Twenty
The Herald

Nephys stood in line waiting to enter the scriptorium for the next day’s work. He wasn’t certain, but it seemed as if the other scribes were staring at him more intently than usual. It was all Maggie Miller’s fault. He was still rolling the wonderfully disgusting bitter aftertaste of breakfast around the back of his tongue and it was hard not to smile. That night he had come closer to actually sleeping than he could remember in centuries. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he had even dreamed a little–a strange dream about two odd teenagers, one short, one tall, one dark, one fair, and they were screaming at each other in a dark alley. He was lying on his bed meditating, staring at the ceiling, feeling genuinely rested for the first time in a long while when Maggie came into the tomb from the garden and belted out a hardy “Up and at ‘em, Sunshine.” She had a knack for annoying nicknames.

She was already up and puttering around the tomb, cleaning up and making breakfast. She was trying to make hash browns out of some nondescript, gray tubers she had found in the garden. She couldn’t get the cool, blue fires of Limbo to actually get hot enough to sizzle or brown anything, so it ended up another gray, lumpy mess, but it was even more bitter than last night’s soup, so Nephys didn’t mind. In fact, he ate the whole thing. Even standing in line he could taste the wonderful sensation of tangy bitterness. He looked around. He was drawing uncomfortable and awkward looks again, so he assumed a phony reserve and stared at his sandals and shuffled along quietly in line. Everything had changed since Maggie Miller had come into his life, and he wasn’t certain he liked it.

Hiero was different too. Usually he came and went as he pleased, and behaved like an ornery and independent cat, hardly deigning to let Nephys look at him, let alone touch him. But ever since Maggie had arrived, Hiero hadn’t left her side. She had a way with the violent imp, not that they got along all that well. She would throw stray kicks at him and call him a string of insulting nicknames: “Gall-bladder” or “Whoopee Cushion” or “Ol’ Ladies Handbag” or “Barf-Bag” or “Waddles” and, even once, “
Accordion
.” That one really seemed to upset him the most.

For his part, Hiero would respond with violent shrieks and overturned furniture. When she tried to kick him, he would play numbly-pegs with her toes and his large butcher knife. Still, for all the trouble, Maggie was always setting him on some task, usually cleaning, which the animated bagpipe did at best only begrudgingly, usually making a worse mess than when he started. That only gave Maggie more to do, but that seemed to make her happy, so somehow it all worked out, though it was noisier than Nephys liked. Frankly, Nephys wasn’t certain he liked the arrangement at all. He had been alone for nearly two millennia, and in all that time he hadn’t felt so much like a…well…like a child ‘til now. He reached up and tugged on the Horus lock over his right ear. He didn’t like being reminded that he
was
a child.

When he left that morning he had to endure several awkward moments at the gate while she dusted off his clothes. For a moment he was afraid she was going to hug him. He had only gotten thirty or so steps away when he realized he had forgotten his reed pens and ink palette. A scribe of Limbo forgetting his tools! How embarrassing! When he turned around and went back to the house, Maggie was already there, standing at the gate, smiling, waiting for him to return, his pens and palette in hand. Nephys just grabbed them quickly and turned without saying “Thank you” or anything. She just smiled. He ran and caught up with the rest of the scribes in line. He did
not
want to be late again and catch the wrath of Falco, the scriptorium master. He would probably be copying actuarial tables and building code manuals for months because of that.

In the long, slow, shuffling line he had time to think over the whole Maggie situation. He could tell she was burning her soul light too much and too brightly. That’s why the house was brighter, why the food had any taste at all. She was a mother and just trying to do what came natural to her. He had tried to warn her of course, but not nearly as forcefully as he should have, because she seemed to be enjoying it. The truth was, Nephys was enjoying it too and so was Hiero, oddly enough. Little imps thrived on conflict and he was enjoying fighting with someone with some spit and fire for a change, instead of the placid, complacent scribe. That was what made Nephys feel so guilty.

A soul only had so much fire to burn, and it had to last for eternity. Expecting someone to burn their soul light for your enjoyment, even a meager, trifling enjoyment like lumpy bitter potatoes, was asking too much. He had seen the great philosophers of Elysium burn up their lives too. And for a while, they had thought it was worth it, but he doubted the lost shades in the marshes thought it was worth it now. No, it was wrong to take warmth from Maggie, even if she did it willingly, and he resolved to make her conform and behave the way a proper soul should, for her own good.

“Good morning, Nephys.”

Nephys looked up suddenly from his sandals. He had been lost in thought while shuffling along in the queue and hadn’t realized he was at the entrance already. The voice sounded familiar, but its tone was almost pleasant, if a little oily. He looked around and saw no one in particular, then he looked down. His eyes fell on the diminutive tyrant of the scriptorium, the eight-year-old taskmaster, Falco, and his dead, white, fish eyes. He had the oddest expression on his face, like he was trying to give a friendly smile but had forgotten how. Had Falco just said good morning to him and called him by name?! No, that was impossible, Falco hardly spoke to Nephys except to scold and sneer at him.

“Ahem,” Falco coughed politely. “Good morning, Nephys,” he said again.

“Gods of the black land!” thought Nephys. It
was
Falco speaking to him! He paused awkwardly and then immediately composed himself.

“G-good morning, Master Falco.” Nephys recovered from the shock of having Falco say a polite word to him and bowed deeply and reverently if somewhat clumsily.

Falco smiled ever so subtly and returned the bow, not as deeply as Nephys, but sincerely, even lowering his eyes slightly in a gesture of deference and respect.

“I trust you had a pleasant evening.”

Was Falco actually trying to make small talk? Nephys couldn’t have been more surprised if Hiero had suddenly stood up straight and asked him to tea in a perfect Oxford accent.

“Um…yes, Master. I did have a pleasant evening,” Nephys said nervously, and then he added another bow for good measure.

Falco just smiled an oily thin smile. Then Falco’s eyes flitted to the line that Nephys was holding up with thousands of blind children staring at him again. Nephys felt those dead eyes burning holes in him, so he quickly bowed at Falco again, who just stood there smiling oddly, and hurried inside.

He went to his usual spot between the pigtail schoolgirl and her button shoes and the one-armed boy with the paper hat manning the mechanical monster. The girl was looking forlornly at a tall stack more than five feet high of more of those strange silver disks. To his left, the one-armed boy was stacking metal type in a tray as best he could. He had an enormous pile of what looked like softbound phonebooks like the ones Nephys had copied the other day. Nephys felt sorry for both of them, but next to Nephys’ simple reed mat were only two books. Nephys sat down in his usual cross-legged fashion and picked up the first one. It was leather bound and ancient and had an old iron chain attached to its spine. It must have been very valuable to someone. He opened the book. It was a beautiful Latin manuscript, a translation of a book on optics by the Arab polymath Ibn Al-Haytham. In the margins were countless notes and scribbles in medieval Italian. The scribbler was obviously some artist and had drawn exquisite diagrams and perspectives of buildings and landscapes based on Al-Haytham’s theories.

Nephys closed the book and put it down. Then he picked up the second manuscript. It wasn’t a book so much as a bundle of papers tied with string. Nephys carefully untied the string and looked inside. It wasn’t as elegantly made as the other work, but it was also covered in handmade notes and strange, arcane formulae Nephys could hardly understand. He suddenly realized that he was not looking at a finished work, but the original working manuscript, most likely by the author himself. It was titled
Principia Mathematica
by someone called Bertrand Russell. Nephys read through the first few sections. It was fascinating. He put that work down too and paused to reflect for a moment. It was not like Falco to let go of a grudge so easily. Usually, if he was lucky, Nephys saw a book this unique maybe once a decade or less, and yet here were two waiting for him before he ever sat down.

He looked up at the front of the vast scriptorium. At the front he could barely see Falco, but it did look like he was looking towards Nephys. Falco gave a tiny little wave in Nephys’ direction as if to say, “Do you like them?” Nephys looked behind himself to make sure Falco was waving at him and not someone else, then nervously returned the friendly wave. This was very odd indeed. The blond schoolgirl in the uncomfortable shoes at the high desk was glaring at him menacingly, stabbing the iron nib of her dip pen repeatedly into the wooden desk. On the other side, the print boy was looking at him almost murderously. He was setting type for a set of 1950 phonebooks, Des Moines, Iowa. Nephys decided not to question his good fortune and started in on the work by Bertrand Russell. He wrote the author’s name in tall, elegant letters and was certain to use the red ink.

By mid-morning, Nephys had managed to work through half of the first text when he noticed someone near the entrance of the scriptorium. Rather he noticed someone
blocking
the entrance with his enormous form. It was the gargantuan soldier from the previous day, the one in chain mail that was missing the top of his head. Nephys froze mid-stroke on his copy work. The massive soldier was leaning down to let Falco whisper something into his non-existent ear. They were discussing some matter intently when they both suddenly looked in Nephys’ direction. Nephys looked down immediately. He didn’t want them to know he was watching.

The gigantic warrior with the face missing above the mustache was even more terrifying to Nephys than Falco, though he wasn’t entirely sure why, besides the obvious. He was certain he was a servant to the Great Master. The scribes were servants too, but strictly low-level peons who never spoke to the high lord personally except through the massive labyrinthine bureaucracy of the underworld. The Great Master, Death himself, had many servants but spoke to few directly. As far as Nephys knew, absolutely no one except perhaps the High Lord Chamberlain spoke to Death in person and even then the higher echelons of servants were rarely seen, content to communicate through lesser heralds and messengers like Falco. Everyone knew they were there of course. They lived in the Halls of Death, The Great Master’s own private court, somewhere deep beneath the now-abandoned acropolis of Elysium in walls of stone rumored to be deathless and indestructible.

What they did there was something of a mystery. Every scribe knew their job, so did the “greeters” who catalogued and recorded the names and lives of souls arriving through the gates of Erebus. They were record-keepers. No one ever questioned why they kept the records, they only knew it was the will of The Great Master, but few knew what the higher functionaries were up to, though Nephys assumed it was important.

Every once in a rare while, in the past, there would be a flurry of activity, and pages and servants of the dark court would be seen in the city in their distinctive, long, black and silver robes. This was usually a bad sign. It meant that some great plague, or war, or catastrophe was about to befall the living world and that the land of the dead would soon be inundated with new recruits. It was above Nephys’ station to ask how or why these events occurred or what hand the courtiers and civil servants of Death had in them. Did they cause these events? Or were they only informed in advance? And if so, then by whom? None of those questions really mattered to a child of Limbo. He just assumed that like any large event, a wedding or a funeral, it took lots of planning and preparation. Now however, the streams of souls pouring in through the gates of the dead on a daily basis were so numerous, he doubted if the greater numbers of even a terrible catastrophe would be noticed.

Nephys had been in Limbo long enough to see more than a few of the higher courtiers, but rarely had he seen one this close and never twice in as many days. As Nephys thought this, he realized he wasn’t actually transcribing anymore. His reed pen was frozen in the same place it had been since he had first looked up to see the warrior. The blond schoolgirl in pigtails and the boy in the paper hat were both staring at him. There were no lunch breaks in Limbo. Scribes didn’t stop working
ever
until Falco clapped his hands at the end of the day. Nephys realized he had become lost in thought and nearly blushed. He had been so distracted that he had to find his place all over again. Once he found it, he kept his head down and began copying again in earnest.

Sideward glances confirmed that the other scribes had indeed returned to their work. Good. He had spent most of the last thousand years avoiding notice. All this attention he was unintentionally attracting, from Maggie, the other children and even Falco, was unraveling him like a dream where you were inexplicably naked in public.

He threw himself back into his work. His penmanship suffered a bit, but the relief of being absorbed fully in his work was worth it. He was nearly back into his old rhythm when Falco shook him out of it.