The Altonevers (15 page)

“
And you remember yourself
as none of those things?” Cider asks.

“
Of course. Anyway, when
you get out of the car be sure to be mindful of them. I have gotten
you a ride out, though you must get to a lovely little place called
Beth and Barnaby's by noon.”

“
Where's that?”

“
I suppose you should
follow this very street, and you'll come to it.
Eventually.”

“
Yeah, and what happens
then?” asks Cider.

“
You'll be met by an
acquaintance of mine, a man by the name of Cinni. He'll set you up
nicely I’m sure.”

“
What do you mean set you
up nicely?” She asks suspiciously.

“
It's a figure of speech
dear, like the shape a tongue takes when one speaks,” Edward
says.

“
No worries Anna, we'll be
fine on the way out, we can trust him,” Cider assures
her.

“
I know you can, well
enough to drink with him and leave me in the lurch at least,” she
says.

“
Ha! the girl has humor, a
desirable trait in a lover. Sadly though, I must be on my way. I’m
due at parliament for Prime Minister’s questions., it will be on
the tele and the radio. It’s a public appearance for which I am
already late,” Edward says, observing his silver embossed pockets
powder blue pocket watch.

“
Been good seeing you old
friend, again sometime I hope.”

“
And you, until next time,”
says Cider.

“
Of course,” Edward says.
The two friends sip a last drink of gin, then shake hands and share
a nod of a friend’s farewell.

“
A pleasure to meet you
Anna, take care of him will you, he can be a bit of a fool. Very
much so, but don’t worry I think you'll do fine.”

“
Thank you, it’s been nice
to meet you, though is it hard to breathe in that smog?” she
asks.

“
It isn’t. It isn’t smog
either, it’s soot. I do hope you survive,” Edward says as his
window rolls up and his big black whale of a limousine speeds out
of sight, diving back into the depths of colorfully flowing sound.
Leaving the two alone at an intersection of a soot covered gas lamp
lit slum. The soot feels like hot sand underfoot and is up to their
shins. The two march along sweating in a dry heat that sucks the
moisture from their mouths and eyes. Anna is feeling more like a
canary in a coal mine with each shortening breath and waded step
through the soot blizzard as she struggling to lift her knees over
her hips high enough to clear the rising bluish soot
drifts.

The narrow street they're on is
sparsely lit by yellow candle light glowing through the windows
speckling the cobbled brick walls. The glowing warm yellows of dim
gas lamps flicker and glimmer, showing the soot whirling as it
falls. She picks a far off window to be to her as a lighthouse, a
beacon of her own perseverance to be reached with dream of leg
lightening relief. Traversing the smoky storm blanketing the stone
and wood cobbled together into a winding maze of small interceding
streets, with livestock and free roaming foxes chasing loose
chickens.

The blinking eyes of crawling and
creeping soot covered people are sweeping around in the shadows.
She gasps through the dust covered scarf that she’s been covering
her filth covered face with. The pulverulence creeps between her
teeth and coats the inside of her nostrils, leading to sudden
outbursts of sneezing fits between shared by the two. Making them
have to squint to see as camels do when crossing a desert, they
saunter onward with almost a pound of powder in each shoe.
Eventually they stumble from stolid soot drifts onto the solid
cobbled ground of an empty intersection. They shake themselves out
of their coating of dust like wet dogs shake off water. He lights a
smoke as they carry on watching the soot mix in the silence of
their footsteps and howling air

“
How can you puff on that
in this, we're covered head to toe?” she coughs.

“
What? the rough part's
behind us, I think,” he says. The sandy soot fades from sifting at
the whim of skin weltering winds above. Minutes later they come to
a stone faced sweep youth standing at his post on a corner posing
as a paperboy, waving the daily rag and shouting in a mousy tone at
preoccupied passersby.

“
Here's your opinions, read
all about em,” the youth recites the catchphrase of the front page
loudly.

“
Hey kid.”

“
A Paper?” the sweep asks
like he's begging.

“
You mean our pockets?”
Cider says to the child, who smiles ear to ear.

“
So what’s it then? Sir”
the kid says sarcastically, welcoming at least a dozen more smiles
to spill slowly from the shadows. Surrounding the two with smirking
steel shanks like hyenas encircling their prey.

“
We’re looking for a
place.”

“
We know you are, you must
be lost.”

“
What makes you assume?”
Anna asks.

“
You’re here,” the kid
replies.

“
By that logic you're lost
too.”

“
Yes I suppose I am ma'am.
Much like your wallets will be,” the sweep says to a chorus of
children snickering, now completely around the two.

“
Don't be so sure,” Cider
says calmly.

“
What if we buy a paper,”
she asks.

“
Naive she is huh. The
front page is a cover lady, and pretty good fireplace fodder too.”
Just as the sentence ends a sweep swiftly passes behind her,
swiping the coins from her front pockets. She spins vainly to
evade, though the swift sweep is already back to being just a
smirking shank in the shadows.

“
Anna!” Cider says upset
with her.

“
What? I got robbed?” she
cries.

“
I know that's the problem,
a vault knocker getting robbed by a pickpocket. That's just
terrible,” he says.

“
You’re a vault knocker? My
daddy was a vault knocker,” the youth says, his face brightening as
he talks. Holding a purposeful leer to Cider, who snaps around and
snatches a soot patched youth trying for his pockets like he was
catching a catfish. He holds the boy by the scruff of his scruffy
neck.

“
You don't have a dad,” he
says frankly.

“
Cider, that was horrible,”
she says.

“
Not really ma'am it's
true, it is.”

“
Rough candle stick jumping
kids eh,” Cider says.

“
Kids stealing candy from
grownups, that's right,” the sweep says devilishly. Signaling the
pack of dusty thieves to close in, tip toe closer like wolves
careful not to scare off their prey.

“
I'm gonna start shooting
them,” he says.

“
Okay,” she agrees to his
surprise.

“
What?” he asks, with the
ruffians rolling their tongues over their sharp teeth and showing
their smiling steel blades.

“
Hey! HEY!” a man’s voice
thunders. Drawing everyone's attention is a bronze skinned man
standing twelve feet away in a spotless cream and silver hued suit.
All but one of the sweeps pause in place, petrified with terrified
expressions, they scurry like roaches out of the light.

“
What are you bothering
these people for?” The tall dreadlock crowned man speaks quickly
with a thick island accent.

“
Working? What’s it to
you?” the boy says and the man gives him a look that straightens
his posture and steals his steel nerves.

“
You don't know who this
man is?” the man asks.

“
Why? Who is he? I thought
it was a turkey dinner,” the two laugh. Cider joins them, earning a
stern stare from Anna.

“
No, they are not, not to
you anyway,” the man silences the boy for a second.

“
Awww why not” the soot
faced kid says throwing a thrashing temper tantrum and stomping
circles in the soot while waving his hands in a flurry.

“
This is a friend of
Edward’s,” the wool haired man says pointing to Cider, “and this is
a friend of his, Cabbage.”

“
What is..Cabbage?” asks a
confused Anna.

“
A leafy green vegetable,
and you are Cabbage, are you not?” the man says.

“
You mean Carrots?” Cider
says to shared laughter.

“
Oh ahahaha, yes good for
the eyes I see,” the man says smoothly.

“
And who are you?” Asks
Carrots.

“
Me, you come to me for a
favor, and you don't even know what I am known as? what were you
looking for, nothing, losing your place and yourselves as
well.”

“
Minni?” he
says.

“
No Cinni,” she
says.

“
Right, yes Cinni,” Cider
repeats to feign remembrance.

“
I know who you are, no
worries though, Cider from the wanted posters and nightly news”
Cinni says.

“
See Carrots, good news
travels fast,” Cider says smiling.

“
And far,” she
adds.

“
A righteous man is Edward,
and he says you’re looking for a ride out,” Cinni says.

“
Edward says you don't
say,” Cider says.

“
I did,” Cinni
says.

“
Yes we are,” Anna says
desperate to get out of the lung smothering soot.

“
Then I'm the man you
should see,” Cinni says.

“
We see you now,” she
says.

“
Then I will get you a ride
out of here.”

“
I haven't seen an engine
for some time,” Cider says.

“
How will a car drive in
this mess,” she asks.

“
Mess, you’re as filthy as
the rest of us,” the boy snaps defensively, pointing to her soot
soaked clothing. Though triggering her remorse in reddening the
pavement with that man's life to resurface.

Sniff sniff.

“
What's that
smell?”

“
You don't know the sweet
smell of sensi?”

“
Of a skunk, of course I
do,” Anna says before Cider can answer. Cinni takes a large hit of
an already lit, crooked brown cigar to his lips. It's smoke trail
rises like a tiny spiral staircase with small people climbing up
them, and finally dispersing ten feet above their heads. The
burning cherry whips out small solar flares as he breathes deeply
from it into his iron lungs. Passing it to Cider, who tokes the
smoke, and Anna accepts the offer, pulling politely.

“
Now who's smoking?” Cider
teases her, as she inhales, expanding her lungs with pine tasting
fumes and holding her breath, staring at it and passing it to her
left, then coughing uncontrollably.

“
Dammit,” she shouts,
noticing she passed it to the apparently titan lunged
youth.

“
You will travel faster in
one of these,” Cinni says waving his arm and welcoming them to a
mint condition depression era car swerving from behind a building.
Drifting sideways through soot drifts and sliding to a rubber
skidding stop a few feet from the three. The driver gets out and
walks away, vanishing into the shadows without a word. The antique
engine runs smooth, sounding like the clopping of a galloping horse
running under the hood of the pearl painted automobile.

“
That was fast,” Cider
says.

“
That’s a sweet ride too,”
Anna says.

“
And are you?” Cider
asks.

“
I've never driven before,”
she shuts him down.

“
Then you must,” Cinni
says.

“
Uh, maybe another time.
These streets seem kinda thin and tangly,” Cider says and Anna
agrees, only wanting to leave the heavily sooted sandstorm
suffocating her senses to the point of sensory
starvation.

“
Thank you for your help,
and good travels,” she says.

“
Good travels to the two of
you as well,” Cinni says.

“
Yeah you too,” says
Cider.

“
Thanks for the ride,” she
gives him a friendly hug goodbye, then gets into the passenger side
of the small mint green interior of the automobile.

“
Oh, here,” Cider says
shuffling through his pockets, pulling two hands full of chips and
cash.

“
What's this?” Cinni
asks.

“
Money and some chips,” he
answers.

“
It's okay, I don't need
it,” Cinni waves.

“
Who doesn’t need cash?” he
asks.

“
I am the richest man of
the all Soots, and yet I stand out of the shadows, finely dressed
alone and with not a breath of fear,” Cinni says with swagger in
his voice.

“
I'll take it,” says the
soot faced kid.

“
It's yours,” Cider says
tossing his ill gotten gains to the ground around the dusty youth
before slamming the car door shut.

“
Seatbelts,” he says
cheerfully.

“
Did you just give all our
money away?”

“
Yeah it's useless,” he
shrugs, putting the key in the ignition.