The Dream Where the Losers Go (6 page)

A collective groan sounded. “We’re gonna stink like cows,” complained Viv.

Penny’s mouth tightened, and then she said, “Does anyone have an issue they would like to discuss?”

But no one was raising issues without Viv’s permission, and she wasn’t giving it. Quickly, the group meeting disbanded, with most of the girls following Viv back to the TV. Without a word, Ann got up and began her table-setting chore for supper. As Skey idly watched the other girl count cutlery, she noticed that the inside of her wrist was still red. Them with a start, Skey noticed that Ann’s right wrist had also been scratched raw.

A choking feeling grabbed her throat and she turned away. If Viv was after Ann, then Ann could go talk to staff. That was what staff were for. Skey wasn’t risking her neck by getting involved with the problems of this place. She was at her old school again, Jigger and the Dragons had welcomed her back, and everything was like it used to be. Like she wanted it to be. In no time she would be out of this place, and then she would forget she had ever been here.

Walking to her room, Skey closed the door and leaned against it until her quick-running heartbeats slowed and she could breathe normally again.

T
HE SUMMONS CAME
around 7:30. Skey was in her room, drifting through
People Magazine
, when Ann appeared in her doorway. One guest in a room at a time, that was the rule. Without speaking, Skey nodded, and Ann sat down beside her on the bed, wrists curled in to hide the raw patches.

“Viv wants to see you in the washroom,” said Ann, staring at the floor.

Alarm shot through Skey. “What for?”

“Wants to talk to you about something,” shrugged Ann.

“So, maybe I don’t want to talk to her,” said Skey.

“It’s your face.” Lifting a hand, Ann scratched at the back of her neck and her sleeve pulled up, exposing the chafed skin. Skey swallowed. It was so raw, it was shiny.

“What d’you mean, my face?” she whispered.

Ann’s eyes flitted around the room. “She thinks you’re too pretty,” she said quietly.

Fear stirred an oar deep in Skey’s gut. “I can’t help how I look,” she muttered.

Eyes once again on the floor, Ann stood up. “I’d talk to her if I were you,” she said. “She’s been in the detention center a couple of times. For fights. The last time she used a knife.”

“What does she want?” asked Skey.

Ann shrugged again. She was one of the girls giving Viv a wide berth. “I’m just giving you the message,” she said.

“She’s the one who broke the lock on your tub door, isn’t she?” Skey said quickly.

“Maybe,” said Ann. Turning, she slipped silently out of the room. For a long moment, Skey sat, staring at the empty doorway. Then she got up, knees wobbling, and walked through the unit’s open area to the washroom. As she pushed open the door, every girl’s eyes fixed on her, but staff continued their priority business of playing Double Solitaire and watching TV. First time she really needed them, Skey thought desperately, and they were as useless as she had figured they would be. Why wasn’t Terry working tonight?

Viv was standing alone by the window. Slowly Skey walked toward her, then stopped, leaving several feet between them.

“I’ve got an assignment for you,” said Viv. Built for demolition, she was big-boned, at least thirty pounds heavier than
Skey. The names of boys were tattooed all over her hands and arms—homemade tattoos, the kind you did to yourself after a few beers. No one sober would ever call her pretty.

“You think you’re so good,” Viv continued quietly. “You think people worship the ground you walk on because you’re pretty. Well, your face don’t mean nothing to me, got it? You do what I tell you, or I’ll cut it. I’ll cut your face like you cut your arms.”

Skey flicked her a glance of snow-white fear.

“Yeah,” sneered Viv. “I heard about your arms. You did a number one job on them, didn’t you? Now you can’t be a model. Boo hoo. Let’s see them. Push up your sleeves.”

Skey’s arms pulled in, hugging her stomach. “No,” she whispered.

“No?” hissed Viv. Obviously practiced at washroom intimidation, she darted into the closest cubicle and flushed the toilet, then came barreling toward Skey, shoving her so hard that her head banged against the wall. Before Skey could react, Viv had yanked up one of her sleeves and started pinching the scar tissue.

“Stop,” Skey whimpered, but Viv slammed her into the wall again, and the flushing toilet covered the noise. Light-dark flashed through Skey’s head, followed by a vast wave of pain. Viv yanked up the other sleeve.

“Five on this arm, nine on the other,” she said. “You really got going, didn’t you? ’Cept if you want to die, stupid, you cut down your arm, not across it.”

Viv let go of her arms, and Skey pulled them in. The noise of the toilet drained away.

“Please, just leave me alone,” Skey whispered.

At the other end of the room, the door opened and a staff stuck her head in. “How about you ladies continue
your chat out here?” she said, her voice pleasant, her eyes predatory.

“Sure, Janey!” said Viv, a loud grin on her face. “Hey, you want to play me a game of pool?”

“Think you can beat me?” Janey was Metis, her dark eyes intense.

“I think I can wipe your butt,” Viv proclaimed.

Janey held the door open for the two girls, then headed to the office to get pool cues and chalk. That left a moment outside the washroom doors when no one was close.

Taking a step closer to Skey, Viv said, “You bring me something every day.”

Fetch and carry—Skey had guessed it would be this. She was the only girl in this unit who attended school on the outside. “What d’you want?” she asked.

“Some weed, every day,” said Viv. “Or your face is gonna change radically.”

“Skey, you joining us for a game?” Janey was suddenly a few feet away, her voice loud, her eyes intent.

“No thanks,” Skey mumbled and escaped to the solitude of her room.

S
HE LAY ON
her bed in the dark, holding her wrist. It ached in a dull way, like the rest of her life. No one had noticed the blue-green bruises yet—a grab circle and several finger-prints.

Her chest was sore, but unbruised. The back of her head throbbed against the pillow, but her hair covered that evidence. Jigger had left more marks than Viv.

Outside the window, the sky was a deep blue-black full of stars. One star, thought Skey, for every time she and Jigger had made love. No, that was wishful thinking. One star for
every time she had thought of him touching her. Just the memory of his touch brought sheer white stars into her skin, constellations that glowed deep within her.

He hadn’t meant to bruise her wrist this afternoon, she was sure of it, and she had wanted him to stop her from running away. He knew her better than she knew herself, really, and all she wanted now was his arms around her, rocking her through the rest of her starry life.

Jigger, Jigger,
Skey thought, humming a soft note under her breath. She remembered how he had chosen her. It had been the middle of last year. He had been in grade eleven then, one year older, and had dropped into her group of friends like a smile out of heaven, scooping her away from their boring, endless, small-time jokes. Half those kids were still trying to catch their first date. Jigger had taken her virginity almost immediately.

“Absconded with it,” he had called it, grinning. It had hurt the first few times but then something had changed, she had felt as if he was showing her secrets hidden in her body, the reason she was alive. He had told her he thought about her all the time, he was never not thinking about her, every moment of her life belonged to him. And she had wanted to belong to him, to his lips and eyes, his voice, his skin. Everyone had watched them together, everyone approved—especially the Dragons, Jigger’s gang. They had been like freeze-dried friends, just add Jigger and they were suddenly all over her life, phoning or dropping by to pick her up for a burger. Fortunately they were all good-looking and rich enough, so her mother didn’t complain.

Staring out her window, Skey remembered how her mother had watched her new friends with an ugly hunger, as if she was feeding on their laughter, their fast cars and the
jokes they told. Even the jokes they didn’t tell—her mother fed on their secrets too. Whenever possible, Skey had avoided bringing the Dragons to her home. The only exception she had made was Jigger, and only when he insisted, when he wanted to visit her bedroom and do it under her mother’s nose. Then, right in the middle of it, Skey hadn’t been able to shake the feeling her mother was standing outside her door, listening in the hall and getting in on the rush.

T
HREE TAPS STARTLED
her. With a relieved sigh, Skey realized it was Ann, tapping on their shared wall. The taps came again. Rolling onto her side, Skey tapped back. It didn’t mean much; they hadn’t worked out an actual code. It was just silliness, something to do when the lights were out. Something staff couldn’t see or hear.

The next tap came low on the wall, then way up to the left. Obviously Ann wasn’t lying on her bed, she was standing on it. Grinning slightly, Skey got to her knees and tapped low to her left, then rose to her feet and tapped as far up and to the right as she could reach. She was taller, she knew Ann would have to stretch to match it. Almost immediately, Ann tapped back slightly lower, then added a scattering across the middle.

Skey threw out a few low taps, then climbed off her bed and tapped along the adjoining wall. There was the muffled squeak of springs as Ann left her bed, followed her to the corner, and tapped back. After this neither of them moved, simply stood in the shared corner, tapping back and forth in the dark. Different rhythms, sometimes louder, sometimes softer, none of it meaning anything except:
Tap tap tap, are you with me, stranger? Tap tap, I’m here, tap. Can you hear my heart beat? Tap. It’s me, tap tap. Tap tap tap. Tap.

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

S
HE CREPT FORWARD
, clutching the rock. The boy had been quiet for a while, but sounds could be tricky here—the tunnels wove and doubled back, refusing to give a straight line on anything. Thinking she had lost him, she was moving less cautiously, and almost stumbled over his leg as she came around a corner.

“I know you’re there,” he said, suddenly at her left.

She stepped back around the curve, heart bulging like a frog’s throat.

“You’re following me,” he said shrilly. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

She pulled darkness in close, breathed quick tiny air.

“Are you going to hurt me?” His voice went small, almost a whisper. “Who are you?”

“I’m your fairy godmother,” she said, trying to speak calmly. “I’m watching over you.”

“Bullshit,” he exploded.

Her lower lip began to quiver and she sucked it in. The
silence of dark endless tunnels pressed in, going everywhere, going nowhere. “I’m lost like you are,” she said finally.

He remained silent, releasing only the soft quick sound of his breathing. Then something erupted in him and he began a regular tapping sound. His foot? His hand?

“I got lost a long time ago,” he said. “I don’t know the way out.”

“Me neither,” she said.

“You’ve been following me for days,” he accused. “I mean nights. There are no days here.”

“This is the fourth night,” she admitted.

“How long have you been in here?” he asked.

“About five months,” she said.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Just me,” she said.

He laughed. “Yeah, and I’m just me. You’re a girl.”

“So?” she said quickly.

He hesitated, then asked, “How old are you?”

“Between twelve and twenty,” she said.

“That’s specific,” he scoffed.

“I don’t like Twenty Questions,” she said. Carefully, she took the single step that would bring her to the edge of the curve, and they listened to each other breathe.

“You won’t hurt me?” he asked finally.

“No,” she said. “You won’t hurt me?”

“Why would I hurt you?” he asked.

“Doesn’t it just happen?” she said.

“I’ll concentrate,” he said. “It won’t happen.”

Another pause followed. She stood, thinking about his voice, what a small part of this vast darkness it was. Yet his voice changed everything.

“Do you remember how you got here?” she asked.

“In a dream,” he said. “I went to sleep and when I woke up, I was here. I can’t remember where I was before, just that I don’t want to go back.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Someone’s waiting to get me,” he said. “A bunch of them. That’s all I know. Maybe they’re in here too, somewhere in these tunnels. We should keep moving.” His voice grew harsh and he ordered, “And keep quiet so they don’t find us. They’ll hurt us for sure. They don’t like girls, you know.”

She didn’t think there was anyone else in these tunnels. She would have heard a whole group of them, whoever they were. “Would they dream their way in too?” she asked slowly.

“I don’t know.” His voice rose into a shriek that traveled along the tunnel, reverberating off the walls.

“Let’s keep moving,” she said gently, hoping this would calm him.

“Don’t touch me,” he ordered. “You stay on that side and I’ll stay on this.”

She moved to the opposite wall and reached out a hand to touch it. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Names are secrets,” he said, his voice once again harsh.

They began to move quietly, she along her wall, he along his.

“What do the carvings feel like on your wall?” she asked, tracing her fingertips over one.

“What carvings?” he demanded suspiciously.

“The pictures someone carved into the stone,” she said. “They’re like ideas. Someone was here before us and carved ideas into the walls. This one means rain, I think. A lot of rain falling.”

“How could anyone down here know about rain falling?” he muttered.

“Maybe the person dreamed it,” she said, tracing the carving again. “The idea came to her in a dream, like we came here.”