Escape from Windenburg | 5

In the morning, I washed up and changed in an only mildly grimy gas station bathroom. I had already just about exhausted my supply of clean clothes, but I tried out the scruberoo spell for the first time, and it worked like a charm. Even the outfit I had singed looked brand new again. At least I wouldn't have to worry about paying for a laundromat. Next time, I would have to see if the spell worked on me as well as it did on my garments.

It was just barely light outside when Sid and I started exploring again. It seemed that no matter where we went there were too many people living in squalor, trailing piles of garbage and debris in their wake. Some were even so desperate for sustenance they couldn't find anywhere else that they had resorted to dumpster-diving in the hopes of retrieving something edible or wearable or sellable. I shuddered at the sight and hugged Sid closer. "I hope we never end up like that," I whispered in his ear.

It was disheartening to see such desolation in a place that revealed itself to contain such frequently breathtaking views. Evergreen Harbor seemed to be the dictionary definition of wasted potential. Attempts at improvement had been made but seemingly stalled halfway through. There were massive abandoned salt quarries circling almost the entire perimeter that in their disuse could have been converted into a tourist attraction or a nature preserve or put to any number of alternative uses. Instead, they had been fenced off with cheap chain-link and left to languish, clusters of raggedy, yellowish bushes springing up from the crevasses.

At least there were plenty of wide, open spaces for me to practice my spellcasting. If I ever wanted to get anywhere with that intimidating red tome, I needed to build up my skills and power at every available opportunity. I couldn't let a single moment go to waste.

In one of the few unfenced areas surrounding the quarry, there was a large stripped and abandoned building that, again, looked like it had degenerated into nothing but a dumping ground for more discarded junk. Someone had even dragged a torn and discolored old mattress inside, only to surround it with empty chip bags, broken beer bottles, and crushed soda cans - the work of teenagers looking for a secluded place to get up to all kinds of trouble, clearly.

It was disgusting, but it also wouldn't make a terrible place to sleep. At the very least, it was a real bed, which was an upgrade from stone slabs and wooden benches, even if just barely. Besides, autumn was quickly approaching, and the climate here was chillier than Windenburg's. I couldn't risk sleeping outdoors anymore. Sid howled in protest, but I shushed him. "What other choice do we have?" I asked.

He didn't have a good counterargument for that. But no matter how much we shivered when the temperature dropped at night, I didn't dare lift the tattered blankets. Who knew what filthy horrors lurked beneath. Instead, we rested lightly atop the mattress, our bodies tensed and alert even in sleep, ready to spring into action at the first sign of danger.

After several nights, though, no one had come to murder us in our sleep, so we relaxed slightly. We began to think of the quarry building as ours. Meanwhile, my magical prowess was growing in slow but steady increments. I flicked through the red tome almost every day, willing a moment of enlightenment that continued to elude me. At first, I didn't even notice how I instinctively levitated the book to eye level and turned the pages with a quick rotation of the wrist, just like Mom used to. That meant magic was becoming an integral part of me, something I no longer had to consciously turn on and off.

But I was still a novice in so many ways. I never even thought to learn any protection spells that might guard the quarry building against trespassers. Instead, I got comfortable with luck being on my side - until it wasn't. One night, I awoke to a sudden clatter and the lingering sensation of strange hands against my body. My eyes darted frantically from one side of the room to the other but saw nothing in the shadowy darkness.

Slowly, I came to realize an unusual lightness - my bag was gone, which meant I'd lost everything but the clothes on my back: my wand, my tomes, the framed picture of me and Mom I'd grabbed off my desk, the little money I had left, even my broomstick, which I'd left propped in a corner. I could see how a thief might blindly grab a bag and run, but who would want to steal a broomstick? Then I realized Sid was missing, too, and I began sobbing uncontrollably.

I rushed out of the quarry building, blinded by tears of rage and frustration and sadness and fear. Everything was ruined. I had failed. The only choice left was to go back home, literally empty-handed - except that I didn't have the money to get there or even a phone to call for help.

Then I heard a tentative mewl of concern and opened my eyes to a blurry vision of Sid perched patiently on his haunches in front of me. "Oh, Obsidian!" I cried, gathering him up into my arms and wetting his fur with my tears. "What are we going to do now?" But I already felt a bit better, knowing that he was still by my side.

By sunrise, my face was dry and I had promised Sid we wouldn't give up so easily. I would find a way to make money. We would get a safer place to stay. Being without my broomstick was an inconvenience, but I didn't need it to travel. I also didn't need a wand to do magic, and though the loss of the red tome was a major blow, I was determined to learn the spells anyway, even if I only had my memory to rely on. I had to believe that Mom would keep guiding me somehow, even though I hadn't dreamed of her since leaving Windenburg.

We soldiered on, in search of another neighborhood that might treat us better. What we found was Port Promise, an optimistic name for a place that appeared anything but. Like the salt quarries, the shipping ports that had once operated here had long ago shut down, leaving a ramshackle seaside ghost town behind. The smog here was worse than it had been in other parts of the city, rust-colored and so thick you could almost swallow it. This wasn't air designed for breathing, and yet you couldn't survive long without it.

The smog seemed to obscure everything, slowly choking out any hints of vibrancy or beauty that remained. How had the ecosystem here so completely collapsed? It was as though the people had given up on finding a viable way forward when the old industries began to die out and chose complacency instead, bearing apathetic witness as the town crumbled and decayed in slow motion around them.

 

Nearly every dumpster we walked past had someone dangling out of it, dirty but determined to dig up some discarded treasure that might pay their rent or keep them fed for a week or two. Sid let out a disapproving meow. "Maybe it's not so bad," I said, barely believing my own words as they came out of my mouth. "We should at least give it a chance."

Then I was struck by an excessive coughing fit, as if fate itself was telling me to temper my expectations. Was the air here always like this? I couldn't imagine how anyone withstood it day in and day out. It was like soup sloshing around in my lungs.

Finally, I ran into a local who looked friendly enough to approach. She eyed me up and down and concluded immediately, "You must be new here." I probably looked too clean still to have been in town for long.

"I am," I admitted cautiously, not sure I wanted to reveal the full extent of my dire situation. "I don't really have any friends around here either. You wouldn't happen to know a good place to crash for a few nights, would you? Some sort of shelter or hostel, maybe?"

She released a snorting peel of laughter, not disdainful, just amused. "A shelter? Oh, honey, you're in the wrong place for that. There are a lot of people around here without beds to keep them warm at night. You'll usually find them battling for the cleanest dumpster."

I couldn't help clasping my hands to my mouth in disgust. "You mean they... sleep inside the dumpsters?"

She laughed again. "Hey, it beats freezing to death when the sea breezes start to kick up." She narrowed her eyes, looking me over more closely this time. "You're so young," she said, a note of pity in her voice. "If I had an extra room, I'd offer it to you, but my family's barely got enough space as it is. Good luck out there." Then she was gone.

I wasn't ready to contemplate dumpster-napping just yet. I needed somewhere to sit down, think, and come up with a plan, but there weren't many options. Few businesses seemed to have survived the economic collapse brought about by the closure of the ports. I ended up settling on a hole-in-the-wall bar just off the train tracks, which were abandoned and overgrown like everything else.

Once inside, I asked for a glass of water. The bartender gave me a sour look, probably because he knew if I couldn't afford a real drink, I also couldn't afford to tip him. He took his time filling a glass up with cloudy-looking tap water.

I took a sip and forced myself to swallow. "You wouldn't happen to be hiring right now, would you?" I asked on a whim.

"No." Another sour look. "And if we were, we definitely wouldn't be hiring minors." He walked off.

Sid sensed the aggression in the bartender's tone and went into defense mode. He was especially on edge now after what had happened at the quarry building and was determined to protect me against any potential threat. He hissed loudly, raising his hackles, and barreled into the bartender's feet. The bartender flinched backward. "Did you bring a cat in here?" he exclaimed harshly.

"You need to get that thing out of here now," he told me, "and don't come back, with or without it."

"He's not hurting anyone!" I protested. "We have nowhere else to go!"

The bartender's mouth was a firm, unsympathetic line. "Not my problem. We don't allow pets in here. You're disturbing the other patrons. Now you can either leave on your own, or I can call the cops and have them make you leave. You decide."

The second I heard the word "cops," I booked it out of the bar. But the temperature outside had already dropped drastically, and the breeze coming in off the coast whipped against my skin, briny and fierce. It was like nothing about this place had been built for human beings to withstand for long. Only the toughest survived. Sid purred a suggestion, and I knew immediately what the gist of it was.

"I don't know about this," I said, peering warily into the dumpster, which looked like it had recently been emptied but was certainly a long way off from clean. I feared once my clothes and hair and skin were exposed to the stink, not even magic would be capable of washing it away completely.

Sid gazed up at me, shivering and expectant. His eyes said, What other choice do we have?

I slowly counted to three and then dove head-first into the dank, shadowy depths. Sid leapt in behind me. I wriggled into the most comfortable position I could manage, pulled my sweater up over my nose, and closed my eyes. If I focused all my mental energy on convincing myself I was anywhere but inside of a filthy dumpster, I wouldn't necessarily believe the lie, but maybe I would tire my brain out to the point of total exhaustion and actually manage to fall asleep.

To my surprise, the next time I poked my head out, the sky was already beginning to lighten. But I didn't exactly feel well-rested. What I did feel was frozen solid all the way to the bone, and I was desperate enough for warmth to chance another visit to the bar. "We'll just have to be sneaky," I decided. "Anyway, that guy's probably long gone by now."

Sweet, sweet relief! The bar had a small seating area complete with crackling fireplace. Maybe the universe was on our side after all. Sid and I basked in its glow like we had never before in our lives experienced warmth. We were ravenous for it, couldn't get enough.

Suddenly, the bartender on duty stormed into the room. "Hey, you're the girl with the cat!" Apparently, he'd gotten the memo that I was banished from the premises. "You're not supposed to be here!"

I felt the anger in my gut rising to a boil - or maybe it was just my stomach grumbling. "Sir, it's freezing out there! All we need is a place to get warm. No one else is even here right now."

"I'm sorry. I really am. But I need this job, and if my boss finds out there was a cat in here, he'll kill me. You're not even a paying customer. I can't risk it."

As I watched him walk away, I knew I shouldn't blame him, but I couldn't help it. I'd had enough of hearing that everyone felt bad for me but couldn't help me. I raised my arms, ready to cast a spell, any spell, the first vengeful one that popped into my mind, but nothing happened. My charge just sputtered out in a noxious black cloud before dissolving entirely. I tried again. Nothing. I tried again. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

My only choice then was to leave, heading toward nowhere in particular. I had no clear destination, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. If I couldn't do magic anymore, what was I doing out here at all? What had been the point of all this? I felt more alone in that moment than I'd ever felt before. Mom wasn't with me. No one was with me. I only had myself to rely on, and suddenly I no longer felt very reliable at all.