Escape from Windenburg | 6

After an hour or two of desolate wandering, my mind finally felt clear enough for me to think rationally again. I would get my magic back. I had to. It couldn't just up and abandon me like that. After all, it was supposed to be my birthright. I had probably just been too stressed and tired and hungry and cold to concentrate. I found a wild soybean plant that was still producing despite the lateness of the season, and it wasn't the tastiest or most fulfilling meal I'd ever had, but at least it calmed the gnawing ache in my stomach. My mood immediately lifted.

"Sid! Sid!" I called, full of renewed vigor and determination, as I ran back to where I'd made a temporary bed for him from old newspapers and an empty cardboard box. He'd made no secret of finding our dumpster nap woefully unsatisfactory. "Get up! It's time for us to make some magic!"

The first order of business, though, was finding some warmer clothes. It would hardly do for me to freeze to death before I regained my magic. I didn't exactly relish the thought of dumpster-diving again, but it seemed as good a place as any to stumble upon an old coat somebody had decided had outgrown its usefulness.

Luckily, I managed to score a corduroy jacket that was well-worn but not so disgusting I couldn't bear the thought of putting it on my body. Then it was time to cast. I started simple, attempting a delicioso spell to conjure up a breakfast more substantial than raw soybeans.

But it was an immediate bust, summoning nothing but that pungent black cloud. I was crushed. I'd wanted so badly to believe my failure had been a one-time fluke, but, no, my magic was really, truly gone. I tried again and again and again, just to be sure. But no matter what I did, I could only shoot blanks.

I kept casting without success, so severely frustrated that I couldn't break myself out of the rhythm. Charge built up quickly inside of me, a tangle of frenetic electricity with no outlet growing hotter and angrier until it was no longer under my control. Finally, it burst out of me all at once, a raging beast released from its too-small prison. I fell to the ground, filthy with charge residue, disappointed and exhausted.

After that, each miserable day began to blur into the next. Weeks passed, but it felt like time had been suspended. Without magic, the world around me seemed to fade into droning and monotonous black and white. I went through the motions of survival but often wondered if I'd be better off dead. Although I constantly checked for job postings, hardly any ever showed up. Besides, I wasn't the only one looking.

There were dozens of others barely getting by in this city, but they had been doing it longer than I had. Any new listing was immediately seized upon, and I didn't have the strength to battle so many jaded and grizzled veterans in the hopes of snatching one up. I was getting sicker and weaker every day, the constant haze of smog slowly poisoning my lungs.

As the weather grew colder, I learned to listlessly wander the city by night and sleep by day. It was safer to keep moving when the temperatures were at their coldest and only allow my body to be still when the sun was out. Otherwise, I risked freezing to death in my sleep, especially as my clothes became more and more threadbare. Benches were hot commodities, even more so than dumpsters, but if I staked one out early enough, I could usually claim it by dawn, before anyone else got a chance.

 

Eventually, Sid started getting sick, too. He had a horrible fever, a constant intense heat radiating from his feet and nose. There was nothing I could do apart from hoping he would improve. I had no magic to attempt to heal him and no money to take him to a vet. He mewed pitifully whenever I put him down, never wanting to be apart for too long.

I passed the bar nearly every day, but I never dared venture inside. No one would probably even remember me now, but my pride refused to let me drag myself through those doors again, even as it became harder and harder to resist the temptation. I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten a complete meal, brushed my teeth, or felt properly warm. For a while, I was able to clean myself up every other day in a gas station bathroom, but then I got caught shoplifting a bag of chips and it became another entry on the list of places to which I could never go back.

That was unfortunate because food was becoming nearly impossible to find on the streets. The soybean plants shriveled up, finally succumbing to the cold like everything else. I was lucky they'd held out for so long. I was even luckier that it hadn't yet snowed.

I had to settle for the overripe bordering on rotting fruit I managed to scrounge up from the dumpsters. No matter how many times I polished them with my t-shirt, they never felt clean enough to go anywhere near my mouth. But my only other option was to starve.

My moods became extreme and entirely unpredictable. One minute I would be railing unprompted at some complete stranger who was probably worse off than me for daring to sit on "my" bench without so much as asking.

The next minute I would be crying my eyes out at the realization of how incredibly stupid and sad it was to even feel possessive over a bench in the first place. I had so little left to my name. I was grasping at straws just to have control over something.

One evening, God only knows how many weeks or months later, I was out rifling through dumpsters, plunging my entire upper body inside without a moment's hesitation now, as though I'd been doing it my entire life. I was waist-deep when I suddenly heard a gruff voice state matter-of-factly from somewhere behind me, "You're doing that all wrong." I was so startled I nearly fell in.

I turned around to find a woman standing a few feet away, scowling but in a way that wasn't entirely intimidating. It felt strange to be approached by another person. I'd grown so used to feeling invisible. She was beanpole thin, wore torn jeans, and had a faded scar across one side of her mouth, but I could tell immediately she didn't live on the streets. There was light in her face, vitality, where most of the homeless people I ran into had eyes like burnt-out candles.

"What do you mean?" I asked tentatively. My voice came out in a timid squeak, rusty from such infrequent use.

She stepped closer. "I mean, there's no shame in repurposing other people's garbage. They usually don't know or care what they're throwing out. But there's a way to do it without coming up smelling like a pigsty." She paused, raising an eyebrow as she fully took in my sorry state. "No offense," she added.

"Allow me." I stepped aside and let her take up my position in front of the dumpster. She lifted the lid gingerly, her palms just barely grazing it, then paused to take careful stock of the contents. "The key is to be strategic," she said. "You have to think about it in terms of risk versus reward. Sure, it's tempting to go straight for that unopened bag of chips, but it's also covered in a layer of questionable black gunk. You get that all over your hands, you contaminate everything else. But take out this pile of relatively clean cardboard on the other side, voila, half a dozen untouched tangerines!" She tossed me one and tucked the others into her coat pockets then wiped her hands on her jeans. "A little patience goes a long way. If you still want the chips, isolate everything else and then grab them at the end when you have a clearer angle of attack."

I pocketed my tangerine, too, though it took everything in my power not to bite into it right then, rind and all. "Did you take a class to learn all that?" I managed to quip.

That got a laugh out of her. Close up, I could see that she was still more of a girl than a woman, probably not much older than I was. "Unfortunately, I had to learn it the hard way," she replied. "Most of us do."

"But things got better for you?" I ventured.

She sighed heavily, and the sound seemed to contain multitudes. "Yeah, eventually. But not without a lot of help."

"No one seems to want to help me."

"This isn't exactly the friendliest town," she admitted, "though it's hard to fault people for their lack of generosity when most of them are only clinging onto stability by their fingertips." She stood there for a few seconds, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully. "You looking for a place to stay?" she finally asked.

My heart skipped a beat. This seemed too good to be true. "Do you know one?"

She cocked her head, nodding in the opposite direction. "Maybe. It's not my decision to make, but we've got the room. I can put in a good word for you."

I was still suspicious of the offer, but I knew I would regret passing up even the slimmest opportunity to improve my situation. "Can I bring my cat?" I asked.

"Your cat?" She furrowed her brow in confusion then glanced down and stumbled backward slightly at the sight of Obsidian, who had started meowing and rubbing against her legs as if on cue. His fever was flaring up again. "That thing's looking rough. Is it wild?"

"No, he's a house cat," I said defensively. "Well, until recently, at least. I've had him since he was a kitten."

The scowl returned to her face, but it was even less imposing than before. I could tell it was just a front she put on when she wanted to seem tough. "I guess you can bring him along. But I can't guarantee there'll be space for both of you." Then she spun on her heel and briskly walked away. I gulped and followed her.

"I'm Lux, by the way," she said after we had been walking for a while. Her voice sounded softer now, less guarded.

"Rowan," I said. "So what's this place like anyway? Who do you live with?"

"You'll see. I was skeptical at first, too, but they're good people. They really care, which is a rare thing around here. You'll have to earn your keep, but it's worth it to keep a roof over your head."

All of a sudden, she slowed down. We had come upon a rock-lined pathway leading to a house constructed from shipping crates and other recycled materials and surrounded by clusters of greenery that actually seemed to be thriving despite the poor environment. It was the most comforting sight I'd laid eyes on in ages.

When we entered the house, the first person to greet us was another teenage girl. She had a partially shaved head of bleached hair and a face covered in brightly-colored makeup, one that also wore a decidedly sour expression. She looked me over from head to foot then scrunched up her nose. "Oh, great," she sighed disdainfully. "Another addition to the Uchiyama Home for Wayward Youth. This place is becoming a veritable orphanage."

"Shut up, Rav," Lux shot back immediately, putting her street-wise persona back on. "Shouldn't you have learned some goddamn compassion by now?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "You could've at least hosed her down first."

Then she turned away from us, bored, and sat down on the sofa next to a boy who seemed to be her dark-haired mirror image. They were twins, just like me and Sabrina. I felt an unexpected tug on my heartstrings at this realization. Sabrina wasn't all bad, and some small part of me missed her. The boy seemed entirely over his sister's bullshit. "My name's Rahul," he told me. "Try to ignore her if you can. She's going through a phase."

Rav bulldozed right over him. "I wouldn't get too comfortable if I were you. We're pretty full up already. We'd have the whole city crammed in here if we took in everyone we felt the tiniest bit sorry for."

"Rav's acting like a grade-A bitch again. Must be a day that ends in Y." This came from yet another boy, long-haired, who came in from the back door. Like Lux, he didn't appear to be related to the twins biologically. He introduced himself as Alejandro. My mind was buzzing as it tried to puzzle together all the pieces of this unconventional household.

Suddenly, yet another voice joined the mix, this one older. "Raveena Emi Uchiyama, you know better than to show such disrespect to someone in need." The woman in a bandana who approached from behind was clearly the twins' mother. As the others continued to bicker, she pulled me aside and, surprisingly, leaned in for a full embrace, seemingly oblivious to how awful I smelled. "Welcome, sweetheart," she said warmly. "I'm Aarti. It's such a pleasure to meet you."

After I had introduced myself, she bent over to scoop Sid into her arms. "And who's this little darling?"

"His name's Obsidian, but I call him Sid," I replied.

"He looks like he could use some TLC, too." Sid purred contentedly in her arms, already at home there. Before I could ask any of the questions dancing on the tip of my tongue, she continued, "You must be hungry. There's some leftover chili I can warm up for you. Why don't you take a shower while I'm getting it ready? Lux, dear, find Rowan some clean clothes, won't you?"

I followed Lux into her room and was immediately struck by the figure drawings taped up all over the walls. There was one still propped on the easel, freshly completed. "You're an artist?" I asked.

She shrugged modestly. "It passes the time. Aarti thinks it's a healthier outlet for what she calls my 'innate intensity' than some of my, uh, past activities. Plus, I manage to sell one at the market every now and then."

"My mom used to paint." It pained me to realize then that I hadn't consciously thought about Mom in months. She'd once been the only thing on my mind, but she had somehow slipped into the shadows. I blinked hard to fight back the oncoming tears.

"Used to?" Lux asked.

"She's dead," I replied bluntly.

Lux could tell I needed space in that moment, that there were parts of my past I wasn't yet ready to divulge. She knew because she, too, harbored memories she'd rather keep close to her chest. "There's some old stuff in the bottom drawer I don't really wear anymore," she said, heading for the door. "Take whatever you want."

In the bathroom, my filthy clothes practically fell off my body they were so thin and worn. As I was undressing, I could hear Lux and Aarti arguing over how to most effectively coax Sid, who had apparently managed to leap to the top of the refrigerator, safely back to the ground. I could picture the scene perfectly in my head. I giggled to myself and felt a genuine rush of happiness. Then I switched on the faucets and had the best shower of my life.

When I meandered into the kitchen, Aarti was standing over the stove top reheating a pot of fragrant chili. I immediately started salivating, and my stomach grumbled impatiently. "That smells amazing," I exclaimed. Everyone else in the house seemed to have gone off to attend to their own devices.

She placed a heaping bowl in front of me and though I wanted to immediately dig in, I restrained myself long enough to ask, "What's the deal with this place? It's not a cult, is it?"

She erupted into hysterical laughter at the thought. "No, no," she said after a moment, wiping at her watering eyes. I ate as she explained further. "We're definitely not a cult, or at least we try very hard not to be. It's pretty simple, really. For the longest time, it was just the four of us - me, my husband, Enji, who you'll meet soon enough, and our children, Rahul and Raveena. I always imagined myself having a full and lively household, but I struggled to get pregnant again. Then we took a good look at the city and realized how much need there was around us. There are so many children in the world already who are desperate for a place to call home. Why not open our arms to them? We've got Alejandro and Lux right now, but others have passed through over the years. They've become like family to us, and we hope we feel like family to them, too."

Lux resurfaced to fill up a bowl for herself. "I'll consider you family so long as the chili keeps flowing," she said.

"That's your third helping today!" Aarti replied in mock exasperation. "You're going to eat us out of house and home. Then we'll see how you feel."

I envied their easy rapport and found myself yearning to join in. They were the first people I'd met since leaving home that I felt like I actually wanted to get to know. "I'm sure you could use a good night's rest," Aarti said, turning back to me. "We'll talk more in the morning, and you can decide how you feel about staying on. Lux, you've got a spare bed right now, don't you?"

"Don't worry, girl," Lux told me through a mouthful of chili. "I've got you covered."

Shortly, we headed back to her room, where she pointed out the bottom bunk. "It's not much, but hopefully it'll do."

"Oh, no, this is perfect," I murmured, gently smoothing out the wrinkles in the comforter. The fabric felt so thrillingly crisp and clean beneath my fingertips. Even though the mattress groaned under my weight, lying on it felt like falling back into a cloud. I knew I would sleep as deeply as the dead, my body's built-in alarm system finally getting a much needed night off.