Part 85 (1/2)

I guess it doesn't need a beak after all, because the dogs go from growling and snapping to yelping and running just like that. I slide my backpack off one shoulder and grab it by the strap in the hand that's not full of ice.

It's heavy and I could hit something, but I don't swing it in time to stop one of the dogs knocking into me as it bolts away. The puke splashes on my leg. It burns like scalding water through my tights.

I stop myself just before I slap at the burn. Because getting the puke on my glove and burning my hand too would just be smart like that. Instead, I scrub at it with the dirty ice in my other hand and run limping towards the harpy.

The harpy hears my steps and turns to hiss, eyes glaring like green torches, but when it sees who's there it pulls its head back. It settles its wings like a nun settling her skirts on a park bench, and gives me the same fishy glare.

Wash that leg with snow, the harpy says. Or with lots of water. It will help the burning.

”It's acid.”

With what harpies eat, the harpy says, don't you think it would have to be?

I mean to say something clever back, but what gets out instead is, ”Can you fly?”

As if in answer, the harpy spreads its vast bronze wings again. They stretch from one end of the dumpster to the other, and overlap its length a little.

The harpy says, Do these look like flightless wings to you?

Why does it always answer a question with a question? I know kids like that, and it drives me crazy when they do it, too.

”No,” I say. ”But I've never seen you. Fly. I've never seen you fly.”

The harpy closes its wings, very carefully. A wind still stirs my hair where it sticks out under my hat.

The harpy says, There's no wind in my kingdom. But I'm light now, I'm empty. If there were wind, if I could get higher- I drop my pack beside the dumpster. It has harpy puke on it now anyway. I'm not putting it on my back. ”What if I carried you up?”

The harpy's wings flicker, as if it meant to spread them again. And then it settles back with narrowed eyes and shows me its snaggled teeth in a suspicious grin.

The harpy says, What's in it for you?

I say to the harpy, ”You've been my friend.”

The harpy stares at me, straight on like a person, not side to side like a bird. It stays quiet so long I think it wants me to leave, but a second before I step back it nods.

The harpy says, Carry me up the fire escape, then.

I have to clamber up on the dumpster and pick the harpy up over my head to put it on the fire escape. It's heavy, all right, especially when I'm holding it up over my head so it can hop onto the railing. Then I have to jump up and catch the ladder, then swing my feet up like on the uneven bars in gym cla.s.s.

That's the end of these tights. I'll have to find something to tell Mama Alice. Something that isn't exactly a lie.

Then we're both up on the landing, and I duck down so the stinking, heavy harpy can step onto my shoulder with her broken, filthy claws. I don't want to think about the infection I'll get if she scratches me. Hospital stay. IV antibiotics. But she balances there like riding shoulders is all she does for a living, her big scaly toes sinking into my fat pads so she's not pus.h.i.+ng down on my bones.

I have to use both hands to pull myself up the fire escape, even though I left my backpack at the bottom. The harpy weighs more, and it seems to get heavier with every step. It's not any easier because I'm trying to tiptoe and not wake up the whole building.

I stop to rest on the landings, but by the time I get to the top one my calves shake like the m.u.f.flers on a Harley. I imagine them booming like that too, which makes me laugh. Kind of, as much as I can. I double over with my hands on the railing and the harpy hops off.

”Is this high enough?”

The harpy doesn't look at me. It faces out over the empty dark street. It spreads its wings. The harpy is right: I'm alone, I've always been alone. Alone and lonely.

And now it's also leaving me.

”I'm dying,” I yell, just as it starts the downstroke. I'd never told anybody. Mama Alice had to tell me, when I was five, but I never told anybody.

The harpy rocks forward, beats its wings hard, and settles back on the railing. It cranks its head around on its twisty neck to stare at me.

”I have HIV,” I say. I press my glove against the scar under my coat where I used to have a G-tube. When I was little.

The harpy nods and turns away again. The harpy says, I know.

It should surprise me that the harpy knows, but it doesn't. Harpies know things. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the harpy only loves me because I'm garbage. If it only wants me because my blood is poison. My scarf's come undone, and a b.u.t.ton's broken on my new old winter coat.

It feels weird to say what I just said out loud, so I say it again. Trying to get used to the way the words feel in my mouth. ”Harpy, I'm dying. Maybe not today or tomorrow. But probably before I should.”

The harpy says, That's because you're not immortal.

I spread my hands, cold in the gloves. Well duh. ”Take me with you.”

The harpy says, I don't think you're strong enough to be a harpy.

”I'm strong enough for this.” I take off my new old winter coat from the fire department and drop it on the fire escape. ”I don't want to be alone any more.”

The harpy says, If you come with me, you have to stop dying. And you have to stop living. And it won't make you less alone. You are human, and if you stay human your loneliness will pa.s.s, one way or the other. If you come with me, it's yours. Forever.

It's not just empty lungs making my head spin. I say, ”I got into college.”

The harpy says, It's a career path.

I say, ”You're lonely too. At least I decided to be alone, because it was better.”

The harpy says, I am a harpy.

”Mama Alice would say that G.o.d never gives us any burdens we can't carry.”

The harpy says, Does she look you in the eye when she says that?

I say, ”Take me with you.”

The harpy smiles. A harpy's smile is an ugly thing, even seen edgeon. The harpy says, You do not have the power to make me not alone, Desiree.

It's the first time it's ever said my name. I didn't know it knew it. ”You have sons and sisters and a lover, Celaeno. In the halls of the West Wind. How can you be lonely?”

The harpy turns over its shoulder and stares with green, green eyes. The harpy says, I never told you my name.

”Your name is Darkness. You told me it. You said you wanted me, Celaeno.”

The cold hurts so much I can hardly talk. I step back and hug myself tight. Without the coat I'm cold, so cold my teeth buzz together like gears stripping, and hugging myself doesn't help.

I don't want to be like the harpy. The harpy is disgusting. It's awful.