V. H. King's Ink

If he were looking for a gift for Izzy, Scott didn’t think anything in the gift shop would do. Everything was pastel, most of it glittery, and lots of things had flowers. Izzy wasn’t awake yet anyway, so it didn’t matter. Besides, he was here to get something for Irene.

“Do you think a teddy-bear is too baby-ish?” Scott asked. “I don’t want her to think I think she’s a baby. I just want something that she can hold on to that makes her feel better—for when we’re not around, you know?”

Skylar leaned against the edge of a counter, her arms folded. All the shelves were made of glass, which seemed like a really bad idea. Someone could bump into one tiny corner and then the entire store would come crashing down. It made him nervous. Scott inched around Skylar to another display, one that looked less like presents for a newborn.

“Ghost said you were giving Reenie a top-secret mission?” Skylar asked, popping her gum between her teeth. “What’d you come up with?”

“I was just making something up, because she seemed really nervous about walking in here.” Scott frowned. “I don’t know if she’s been here much, since Izzy had the surgery. I don’t think she likes it.”

“Of course she doesn’t,” Skylar said. “It freaks her out. So what’s your big plan, Sweets?”

“I can’t tell you.” Scott grinned when Skylar narrowed her eyes. “It’s classified.”

He didn’t think he could explain it to her though, because he wasn’t always good with words. But Reenie would get it, as long as he had the right present. Something like…the elephant on the bottom rack.

Scott tugged it out and inspected it. Blue eyes, pink feet, and a purple ribbon around its neck. The inside of its ears were purple with pink polka dots, which seemed kind of goofy, but maybe it would make Irene smile.

“Hey, see if you can find like, a notebook or something, okay?” Scott said.

“I’m going to look for some pens, or maybe some colored pencils. And we need stickers—”

“This ain’t the dollar tree.”

“I know, but I have a plan!”

“Are coloring books part of it?” Skylar held up an activity packet wrapped in plastic, complete with a mini-pack of crayons. “If you wanted to make a gift basket, why didn’t you tell me about it before I left? I could have picked out some stuff for Reenie on the way.”

“I didn’t think of it until we were already here,” Scott said. “But maybe we can make something for Izzy by the time he gets out. You ever notice how like, people talk about juvie and hospitals the same way? Like getting out and being on observation and all that?”

“That’s cause most of us only end up in one or the other.”

“You make it sound like it’s a good thing Izzy’s in here. I mean, I guess it is, because then he’ll get better, but—” Scott held out sticker sheets like a hand of cards. “What do you think of these? Like, which ones should I pick? Or should I just buy all of em?”

“Not the balloon ones, yes for the birds, double-yes for the snack foods,” Skylar said. “Those smiley face ones are meh.”

“I think they’ll work,” Scott said. “Thanks.”

“You need a gift bag for all that?”

Skylar’s eyebrow rose, but Scott’s eyes lit up.

“That’s a great idea!”

“Oh my God—Sweets, it’s already been more than thirty minutes since I got here! Reenie’s going to think you abandoned her.”

“Nu-uh! Mrs. Washington came in right after we did, and Cae’s up there too. She’ll be okay, I just gotta pick out the right color. Light blue, or yellow?”

“They don’t have a purple one?” Skylar elbowed him out of the way to turn the rack. “Here, do this one.”

“But it’s red.”

“Isn’t that supposed to go with your whole secret-mission thing?”

“It’s classified—but you’re right!”

“Of course I am. Now give it, before we’re here until they close.”

---

Since Dee was in the room, Caegan opted to wait outside for Scott and Spy. The gift shop would take a minute, but there were chairs near the nurse’s station. He could use a cigarette, but if he left for the roof or the parking garage, Scott would get skittish. Keeping Irene busy kept Scott busy, and that was a good thing. Because Scott was worried too, even though he wasn’t sure if he should show it.

Izzy would be okay though. Changed, after something like this. Angry. But he’d make it. He had Reenie to think about. Caegan tilted his head to one side and then the other, stretching his neck. There had to be something better than fluorescent lights to use in every goddamn building, but nobody would fork over the money for it. He tugged his hood lower, trying to create a buffer of shadow.

His father had been pale like him, but less bothered by the light. Caegan could still remember the marks Anthony would draw—sometimes on pencil and paper, more often with his fingers in the air. Tracing invisible symbols, trading messages between the two of them. Theresa had hated it, which was why Caegan swore to remember them.

Letting his vision seep out of focus, he wondered what Anthony would say now. What message would he send, to draw Caegan out of the too-bright glare of the entire world? Something about rain, probably. A million droplets falling into the sea. How far could those ripples reach? How deep? Movement from down the hall drew his attention: Dee and Irene heading away from him, probably to the bathroom.

Scott and Spy should be back soon, which meant it would probably take them another fifteen minutes. Caegan went to sit watch, not because he had anything to say, but because he knew it’s what Anthony would have done. His father had taught him there were all sorts of ways to listen and see, and there was power in it too. The kind of power that helped people believe in whatever they needed to—or maybe just themselves, mostly.

Machines and monitors beeped and blinked away. It was enough to make him sleepy. Caegan stood by the bed, hands in the pouch of his hoodie, feeling the currents of sound and quiet shift around him. Somewhere, through the silence, Izzy was trying to come to. Not for long, but just enough to see how much it took.

Caegan sat on the side of the bed, his hand within reach of Izzy’s. Bet, who ran most everything illegal down on the blocks, sometimes called Caegan an omen. And when Bet wanted to scare anyone working for him, he’d ask them if they’d felt anything lately. Some sort of sign, or the sense that they had company.

Bet never said that he was watching the blocks, but he made people believe it. Caegan was the one who showed up on street corners and in back alleys, looking like he’d been there the whole time. He wondered if Izzy could tell that he was there—that any of them had been there.

Caegan thought the answer was yes. Kind of like how he could feel his father in every inch of this city. If you were close enough to a person, it was like they never left, no matter what police reports said. Missing was a state of mind, and that’s where Izzy was.

---

Between the haze of blue and threads of grey, sometimes, there were more than shapes in the shadows. There were pictures, like postcards in an old movie. Izzy couldn’t remember all of them, but there was one that stuck. Caegan, holding Irene, and waiting.

Izzy had seen that pinched look on his little sister’s face plenty of times before. Her cheeks always bunched up when she was thinking really hard about something. Irene puffed up like a balloon when she had a point to make and a mind to prove it.

It was her face he saw staring down at him now. Not across the room anymore, not beside Caegan, but directly overhead. As if she was peering down into the bottom of a barrel, waiting to see if he’d climb out. He couldn’t see her hands, but he could imagine them on her hips. Impatient little fists to go along with her pursed lips.

Everything wavered again.

Shifting, rippling, into a silence.

No lull and hush of some unknown atmosphere. No shadows far-off in the deep. If his eyes were open, Izzy would have blinked. It felt like that’s what his brain did anyway: regrouping somehow, trying to refresh, reconfiguring its settings.

There was something to this. A moment. Whether real or not—

It’s real. I’m not all the way there, but it’s real.
And I don’t have a lot of time.

Izzy pulled in a breath and he could feel his body beneath—beside—across from him. His eyes focused on the only face he expected to see. Fingers touched the back of his hand, tickling up his arm. No, not fingers. Wires. Tubes. Something, but it didn’t matter—it wasn’t what he needed to reach.

Focus.

Pulling in another breath, Izzy felt his lips move. Half of his brain said he’d drown. There wasn’t enough air in the room for words to come out, but there weren’t any bubbles floating up in front of his face either. Caegan nodded though, like he understood.

With one last effort, Izzy curled his fingers. When they closed around the hand that was holding his, Izzy felt everything go watery. The haze and its host of shadows ripped away his sense of gravity and Izzy panicked at first. His stomach went somer-saulting the same way it did when he’d first learned to skate, and he thought he heard something but then he was leaving.

Lean into the fall.

Instead of the hot-and-clammy embarrassment of falling on his ass and knowing everyone would laugh, this shift was an easy slide into some eternal in between. But they could see him, and they weren’t laughing. Reenie. Caegan. Scott too, probably. Skylar, ready to give him all kinds of shit for scaring everyone.

They were waiting for him.