But this wasn’t that world. This was Empis, where the rules were different.
This really was the Other.
The cloud of monarch butterflies had finished their homecoming, leaving only the growing dark. The sigh of their wings faded away. I would bolt the door because Claudia had told me to, but I felt safe. Protected.
“Hail Empis,” I said softly. “Hail the Gallien, and may they rule again and forever.”
And why not? Just why the fuck not? Anything would be better than this desolation.
I closed the door and bolted it.
5
In the dark there was nothing to do but go to sleep. I put my pack between the two trolleys, next to where Radar had curled up, laid my head on it, and was asleep almost at once. My last thought was that with no alarm to wake me up, I might oversleep and get a late start, which could be lethal. I needn’t have worried; Radar woke me up, coughing and coughing. I gave her some water and that eased it a little.
I had no clock but my bladder, which was pretty full but not bursting. I thought about urinating in one of the corners, then decided that was no way to treat a safe haven. I unbolted the door, opened it a little way, and peered out. No stars or moonlight showed through the low-hanging clouds. The church across the road looked blurry to me. I rubbed my eyes to clarify my vision, but the blur remained. It wasn’t in my eyes, it was the butterflies, still fast asleep. I didn’t think they lived long in our world, only weeks or months. Over here, who knew?
Something shifted at the very edge of my vision. I looked, but either it had been my imagination or whatever had been there was gone. I pissed （looking over my shoulder as I did it）， then went back inside. I bolted the door and made my way to Radar. There was no need to use Dad’s lighter; her breathing was hoarse and loud. I drifted off to sleep again, maybe for an hour or so, maybe for two. I dreamed that I was in my own bed on Sycamore Street. I sat up, tried to yawn, and couldn’t. My mouth was gone.
That snapped me awake to more canine coughing. One of Radar’s eyes was open, but the other was stuck shut with that gooey stuff, giving her a sadly piratical look. I wiped it away and went to the door. The monarchs were still roosting, but a little light had come into the dull sky. It was time to eat something, then get going.
I held an open can of sardines under Radar’s nose, but she turned her head away at once, as if the smell sickened her. There were two pecan sandies left. She ate one, tried to eat the other, and coughed it out. She looked at me.
I took her face in my hands and moved it gently from side to side in a way I knew she liked. I felt like crying. “Hold on, girl. Okay? Please.”
I carried her out the door and set her carefully on her feet. She walked to the left of the door with the glassy care of the elderly, found the spot where I had pissed earlier, and added hers to mine. I bent to pick her up again but she circled around me and went to the righthand rear wheel of Claudia’s trike—the one closest to the road. She sniffed at it, then dropped her haunches and pissed again. She gave a low growling sound as she did it.
I went to the rear wheel and bent down. There was nothing to see, but I felt sure that whatever I’d caught a glimpse of earlier had approached after I went back inside. Not only approached but pissed on my ride, as if to say this is my territory. I had my pack, but I decided there was something else I wanted. I went back inside. Rades sat, watching me. I hunted around until I found a moldering stack of blankets in the corner, perhaps meant—long ago—for trolley passengers to bundle around themselves in cold weather. If I hadn’t decided to do my business outside, I might have pissed on them in the dark. I took one and shook it out. A number of dead moths fluttered down to the shed floor like big snowflakes. I folded it into a pad and carried it out to the three-wheeler.
“Okay, Rades, let’s get this done. What do you say?”
I lifted her into the basket and then tucked the folded blanket down beside her. Claudia had instructed me to wait until the first bell before leaving, but with the monarchs roosting all around, I felt safe enough. I mounted up and started pedaling slowly toward the gate in the wall. After half an hour or so, the morning bell sounded. This close to the city it was very loud. The monarchs rose in a great wave of black and gold, heading south. I watched them go, wishing I were going that way myself—to Dora’s, then to the tunnel entrance, then back into my own world of computers and magic steel birds that flew in the air. But just as the poem says, I had miles to go and promises to keep.
At least the night soldiers are gone, I thought. Back to their crypts and mausoleums, because that’s where things like them sleep. There was no way I could know that for sure, but I did.