LINED UP ALONG THE SIDEWALK RUBY AND THE OTHERS WAITED in various states of composure for the doors of the shelter to open. A wide awning offered them a small respite from the rain. The street gutters ran with dirty water. A man wearing three pairs of pants and a tank top stomped in the middle of the wet street shouting some gibberish. His hair was matted into three or four dreadlocks and bleached the color of stained teeth. Ruby sat huddled against the wall with her knees pulled up and her elbows resting on her knees and her head buried in her arms. She might have been asleep. The others in line paid the crazyman no mind and didn’t look at him when he ventured in from the road to yip at anyone foolish enough to give him attention.
Ruby sat there unmoving. The crazyman came in from the rain and began to shout at the others. They all pretended not to hear him. As if he weren’t even real. He skipped down the sidewalk like a fairy-tale character and something about the desperate girl must have appealed to him and he stopped in front of her and put his hands on his knees and bent over and spoke softly in some cryptic tongue. Then he squatted on his hams and asked the same incoherent question and when Ruby looked up the crazyman must have seen something in her bloodred eyes because his own eyes flared and he rocked back on his heels, falling onto the sidewalk and pointing a gnarled finger at her, saying: You! You have been marked! Your soul is blighted by shadows!
Darkness! he screamed. Darkness!
A woman came and kicked at him like one would a feral cat.
Git, she said.
The man on all fours now, trying to crawl around the woman and look at the girl again, had fallen back into the chattering of the insane.
Git, I said, the woman said again. She kicked him again and he howled and lifted himself from the concrete and limped-ran into the street and kept on with that loping run till he found an alley and disappeared into it. The few in line that had found an interest in the scene had returned to their malaise and looked straight ahead or down at the ground as though nothing had happened.
Ruby looked at the woman’s boots. They were shiny. They went halfway to the woman’s knees. They had a squared toe. The kind a biker would wear. The woman knelt and cocked her head at the girl. She reached out and tilted the girl’s chin up so she could better see her face. The woman watched her for a long while without saying anything. There was a sound and the doors of the shelter swung open and the destitute line began to move forward like stockyard animals knowing they’re about to be fed.
Come on, the woman said. You come with me.
The girl tried to stand but fell back into the concrete. Her legs had given out. There was no strength in them. The woman knelt again and helped her up by holding one of her hands and placing the other around the girl’s small waist. Seeing her stand now, the woman took note of the track marks on her arms.
Let’s get you inside, the woman said. Get you warmed up.
They stepped slowly with the others and when they got to the doors the woman spoke solemnly to the pastor standing in the entrance. Said, This one needs a bed.
On a bed no wider than a cot the girl lay in a fetal position. The woman sat beside her and tried asking questions but the girl stayed quiet. The woman wondered if the girl was mute. But then she said, Can I get a cup of water?
Of course, the woman said.
She raised her hand and the same pastor came by and asked how he could assist.
Are you hungry? the pastor asked. You must be.
The girl said nothing. Stared straight ahead as if afraid to look at him.
The woman said, Bring something along, won’t you, Pastor Lee?
He went away and the woman spoke.
He’s a wonderful man. I’ve never met anyone kinder.
The woman pulled the blanket up around the girl’s chin.
She was a woman who had seen hardship but her enameled spirit kept her from quitting. She was small in stature with small hands and small feet and wide hips and large breasts. She had tattoos on each arm that ran down to her small hands and each tattoo stopped just back of the knuckles. A tattoo of a woman being carried away by a giant raven across her chest. She had short black hair that was cut like a boy’s and a hoop nose ring. Her name was Dani, she said. She was thirty-two years old.
Are you warm enough? Dani asked.
The girl nodded.
Where are you from? Dani asked.
Where are we now?
Port Cook.
There were enormous windows on all sides of the room and Ruby could see a tall fir tree out one of them and she watched as the wind came in off the water and bent the tree and drove the rain against the window with such force that the glass seemed lacquered with water. The lights flickered in the gust. The girl flinched under the blanket at the sudden hint of darkness and the woman looked down and saw the girl was pinching her eyes shut and she said,
Nothing to be afraid of. Just a little wind.
The pastor returned with the water and a plate of banana bread.
I didn’t know if you care for it, the pastor said, but I took the liberty of bringing you butter for the bread.
Dani thanked the pastor and he went away. She helped the girl to drink the water. She broke off a chunk of the bread and offered it but the girl shook her head.
You should eat something, Dani said. It’ll help.
Ain’t hungry, the girl said.
How long have you been out?
I don’t know.
Are you using?
The girl was silent.
When was the last time?
A long pause. Then: A few days.
Who’s chasing you?
How do you know I’m being chased?
You have the look.
What kind of look?
Scared.
The girl looked into her lap.
You’re safe here, Dani said.
The girl’s hands were trembling and Dani reached out and held them.
You’re in here, the woman said, and the world’s out there. But you can’t use. Can’t drink. Can’t help you if you want that. Got to make a choice.
The girl nodded.
Dani stood to leave. She said, I’ll let you rest. I’m going to check on the others. I’ll be back.
But the girl grabbed her leg.
He’s coming for me, the girl said.
Who?
Him. He’s out there. He’s going to find me.
Suddenly Ruby burst into tears. She began to sob uncontrollably. The others in the room ceased what they were doing and all turned their heads as if they were all fastened to the same string.
He’s out there, Ruby said. He’s hunting me.
The girl began to howl. Dani tried to console her but it did no good. The pastor quickly came and together he and Dani lifted the girl from the bed and ushered her into a private room off the chapel. The room was small and simple. There was a twin bed and a cross nailed to the wall above the bed. There was a bookshelf holding copies of the bible. There was a desk opposite the bed and a single reading lamp and a legal pad that had some of the pastor’s scribbling in it. Above that was a small oil painting of Jesus on the cross.
They lay the girl down on the bed and Dani closed the door behind them. The girl was terrified and could not speak. Could only mutter some word in an unintelligible whisper over and over and over again. Her eyes racing like marbles in a gutter. She sucked air between each whisper like a toddler after a tantrum. All Dani could say was, Shhhhhh.
It was hours before the girl could utter a real word. The pastor had gone at Dani’s request to get some fresh clothes and some fresh underwear and some gauze for the girl’s cut feet. He returned with them along with a basin of water and a hand towel and a bar of soap.
Dani was seated on the bed with the girl. The pastor sat at the desk with his legs crossed. They had had the girl’s supper brought in but it went untouched and stood cooling on the bedside table with the steam of the meal twisting up in a thin thread until all of the heat had gone out of it.
What was that name? the pastor finally asked. He asked it carefully. It was like pushing a small boat into the sea after a storm.
Name? the girl said.
I think it was a name, he said. Sounded that way, at least. The word you kept repeating.
Horns, Ruby said.
Horns? the pastor said.
Yeah.
Why horns?
He was wearing horns.
The girl had her head on the pillow. Dani was seated beside her, holding her hand. Dani and the pastor looked at one another.
What kind of horns? the pastor asked.
Twisted kind, the girl said. Like a deer has.
The man was wearing antlers?
Ruby stayed quiet. Then she said, I just saw horns. Just the outline of horns.
You’ve seen the devil, the pastor finally said.
The girl’s lips were starting to ripple and her breath was beginning to jump.
Dani said again, Shhhhhh, and smoothed down the girl’s hair. We don’t need to talk about that anymore. You’re safe here. He’s a million miles away.
The girl closed her eyes and when she opened them back up Dani and the pastor were gone and the clock on the wall near the desk read 8:04 p.m. The sky behind the windowpanes was black. There was rain falling on the glass. That and the ticking of the electric heater were the only sounds. Ruby stood from the bed and went to the door and turned the lock and went back to the bed and sat down and looked at the oil painting of Christ on the wall and then up at the crucifix over the bed. She watched the rain on the glass window. She went to the bookshelf and opened a bible and thumbed through its thin pages and then set it back down again. She undressed in the wan light of the lamp and fully naked it turned her skin orange. She looked down at herself. Full of bruises and smudged with dirt. Her legs full of cuts. Little pin marks in the crook of her elbow where the needle had lanced her. She recognized none of it. Only nineteen but she appeared years older. A lifetime even.
She went to the basin of water and took up the hand towel and soaked it and dabbed it at her skin. She dipped the towel and the water went cloudy. She cleaned herself up as best she could and then put on the fresh underwear and the fresh clothes and then crawled back into the small bed and fell asleep with the light on.
In the middle of the night came the fever and shaking and all the terrible effects of withdrawal. She had sweat through the clothes. The sheet beneath was wet. She trembled under the blankets, balled up like some abandoned newborn. With her eyes pinched shut it all came rushing back. In that strained darkness came the gnashing teeth of the devil who haunted her. The terrible horns rising up into the air and tearing through anything proud enough to stand before them. That mouth full of daggers glinting in the spectral light to unhinge and swallow her alive.
And in the big room where the others slept, over the sounds of snoring and sleep talking, the girl’s screams could almost be heard through the walls.