chapter 13

ZAVION

“Does it have a bathroom?” Zavion leaned over to whisper to Papa.

Joe had driven them over the Sunshine Bridge and Skeet had picked them up and brought them the rest of the way here.

“Of course it has a bathroom. Two of them. And good water pressure too,” came a loud voice from above their heads.

A strong, minty smell came along with it. Not the sweet smell of gum or peppermint candy, but the sharp, fresh smell of real mint. Zavion turned his head. A woman with thick glasses, long gray dreadlocks, and knitting needles in her hands leaned over the railing of the stairs behind him. The needles were moving fast. A long scarf dangled by her side.

“The bathrooms are both blue,” she said. “Very soothing. Easy to be in there when you have to do your business.”

“You remember Ms. Cyn, Ben?” said Skeet.

“Of course. Hello, Ms. Cyn,” said Papa. He stood on his toes to give the woman a kiss on the cheek.

“Hello, Ben,” Ms. Cyn said, tapping Papa on the nose with her knitting needles and continuing down the stairs.

Zavion looked around the room. Sleeping bags covered the floor and the two couches and even a chair. The walls were bare except for a large cloth banner of a boy sitting at the base of a tree reading a book. Just above his lap, another book floated open in the air. And above that, where the branches started in the tree, a sort of half-book, half-bird floated again. Then, finally, a bird, wings outstretched, flew high in the sky. Written across the tree, in letters that sat hanging from the branches like fruit, was the word gratitude.

Zavion recognized the painting style. The banner was one of Skeet’s.

How cool would it be to jump into the banner? To be the book? To jump, fly, up, up, turn into a book-bird, fly some more, higher and higher, until he was a real bird, wings wide, soaring in the sky?

“You ever been in Baton Rouge before?” Ms. Cyn asked Zavion, interrupting his thoughts. She motioned for him to sit with her on the bench at the bottom of the stairs. She knit and chewed her mint leaves.

“No, ma’am,” Zavion said. He scanned the room. Skeet and Papa knelt on the floor with two men who Zavion didn’t recognize. They were playing some sort of game with marbles. A little girl played on the rug near them.

“Well, welcome, then.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“You gonna tell me your name?”

“Oh. Yes, ma’am,” said Zavion. “My name is Zavion.”

“Don’t think I didn’t already know it, Zavion,” said Ms. Cyn, and she laughed a deep, loud laugh.

Ms. Cyn’s needles flew in and out of the scarf. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a strip of yellow cloth. It was soft, like a piece of an old t-shirt. Zavion watched as she knit the cloth right into the scarf.

“What’d you do that for?” Zavion asked.

“What did I do?”

“That piece of cloth. Why’d you put it into the scarf?”

“I did it there too. See?”

Ms. Cyn pointed one of her needles to another strip of cloth toward the bottom of the scarf. A dark orange rectangle, hard to see because the wool was almost the same color.

“But what are they?”

“That orange one down at the bottom is from Tavius’s t-shirt. And the yellow one here is from a shirt of Isaac’s. A little bit of family for wrapping around someone’s scrawny neck.” The girl came running over to them. “A chicken neck just like this one. This is my grandniece, Osprey,” said Ms. Cyn, pulling on one of her pigtails. “Osprey, this is Zavion.”

“How old are you?” Osprey asked.

“Um—ten,” said Zavion.

“I’m four,” she said. “My dog, Crow, died in the hurricane. This was his leash.” She held a purple nylon leash in her hand.

“Hush,” said Ms. Cyn. She patted Osprey on the cheek. “Don’t let her sweet face sucker you. She’s fierce as a tiger.”

Zavion glanced back at the banner. The boy under the tree looked a little like Osprey. Osprey ran back to the rug to play.

“And those three clowns playing Ringer on the floor with your Papa—that one is Skeet, but you know him. He owns this house, and he was married to my daughter, God rest her soul, she died two years ago. Those are his two brothers, Enzo and Tavius. Enzo is Osprey’s daddy. They escaped New Orleans like you.” Ms. Cyn took a deep breath. “And me. The only other person you need to know is me, Ms. Cyn. The Queen of Baton Rouge.” Ms. Cyn laughed a deep, minty laugh.

Zavion tried to repeat these new names inside his head, but pictures raced through it instead. His house. The water. The roof shingles. Luna Market. Chocolate bars. Rain.

“Go on into that blue bathroom, Zavion,” said Ms. Cyn. “Change your shirt. Change your pants.” She pointed her knitting needle at Zavion’s sleeve. Blood was splattered across it. He hadn’t even noticed.

“I cut my leg—” he mumbled.

“Tavius!” Ms. Cyn yelled to one of the men on the floor.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Get this boy, Zavion, some new clothes.”

Tavius reached behind a couch and pulled out a plastic bag. “Here!” he yelled to Zavion, tossing the bag.

“Thank you,” said Zavion.

“We got first pick at the Salvation Army.”

“How come we got first pick?” teased Enzo.

“Is it ’cause Pierre has a crush on you?” Skeet knocked his shoulder into Tavius’s shoulder.

Tavius grinned.

“Go wash out that cut, Zavion. There’s first aid cream in the bathroom,” said Ms. Cyn.

Zavion managed to stand. Walk across the room. He pushed open the bathroom door and fell against it as it closed. He jumped. Something moved up his back. He turned to look, but nothing was on the door. Whatever it was moved under his t-shirt. Crawled on his skin. He reached his hand through the neck of his shirt to his shoulder. His hand swept from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. Nothing was there. But still, he felt it.

Felt it. Heard it. Smelled it. Tasted it.

He pulled his hand back out of his t-shirt.

Zavion couldn’t move. He couldn’t even get out of the bathroom and back to the bench.

Instead, he gripped the bathroom door so hard his forearm shook—the rain pouring, the men shooting marbles and laughing, the water rising, the little girl playing, his mural breaking, Grandmother Mountain crumbling, his house collapsing, Ms. Cyn knitting, and the wind—the wind whipping and pulling and pushing him. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor. He couldn’t keep his balance in the middle of it all.