The Imaginary Corpse, page 27
We’re okay.
We’re okay?
“Spidey?” I ask the weight on my back.
No response.
“Spidey?!”
He’s there, says my detective stuff. It knows the weight of him, the feel, the scent.
“Spidey!”
I kneel to one side, realize what I’ve done too late to prevent him banging limp into the carpet. He’s still a hand, still brown and soft and curvaceous, still Spiderhand. The Teatime Man didn’t take that from us.
“Spidey?” I ask.
I lift a finger, let it go. It falls right back down to the floor.
“…Spiderhand?”
He just lies there, even when I start to cry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The dryer barks as it hits the end of its cycle. I slump out, press the Extra Dry button, and climb back in. It’s the only thing I know for sure I can do right.
Saint Sunbeam’s was waiting for us – Golem Jones called ahead the minute we left. Nurse Pawsome and the teddy bear doctors were at the ready, prepped with as much needle and thread and Panacea Potion as they could set aside. Miss Mighty was up and moving already when we got there; I didn’t take much longer. But Spiderhand…
Panacea Potion can cure everything. Panacea Potion can even raise the dead if you use enough of it. Panacea Potion is magic. But so are a lot of other things in the Stillreal…
His knuckles healed. His fingernails unchipped. His skin sloughed off its cuts and scrapes and went back to its healthy tan color. He was, by every measure they could take, alive. But alive and awake are two different things.
He’s in a bed. Under observation, they say. We’re working on it, they say. We don’t know, is really what they said, and kept saying as I stumbled out of the hospital, trying to understand why, and how, and what to do next.
Maybe defeating the Teatime Man will break the spell? Maybe a kiss from a prince will undo the curse? Maybe he just needs time?
Maybe my best friend will never wake up.
Miss Mighty stayed at Saint Sunbeam’s after I left – just for observation, according to the after-action report Lieutenant Burrows slipped under my door. It’s not the only letter I’ve gotten since the clearing; Big Business sent a formal letter on high-grade paper, explaining that while he enjoyed our partnership and we would discuss my debts in the future something something something – I didn’t finish reading before I tore it in half.
I remember seeing Chip and Farmer Nick on my walk home, both leaning out of the doorway of the Rootbeerium with fear in their eyes, wanting to know if I was alright. I remember the Sadness Penguins waddling slowly alongside me, signing a similar question. I didn’t answer any of them.
Golem Jones knocked on the door once. Officer Cold knocked, too, claiming he was ‘doing the rounds.’ Freedom Frieda apologized through it in the highest, most piercing voice I’ve ever heard. I didn’t answer for any of them, either. I’ll answer when I’m ready.
I’m never going to be ready.
I haven’t heard from Breaker, or Dr Atrocity, or any of the henchmen from the Alibi. I’m hoping it’s because they’ve gone to ground, because the Teatime Man is almost certainly on the hunt for all of them. The good news is, the one Friend I am absolutely sure he’s going to come after is me.
I’ve messed up his plans. I may have gotten the closest to beating him anyone ever has, and even if not, I know something that hurts him. He’s going to kill me, and he’s going to kill anyone who tries to stop him.
I wish I understood how getting drunk worked.
The dryer stops. I sit in its cylinder, watching the plain white wall with the big bright sign reminding us not to steal each others’ clothes because stealing is wrong.
The Stillreal needs me.
Or does it? Dr Atrocity is smart. Lieutenant Burrows figured out the tactics. There are better fighters. All I am is a detective. A sense-maker for a world that doesn’t make sense.
I slide out of the dryer, into the cool air. I climb the stairs to our – to my –apartment, and head inside, kicking aside a snowdrift of letters I never want to answer just so I can lock the door.
I wake up at my desk. I’m not sure how long I’ve been in the chair, but by the number of empty root beer bottles on the floor, I’m guessing either a couple days, or one really bad one. I think about Spiderhand, and I groan my head back down onto my desk, relaxing at the feel of my stuffing pressing against the hard wood surface.
I wake up at my desk again. People are knocking on the door. I can’t help them, so I put my head back down.
I wake up at my desk once more, to the sound of my front door shattering. Footsteps come booming down the hallway. I watch my bedroom door, waiting, ready. The door bursts open, and Miss Mighty stands before me, arms crossed. I wish I could say I was relieved.
“Tippy.” She’s angry, but not as angry as she’s acting.
I study the wood grain on my desktop. It has a pattern, knots in the wood that form little maps of the state of Hawaii. Sandra liked Hawaii.
“Tippy, it’s time to get up,” she says, closer to me this time.
My stitches ache. Sleeping might help. Did I used to sleep before the accident?
Miss Mighty grabs my chair, dumps me onto the floor hard enough I bounce. I probably deserve it.
“I said, get up.” She looms over me, fists at her sides, teeth locked together. I’ve got her good and mad.
“Why?”
“Damn it – dangit – no, damn it. Damn it, Tippy, we need you!”
The world blurs out. I must be crying. “I’m not what the world needs.”
“How do you know?”
“I didn’t catch the bad guy, Mighty.” My voice is like glue. “I’m supposed to catch the bad guy, but he got away. He got away and Spiderhand’s never going to wake up, and… and I can’t do what I used to do anymore. I can’t. It’s gone.” I sniff, paw at the ground. “I can solve all the little stuff, but when the big problems come around, all I do is fail.”
Miss Mighty stays stock still. Detective stuff is registering anger, shock, and frustration. And sadness. Big, memory-whale-filled oceans of sadness.
The carpet rustles as she turns and walks out of the room, without even a glance back my way. I hear her walk down the hall and shut the door, very, very gently.
She couldn’t prove me wrong.
I nudge at my chair, but setting it back up is too much effort. I climb into bed, and without bothering to get under the covers, I fall asleep.
I wake up to a tapping on the window over my bed. If it weren’t for the curiosity Sandra gave me, I probably wouldn’t even look up. But I do, and… why is a tiny black bird pecking at my window?
My detective stuff wakes up right after me, and tells me it’s a nightingale. A nightingale with glowing gems for eyes.
The bird taps once more, a rhythmic little three-beat chord, and flutters off into the sky. My eyes follow it as it flies off toward the stars… and the moon.
I can see the moon’s face now. I mean, I can’t really help it with it staring right at me. It’s got three enormous eyes, with big golden eyelashes and stars for pupils, bright against its green-cheese skin. It has one mouth, an oval crater lined with soft, kind lips. There’s a lunar lander sitting on top of it like a hat.
“Hello, Tippy,” says the moon, in a voice like my favorite song being hummed to me while I sleep.
“… Hi…”
“You seem sad,” says the moon. “I thought you might need to talk.”
If you’re having trouble, the moon will talk to you. That’s the legend of Playtime Town. Of course the legend is true. This is the Stillreal.
“Do you talk to every Friend who seems sad?” I ask.
The moon smiles. It’s not a smile I’m ever hoping to comprehend. “Only the ones who really need it.”
“That seems judgmental.”
The moon laughs. It seems to be enjoying itself, but if that’s the laugh of enjoyment I hope it’s sad forever.
“You’re a good person, Tippy. No,” it says, with enough authority to silence me, “no quips back. You’re a good person, because your person made you that way. I know, because seeing to the heart of people is how my person made me.”
“Right.” I nod. It’s the most motion I can handle without feeling things. “Sort of useful in your line of work.”
The moon smirks again, a little chiding, a little kind. (That describes nearly everything it does, really.) “Right now, the whole Stillreal needs that goodness.”
That exact burden is why I’m stuck in bed.
“I know,” it says, and honestly the creepiest part is how blasé it is about responding to what I’m thinking. “It’s a lot to handle. But I know you can handle it.”
“How do you know?” I ask, with an aggravated thrashing of my head. “How do you know I can handle it? I’m dealing with something one of a kind.”
“He’s just one more monster of a very old kind,” the moon says.
I arch my eyebrows. The moon looks down at me like I’m a baby bird struggling to fly.
“He’s a bad guy,” the moon insists. “He’s a criminal.”
My detective stuff is ringing off the hook. The moon’s exact wording matters, but my main brain isn’t working quite right.
“I need more…” I say.
“Your companions will help you figure that out.”
“My ‘companions’ all hate me.”
“That is not strictly true. And all anger passes in time.”
My toes curl in annoyance. “I really hate it when people talk in riddles.”
The moon just smiles. “Nothing I say will get you out of bed. But don’t worry. You’ll hear it soon.”
“Hear what?”
“Remember that people love you, Detective Tippy,” the moon says. “Remember that Friends love you, and that people loved you, and that there’s a reason for both. Remember that reason, and you will win.”
“This is garbage.”
And again, the moon smiles that too-meaningful smile. “For now.”
And it turns its face away from me, and I’m just looking up at cheese and craters.
I could go get another root beer float. I could go take a spin in the dryer. Or I could sit here, and try to figure out what the moon means.
I try that for a while. Then I sleep again.
I wish I could say it felt good.
I wake up again in the middle of the night. Someone in the living room is insisting on playing ‘Chopsticks’ on the piano. Badly.
I roll out of bed, and the piano player switches without warning from ‘Chopsticks’ to Spiderhand’s favorite Beethoven piece. My back turns into a steel cable of fear, but I still step out into the hallway. If death is going to kick down my door, I’m going to face it standing up.
I stride along to the opening strains of the ‘Ode to Joy,’ and stop at the edge of my living room. Miss Mighty leans back from the piano, regarding me with a melancholy smile.
“Are you back to yell at me?” I ask.
Miss Mighty shakes her head. “Yelling at you isn’t going to help.”
“Yeah. I’m allergic. So, then, why are you back?”
“Because you need help,” Miss Mighty gives me an exaggerated shrug. “Duh.” And a smile on the end of it, just to take the edge off.
I give her my own harm-reducing smile before I let it lapse back to a frown. “Listen, I–”
Miss Mighty holds up a gloved hand. “Don’t worry, tough guy. I know nothing I say is going to convince you to square up for another round.” She gives me that crooked smile that means she knows she’s got me. “So I brought someone who can.”
My detective stuff switches on before I can look confused. There’s someone in the kitchen. Right as I register that, Officer Cold comes out into the living room, hands in his pockets.
“Hi, Detective,” he says. He’s not smiling, but he wants to be.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
Officer Cold drops his arms to his sides. He looks so, so uncomfortable. “I…” He clears his throat. “Well. I understand you’re not coping well.”
I snort. “You could say that.”
Officer Cold looks at Miss Mighty. She urges him on, looking as uncomfortable as he does. He tetches, looks at me again, and blurts out, “Do you need a hug?”
“Um,” I know the answer, but I feel weird saying it. “Yes?”
Officer Cold clears his throat again. He looks at both me and Mighty with uncertainty. And then he hugs me. He’s not very good at it, but still, that’s where I melt.
I think it’s just going to be sniffles, but it doubles down at that special speed reserved for strong emotions. There’s a choke, and a wail, and I end up sobbing into Officer Cold’s shoulder so hard it feels like I’ve pulled my back.
I bawl. I scream. I pound my hindlegs into the carpet. I don’t care that my tears are freezing me to him. All I care about is crying, and sagging, and not being the only one carrying this anymore.
“I know,” Cold whispers, in a softer, gentler voice than he has ever used on me before. “I know how you feel.”
I stiffen, get ready to push free – and I make myself stay where I am, and I melt again. It feels right. Cold, but right. I let that go another second, and peel myself away with a crackle of shattering tear-ice.
“Thank you,” I say. “I want to say thank you and say I mean it before you and I inevitably start bantering again.”
Cold gives me an ironic half-smile. “You’re welcome.”
“Great, moment duly noted,” I say. “Now, why are you here, risking the possibility we might decide you have a heart after all?”
“Because I need your help.”
“What? My help?” My mouth runs out ahead of my panicking brain. “What, did you run out of Friends who don’t reek of failure?”
Miss Mighty looks at me like I just said the sky is a horse. “Because you’re the smartest Friend we know who isn’t evil?”
Now I look at her like she said the sky is, in fact, a donkey. “But… I failed.”
“Okay,” Miss Mighty says, biting down frustration, “‘failed’ implies we’re done. I count three of us alive in here,” – she encompasses us with a twirl of her finger – “plus plenty more out there. We’re not done.”
I shake my head. I have the ominous feeling Miss Mighty is about to say something that makes sense.
“And also,” she continues, “you didn’t fail. You came up with the plan, but this butthole doesn’t work the way we’re used to things working. There are gonna be mistakes. And yeah, it sucks, and yeah, Spiderhand got hurt, and yeah, you get to be sad and angry and whatever you have to do to process all that. But Tippy, that doesn’t mean you stop trying.”
Officer Cold smirks darkly. “If it did, wouldn’t I have stopped arresting you by now?”
Miss Mighty points at him for emphasis. “So this is more complicated than we expected? Okay. Don’t we still have a duty to help people?”
The moon’s voice is echoing in my skull. You’ll hear it soon. I try to chase it out through sheer verbiage. “‘We’?” I say. “You’re a superhero. I’m just a detective. What am I supposed to do, evidence him to death?”
“You’re not just a detective, Detective,” Officer Cold says. “You–” He stops, looking the most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen him. “You hugged me when Officer Hot died.”
“I…” I have no defense for that. I’ve got nothing except a bag of hot gravel shaking around in my guts.
“Tippy,” Miss Mighty says. “You know I suck at feelings. But seriously, you are one of the most helpful, kindest Friends I know. Why the heck do you think Friends come to you with so many of their problems? It isn’t because you like to act smarter than them, trust me.”
My mind is carbonated, thoughts bobbing up and diving down and capsizing all over the place. What Miss Mighty just said sprints headlong into my memories, and I think I get what the moon meant. It feels like someone just rolled a boulder off my heart.
“Oh,” I say, and that pulls the cork free of my tear ducts again.
“Uh?” says Officer Cold, both disarmed and disgusted.
Miss Mighty shakes her head. “Pretty sure those are happy tears. Let him feel his feels.”
“No,” I say, swallowing the saltwater. “No, no. I can… I can…”
I come out of the tailspin with two things staring me in the face. Cold and Mighty meant to give me a pep talk, but they just gave me a whole lot more than that.
“I think I’m ready to help.” I sniff, choke, sniff again. “Yeah. Yeah. Distract me, please. What do you need?”
Officer Cold says, like it’s obvious, “I need to catch him, before he does this to someone else.”
Someone besides me. I nod. “I can help with that. I think. But – I don’t know how to star–”
And then the rest of what the moon said makes sense. I feel the idea inching along my brain, back to front, dredging clues up as it crawls, slow and steady and overwhelming, into my conscious thoughts.
“He’s thinking,” Miss Mighty says.
“I know what deducting looks like,” Officer Cold says with a familiar, welcome disgust.
I go back over the events in the clearing, in Memory Reefs, the Freedom Motel, Spindleman’s house. I add up all the little moments in our encounters with the Teatime Man, seeing them with much clearer eyes. My theory is just a theory, but it’s more than I had when I woke up.
I think I’ve got a plan for the Teatime Man. But for the first time… literally ever, actually… I think I’ve got a plan for me.
“I need a little more info before I say for sure,” I say. “But I think I might know what we need to do.”
“What’s that?” Miss Mighty says.
“Well, I…” I stop, and I sigh. “I need to talk to Chip. I know how mysterious that sounds, but, I want to wait to discuss plans until I’m absolutely sure. We…” I shiver. “We obviously can’t afford to go in half-cocked on this.”
