Genesis. Volume 2

October 7, 1986. New York. Port Authority. Evening. Emma was the last to step off the bus. She lingered in the aisle deliberately—letting the others spill out first, breathe the unfamiliar air, get their bearings—while she fussed with her backpack strap, retightening the buckle that was already snug. Just buying time. She needed to prepare herself—gather her thoughts, tamp down the tremor rising from somewhere deep in her stomach. Her palms had gone clammy on the bus, and she wiped them on her jeans, feeling the rough fabric scrape against her skin. New York was like nothing she'd seen—not Brookfield, not Detroit, not sleepy Cleveland. It hummed. The hum came from everywhere at once—from cars snarled in traffic, from the subway rumbling somewhere beneath their feet, from the crowd, from the neon already flaring above the rooftops even though the sun was only just beginning to sink behind the Hudson. The hum seeped into her chest and vibrated there, like an overloaded bass guitar. Emma's ears felt plugged. "You could go deaf," she muttered, stepping down the metal stairs onto the asphalt. The soles of her sneakers squelched in a puddle—water, or something worse. "You haven't even seen Times Square yet," Max smirked. He was already standing off to the side, leaning against a rusty railing, and he looked rough: red-rimmed eyes, disheveled hair, one hand jammed in his pocket where his knife rested. "We're not going there," Arthur cut in. "We will if the circus is nearby." "The circus is in Brooklyn. Other side of the city." "Then we'll see it tomorrow." They stood for a moment, processing the space. Port Authority was vast, grimy, and it stank of gasoline, urine, and fried onions. The walls were gray, streaked with stains, plastered here and there with posters whose edges had peeled away. People flowed in a continuous stream: businessmen with briefcases, mothers with screaming children, teenagers with boom boxes on their shoulders, homeless men pushing carts piled high with rags. No one looked at anyone. No one stopped. "At least Detroit noticed us," Jenny said, squinting against the harsh light. "Here we're just... specks." "Here everyone's a speck," Emma pulled the crumpled cigarette pack from her pocket, turned it over in her fingers. It crinkled. She craved a smoke so badly her teeth ached, but she crushed the pack and shoved it back. She needed a clear head right now. "Where's the hostel?" Max asked, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Arthur fished a map out of his backpack—the one Claire had given them, worn, folded in four, marked with red pen. The corner was chewed. "Two blocks on foot. Grand Street." "Then let's go." They headed for the exit. By the doors stood a cop—young, with a mustache, in a dark blue uniform, lazily tracking passersby with his eyes. His gaze slid over Lisa, lingered on Jenny, then on Emma, and he looked away. "People in uniform," Max whispered. "I remember," Arthur said. Emma remembered too. The envelope with the blacksmith's photo and the note: "DO NOT TRUST PEOPLE IN UNIFORM." Did that apply to New York cops? She didn't want to find out. She touched the red thread on her wrist unconsciously. They stepped outside. New York hit them in the face. Not even with light—with sound. Taxi horns, street vendors shouting, music spilling from open bar doors, the shuffle of hundreds of feet on asphalt. The smells blended into a nauseating cocktail: roasted chestnuts, gasoline, rotting vegetables from trash bins, someone's cloying perfume. Emma felt dizzy. She started counting her steps—one, two, three—it helped her focus. "You okay?" Lisa caught up and walked beside her, almost shoulder to shoulder. "Fine." "You're lying." "Get used to it." Lisa didn't take offense. She rarely did—she'd just nod and accept what she was told. It both annoyed and impressed Emma. Lisa pulled out her sketchbook on the go and started scribbling, glancing up at the upper floors of the buildings. They turned onto Grand Street. It was quieter here—not like Brookfield, but at least you could hear your own thoughts. The hostel turned out to be a four-story building with a peeling facade and a flickering sign: "GRAND HOTEL — ROOMS BY NIGHT OR WEEK." The "G" in "NIGHT" was burned out, leaving "NIHT"—a meaningless word that looked like the name of some ancient god. By the entrance, slumped against a dirty wall, sat a homeless man. Old, with a tangled gray beard, in a tattered coat thrown over several sweaters that looked like they'd never been taken off. He held a cardboard cup with spare change and rocked back and forth—steadily, like a pendulum. He reeked of sourness and unwashed body. As the group passed, the homeless man rasped: "The Puppeteer... The Puppeteer is watching." Emma froze. Her soles stuck to the asphalt. "What did you say?" "The Puppeteer is watching." The man didn't raise his head, just rocked harder. "Pulling the strings. Everyone dances, no one wants to. But they dance." "What strings?" He raised his hand. On his wrist, filthy, covered in sores and scabs, dangled a thin red thread. Tied in a bow. Emma's breath caught. She felt her own thread on her arm grow warm—distinctly, as if someone had pressed a heated stone to her skin. "Where did you get that?" "The Puppeteer gave it. Gave it to everyone. You dance too, girl. You just don't know it yet." He laughed—dry, creaking, like an unoiled door. "Let's go." Arthur tugged her sleeve. Emma didn't move. "Who is the Puppeteer?" The homeless man stopped laughing. Slowly, he raised his head. His eyes were different colors—one brown, one blue. Like Jack's. "The one who pulls the strings. Not the clown. Not the shadow. Not the conductor. The one behind them. The FIRST one." "Where is he?" "Everywhere. Nowhere. Sleeping." The homeless man pressed a dirty finger to his lips, leaving a dark smear on his cracked skin. "Shh. Don't wake him." He dropped his head and began rocking again, like a broken toy. Emma felt a hand on her shoulder. Jenny. Her palm was cold, but her grip was firm. "Let's go. He won't say any more." "How do you know?" "Because he's already said everything he could. The rest is just raving." "In this place, raving is the only truth," Max muttered, his voice muffled under his collar. They entered the hostel lobby. Inside, it smelled of dampness, cheap cleaning fluid, and stale sweat. The floor was linoleum with a worn pattern, boards showing through underneath; the walls were yellow, streaked with stains. The reception desk was wooden, old, with an antique phone and keys hanging from hooks. Somewhere upstairs, a radio played—muffled, through the noise of water in the pipes. Behind the desk sat a clerk—thin, balding, with thin bloodless lips. He was flipping through a magazine, licking his finger before every page turn. He didn't even look up until Arthur cleared his throat. "We need two rooms." The clerk raised his eyes. Slowly, he surveyed the group—five teenagers, backpacks, tired gray faces, red threads on their wrists. He grunted. "Two rooms—forty dollars a night. Cash upfront." Arthur reached for his wallet. The money Emma had saved all summer was running low. He counted out the bills, laid them on the counter. The clerk swept them into the drawer with a clink of coins and handed over two keys with wooden fobs—the numbers "307" and "308" carved with a knife and filled with black paint. "Third floor. Toilet at the end of the hall. No noise after ten." "We'll be quiet," Lisa promised. "That's what they all say." The clerk paused, then added matter-of-factly: "And one more thing. Don't go out after midnight." "Why?" Emma leaned forward. "Because in this neighborhood, people get found at night. Without faces." "Without faces?" Max repeated. "Like an egg. Clean. Smooth." The clerk said it in the tone of someone discussing the weather. "The police say it's a gang. But gangs leave blood. Here—not a drop. People just fall asleep with faces and wake up without." "How often?" Jenny narrowed her eyes. "Once a month. Sometimes more. I wouldn't recommend testing it." He buried himself in his magazine again, and a turned page, wet from his finger, slapped against the desk. Emma exchanged a look with Arthur. He nodded—we'll discuss it later. They climbed the creaking stairs. The steps were worn concave by thousands of feet; the banister wobbled. The third-floor hallway was narrow, lit by a dim bulb overhead, with a carpet runner worn through to holes. It smelled of dust and damp plaster. Two rooms side by side—307 and 308. Arthur unlocked the first and peered inside. "Well... not the Ritz." "We're not at the Ritz," Emma said, squeezing past him. The rooms were tiny, with iron bedframes, thin mattresses, and windows facing a blank brick wall. On the nightstands—lamps without shades; in the corner—a sink with a rusty faucet dripping water, leaving brown stains on the enamel. The wallpaper was peeling in places, revealing gray plaster. Emma ran a finger along the windowsill—it left a thin streak of soot. "Better than Detroit," Max said, coming in and surveying the room. "At least the beds didn't creak there." "They do here," Jenny pressed on the mattress, and it answered with a pitiful screech of springs. "Well... almost." Emma tossed her backpack onto the bed by the window, sat down, pulled off her jacket. Her body ached after fourteen hours on the bus—her back stiff, her legs buzzing, a dull pain pulsing at her temples. She wanted to sleep, eat, smoke—in any order. But first, a talk. Arthur closed the door and slid the bolt. Metal clanked. "People without faces. Like in Detroit. Like at the factory." "It's not the Void." Jenny sat on the edge of the bed and began unwrapping the bandage on her palm to check the wound. "The Void is sealed. The watch is with us." "Then there's another one here." "The Maestro?" Lisa looked up from her sketchbook, already back in her hands. "He's in Chicago." "Maybe he's here too. Or something new." "Or something old," Max said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Very old." Emma was silent. She stared at the red thread on her wrist. It was warm—not hot, but noticeably warm, like the skin of an iron that had just been unplugged. A warning. "The homeless man talked about the Puppeteer," she said finally. "'The one behind them. The first one. Sleeping.' That's not the Maestro. That's something... bigger." "Something we weren't warned about," Jenny added, wincing as the bandage pulled at the edge of the wound. "Maybe we were, but we weren't listening. Elias mentioned the Sleeper." "The Sleeper is a myth. Even in the Circle, many don't believe in it." "After what we've seen," Arthur crouched in front of his backpack, checking that the watch with the Void was still there, "I believe in everything." Emma stood up and walked to the window. Beyond the glass—a brick wall, wet, streaked, with a rusty fire escape. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed, but the sound quickly drowned in the general noise. Here, in the courtyard well, it was quiet. Too quiet. The glass was cold against her forehead. "We can't stop. Tomorrow, the circus. We need to find the dagger. Everything else can wait." "What if the Puppeteer is real?" Lisa stopped drawing and looked up. Her pencil hovered over the page. "Then we'll deal with him too. But first—the dagger." Arthur nodded. "Makes sense." "I always make sense." Emma turned from the window. "That's why I smoke." No one laughed. Only Max let out a quiet snort. They divided the rooms: girls in 307, guys in 308. Before leaving, Max checked the lock on their door, shook his head, and propped the handle with a chair—its legs scraping in protest against the floor. "If anything—shout." "If anything—we won't shout." Emma met his gaze. "We'll fight." Max smirked—short, without humor—and left. The girls were alone. Jenny sat on the bed, took off her boots, and began rubbing her feet—blisters had risen on her heels. Lisa sat cross-legged on her cot, opened her sketchbook, and immediately started drawing the homeless man at the entrance: his mismatched eyes, his filthy coat, the red thread on his wrist. The pencil scraped, and the sound was almost lulling now. "Do you believe him?" she asked without looking up. "I don't know." Emma pulled her sweater off over her head, tossed it at her feet. "But he knew about the threads. And only the Feasters know about the threads." "Or those they've touched." "Or those watching them." She lay down on the bed, still dressed, only kicking off her sneakers. Her body sank into the sagging mattress. She closed her eyes. Beneath her lids, neon still burned—red, blue, yellow. Letters she hadn't read. Faces she didn't know. A city that didn't sleep and wouldn't let others sleep. "Emma," Lisa called. "Yeah?" "Do you remember your mother's face?" Emma opened her eyes. The silence swelled. "Yes. Do you?" "Right now—yes. But I'm afraid that one day I'll forget." "We're all afraid." Lisa nodded, continuing to draw. Emma listened to the rustle of the pencil, like a lullaby. Half an hour later, she got up anyway. The floorboards were cold under her bare feet. "I'm going out for a couple of minutes." "Don't." Jenny spoke without opening her eyes, but her voice was warning. "It's night." "I'm not going for cigarettes. I'm checking the perimeter." "What perimeter?" "The one the man on the bus mentioned." She threw on her jacket, slipped the small folding knife into her pocket—Max's gift after Detroit—and stepped into the hallway. Silence pressed against her ears. Only the floorboards creaked somewhere above. Emma went down to the lobby. The clerk was asleep, his head resting on his crossed arms; his magazine lay on the floor, open to a page advertising cigarettes. She stepped over him and slipped outside. The homeless man was still sitting at the entrance. Not asleep—he was staring at the sky, where a few prickly stars glimmered between the clouds. He still smelled of sourness, and now of wet wool too. "You came back," he said without turning around. "You talked about the Puppeteer. What do you know?" The homeless man shook his head, his gray locks brushing his collar. "Nothing. Everything. What can you know about someone who dreams?" "Dreams?" "He sleeps. And when he sleeps, he dreams. And those dreams walk the streets. Watching. Waiting." "For what?" "The awakening." Emma was silent. The wind brought a smell of soot—from the subway, or from the trash can on the corner. "How do you stop him?" "You don't. You just don't wake him." He turned to her. His mismatched eyes glinted in the streetlight. "The one who seeks the dagger must know: the dagger wakes things. It wakes everything that sleeps. Are you ready for that, girl?" Emma's mouth went dry. She didn't answer. "Go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day." She turned and walked back inside. The clerk had woken up and blinked at her with bleary eyes. "Did you go out?" his voice was hoarse from sleep. "No. You imagined it." "Don't lie. I heard the door." "You imagined it." Emma climbed the stairs without looking back. In the room, Jenny was already asleep, curled up under the thin blanket. Lisa was still drawing—now her sketchbook held a finished portrait of the homeless man, accurate down to the smallest detail. Even the dirt under his nails. "I'm done," Lisa showed the drawing. Emma took the sketchbook, held it closer to the lamp. On paper, the homeless man looked almost normal—except his eyes were outlined in red, and the thread on his wrist glowed like red-hot wire. "Good. Keep it." "Where?" "In our collection of fears." Lisa smiled faintly and closed the sketchbook. Emma lay down and stared at the ceiling. A crack ran from corner to corner, like a map of a river that didn't exist. "The Puppeteer. The Sleeper. The one who dreams." She squeezed the red thread on her wrist. It was warm. Alive. Behind the wall, in the next room, Max checked the knife under his pillow—the blade glinted dully in the moonlight. Arthur sat on the bed and stared at the watch containing the Void. It ticked, steady, monotonous, counting the time they had left. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Peaceful, like the heartbeat of a sleeping man. New York didn't sleep. Somewhere in the darkness of its streets, in the tangle of underground tunnels and dilapidated theaters, Barnum's circus lay hidden. And inside it—the dagger. Emma closed her eyes. Tomorrow, they would find it.