Miss Night

Greer Dunmore counted the Beasts inside the rope twice, with the Swatch Book open on one arm at Ida Lund’s page. There were thirteen.

It was Thursday 5 November, an hour after dark. A Parks walker comes home from the Grey pale, and friends stand at the Swatch Wall saying their name until they match their painted stripe again. The further the walk, the more friends it takes.

Ida was out at the Sedge Posts, six dark posts along the Meadows’ south fields. A Meadows walker sat down in the Grey there a month ago and did not get up. For a walk that far the Parks reckon thirty friends. Most of Ida’s friends walk the Parks’ road crews, and Ida left the crews out on the dark stretches tonight, where they were needed.

Behind the rope at the end of the Green waited eighteen Meadows walkers who asked to stand for Ida. Greer’s note on the Wall kept them out: “The Swatch Wall is the Parks’. Greer.” It had forty-four signatures. Greer answers every letter, signed, because a Parks Beast writes back.

Greer wanted no walk at all. Nine years ago Greer came home a day late to an empty Wall, and Ida, the only one there, said Greer’s name alone all night. Since then, the thing Greer feared most was an empty Wall for Ida.

On Tuesday, when Ida pinned the date, Greer sent a sealed letter to the Meadows’ Fire Circle with the Library’s runner. It said Ida’s stripe had been repainted lighter, and Ida walked pale. It would have stopped the walk. The runner, who reads everything now, opened it and took it to Ida instead. It never reached the Fire Circle. Ida sent back two words: “Thursday. Ida.”

At nine Ida came up the Green grey to the eyes, walking as if the ground tilted. The Meadows walker was out of the Grey, and the Meadows took them home. Ida stood at the stripe, and the thirteen began.

Within the hour Ida’s face came up to the stripe, and the friends started to stop.

Greer looked down at the Book. Greer had known since Tuesday: the chip painted before Ida’s first walk was darker than the stripe, and the stripe was the only one on the Wall without rain marks. In October Ida mixed the colour lighter and painted over the old one, so friends could stop sooner and get to bed. Ida came home a shade pale every time after, in a season when the Grey takes the pale first.

Greer looked at the thirteen, yawning and kind, and at the eighteen behind the rope. Greer’s own note was keeping them off Ida’s Wall. Greer was more ashamed than they had been since that night.

Greer unpinned the note. “Dear Meadows,” Greer said, as if writing it. “The Wall is open. Kind regards.”

The eighteen came under the rope. Greer opened the paint store and mixed Ida’s colour from the chip. In front of thirty-one Beasts, Greer painted Ida’s stripe true, a shade darker than the one Ida just matched.

“Sorry,” Ida said, to all of them.

“Keep going,” Greer said. “Nobody stops at that one.”

They said Ida’s name until past midnight. When Ida matched the new stripe at last, Ida told Greer one thing from the road. There were Meadows knots on the posts past the last lamp, very neat ones. Greer wrote it in the margin of Ida’s page, under the chip, and closed the Book.

Juno Vega stood at the back of the Landing, fresh from rehearsing behind Neon Yard, and watched Marlow Fisk’s name go up first on the slate. Juno times everything, and tonight they lost the count of the crowd twice.

It was Friday 6 November, Miss Night. At the end of every week the Way’s callers stand on the Landing and tell their own miss: a call that came off wrong, or never got made. The best-told miss earns a sign, turned face-out in Neon Yard, where every Beast on the Way has a hook. Marlow had never made a call, and Marlow’s hook had never held a sign.

Juno knew which miss Marlow meant to tell. Only the two of them knew it.

Two springs ago, in the Eleven Days, Juno was due on the mic with the Long Call. It was a dare on every count of a night, and Rafa Quintero wrote it for them. That morning Juno reached the Back Booths behind the Corner, sat down, and could not stand up. Juno wrote “Tell them it’s my throat” on one of Marlow’s cards. Marlow told the Corner, then wrote Juno’s half of every conversation for eleven days.

Twice this autumn Marlow asked Juno to tell it at Miss Night. Juno rehearsed louder.

Marlow stood. “My miss. In the spring of last year I told the Corner a friend had a sore throat.”

Marlow told all of it: the booth, the cards, the eleven days. On the Way a miss belongs to the Beast who missed, and the Landing knew whose this was. It gave Marlow nothing. Juno felt every head turn toward the back, and one of them was Rafa’s.

Juno could see what Marlow wanted: the Senders looking for another first-caller before Juno walked to the Edge. Marlow knew what it would cost the two of them, and told it anyway.

For a count of three Juno was as frightened as in the booth, and their legs wanted the floor. Juno walked down to the slate instead and stood where Marlow stood.

“My miss,” Juno said. “My throat was fine. I sat down in the Back Booths on the first morning and I couldn’t make myself stand.”

The Landing roared for it all at once. By midnight Juno’s sign hung face-out in Neon Yard.

Juno found Rafa at the front with the Spotters.

“Stand Spotter for me on the Edge call,” Juno said.

“Yes,” Rafa said.

On the way out Juno passed Marlow’s table by the Corner, with its blank cards and its empty chairs. Marlow’s tin stood open on it, and the top card was in Juno’s own hand. Juno closed the lid, gently, and didn’t sit down.

Severine Dunleavy lit a second lamp by the stove, shut the studio’s front door at dusk, and walked off up the street where the crowd could see. Then they came back down the lane and sat in the dark.

It was Monday 9 November. Since October the front door had stood open from dawn to dusk, with Severine on a stool just inside. Severine titles everything, the stool included. All day a crowd at the door argued about whether walking in forgave June.

In June Severine hung an empty gallery. Corvin Hale said from the front row of Critique Hall, “I saw a wall,” and called it a fraud, and the Hall laughed. Corvin has been Severine’s house for forty years, and Corvin’s verdict has opened every Severine show since. “I saw a wall” were their last words to each other.

All day Severine watched the street from the stool for Corvin’s coat, and dreaded seeing it. Corvin might walk in and see a wall again.

Every morning since the door opened, Severine found a chair pulled up to the stove and the lamp’s oil lower. Tonight Severine meant to see who sat in it.

The back door opens onto the lane and has no latch. A little after midnight it opened, and Corvin came in with their coat on and pulled the chair to the stove. Corvin looked at the summer’s work one canvas at a time until first light.

Severine sat in the dark corner, close enough to hear the chair creak. For five months they had wanted one word from Corvin, and now Corvin was four steps away, looking. Severine could have spoken. They kept still and let Corvin look, and it was the hardest work they did all year.

At first light Corvin put the chair back and went out the way they came. On the hem of Corvin’s coat was a fleck of yellow-green: Late Pear, the colour Severine named in July and used nowhere else.

Severine opened the front door at dawn and sat just inside.

At noon on Tuesday Corvin walked up the street, through the crowd, over the sill in daylight. Corvin stood in front of the first canvas with their coat on, and the crowd read it every way it could. Corvin said two sentences about the canvas, one for what Severine made and one for what Severine meant, and nothing about June. Severine knew Corvin. Corvin would take back “fraud” from the front row of the Hall or nowhere, and not while a count there hung on it.

One sentence from Severine about the nights would have settled every argument at the door. Severine kept Corvin’s nights to themself. That evening they lit the second lamp again, and went home by the street, where the crowd could see.