Free Radiant Days by Elizabeth Hand

the painted wood. I traced the line of the canal with its glinting pewter surface, a pale glaucous sky that resembled the sky outside. Even though the painted trees were green, their canopies summer-full, the scene had acharged, autumnal feel: an October sense of the world spinning too fast for me to catch it, before leaves and clouds and canal and sky were all snatched away.
    The guard stepped back into the room. I moved away from the painting, but stopped when I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
    A man stood in a hole in one of the trees. An old man, dressed in gray, his head surrounded by a gray hood. He was smiling, hand outstretched to touch a bucket with a knife balanced on it. The bucket appeared to be floating in the air, and something dangled from the hole in the branch—a large key, suspended from a chain or thread.
    “Don’t touch the paintings!”
    I backed away. Behind me a group of tourists paraded in, led by a docent who stared at me pointedly until I moved aside.
    “Dutch and Flemish paintings from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” she announced, and I left.
    I went back to the place on Perry Street. Now that I no longer had the distraction of that strange painting, the final rupture with Clea hit me hard. I walked slowly from the Brookland Metro station, dreading the moment when I’d turn the corner and see the abandoned house.
    Yellowing ginkgo leaves drifted against the front steps like hundreds of tiny, discarded paper fans. A stray cat dozed in the sun, stared at me through slitted eyes before crawling through a gap in the concrete foundation. There was an acrid smell from where guys had been pissing outside after the water was shut off. I fumbledin my pocket for the key, but when I reached the top step, I saw that the door was ajar.
    “Hello?” I stopped myself from calling Clea’s name, instead made my voice sound as loud and confident as possible. “Jasper, that you?”
    Inside was dark. Chilly afternoon light spilled through the filthy windows. I stepped over empty beer bottles, a stained pair of drawstring pants I recognized as my own. It was colder than outside and stank of wet cigarette butts, with an underlying reek of sour beer and sewage. Someone, presumably Janis, had written BYE MERLE across a wall pleached with mildew.
    For the first time, I felt a stab of fear. I couldn’t stay here alone, in the dark and cold, with police sirens going off all night and the ceaseless throb of traffic outside. There was no telephone, no electricity; nothing but the rustling of feral cats in the basement, hunting the rats that had taken over once the power was shut off.
    But I had nowhere to go. Even if I’d wanted to return to Greene County, I didn’t have money for the train or bus. I drew a shaking breath and headed for the steps to my upstairs room.
    Someone was there. I gasped, too shocked to scream, as a slight figure flung himself down the steps, knocking me against the wall as he fled. Before I could straighten, a second figure barreled past me.
    “Run!”
he shouted, and I recognized him—Errol, a boy of twelve or thirteen who lived at Edgewood Terrace, the projects a few blocks away. He hung around the 7-Eleven, and I used to say hi to him and his friends when I’d go there to buy Snickers bars.
    “Errol!” I yelled.
    He paused in the doorway and stared straight back at me with his head cocked. Something dangled from his hand. I pointed at it, then lunged at him.
    “That’s my bag!”
    The boys turned and clattered down the steps. I chased after them, and almost fell as I skidded down the steps to the sidewalk. The boys were already at the end of the block, racing across Michigan Avenue and laughing as they looked over their shoulders. A bus pulled over at the corner. I started to dash across the street, halted, breathless, as the light changed and traffic roared toward me.
    By the time I finally reached the other side of Michigan, the bus, and the boys, and my