“You’re saying that because of the pickle.”
“Or because I’m hungry.”
She skips out the door, and I catch her arm before she’s across the porch. She looks at me quizzically. “It’s getting dark,” I say, waving my hand at the deepening blue sky and the thickening shadows. I am trying not to think about what this place will be like when it’s pitch-black. I don’t want to be alone—Mr. Rabbit doesn’t count as company. Plus, Claire could encounter danger, like homicidal townies, feral dogs, or bandicoots, though I’m not entirely sure what a bandicoot is. Rodent of some kind.
She pats my hand as if to reassure me and then wiggles out of my grasp. “You stay here. I’ll be back.” She darts out the door, and I start to follow but then I hear the howl again. It freezes my body in place, even though my mind intends for me to chase after Claire. The howl is echoed by another wolf or coyote or feral dog or hell beast on the opposite side. By the time my bones unlock, Claire has disappeared into the shadows of the lawn and the towering junk pile. I swear under my breath.
Stepping off the porch, I call softly, “Claire?” I don’t dare shout. It feels as if the desert is listening. I wait, straining to hear any sound of her. But there’s only wind. It blows my hair against my face, and I wipe the strands away. Shadows are everywhere, layered thick like cloth, wrapping and hiding everything. The other houses blot out the deep blue sky. She could be near or inside any of them. I don’t think she stayed in this yard but still I call again softly, “Claire, we can wait and find food in the morning. It’s just one night. Come back. Please.”
The evening air smells almost sweet, which surprises me, given the junk pile. I’d expect it to smell like overripe fish or gym socks. Instead it smells like fresh mesquite and sage, like heated earth and dust. Overhead, there are stars spreading across the sky. It’s so stunningly beautiful that it freezes me as thoroughly as the bone-chilling howl did a few minutes earlier. I look for familiar constellations—Orion, the Big Dipper, Scorpius—but I don’t see them. Just an array of stars, scattered like glitter sprinkled over black felt.
“Pretty, aren’t they?” a voice comes out of the darkness.
I yelp, bolt inside the house, and slam the door. I then remember that Claire is out there with whoever spoke. Crap, I think.
Staring at the closed door, I can’t bring myself to open it again. Instead, knowing I’m a coward, I press my face against the half of the window that is intact and not covered by the deli sign. I peer out at the mountainous shadow of the junk pile on the lawn. I don’t see any movement, but of course it’s dark and—
Outside, a face presses itself against the glass.
I shriek again.
He grins.
Peter, my brain tells me. It’s Peter. I consider for a moment whether that makes me feel safer or not. I don’t trust him, but unlike the people in town, he doesn’t seem to want to hurt me. He did find me shelter, as he promised. And maybe he can help me find a way home, even though he and Claire said he couldn’t. I open the door.
He’s leaning against the door frame, arms crossed, which makes his muscles bulge. He pushed my car to town without breaking a sweat, so I shouldn’t be surprised that he looks strong enough to lift me over his head and twirl me like I’m a ballerina. But still, I stare at him. He’s nearly too beautiful to be real. He’s also grinning at me as if I’ve done something monumentally amusing. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”
“Didn’t you just leave?” I ask.
“I got bored.”
“You know it ruins a dramatic exit if you return a half hour later.”
“Next time, I’ll leave in a puff of smoke,” he promises.
I step out of the house onto the porch. “Did you see Claire— Wait, can you do that? The puff of smoke thing?” I don’t mean to be distracted when Claire could be in danger, but he seems so casually earnest.
“Water vapor, actually.”
“Really?”
“No. Sadly, I have no puffing abilities whatsoever. Told you, all I do is find people.”
“Can you find Claire?” And the Missing Man. And a way home.
“Not unless she’s lost in the void.” He scans the yard and the houses beyond. “She knows to be careful. Have faith in her.” But I think I hear a note of doubt in his voice. Or maybe that’s me, projecting my own fear onto what I hear. In a singsong voice, he adds, “‘All the world is made of faith, trust, and pixie dust.’ Except our dust is not exactly pixie dust.”
I listen to the wind cross the desert, stirring up brambles in the loose dirt. It’s still warm. I sit at the edge of the porch and stare out into the darkness. I wish I dared turn the porch light on, to force back the encroaching shadows. “She was hungry. Who takes care of her here? And the other kids in town?”
“You ask the wrong questions.” Peter steps up onto the porch railing. He walks along it, balancing, and it creaks under his weight. Any second it will snap. Before it can, he reaches up, grabs the gutter overhead, and swings forward to land catlike on the ground.
“How do I go home?”
“Better. But still not quite it.”
“How do I find what I lost?”
“Close.”
I want to yell at Peter, shake him until he tells me how to go home. But I don’t want to alienate the only person with answers who’s willing to talk to me. “So tell me. What should I be asking?”
He scoops a button off the ground and tosses it into the air. It’s a black disc that winks in the moonlight. “You could ask why the caged bird sings. Or what is in a name? ‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’” He catches the button.
Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Stay calm. He might not even know how absolutely infuriating he is. Gorgeous, yes, but infuriating. “Where did you find Mr. Rabbit?”
“You know that’s a highly unoriginal name.”
“Can you just try to answer a question? Any question?”
“Granted, it’s more dignified than Mr. Bunny.”
I peer into the darkness for any hint of movement. She’s just a kid. I shouldn’t have let her wander off. I picture everything that could have happened to her: tripped over junk in the dark and broke her ankle; found by hungry feral dogs and ripped to bits; lost in the dark...or more lost. Lost in Lost. She knows this place better than I do, I think. My bumbling around after her won’t help. “Claire?” I call softly, knowing it won’t work.
She bounds out of the darkness like a happy puppy. Her arms are full of shoebox-size boxes. School lunch boxes. “Peter!” Her voice is full of joy. Running to him, she dumps the boxes into his arms, and then she skips over to me. He dramatically mimes being wounded by this quick rejection. She doesn’t see. “Entire school bus with backpacks and lunch boxes!”
“Great,” I say, and in the light of the moon, I see her smile. She has the ideal kid smile, one missing front tooth and one fat grown-up tooth, recently grown. Her cheeks puff up round like she’s a chipmunk with nuts. “Where are the kids?”
“What kids?”
“From the bus. The bus must have had kids that owned those lunch boxes.”
She shrugs. “Not in the bus.” She pauses. “But I bet they’re hungry.” She skips after Peter. I follow them inside and shut the door. Instantly, it’s darker. I widen my eyes as if that will help me see better, and I find the dead bolt by feel and slide it locked.
I wish there were more locks.
I wait in the hallway for my eyes to adjust. After a minute, I can see the shadows of furniture, a hint of the staircase, the dark holes that are the doorways. Feeling along the wall, I follow the sounds of Peter’s and Claire’s voices to the dining room, and I wonder if I should do something about a busload of kids who might or might not be here somewhere. I picture them scar
ed and shivering in the cool desert night. I picture them shuffling off the bus as zombies. And I decide that since I can’t do anything about them and since I have zero evidence that this place has zombies, I refuse to worry about it.
The dining room is bathed in blue shadows. Over the table, the chandelier is a tangle of glass that catches the stray bits of pale blue moonlight. Peter dumps the lunch boxes on the dining room table—there are at least half a dozen. He and Claire rifle through them.
“Where did all this come from?” I ask.
“Told you,” Claire says, chewing. “School bus.”
“I mean, all the lost things. This place.” You. Me.
“From the void,” Peter answers, as if this were obvious.
“But what is the void? Do you mean the dust storm on the highway? It’s not just a storm, is it? Where did it come from? Is it always there? Why have I never heard of it, of Lost, of Finders and Missing Men? None of this should exist.” And I shouldn’t be here.
“Eat,” Peter says, not unkindly.
“But...”
“I don’t know,” Claire says. “But the void is real. I think.”
“It’s a servant of despair,” Peter says, “and it will destroy you if it can.”
“And you?” I ask. “What are you?”
“A servant of hope.” He bows but there’s no mocking in his voice or his eyes. In fact, he looks sad, an ancient kind of sad, as if he carries the weight of a century’s sorrow.
I don’t know what to say to that insanity. So I turn to Claire. Scooting past me, Claire selects a Disney princess lunch box and scurries to one corner. She tucks herself into the shadows, and I hear the snaps open on the box. I don’t know how she can see what she’s eating, or why she doesn’t sit at the table or closer to the window.
Maybe she’s used to hiding as she eats.
I try to imagine what her life has been like here, surrounded by madness, and I can’t. Near as I can tell, she’s been on her own, scavenging for herself, taking care of herself, with only Peter as an older brother figure. I don’t know what she’s had to do or how difficult it has been.
Crossing to the table to join them, I bump into one of the chairs. I push it aside. It’s coated in dust, and I wipe my palms on my pants before I pick up a Spider-Man box, open it, and feel around inside. One squishy sandwich. One limp banana. A plastic bag full of soft orbs, either old grapes or eyeballs. I shut the box.
Less hungry, I open a second box and feel a sealed package. Aha! Crackers? Maybe a package of crackers and cheese, or fake cheese since I doubt that orange goop has ever encountered a cow even in a former life. I tear open the package and test a cracker, nibbling at its edge. It’s actually a pretzel chip with a tiny cup of hummus, also sealed air-tight. Sliding into one of the dining room chairs, I eat a dinner that would probably appall my mother, even though it’s healthier than some of the dinners I ate in college. Mom is the sort of person known to slip pureed squash into brownie mixture. She’s been worse since...lately. Thinking about her makes the cracker taste like cardboard in my mouth. Peter continues to sort through the boxes. He tosses items over his shoulder. They splat on the floor.
“Somebody could slip on those, or trip,” I point out.
“How dreary—to be—Somebody!” Peter tosses an apple. It hits with a wet thump. I don’t hear it roll—too rotten, I guess. I can’t see it on the floor. I am going to step on it later, think it’s a dead mouse, and scream my head off.
“How public—like a frog,” I complete the line. “Yes, you read Emily Dickinson’s poems in school. Very impressive. Just for the record, cryptically quoting random famous people without attribution doesn’t make you deep, or change the fact that you’re making a mess.” From the corner, Claire asks, “You went to school?”
I wonder if she’s right to sound amazed. For all I know, Peter could have spent his entire life wandering into, out of, and through this town... Another thought occurs to me. “Aren’t you in school?” I ask Claire. “Is there a school here?”
“I loved school,” Claire says. There’s the same longing in her voice as when she’d talked about cupcakes. “Especially story time. Do you tell stories?”
She looks eager, as if she’d devour me if I say yes. “I don’t really know any stories.” I turn to Peter, away from her hungry eyes. I can’t see his eyes in the dark. His back is to the window. I wish he’d turn. “She should be in school.” She should be home with parents taking care of her, not here scavenging like an abandoned pet, but I can’t say that in front of her.
“I could find a school,” Peter says, as if it were like finding stray lunch boxes.
“You could send her where there are schools. Beyond Lost. Home.”
“Only the Missing Man can—”
“Yes, you said that. But you could find the Missing Man. You’re the Finder, aren’t you? So, why not find him?” I am trying to keep my voice steady and rational. I am not succeeding well. I don’t think he understands that I want to go home now, not next week, not next month.
“A Finder isn’t a bloodhound. I can only find those who are lost in the void—at least until they fade. But the Missing Man is absent, not lost. I see the kernel of hope inside the lost like a light in the darkness. Speaking of light...” He flips on the dining room light. It bathes the table in brightness, and my eyes tear.
I leap toward the switch. “No!” His hand is still on the switch. I force it down, his hand and the switch, extinguishing the light in the chandelier. The room plunges into darkness that seems deeper and fuller after the brief exposure to light. I see blotches of light, afterimages, overlaid on the shadow that is Peter. His hand turns under mine as if to catch my fingers. I draw my hand away. He talks like such a mystical creature that I’d forgotten he’s real and solid. But his hand felt warm. “It’s not safe,” I say. “The mob...they’ll see.”
I can’t read his expression. I can’t even see his face. I see him as a shadow in front of the dining room window, the moonlit desert and the hills of trash outside. He’s silent for a moment, and I have no idea if he’s angry or amused or confused or doesn’t care at all. “You don’t need to worry. I’ll protect you.” He says it with such casual certainty, as if protecting me from a crazed mob is no more complex or heroic than unclogging a toilet, and I feel...safe. It’s such a staggering feeling that for an instant, I can’t breathe. I hear the crinkle of plastic—he’s unwrapping food. He talks as he chews. “I can’t wait to see his expression when he comes back and discovers you’re here thriving! Never had a chance like this before.”
My mouth feels dry as the illusory feeling of safety shatters. I force myself to swallow and say in an even voice, “I don’t want to be used for your personal vendetta. I have to leave as soon as possible. My mother needs me.”
“Aw, vendettas are fun. Come on, everyone loves a good vendetta.”
“She’s... I have to leave.” I try to sound firm.
Peter heaves a sigh, stuffs another cracker into his mouth, chomps, and then swallows. “This is exactly why I don’t fraternize with the lost. All the whining.” He levels a finger at Claire. “You promised she’s different.” My eyes have adjusted again, and I can see his silhouette, the curves of his face and the shape of his shoulders. In his trench coat, he’s an imposing figure, exactly the type you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. Or dark dining room. I don’t know why I want so badly to trust him, except that I want to trust someone and my choices are severely limited. He scoops another lunch box off the table and tucks it under his arm. “You’re all the same. I can’t imagine what the Missing Man saw in you.”
“Oh, don’t go, Peter!” Claire jumps to her feet. I hear her food spill onto the floor. There’s a glug as if a drink has poured out. “Please! She is different! I can tell!”
He ducks out of the dining room.
I follow him out of the dining room and halt in the hallway. “I didn’t mean...”
But the hall is empty.
At least, I think it is.
I peer into the darkness. I don’t see any movement. I touch the front door. The dead bolt is still locked. He couldn’t have left, at least not that way. “Peter? Are you here?”
He doesn’t answer. I step into the kitchen. The refrigerator is a hulking shadow in one corner. It hums, and I think about opening it for the light. But no. Can’t risk it.
I skirt around the kitchen table, and then I head for the living room. All the bookcases are shadows, as are the couch, the chairs, the coffee table. I don’t see his silhouette anywhere. I check both bedrooms as well as the bathroom. He could be in a closet or under a bed or hidden in one of the darker shadows in the corners of the rooms, but why would he be? “Peter!”
He can’t be upstairs. I would have heard the stairs creak. Still, I feel my way up the stairs, one step at a time, kicking each one before I step. It’s darkest in the middle of the stairs where the moonlight from windows above and below don’t quite meet. At the top of the stairs, I look around. The stuffed rabbit still sits in the middle of the floor. A small shadow, he looks lonely. The attic room is otherwise empty, and the window is still locked. I pick up Mr. Rabbit and carry him downstairs.
“Claire?” I return to the dining room.
“Did you find him?” She’s behind me. I jump.
I shake my head, then remember she most likely can’t see me. “He must have left.”
“But the door is still locked.” She’d noticed that, too. Smart kid. “Maybe he’s playing hide-and-seek! Olly olly oxen free! Come out, Peter!” She scampers through the house. I hear cabinet and closet doors open and shut.
After a few seconds of listening, I have an idea, born of supreme paranoia. I enter the kitchen and feel my way to the refrigerator. For the barest of seconds, I crack open the fridge enough so that light spills into the room. I see what I need: a mop. I shut the door, plunging the room into darkness that feels more complete than before, and I feel my way through the thick blackness to the mop. It leans in the space between the counter and the trash can. By the time I reach it, my eyes have adjusted to the darkness again. I leave Mr. Rabbit on the kitchen counter and take the mop.
The Lost Page 9
