by Jeff Giles
Zoe and Val were greeted at the door by the banging of a gong the size of a small pizza and a chant of Furg! Mrgh! Furg! from the cooks at the grill. Hailing customers as they came in was one of Dallas’s “new initiatives.” He’d also asked the cooks to think up backstories for their characters; to get serious about chest-hair grooming (“Some of you are already doing solid work, and that’s awesome”); and to grow long, droopy, barbarian mustaches, or buy fake ones.
Dallas had changed into a red Grizzlies T-shirt, jeans, and a battered Carhartt jacket, but was still wearing his pointy, fur-rimmed Hun hat. He looked cute and slightly ridiculous, which Zoe had always thought was a good look for him.
“How are the ‘new initiatives’ going?” she asked.
Dallas sagged.
“There’s been negativity,” he said. “Like, somebody just poked me in the butt with a spear, and nobody would tell me who did it. But these guys are gonna be Huns when I’m finished with them—or, I swear to god, they can all go work at the yogurt place.”
Dallas nodded what’s up? to Val.
“I know Zoe’s too cool to eat here, but you want me to cook you something before we roll?” he said.
Zoe and Val peered over Dallas’s shoulder at the donut-shaped grill. It was a battlefield of unrecognizable foods, most of it frozen and sickly pink. A cook’s fake mustache had fallen off, and he was trying to pick it out from a nest of sizzling soba noodles with his fingers.
“No, thank you,” Val said sweetly. “I’d rather you pressed my face against the grill.”
“The hater thing is old,” said Dallas.
“I’m sticking with it,” said Val. “Because I believe in it.”
Zoe was relieved that the two of them were sparring again, rather than ganging up against her about X. Order had returned to their little solar system.
“When are you going to tell us where we’re going tonight?” said Zoe.
“Soonish, Zo,” said Dallas. “Soonish.”
He removed his Hun hat, and tossed it to the cook, who was trying to reapply his fake mustache.
“Neg khatai bugdiig, mur!” Dallas told him.
“Mundzuc, come on, I have no idea what that means,” said the cook.
“It means—” Dallas shook his head, disappointed. “It just means be careful with my hat.”
Dallas asked Val if they could make a pit stop at a gas station. He ducked inside, and came out with a half gallon of Sprite and a plastic bag full of Pop-Tarts, Funyuns, and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. He told Val to turn right onto 93.
“A clue!” said Zoe. “We’re going somewhere … north.”
They passed the rifle manufacturer, the Flathead Valley Cowboy Church, the lonely fields still waking up from winter. As always when the three of them were in a car, they couldn’t play the radio without serious warfare—Zoe loved country, Val was obsessed with pop, and Dallas only listened to hip-hop—so they rode in silence. Zoe could feel Dallas grow tense in the backseat. He was not an anxious person, generally. Whatever they were going to do was making him nervous.
“You okay?” she said. “You wanna rap for us?”
“No, but thank you for recognizing my artistry,” said Dallas. “I’m okay.”
He clearly wasn’t.
“Do you want me to rap?” said Zoe.
Dallas laughed.
“No, but I bet you’d crush it, dawg,” he said. “You’d sling the straight shit.”
“Yes,” said Zoe. “Yes, I would sling the straight shit.”
She reached back and shoved him playfully, like she’d shoved Rufus. She decided that this was going to be the new way she interacted with people she liked. Why not? It’d worked when she was 12. She felt lucky that even though she had lost so much over the winter, there were still a lot of good people she wanted to shove.
“If you don’t want to tell us where we’re going,” she said, “what if you just told us why we need Funyuns?”
It was getting dark. They passed the car dealership, where hundreds of windshields glinted in the last light.
Dallas leaned forward from the backseat.
“Okay, listen, don’t say anything until I’m finished,” he said. “We’re going to the mountain.”
“I don’t have skis,” said Val. “Plus, the ski season ended yesterday, didn’t it?”
“Wait until he’s finished, Val,” said Zoe. “Did you not hear the instructions? There was only one!”
“And the reason I don’t have skis is that I don’t ski, and will never ski,” said Val. “But I’m here for the Funyuns, so keep going.”
“You’re so much like me,” Zoe told her, “but with, like, more of me added.”
“That’s sweet,” said Val. “Dallas, I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“I’m gonna say this fast,” said Dallas. “Yes, the ski season’s over, but they’re letting people ride the chairlifts while they do maintenance, and Mingyu is working the lifts—and I’m gonna ask her out.”
“Wow,” said Val.
“Boom!” said Zoe. “Woot!”
“I need you guys to be my … my wing-people or -persons, or whatever,” said Dallas. “Val, I know you’re gonna want to make fun of me, but please don’t. Okay, dude?”
“I won’t, dude-dawg,” said Val. “I like Mingyu. She’s weird and not that pleasant.”
“Right?” said Dallas. “I love that about her.”
“I mean, that band she’s in is—is horrible,” said Val. “I’m kind of obsessed with them. When everybody ran out of that dance screaming last year, me and Gloria stayed.”
“Look, she could tell me no,” said Dallas. He lifted the bag of junk food. “If she does, I’m eating all this myself.”
“She’s gonna say yes,” said Zoe. “We’ve been calling her The Girl Who’s Gonna Say Yes for months.”
“Yeah, please never, ever tell her I called her that,” said Dallas.
“I’m proud of you,” said Zoe. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever do this.”
“I was positive you wouldn’t,” said Val.
“It’s just that Val has Gloria—who I’m bummed isn’t here, by the way,” said Dallas.
“Thank you,” said Val. “Me, too.”
“And, Zoe, you’ve got this hell guy,” said Dallas. “I know you don’t want me waiting around. And I told myself I wasn’t waiting around, but now I think maybe I was.” He paused. “I really like Mingyu. And if she’s not, like, put off by my being kind of a stud—which honestly isn’t even under my control—I think she might like me.”
“She will,” said Zoe.
“She definitely will,” said Val.
Val even reached back to high-five him, though since she was facing the wrong direction, it took her awhile to find his hand.
Zoe waved to Mingyu when they spotted her at the bottom of the lift. It was a weird thing to do because they weren’t really friends with her, but Zoe was excited and couldn’t help herself. Confused, Mingyu frowned, and looked behind her to see who Zoe was waving at.
Dallas was jittery. He wanted to ride the lift awhile so he could figure out exactly what he was going to say to The Girl Who Was Hopefully, Probably Gonna Say Yes.
The three of them trudged up to the lift, and a volley of “hey”s pinged all around. Mingyu was dressed in black, except for a screamingly pink beanie. Her bass, which she apparently played unplugged when there was no one in line, stood propped against the control shed. She looked neither happy nor unhappy to see them, which made Zoe nervous on Dallas’s behalf.
“We love your band,” said Zoe.
Val gave her a look: WTF? You don’t love her band! I love her band!
“Thanks?” said Mingyu, looking skeptical. “Chairlift or gondola? It’s gonna take a minute for a gondola.”
“Gondola,” Dallas said, too quickly. He turned to Zoe. “Slim Reaper doesn’t care if people like them—they’d actually prefer it if people didn’t.” He turned back to Mingyu: “Right?”
Min
gyu was impressed.
“Did you look at our website or something?” she said.
“Heck yeah, I looked at your website,” said Dallas. His charm seemed to be functioning again, but then his nerves overtook him and he added, “I like … websites.”
A gondola floated like a bubble down the slope. Mingyu saw the bag of junk food hanging from Dallas’s hand.
“Please don’t make a mess,” she said. “Because then I have to clean it up.”
“We won’t,” they promised, nearly in unison.
“Do you want a Pop-Tart?” said Dallas.
“Okay, yeah,” said Mingyu. It sounded to Zoe like she wasn’t going to say anything else, but then she said: “They should make black Pop-Tarts—and call them Goth-Tarts. They could be licorice-flavored.”
“That sounds disgusting,” said Dallas.
Mingyu smiled for the first time.
“So disgusting,” she said.
“Dude, I would totally eat one,” said Dallas.
“I would eat a whole box,” said Mingyu.
Soon Zoe, Val, and Dallas were up in a gondola, the mountainside unscrolling beneath them.
“That went pretty good, right?” said Dallas.
Zoe and Val agreed that it had.
“I think she’s gonna say yes when I ask her,” said Dallas.
“When exactly are you going to ask her?” said Val.
“Soonish,” said Dallas.
Zoe gazed out of their big bubble as they rose up the darkening mountain. It reminded her of the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where Charlie and Willy float over the city in a glass elevator. Dallas was so worried about making a mess in the gondola that every time a piece of litter hit the floor, he lunged for it and stuffed it in a pocket.
Zoe felt the tiniest twinge of jealousy about Dallas and Mingyu. It wasn’t because she was worried about losing Dallas as a friend—she knew she wouldn’t—but because she missed X. She felt like she was part of something that had been torn in half, like one side of her body was just a long, ragged tear.
She looked at Dallas and Val, and tried to focus on the conversation. Dallas was asking how exactly he should ask Mingyu out.
“I think you should say, really loudly, ‘Mingyu, I ship us—and I don’t care who knows it!’ ” said Val.
“Really?” said Dallas.
“Oh my god, no—do not say that,” said Zoe. “Val’s messing with you.” She made a face at Val. “Stop being evil.”
“But I’m evil,” said Val.
Zoe faded from the conversation. She couldn’t stop wondering where X was right that second.
Some lord was probably telling him that he was nothing and no one. X had believed that once. Zoe was afraid he’d believe it again. He’d told her about one of the lords. Dervish. That was his name. Gray skin. Pointy face like a rat’s. He was the psycho who’d wrecked their house—the one who tried to kill Jonah. Now X was back in that hole, and at Dervish’s mercy, probably. Should she have begged him not to go back?
Val and Dallas were staring because she hadn’t spoken in so long.
“Where are you right now?” said Val.
“Who knows,” said Zoe.
The gondola slowed as it reached the platform at the top of the mountain. Zoe opened the door and got out.
“I need to walk a little,” she said. “Sorry.”
She pushed the door shut before they could object. The gondola swung around the turnstile. As it descended the slope, Val knocked from inside and mouthed, Are you okay?
Zoe gestured back: I’m fine! I’m fine!
She wasn’t.
She tramped away from the lift. Her boots were too thin for this much snow. The leather had started to darken. But she wanted to be alone, to be somewhere no one could see her. She peered into the deserted lodge: The chairs were upside down on the tables. A cue ball sat on the pool table, lonely as the moon.
She tried the door. Locked, of course.
A handwritten sign said, We Ain’t Open. Find Something Else to Do with Your Life!
There was a small plateau so skiers could get to the northern slopes. It was abandoned now. Zoe trudged across, and gazed out. The sun was down, but night was still forming over the valley. The darkness was bleeding into everything, eating away at light and color like a science experiment.
She started down the slope. The snow gave way. Zoe plunged down until it was up to her knees. Instead of struggling, she looked out over the valley and screamed wordlessly. It felt freeing—like she was sending the black cloud in her chest out to join the rest of the darkness.
A hundred yards down on the slope, a flashlight clicked on.
The beam swung toward her.
Shit.
Zoe couldn’t see a face. No shoulders, no shape. The glare grew stronger as whoever it was came closer. She didn’t like having the thing aimed at her. She scrambled back up the slope, falling through the snow, climbing some more, then falling again. She could actually feel the beam growing hot on her back. Which was impossible. Or should have been.
She heard someone behind her.
It couldn’t be X—he’d know that this would piss her off.
Screw it, she thought.
She turned and looked.
A man in blue robes came toward her. He was handsome, dark-skinned, taller than X even. The light was coming from his palms. He was still a hundred feet away when he spoke, but it was as if he whispered into her ear: “I am called Regent. Is my name known to you?”
“Yes,” said Zoe, relieved. “You’re the nice one. What do you want? You scared the crap out of me.”
“Is this the manner in which you address everyone?” said Regent.
“Generally,” said Zoe.
Regent gave the tiniest hint of a smile.
“We have business, you and I,” he said.
He pointed to the lodge.
“I couldn’t get in,” said Zoe.
“Perhaps I can,” said Regent.
They went to the door, and he dipped his hand through the glass as if it were a pool of water. Zoe followed him into the restaurant, which was only marginally warmer than the mountain. She felt along the walls for switches, but everything had been disconnected.
“The electricity’s off,” she said.
All Regent had to do was touch the sconces along the walls with his fingertips, and they glowed to life, giving off not just light but heat. The two of them sat at a wooden table, which was empty except for salt and pepper shakers, a container of sweetener packets, and an ad for a drink called a Powder Hound.
Regent looked too grand for the place, like a king in a kitchen. He accidentally set the legs of his chair down on his robe. It tore a little when he pulled up to the table.
Zoe took a Sweet’N Low from the container, and spun it on the tabletop.
“This is weird,” she said.
Regent seemed to agree. His eyes caught the pool table.
“You know how to play?” said Zoe.
“I do not,” he said. “My father had a billiards table among his possessions in Portugal, but it had hoops and ramps. There was even a small castle, in which one had to somehow deposit the ball.”
“You’re thinking of miniature golf,” said Zoe.
Regent gave her a confused look.
“You’re Portuguese?” said Zoe. “I assumed you were from Africa.”
“You are not the first,” said Regent. “I corrected people for a hundred and fifty years, then realized that I didn’t especially care what they believed.”
“Sorry,” said Zoe. She spun the pink packet around. “Is X okay? Why are you here?”
“He is in no pain but for the pain of missing you,” said Regent. “He begged to come here in my stead. I refused him, for every time I send him to the Overworld, chaos follows.”
“I know,” said Zoe. “Your friend Dervish tried to kill my brother.”
“Dervish is no friend to me,” said Regent. “And believe this o
r not as you like, but I knew Jonah to be safe when we brought down your house. As did Dervish. We’re forbidden from taking the life of an innocent mortal. It is a lucky thing, for Dervish would have cut a bloody swath through the world by now.”
“He threatened my family so many times,” said Zoe. “He was bluffing?”
“Even I find him convincing,” said Regent.
Zoe returned to her original question.
“I want to know about X,” she said. “Did he find his mother?”
“Not yet,” said Regent. “But the quest continues.”
“He said you knew her,” said Zoe. “Is that why you’re helping him?”
“It is partly that, yes, and that is no small thing,” said Regent. “If you had known Versailles—”
“That was her name?” said Zoe. “It’s beautiful.”
“She deserved it,” said Regent.
“Were you in love with her?” said Zoe.
Regent pushed himself back from the table, tearing his robe again.
“You know, it is possible to wonder something without immediately blurting it out,” he said.
“It is?” said Zoe. She took out some more sweetener packs and built a tower. “Were you in love with her?”
“No, as it happens, I was not,” said Regent. “If you must know, my heart expired many years before I did.”
“I don’t understand that,” said Zoe. “What does that mean?”
Regent exhaled.
“In my nineteenth year, my father hired a woman to plant black cherry trees in his vineyard,” he said. “After two months, I announced that I loved her, for I was enormously vain and assumed that she loved me, too. I remember saying to my younger brother, ‘How could she not be smitten, when it is I who am the smiter?’ ”
“Is ‘smiter’ really a word?” said Zoe.
“It was once,” said Regent.
He went to the pool table, and bounced the cue ball off the cushions. The ball careened around the table without stopping or even slowing down. Regent dug into the pockets, and set three more going. The balls rushed by one another without colliding.
“What happened with the girl in the vineyard?” said Zoe.
“She chose my brother,” Regent said. “So I killed him.”
