Dead Set

Six

The elevator was out again when Zoe got home. She stumbled up the stairs as exhaustion numbed her arms and legs. The trip to Iphigene and back had taken more out of her than she’d realized. According to the clock in the liquor store window down the block, it was almost eight. She’d been gone for hours. Still, nothing could break her buoyant mood and the new optimism bubbling inside her. Today she’d seen her father and tomorrow she’d bring him home. What could be better than that?

“Zoe?” Her mother was sitting on the living room sofa. The room smelled of cigarettes and blue-gray smoke curled from the fresh butt in a saucer on the floor. Her mother looked as tired as she felt, Zoe thought.

“Hi. Sorry I’m home so late.” She leaned against the wall on the other side of the room, trying to look relaxed, like nothing had been going on.

“Where have you been?”

“Nowhere. Out walking around.”

“Don’t lie to me. Where have you been?”

Zoe stood up straight as a familiar old tension filled the room.

“At a record store,” she said.

“Till eight at night? What record store?”

“This used place in North Beach. They have a lot of old punk vinyl. I even saw a couple of covers you did.” She should have seen this coming. The buzzkill and her mother’s seemingly magical ability to start in on her just when she was feeling good. Zoe stared down at her shoes.

“Don’t change the subject,” barked her mother. “Your school called me today. You’ve been cutting classes.”

Zoe closed her eyes and tried not to groan. The scene they were starting was way too familiar.

“Just a couple,” she said.

“More than that, according to your school.”

“Well, they’re wrong,” Zoe shouted. “No one knows me here. They wouldn’t know if I was there or not.”

“So, you don’t answer when they take roll?”

“Not always,” said Zoe, hating how stupid she sounded telling such a feeble lie.

“I don’t believe you.”

Even though she knew she had no right to be angry, Zoe couldn’t help herself. Why did this have to happen now, just when things were getting better? “Believe what you want. Nothing I say matters around here, anyway.”

“What does that mean?” her mother asked, her voice getting low, her tone wary.

“You brought us here. This apartment. The new school. This whole stupid life we’re living was your idea.”

“It’s starting again, isn’t it? The lies. The disappearing.” Her mother reached for the cigarettes, caught herself, and dropped them to the floor.

“Nothing is starting again,” mumbled Zoe. She pressed the palms of her hands to her forehead, trying to force down the headache that was building behind her eyes. “Why are you acting like this?”

Zoe’s mother stood and tried to grab her. “Let me see your arms.”

Zoe crossed them tightly over her chest. “No!”

“What are you hiding?” Her mother grabbed again, caught Zoe’s sleeve, and pulled. Zoe twisted away, got loose, and backed into the hall.

“I’m not hiding anything,” Zoe said. “But I don’t want to be examined when you say it like that.”

Her mother came closer, red-faced and furious. “How the hell am I supposed to say it, Zoe? ‘Please, dear, if you don’t mind, let me see if you’ve decided to start mutilating yourself again.’ How’s that?”

“I don’t do that stuff anymore, I swear,” Zoe said, her voice small and childlike, a tone she hated.

“Then show me.”

“Not when you’re like this!” she yelled.

“I want to believe you,” said her mother, turning away. She walked back into the living room and stood with her back to Zoe. She seemed to be thinking. “What about all the classes you’ve been missing?” she asked.

Zoe sighed. “The school sucks. My teachers are jerks. The only decent one I have is Mr. Danvers. Sometimes I cut after his class.”

“That’s all?”

“Well, the other day this stupid bitch snuck some vodka into the lunchroom and spilled it all over me.”

“You were drinking at school?”

“No!” shouted Zoe. “Will you listen to me?” Exhaustion and the pointlessness of an argument she knew she couldn’t win left her with the overwhelming desire just to give up and lie down on the floor. Let her mother yell until her voice was gone. Maybe, if she stayed on the floor long enough, she’d turn to stone like one of Mr. Danvers’s fossils.

“I didn’t even know this girl,” Zoe said. “She pulled out this vodka and spilled it all over. I was angry and I smelled like a wino, so I came home. What was I supposed to do? They don’t know me there. Should I go to class smelling like booze and get expelled? If you don’t believe me, the shirt is still on the roof. I wanted to see if I could get the smell out.”

“Which shirt was it?”

“The Germs.”

“Damn. I always liked that shirt.”

“Me, too.”

Her mother dropped down onto the sofa and picked up the cigarettes. This time she lit one. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and calm. “I know our situation right now is hard, but I can’t get us through it alone. I need some help.”

“I know,” said Zoe. She went to where her mother sat and pulled up her sleeves, showing her unmarked skin. “It’s Dad who’s gone. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

Her mother closed her eyes for a minute. When she opened them again, they were red and wet. “Thank you,” she said. She puffed at the cigarette. “I thought you were hurting yourself again.”

“I’m not. I’m okay,” said Zoe, trying to sound reassuring. She showed her mother the rubber band and snapped it.

“Okay. But listen, you can’t keep ditching classes. The school said you can make up the classes you missed, but you’ll have to do a lot of extra work. Maybe stay late some evenings and weekends. Understand?”

Zoe nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

“Okay.” Her mother leaned back, rubbing her eyes with one hand and holding the cigarette with the other. Her hair was a mess. Between that, her red eyes, and the lines the harsh living room light etched into her forehead, she looked a hundred years old. Nothing at all like the girl with the purple eye shadow.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

Zoe slipped past her and sat on the sofa. “When I was born, did you quit working so you could stay at home and take care of me?”

Her mother pushed some stray hairs off her forehead. “Your dad and I thought it would be good if you had someone around.”

“I understand that part. But why didn’t you keep designing? Do freelance work, like when I was at school and stuff?”

Her mother frowned, not the furious kind Zoe had grown used to but something more introspective. She leaned back into the sofa cushions. “I used to be really good, you know? Then I stopped when you were little. When I thought about going back to work, it felt like everything had passed me by. There was all this new software I didn’t know and there were these kids who were so damned good at it. I didn’t know how to get back in the game.” She puffed the cigarette, made a face, and crushed it with the others in the saucer. She shook her head. “That’s a lie. I choked. Simple as that. Once I stopped, I was too scared to fight my way back in.”

“But you wanted to?”

“Hell, yeah,” she said. “It’s funny, you asking about this. Before he died, your dad and I were talking about it. He could get me discounts on some digital graphics classes through his company. What made you ask about this now?”

“No reason. I just wondered,” Zoe said. She took a long breath and let it out. “I’m going to my room now, okay?” Her mother nodded.

Zoe got up and started for her bedroom. Halfway there, she turned around and came back. From the chair, her mother looked up at her. When Zoe leaned down, her mother looked unsure and flinched a little. Zoe kissed her on the cheek.

“I promised someone I’d do that.”

“Who?”

“I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

“Set your alarm a little early,” said her mother. “I rented a car. I’m driving you to school in the morning and picking you up after school until you’re caught up on your work.”

Damn. “Yeah, okay. ’Night.”

“ ’Night.”

Zoe was still shaky, but she was also exhausted. She felt like a deflated balloon, limp and shapeless. She tried to push the fight with her mother out of her head, and she lay down without taking her clothes off. It’s just for a minute, she told herself. Just until I catch my breath. She snapped the rubber band twice.

A couple of minutes later, she was fast asleep.

In her dream she was near the tree that held the fort, but this was one of those rare nights where she didn’t materialize in the fort itself. Looking out across the field, she knew why this time was different. The normally empty field tonight was full of carnival rides. Zoe instantly recognized the carousel and Ferris wheel that she and her father had ridden in Iphigene. She called up to Valentine to come down and go on the rides with her. She started toward the spinning carousel, then stopped. A black dog sat on the edge of the platform. A woman-shaped shadow, darker this time, rode one of the carousel horses, a fierce black war-horse in shining armor. Zoe took a step back and her foot came down on something soft. It hissed. A snake.

The field was covered in a black, writhing river of glistening fangs and dead green eyes. Zoe froze, one hand on the ladder that led up to the fort and the other up defensively by her throat. Her mouth remained closed, but somewhere in the back of her brain she was screaming. She knew that all she had to do was step up onto the ladder and climb the few feet and she’d be out of danger, but she couldn’t move. Her eternal, primal fear of snakes paralyzed her, froze her in place. The snakes seethed around her feet, their bodies sighing through the short grass until it sounded to her like a crack in the earth letting out the world’s last wheezing breath before it died.

Something fastened around Zoe’s wrist. She started to scream, but her throat closed up and she couldn’t make a sound. She felt herself being pulled upward. Zoe looked up to see Valentine reaching down from the top of the ladder, trying to haul her up. Seeing him above her snapped her out of her frozen fear and she began to climb. When she got to the top, Valentine pulled her up the last few feet into the fort. She fell back against the railing, out of breath. Valentine was panting, too.

“Thanks,” she wheezed, then coughed drily.

“Breathe,” said Valentine between his own deep breaths. “In through your nose and out through your mouth.”

Zoe nodded, following his instructions. She already felt calmer, and in a couple of minutes the breathing slowed her heartbeat and she was no longer gulping air. When she could talk again, she said, “Where did they all come from?”

Valentine shrugged. “From the mountains, I think. Did you bring the carnival?”

Zoe looked over her shoulder at the bright inviting lights on the rides. “I guess so,” she said. “I was just at a park like that. I must have dreamed the rides here.”

“You went to an amusement park?”

Zoe nodded. “Yeah. Dad was there.”

Valentine looked at her for a moment, like he was carefully considering his words. It wasn’t the reaction Zoe had been expecting. “You saw Father? Where?”

“This crazy town called Iphigene. That’s what I wanted to tell you tonight, but the snakes spooked me.”

“Don’t worry about them. They’re scary, but not poisonous.”

“That doesn’t help much,” said Zoe, embarrassed at how small her voice sounded.

Valentine pulled her to her feet, grabbed a handful of almonds that had fallen from the tree, and dropped them over the sides. The snakes ignored them. He leaned over the railing, hawked up something in his throat, and spit over the edge. There was no reaction from below. The snakes were too busy striking at swarms of fireflies that swirled out of the nearby grove.

“See?” Valentine said. “They’re not too bright.”

Zoe remained unconvinced, but nodded at Valentine.

“Tell me about Iphigene,” he said. He tried to make the request sound spontaneous, but Zoe could hear tension in his voice. “How do you even know about the place?”

“I told you. I was there. It’s where the dead go and wait before they go on to wherever.”

“How did you get there?”

“By bus!” Zoe said, laughing, happy to reveal the craziest part of her trip. But Valentine didn’t smile back. He looked concerned.

“Emmett sent me,” Zoe said. “With this old machine. An Animagraph.”

Valentine kicked a few more almonds down onto the snakes. “Did Emmett ask you for anything?”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to be yelled at twice in one night, and she especially didn’t want to be yelled at by Valentine. Why couldn’t someone just be happy for her?

“You said before that he didn’t ask for anything, but I don’t know if you were telling me the truth. People like Emmett, they always ask for something.”

“How do you know?”

“I see a lot up here.” Valentine nodded to the telescope propped against the tree.

Zoe looked out at the spinning carousel. “I gave him a tooth.”

Valentine whirled around. “You gave him one of your teeth?” Valentine said, fear or anger edging into his voice.

“No!” said Zoe. “I gave him a tooth. Not my tooth.” It felt like everyone was after her tonight.

Very quietly, Valentine said, “What do you think he wanted with one of your teeth?”

“I don’t know. He’s a lonely old weirdo who bribes girls for souvenirs. He probably beats off to them when he goes home.”

“I wouldn’t be so worried if that’s all it was.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s only one reason someone like Emmett would want a tooth from someone like you. That’s to gain power over you.”

“What kind of power?”

“I don’t know exactly,” said Valentine. He crossed his arms and frowned. “The point is that anyone who asks you for something like that isn’t your friend. Emmett is dangerous and he wants a lot more from you than a tooth.”

“But he sent me to see Dad. He’s going to let me take Dad’s spirit home tomorrow.”

“And what does he want for that?”

Zoe bit the inside of her cheek. It hurt immediately, so she stopped. She wanted to yell at Valentine the same way she’d yelled at her mother. She’d come here to share something wonderful with him and he was spoiling it by being more scared of a silly old creep than she was of snakes. And snakes were real and could really hurt you. Zoe wasn’t scared of Emmett. She’d handled jocks trying to cop feels in the hallways at school and her friends’ stepfathers when they got too touchy-feely. Zoe knew she could take care of herself, but knew Valentine wouldn’t believe her. It was still Valentine, though, and she didn’t want to lie to him again.

“Some of my blood,” she said.

“Blood,” said Valentine flatly. He shook his head. “You can’t see him again. No matter what he promised you.”

“Look, if he’s as bad as you say, then I can’t leave Dad with him.”

“Father can take care of himself. He wouldn’t want you putting yourself in danger.”

“I don’t believe this,” said Zoe. All the frustration and anger she’d felt earlier with her mother was coming back. “What do you mean control me? For what? You think he wants to rape me or something?”

“Maybe,” said Valentine evenly. “But there are some things even worse.”

“Like what?”

Valentine shook his head and walked to the far end of the platform.

“I’m only going back one more time,” said Zoe. “Then I’m never going to see him again.”

“You’re in danger already.”

“You know what? I don’t care,” Zoe shouted. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff in the last few days and I’m willing to sacrifice a little of my safety for Dad because I know he’d do it for me.”

Valentine picked up the telescope and walked around to the far side of the tree without saying a word. When Zoe came around the tree, he was holding the telescope up and was looking at the mountain.

“Want to hear something funny?” Zoe asked.

“Always.”

“A girl told me she wanted to kiss me.”

Valentine slid the telescope sections in and out, focusing it. “I can see that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re pretty. Why wouldn’t she want to kiss you?”

Zoe looked away, embarrassed by the compliment.

“Is she cute?” Valentine asked.

“Yeah. You’d like her.”

“You’ll have to introduce me sometime.”

Zoe grinned and leaned back against the tree. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell someone.”

Valentine came over and hugged her. “Thanks,” he said. Zoe nodded. She reached up, grabbed a low branch, and lifted up her feet. She hung there until her arms got tired and she had to put her feet down again.

“Come here,” Valentine said from over by the railing. He pulled a book of matches from his back pocket. As Zoe came up next to him, he struck a match and let it drop. The match became a microscopic meteor streaking to the ground. But before it could hit, a half-dozen snakes struck at it. He lit another match and dropped it. The snakes struck at that one, too. He handed the matches to Zoe and let her toss a few. Each time she tossed a burning match toward them, the snakes attacked. She remembered Mr. Danvers saying that snakes had lousy eyes, but could sense the heat their prey gave off.

“See? They’re easy to fool,” said Valentine.

When Zoe got bored teasing the snakes, she gave the matches back to Valentine and looked over the field to the rides. “It’s too bad we can’t go over there.”

“That’s okay,” Valentine said. He was back looking through the telescope. “It’d be kind of weird with whatever’s on the mountain.” He handed the telescope to Zoe and pointed to the mountain, at a spot near the peak. Zoe put her eye to the lens and peered through.

The mountain was still swallowed by mist. It raged in brutal gusts, forming a slow whirlwind like a procession of angry ghosts. Through the mist, Zoe could just make out a shape that looked like a man hunkered down in the snow. There was a glint of something shiny nearby. The mist cleared for a second and Zoe got a better look at him. The man’s face was covered, but she saw that he, too, had a telescope. And he was looking right at her and Valentine. She remembered something Emmett said: “I watch people.” But she knew it couldn’t be him in her dream, so she pushed the thought out of her head.

“I don’t want you to go see that Emmett guy again,” Valentine said. “But I know you will, so you need to be careful.”

Zoe looked at him. “I still have Dad’s razor.”

“Keep it with you for a while. Don’t let it out of your sight.”

Zoe got up early and went straight to her closet. At the bottom of the box where she’d retrieved her baby teeth, she found her father’s shaving kit. She’d found it in the trash when they were packing up the old house, which had really pissed her off. Her mother had been on a rampage to get rid of sharp objects, and maybe there was good reason for her attitude at the time. Zoe had been a little crazy during the weeks between the funeral and the sale of the house. But so was her mother, she thought, which maybe explains why she thought it was a good idea to throw away the whole kit. Good thing that Zoe had made a point of sifting through the trash cans during the night, looking for lost treasures.

She took the straight razor from the shaving kit and went to hide it under the T-shirts in her dresser. When she opened the drawer she could tell that the T-shirts had been moved. She always stacked the East Coast and West Coast punk bands in different piles. Now they were mixed together, which meant that her mother was looking for contraband in her room yesterday. Good, she thought. She’s already checked the drawer, so it’s the perfect place to hide something. When she’d slid the kit under the shirts, Zoe tucked the straight razor into her back pocket and put on one of her father’s old Fear T-shirts, one that hung low and loose over her hips. She checked herself in the mirror and nodded, satisfied that the shirt covered the outline of the razor.

There was a soft knock at the door and her mother stuck her head in. “You ready to go?”

“Yep,” Zoe said, grabbing her backpack from the floor. She tried to look cheerful on the way out but felt too weird, so she settled for trying to look relaxed.

The drive to school was mercifully short. The car wasn’t even too embarrassing-a relatively new, red, four-door Honda Civic. Zoe found a song she liked on the radio, but when she turned it up, one of the speakers in the back crackled and died. She sighed and turned it off. They rode the rest of the way in silence.

She was hoping that her mother would drop her and speed away in the rented car. She had to suppress a groan when, after they stopped, her mother shifted the car into neutral.

“Thanks for the ride,” Zoe said, and reached for the door handle. Her mother put a hand on her arm.

“I have to go see the lawyers today and then I have a second interview at a place I went last week,” she said.

“That’s great. Good luck,” said Zoe.

“Thanks. Promise me you’ll go to your classes and be good. I’ll pick you up at four.”

“I promise,” she said, feeling funny and wondering how she could possibly keep the promise and still make it to Emmett’s.

“I know there’s something else going on that you’re not telling me about,” said her mother. “I won’t push you on it. When you’re ready, I want you to know that you can talk to me and tell me anything.”

“I know. Thanks,” Zoe said, feeling gratitude for her mother reaching out, but fear that the timing was all wrong. “See you later.”

She got out of the car, feeling pure relief as her mother drove away.

It was like she had a fever all day. Zoe felt hot and her classes were all a complete blank. She’d sit through English or history, and as she walked out the door realize that she hadn’t heard a word or remembered a thing that anyone had said. Not even Mr. Danvers’s class got through the fog that enveloped her brain. He was talking about reptiles again, but her mind kept leaping from one thought to the next, one problem to another.

How was she going to get to Emmett’s and back without breaking her promise to her mother? Not that breaking promises or lying had stopped her from much of anything recently. . And if she did ditch her afternoon classes, could she make it back to school before four?

And if she did make it to Emmett’s, then what? She kept playing Valentine’s warning over and over in her head. She wondered about the man on the mountain, looking at them through a telescope. Had it been Emmett? Why would it be him? She’d gone back to him day after day and given him what he wanted. Well, except for that last time, she thought. Still, he got a tooth, another creepy trophy for his collection. What more could he want from her? Then she shifted in her seat and felt the razor in her pocket, which brought back Valentine’s warning.

Absynthe wasn’t helping. Sitting a couple of rows ahead of Zoe, Absynthe could always find the perfect moment, when the other kids were distracted by one of Mr. Danvers’s skulls or a drawing on the blackboard, to turn and shoot Zoe an inquiring look. She mouthed, “How did it go?”

Zoe just shrugged and mouthed, “Talk to you after class.”

When the bell rang, Zoe lost Absynthe in the mad rush as people ran off to lunch or the bleachers for a beer or weed break. When she didn’t see Absynthe by the lockers or in the hallway, she went outside and around the building to the staircase that Absynthe had led her to yesterday. Sure enough, Absynthe was there, leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. Her hair looked very blue in the sunlight. She wore a black thrift-store little girl’s party dress, trimmed in moth-eaten white lace, and green-and-black-striped tights tucked into the tops of shiny thick-soled boots covered in laces and buckles. They looked like something from a science-fiction movie. Zoe smiled to herself.

“What are you smiling at?” asked Absynthe.

“I like the Aeon Flux boots,” she said.

Absynthe put her hands together with her index fingers steepled like a gun and made shooting noises with her mouth. Zoe grabbed her chest and fell against the wall like she’d been shot. When she was done dying, she leaned against the wall looking down the cul-de-sac at the other girl.

“Listen, I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything yesterday,” Absynthe said. “About the kiss thing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Zoe. “It’s fine.”

“We still friends or whatever?” Absynthe asked. The question surprised Zoe. It was funny thinking of Absynthe as uncertain about something.

“We’re cool,” Zoe said. “I’m much more tweaked about other things today.”

“Then come over here and tell me about it.” Absynthe sat on the steps in front of an old fire door and patted the space next to her. Zoe came over and sat down.

“So what’s the big deal about today?”

Zoe sighed. “Aside from being grounded, I need to see someone and get back to school before my mother gets here later.”

“Is this about your mystery man?”

“Which one?” said Zoe, and laughed ruefully.

“There’s more than one? Damn, girl. Here I was thinking I was corrupting a little suburban girl and you’ve got a secret harem.”

Zoe leaned back against the pockmarked surface of the fire door. “I wish it was that simple. There’s one guy I’m worried about helping and another I just have to deal with to do it. And I want to finish this all up today so it’s over with and I don’t have to see him anymore.”

“Then why don’t you just go? Do the deed and get back before your mom’s any the wiser?”

Zoe shrugged. “I wasn’t before, but now I’m a little weirded out by the guy.”

“Did he hurt you?” asked Absynthe. There was real concern in her voice.

“No. He never did anything but what I asked him. But he’s always been a little weird and yesterday someone warned me about him.”

“Maybe you should take the advice and forget about this guy.”

“That’s the problem. I can’t. He has something of mine, and I really need it. I don’t know what I’ll do if I didn’t get it back.”

Absynthe puffed the cigarette, dropped it on the ground, and stubbed it out. “Then do it fast and do it now. It’s daytime and people aren’t as crazy as they get after dark. Don’t chitchat, just do what you have to do and get out.” She leaned forward on her knees and clasped her hands together. “I can wait for you. If you like.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Zoe. “I’m probably blowing this way out of proportion. Like I said, he never did anything to me and he could have. I’m just being a big chicken.”

“ ‘Hope is the thing with feathers,’ ” said Absynthe.

“What?”

“It’s an Emily Dickinson poem about not being afraid, even in the middle of a shit storm.”

“Wish I had feathers like that.” Zoe hadn’t pictured Absynthe as a big reader or someone into poetry at all. And if she did read poetry, not Emily Dickinson. Bukowski maybe. She set the thought aside as one more thing to ask her about when she had Dad and was free of Emmett. “It’s been a weird few weeks, you know? Even weirder since we came here.”

“Please.” Absynthe let out a sarcastic laugh. “Don’t go playing innocent with me. I know your dirty little secrets now.”

“No, you really don’t. But I might tell you. Tomorrow. When it’s done.”

“You sure you’re going to be all right? Endings for stuff like this can get kind of messy.”

“Don’t worry. It’s all settled except for this one thing.”

Absynthe lit another cigarette. “Tell me what you want when you want. I’m all ears.”

Zoe snapped the rubber band on her wrist.

“When it’s over, I will.”

Before she ditched school, Zoe went into one of the bathrooms, locked herself in a stall, and got out the straight razor. When she’d cut herself before, it had always been with skinny little double-edge blades she’d shoplifted from the mall. She’d never used anything like the straight razor, and the sight of it now-big in her hand, a tarnished metal blade with a bone grip-made it even more intimidating. It still carried a faint scent of her father’s aftershave. She didn’t want to do anything to spoil that, but she knew that this was the price she’d agreed to.

She tugged at the rubber band on her wrist, but she didn’t snap it.

Zoe wondered if Absynthe ever cut herself, or let someone cut her. She knew kids who gave each other ritual scars, mostly because they were too young or too broke to afford professional tattoos or piercings. Absynthe, she thought, might have been fierce enough to play games like that. She might even have offered some of her own blood so that Zoe wouldn’t have to cut herself. Why not let her, if she offered? Zoe had fooled Emmett once. She could do it again. But the bell had already rung and Absynthe was gone, back to class. No option there. No option but one.

Her arms were off-limits, she knew. Just the thought of it brought back bad, dark memories of the days before and the weeks after her father’s funeral when she’d cut herself just to feel a different kind of pain for a while. In the stall, Zoe undid her pants and quickly, without giving herself time to think about it, made a shallow slash across the upper part of her left leg.

She took a few sheets of toilet paper and dabbed up the blood. It was only a surface cut, but Emmett said that all he wanted were a few drops, so she thought it should be enough. When the blood stopped flowing, she wrapped the red-blotched sheets in more toilet paper, pulled up her pants, and stuffed both the razor and the bloody paper in her pockets.

When she left school the hall clock said it was one-thirty. That meant she had to be back in no more than two hours. She walked quickly down the familiar, inexplicable path that always led her to Emmett’s. Before, the walk had always seemed timeless and Emmett’s shop had always magically appeared in front of her, right on cue. This time, however, the walk felt like it took forever. Zoe grasped at every vague landmark. A pink awning on a Laundromat. A shuttered bodega. When she saw a little church with Korean characters on the roof, she started running and kept running until she saw the shop.

She stopped for a second to catch her breath, then went and pushed on the front door. It was locked. The sign in the window said CLOSED. Zoe cupped her hands and peered through the glass. As always, it was cave dark inside, and she really couldn’t see anything but the counter and the first few record bins by the door.

She banged on the glass with her knuckles. The door shook and rattled, warped and loose in its ancient wooden frame. After knocking for a minute or so, to her relief, Zoe saw Emmett coming from the back of the shop. He unlocked and opened the door, but only halfway.

“Yeah? What do you want?” Emmett asked.

“Hi. I’m here for my dad’s record,” said Zoe, still a little out of breath.

Emmett stared like he’d never seen her before. “What? Your father made a record? Was he in a band? What was it called?”

“No. My dad’s record. The one where his soul lives.”

“Hey,” said Emmett, “I don’t know what you’re on, but I don’t have time for this.” He started to close the door, but Zoe caught the edge and pushed her way inside. The two of them stood across the empty space by the front counter, just looking at each other. Zoe was breathing hard and Emmett stared at her blankly.

“Look, kid, if you know the name of the record you want, maybe I can find it for you. But I can’t stand here all day playing Name That Tune.”

“Emmett, it’s me,” said Zoe. “Why are you acting like this?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I found the back room with the soul records. You let me use the Animagraph.”

“I don’t know what the hell an ‘Animagraph’ is, and the soul records are against that wall under the Al Green poster.”

“Not those soul records, the ones in the back room that people can’t see.” Zoe turned to the back of the shop, to the room where the Animagraph and the special records were stored. The entrance wasn’t there. The dirty beaded curtain was gone. The wall was solid.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Did you change your mind about the price? Do you want something else? I brought what you asked for.” She reached into her pocket and retrieved the bloody tissues. She held them out to him.

Emmett took a step back, his eyes widening. “What the hell are you doing, kid? Are you crazy?”

“Emmett, please. I just want to take my father home.”

Emmett held up his hands, palms out, as if trying to hold Zoe off. “Listen, I don’t know if this is the crank or the acid talking, but I just run a shop. I buy and sell old junk that no one wants.”

“I know, and I want to buy something from you.”

“With that? I don’t think so.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Nothing from you, with your bloody Kleenex. I sell real merchandise to people who can pay for real. If someone can’t pay, I find someone else who can. And you, kid, can’t pay.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening here,” said Zoe miserably.

“That part I believe. Now it’s time for you to get out. I have a business to run.”

“Please don’t do this. I’ll give you whatever you want,” Zoe said. She pressed a hand to Emmett’s chest. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

“You don’t have anything I want,” he said, and pushed her away.

Emmett grabbed her by the upper arm so hard it made Zoe gasp. He pulled her to the front door, opened it, and shoved her through. Zoe stood in the gray alcove between the bright street and the enveloping darkness of Emmett’s shop. As he closed the door, she felt a tickle in her ear. It was as if some invisible presence were leaning over her to whisper a secret.

“I know you cheated me. That wasn’t your tooth,” said the phantom voice.

She turned, but Emmett was gone and the door was locked.

Zoe banged on the glass. She screamed and cursed at him. She kicked the door. There was no response, no help there. No way to fix things. There was nothing but ruins. Ruins that she’d made.

She started back to school, slowly and miserably. She wiped tears from her face and the snot from her nose with the underside of her sleeve, not caring how she looked or who saw her. Then she began to run. She ran by instinct, following the blind path away from Emmett’s as she always did, but now full of fury and reckless anger. She ran against red lights. The sounds of squealing brakes and drivers’ curses were a distant, meaningless noise in her ears. The world had collapsed into a narrow tunnel of pain and loss. All she could hear in her head was a single word pounding over and over again, No, no, no, no, no. .

Zoe hadn’t run from her father’s funeral but now she wanted to run forever. To obliterate herself in motion. No past. No future. It was tempting. She could make it happen. All she had to do was cross against a red light and stop in the intersection. There wouldn’t be any squealing brakes. There wouldn’t be time. Just the thud of a car’s bumper into her side and then nothing. Nothing forever. How beautiful that would be.

It was two-thirty when she got back to the school. She was sweating and shaking. Going back to class wasn’t an option. She went around the building to Absynthe’s secret corner, curled up against the fire door, and closed her eyes. She tried to sleep, hoping she could find Valentine. She took off her rubber band and threw it under some half-dead bushes with the beer cans and cigarette butts.

An hour later, Zoe was startled by the sound of the final bell. This was followed by the thunder of feet as the first kids hit the doors and made it outside like they were going to win a prize for their speed. These sounds from the normal world shook Zoe out of her trance and she went in through a side entrance, walking against the flow of bodies. Inside her locker she found an old T-shirt and wiped the last of the sweat from her face. Then she gathered her books together and went out through the front entrance to wait.

Her mother drove up a few minutes later, honking twice as she pulled to the curb. Zoe got into the car and smiled at her mother automatically, but without meeting her eyes.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi yourself,” said her mother. “How was it being back in your classes?”

Zoe didn’t answer for a minute. “Same as always,” she said.

“Which means what?”

“The only teacher I have who isn’t an idiot is Mr. Danvers.”

“I don’t remember. What does he teach?”

“Biology.”

“What did he teach you today?”

Zoe had to think for a minute. What had Mr. Danvers talked about? She hadn’t been listening, but his talks always got through, even on bad days.

“Teeth,” she said finally. “For different species. Cow’s teeth for chewing grass. Lion teeth for ripping flesh. Snake’s teeth for injecting venom.”

“Did he say anything about our teeth?”

“We’re omnivores. We have a bunch of different teeth, but none of them are very good for fighting or killing.” Then she added quietly, “Which isn’t fair.”

Her mother nodded. “I know what you mean. The insurance company and all these job interviews the last few weeks, I’ve wanted to bite a few people myself.”

Zoe didn’t say anything. She just stared out the side window, watching the streets roll by.

“Aren’t you going to ask about my day?” Zoe’s mother asked.

“I’m sorry. How was your day?”

“Well, Maggie at the law office finally got the insurance company to admit that losing your father’s paperwork was their fault. That’s the first piece of good news from them.”

Zoe sighed. She imagined her father being packed away in a dusty box with other dusty boxes in Emmett’s back room. “They finally believe Dad existed. Good for them.”

“And there’s something else,” her mother went on. “I might have a job. It’s not a dream job. It’s just a junior designer position, but it’s with a cool clothing-design company called Kitty with a Whip. Have you heard of them?”

“Yeah. Lots of kids at school wear their stuff.”

“The owner is Raymond, this really sweet older guy who remembered some flyers I did for a gay club he used to work at about a million years ago. And there are a lot of great young designers. I could learn a lot working at a place like that.”

Zoe couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard her mother sound so excited. She wished she could feel happier for her.

“That sounds really great, Mom. I’m really happy for you.”

Zoe’s mother looked at her. “Are you all right? You mad at me for picking you up and making you study?”

“No. I just don’t feel so good right now.”

Her mother reached across the car and put a hand on Zoe’s forehead. “You do feel a little warm.”

“I’m fine,” said Zoe, wanting her mother to lose control of the car and plow into a gas station or cross the center line and drive head-on into a bus.

“When we get home, you can study in bed,” said her mother. “I’ll bring you some lemon tea.”

“Thanks,” said Zoe, wanting to tell her mother everything, to confess it all and beg for her help, yet knowing she couldn’t say a word.

The elevator wasn’t working again, so they walked up the four flights to the apartment. Her mother took off her office shoes and went up in her stockings. Neither of them talked on the way. They were both out of breath when they reached the top. Zoe was sweating again and felt cold.

Her mother went straight to her bedroom to change and Zoe went to hers. She set her books at the end of the bed, took off her sneakers, and crawled under the cool covers. Her mother came in with a cup of microwaved tea a couple of minutes later. Zoe sipped it politely, but all she wanted to do was lie down and ease herself into the dark for a while.

“I’ll come in and check on you later,” said her mother.

“Okay. Thanks.”

When her mother was gone, she pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her eyes. She wanted desperately to see Valentine. He was older, and although he didn’t always understand exactly how her nondreamworld worked, he was smart and clever. He’d largely planned and built the tree fort on his own. He was always full of plans. He’d know what to do.

But sleep wouldn’t come. She tried breathing exercises she’d learned at the hospital-counting backward from a hundred and relaxing all her muscles one at a time. Nothing worked. She got up and looked in her dresser for the Xanax she’d taken from her mother’s purse months ago, but she couldn’t find them. She lay back down, closed her eyes, and just let her mind drift.

Would it really be so terrible if I can’t get Dad’s record back? she wondered. She’d seen him and spent a wonderful afternoon with him. He was all right and Iphigene was kind of a cool-looking place.

But Emmett had figured out the tooth she’d given him wasn’t hers. And someone was watching Zoe and Valentine from the mountain. Valentine didn’t trust Emmett. And Emmett had gone out of his way to tell her that he sold things only to people who could pay.

Would Emmett do something with Dad’s record? Something that could hurt him? There were so many LPs in that back room. Who were they for? Who would make them or buy them? Even Emmett didn’t know, or that’s what he claimed. Zoe’s father said that some people got stuck in Iphigene forever. Had Zoe done something that would trap her father there forever?

Her stomach churned like she was going to throw up, so she went into the bathroom and opened the toilet lid. She sat down with her back against the bathtub and waited. But nothing happened. And then she remembered something.

Emmett didn’t say anything about the record. It could still be in the shop somewhere. She had to know if it was there, and if it was, she had to get it, whatever it might cost.

Later, her mother came in and put a hand on Zoe’s forehead. Zoe kept her eyes shut and her breathing shallow and regular, pretending to be asleep. After a couple of minutes, her mother left. Zoe heard her in the kitchen. Then she was in the bathroom, where Zoe heard running water and her mother brushing her teeth. Finally, her mother went to her bedroom and the apartment became quiet. Zoe looked at the alarm clock by her bed. It was just after eleven. Another hour, she thought. Just to make sure Mom is asleep.

When midnight finally came, she slipped out of bed, trying to keep her mattress springs from squeaking. Padding around her room in bare feet, she gathered up the things she’d need. She opened the window and set an old pair of surplus-store boots on the fire escape. Then she changed into the Runaways T-shirt Joan Jett had given her father back in the day. She pulled on her lucky black hoodie, the one with cat ears on the hood. She slipped out the window and closed it behind her thinking, I know this is crazy, but what else is there left to do?

She started up the fire escape when she realized she’d forgotten something. She opened the window just enough to squeeze through and grabbed her father’s straight razor from where she’d kicked it under the bed to keep her mother from seeing it. She closed the window and ran up to the roof.

There, she sat on the gravel and pulled on her boots under the moon’s wasted, colorless light. Something moved in her peripheral vision. Turning, she saw her vodka-soaked T-shirt hanging where she’d left it. She made a mental note to bring it down when she got back.

As Zoe climbed down the ladder she was hit with a sense of fear and sadness so deep that it made her stomach cramp. Doing what she was doing, going where she was going secretly in the middle of the night, it felt like she was crossing a border that she’d never be able to uncross and that she might not ever find her way home again.

She shook her head to clear it. At the bottom of the fire escape, she pushed the final collapsible section all the way down just like she’d seen in a hundred TV shows, climbed to the bottom, and jumped the last few feet. The night air was cool, and because it might disguise her, she pulled her hood up.

The walk to Emmett’s was long and dreary. She wondered at herself now, at how she could have found previous walks to the shop so pleasant and magical. The path wound through grubby streets full of ugly people and buildings and stores that all looked like they were about to collapse.

A few men spoke to her as she walked. They stepped out from the doorways and alleys of dim, unreal buildings. Some of the silhouettes grabbed their crotches and made kissing sounds as she went past.

A shadow man, tall and wide, stepped out from behind a tree just as Zoe was passing. One of his big hands gripped her shoulder, then slid down her shirt and over her breast. She didn’t even think about it. The straight razor was out. Her arm moved and the blade sliced deeply into the shadow man’s wrist.

He staggered back. “You bitch! You little bitch. I’ll kill you,” he yelled, but he stayed where he was. Zoe kept walking, trying to look brave. She kept the razor tucked in her hand for another block.

The light was still on in the record store. She ran across the street and hid in the shadows next to an old Dumpster. Did Emmett always work this late? No wonder he likes to collect girls’ things. If he spends all his time in that dreary store, he really doesn’t have a life.

Zoe trembled a little in the cool San Francisco dark. She looked down at her hands. She was still holding the razor, and it was open. There was a thin streak like India ink across the edge of the blade that she knew was the shadow man’s blood. An old newspaper lay nearby. She took a couple of pages and wiped off the blade, refusing to think about how the blood had gotten on the razor. Still, it felt like one more step away from a safe life she’d never have again.

For a moment Zoe wondered if this might all be some awful fever dream. Maybe she was really at home in her bed in the old house. Her father and mother would have breakfast with her before she went to her old, familiar school, where she’d tell Julie and Laura about this crazy nightmare where she went to a carnival with her father’s ghost, gave trinkets to an old pervert, and slashed a mugger like Elektra: Assassin. It was a comforting thought, but the night wind gusted through her, making her shiver, and she knew this was all real.

After she’d spent an hour standing in the cold, the lights went off in Emmett’s shop. He came out the front door with a stack of records under one arm. Zoe squinted, but couldn’t tell if they were regular records or the special ones.

Emmett walked to the corner and stood under the traffic light. It turned from red to green. The pedestrian sign said WALK, but Emmett didn’t cross. He turned his head, looking up and down the street. Apparently satisfied that no one was around, he stepped off the curb. Instead of crossing the street, he crouched by the corner. Zoe crept forward and stood on her toes to see what he was doing. When Emmett stood up he was holding a sewer grate in one hand and the records in the other. To Zoe’s amazement, he seemed to be shrinking. No. He was climbing into the sewer. A second later, she heard a dull clank as the metal grate dropped back into place.

Zoe ran from the shadows. At the corner there was no sign that the grate had been moved. She went to Emmett’s shop and looked in through the dirty window. Do I break in? she wondered. What if there’s an alarm? I should have brought a flashlight. How am I supposed to find Dad’s record in the dark, if it’s even in there? If Emmett took the record with him and I waste time inside, it won’t matter. He’ll be too far away for me to follow.

She wanted desperately to go into the shop. It was safe and dark and known. The idea of following Emmett into some unknown underground labyrinth terrified her. But there was this terrible feeling in the back of her mind, a feeling that told her that her father’s disc wasn’t in the shop. That out of spite or something worse Emmett had carried it underground, and that if she didn’t go after him soon, her father would be lost forever. She would have failed him twice.

Zoe went to the corner and knelt down to get a good grip on the grate. She pulled, but it didn’t budge. She knelt down and pulled again. Nothing. Zoe remembered Emmett’s grip on her arm and the surprising strength with which he’d held her. She sat down in the street and braced her feet against the curb. She wasn’t going to get this close to Emmett and her father and lose them both.

With both hands, she grabbed the far edge of the grate and pulled. The metal was wet and slimy, hard to hold on to. Finally, she felt the grate rise slowly away from the street. When it was a little more than halfway up, she let go and it fell backward toward her, leaving the sewer open.

She leaned her head into the opening. The smell reminded her of the time she and some friends had sneaked into the house where old Mrs. Asher had died and no one had found her for a week. Zoe pulled up the edge of her hoodie, covering her nose and mouth. Just inside the opening, she could see steel rungs, like a ladder, set into the concrete.

She turned herself quickly into position and lowered a foot into the opening. When one foot touched a rung, she stepped down and pulled her arms inside. Below street level, she was instantly swallowed by impenetrable darkness and a death-house reek of dead old women.

Zoe held her breath and started down.