Gretchen tried to peek into the center, where the shadow of his arm obscured the image he had been creating for the past hour. “May I see?” she asked.
Reluctantly Kirk leaned back, revealing the page. It was a picture of a woman, her head half out of the water. The lines were loose; ink blots smeared the page. In the margins, notes were scrawled in an uneven hand. The style was loose and unsophisticated. Still, there was something arresting about the image. The woman’s eyes were in shadow, which gave the viewer the eerie sensation of being watched. Gretchen shivered a little.
“You hate it,” Kirk said.
“No. It’s good.”
“But you still hate it.”
There wasn’t much Gretchen could say to this.
Kirk was a skinny kid, and his pale skin and lanky limbs made his body seem younger than sixteen. But his sad, watchful expression made his face look older. “You’re an artist,” he said after a moment.
“I like to draw.”
“That’s what an artist is.”
“Then I guess I am. I guess we both are.”
“No.” Kirk pressed his palm against the page. “I don’t like to draw much. But my therapist says it’s good for me.” He shrugged. “I don’t really know what else to do, I guess. So I’m doing it.”
Gretchen shifted her weight awkwardly. “That’s good.” It was no secret that Kirk had been pretty crazy for a while. But lately he’d seemed much better. Still wary, still eccentric … but better.
Kirk dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled dollar bill. He tossed it on the table, then dug around again, finally coming up with a quarter and six nickels. He blushed. “I don’t have a tip.”
“Soda’s only a dollar fifty.”
“Five cents. Some tip.”
“All I did was bring you a Coke. Seems fair.”
Kirk bit his lip, then picked up his pen and went back to his drawing, darkening the shadows on one of the rocks.
“What, that kid has no order?” Angel snarled as Gretchen slipped behind the counter. “This isn’t the public library. Tell him to order something or get out. He can’t just sit here drinking a Coke for five hours every day.”
Gretchen frowned. “He did order something, actually.” She scribbled on her pad and handed it over. “Medium-well.”
Angel lifted an eyebrow at her. “Lucky for him,” he grumbled as he slung a hamburger patty onto the grill.
Gretchen didn’t flinch. “Yeah. I guess he’s hungry tonight.”
It’s worth it, Gretchen told herself as she thought of the cost of the burger, which would have to come out of her tips. Kirk isn’t hurting anybody. He should be allowed to just sit and work in peace. After all, it wasn’t his fault that his parents were screwups and that he had to live with his sister. It wasn’t his fault they were broke.
“Gretchen, sweetheart, I need you.” Lisette pushed her purple bangs out of her eyes. “Would you be a doll and bus table nineteen? We’ve got people waiting.”
“No problem.” Gretchen cleared the table and wiped it down, then smiled at the mom and two young sons who took the booth. “Your waitress will be right with you,” she said as she set paper placemats and silverware in front of them.
“Thanks, hon,” Lisette called as she made her way over to the table.
Gretchen smiled. Lisette’s cheerful demeanor was such a contrast to Angel’s grouchy simplicity. And yet they were engaged. Despite a twenty-year age difference, despite completely contrasting sensibilities, they had fallen for each other.
“Order up!” Angel called.
Gretchen took the plate loaded with fries and punctuated with a hamburger, then reached for a glass and filled it with ice and Coke. She placed the order in front of a surprised-looking Kirk and announced, “On the house.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
Kirk thought this over. He took a fry and nibbled the end. Then he looked over Gretchen’s shoulder, as if someone might be on his way over to snatch the food away. He took a bite of the burger and smiled up at Gretchen. He looked like an eight-year-old, a giddy kid.
“Order up, Lisette!” Angel shouted.
Lisette touched Gretchen’s shoulder. “Would you take that for me, hon? I’m overloaded.”
“Sure.” Gretchen delivered the dessert to the booth by the door, then took care of her own tables. Now that Kirk had a plate of food in front of him, she could ignore him for a while. She didn’t need to check in with him to make sure everything was all right. He was one customer who wouldn’t complain.
Gretchen wrote out a few checks and started clearing tables. Then she filled up the dishwasher and started a load.
“Hey, hey, what do you say?” Angus McFarlan asked as he burst through the door. He grinned at Gretchen and perched on a stool and let his long arms flop across the counter. Everything about Angus was casual and graceless, which often served to hide his keen intelligence.
Gretchen smiled at her friend. “Hey, Angus. What brings you here?”
“Pie,” Angus admitted. “And I had to clear my stuff out of my cubicle at the Gazette.” Angus had been working at the local newspaper all summer.
“Internship’s over?”
“Sadly, yes. But I’m going to see if I can still do a little newspaperating in my spare time. If anything interesting comes across my path. Like, maybe I’ll do an article on pie.”
“Cherry, strawberry-rhubarb, blueberry, or lemon meringue.”
“No apple?”
“Sold out.”
“Strawberry-rhubarb, then.”
“Whipped cream?”
“Double dose.”
Gretchen served up a thick wedge of the pie, heaped a small mountain of white cream on top, and handed it over.
“This is insane,” Lisette griped as she staggered back toward the counter, her tray loaded down with dirty platters and cups. “Angel, we need another waitress.”
“Not during the off season.”
“Angel! Do you see anything off about this diner?” Lisette put down the tray and gestured to the busy restaurant. True, the dinner hour had already peaked, but plenty of customers were still eating or lingering to chat. Bella’s appealed to the local crowd, not the tourists. Even on a Thursday, there were customers at the dinner hour.
“You’ve got Gretchen.”
“Gretchen’s only here one night during the week and on weekends! I can’t handle this whole place by myself.”
“You’ll be able to in January.”
“That’s what you said last year, and we were still busy,” Lisette shot back. “At least hire a busboy.”
“What about Kirk?” Gretchen suggested. The words surprised her, but she had to admit that it made sense. Kirk was lonely. Kirk needed money.
“Kirk?” Angel glared at her. “He’s crazy.”
“Well then, he’s qualified to work here,” Angus put in. Angel glowered at him from beneath thick eyebrows, and Angus got back to work on his pie.
“He isn’t crazy,” Gretchen insisted. “He’s much better. Besides, he’s always here.”
“Does he have any experience?” Lisette asked.
“I doubt it,” Gretchen admitted.
“Hm. Well, I’ll go talk to him,” Lisette volunteered.
“What?” Angel scoffed. “You can’t be serious.”
“Watch this,” Lisette snapped, and started over toward Kirk’s table.
“That woman.” Angel shook his head with a mixture of fury and reverence.
Gretchen watched as Kirk listened, wide-eyed, then nodded. Done deal, she said to herself. Kirk needs something in his life, she mused. Something besides the weird images in his mind.
“You did a good deed,” Angus said, scooping up the last of his pie.
She sighed, smiling. She didn’t question why helping Kirk made her so happy.
Maybe she should have, but she didn’t.
Chapter Four
Will looked down at the lake from the top
of the bluff. Overhead, a full moon gleamed at its twin, which shimmered in the calm, dark water below. At one end were dunes. Closer by were hulking black rocks.
Will sat watching the water, fighting the feeling of unease that crept over him. He couldn’t shake the sensation that something was in the water. Something … dark.
All at once, one of the black rocks stretched, revealing a long neck, an angular head. It shifted its weight onto its muscular legs and ambled down to the black water. It bent toward the water as if it might drink, and then—with a single breath—the dragon set the surface of the bay on fire. Flames rose toward the sky, and smoke choked Will’s lungs. The water burned and burned, and Will realized that the water wasn’t the sea at all, but a lake of oil. It went on burning, and the dragon waded into the lake of fire. It made no sound as the fire consumed it, but just went on staring at Will with orange eyes that looked like lit coal.
Will didn’t remember the dream as he let the warm water wash over him. All that remained was a slightly ill feeling, a mild unease that he couldn’t name, like the slimy track left by a snail. Steam rose around him, and he let the water warm him to the bone, penetrating his tense muscles.
He thought about seeing the buoy the day before, how it had unnerved him. Will wasn’t the kind of person who saw things that weren’t there. Even as a small child, he had never believed in monsters or aliens or supernatural creatures. That was why his brush with the Sirens had taken him so wholly by surprise. After Tim died, Will found he was unable to remember what happened the night Tim disappeared—even though Will was the only witness. They had taken out the boat together. And then … a black hole.
The fact that he couldn’t remember had become a chink, a slight crack in his reasonable, ordered universe, and it had been just enough to allow for the reality of the seekriegers to burst in, upending everything he thought he knew about reality.
Now he wondered how much of the world he had ever really understood.
The knobs squeaked as he turned off the water, and he ran his hands through his wet, shaggy hair. He was still postponing getting a haircut. Will didn’t like looking at the scar that sliced across his face, and his long sandy mane hid it.
Water dripped across his chest, finding a channel in the groove between his defined abdominal muscles. A summer of working on the farm had given him a tan, toned body, but he was completely unself-conscious as he wrapped a towel low on his hips.
He stepped onto the rug and flicked a glance at the fogged-up mirror before pulling open the medicine cabinet. Razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste. He shut it again.
The mirror faced him, a word scrawled into the gray condensation. FURY.
With a gasp, he turned and opened the door to his empty room beyond. He held still, taut as a bowstring, but nothing moved. There was no sound. He turned back to the mirror.
But the word had disappeared; the mirror was clear. Steam had rushed out the door when he opened it, and the bathroom was already growing chill.
Slowly Will closed the door. Feeling as if his body were filled with lead, he sat down on the edge of the bathtub. FURY.
His mind couldn’t take any meaning from the word, could hardly even admit that it existed. You imagined it, his brain whispered.
But his heart was racing and fear coursed through his veins like poison. He knew from experience that he didn’t have to believe it for it to be real.
A few hours later Will sat at the farm stand, looking at the pile of butternut squash, sprawled like lazy sea lions across the wide wooden table. A few sugar pumpkins lined the short edge of the table beside some early yellow-and-green-striped delicata. Dark green dinosaur kale was tucked beside sultry red beets.
Late summer had always been Will’s favorite time of year at his family’s farm stand. It had been Tim’s favorite, too. Both brothers loved the soups and stews their mother would make from the abundant winter squash. The air was sweet and cool, and the clientele changed from manic, ever-texting Manhattanites to neighbors and local restaurateurs.
Every year Tim would wait eagerly for the first of the sugar pumpkins. He was famous for his pumpkin pie, which was equal parts spicy and sweet. Their grandmother Archer had refused to give the recipe to Evelyn, her daughter-in-law, and instead passed the secret to Tim, who took pie baking seriously. Will touched the firm orange flesh of one of the pumpkins, wishing he had that recipe. But both of the people who knew it were dead now.
A gentle wind picked up, and Will heard a sound like his brother’s laugh. He looked up. The wind chime at the end of the shed let out a low ringing tone. The sky overhead was turning gray.
“Will!”
Will blinked, swallowing hard to open his closed throat. He managed to smile at Gretchen, who was walking down the driveway. Her golden hair hung loose around her face, and she was wearing a faded red T-shirt and jeans. Another sign of fall—Gretchen’s long legs were covered. She hoisted herself onto her usual perch at the end of the heavy wooden cash register table.
“What’s wrong?” Will asked.
Gretchen cocked her head. “What? Nothing—why?”
Will shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything okay?”
Gretchen shook her head. She looked up the road, where a half-rusted Ford was making its way toward the farm stand. “Here comes Angus,” she said, half to herself.
There was something in her tone that Will couldn’t read. It didn’t help that he had lost his hearing in one ear the summer before. It meant that he heard most things as if they were being spoken through a thick wad of cotton.
Angus pulled up and got out of his battered Ford, carefully locking it before he walked over to the stand. “Greetings, friends! And others.” He grinned at Will and shoved his mop of curly brown hair out of his eyes. “So, has Gretchen filled you in on her philanthropy last night?”
Will looked over at Gretchen, who was flashing Angus a threatening glower.
“Aaannnd … I just said something I wasn’t supposed to,” Angus said.
“What? What are we talking about?” Will demanded.
Gretchen shrugged. “I got Kirk a job at the diner. No big deal.”
Will sighed, sitting down on the edge of the table. “Kirk Worstler?”
Gretchen came over and touched his shoulder. “What’s wrong? I know you don’t like him, but he’s not that weird.”
Will looked into her face—those chameleon-like green-blue eyes. It wasn’t the fact that he was weird that bothered Will. It was the fact that weird things happened around him. He was like a canary in a coal mine that way. But he didn’t want to get into it. “Okay,” he said at last. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that Kirk’s presence was an ill omen. Several weeks ago, when Kirk was in the thick of one of his crazy moments, he had told Will, “The fury must awaken.”
FURY.
Something wet brushed against Will’s cheek, and he looked up. It was a raindrop. Dark clouds had moved in. The sun was still burning behind them, sending out golden light at the edges, but the darkness was gathering. “It’s about to rain,” Will said.
“Well, we’d better get inside,” Angus pointed out. “No use getting drenched.”
“Yeah,” Will agreed, but he was looking at Gretchen. “It’s not like we can stop it.”
Chapter Five
From The Eumenides, by Aeschylus
Hear the hymn of hell,
O’er the victim sounding.
Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,
Sense and will confounding!
Round the soul entwining
Without lute or lyre—
Soul in madness pining,
Wasting as with fire.
“Hold on,” Gretchen said as she plowed the Gremlin through a massive puddle, sending a sheet of water over a fence rail at the edge of the road. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“What could you have done about it?” Will asked, which was a reasonable question, in Gretchen’s opinion. The puddle had stretched entirely across
the street, even flooding part of the lush green lawn. Rain poured from the dark gray sky as if it wanted to signal the official end to summer and the start of the gloomy fall.
Perfect day to start my senior year, Gretchen thought. Still, she was glad to be heading to school in a comfortable pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt instead of the plaid skirt and button-down white oxford that had been the uniform at her all-girls academy in Manhattan. And she was glad to be with Will, under the protection of her vintage Gremlin, instead of alone, struggling with an umbrella as she walked the fourteen blocks from her apartment to the Standish School.
This morning she’d yanked some clothes from the boxes that had been delivered the day before, pulled them on, and tumbled outside toward her car. It seemed like a strangely informal way to start the day.
The wind picked up, howling in rage as the Gremlin made its way over the bridge. Lightning flashed over the water and thunder rumbled. Gretchen let out a grunt as she struggled with the steering wheel, fighting to keep a straight course. Her heart strained against her chest. She tried not to imagine plunging over the edge, beating her fists against the window as the car filled with water.…
“Strong wind,” Will said.
Gretchen nodded, keeping her eyes on the wet asphalt. She breathed easier as they reached the other side of the bridge and headed down a tree-lined lane.
“Here. Turn here,” Will said. “Left.”
“Already?” But Gretchen was following orders, taking the sharp left at the intersection.
“Now right,” Will instructed. “We’ll come in the rear parking lot. Front one is always packed. You’ll never get a spot.”
Gretchen nodded, and—sure enough—in a moment the playing fields at the rear of the school came into view. Gretchen cruised around the parking lot slowly, waiting patiently as the car in front of her pulled into a spot. They were late. The parking lot was packed with cars but nearly empty of people. Everyone had gotten to school early. Best foot forward, Gretchen thought. For them.