The leaves rustled slightly and the curtain parted. “I knew I’d find you here,” Will said. He hesitated, as if waiting for an invitation to come inside.
Gretchen didn’t offer one. She just kept looking up at the distant sky.
Finally Will gave up waiting and came to sit beside her. The yellow canopy was enormous—it offered more than enough room for the boat and three or four people to stand or sit. Will sat down, half-lotus, beside Gretchen. He picked up a leaf and twisted the yellow stem. Then he looked up at the sky. Gretchen wondered what he saw there.
They sat that way for a long time, just looking at the leaves and the vast blue expanse beyond. In the distance, Gretchen could hear the high-pitched drone of a leaf blower. A bird trilled once, twice, and fell silent. A truck rumbled and rattled by on the road.
People were thinking of pumpkins and hot cider, apples and squash. Normal life.
Gretchen had always loved fall in New York City, but it was even more beautiful here. In Manhattan, she would take a walk through Central Park to remind herself of the steady change that was going on, the progression from heat to cold reflected in the fading leaves. But she hadn’t been surrounded by the change the way she was out here. In a way, being in Walfang helped her feel like a part of it, as if the change was occurring not only all around her but within her as well.
And she was changing. Or, perhaps, not changing. More like realizing that she wasn’t what she thought she was. The world around her was falling asleep, and she was waking up.
“How is this going to turn out well?” Gretchen asked.
Will didn’t answer, and she rolled over to look at him. She propped her head on her hand. “I mean, forget the whole Circe thing. Just forget that for a minute. Even without that, I’m this … thing now.”
“You’re the same,” Will said, but he was looking at the leaf caught in his fingers, not at her.
“I just want to be normal.” An old movie line echoed in Gretchen’s mind. “I want to be a real girl.”
Will smiled wryly. “Well, it worked out for Pinocchio.”
Gretchen laughed, but it was so weak that it sounded like its opposite. “Yeah … only he didn’t have some sea witch trying to kill him.”
“I thought we were forgetting that.”
“Now we’re remembering it.” She touched Will’s knee, and he looked at her. “What am I supposed to do?”
Will’s eyes widened slightly, and he shook his head.
“Mist, vapor, wind. How do you get rid of something like that?”
“I don’t know.” Will thought for a moment. “But it seems like … it seems like, if she wants to be in this world, she has to have some kind of corporeal form. She has to be clinging to something—human body, water molecules.”
Gretchen remembered something. “Kirk was trying to kill himself to get rid of her. Would that have worked?”
“Maybe if you can destroy the body while she’s in it, you destroy her.”
“I’d settle for sending her back to the spirit world,” Gretchen said.
“We don’t know how to do that, either,” Will pointed out.
The sound of the leaf blower died away suddenly, making their silence seem thicker. Gretchen watched as an ant crawled across the spine of an overturned leaf. She wondered about that ant. Did it have a soul? Some sort of ant essence that surpassed its bodily form? Or if she leaned over and crushed it between two fingers, would that ant cease to exist forever, snuffed out like a candle?
“So … if she was mist …” Gretchen bit her lip, trying to remember what she had learned so far in AP chemistry. “I suppose you could separate water molecules.”
“Wouldn’t that take a nuclear explosion?” Will asked. “Or something like that?”
“You don’t like my plan?” Gretchen asked dryly.
“Not if it involves bombing Walfang.” Will picked up a twig and poked at the mossy earth. “Maybe—instead of getting rid of her—maybe we could try to catch her.”
“Like how?”
“I don’t know. If she’s mist, maybe we could freeze her.”
“Like with liquid nitrogen or something?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we’d have a Circe popsicle,” Gretchen joked. “We could keep her in the freezer.”
“We have a big one in the basement,” Will offered. “Put her in next to the peas.”
“The sad thing is, this is our best idea.”
“I don’t know where we’d get liquid nitrogen, anyway,” Will admitted. “Stuff like that only shows up when you’re in a Terminator movie.”
“I don’t even know how we could contain her in the first place,” Gretchen said. “How would we pour liquid nitrogen on her?”
“No clue.”
Gretchen sighed. Will gave her a sad, uneven smile. She scooted over and rested her head in his lap. Will picked up a long length of her blond hair and plucked a leaf out of it. Then he stroked her hair, combing it out with his fingers.
Gretchen closed her eyes. It was cool under the tree, but not cold. She could feel the warmth from Will’s leg pressed against her cheek.
I wish I could stay here, she thought. Right here, in this moment.
But she knew, even as she had the thought, that the moment was already passing away. Dying, like the falling yellow leaves above her, which floated gently to the earth to disappear into the soil forever.
Gretchen checked the number in the text on her mobile phone. Thirty-three. She stared at the door. There was a metal three screwed into the wood. Beside it was a faded pale wood three, a shadow left by the second metal number when it fell off long ago. The hallway smelled stale, of old smoke and disinfectant. The walls were a depressing shade of mauve—the kind abandoned in the early eighties—and were marked here and there with unexplained dark smudges, perhaps left by furniture moved in and out, evidence of the transient nature of the building.
With a sigh, she knocked. Kirk hadn’t been in school, so she’d left at lunch. Frankly, she needed to talk to him more than she needed calculus. There was no sound behind the door, so she counted to ten and knocked again. Finally a slow shuffling step approached the door. For a moment Gretchen worried that Angus had sent her the wrong address—that this was the home of an elderly or disabled person—but after a brief pause, the door opened a crack and a large dark eye peeked out.
“What do you want?” Kirk asked. He didn’t sound defensive, just curious. Still, he didn’t open the door any wider, not even a small fraction.
“I want to talk to you.”
“What about?”
Gretchen hesitated before answering. Finally she decided that there was no way to hedge the truth. “There’s a sea witch who’s trying to kill me.”
Kirk drew in a deep breath, then blew it out. “Okay,” he said, opening the door. “I guess you’d better come in.” Gretchen winced at the sight of his face—he had an enormous black eye and bruises on his forehead.
Gretchen stepped through the doorway and shut the door behind her. Kirk wore an oversized gray sweatshirt and baggy jeans, and as she followed him down the hall into the living room, she noticed that his feet had on only thick white cotton socks. The room was lined with windows on two walls and wouldn’t have been so ugly if it hadn’t been for the brown carpet that covered the floor and the lumpy gray couch that looked as if someone had rescued it from the side of the road after a heavy rain. A distressingly nicked-up coffee table was covered in books and fashion magazines. The walls were completely bare.
“No television,” Gretchen remarked.
“It bothers me,” Kirk said, rubbing his forehead. “So my sister keeps it in her bedroom.”
“Is it just the two of you here?”
“That’s enough, believe me.” Kirk flopped onto the couch and pulled a faded gray Star Wars comforter over his legs.
“Where’s your mother?”
Kirk looked out the window at the bare tree in the yard. “Who knows?”
&
nbsp; Gretchen pursed her lips. A pass-through kitchen looked out on the dreary living room. Dirty bowls and cups overflowed from the sink to the counter. “Is Adelaide at work?”
“Yeah.” Kirk followed Gretchen’s gaze. “I should probably clean that up before she gets home.” His large eyes met Gretchen’s. “I’ve been saying that for three days.”
Gretchen nodded. “I know how that goes.” There was no place for Gretchen to sit, so she simply plopped onto the floor and tucked her legs beneath her. Her long white woolen scarf rested on the brown carpet on either side of her knees, like fallen snow.
“So—you’re being haunted by a witch,” Kirk prompted, as if that were a perfectly normal way to open a conversation.
“Right. You’re familiar with the witch.”
“Oh, is that what that was?” Kirk pointed to his face.
“According to Asia.”
“Asia. The Siren.”
“She’s come to help us,” Gretchen explained.
“Has she?” The words were brittle and dry as old paper.
“Yes.” But now Gretchen wasn’t so sure. She was going to hand me over to Calypso before.
Kirk’s right eyebrow went up over his bruised eye, and Gretchen wondered if it hurt him to do it. “Do you trust her?” he asked.
Will trusts her, Gretchen thought. “I think so.”
“Why?”
Gretchen was at a loss. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
Kirk lay back on the sofa and looked up at the white ceiling, which was textured in looping swirls. “Gretchen, I know everyone thinks I’m crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Gretchen said the words, then wondered if they were true. She did think that Kirk was crazy. Sometimes. But not always. At important times he was completely sane. He was just … sensitive. As if he could hear things broadcast on a radio frequency that couldn’t be picked up by other people.
Kirk looked at her sideways, then back up at the ceiling. “It’s okay if you do. I just hope you’ll listen to me.”
“I’m listening. That’s why I’m here.”
“I think you should find out what Asia wants. Then you need to ask yourself if that’s what you want.”
Gretchen found herself staring up at the ceiling, too. She stretched out on the brown carpet and lay on her back. She imagined she was lying on the ground, staring up at the stars. “What I want doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything,” she admitted.
“Maybe it isn’t fair, but I don’t trust her.”
“She’s different from the others,” Gretchen said.
“All we know is what she tells us, right?”
This statement fell like snow—soft and cold—over Gretchen. “She says that Circe wants to possess me. To take my power.”
Kirk didn’t ask what power. He didn’t ask anything. Finally Gretchen went on: “She thinks I have to destroy Circe before Circe destroys me.”
Kirk didn’t reply. A phone rang in the apartment next door. Someone answered it, and Gretchen heard the low tones of someone talking.
Kirk rolled over to look at Gretchen. She craned her neck to catch his eye.
“Why don’t you ask Mafer?” Kirk suggested. “About Asia?”
“Mafer?” Gretchen repeated.
Kirk pinkened. “You’re friends, right? I’ve seen you together.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Mafer knows things about people sometimes,” Kirk said. He pulled the Star Wars comforter up to his chin. He looked like a young boy, and Gretchen wished that she were his older sister instead of Adelaide. He deserved to have someone who understood him, someone who could take care of him.
“I’ll ask her, Kirk,” Gretchen said.
“Good.”
Gretchen’s feet ached. It was the end of her shift, and she’d been pulling double duty as waitress and busboy, since Kirk was still recovering. Will was perched on a stool at the counter, waiting, as Gretchen pulled off her apron.
“You headin’ home, hon?” Lisette put a tentative hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah.”
“If you see Kirk, you tell him we’re … thinking of him, okay?” She looked up at Gretchen with damp, dark eyes ringed in heavy black shadow.
Angel scowled from behind the cook’s window.
Gretchen lifted her eyebrows at Lisette, who bit her lip. She stuck a pencil into her bright orange bun and turned away.
Gretchen looked over at Will, expecting him to be frowning over the mention of Kirk’s name. Instead, he just gave her a compassionate smile that—finally—seemed to grasp that Kirk’s problems were not his own fault. In many ways, Gretchen and Kirk were alike. They couldn’t help what they were.
Will followed Gretchen to the door and reached for it, holding it open as she passed through. It was an unexpected, gentlemanly gesture, and it made Gretchen smile. She stepped out onto the brick landing and inhaled the misty air that held just an edge of autumn cool. The light of a street lamp caught a column of cloud in its beam. Gretchen felt the drops on her eyelashes as she hesitated at the foot of the steps.
“Should we get going?” Will asked, but Gretchen shook her head.
“I’m waiting for someone.”
As if on cue, someone shouted, “Gretchen?” A moment later, Mafer materialized through the dense fog. She looked up at Will with a strange hesitation in her face. Gretchen noticed it but couldn’t interpret its meaning.
“What’s up?” Will asked, his eyes flashing from Mafer to Gretchen.
“Mafer’s coming over to hang out,” Gretchen announced. “I’ll drop her off at home later.”
Mafer nodded, and Will shrugged. He stood on the pavement with his hands in his pockets, watching Gretchen as she walked to the driver’s side. She placed her key in the door lock, but a moment before she turned it, her eye caught a subtle movement. A down-stroke, almost like a finger tracing a letter, appeared on the driver’s side window, parting the droplets of mist that had gathered there. Then a curve. Another curve.
Gretchen stared. It was the letter B. She took a step backward in surprise.
Then an almost triangle—an A. A curve. C. The sharp, twiglike K. BACK.
Mafer screamed, and Gretchen barely had time to process the letters before she heard the squeal of tires up the street.
“Get back!” Will shouted.
She was caught in the headlights for a moment, but she dove backward into the street as the car raced forward and slammed full speed into the Gremlin. There was a rattle as a hubcap fell off and rolled away. Silence. Then the car backed up with a horrible screech, and Gretchen raced forward.
She didn’t think—she was pure action as she leaped onto the hood of the car, pressing her face against the windshield. She slammed her fist through the thick glass and felt a flash of surprise when it yielded, bending and shattering. The car sped forward and, all at once, the interior was lit with brilliant light that illuminated the face of the driver—a young woman whose expression was contorted and whose golden eyes glittered with cold rage. She screamed as the light blinded her, and threw her arm over her eyes. The car swerved, and Gretchen was thrown onto the asphalt as it sped into a street lamp and was still.
Angel ran out of the diner. “What the hell is going on?” he cried when he saw the car. “Holy shit!” He ran back inside, shouting to Lisette to call the police.
The street was silent as death for a moment, and then—once again—the car leaped to life. It backed away from the street lamp and screeched down the street.
Gretchen watched the fading red taillights disappear around the corner. She had fallen over the edge of the curb on the other side of the street, sprawling over the sidewalk. When she looked down, she saw that her jeans were ripped at the knee.
“Gretchen!” Will ran to her side.
She looked up at his face. He was staring after the car, as if daring it to come back. But it wouldn’t return, Gretchen knew that.
Will helped her stand, wobbl
y on liquid knees. She clung to his elbow as they walked over to the Gremlin. The side was smashed, and the force of the car had driven the front of the Gremlin into the rear of the car parked before it. She stared at the place where she would have been crushed against the twisted metal.
She felt Mafer looking at her. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“You lit that car with lightning,” Mafer pressed.
“I didn’t mean to,” Gretchen said, but even as the words passed her lips, she doubted them. She had meant to. She had wanted to see the driver. There was even a part of her that would have killed the driver if she’d had the chance. The thought made her tremble. Was that what I wanted? Gretchen wondered. Or is it what Tisiphone wanted? What’s the difference between being Tisiphone and being possessed by Circe?
Shaking, she looked over at her car. The glass on the driver’s side had shattered, erasing the letters that had appeared there, and Gretchen wondered if she had ever really seen them at all. That was when she noticed that Will was staring at the same place.
“Back,” Gretchen said.
Will gaped at her. “You saw that?”
Mafer gasped, and they both looked at her.
Gretchen felt as if she were falling—she could almost hear the wind rushing past her ears. “You too?”
Mafer’s brown eyes were wide. “Yes.”
“It was a warning. You both saw it. Something tried to kill me, and something tried to warn me.”
Mafer nodded.
Gretchen didn’t need to waste time wondering what was trying to kill her. That much was obvious. But the other was still a mystery. “Was it … the ghost?” Gretchen asked.
“It’s …” Mafer looked at Will. Even in the dim, cloudy light of the street lamp, Gretchen could see her hesitation. She gazed at Will, who seemed sick and pale. The moisture glistened on him like a fever. It was clear that Mafer wouldn’t speak—not unless Will wanted her to.