Celia hugged herself and shivered. “What could be worse than snakes?” Then she added, “I read this book once about a ship that took a thousand years to travel to another planet from Earth, and when they got there, the planet was full of monster snakes. I guess that would be worse.”
“What happened next?” Demetri asked.
Celia told him the rest of the story of how the human colonizers had gone to war with the snake monsters and were losing until they realized they could destroy them by teaming up with this sentient green algae that grew everywhere. Demetri told her about a book where humans traveled to a planet full of robots who kept getting confused about human emotions and killing anyone who felt sad in order to alleviate suffering. They talked on and the conversation shifted from books to music, back to books again, and then Celia found herself telling Demetri about her parents and how much she missed them. The light in the cold room slowly shifted from gray to a pale blue as the night ended. Celia’s eyes became heavier and heavier, and she couldn’t stop yawning.
Celia woke with a start. Sun shone on her face as the rays of dawn flooded the cathedral’s turret. She blinked and sat up. Demetri was gone. The air held his lovely, fading scent. She stretched and stood. Demetri had said the snakes would be gone by morning. Please let him be right, she thought.
Celia went to one of the open windows and leaned out. She searched the road for snakes but didn’t see any. White strands of trash littered the ground, unidentifiable from up here. Nothing slithered around that she could see. But what if the snakes were still down there? What if they were always part of the city from now on, and the weather reports would become snake reports, and restaurants would only serve snake meat, and everyone would have snakes for pets?
She went to the trapdoor at the center of the room. It lay bolted shut. Demetri must have used magic to lock it behind him. Celia took a deep breath, unlocked the door, and opened it a quarter inch, ready to slam it shut if the cobra still waited for her. Nothing. Celia opened the door another inch.
Slowly, with shaking hands, she raised the door and lowered herself down to the stairs. She took three steps down before she saw it: a white, empty husk of snakeskin coiled on the steps.
She hurried past it, skipping down the staircase that she’d fled up yesterday. The only sound in the whole cathedral was the thump of her feet.
Had the hunters survived the night? Celia hoped that everyone was all right.
More white snakeskins wound around the banister and littered the hallways. At the bottom of the stairs the skins lay inches deep. Celia strode through them, heading to the main part of the cathedral, where she saw two people huddled together near the pulpit. Above them, dozens of snakeskins lay wound around the hanging crucifix.
As she got closer, Celia saw it was Amber and Ruby. Even though they looked nothing alike, the way they sat close to each other and held each other made them look like sisters. Celia ran to them and threw her arms around both of them.
“I’m so glad you’re both alive.” She spoke in a river of words. “Is everyone okay?”
“Amber got bitten,” Ruby said. She pulled back from Celia and wiped a tear off her face.
“Are you okay, Amber? Do you need a doctor?”
Amber gave her a pale smile. “Fine.” The back of her hand was swollen up around a purple bruise with a fang bite at its center. Her lips were blue.
“Where were you?” Ruby asked. “Why didn’t you help her?”
“It’s not Celia’s fault,” Amber whispered. The girl’s skin looked ashy and gray. “I found a room I thought was empty. Two vipers attacked me. I killed them, but . . .” She touched her puffy hand. “Most snake venom isn’t fatal, even if it may cause vomiting and hallucinations.”
“I’m sorry,” Celia said. “That cobra chased me. I ran all the way up to the top of the cathedral. The snakes couldn’t climb up there, so I was safe.” No part of her even paused for half a second to consider telling them about Demetri.
“At least someone was.” Ruby glared at the snakeskin littering the room.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Celia asked again.
“Yeah. Fine. Hey, so there’s not a snake goddess hovering above that pew, right?” Amber’s eyes widened behind her thick glasses. “I might be hallucinating.”
Ruby scowled at the snake bite on Amber’s arm, as though her anger was a venom antidote. Her spiky hair rose up in wild purple clumps. “I should have kept you both with us. We killed a lot of snakes and then camped out in the refectory. We were fine. The rest of the hunters are out searching for Krawl this morning.”
“Good,” Celia said. She wanted to find Krawl too. Maybe the doom girl was the only one who could defeat her.
“Why do you have a snake tongue, Ruby? It’s freaking me out.” Amber squinted and leaned away from Ruby.
“Hallucinations,” Ruby reminded her.
“Maybe Amber should stay here while we search for Krawl,” Celia said.
“No. We aren’t looking for Krawl.”
“But she’s behind all this, right, and if we find her, maybe we can—”
“We have a more important mission. We’re hunting Demetri.”
Celia’s cheeks flushed. “He isn’t real. You said he was just a story.” She thought about how hunters liked to put Littles in cages.
“Yep. But”—a wolfish grin spread across Ruby’s face—“he’s supposed to be powerful and nearly as good at magic as Krawl is. If we find Demetri, we could use him to fight Krawl.”
“He doesn’t sound real,” Celia said quickly. “And anyway, I can’t go hunting with you today.” No way and nohow would she ever help them put Demetri in a cage.
“Why not?” Ruby asked.
“I . . . have to go to school?” Celia said. “It’s Monday. I—think I still have school.”
“Are you kidding?” Ruby said. “You think schools are going to be open today? Besides, how can you think about school at a time like this?”
“I just . . . need to go home and clean up, or go on a walk by myself, or whatever.” Celia chewed on her lip. “I’m not a hunter. Maybe I need a little downtime.” She stood up. Maybe she should try to find Demetri somehow and tell him to watch his back.
“But we’re in the middle of the doom prophecy. We have to make sure nothing bad happens.” Amber shivered.
Celia silently agreed with her. That was why she wasn’t going to hunt Demetri. “You really look like you need a doctor, Amber.”
“I feel good. Sort of floaty. I’m not floating, am I? Anyway, I’m pretty sure every hospital is going to be out of snake antivenom today,” Amber said.
“You have to come hunting with us, Celia. You left Amber alone and she got bitten. You owe us,” Ruby said.
“I owe you? I almost died. I had to run and—” Celia stopped talking. Let Ruby think whatever she wanted. Hunters didn’t understand lots of things: that was what Demetri had said. Ruby and Amber were her friends, but that didn’t mean they were right about everything. Celia began to walk out of the cathedral.
“Where are you going?” Ruby snapped at her back. “It’s not safe out there. Bigs will be looking for you.”
“I’m not hunting today.” Then she added, because a part of her, no matter how much she didn’t like what they did sometimes, still wanted to be their friend, “I’ll see you soon.”
“The city will hiss and the girl will run,” Ruby called out as Celia walked away. “See? It’s all coming true!”
19
Like a Nobody
Outside, snakeskins blew down the road. It was early enough that not many people were out. They were probably still barricaded behind doors, dreaming snake nightmares, Celia thought.
She scratched her cheek as she walked down the road. My Demetri mark feels less itchy today, she thought, and wondered what she should do now. She had no idea how to find Demetri and warn him about the hunters. Maybe, since she was the doom girl, just walking around would make something good hap
pen that would help save the city, like the prophecy predicted.
A boy walked down the sidewalk carrying some handwritten papers tucked under his arm. They said hi to each other in a friendly, “glad we’re both alive” kind of way. He handed her one of the papers.
At the top of it was a pressed seal of the city and at the bottom was the mayor’s signature.
The first paragraph, written in a hurried scrawl, said that the zoo had gotten a new snake shipment in, but unfortunately the shipping crate had been damaged in the earthquake, and the snakes would be contained soon.
Did the mayor believe that? How could anyone think that many snakes could be caused by something normal?
The next paragraph said that everyone should remain calm and indoors, and everything would go back to normal soon.
Celia took out her cell phone and saw that, of course, it still didn’t work. As she walked, she couldn’t stop glancing around and checking to make sure there were no more snakes. She half expected to see them S-curving down the road or dropping down from tree branches. An old blind woman half a block back used a white cane to tap along the sidewalk. She wore a shawl draped across her shoulders, the same color as her white bun. Celia thought about turning around and asking if she needed help. But the woman was walking fine, and Celia thought it might be annoying if you were old and blind and everyone was always asking you if you needed help when you didn’t.
Celia turned a corner and saw a dog park in the middle of the block. People stood alone and in pairs, watching as their dogs ran around and sniffed at the snakeskins. A bunch of the dogs sat together and looked alike. Celia blinked and saw it wasn’t just that they all looked alike, but that they all wore black leashes that led to the same man in a hooded trench coat who stood beneath a tree. There was something strange about him. The dogs were strange too. They were connected to the man on long flickering leashes and were made of . . . smoke? As soon as she saw it, she couldn’t unsee how unnatural and monstrous they were.
On some invisible command, the smoke dogs ran forward. Their leashes stretched as they started chasing real dogs. The smoke dogs moved swiftly over the muddy grass, and the dogs ran from them. Celia watched as one of them pounced on a smaller schnauzer and lowered its slobbering muzzle toward the dog’s body. The dog barked and writhed as it tried to get away. The owners looked on, unable to see anything that was happening. The schnauzer managed to squirm out from under the bigger dog and run. She looked away and saw the man with all the leashes watching her with glowing red eyes. Beneath his hood, there was only more smoke.
Celia turned and ran, fleeing from the sounds of panicked and barking dogs. She ran down a block, and another one, breathing hard and not looking back, sure the smoke dogs would be chasing her. And if they were? No one would help her. No one would even notice.
Celia glanced back. Nothing followed her. She slowed to a jog on the third block, and on the fourth she paused to catch her breath. Nearby there was a community center with a sign out front saying they were open. The outside of the front window was covered over with a large white poster. Someone had written on it with a fat black pen, What Is Going On? Does Anyone Know?
Hundreds of handwritten notes were written across it. It’s just a coincidence and The government hates us and is experimenting on us and BAD LUCK!
Everyone’s world has changed, Celia realized. Everyone in the city, even if they don’t know what is going on or why, is living in this topsy-turvy world. It’s not just me and the hunters against the monsters.
Someone had written, in small letters at the bottom of the poster, It’s invisible monsters. They’re everywhere.
That little bit of truth, easy to miss with all the other guesses, seemed like the least likely possibility.
Next to the poster was a hand-printed sign saying anyone in need should come in and get help. Celia peered in through the glass door and saw candlelit lanterns lighting the boxy room. It was crowded with cots, people, boxes of food donations, and a mishmash of furniture. A couple of girls from Celia’s school sat on a couch. She imagined walking inside and having them smile and hug her. Are you okay? they’d ask. One of them would tell Celia she could stay at her place until Celia’s parents came home, and then they’d eat breakfast together.
Except . . . they don’t know me. They’ve never been nice to me, Celia thought. She was surprised to realize that fact didn’t hurt her like it would have before the earthquake.
She opened the door and stepped into the dim room that smelled like cooked cabbage and stinky socks. Faded motivational posters with curling edges were tacked onto the walls. Failure is when you give up and Live every day like it’s your last.
“Are you here to write a letter?” a man with a Spanish accent and white hair asked.
“Letter?” Celia asked.
“To our loved ones outside the city. To tell them we are okay.”
“I guess so,” Celia said. She was pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to get the letters out of the city, but maybe something had changed.
He led her to a table full of pens, papers, and envelopes. Celia sat down on a wobbly wood chair and wrote her mom’s name on an envelope, along with her grandma’s address. Then she chewed on the plastic pen cap and stared at a blank piece of paper.
Dear Mom and Grandma,
There was so much they didn’t know, and so many things she’d done that she wasn’t supposed to. More than that, there was so much they wouldn’t believe.
I’m fine. I’m good. I miss you. Don’t worry about me, she wrote, with a shaky penmanship that her parents might not even recognize. She wanted to tell them true things, but didn’t want to make them explode with worry. So she wrote LOVE in big letters, signed her name, and folded it into the envelope that tasted like moldy peppermint when she licked it shut. She handed it to the man. “How is this supposed to get out of Youngstown?”
“We have a mailman who’s going to try to take a rowboat today.” He frowned. “Don’t know if he’ll make it—there are stories that it’s . . .”
“Dangerous,” Celia said. “Maybe he shouldn’t try. Maybe he should wait until this is over.”
The man smiled and pushed his glasses up with a thin pointer finger. “Why don’t you let the adults worry about that?”
Because I’m one of the few people who know what’s really happening, Celia thought.
Someone tapped her shoulder. “Hey, don’t I know you?”
Celia turned and looked at the two girls from her school—Ella and Teal. Celia knew their names because everyone knew their names. They were popular. The exact opposite of me, Celia thought. “Hi.”
“Hey. Can you believe it about the snakes last night?” Ella said. She looked Celia up and down, taking in her slept-in hunter clothes and dusty boots with a dismissive look. “It’s such bad luck: an earthquake and then the snakes. At least we weren’t stupid enough to be outside last night and get bitten.”
Both girls laughed.
Teal examined her chipped pink nail polish. “Both our houses got damaged in the quake and we have to stay here. We’ll get to go back home soon though. Some people’s houses collapsed.” They giggled again, like that was funny too.
Two days ago, Celia would have been over the moon that they were talking to her. Back then she’d been so sure something was wrong with herself, but now she could see that Demetri had been right. Growing up in a place like Youngstown twisted you. Maybe half seeing monsters and living in fear had made them mean. She didn’t envy them or wish they were her friends: all she felt was sorry for them.
Celia looked past them toward a table full of bagels and cream cheese. I should take a couple on my way out, she thought.
“What about you? Where are your parents? They allowed you to go on a walk by yourself outside?” Ella asked. She twisted her long brown hair around her finger.
Celia shrugged. “They were out of town the night of the earthquake.”
“That sucks,” Teal said. They both lau
ghed again.
Celia looked at them. Beneath their smiles, she saw fear. “Don’t worry. This will end soon. It can’t last.” Big magic didn’t last long, Demetri had said.
“Like you know anything. What’s your name, anyway?” Teal asked.
“Celia.”
“You’re new, right? Real quiet?” Ella said.
I wouldn’t be if anyone ever talked to me, Celia thought. “Yeah.”
“We’re so bored here,” Teal said. She put her hands on her hips. “All everyone does is come up with theory after theory about what is going on.”
“People make up stories when they don’t know the truth,” Celia said.
“Tell me about it. No one knows anything,” Ella said.
Two days ago I held the beating pizza-box heart of a monster in my bare hands, Celia thought, and touched the mark on her cheek. “I know.”
They laughed at her some more.
Celia walked over to the bagel table.
The girls followed.
“What do you think you know?” Ella asked.
Celia looked out the window at the leafless skeleton trees covered with hanging snakeskins. The bagels were hard. The cream cheese had a bad smell to it.
“What could you know? You’re just a weird girl,” Teal added.
Celia nodded. Truer every day. Maybe knowing the truth would help them understand all the weird things in their life. “It’s a magic spell being cast by monsters. They’re working on a huge spell to do something, but I don’t know what.”
“Are you kidding? How mental are you?” Ella asked.
Both girls were rolling their eyes at each other when someone rapped hard against the community center’s glass door.
Celia tensed.
Outside, two hunters peered in. One of them was a girl with a shaved head, the other was the tall boy who had dreamed about Celia. They gestured for her to come outside.
“You know them?” Ella asked. Both girls stared at the hunters, who wore leather from head to toe. The girl carried a baseball bat. The boy had a black eye.
Celia looked at the two girls and knew she could stay here and try to become friends with them. But she walked outside instead.
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