The skin on the back of my neck prickles, and I take a breath. “Something you’d like to say?” I ask.
Behind me, I hear the silver sound of jingling keys and a cleared throat. Then the voice.
“Need a ride?”
The air thickens as I spin around. The world behind me is no longer the darkened movie theater but a porch decked out with tea lights, a warm, bright island in a sea of trees. And at the top, grinning down at me, Nick Lansbury tugs at his key chain like a baited hook.
And that ever-present distant roar—it’s gotten louder.
I understand panic now. I understand it well enough that it doesn’t carry me away like it used to. This isn’t Nick. Nick has never in his life been so still. The Nick at the top of the stairs regards me in that same placid, watchful way as Gaby did last night.
“Okay . . .” I run out of breath halfway through the word. I take in a gulp of cool, damp air. It’s misting rain, here in the memory. I can see droplets of it clinging to Nick’s hair. “You want me to learn your language? Then I’ll guess. Are you trying to tell me that she’s right?”
Without blinking, the Flood nods.
One step forward for our communication, I guess.
I glance behind us, into the endless stretch of Sutton Avenue. I know I’m not really here. I catch those little differences from reality: the bare grass, devoid of trees, and the starless sky. But if not for the click of Cassie’s heels still echoing from the present, I might’ve forgotten where I was.
“Do you know what she means,” I say, “when she says you’re going to do something terrible?”
Another nod is my answer. This isn’t Nick. But I shiver. This might be as close as I ever get to an admission of guilt from him.
“I don’t know what you want,” I breathe. “But if you’re still trying to tell me, maybe you think I can give it to you. I’ll keep trying to understand. So just—don’t stop talking.”
The road doesn’t disappear when I turn. But I follow the sound of Cassie’s footsteps until it does.
Sixteen
THE INTERMISSION
“IT’S BEEN YEARS. Many of your lifetimes, I’d say.”
The figures overhead, perched on the library roof at the southwestern point of town, look about fifteen feet tall in the light of the sun. But it’s hard to say. They’re only visible from a certain angle, and it’s impossible, somehow, to look at them directly.
But however hard they are to look at, they’re strangely easy to talk to.
“We are surprised,” another says. “We knew your flood to be a gentle soul. We heard rumors over time of a change. But we did not give them much weight.”
“Perhaps you might ask one of your own kind,” another chimes in politely. “They went to live among you. You’ve seen much more of them than we, surely.”
Cassie clears her throat. She’s not quite hiding behind me, but she’s close. “Humans don’t all know one another.”
I scribble Live among us? in my running list of notes, right below their collective happiest memory: a lengthy, lurid description of an ant climbing a cactus.
“Thank you,” I say. “That helps.”
“We wish you peace, child,” one says softly. The hairs at the back of my neck prickle.
“You might tell your kind to visit more often,” another says. “It’s become quiet, this place.”
“You kidnapped fifteen people from this spot in the seventies alone,” Felix says.
There’s a pause. Then, in a perfect imitation of Cassie, the sound of a throat clearing. “Our thoughts on humanity have evolved.”
“Oh,” Felix says faintly. “Neat.”
* * *
—
“HOW DID YOU not see this?”
“I’m not a gumball machine!” Cassie says hotly. “You don’t put in a quarter and get a—Rose!”
I barely start to peer around the doorframe before Cassie yanks me back. Seconds later, a casserole dish sails out of the house and shatters onto the front walkway. Casserole included.
“Mrs. Graham?” Alex, huddled at the other side of the front door next to Felix, somehow manages politeness and urgency as the same time.
“Get her off my property, Harper!” Mrs. Graham howls back. “Or I’ll call the law!”
There’s a pause. I think Mrs. Graham realizes, at the same time we do, that we’re technically the law.
And make no mistake, Mayor Williams chirps on the blaring TV. We must find common ground.
“You first,” I mutter.
Mrs. Graham recovers first. “I’m counting to five!”
“Mrs. Graham,” Alex starts, “if this isn’t a good time—”
A mermaid lamp sails through the door, shattering just past the Pyrex-and-noodle carnage by the steps. Felix, lips pursed, nods.
“Let’s just run,” he says. By the time it’s fully out of his mouth, he’s already moving.
“Felix!” Alex hisses, with a cursory grab at empty air.
“Let’s just run!” Felix calls faintly, already halfway across the lawn.
* * *
—
“YOU’RE SERIOUS,” FELIX says.
Lotus Valley High Student Council President Natalie Meyer grimaces, tugging one perfectly tight curl. It’s then that I remember where I heard her name before: the girl whose sweet sixteen Alex broke into to save Felix from his own curiosity. We’re currently clustered on her lawn, fanning ourselves against the boiling heat and watching her glance back at the house, where her father stands in the open doorway with crossed arms.
“Dad understands there were extenuating circumstances,” Natalie says in her sweet, high voice. “But Alex still broke a window. He’d feel better if we had this conversation outside, away from anything fragile.”
“Felix.” Alex has flushed a deep, dangerous red. Whether it’s the heat or the embarrassment, I’m not sure. “Just let it go.”
“He’s the one who should let it go!” Felix shoots back. Alex makes a valiant effort to sink into the earth’s core. “I almost got the whole party eaten. If he blames anyone, he should blame me.”
Natalie glances back at her father questioningly. He seems to think about that for a moment. And then he shrugs his massive shoulders.
Natalie, turning back to us, brightens. “Dad says we all make mistakes.”
* * *
—
ACE MARTIN, PTA president and high school band teacher, tells me right off the bat that he’ll be voting against me.
“It’s not what you think,” he explains. “I don’t have a problem with the neighbors. I used to be fascinated with ’em, really. My best friend growing up had one living under his house, scratching at his floorboards all night.” He chuckles. “I was scared to death. But I wanted to see them more than anything.”
I take a sip of the coffee he insisted on ordering me. “You never did?”
“All I ever saw under there was dirt and mice,” he says. And for a moment, he’s quiet. “I guess I always figured that if I knew what they were, what they wanted, that they wouldn’t scare me anymore. It was Maggie Williams who told me that I didn’t have to look. That I could live how I wanted, regardless of what they were doing down there. I don’t know if I can tell you how freeing that was.”
I hesitate before I ask. “Did Mayor Williams stop looking, too?”
Ace answers with the same easy magnanimity as before. But something in the air undeniably shifts.
“She says she gave that future-business up. And I believe her. But if she can see what’s coming, and she chooses not to . . . it’d be a tough pill to swallow. But I’d understand.” Something in his face darkens. “There’s not a lot you get to choose out here.”
* * *
—
“ARE YOU FAMILIAR with the entity that was born here?”
>
An impossible stillness falls over the stairwell of Lotus Valley Memorial Hospital. I ease myself around the corner to get a better look, Felix’s hand fluttering nervously above my shoulder. There’s a figure up ahead, bent nearly in half. In the dark, it looks massive, sketchy. Its eyes, more than half the size of its face, are a deep, solid black.
Quietly, almost inaudibly, it giggles.
“They will come,” it whispers. “And we will feed.”
Alex clears his throat. When he speaks next, his voice is nearly a squeak. “Can I put that down as a yes?”
* * *
—
“OF COURSE I’M voting for you, man.” Felix’s friend Miles barely pauses his rep, hoisting himself above the pull-up bar. “Armadillo pride, right?”
“Aw, dude.” Felix looks genuinely touched. “I’m just a reserve player.”
Miles drops to the floor to clap his shoulder. “Armadillos don’t know the difference between starter and reserve, man. I read that somewhere.”
I take a deep breath through my nose. Felix on the other hand is all but welling up.
“You should know you’re not voting for me specifically,” Felix says, his voice choked.
“But close enough,” Cassie says with a beatific smile. Miles flushes a little redder.
“You’re all coming to the scrimmage Friday, right?” he says. “You can come, too, new girl.”
It takes me a second to realize he’s serious. “Um,” I say. “I might be destroying your town Thursday.”
Miles blinks, unfazed. “Right,” he says. “But what are you doing after?”
* * *
—
IF YOU’D ASKED me to picture Mayor Williams’s personal assistant, I would have imagined the same pearls, sweater set, and smile. But Loreen Murphy is a twentysomething with a patterned undercut, a GENDER? I HARDLY KNOW HER T-shirt, and a resting boredom face that twists into a grimace as we work our way through the survey.
“Ugh.” Loreen full-body shudders. “These answers are private, right?”
They don’t strike me as the kind of person who’d summon an ages-old being upon their home. Loreen seems moderately allergic to public displays of sincerity—to the point where they’re almost too embarrassed to call a weekend with their late grandparents their happiest memory. The person who made that tape is a true believer, I think. Someone who’s completely convinced that whatever the Flood has to offer is worth all this.
But I pay close attention nonetheless. According to Theresa’s list, Loreen is one of the most frequent customers of Paul’s Pawn and Loan, just below John Jonas.
They probably shop there ironically. But still.
There’s a sudden blaring sound as a van whizzes by outside, outfitted with loudspeakers. I catch Maggie Williams’s face screen-printed on the side, beaming at me.
The time is now, a cheery voice booms. The time to take the safety of our town into our own hands. The time to bring this chapter of Lotus Valley to an end. Vote YES tonight. For more information . . .
Loreen grimaces as the voice fades around the corner. “Ugh,” they say again, with feeling. “I hate how my voice sounds recorded.”
“If it helps,” I say delicately, “I didn’t recognize you.”
“Thanks.” Loreen brightens a bit. “Sorry. Jobs, right?”
I realize, belatedly, that voting yes actually means voting no—no to the Flood, at least. “So you don’t agree with her?”
“Don’t have an opinion,” Loreen says with a shrug. “It’s not like I want to lose my house or anything, but there’s no proof that’s gonna happen except for Cassie’s prophecy. No offense.”
“None taken,” Cassie says.
“And your being here isn’t all bad.” Loreen smirks at me. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen Williams so pissed.”
I smile for real this time. “I’m surprised she didn’t come tell me so.”
“Not her style,” Loreen says. “She’ll go after you tonight, with all her cronies behind her. And until then, she’s gonna let you look twice around every corner.”
They say it casually, but there’s a grim set to their mouth.
Maybe that’s why Cassie asks.
“Do you really think her abilities are gone?” she says.
Loreen considers us for a moment. Then defiantly, they lift their chin.
“She says she can’t do it at all anymore. I think that’s probably bullshit,” Loreen says. “But one thing’s true either way. Even if she can look, she won’t.”
“So you think—” I start.
“Yup.” Loreen grins humorlessly. “We’re on our own.”
* * *
—
SANDY ALVAREZ, CHRISTIE’S wife, is a five-foot Cuban woman with tight curls and a round, welcoming face. Our detour to her home isn’t planned, and yet when we walk in, she’s already making pastelitos. Which I guess proves that you don’t have to be Cassie to see the future.
“Guava and cream cheese,” she says, handing me one. “It’s a shame I couldn’t make my chicken version. Cassie doesn’t eat cilantro.”
“It tastes like soap,” Cassie says. Sandy shoots a long-suffering look my way.
It’s midafternoon, and we’ve crossed off all but one place from our list. But we’ve got an hour to kill before the last item: Lotus Valley Central Caverns, three p.m. Our appointment with the Mockingbird.
And so Felix, with a pointed look at Alex’s slumped shoulders, suggested we catch our breath. We’ve been at the table for about ten minutes before I notice Alex sunken into the living room couch, head tipped back, eyes closed. So his plan to “just sit down for a minute” is going great.
Sandy ducks out after ten minutes to finish packing the evacuation bag, and Cassie hesitates, then trails after her. Leaving Felix and me to load up on a new round of pastelitos at the kitchen table.
“Tired?” he asks.
“Nah,” I say, which is a blatant lie. “You?”
“Aces,” he says.
I snort into my hands.
After a beat, Felix frowns. “Nothing from the boss yet,” he says, looking down at his blank phone screen. “You think she’s right about Cassie’s parents?”
“I only know what Cassie thinks. Which is no.” I’m more worried about what’s in front of us now: the pages of notes each of us took today. “And if it’s not . . . what do we do with all this?”
“Not for us to figure out,” Felix says with a shrug. “Not for me, anyway. My internship’s over in less than a year. And until then, my only job is to do what Jones tells me to do.”
I watch him across the table. “You don’t like her, do you?”
“I like her just fine. It’s just . . .” He sighs. “Did she tell you she was at design school, before Rudy?”
“No,” I say. “But that doesn’t sound like any of my business.”
“I mean, it was . . . a bad time from what I know,” he says. “But it’s not like you have to give up on something you want because something bad happened to you.”
“Or her priorities changed?” I say, completely perplexed. “It seems like this job matters to her.”
Felix struggles with his words for a moment. And finally, he mutters, “I know. I just don’t know if Alex knows that.”
And just like that, the conversation changes to a language I can understand.
“He doesn’t need to go today,” Felix says. “He won’t admit it, but the Mockingbird tormented him, when he was a kid. He shouldn’t—”
“You don’t think this matters to him, too?” I say. “He knows what happened before wasn’t his fault. And he’s good at this job.”
“Well, of course he’s good at it,” Felix blusters. “But there’s other things he’d be good at. There are safer things he’d be good at.”
“Listen,” I say flatly. “There’s nothing less cute than a guy who thinks he knows what’s best for you. If you really like him, you should think about trusting him first.”
Felix’s eyes go wide. Then wider. I can see the blood creeping up his neck and into his cheeks. And I realize my mistake.
“Oh.” I laugh nervously. “You never actually—I assumed—”
He shoots me a long, tortured stare.
I venture quietly, “Was it a secret?”
“Oh,” Felix says. “Oh no, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“No!” I say quickly.
“Do you think he can tell?” he hisses.
“I don’t really . . .” I make a vague gesture. “You know, my best friend used to call this my soap opera senses?” He doesn’t seem to find that as charming as Gaby did. “He probably can’t tell. I don’t think so? I’m not sure.”
“Those were three different answers!” Felix’s eyes go saucer-wide. “Please don’t tell him.”
“I won’t, I swear,” I say.
“It’ll make things weird,” he says. “I mean, he wouldn’t make it weird, I’d make it weird—”
“Felix.” My hand hovers over his arm, careful not to crowd him. “I’m not going to say anything.”
He takes a breath and looks me dead in the eye. “Promise anyway. Please. I just—I don’t want him to feel like he has to—”
I hold his gaze until I hope he can see that I’m serious. “Not a word. I promise.”
Cassie ducks into the living room, snatches a roll of packing tape, and vanishes back into the master bedroom. And the movement draws my eye just past Felix, to the edge of the kitchen counter. Where a paring knife sits balanced on the edge.
A wave of cold washes over me. It’s possible that was there before, and I just didn’t notice. Or the Flood is reminding me that we’re not here to sit around and eat pastelitos.
When Gaby and I were thirteen, she dragged me door to door with her, handing out flyers for her babysitting business. You look trustworthy, Gaby had said, laughing. I don’t.
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