At last, Theodora holds out her hand. Cupped in her palm are four little red pills. She hands them over to Pru.
Pru takes one of the red pills and slips it into her mouth as casually as she can, slides it over her tongue, swallows it down. Necco watches her, her eyes filled with understanding, but no judgment.
Not wanting to seem ungrateful, Pru thanks Theodora before asking, in a timid voice, “But is this all? All you could get?”
Theodora blows out a long breath, looks down at her scuffed black boots. “It’s all I have on me,” she says at last.
“But I’ve got money, see. Whatever you need. I left school, cashed my check. Brought you to my home. I was hoping…hoping for more.”
More. More. More.
She doesn’t want to seem desperate. Or pathetic. She sees the two girls watching her, judging the fat lady. But she’s used to being judged, has learned that people will think what they will, often the darkest, cruelest things, and there’s nothing she can do about it. And she’s tired. Tired of making do with what’s given her. It’s time to stand up for herself. To say what she wants. To demand that she get it. “Our…arrangement was that I would lend you money to help you out of whatever trouble you’re in and you would bring me more vitamins.”
“I brought you what I have right now.”
Pru licks her lips. “It’s just that the vitamins make me feel so much better, and four pills, well, they won’t last long.”
Theodora looks Pru right in the eyes. “Mrs. Small, I understand,” she says. “If I had more, I would have brought them.”
“Are there any in the bag you left behind?” Necco asks, stepping forward. She’s got one of the lions in her hands, is gently stroking its yarn mane. “There’s a bag of pills in there.”
“Yes, totally!” Theodora says. “There’s a bunch more. I still can’t believe you have it and that the money and everything is there. I was sure you and that guy had spent it. I came back the night before last to ask for it, but you were both asleep.”
“Wait. You came to the Palace?”
“The Palace?”
“To the car. You came to my car that night?”
“Yeah, but like I said, you were both sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you. I was afraid your friend would go ballistic. And you’ve got that knife.”
A knife? Pru thinks.
“What time? What time did you come?”
“Around nine. A little after maybe.”
“And Hermes was okay?”
Theodora nods. “Sleeping like a baby. He had his arm wrapped around you.”
The girl seems to flinch, clenching the clothespin lion with wire legs in her hands. “You didn’t see anything? Anything at all?”
Theodora rummages around in the backpack again, pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
“Can’t smoke in here,” Pru snaps. “It’s against the rules. No-smoking building. My landlord will evict me. He’s real strict.”
Theodora settles on just holding a cigarette in her hand. “Actually, yeah. That night, when I was by the car, there was someone in the alley. Watching.”
“What’d he look like?” Necco asks, eyes huge, frightened. “Did you see his face? Did he have any tattoos? Anything on his wrist?”
“I have no idea. He was in the shadows. I’m not even sure it was a guy. Just someone in a long coat, and when he saw me, he stepped back into the alley. Disappeared.”
“Then what?” Necco seems almost frantic now.
“I was spooked, so I ran. I decided to come see you early in the morning to look for my bag. But when I got there…One of the police found me and asked me about giving you the knitting needles.”
Necco turns away so that her back is to them.
At last, Pru understands. She knows who the girl with the candy name really is.
“Wait a minute,” Pru squeals. “You’re that girl! The one they’re all looking for. The one who killed her boyfriend in the abandoned lot across from the school!” She takes a step back, moving toward the kitchen phone. She’ll call the police, that’s what she’ll do. Say, There’s a murderer in my house. And Mr. Marcelle had told her there was a reward. Ten thousand dollars. Think what she could do with all that money! Instead of calling the police, she should call him! He could come over, grab this girl, bring her to the police. They could split the reward money, the two of them…heroes.
Necco’s eyes are steely. “I did not kill him.”
She says this so ferociously that Pru takes another, bigger step back.
“Hermes was all I had,” Necco says, quieter now, voice cracking. “Why would I hurt him? I’ve got no one now.”
Pru freezes. She knows about being alone, understands that it’s not something you would choose if you didn’t have to.
Pru also understands that things are not always what they seem. Knows it’s not wise to judge by appearances.
“Okay,” she says, suddenly remembering that she’s the adult here. The authority figure. It’s up to her to get to the bottom of things. “If you didn’t kill him, who did?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. Because the whole world will think I did it until I can prove different.”
“But how?” Theodora asks. “How are you going to figure it out? I mean, just say the person I saw was the killer—someone in a long coat is hardly a workable clue.”
Necco nods. Rubs the back of her head like it hurts.
“I’ll start by trying to figure out what Hermes has been up to lately. He’d been gone all the time, said he was working on a secret project. I think he was looking into my past—into bad things that happened to my family. He was keeping something in a locker at the Family Fun Center—I found the receipt in his bag.” She reaches into her shirt, pulls out a locker key on a string around her neck to show them. “He was going to take me there yesterday and show me what he’d found. He said it was going to change everything.”
“What do you think it could be?” Pru asks, completely drawn in. A real-life mystery. Like the BBC program she loved with the handsome detective.
“Something he didn’t want to carry around with him, obviously,” Theo guesses. “Maybe because it put him in danger.”
Necco nods. “I have to see what’s in that locker. I’ve gotta get there. Today.”
Theodora rocks back on her heels, twirling the unlit cigarette between two fingers. “I don’t know, Fire Girl. You saw the paper—you’re front-page news. The whole city thinks you’re a deranged killer.” Then, as if just remembering, she smacks her forehead, sticks the unlit cigarette behind her ear. “Oh, crap, that’s right! The paper! Let’s see what it says.”
She goes to the kitchen, comes back with the newspaper. Sure enough, there’s a drawing of Necco on the front page beneath a photo of the poor boy who was killed.
Theodora whistles. “Shit! Did you know he was the governor’s son?”
Necco shakes her head, her pasty-white face going paler still.
“Matthew Stanton, age nineteen. The governor’s offered a ten-thousand-dollar cash reward to anyone with information leading to your capture.” She scans the article another minute, then reports, “The good news is that they don’t seem to know a thing about you. At least not that they’re mentioning. They just call you an ‘apparently indigent young woman’ and give a physical description. Some of the kids from school helped the sketch artist with the picture.” She holds up the paper. “It’s a pretty good likeness, huh?”
“And now you’ve been spotted by the people at that health food store!” Pru says. “There are probably police combing the whole neighborhood!”
Necco fingers the key around her neck. “I have to see what’s in that locker.”
Theodora sighs, carefully folds the newspaper, and tucks it back into its plastic bag. “If I help you get what’s in the locker, will you take me to where my bag’s stashed?”
The girl nods.
“Do you have a car, Mrs. Small?” Theodora asks.
“We need to borrow it.”
No way. No way were these girls taking her car anywhere. In all honesty, Pru isn’t even sure if it still runs. It’s been parked in the lot behind the apartment building for ages. She hasn’t renewed the registration or insurance. No money for such things. And no need—not when the bus that takes her to and from school is so close. Once a week, she stops at the market on the way.
“No one borrows Mabel,” she tells them.
“Mabel?” Theodora says. “You named your car Mabel?”
“There are pills in the bag, ma’am,” Necco says. “Let us borrow the car and we’ll go to the bowling alley, then to where I hid the bag. Theo gets her money, you get more of your…vitamins.”
“And the guy I have to go see, the one all that money belongs to? He can get more vitamins,” Theodora adds. “Lots and lots of vitamins.”
Pru considers, pleased that her head feels clear, the fog has lifted. The vitamin is working already. She feels less achy. More alive. Ready for anything.
“So can I have the keys, Mrs. Small?” Theodora asks. “I have a license. I’m a good driver. We’ll be back in a couple hours. And we’ll bring more vitamins. I can leave something of mine here if you like. As collateral.”
Pru thinks for a minute. “Like I said,” she tells them. “No one takes Mabel.”
“But, Mrs. Small,” Theodora protests, “I don’t think you—”
“I’ll drive,” Pru says. “I know just where that bowling alley is. I’ll call work and tell them I won’t be back in today.”
“Excellent,” Theodora says, a wide grin on her face. “We’ve got ourselves a plan!” She turns and looks at the other girl. “Before we go, maybe we should do something to disguise Necco. Do you have some makeup? A scarf or wig maybe?”
Pru smiles. She’s feeling good now. Back in her element. “This is the circus, dear. We have a thousand disguises.”
Necco
The smell of the Family Fun Center assaults Necco as soon as she walks through the door: floor wax, popcorn, beer, the disinfectant they spray in the shoes. Although it opened only an hour ago, the place is bustling, and already Necco’s head aches from the noise.
There are twelve bowling lanes, one of which is occupied by a birthday party full of small boys, all wearing cardboard crowns and whacking each other with cardboard swords. There’s an indoor playroom with a huge climbing structure, and a pit full of colorful balls in which half a dozen children are swimming, cackling and cawing.
Kids and adults plunk gold tokens into video games, Whac-A-Mole, the claw. There is a fortune-telling machine in the corner with an old witchy mannequin head: LOVE? FORTUNE? LET MADAME ZELESKI READ YOUR FUTURE. A room with a thick red theater curtain on the door promises LASER TAG.
“Over there,” Theo says, pointing to the lockers down at the end, near the bathrooms. Theo’s long blond hair is mostly tucked up into a black felt bowler hat. She’s wearing big round glasses with rose-colored lenses from Mrs. Small’s costume trunk and looks more like a character from a play than someone from real life. Necco is wearing a dirty-blond, shoulder-length wig, a blue suede jacket with fringe, and huge amounts of makeup; the foundation has turned her pale skin an orangey tan color, and they’ve topped it off with sticky mascara, bright red lipstick. She has on Hermes’s big sunglasses with the mirrored lenses. They calm her, help tone down the brightness and noise, help her to feel safe, help distract her from how her face feels itchy and tight. When she’d caught sight of her reflection in the door, she’d hardly recognized herself. Theo had begged her to stay in the car with Mrs. Small, to let her get whatever was in the locker, but Necco had refused. She wasn’t trusting this to anyone. Opening Hermes’s locker was something she needed to do. But now that she’s actually here, inside, she doesn’t like this place. The closeness of it. The noise. The feeling she has that everyone’s watching her and can see right through her ridiculous disguise.
She follows Theo by the snack bar, where a teenage boy with bad acne is filling a display case with greasy pizza.
“Help you?” he calls out to them.
“No thanks, we’re all set,” Theo calls back cheerfully. Necco feels his eyes on them as they make their way to the bank of bright orange lockers. She scans the rows until she spots it: 213.
2 plus 1 is 3. If it were a sequence, it might be followed by 314, 415, 516.
Necco remembers that her father used to give her and Errol math puzzles like this. Find the next numbers in the sequence. She closes her eyes, recalls how she would lie on her belly on the living room rug and fill whole sheets with the answers. She could work on this for hours, so focused on the numbers that everything else melted away.
Errol grew bored, asked for proper math problems. “You know,” he said. “Something that will teach us things we might actually use in real life.”
“This is teaching you useful skills,” Daddy said.
“Yeah, maybe if we’re going to grow up to be code breakers or spies or something.”
“Your sister seems to enjoy it,” Daddy said.
Errol smiled. “Gonna grow up to be a spy, Little E?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But if I do, I won’t be able to tell you, so you’d never even know it.”
Errol laughed. “You’d never be able to keep a secret like that from me, Little E.”
Taking the key from around her neck, she bends down, fits it into the lock, and twists. The door springs open like something’s pushing from the other side. A snake in a can. She’s seen that trick before.
No snake here, though. A large manila envelope sits in the middle of what is otherwise an empty locker. She picks it up, surprised by how light it is. She’d been expecting something with more substance. She undoes the clasp and reaches inside. Her fingers tremble.
“What is it?” Theo asks, leaning in for a better view.
“I don’t know,” Necco says. “Papers.”
“We should take them with us. Get out of here. You can read them in the car.”
Necco is only half-listening. These papers were last touched by Hermes, and she imagines that they are covered with the faint ghosts of his fingerprints, the loops and swirls that were his and his alone. Matthew Stanton, the governor’s son.
She pulls out a stack and flips through: on top is a note that says: Meet at Ashford Library, 1 pm, Mystery section. Yesterday’s date was scrawled at the bottom and circled. This was part of his surprise. He was taking her to the library, taking her to meet someone, it sounded like, but who? Now she’d never know.
Beneath this are photocopied newspaper articles, sheets of legal paper covered with the familiar scribble of Hermes’s handwriting (your handwriting looks like tiny bird footprints, she’d told him once, like a little sparrow has danced across the page), and a photograph of a blue house with a stone walkway. Necco recognizes it immediately. She lets her finger trace the stone path, knock, knock, knock on the front door. Hello, anybody home? If she opened the door, she’d see Daddy’s favorite chair and the little table with his pipe and tobacco, the couch with the sagging springs where Errol might be curled up with a comic book.
“What is it?” Theo asks, squinting down at the photo.
“It’s my house,” she says. Her voice feels like it doesn’t belong to her. She thinks of Promise the doll, of how she used to speak, sing a little song, and imagines her own voice small and hollow, like Promise’s once was.
“Wait, you have a house? I thought you lived in that old car.”
“It’s the house I grew up in. It was destroyed in the Great Flood.”
“Great Flood?” Theo says, eyebrows raised questioningly.
“That’s what my mother called it. The flood that destroyed our house, killed my father and brother. When the dam broke?”
Theo shakes her head. “I don’t think that dam has ever broken. I did this whole project on it. It was originally built back in 1836 to provide power for the mi
ll, then the Army Corps of Engineers rebuilt it in 1939. That dam is totally solid. There’s never been a single problem.”
“My mother…” Necco says, frowning. “She had a funny way of looking at things, kind of reframing them. When she told a story, you had to work hard to pick out pieces of the truth.”
She flips to a photocopy of a newspaper article from June 17, 1975, about a murder-suicide. She scans the article. Realizes this is about her father’s parents. They weren’t killed in an accident at all. The story she picks out is horrific. Her eyes catch on a quote from a neighbor: “ ‘Miles came to our house covered in blood, hysterical. He said a man in a chicken mask had killed his mother,’ Mrs. Richardson told reporters.”
Necco takes in a startled breath.
He’s the King of Liars, her mother said. A jackal-hearted man. He goes by many names: the Chicken Man, Snake Eyes.
And here’s the worst part of all: he’s the one responsible for the Great Flood. Other terrible things, too. Like what happened to your grandparents.
Necco feels the room getting smaller. Everything falls to the floor, papers scattering. And there, all pixelated and strange in a photocopied newspaper article, is her daddy’s face looking back at her.
LOCAL PROFESSOR SOUGHT FOR QUESTIONING IN THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED
“Is everything all right here, girls?” A man wearing a Family Fun Center polo shirt has approached them. He’s looking down at the scattered pages, at the article with her daddy’s face on it.
Is
Everything
All right
A lightning bolt of pain starts at the old scar along the back of her head and radiates through her skull. Necco feels the waves wash over her, pull her under; she’s coughing, gasping, but there’s no fighting it. She lets the dark water take her down.
Theo
Necco’s face is slack, her eyes unreadable behind the mirrored sunglass lenses. The papers she was holding are scattered at her feet.
“Necco?” Theo says, but the girl doesn’t respond, does not seem to hear her.
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