by Kim Harrison
Not that she routinely jumped up onto the roof of the marine biology lab when no one was looking to watch this. (Weekly.)
“I don’t know, it’s more a feeling than a type,” Miranda said finally.
“How many boys have you kissed? A hundred?”
“Uh, no.”
“Two hundred?”
Miranda felt herself blushing and hoped Sibby couldn’t see. “Keep guessing.”
They pulled up to the address she’d been given, an hour and fifteen minutes later than they should have, the first time she’d ever dropped a client off late.
When Miranda opened the car door for her, Sibby asked, “Is kissing a boy who’s your type really different than kissing just any boy?”
“It’s complicated.” Miranda was surprised at how relieved she was that she wouldn’t have to go into it more, admit to this girl that, actually, she had no idea.
The place looked more like a government safe house for witnesses than a home, she thought, walking Sibby to the door. It was like the dictionary definition of nondescript, sandwiched between a house with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves enacting the Nativity on the front lawn on one side, and one with a pink-and-orange swing set on the other. The only thing you noticed about this house was that there were thick curtains hanging in the front windows so you couldn’t see in, and a six-foot-tall solid wood fence blocking off the backyard so you couldn’t get in. The street was filled with noises—Miranda heard BBQs sizzling, conversations, someone watching Beauty and the Beast in Spanish—but this house was silent, as though it had been soundproofed.
She registered a low humming coming from the side, like an air conditioner but not quite. Glancing up, she saw that none of the power lines connected to this house. None of the phone lines, either. A generator. Whoever lived here was living off the grid. All in all, the whole place was really cozy, if cozy meant creepy and cultish.
And the woman who opened the front door? Exactly what you’d expect of someone creepy and cultish, Miranda thought. She had graying hair pulled back in a loose bun and was wearing a long skirt and kind of shapeless sweater. She could have been anywhere from thirty to sixty years old, it was impossible to tell because she was wearing a pair of huge bifocals with unflattering square frames that magnified her eyes and covered half her face. She looked completely harmless, like a schoolteacher who’d dedicated her life to caring for an aging relative and whose one indulgence was a secret crush on Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre.
Or almost like that. Like that was the look she’d been going for. But there was something wrong, some tiny thing that did not quite match, one tiny detail that wasn’t right.
So. Not. Your. Business.
Miranda said good-bye, took her $1.00 tip—“Because you were really quite late, dear”—and drove away.
She was half a block away when she slammed on the brakes and sprinted back to the house.
5
WHAT DO YOU THINK you’re doing? she asked herself. Rhetorically, since she was already up the Snow-White-and-the-Seven-Dwarves-Do-Baby-Jesus neighbor’s tree and staring into the yard of the house where she’d left Sibby.
I can’t wait to hear you say to the cops, “Yes, officer, I know I was trespassing but that woman was very suspicious because she was wearing false eyelashes.”
With a full Creepy Cult costume. They just didn’t go. Plus she had a hole for a nose piercing. And a French manicure.
Maybe she just has really big pores! And a love of dated manicures!
She wasn’t what she was posing as.
Is this about helping someone or having an excuse not to show up at prom and see Will with his face nuzzled in Ariel’s huge, soft—
Shut up, U-Suck.
I was going to say hair.
You are so not funny.
You are so not brave.
There were two guys sitting in the backyard, leaning across a picnic table toward each other with a book between them, both in T-shirts and khakis and Teva sandals, one of them wearing thick black-framed glasses, the other one with a scraggly beard. They looked like two geeky college guys playing Dungeons and Dragons and sounded like it too when the one wearing glasses said, “That’s not how it works. It says in the Book of Rules she can’t see for herself, only for other people. You know, like genies with wishes, how they can’t grant their own.” Except they each had a large automatic rifle lying on the table next to them and Miranda could see shooting targets set up on the fence.
So what? There are armed geeks. Maybe they’re Sibby’s protection. Go home. Sibby doesn’t need you. She’s fine.
If she’s fine, why isn’t she out there trying to kiss the two boys?
Miranda strained to hear something from inside the house but it was definitely soundproofed. A couple came out of sliding doors onto the patio away from the Geek Guys, a woman smoking a cigarette in short, tense puffs and a man. Miranda almost fell out of the tree when she recognized the woman as the cult lady, only now without the glasses, skirt, or sweater and with her hair down.
Which doesn’t mean anything.
The woman whispered, “We still need the girl to tell us the location, Byron.”
“She will.”
“She hasn’t yet.”
“I told you, even if I can’t get her to talk, the Gardener can. He’s good at that.”
The woman again: “I don’t like that he brought a partner. That wasn’t part of the plan. Does she get a cut—”
The man called Byron cut her off. “Put that out and be quiet, we have company.” He pointed to the Geek Guys scrambling over to join them.
The woman crushed her cigarette out under her foot and kicked it away.
“Is She all right?” Bearded Geek asked breathlessly, pronouncing She like it should be capitalized.
“Yes,” the man assured him. “She’s resting after her ordeal.”
Oh, they could not be talking about Sibby. Ordeal? No way.
“Has She said anything?” Glasses Geek asked.
The man said, “Just expressed how very grateful She is to be here.”
Miranda almost snorted.
Bearded Geek said, “Will we be able to see Her?”
“When the Transition happens.”
The geeks wandered off in a blissful daze and Miranda decided this was the weirdest thing she’d ever seen.
But it proved that Sibby was in no danger. These people clearly worshipped Her. Which meant it was time—
“Why is he called the Gardener, anyway?” Fake Eyelash woman asked the man.
“I believe because he’s good at pulling things out.”
“Things?”
“Teeth, nails. Joints. That’s how he gets people to talk.”
—time to find Sibby.
Miranda dropped out of the tree into the neighbor’s yard and found herself looking down the barrel of an automatic rifle.
6
“PUT THEM UP,” Glasses Geek said. “I mean your arms.”
Miranda did what he said because his hands were shaking so much she was afraid he’d shoot her by accident.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” he demanded in a voice that shook almost as much as his hands.
“I just wanted to get a glimpse of Her,” she said, hoping she made it sound right.
He narrowed his eyes. “How did you know She was here?”
“The Gardener told me, but I didn’t know where She was being kept so I climbed up that tree to look.”
“Which affiliate are you with?”
I knew this would end in tears. What now, smarty pants?
Miranda raised an eyebrow and said, “Which affiliate are you with?” Adding for good measure, “I mean, I would remember a guy like you if I’d seen you before.”
It worked! She saw him swallow hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. She would never doubt How to Get—And Kiss—Your Guy again! He said, “I’d remember you, too.”
She hit him with a dose of Winsome Smile and saw
the Adam’s apple do some more moving. She said, “If I give you my hand to shake, will you shoot me?”
He chortled and put down the gun. “No,” still chortling. Holding out his hand now. “I’m Craig.”
“Hi, Craig, I’m Miranda,” she said, taking it. Then flipped him onto his back and knocked him out cold in a single silent move.
She looked at her hand for a second in shock. She’d definitely never done that before. That had been very cool.
If you’re going to be an idiot and risk everything, you might as well do what you came for. You know, instead of just staring at the guy you knocked out?
She bent to whisper, “Sorry. Take three aspirin for your head when you wake up and you’ll feel better,” in his ear, and moved around the edge of the safe house.
There must have been an open window because she could hear voices here, the man who had been outside before now saying to someone, “Are you comfortable?”
And Sibby answering, “No. I don’t like this couch. I can’t believe this is the nicest room in the house. It looks like a place for a grandma.”
Heh!
Miranda followed the sound of Sibby’s voice and found herself standing in front of one of the street-facing plate-glass windows, looking through a gap in dark blue drapes into a living room. There was a spindly-looking couch, chair, and coffee table. Sibby was in the chair, her profile to Miranda, with a plate of Oreos in front of her. She looked fine.
The man was perched on the couch, smiling at Sibby, saying, “So, where are we supposed to drop you?”
Sibby took the top cookie off the Oreo and ate it. “I’ll tell you later.”
The man kept smiling. “I’d like to know so I can plan the route. We can’t be too careful.”
“Oh my gods, there’s like hours before we go. I want to watch some TV.”
Miranda heard the man’s heart speed up and saw his hand flex but he kept his tone light when he said, “Of course.” Then added, “As soon as you tell me where we’re taking you.”
Sibby frowned at him. “Are you deaf or something? I said I’d tell you later.”
“It’s in your best interest to talk to me. Otherwise I’m afraid I’ll have to bring in someone else. Someone a bit more…forceful.”
“Fine. But while I’m waiting, can I please watch TV? Tell me you get cable. Oh gods, if you don’t have MTV, I’m going to be really pissed.”
The man stood up with an expression on his face like he wanted to break something, then abruptly turned to face the door. Miranda heard footsteps coming toward the room from the hallway, and with them a familiar cha-cha heartbeat. Two seconds later Deputy Sergeant Caleb Reynolds burst through the door.
See? Sibby’s in no danger. The police are here. Scram.
Deputy Reynolds said to the man, “What’s taking so long?”
“She won’t talk.”
“I’m sure she’ll change her mind.” His heartbeat picked up.
Sibby glanced at him. “Who are you?”
Caleb said, “I’m the Gardener.”
This was extremely not good, Miranda decided.
“I wasn’t very impressed with the front lawn,” Sibby told him.
“I’m not that kind of Gardener. It’s a nickname. They call me that because—”
“Actually, I’m not even vaguely interested. I don’t know what you’re planning, Plant Boy—”
“Gardener,” he corrected, going a touch red.
“—but if you need to know where I’m supposed to be picked up by the Overseer, then you have to keep me alive, right? So you can’t exactly threaten me with death.”
“Not death, no. But pain.” He addressed the man. “Go get me my tools, Byron.”
As the man left the room, Sibby said, “I’m not going to tell you anything.”
Deputy Reynolds circled around so he was leaning over her chair, his back to the window.
“Listen to me—” he said, his heartbeat slowing down suddenly.
Miranda did a round-off, smashing through the window feet first, then knocked him unconscious with a side kick to the neck before he could turn around. She bent to whisper, “Sorry,” in his ear, decided as punishment not to tell him about the aspirins, grabbed Sibby, sprinted to the car, and stepped on the gas.
7
“HE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW you were there,” Sibby said. “He never even knew who hit him.”
“That was the idea.” They were parked next to an abandoned Amtrak maintenance building on an old part of the train tracks that was completely hidden from the street. It was the place Miranda had started coming seven months earlier to work out all her new crazy energy and try things she couldn’t practice anywhere else—Roller Derby was great for speed, balance, gymnastics, and shoving moves, but you weren’t supposed to use advanced judo. Or weapons.
She could make out marks from her last crossbow exercise on the side of the building, and the piece of railroad track she’d tied in a knot the day after Will rejected her was still lying on the ground. She’d never seen anyone else here, and she was sure she and Sibby would be pretty much invisible as long as they stayed parked.
“Where did you learn to knock people out like that?” Sibby asked, sprawled out over the backseat. “Can you teach me?”
“No.”
“Why not? Just one move?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why did you say you were sorry after you hit him?”
Miranda swiveled to face her. “It’s my turn to ask questions. Who wants to kill you and why?”
“Gods, I don’t know. It could be a ton of people. It’s not like that, how you think it is.”
“What’s it like then?”
“It’s complicated. But if we can just hang out until four in the morning, there’s a place I can go.”
“That’s six hours from now.”
“That’ll give me time for at least ten more kisses.”
“Well, of course. What else would you do while someone is trying to kill you besides go out and tongue tango with as many strangers as possible?”
“They weren’t trying to kill me, they were trying to abduct me. It’s totally different. Come on, I want to do something fun. Something with boys.”
“Or we could not do that.”
“Look, just because you are a founding member of Down with Fun Inc. doesn’t mean that the rest of us want to sign up.”
“I am not a founding member of Down with Fun Inc. I like fun. But—”
“Funkiller.”
“—somehow the idea of wandering around while ‘a ton of people’ are trying to kidnap you, doesn’t sound fun to me. It sounds like a good way to get into the Guinness Book of World Records under ‘Plan, comma, World’s Most Stupid.’ Plus innocent bystanders could get caught in the middle when the ton of people find you.”
“‘If,’ not ‘when.’ And they don’t care about anyone but me.”
Miranda rolled her eyes and turned back around. “That’s why they’re called innocent by standers. Because they were standing by you and accidentally got hurt.”
“Then you should definitely get away from me. Seriously, although there’s nothing I’d rather do than sit parked in a homeless person’s bathroom for six hours with only you for company, I think it would be safer for both of us if I take my chances elsewhere. Like at that ice cream place we passed on the way here. Did you see the lips on the guy behind the counter? They were mythic. Drop me there and I’ll be all set.”
“You’re so not going anywhere.”
“Really? Because that sound you hear? Is me reaching for the door handle.”
“Really? Because that sound you hear? Is me engaging the child lock.”
In the rearview mirror, Miranda saw Sibby’s eyes blaze.
“You’re really mean,” Sibby said. “Something horrible must have happened to you to make you so mean.”
“I’m not mean. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”
“Are you sure it’s me you’
re thinking about? Not some skeleton in your closet? Like the time you—”
Miranda turned up the radio.
“Turn that down! I was talking and I’m the customer.”
“Not anymore.”
Sibby yelled really loud, “What happened to your sister?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Miranda yelled back.
“That’s a lie.”
Miranda didn’t say anything.
“I asked you before if you had a sister and you got all teary,” Sibby shouted in her ear. “Why won’t you tell me?”
Miranda turned down the radio. “Can you give me three good reasons why I should?”
“It might make you feel better. It would give us something to talk about while we sit here. And if you don’t tell me, I’m going to start guessing.”
Miranda leaned her head back, checked her watch, and turned to stare out the window. “Be my guest.”
“You bugged her so much she left? You bored her so much she left? Or did you drive her away with the huge stick you keep up your butt?”
“Stop being tender with my feelings. Go on, tell me what you really think.”
From the backseat Sibby said, “That might have been too mean. Sorry.”
Miranda didn’t say anything.
“You don’t really have a stick in your butt. You couldn’t drive then, right? Ha-ha?”
Silence.
“But I mean, you started it. With the child-lock thing. I’m not a child. I’m fourteen.”
More silence.
“I said I was sorry.” In the backseat Sibby slumped, sighed. “Fine. Be that way.”
Silence. Until, for no reason she could explain, Miranda said, “They died.”
Sibby sat up quick now, leaning toward the front seat. “Who? Your sisters?”
“Everyone. My whole family.”
“Was it because of something you did?”
“Yes. And because of something I didn’t do. I think.”
“Um, Grandma Grim, that doesn’t make any sense. How can not doing something—wait, you think? Don’t you know what happened?”