Dan rolled her eyes and headed for the door.
Liss
When Dan texted that she was there, Liss grabbed her stuff and walked out the front door, through the gate, and straight to where Dan’s little hatchback was parked down the street. The fact that she was grounded meant that someone should have stopped her, but neither parent was up for the job: her dad was in Sacramento, and her mom was off doing whatever it was lonely mothers did at night. The odds were on her side that her mother would never notice Liss wasn’t there.
They headed north, letting the black bend of the road carry them back toward Dogtown. Liss reviewed the notes on her phone. She had a nagging feeling that something was amiss. But the auspices were good—better than good, she assured herself, although she hadn’t had time that afternoon to double-check them.
Liss pushed the thought out of her head. Everything would be fine. They would find Johnny, and the stalled engine of her life would start moving forward again. Dan rounded a switchback, then another.
“The turn’s up here,” Liss said.
Dan turned off the highway onto the dark, unpaved road. Her headlights cast a hazy glow that didn’t do much to illuminate the way ahead.
The road snaked up the back of the hill, and soon the blackness of the Pacific was out of sight, lost in the closer darkness of the cypress and pine trees. Near the top of the ridge, Liss said, “Stop anywhere you can leave the car.”
They got out of the car and took stock of the area. Nearby, a cattle gate was attached to an old wood-and-barbed-wire fence, and behind it was a track so poorly traveled it was barely visible in the moonlight. The gate was locked, and to emphasize this point, it had NO UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLES and PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING signs that reflected the beam of Liss’s phone flashlight.
Dan fitted her headlamp over her hair. “I’ve never been up here. Whose land is this?”
“It’s owned by an LLC,” Liss answered. “That’s all the information I could find. We’re headed to a clearing down the hill.”
Dan nodded, and Liss was struck by how much Dan seemed to trust her in that moment. She didn’t question her or complain or admit she was a little freaked out (as Liss was, maybe more than a little). She just said okay.
Liss hadn’t realized that this was part of what she’d missed, in missing Dan. How Dan was game for any of Liss’s ideas, and she’d trusted Liss not to let her get hurt—at least not too badly.
“What are you smiling at?” Dan asked.
Liss had been worthy of that trust, hadn’t she?
“Nothing,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Liss climbed between the rusty bars of the cattle gate. Dan followed her, and together, they set off into the darkness.
Alexa
Alexa drove south from Dogtown toward Black Grass, until she found the inland-traveling road she’d picked out on the map. As expected, it had no name, and wasn’t even paved after the first five hundred feet. At least it didn’t seem to be anyone’s driveway, and after bumping up it for ten minutes, Alexa had spotted nothing that looked like a Murder Shack. When she reckoned she’d driven far enough, she pulled the car into a shadowy patch as far off the road as she could.
Alexa left her phone in the car and locked it. Suddenly she remembered that girl who went missing from Liss’s school—Zephyr—and a shiver radiated from her spine. If something went wrong tonight, Alexa’s car would be found the same way, except there was no one to report her missing. Maybe no one who would miss her at all.
Domino, pacing at her feet, gave a stern meow.
Alexa oriented herself in the dark. The dinky beam of her flashlight lit up so little of the night that she simply clicked it off again. She should have checked the batteries. But the moon was nearing full, and the cloud cover was spotty enough to let some of its blue light through, and she had a cat with her, which had to count for some kind of night-vision bonus points. All around her, as Alexa’s eyes adjusted, a world of darkest blue and black revealed itself, the bright scatter of stars between the clouds, the click and twitch of the insects of the night, the nervous footfalls of the small nocturnal beasts. The night was alive, a dark, blossoming flower. Alexa inhaled its wet, fresh scent. She fished Lorelei’s evil-eye necklace from under her sweatshirt and pressed her lips to it, then set off toward Black Grass.
* * *
—
Aside from the barbed-wire fence she’d had to wriggle under at the outset, the hike hadn’t been difficult. After fifteen minutes of stumbling across a kind of field in the dark—literal black grass, Alexa thought—the lights of the campus came into view. Its perimeter was circled by a wooden fence with plenty of space between the boards. Not exactly what Alexa had expected from the intimidating gate that cut the campus’s driveway off from Highway 1.
Alexa couldn’t risk tripping an alarm or getting caught on video, so she tried to step quietly as she moved around its edge. She looked between the slats for anything that might be helpful, but for the most part, she saw—nothing. The campus looked somewhat like a rustic resort, with whitewashed bungalows with potted flowers at every door, clotheslines and hammocks strung up between trees, and a bench set up with half-played game of chess. It wasn’t exactly the awful prison she’d imagined.
On top of that, prisons usually had people in them. Alexa couldn’t see a single one of Black Grass’s seekers.
Domino came slinking from the underbrush; he’d run ahead to scout.
Where is everyone? Alexa thought to him with a horrible feeling in her stomach. What if Lorelei wasn’t the only one who’d been cursed?
Come on, Domino answered. It’s evening meditation.
* * *
—
A few yards from the fence, Alexa positioned herself behind the forked trunk of a tree and peered through the gaps in the fence. The seekers were gathered in an open space in front of the largest bungalow—Keith’s, no doubt. Maybe forty of them sat cross-legged on the ground, hands folded in their laps and heads bowed. It looked exactly like the meditation they’d been taught in North Coast High’s gym class. The only difference was that instead of Mr. Haskell reminding them to breathe in and out, here Keith was moving among the seekers, leading their breathing but also touching them. He placed his palms on their foreheads and cheeks, pressed his hands to their hearts and the midpoints of their backs, all with a horrible little smile on his face, like he was entertained by a private joke. A bolt of rage lurched inside Alexa. She knew the joke he was laughing at, and it was Lorelei: Lorelei dying, Lorelei dead, and here he was smiling about it, acting like a healer when he was at best a con artist and at worst—something else. Something Alexa didn’t have a word for yet.
She was going to make him pay.
I’m going closer, Alexa thought to Domino. She could feel his green eyes glaring at her although it was too dark to see them. While Keith is out here we can look at his bungalow.
Maybe it was dangerous to get closer, but it was dangerous to be there at all, and Alexa was past the point of caring. In the dark, Domino was probably switching his tail at her in judgment.
She crept closer to the fence, keeping half an eye on Keith, who was keeping both self-satisfied eyes on his obedient followers. As Alexa snuck closer to Keith’s bungalow, she lost sight of the meditation session. Not a big deal: breaking into the bungalow was her new prize. The fence wasn’t so tall that she couldn’t climb it. She could even try to leap from it onto the bungalow’s roof, which seemed like the kind of cool thing she would do if this was a movie, although she couldn’t figure out a practical reason to do it now. She put a hand on the fence and pressed, testing to see if it could hold her weight.
Domino hissed at her from somewhere near her feet. When she looked down, she only saw an inky spot of darkness. He hissed again.
Move back. It isn’t safe.
There’s no one around.
Suddenly the rage monster wasn’t straining against anything anymore—suddenly she was scared. She felt reckless now, lucky that she hadn’t been more reckless and actually scaled the fence without a plan.
Domino was right—she could feel it, whatever it was. There was a crackling in the air, a frisson like static electricity prickling through the wind. Something was happening.
She had nearly made it back to her earlier vantage point when the wailing began.
* * *
—
The seekers were crying.
Or moaning. Or something.
They’d left their peaceful cross-legged positions. Some were standing, some kneeling, they were pulling at their hair and tears were streaming down their faces, their mouths hanging open in a kind of howl. Alexa’s heart raced.
Were they in pain? What was Keith doing to them?
But then she saw that not all of them were crying. Others appeared to have paired up and were hugging—even kissing. One couple had grabbed a blanket and was on the ground doing something that looked like a very sexual and emotional massage. The more she watched, the less sure she was that the ones who were crying were actually sad. Some of them seemed just overwhelmed, and others were sort of smiling. One weeping woman had crawled—actually crawled on the ground—up to Keith and was kissing his feet, which were encased in those weird shoes that separated each toe. But a grimace had replaced his satisfied smile. Whatever the seekers were doing, Keith had evaluated it and found them wanting.
The wailing went on and on. One weeping man ripped his shirt, then another wrestled him into a very aggressive hug, and the couples were doing increasingly . . . private things. Several people were gasping for air and shaking all over.
Lore had mentioned the lame health food, all the meditating to “iterate past their desires,” whatever that meant, and everyone’s obsession with pleasing Keith. She hadn’t said anything about this. The thought made Alexa sick. Surely the Wardens can’t have expected her to do whatever this was—and Lorelei wouldn’t have been willing to join it, would she? It was impossible to imagine her rolling in the dirt wearing a crazed look of glee, or slapping herself in the face.
But when he came to their house, Keith had said Lorelei was rising through the ranks quickly, and had a chance to prove herself deserving of their Lord. Was this what he’d wanted her to do?
And what actually was this thing the seekers were doing—in addition to being super disturbing? It was like the seekers had overwhelmed their own capacity for self-control, and emotion was exploding out of them. There was enough energy released by it that the air crackled with it, raising the hairs on Alexa’s arms and at the back of her neck.
Meanwhile, despite the woman prostrate at his feet, Keith was getting frustrated. He ran his hands through his long hair and over his patchy goatee and then finally disappeared into his bungalow.
Is it safe for you to go after him? she asked Domino.
Safer for me to try, he answered. Focus on me and you should be able to hear.
Focus on you? How?
You’ll figure it out. He was already slinking toward Keith’s bungalow. How do you think I always know what you’re thinking?
Alexa grimaced at Domino’s vanishing form. How much time had he spent skulking around her brain; how many of her weird thoughts had he seen?
I do have a life of my own.
I was thinking that privately!
She focused on Domino as he easily leapt to the top of the fence—the chime of his voice in her head, the green coins of his eyes, the roll of his shoulders as he stalked prey.
Suddenly she could feel him balancing as he padded along the top of the fence posts, the unfamiliar sharpness of things in the dark. She felt him take a graceful leap from the fence to the narrow windowsill of the only lit room of Keith’s bungalow.
The curtains were closed, and Domino’s sharp ears came in handy.
“. . . but something is blocking the synergy,” Keith was saying.
“Maybe the fact that it’s just some shit you made up?” a female voice said. There was something almost familiar about it—or no, there wasn’t.
“I have asked you repeatedly not to disrespect the synergy.”
“Fuck your synergy.”
“I’m trying to troubleshoot here. You can at least help me source ideas.”
“My idea is for you to crawl in a hole and die.”
“That is really unhelpful! You are part of this team now. You need to start acting like it.”
A sound lanced through Alexa’s concentration. She was back in her own mind again, listening for something out there in the dark. No, it was nothing. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on Domino.
But there it was again. It was clear it wasn’t just some leaf rustle or animal howl. It was human, and it was behind her.
We have to go. Get back here now.
Don’t wait for me, Domino told her, and she didn’t.
SIXTEEN
Liss
“A little bit to the north.” Liss scrutinized the compass she held in one hand. In the other, she held a round stone wrapped in scarlet fabric, dangling like a pendulum from a leather lanyard. A veliron, the Black Book called it when it gave them directions to make it.
Dan tried to keep the flashlight focused on the compass and veli-ron as they stepped a few feet north in the clearing. “Here?”
“I think so. I’d be a lot more sure if I actually knew what this rock did. It looks like one of those necklaces the weirdos from the commune in Jenner wear.”
“But you checked the auspices for this place today, so with that plus the veliron, we should be fine.”
Liss pushed her hair out of her eyes. “I’ve almost got it, okay?”
“Okay,” Dan assured her.
* * *
—
Liss was relieved when the stupid veliron finally stopped spinning, which had taken basically forever. They were on the north side of the small clearing, beyond which a dark line of trees obscured the view down the hill. Dan got busy mashing down the tall grass so they’d actually have room to do the spell.
Liss took a drink of water. She’d had too long to think, spent too long staring at that rock on a string, too long trying to ignore Dan’s little comments about shouldn’t they have found the place already? But something did feel off, and it could be the auspices. It shouldn’t have taken them so long to find the spot. The few clouds had cleared, and she could see the faraway pinpricks of stars, as if the sky were taunting her with all its moving parts.
Liss counted up to four and back, up to four and back.
It didn’t matter now. They were here. The Black Book didn’t lead them astray.
Except, of course, that once.
“Liss?” Dan raised an eyebrow. “Ready?”
Liss balled her hands into fists. “Absolutely.”
* * *
—
Because Liss had done the auspices, Dan initiated the spell. Usually the Black Book gave them spells that could simply be doubled: two voices casting together. This spell was different: one person needed to speak the incantation, while the other manipulated the materials. Dan had copied the unintelligible syllables of the spell onto a few sheets of binder paper that she was carefully arranging before her while Liss set up the materials. She poured some rubbing alcohol (the spell had called for spirits) into a metal bowl, then submerged the feathers and tried not to gag as she squeezed a few drops of chicken blood from a sandwich baggie into the mix. She had a clipping of fabric from the neck of a sweatshirt that had been—still was—Johnny’s. The spell called for his hair, but it seemed ridiculous to require the hair of a missing person for a spell to find them. Usually when peo
ple left, they took their hair with them. Lighter, candle, and the veliron, all laid out and ready at hand. Beside her, she weighted down the edges of the map of North Coast.
Dan began the incantation. The syllables were hard-edged and strange to Liss’s ear, but Dan didn’t stumble. Liss was close behind with the materials: drop the sweatshirt fragment into the alcohol mix, then soak the veliron too. Next she lit the candle and passed it in three circles around the bowl. Finally, she pulled the spirit-dampened veliron from the mix and held it by the lanyard over the map. Next came the scary part: Liss touched the candle to the alcohol in the bowl. It lit with a fwump and a burst of blue flame. Liss snatched her hand back and blew out the candle. Really, this spell was awfully dangerous, mixing alcohol and fire like that, but the flames stayed cupped in the metal bowl, burning down the feather and blood along with the traces of Johnny on the sweatshirt. Dan had stuttered a little when the fire caught, but she seemed to have found the thread of the incantation again.
Liss watched the veliron spin over the map. It was as if it was pulled by a magnet, moving by an unseen force. She was waiting for the spirit to fall on the map, a clear and quick-vanishing dot to guide them to Johnny. Was the map even big enough? What if they’d gone somewhere totally different, somewhere far away, somewhere unmapped or unmappable? She stole another look at Dan. Her eyes were half-closed, sweat beading on her forehead. She was getting tired.
“Come on, come on . . .” Liss whispered.
She scanned the map again. The veliron began to spin more quickly on its lanyard. “You can go a little longer,” she whispered to Dan, as she caught a corner of the map against the breeze that had suddenly kicked up. Something burning in the bowl cracked and popped, and a single drop of rubbing alcohol fell from the stone onto the map.
Liss flung the veliron aside and pressed her face to the paper, looking frantically for the spot marked by the clear drop of liquid. She’s seen it fall—where had it landed?
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