Essential Maps for the Lost (28 page)

Hypocrite
, the doctor in his head says.
What about
Amy
?
He tells the doctor in his head to shut the fuck up. Still, the doctor folds his arms and gives a smug smile.

Billy clutches that record player like it's a baby. He turns away from Mads, that house, the street that's as close to a real-life suburban-ish dream as he'll ever get. He can feel her eyes on his back, and he can feel so much more, too. Dread. It's his Blindsense working. It's a lesser ability, lacking the precision of Blindsight, but it lets a creature notice things it can't actually see.
Ryan
means something much more than Ryan, and he knows it. He doesn't know what the more is, just that it's coming.

The tires of his mother's truck scream out of there. He feels bad about that, but not bad enough to slow down. Good thing that car's got speed. The record player rides along beside him like a slightly disapproving passenger who's keeping his mouth shut. No one is even outside yet. No one is up. Every sane person is still in bed, sleeping, or thinking about pancakes. At least no one will see his despair.

On the dock, though, someone
is
up. Billy smells coffee. He could drop right down there and weep, but the coffee draws him forward, like a spell. Blindsense has made his abilities keener—the chicory fumes are Gran's, coming from a just-brewed pot.

Whatever. He'll put on his Cloak of Disappearance and head straight to his room. Sullenness can be powerful. It says
back off.

Ginger doesn't bark when he comes in. She's lying low. The energy in the house is like an actual sound she's wisely hiding from, same as she does when it starts to thunder.

Gran is in the kitchen. Billy sees the slump of her robe, her shoulders curved as an old gnome's. In the quiet house, the clink of her spoon against her cup is loud as a chunk of polar ice breaking off from the mainland. The slurp of java is the ocean spiraling down an earth drain.

His head hurts. It sucks that his father was an alcoholic, because he could sure use a drink right now. There are certain vows he won't break, though. No morning booze. No getting misery-wasted.

He flops on his bed. He's never been more tired in his life. And great. Terrific. Gran's been in there. It's her room, but still. She's used her big old computer and left it on. It hums and glows. The thing is huge. The mouse alone is as chubby as a dinner roll.

He hauls himself back up to shut it off so he can sleep. When he moves the mouse, though, an image appears. A giant, close-up image, made large, zoomed in, the way they zoom in on the critical piece of overlooked information, the footprint, the crowbar, the fiber—evidence—in the crime shows.

The image looks like a strand of DNA, viewed under a microscope. It's twisted like that, links linking more links. He can't figure out how to make the image smaller. His fingers have to remember old technology. He clicks the corner of the photo. Smaller. Clicks again. Smaller. Is it a road, maybe? No, that's an arm, he thinks. An arm and a wrist. It's a
bracelet. Shit, goddamn it to hell, Gran, what are you trying to do to me?

How did Gran get a picture of Mads's bracelet? Fuck, man, what is going
on
?

Click. It's an arm, all right. The arm leads to a hand; her head is resting in that hand. You can't even see her whole body, because that's not even what the image is about. She's off to the side. He can't really see her all that well. The girl is not the point of this photo. Click. Click. The point of this photo is that ambulance and the park and the water's edge.

Of course, he's seen that photo, just before Gran ditched the paper into the bin. The article was so small, but at least it had a picture. After that, and after some two-second mention on the night's news on TV, there was nothing more.

He doesn't understand. He can't grasp why Mads's bracelet is on that girl who's sitting on the grass as his mother is wheeled away.

And then he does.

•  •  •

He crashes the computer to the floor. It takes some doing, too. It isn't some arm swipe, some neat cinematic swoop, no. He has to shove, especially with the Energy Drain he has already, and with the Demon Fever approaching. Then he storms out to face the wicked crone. The crashed computer with its cracked screen is nothing compared to the damage she's done.

Gran still just sits there at the kitchen table. “Are you trying to destroy me?” Billy screams at her. Her face has gone slack. It's a pile of sags, an old dress discarded off an old body, lying in folds on the ground.

“I'm trying to
save
you, Buzz. You want to leave here and go off with a girl like her—”

“You went
searching
for that!”

“I remembered! My mind knew something. I
felt
it.”

“Because you're paranoid!”

“It's only paranoia when it's not true. Otherwise, it's good instincts.”

She's a witch.

He has to get away. He slams the front door hard enough that the houseboat rocks. He's fighting through all of it: Demon Fever, spread by night hags, causing permanent Ability Drain. Devil Chills, almost impossible to recover from, since you must be saved and then saved again. The Red Ache, which makes your skin hot and bloated. The Shakes—involuntary twitches, tremors, and fits. They descend; they take over his body as he flies back to Mads's house in his mom's truck. He drives so fast, he's a blur of white fog, a manic apparition.

There's the smell of pancakes in the air when he gets out at Mads's house. He doesn't even turn the truck's engine off, just yanks the parking brake. His door is left flung open. The windshield wipers are wrongly on, ca-shunk, ca-shunking. His front tire is half up the curb.

His hand is just over the doorbell (aunt and uncle or no aunt and uncle, Ryan Plug or no Ryan Plug, none of it even matters) when Mads opens the front door. She's heard him pull up, and her face is open, expecting, what, another record player? Another burst of
innocent, trusting love
?

She takes in the scene—his face with its color long gone, his trembling hands, that suddenly ditched vehicle. He probably doesn't even need to say what he does next.

“I know who you are.”

The words are a Breath Weapon. They instantly melt her. She starts to cry. He's so furious and confused that her tears are just meaningless raindrops he barely notices, a slight dip in barometric pressure.

“Why, why?” he cries. That stupid, endless why!

“Billy, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know. After what happened . . . I just got caught up . . .”

“Caught up? You just got caught up?”
Caught
plus
up
, the words don't make sense. He
loves
her! What does his love even mean, what is it even made of, if she's just a lie? Her mouth gapes. It opens and closes. There are more tears and gulps. She is shaking and wiping her face with the back of her hand. Thank God she is wearing shorts and a tank top now, and not his/her/their lucky shirt. How pathetic that this is all he can find to be glad of.

“I wanted to tell you. I tried—”

This is no good. The tears are meaningless and the words are meaningless, and he is made of vapor. He's disappearing. She's a stranger, and he's on some strange street, and the engine of his mom's truck is chugging a message:
out-out, out-out, out-out.

“No,” he says to the girl in front of him. And then he shouts it. “No!” It's a word that should be shouted more often, likely. His voice is so loud, the windows of the semi-suburban house rattle. The pancake smell runs off in fear. Mads claps her hands over her ears.

He is out of there, all right.
Out. Of. There.
Billy realizes he is barefoot only when he takes off across the lawn. He gets in the truck, slams the door. Just before he hits that accelerator hard, he sees the uncle appear in the doorway. He has his hand on Her shoulder. Who are they? Billy doesn't know these people. These are not his people. It's possible that as far as people go, he has very few left.

•  •  •

The worst is the Mind Fire. The stupor of it is paralyzing. It's like your brain is burning.

He is back in Night Worlds. For days, he's been there. Even with the dangers, even with hidden rooms and spells and weapons, that place feels safer than the real one.

After two nights at Alex's, he's back under Gran's roof. He hates her. He hates her, and he still loves her, of course, in some shrinking, withering way, with some desperate
need
keeping it alive. She's practically all the family he has left, except for the uncle he can't bear to call now. Billy ignores Uncle Nate's messages until he stops phoning. What's Billy going to do, cry and fall at his uncle's feet, because he just needs one fucking shred of kindness he can count on? Plan A is gone, and the rest of it is back: the not eating, the not sleeping, the fists and fury and self-hatred. He can't even
think
Her name. In place of it, he thinks only
Why?

He goes to work, though. He would never, ever ditch the people and dogs who count on him. Every minute he's away from Casper, he misses him. He wants to bury his face in him and Jasper. Freeing Casper was a great thing, no matter what else came along with it.

In the darkness he swims in, in this putrid, prehistoric pool in a prehistoric cave, he can almost understand what his mother did. But then he thinks of Jane Grace and even Gran, and even, yes, even Her, and definitely Casper, and the
almost
stays an almost. In the middle of this black water of all he's lost, the almost is the life ring that keeps him from going under.

•  •  •

He blocks Her calls. Because, wow, she's sure calling him now, isn't she? He's so angry and confused that his thoughts spin out like faulty fireworks screaming and thrashing on a sidewalk. Her pleading and crying and semi-explanations sound similar to a black ripple, with the strange distance of liquid. It all turns to a submerged echo, the blub and whoosh of the underneath.

At work, Jane Grace gives him the hardest jobs. Physical labor. Cleaning, mowing the whole backyard. Replacing wood chips in the outdoor pens. Sanitizing playrooms. All the dog walking, multiple times a day. He walks every dog at least twice. She sends him out with Jasper and Casper three times in one shift.

It's good for Casper to have that exercise. He wouldn't come out of his cage for the first few days. He was scared, but he was also probably exhausted. All that trauma kicks a creature's ass. It's good for Casper to be with the others, too, especially a great guy like Jasper, who's not someone to get aggressive or make some surprise play for a ball Casper's been brave enough to sniff. Casper has to learn to trust again. He barely leaves Billy's or Jane Grace's side, so he needs to get out in the world, too. His cage, the hallways of Heartland that lead to rooms and other rooms—it's fine, but the real world waits.
Out in the world
is the last place Billy wants to be, but he'll do it for Casper.

“They need you in the yard,” Jane Grace says. He barely has Jasper's and Casper's leashes off.

“Okay.” Jasper's raring to go after a big, sloppy drink, but Casper is as stuck to Billy as his own soul.

“You all right without a break?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” She actually claps twice. It's a get-going clap. It's a don't-stop-or-you-might-fall-into-a-pit clap. Yeah. He knows what she's up to. Jane Grace heard from Amy and Amy heard from Alex, though he'd only told Alex that Mads was seeing another guy, Ryan. Old Ryan. He almost starts to believe Ryan exists. He hates the dickwad. Plug. Slobbery, self-centered asshole. He can barely meet Jane Grace's eyes. If he looks straight at her and sees her kindness, he'll bust right up like a big baby.

He's never been more tired in his life.

“Get a move on,” Jane Grace says.

•  •  •

“Come on, man, you're not even trying,” Alex says.

The weird thing is, Billy can't tell if Alex is right or not. He feels like he's trying harder than he ever has in his life. Every single move, on the controller, in general, takes more effort and energy than he can describe. Lifting a spoon is raising a boulder. Walking to his car is plowing through earthquake rubble. The game takes the concentration of detonating a bomb. Still, it's true—he's playing like shit. They had to quit last night, because he was instantly slain due to his negative energy level. This meant he couldn't rise again for twenty-four hours. After twenty-four hours, depending on the creature that kills you, you might rise next as a monster, or you might rise as a wight. Of course, he's a wight. Wights are about the height and weight of a human and speak Common, but a wight's appearance is only a weird and twisted reflection of the form it once had.

“You can't let a girl destroy you,” Alex says.

Yeah, he should talk. After Leigh, Alex barely got out of bed. Now they have this hot-cold thing going, and look at the four beers Alex has downed already. The bottles are spread out on the floor of his sister's place, next to the couch that's also Alex's bed. Not to judge, but Jesus. It's a good way to end up drowned in a water-skiing accident.

“Whatever.”

“Shit! I almost forgot. I found a place for us on Craigslist today. It's been on awhile, probably because it's by Highway Ninety-Nine. But at least that means we have a shot at it.”

“Okay.”

“One bedroom, but if a girl comes over, you can use it.”

“Does it have a yard?”

“You didn't say anything about a yard! You said you just wanted a place, fast. I'm the one doing all the looking.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, you want it?”