“Th-thank you,” I say. “Is that close to the broadcast tower?”
Her eyes narrow, just a fraction. “Same road. Eight blocks down Morningside Drive. Why?”
“Point of reference,” I say.
She nods at that. “I can walk you there, if you think you’ll get lost.”
“No, that’s fine,” I say quickly. “But thank you for the offer.”
I turn away and start walking, but behind me, I hear her climb to her feet, her heels clicking against the blacktop. “Would you like a reading, then? In exchange for the water.”
“What?” I turn, my feet still moving. She misspoke, maybe, or I misheard her. “Um, no. You can keep it.”
“You can’t get something for nothing,” she says. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”
“It’s really fine,” I say. “I don’t need anything.”
“I don’t mean to tell you your business, Rose,” she says. “But it looks like you need quite a lot.”
I stop dead. When I turn back, she’s looking at me with a mild, unassuming frown.
“Did I give you my name?” I say slowly.
She brushes past that. “What do you want to know?” she says. “Let’s see . . .” She hums and tilts her head to the side. “You want to know if it’s going to get worse, right?”
I lean hard on my back foot. Lately, when I hear something that doesn’t make sense, it means that I missed the context, that my mind’s been wandering. It’s not wandering now.
“Okay,” I say. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, so—”
“Or would you like to know what’s going to happen to Nick Lansbury?” she says. “He’s certainly on your mind, isn’t he?”
There’s a weight on the curve of my throat. Sudden. Heavy. Normal these days, whenever I hear that name. But it’s a name she couldn’t possibly know.
“Who are you?” It’s hard to speak, like there’s a wall in my lungs.
“Okay, okay, I get it.” She waves a hand. “Not everyone wants to get personal, I understand. Something else, then.”
“Where did you hear that name?” I want it to sound threatening. Instead I sound like I’m underwater. “What do you—”
“Just a moment now.” She looks me up and down, and her impassive face flickers with something too brief to see. The hot, dry breeze starts to build. And something decisive shifts behind her eyes.
“You will find a window that is not a window,” she says. “You will find a thing as old as the desert and twice as lonely. You will find exactly what you’re looking for.”
Behind me, something slams. A window shutter snapped open in the wind—it raps against the side of its house twice, then shivers to a halt. My eyes are off the girl for a second, maybe two.
But by the time I turn back, there is no girl. Just me. And when I listen for the click of her heels, all I hear are sprinklers.
I start walking. Carefully at first, conscious of every noise I make and every move in the corner of my eye. And then I tear through Lethe Ridge in a flat-out run. This time I don’t care whose lawn I’m on.
I don’t slow down, even when the spinning cul-de-sacs give way to a straighter, wider road, even when the identical houses start to thin and I can see glimpses of the small city beyond them. I barely stop to read the sign that marks the end of the Lethe Ridge housing development.
CITY LIMITS, it says. LOTUS VALLEY.
ENJOY YOUR STAY!
Three THE ROAD
MORNINGSIDE DRIVE, AS far as I can see, runs the length of Lotus Valley. But it’s not much busier than the empty streets I left behind in Lethe Ridge.
But at least there are signs of life. There’s the odd car headed out to the desert. The Sweet as Pie Diner, from my glimpse through the windows, could actually be described as crowded. I walk past a row of abandoned stores papered from the roof to the dirt with fluttering, yellowed campaign signs, advertising MARGUERITE WILLIAMS: YOUR FRIEND, YOUR ADVOCATE, YOUR MAYOR!
I don’t see any for her opponent. There are a few older signs, reading WHAT DO YOU YEARN FOR? There’s a number at the bottom, but no name or company, just the symbol of a bird, and in little letters, COMMISSIONS OPEN.
I’m halfway through town before I encounter another person.
I force a smile as we approach each other. It’s usually a good way to trick my fight-or-flight reflex into shutting off. But then we lock eyes. And he’s the one who goes pale.
“God,” he says, and there’s something bone-tired in his voice. “Already?”
“Sorry?” I say. But he only shakes his head.
I pass seven more people on my way to Gibson Repairs. One young man in a business suit takes a look at me and runs in the direction he came. But for the most part, their reactions are similar to the first. Muted. Uneasy.
Most don’t try to speak to me. But there’s this ambient muttering in the air. “Should we call someone?” I hear a person hiss, and when I turn, I see a woman grab her companion’s arm and jerk her along. Farther down the road, someone steps forward, as if to say something, but they’re pulled aside by quick hands and a sharp whisper.
I walk faster.
The tower looms ahead, shimmering in the pavement’s heat. I look away from it to the painted sign of Gibson Repairs, coming up on the right. I need to focus. I need to have my car. Because whatever it is I’m going to do next, I need to be sure I have a way to get out.
I step to the edge of the garage. Someone was just here—one of the wrenches on the wall is gently swinging. But they’re not here now.
I decide to wait. And then I decide against that. Fear has
