Now, or—well, soon?”
I shook my head. “No.” Then, trying not to sound so harsh, “No, thank you.”
“Then go,” he commanded.
But as I hurried toward the door he stopped me. “Wait. Take this—”
He took my right hand and prised it open, slid something onto the middle finger. I blinked. It was a ring, shaped precisely like the grotesque image of Ralph Casson’s face that now served as a portal.
“So you’ll always have a way out,” said Balthazar Warnick softly. “Or back.”
For a long moment his sea-blue eyes held mine. Finally I pulled away.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “G’bye—”
I walked like a seasick passenger into the hall. It was dark, but through the windows a chilly light gleamed. Behind the watchful shadow that was Muscanth Mountain, dawn was gathering. I staggered down the corridor, found a stairwell and nearly fell down it, my boots sliding on the runners. When I reached the bottom I lurched into another corridor, and another, until at last I made my way to the great hall. There were bottles and ashtrays everywhere, candle stubs and light bulbs, torn clothing and record albums, the detritus of a dozen parties; but no people. I walked through the room and went onto the patio.
“Oh, man…”
It was covered with terra-cotta masks. All broken, so that as I crossed to the lawn I stepped through a wasteland of crushed mouths and hollow cheeks, beatific smiles turned to death’s-heads where they had been trodden into the flagstones. At the very edge of the patio one lay, more intact than the others, eyes slanted beneath a crown of grapes. It shattered beneath my boot as I left the patio and walked downhill. It was still raining, fine icy needles that made my skin feel numb, but that was okay. Numb was okay. Numb was good.
I reached the drive and started down. I shoved my hands into my pockets and something pricked my thumb. I swore, fumbled in the pocket until I found something sharp.
I pulled it out—the baggie full of pot seeds and manicure scissors I’d discovered in the bathroom, right before Jamie found me and gave me his clothes. I held the scissors up, wiping rain from my eyes; then tugged thoughtfully at my hair.
“Huh,” I said. “Well, nothing makes a girl feel better than a new ’do.”
I began cutting. It didn’t take long, once I’d figured out how to position the scissors and pull my wet hair taut so I could shear it off right at the roots. When I was finished, the sky had turned from charcoal to the color of tarnished tin. Wet curls stuck to my boots; I kicked them away, reached down to wipe my boots clean with a leaf. When I ran my hand across my skull it felt bristly, the hair spiky and ragged.
“Fuckin’ A,” I said. For the first time in what felt like days, I laughed.
Precious Bane was right. I felt great.
From the black ridge of western mountains came a long low wail: the four-thirty-five train coming down from Beacon on its way south to the city. I brushed myself off quickly, shoved the scissors back into my pocket, and began to run. I passed parked cars along the way, the same Karmann Ghias and BMWs and fake woodie station wagons that I’d passed on my way up.
And, past the curve where the road forked to go to Jamie Casson’s house, an old blue Dodge Dart, two figures perched ghostlike on its hood.
“Lit! Jesus freaking Christ, Lit, where the fuck have you
Hillary jumped down and ran to me. For an instant Jamie remained where he was, and in that instant I had a flash of when I’d first seen him scarcely twenty-four hours before, frozen in the jukebox’s glow like a dragonfly in amber, all the promise and beauty of flight and none of the risk. Then he, too, was alongside me, rubbing his hand across my skull and whistling.
“Whoa! Nice job!”
“What the hell did you do to your hair?”
“Where’s Ali?”
“Where’s your clothes?”
“Where’s—”
From the southernmost slope of the mountain came another wail—the firehouse siren—then another.
Hillary frowned. “That’s the ambulance.”
I took a deep breath. I pulled away from them, and nodded. “We gotta get out of here.”
“But Ali—”
“Ali’s dead.” I pressed my hand against Hillary’s mouth, squeezed my eyes shut. After a moment I opened them. “She OD’d on heroin. Or opium, or some kind of shit. But she’s dead, and if we stick around here we’re going to be fucked.”
“But—” Hillary looked at me, dazed. “She can’t be dead,” he whispered.
“Hillary. We have to go. I’m sorry—I know it sounds horrible, you have to believe me because I
I started for the front of the car. Jamie stared at me. I couldn’t tell if he was stunned or just stoned. When I reached the door I stopped and looked at him.
“You said you had friends in the city. You said we could crash there and we wouldn’t need money. At least not right away—”
He nodded. “Right.”
“Do you have money now? Enough for the train?”
He swallowed, then patted the front of his black jeans. “Yeah. About a hundred bucks. Kern paid me in cash for the parking job.”
“Okay.” I let my breath out, opened the door and slid across to open the other door for Hillary. “Hillary—can you drive us to the station?”
Hillary just stood there, staring at me through the wet windshield. At last he got into the car and shoved the key into the ignition. “Where are you going?” He sounded like my father when he was so angry he couldn’t bear to look at me.
“To the city. Jamie has some friends, we’re going to jam together—”
“You can’t play shit. You can’t even sing.”
“I can write. I’m going to write songs.”
“The fuck you are,” snarled Hillary.
But he drove us. In silence, none of us speaking though I have no idea what the two of them thought, if they believed me or if they were just as fucked up as I was; if maybe each of them had found a different door that night and walked through, walked through the world and came right back out on the other side in Kamensic Village, just like always. It wasn’t until we reached the bottom of the hill that I turned to look back at the mansion.
It was in flames, towers and turrets and ruined chimneys blazing as the darkness behind it swirled and thickened. I gasped, but then a sudden radiance spilled over Bolerium’s facade and I saw that it was not on fire at all, but aglow with sunrise.
And yet it was not that, either. As quickly as it had blazed the light died away. There was a faint forlorn cry, the howl of an animal that has been torn from its master and sent to shiver, alone, in the darkness. Then Bolerium stood as it ever had, black and forbidding yet also protective; keeping watch over the town and its children.
The car bounced around the curve, the mansion disappeared. In front of us was Kamensic Village, its dreaming church spires and white clapboard buildings, ancient courthouse and trees stubbornly clinging to their last yellow leaves. There was my house, just as it had been that morning, save the terra-cotta mask was gone. There was Hillary’s.
And there was the station, burnished by the glow of the town’s only streetlight. Hillary drove right up to the curb, braking too hard so that I had to brace myself against the dashboard.
“Goodbye,” he said. He sat rigidly in the driver’s seat, staring at the tracks in front of us. “Good fucking riddance.”
“Why don’t you come?” asked Jamie.
Hillary shook his head. His face grew very red, and he made a strangled sound. “You sure?” said Jamie. Hillary squeezed his eyes shut, nodding.
Outside, the train hooted. A silver thread unfurled along the tracks, deepened to gold and then blinding
