leaned back into the sofa cushions. “I used to be really good, you know? Then I stopped when you were little. When I thought about going back to work, it felt like everything had passed me by. There was all this new software I didn’t know and there were these kids who were so damned good at it. I didn’t know how to get back in the game.” She puffed the cigarette, made a face, and crushed it with the others in the saucer. She shook her head. “That’s a lie. I choked. Simple as that. Once I stopped, I was too scared to fight my way back in.”
“But you wanted to?”
“Hell, yeah,” she said. “It’s funny, you asking about this. Before he died, your dad and I were talking about it. He could get me discounts on some digital graphics classes through his company. What made you ask about this now?”
“No reason. I just wondered,” Zoe said. She took a long breath and let it out. “I’m going to my room now, okay?” Her mother nodded.
Zoe got up and started for her bedroom. Halfway there, she turned around and came back. From the chair, her mother looked up at her. When Zoe leaned down, her mother looked unsure and flinched a little. Zoe kissed her on the cheek.
“I promised someone I’d do that.”
“Who?”
“I promised I wouldn’t tell.”
“Set your alarm a little early,” said her mother. “I rented a car. I’m driving you to school in the morning and picking you up after school until you’re caught up on your work.”
Damn. “Yeah, okay. ’Night.”
“ ’Night.”
Zoe was still shaky, but she was also exhausted. She felt like a deflated balloon, limp and shapeless. She tried to push the fight with her mother out of her head, and she lay down without taking her clothes off. It’s just for a minute, she told herself. Just until I catch my breath. She snapped the rubber band twice.
A couple of minutes later, she was fast asleep.
In her dream she was near the tree that held the fort, but this was one of those rare nights where she didn’t materialize in the fort itself. Looking out across the field, she knew why this time was different. The normally empty field tonight was full of carnival rides. Zoe instantly recognized the carousel and Ferris wheel that she and her father had ridden in Iphigene. She called up to Valentine to come down and go on the rides with her. She started toward the spinning carousel, then stopped. A black dog sat on the edge of the platform. A woman-shaped shadow, darker this time, rode one of the carousel horses, a fierce black war-horse in shining armor. Zoe took a step back and her foot came down on something soft. It hissed. A snake.
The field was covered in a black, writhing river of glistening fangs and dead green eyes. Zoe froze, one hand on the ladder that led up to the fort and the other up defensively by her throat. Her mouth remained closed, but somewhere in the back of her brain she was screaming. She knew that all she had to do was step up onto the ladder and climb the few feet and she’d be out of danger, but she couldn’t move. Her eternal, primal fear of snakes paralyzed her, froze her in place. The snakes seethed around her feet, their bodies sighing through the short grass until it sounded to her like a crack in the earth letting out the world’s last wheezing breath before it died.
Something fastened around Zoe’s wrist. She started to scream, but her throat closed up and she couldn’t make a sound. She felt herself being pulled upward. Zoe looked up to see Valentine reaching down from the top of the ladder, trying to haul her up. Seeing him above her snapped her out of her frozen fear and she began to climb. When she got to the top, Valentine pulled her up the last few feet into the fort. She fell back against the railing, out of breath. Valentine was panting, too.
“Thanks,” she wheezed, then coughed drily.
“Breathe,” said Valentine between his own deep breaths. “In through your nose and out through your mouth.”
Zoe nodded, following his instructions. She already felt calmer, and in a couple of minutes the breathing slowed her heartbeat and she was no longer gulping air. When she could talk again, she said, “Where did they all come from?”
Valentine shrugged. “From the mountains, I think. Did you bring the carnival?”
Zoe looked over her shoulder at the bright inviting lights on the rides. “I guess so,” she said. “I was just at a park like that. I must have dreamed the rides here.”
“You went to an amusement park?”
Zoe nodded. “Yeah. Dad was there.”
Valentine looked at her for a moment, like he was carefully considering his words. It wasn’t the reaction Zoe had been expecting. “You saw Father? Where?”
“This crazy town called Iphigene. That’s what I wanted to tell you tonight, but the snakes spooked me.”
“Don’t worry about them. They’re scary, but not poisonous.”
“That doesn’t help much,” said Zoe, embarrassed at how small her voice sounded.
Valentine pulled her to her feet, grabbed a handful of almonds that had fallen from the tree, and dropped them over the sides. The snakes ignored them. He leaned over the railing, hawked up something in his throat, and spit over the edge. There was no reaction from below. The snakes were too busy striking at swarms of fireflies that swirled out of the nearby grove.
“See?” Valentine said. “They’re not too bright.”
Zoe remained unconvinced, but nodded at Valentine.
“Tell me about Iphigene,” he said. He tried to make the request sound spontaneous, but Zoe could hear tension in his voice. “How do you even know about the place?”
“I told you. I was there. It’s where the dead go and wait before they go on to wherever.”
“How did you get there?”
“By bus!” Zoe said, laughing, happy to reveal the craziest part of her trip. But Valentine didn’t smile back. He looked concerned.
“Emmett sent me,” Zoe said. “With this old machine. An Animagraph.”
Valentine kicked a few more almonds down onto the snakes. “Did Emmett ask you for anything?”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to be yelled at twice in one night, and she especially didn’t want to be yelled at by Valentine. Why couldn’t someone just be happy for her?
“You said before that he didn’t ask for anything, but I don’t know if you were telling me the truth. People like Emmett, they always ask for something.”
“How do you know?”
“I see a lot up here.” Valentine nodded to the telescope propped against the tree.
Zoe looked out at the spinning carousel. “I gave him a tooth.”
Valentine whirled around. “You gave him one of your teeth?” Valentine said, fear or anger edging into his voice.
“No!” said Zoe. “I gave him a tooth. Not my tooth.” It felt like everyone was after her tonight.
Very quietly, Valentine said, “What do you think he wanted with one of your teeth?”
“I don’t know. He’s a lonely old weirdo who bribes girls for souvenirs. He probably beats off to them when he goes home.”
“I wouldn’t be so worried if that’s all it was.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there’s only one reason someone like Emmett would want a tooth from someone like you. That’s to gain power over you.”
“What kind of power?”
“I don’t know exactly,” said Valentine. He crossed his arms and frowned. “The point is that anyone who asks you for something like that isn’t your friend. Emmett is dangerous and he wants a lot more from you than a tooth.”
“But he sent me to see Dad. He’s going to let me take Dad’s spirit home tomorrow.”
“And what does he want for that?”
