I’ve taken a lot of gym classes over the years. I remember playing a really vicious sort of dodgeball at one of my more horrible middle schools and in high school I once had an entire semester of badminton. This is not anything like playing apathetic badminton. Is this calisthenics? CrossFit? The sort of thing they do in martial arts classes? I have no idea, other than I’m pretty sure muscles I didn’t know existed will be sore when we’re done.
A half hour in, I want to just bail: go back out to the entryway, sit down, and chat with CheshireCat via text until they’re done in there. But would that out me as a fake? Make it harder for Nell? I drag myself through another twenty minutes, then realize with a jolt of horror that I do not actually know that this is an hour workout. It might be an hour and a half. Or two hours. What am I going to do if it’s two hours?
It ends at one hour on the dot. We follow the group into the kitchen, where there’s a row of large plastic cups filled with water. I gulp mine down, expecting the silence to fade and chitchat to start, but everyone stays completely silent, and most of the group just leaves.
I’m still not sure if someone here is the person I met online. They don’t even turn on the lights.
There’s also nowhere to shower, because this really is literally someone’s house, but fortunately school doesn’t start for hours and I can just go home. Or I could just go home: Nell is scowling at her phone and texting??? over and over to one of her adults.
No one’s pressuring us to leave, but the house has emptied out and standing in the foyer by ourselves is feeling increasingly awkward. Talking just feels wrong, so I text Nell, instead: We could walk back to my house, it’s not far. There’s a shower. I am not entirely sure we have a third towel—possibly we just have the two that Mom and I use—but I’ll come up with something.
Nell sends one last exasperated!!! and then shoots me a look and gives a quick, silent nod. We put our coats and boots on. The front door swings shut behind us.
“It’s still pretty dark out,” Nell says.
The sun won’t be up for real for a while, but it’s gray and twilight, and the streets are nearly silent this early in the day. Blocks away, we can hear someone trying to start a reluctant car.
“Was that weird to you?” I ask. “I mean, the not-talking? The fact that no one told us their name?”
“Kind of,” Nell says.
“Only kind of?”
“The fact that no one introduced themselves seemed unusual to me. There are some Catacombs events that observe a Rule of Silence, though, as a way to encourage people to keep their minds on the Lord instead of social chatter.” She pauses. “I hadn’t been to one before, though.”
“Weren’t you hoping to talk to people? I assumed that’s why you wanted to go.”
“Oh, no,” she says. “If you’re a high-level Catacombs user, you can ask the Elder questions, is the thing. I’m hoping maybe he’ll know where Glenys is.”
Nell mentioned the Elder yesterday. “Is that, like, the leader of your church?”
“No, Brother Daniel is the leader. The Elder is a prophet. He doesn’t lead any specific church, but there are various churches that have access to his visions.”
This strikes me as an incredibly dubious way of finding out where Glenys is. “Do you think she was kidnapped by the same people as your mother?”
“No.” She hunches her shoulders. “I got a text last night from Glenys’s mom. Pretending to be Glenys. Trying to get one of her passwords.”
“You and Glenys weren’t out to your parents, were you?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you think her mom figured out about you and her?”
“I don’t know.” We walk quietly for a minute, the snow crunching under our shoes, and then she says, almost inaudibly, “Yes. And I think her parents sent her away, somewhere secret.”
“Why her and not you?”
“My grandmother wouldn’t stand for it.”
I wonder if CheshireCat could find Glenys. “What’s her full name? I have a friend who’s a hacker; they might be able to find out something. Actually, any information you can give me—her birthday, her parents’ names, license plate of their car, seriously, anything.”
Nell gives me a wide-eyed look and says, “I’ll write it down for you when we get to your apartment.”
It would honestly be more convenient if she just reeled it all off as CheshireCat listened in, but pretending I’m just going to remember a bunch of those sorts of details is even less plausible than my mysterious out-of-town super-hacker friend, so I nod and we keep walking.
Mom is still sleeping, or at least still in her room. Nell says I should go ahead and take the first shower—she’ll make the list of information for me. There’s a bathroom linen closet and I find a single fluffy towel in addition to the ones my mom and I already have hanging up, so apparently we are prepared for guests. Well, one guest. When I come out, Mom is up and apparently making coffee for Nell instead of asking why exactly I’m entertaining a sweaty guest at 7:30 a.m.
“Your turn,” I say, and sit down with her list.
“What were you—” my mother starts to ask.
“Fitness class,” I say. “Nell was interested and asked me to go with her.”
Mom stares at me like I’ve grown an extra head. To be fair, getting up before dawn to exercise is not something I’ve considered doing before. Ever. For any reason.
“Okay,” she says finally. “I made coffee for everyone. Am I giving Nell a ride to school with you?”
“That would be great,” I say, and bend my head over the
