Читать книгу The Lost - Sarah Beth Durst - Страница 12

Chapter Five

The bell dies in the silence.

Through the glass door, I watch the Missing Man stride away from the diner. His cane hits the sidewalk in a rhythmic thump. I don’t know why I can hear it when he’s outside and I’m inside, but the thud-thud-thud echoes in my bones.

The diner customers cluster at the windows.

Seeing the Missing Man, the man in the gutter waves and races after him. The Missing Man brushes him away, and the former CEO falls behind. His expression is stunned, as if he’d been stabbed by the cane instead of merely brushed aside.

Emerging from the alleys, the kids trail after him as if he’s the Pied Piper. One, a girl about eight or nine, lunges toward him. She clings to his sleeve. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but her face is twisted as if she’s crying. He shrugs her off. She falls on the pavement, but he doesn’t pause. Another kid helps her stand.

In front of the boarded-up post office, the woman who was planting flowers hobbles after him. She reaches her hands toward the Missing Man. He doesn’t even slow. More men and women pour out of the shops and the houses. He walks ahead of them all. As he reaches the barber shop, I have to press against the glass to still see him.

“Out,” Victoria says to me. Her voice is cold. “You aren’t welcome here.”

“I don’t understand,” I say, still watching. He’s at the end of the shops. People trail behind him, a comet tail to his meteorite. He doesn’t seem the kindly savior anymore.

“The Missing Man has never refused anyone before,” Victoria says. “He helps all. The weak, the broken, the bad. But he refused you, and now look, he refuses them. Us. You need to leave so he’ll return.”

Her words feel like ice-cold water in my face. This is not my fault! “I’m trying to leave! He was supposed to help. You said he’d help me.” I point at her. “You said he’d explain. You told me to talk to him! ‘Talk to the Missing Man,’ you said. Over and over.”

“Sean,” Victoria calls.

The man in the kitchen comes out of the swinging door. He’s a beefy man with shockingly red hair and tattoos that run up his arms. He wears a white T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Towels smeared with grease are tucked into loops on his belt.

The trucker stands up.

Other customers shift closer.

“Leave my diner.” Victoria’s face is as implacable as her royal namesake’s. She looks as if she wishes to crush me in her fist, to shatter me.

I back toward the door and fumble behind me to push it open. “All I did was say my name. He doesn’t know me. This has to be a mistake.”

“It’s not a risk we’re willing to take.” Sean’s voice is gentler than Victoria’s, almost sympathetic. “If the Missing Man doesn’t want to help you, then we cannot afford to. We need him.”

“Out,” Victoria says.

I lean against the door and stumble over the threshold.

On the sidewalk, the little girl sits with her teddy bear. She whispers to the bear as she watches me with wide eyes. I cross the street as quickly as possible.

All of the customers are at the window, also watching me.

The trucker, the waitress, the cook, the little girl. All watching me.

My limbs lock as my mind chases itself: What do I do? Where do I go? Who will help me now? The Missing Man was supposed to help me. He has the answers. As if they were a taut rubber band suddenly released, my muscles unlock, and I stride down the street after the Missing Man.

The street is full of people. They mill around, bereft, as if everyone lost a loved one all at once. Kids cling to each other. A woman sobs loudly in front of the post office. I hear muted conversations, speculation as to why the Missing Man left them so abruptly, and I think it won’t be long before word of what happened in the diner spreads to the rest of the town. I lengthen my stride. I already know the people in this town are crazy; I don’t want to see them crazy and angry.

Ahead, the Missing Man is a silhouette between the houses on the outskirts of town. If I can catch him...make him explain...make him come back...then I can fix this. As I reach the end of the shops, I look back over my shoulder. The diner customers have come outside, and people cluster around them. A few point toward me, which causes others to notice me.

They begin to trail after me. I think of zombies, the way they shamble after me.

I pick up my pace. The Missing Man is no more than a pinprick in the distance. Somehow, he’s outdistanced me. But I keep walking, passing abandoned houses until there are no more houses.

On either side of the road, the desert stretches away to the horizon. Clouds streak the sky, but do not move. The red earth is as still as a painting. The only sound is the wind and the crackle of dead branches as the wind slaps them against the barbed-wire fence.

I look back over my shoulder again. The men, women, and kids have halted by the last house. They stand still and silent, clumped together, watching me with hollow eyes. When I look back at the road, the dot that was the Missing Man has vanished. He’s gone.

I keep walking because I don’t know what else to do. After a while, my feet begin to ache on the pavement so I switch to walking on the dirt alongside the road. The wind swirls the dirt around me. It’s the only sound in the desert.

The sun begins to set. It looks as if it’s painting the sky. It dyes the sky orange and gold. Clouds look dipped in rose-pink. On the opposite side of the sky, the blue deepens, and a few stars begin to come out. I think of the man in the trench coat, talking about the Milky Way, and I think I haven’t seen such a beautiful sunset in... I can’t remember when I last watched the sun set.

Still, though, it doesn’t feel late enough for it to be sunset. I’d woken at dawn, made my attempts, been pushed back into town... I check my watch. It’s stopped at 8:34.

I am not surprised when I see my car ahead, next to the Welcome to Lost sign, even though I left town in a different direction. I feel as though I’ve walked away my capacity for shock. I have no surprise or disbelief or anything left in me. I unlock the car, climb inside, and then relock it. I feel empty, and I think of my mother, alone in our apartment with the low buzz of the TV. After a while, I climb into the backseat and lie down.

Somehow, as the stars spread thick across the wide sky, I sleep.

* * *

I wake contorted in the backseat of my car. My neck aches. My back feels sore. My breath tastes like stale peanut butter. I’m hungry, thirsty, and I need to pee. Sitting up, I stretch. Sunrise is peeking over the horizon. This is the third day I have been wearing the same clothes.

I climb out of the car. The air is chilled. I hug my arms as I look across the desert. I see no one and nothing in any direction except more red earth.

“Now what?” I ask out loud.

I half expect to hear an answer. But I only hear wind. I relieve myself on the desert side of the car and wish I had toilet paper. Or anything useful at all.

Food.

Water.

Clean clothes.

A working phone. Or a ham radio. Or a telegraph.

I remember the carry-on suitcase that cost me a roll of Life Savers. If I’m lucky, it will have fresh clothes, toiletries, maybe even food... I wish I’d brought the toiletries from the motel. I’d had a toothpaste tube and a travel deodorant. I pop open the trunk of the car and unzip the suitcase.

It’s a businessman’s carry-on: a suit with extra shirts and ties, gym shorts, dress shoes. Most of the clothes are wrinkled and worn, but there’s one spare shirt that’s still crisply folded. I find a Ziploc bag with toiletries and a brush. I pull off my wilted shirt, use the deodorant, and put on the spare business shirt. It hangs midthigh, but it feels so clean that it’s like a breath of spring air on my skin. I keep my same pants and shoes, but I use his clean socks, folding them over twice. I drag his comb through my hair—every strand knotted while I slept—and I use his toothpaste with my finger as the toothbrush. I also look through the suitcase for anything that resembles food or drink. I only find mouthwash. “Not helpful,” I inform the suitcase. It doesn’t respond.

I’ll have to head back into town.

By now, people must have calmed down and realized that what happened with the Missing Man wasn’t my fault. I’d said my name; he’d left. I hadn’t forced him to leave or said anything offensive or committed a crime. Victoria may even feel badly for her overreaction. She was, after all, the one who told me to talk to him. I’ll buy some water and food, and I’ll check back into the motel again until I figure out a way to leave this place or contact home.

It’s a plan, a shaky one but a plan nonetheless. Mom would approve. She likes plans. I remember as a kid we’d play a “game” where we’d both write out our one-year, five-year, and ten-year plans. Mine featured moon visits, Guggenheim exhibits of my artwork, and a pet that was more active than the class turtle I was occasionally permitted to babysit—or turtle-sit. Mom’s included travel, too, writing a book, and learning to cook a Thanksgiving turkey. She mastered the last one, but the book and the travel never happened. She’d put it off for years. Never enough time. Never enough money. And since she became sick...well, she hadn’t done it yet.

Pushing back thoughts about Mom, I look through the side pockets of the carry-on. I find a box of Tic Tacs and a granola bar. I’m about to dive into the granola bar when I remember that Tiffany had coveted one. The waitress had mentioned the barter system. I could trade this, maybe for a full meal or a gallon of water or even gas. I tuck it into my pocket and then rifle through the carry-on again, this time focusing on items that I can trade. If I can’t count on kindness and sympathy, I think, maybe I can buy help.

Cuff links. A nice belt. A box with a silk scarf, clearly meant as a present, as well as a kid-size T-shirt from the San Diego Zoo with a picture of a fuzzy bear on it. It reminds me of the girl with the teddy bear, the knife, and the empty eyes. I stuff all four items into my purse. I’m ready.

This could be a mistake. But the alternative is to keep walking until I die like my car did inside the dust storm that seems to separate this place from the rest of the world. I have to head back into town. It’s the only practical option.

I compliment myself on being practical and hope I’m not being stupid.

Shouldering my purse, I lock the car and head down the road toward town. I have time for second thoughts, third thoughts, and fourth thoughts, but then I’m there.

A lost red balloon drifts over the post office. And then back. And then over again. There isn’t any wind.

Keeping to the opposite side of the street from the diner, I walk briskly toward the motel lobby. I see the same former CEO picking his way through the gutter. The woman in the pink tracksuit lies on the front stoop of a house with peeling white paint. She’s counting her fingers over and over. Neither notices me. I don’t make eye contact with anyone.

As I enter the hotel lobby, the chimes ring discordantly. I call out, “Hello? Anyone here? Tiffany?”

A sweet Southern voice answers, “At your beck and call...” Tiffany sweeps into the lobby in a frothy pink dress. Her hair is blond now and done up in a twist. She wears demure gold earrings and an oversize pearl necklace. “You.” She halts and drops the fake smile.

I hold up the granola bar. “I’d like to make a trade.”

“Folks at the diner said you ran the Missing Man out of town.” She also drops the accent.

“He left on his own,” I say. “All I did was tell him my name.”

“Powerful name,” she says. “Are you Voldemort?”

“Lauren Chase.”

She gasps...and then she shrugs. “Don’t know you.”

“Then you’ll trade?” My mouth salivates. I can almost taste breakfast. I wonder how much she’ll trade for the granola bar she wanted. I’d like a shower in the motel room, too.

“No way,” Tiffany says. “Victoria runs the only diner in town, and Sean’s a kick-ass cook. His meatloaf is to die for—not literally, unless you want to go ‘on’ instead of home—but if Victoria says no dealing with you, then I’m not dealing with you. Sorry. You seem nice, if insufferably boring, but I’m not risking access to the only decently cooked meal in this hellhole.”

“I also have these.” I pull out the cuff links. “And this.” I show her the belt.

“Not interested.” She looks beyond me, out the lobby window. Her face pales. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

I feel my heart drop. Slowly, I turn.

A pack of kids has plastered themselves to the window. They don’t speak. They merely watch. Beyond them, adults draw closer. Some of them whisper to each other. Most are silent. Gathering together, they press shoulder to shoulder in a line, as if they are a human net intent on tightening around me.

My knees feel loose, threatening to cave in underneath me. I feel my palms sweat. “Is there a back door I can use?”

“I can’t help you.” She’s backing toward the supply closet.

“Please! They...they don’t look friendly.”

“Just don’t make eye contact. Don’t talk to anyone,” she says. “Walk out of town without stopping or even hesitating. Don’t look back.”

“I’ll die out there! I don’t have water or food. I’ll dehydrate and die, and it will be your fault for not helping me when you could. You’ll be responsible for my death.”

“If you’re meant to be saved, then you’ll be saved. If you aren’t...don’t take me down with you. Please.” She begs on the last word, and for the first time, she sounds like a kid. Before I can think how to respond, she bolts into the supply closet and shuts the door. I am alone in the lobby with only a door between me and the townspeople.

Someone throws a rock. It crashes into the window, and the glass shatters. Screaming, I dive behind the lobby counter. I crouch and wait to hear more glass shatter and the mob shout. But it’s silent. There are no more rocks.

Time passes, and I feel my legs cramp from crouching for too long. Slowly, I straighten and peek over the top. The crowd waits. “What do you want?” I shout at them.

“He isn’t back,” a woman says.

“Look, this is obviously all a mistake! I didn’t do or say anything wrong.” I hold up my hands in surrender to show I’m harmless. The townspeople murmur to each other. I wish that woman Merry were here. She’d seemed at least friendly.

“He’s never refused us before,” the same woman says. She has once-dyed-red hair that is only red for the last five inches; the rest is gray. She wears a polka-dot dress, five-inch heels, and smeared makeup. She looks as if she stayed at a cocktail party too long.

“Who is he?” I ask. “Why does he matter so much to you?”

“He’s the Missing Man.” It’s the woman in the pink tracksuit from the diner. “He helps us find what we lost, if we can’t find it ourselves, and then he sends us home. Without him, we can never leave.”

Her words don’t make sense. “But I haven’t lost anything.” Yes, I’ve lost socks and earrings. I’ve left a book on the bus and an umbrella in a restaurant. I’ve lost track of friends. But I’ve lost no more than anyone else in the world. Less than many.

“Everyone says that at first,” the pink woman says. “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t lost.” Everyone else mutters in agreement.

“I wouldn’t have gotten lost if it hadn’t been for that damn dust storm,” I say, though I think of how I hadn’t seen a sign or another vehicle for miles before that. I feel cold. This is all so unbelievable, yet no one cracks a smile. It isn’t a joke, at least not to them. “You can’t tell me that everyone who is directionally challenged ends up here.”

“Not that kind of lost,” the woman in the polka-dot dress says, “or at least those kind don’t stay for long. All they need is a map or a sign or a clue. The Missing Man sends them back right away.”

One of the kids, a boy with a baseball cap low over his eyes, says, “But he didn’t send you back. He left you. He left us.” The crowd inches closer until they press against the broken glass. I back up and hit the wall. Turning, I try the door to the supply closet. Locked. I knock on the door. “Tiffany? Please, let me in.” I can hear the panic infuse my voice, and I can’t stop it. I feel like a rabbit, cornered by a pack of wolves. I turn back to the mob. “It’s only been a day,” I say to them. “Give him longer. Me longer. Please, leave me alone!”

A small figure pushes her way through the crowd.

It’s the freaky girl. She still holds the teddy bear in one hand. Her princess dress is torn and stained. Her hair sticks out at odd angles and is clipped with at least twelve different clips, which only makes it jut out more. She steps through the broken window. Shards of glass crunch under her red sequin Mary Jane shoes.

The girl holds out her hand. It’s empty.

I stare at her hand. She wants me to take it. She waits, little hand out. At last, I reach out my hand and clasp hers. I hear an intake of breath from the mob, amplified by the number of people.

Without a word, she pulls me across the lobby and through the broken window. Confused, the crowd parts. The girl marches through without looking right or left. I imitate her and don’t make eye contact. When we pass the mob, I don’t look back. We pass the bookstore and then the post office and then the barber shop. I am trying hard not to panic. I am not succeeding. “I need to get out of sight,” I say.

She keeps pulling me down the street.

I wonder if she intends to march me out of town, in which case what I told Tiffany will come true. I am already hungry and thirsty. I can’t live out in the desert. “Is there anyone friendly here? Someone who can help me?”

The girl doesn’t answer.

“I’m Lauren,” I say, trying for a friendly tone. “What’s your name?”

Still no answer.

Glancing back, I see the mob has spilled back onto the street. They are watching me. So far, they aren’t following, but that could change. “If you know a place to hide...”

The girl switches direction, pulling me into the alley between the barber shop and a decrepit triple-decker house. She still doesn’t speak.

I don’t know why I’m trusting her. “Are you helping me, or dragging me someplace private to cut me to pieces and feed me to your teddy bear? Just curious.”

The girl looks at me with her wide eyes. “My name is Claire. And my teddy bear is not hungry today.”

“That’s...good?”

Claire skips over rotted cardboard boxes and sashays around sodden trash. I hesitate, weighing my options: follow the little knife girl or break out on my own. I think I can outrun her, but so far she’s done nothing but help. She beckons me. I’ll trust her, I decide. The decision makes my head feel light and dizzy. Or maybe that’s the stench. The alley stinks as if a dozen cats have died underneath the piles of junk. Following Claire, I hold my sleeve over my mouth and breathe through it. It doesn’t help. The stench makes my eyes water. Worse, the ground squishes underneath my feet. I feel as though the smell is clinging to me. After a while, I stop looking down. I don’t want to know what I’m stepping in.

The alley stretches for far longer than should be possible, given the size of the town. A town this size shouldn’t have an alley at all. As we turn a corner, Claire puts her fingers to her lips. We creep past an open door. I hear voices, loud male voices, but I can’t distinguish the words. They may not be English.

I follow the little girl in silence as the alley twists and winds. Oddly, there are no intersecting streets. Only narrow, trash-choked alleys. We’re hemmed in by apartment buildings, each ten and fifteen stories tall. Some are brick and have balconies strung with laundry and cluttered with old bikes and dead plants. Others are sheer concrete, defaced with spray-painted bubble letters and symbols. I don’t know how I failed to see them from the center of town. It’s as if Main Street hid a portion of a city behind a small-town facade, which shouldn’t be possible, given the height differential of the buildings.

Two lefts and a right later, Claire leads me to a set of basement steps. I halt at the top, which forces her to stop, too. “Exactly where are we going? Because that looks ominous to me.” I try to sound light, as if this is a kid’s game, but I hear my voice shake.

Claire releases my hand and trots down the steps.

“Claire, wait. Why are you helping me?”

“Because you tried to leave, and then you came back,” she says.

She knocks on the door twice slowly then three times fast, as if in a code. I hear footsteps approach the door. I bend my knees, prepared to run if I have to.

“You came back,” she says. “You weren’t led back. The Finder didn’t bring you. Well, he did the one time, but not all the times you tried. I watched you. You didn’t see me, but I saw you.”

“The Finder? Who’s the Finder?”

With wide, innocent eyes, Claire says, “He is.”

The door opens, and a man is silhouetted in the doorway. Light spills from behind him, and his face is shadowed, but I know him anyway. It’s the man in the trench coat who pushed me through the storm. “Nibble, nibble, gnaw. Who is nibbling at my house?”

Laughing, Claire scoots under his arm and disappears inside. “I want cookies.”

He looks at me, his face unreadable. “I know you, Little Red.”

“She brought me,” I say.

“Unusual.” He opens the door wider. “‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the spider to the fly. ‘’Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.’”

“The spider eats the fly,” I say, and do not move.

“And the wolf eats Little Red.” He smiles at me as if we share a secret, and I feel caught in his smile like a fly in a web. He is as stunningly beautiful in the darkness as he was in the storm. “Of course, in this case, the role of ‘wolf’ will be played by feral dogs.” He nods at the alley behind me, and I hear a growl. I turn and see a mangy dog leap onto a broken crate. “They hunt in packs.” His voice is conversational, as if making a semi-interesting observation. “Dogs are lost every day. You may want to come inside.”

The trash rustles and shifts. I see the shadow of a second dog dart through the alley. Another growl. I hurry down the stairs. “She says you’re the Finder.”

“You can call me Peter,” he says. “I think definite articles are too formal, don’t you?”

“It’s better than Sisyphus.” I tell myself that I’m not being stupid. He could have hurt me before out in the desert, and he helped me instead. But I don’t like how dank and dark the hallway is. The concrete walls are painted black, and a single bare bulb swings from the steel beam rafters. It throws our shadows, black against the black, until they twist and contort. Swing, twist. Twist, swing. He stares at me, and I stare back. In the shadows, he looks mysterious and perfect, also dangerous.

“You don’t seem to be an interesting person,” he says. “Lost your way emotionally, psychologically, and physically. Cut-and-dried, really. Yet Claire has never brought me a visitor before. There must be more to you.” He closes the door and bolts it.

I clutch my sweating hands behind my back. My heart is beating rapid-fire. I won’t show fear. Or awe. He is just a man, and it’s the situation, not him, that makes me feel off-kilter. “I am not an interesting person. I went for a drive, that’s all. And I just...didn’t want to stop. Now I’m stuck in a town full of hostile lunatics who want me gone.”

“That’s a little bit interesting,” he says. “Not the lunatics part. That’s usual. But the fact they want you gone. You aren’t repellent. In fact, you’re pretty, in a standard California sort of way.” He smiles at me, and the force of that smile stuns me again for a moment. It’s as potent as a shot of whisky. I have the wild thought that he’s thinking about kissing me. Or maybe I’m thinking about kissing him. But I don’t, and he doesn’t. I don’t know why I’m even thinking it when I’m in the middle of this nightmare.

Three cookies crammed in her mouth, Claire trots back into the hallway. “Come on!” she says around her cookies. Crumbs tumble to the floor. She tugs my hand.

“Her Highness demands it—we must obey,” Peter says. “Come inside, have a cookie, and we’ll talk. A little tête-à-tête, if you will.” He places his hand on my back to guide me. His palm feels warm through my shirt. I scoot forward, away from his touch.

I follow Claire through a set of black curtains...and I gasp. Inside sparkles like a thousand stars. Covered in tiny white Christmas lights, a tree grows in the center of the room. Colored scarves are draped from every branch. More lights chase over the ceiling as if to make their own Milky Way.

Claire plops onto an oversize plush chair. Her feet barely reach the end of the cushion. She dangles them in midair. Beside her, her teddy bear is holding a blue-and-white china teacup. In miniature chairs around her, a circle of stuffed animals also hold teacups.

“Tea?” Peter offers me. “It’s always teatime when Claire comes.” He shares his beautiful smile with her, and she beams back as if he’s a beloved big brother.

“May I have more?” Claire asks in a polite little princess voice. She holds up her cup, and Peter pours air from an empty teapot into her cup. She sips it. She looks so innocent, and I wonder where she’s stashed her knife.

“Do you have anything non-imaginary?” I ask. “I’d love a glass of water.”

He winks at Claire. “Let’s show our guest what’s in the magic trunk. Bibbity-bobbity-alakazam.” With a flourish, he flings open an old-fashioned steamer trunk. In it are prepackaged snacks of all kinds: Ritz crackers with peanut butter, Little Debbie snack cakes, Twinkies, Entenmann’s Pop’ems. He bows to Claire as she applauds, and then he hands me the crackers with peanut butter. “You look like the healthy snack sort, even if there is dog shit on your shoes.”

I look down at my shoes. My best office shoes are smeared with brown and green. “Crap,” I say, and Claire giggles. Peter tosses me a bottle of water. I open it and drink. It feels like pure joy pouring down my throat. I close my eyes and drain half the bottle, then I tear open the package and pop a cracker in my mouth. The salt melts into my tongue.

I sink down into a chair near Claire and look around the room. Lava lamps light the corners, and chess pieces fill the shelves. A pile of records lies in one corner, along with a stack of comic books with dog-eared corners. A train set curls underneath a worn sofa. There are also jars and jars of pennies, buttons, paper clips, rubber bands... On the walls, I see photographs of hundreds of different people: portraits in sepia, families on vacation laughing together, wedding pictures, school photos.

Peter plops cross-legged onto the floor next to the tree and rips open a Hershey’s bar. “And now, Oysters dear, ‘the time has come to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax...’ Tell me, how have the beloved citizens of Lost earned your censure as ‘hostile lunatics’?”

Claire offers tea to her teddy and says matter-of-factly, “They planned to kill her.”

I shudder. “I don’t know that they would have—”

“It would have been messy.” Claire wrinkles her nose at the dolls. “We don’t want to see the pretty lady all messy, do we? No, we don’t.” She points to an empty chair and says to Peter, “You gave away Mr. Giraffe!”

“It was a necessary sacrifice,” Peter says gravely. He turns back to me. “But I am still the cat dying of curiosity. How did you enrage the homicidal instincts of the peasantry?”

“I told my name to the Missing Man,” I say.

Claire is scowling at Peter. “I think Mr. Giraffe’s friends are angry at you.”

“I hope not,” Peter says to her. “It would be a shame if Mr. Giraffe’s friends were too angry for the secret surprise in the back closet.”

Claire leaps out of her chair, knocking over her teddy bear with his teacup. Peter dives forward and catches the teacup in one hand as Claire scampers out of the room through a set of multicolored beaded curtains.

“What’s in the back closet?” I ask.

Peter flashes me a grin. “I have no idea.” I listen to Claire’s squeal of delight. Perhaps a new doll, I think. Or a machete.

“You’re good with kids.”

He shrugs. “Tell me what’s so fearsome about your name.”

“I’m Lauren Chase.”

He raises one eyebrow. “It’s a fine name. Not as fine as mine, of course, whatever it was. If I ever remember what it was, I’ll prove it.”

“The Missing Man said ‘no’ and walked out of town without a word to anyone. He hasn’t returned yet, and everyone blames me.” I hold my breath, waiting for him to react.

Peter laughs out loud. The sound fills the room, and my mouth quirks up into a smile, though I don’t know what about any of this is laughable. But his laugh is infectious.

Claire skips back into the room. She’s hugging a new teddy bear with polka-dot fur. “Peter! I love him!” She plants a kiss on his cheek and then carries her new acquisition to her oversize chair. She sets him beside her old teddy bear. “I’ll name him Prince Fluffernutter.”

“Extremely dignified name,” Peter says with no hint of mockery. “Consider Prince Fluffernutter a thank-you gift for bringing me Miss Lauren Chase. I have never met anyone whom the Missing Man has refused before. Aside from me, of course.”

“You?” I ask.

“Indeed. A number of years ago, we had a spat. He nearly destroyed my universe. I nearly destroyed his soul.” He rubs his hands together. “So, given his unkindness toward you and me...I say we think of a way to defy him.”

I like the sound of that. “Do you have a plan?”

“Let’s start with keeping you alive,” Peter says.