The air conditioner was definitely broken.

Gracey cursed inwardly and made a mental note to call the service company first thing Monday morning. The godforsaken air conditioner broke ever year at the height of summer, no matter how religiously she maintained the unit. She supposed it might be time to replace it altogether, but  installing new appliances was a hassle. She didn’t love the idea of having strangers out to her home.

After all, she never knew when the Prime of Darkness was going to show up, and he was always more than a little difficult to explain.

Changing out of a damp t-shirt into a tank top, Gracey poured herself a glass of iced tea and made for the front porch. It wasn’t any cooler outside, of course, but she reasoned that if she were going to sit around sweating she might as well do so while getting a bit of fresh air. Besides, she enjoyed putting the ceiling fan to good use.

It was warmer outside than she’d hoped. Sighing, Gracey flipped on the overhead fan, plopped down on the porch swing, one leg tucked underneath her while she gave herself a little push with the other. The chains creaked and floorboards groaned. Gracey wondered if it might be time to try another diet. Maybe South Beach this time.

“Morning, sugar!”

Gracey leaned forward, smiled to see her friend Bibi Armstrong walking up her driveway, rivulets of sweat running down the sides of her face. “Don’t tell me you walked over here,” Gracey scolded. “It’s too hot for that!”

Bibi waved the concern away. “I’m too old to worry about what’s gonna kill me,” she said with her usual wry disregard for conventional wisdom. “Something’s gonna do me in one day. Besides, it’d be a sin to drive over here. It ain’t like you’re miles away.”

That was true enough. With the entire country gone crazy about “going green”, Gracey could certainly see her friend’s point, even if she herself wasn’t so sure she’d trade a brisk, air conditioned drive for a healthful walk in the 100+ degree heat. Though maybe if she did, she wouldn’t need South Beach after all.

Gracey frowned. It was a lose-lose situation.

Bibi came up the porch steps, and Gracey scooted over to make room for her friend on the swing. She winked at Gracey and lowered her voice. “I think I saw Marco skulking around your bushes,” she said, waving her hand toward the front of the porch Gracey couldn’t see from her perch.

Gracey cocked her eyebrows, called out. “Marco?”

A brown, scruffy head popped up over the porch railing, a timid smile revealing handsome, crooked teeth. “Hi, Gracey,” he said, cheeks rosy with sun and bashfulness.

“What are you doing down there?”

“Waitin’ for you.”

“Waiting for me to do what?”

“Come outside. So I could get my pie. You said. And Mama said I couldn’t ring your doorbell to ask for it.”

Gracey chuckled and beckoned for Marco to come up on the porch. He scrambled up, still smiling. “Well, in that case, I’m sorry I kept you waiting. Tell you what. Go on inside and get yourself some pie. I’ve got apple and cherry. Get whatever you want and a glass of milk and bring it out here and sit with me and Bibi. Can you do that?”

Marco’s eyes brightened as he bobbed his head up and down. He held up a finger. “I’ll be right back,” he said, darting into the house.

When Marco was out of earshot, Bibi squeezed Gracey’s arm. “You should have kids,” she said.

Here we go, Gracey thought, biting her tongue to keep from saying something she’d regret.  After all, Bibi was her friend, not her mother, and her intentions and motivations were completely different than Annette’s. Gracey knew that at thirty, she was expected to have children, especially in a family town like Love & War. She also knew that Bibi, who loved her a great deal, couldn’t have children of her own and was only projecting her own desires onto Gracey. She knew that these words, though portending a guilt trip when uttered by one’s maternal unit, were meant only as inspiration coming from Bibi.

Still, they stung. The lack of children in the Daylittle home was a sore circumstance, though Gracey had never discussed that situation with anyone. Not even Bibi.

Gracey shrugged. “Well, I think I’d like to. Just haven’t had the opportunity. Never could hang on to a guy for long enough.”

For a fleeting moment she thought of Gabe, snatched away from her before they’d even begun their lives together. After all these years, the memory was still a dull pain.  And then, without warning, Gracey found herself thinking of the magician, Simon St. Laine. Did he want to have kids? Would he make a good father?

Gracey’s breath caught in her throat as she realized what she was thinking. They hadn’t been dating long. Marriage wasn’t anywhere on the table, or even underneath the table as far as she could tell. Still, it wasn’t her fault if she secretly hoped it was the direction they could be heading. She wasn’t getting any younger, and Simon was handsome and caring. She imagined he would make a very good partner.

She blushed, forced herself to stop thinking about Simon before Bibi noticed and intruded on her thoughts. She wasn’t ready to discuss this particular train of thought with anyone just yet.

At that moment, Marco came outside, letting the screen door slam behind him. His mouth made an o shape in surprise as he carried his plate of pie—he’d helped himself to a slice of each—and a tall, plastic cup of milk to the swing. He squeezed in between Bibi and Gracey.

As Marco began shoveling pie in his mouth, Bibi reached over and mussed he boy’s hair. “I heard they found the Fairgood girl.”

Gracey’s head snapped up, her heart seeming to freeze in her chest. “Dead?”

Bibi made a face, motioning at Marco over the boy’s head where he couldn’t see. “Good Lord, Gracey, no! Why on Earth would you say that?”

A wave of relief washed over her even as a healthy dose of guilt hit her for saying something so macabre in front of Marco. Something deep inside her broke as she choked back a sob, hand covering her mouth. Ever since she’d realized the connection between all the recent deaths, she hadn’t believed that anyone would ever see Audra Fairgood alive again.  She was incredibly glad to be wrong. “My god,” she said, blinking back nascent tears. “When? Is she all right? What happened?”

Bibi shrugged, nodded. “She got home late last night. Apparently she’d gone up to Midland to stay with her daddy. He didn’t know that Shira was out of the loop.”

Gracey’s expression clouded with confusion. “Her daddy? I thought Aleister…?”

Bibi chuckled, shaking her head. “Aww, sugar, I love that you ain’t never been much on gossip. Otherwise you’da heard long ago that Aleister wasn’t the girl’s daddy. Folks don’t talk too much about it anymore, but it was a big to-do when it happened, since Shira and Aleister were married at the time. You have to respect a man who’d take care of another man’s child and wouldn’t let loose a cheating wife. He was a good man. A good man,” Bibi said, melancholy and nostalgia rich in her voice.

Gracey said nothing as she mulled over the news. If Audra Fairgood wasn’t Aleister’s natural daughter and wasn’t a natural-born Fairgood, that fact might have saved her from whatever curse had befallen the founding families. Was that possible, or was the whole thing just a coincidence? Was the terror over, or was it still waiting out there, ready to claim more lives at a moment’s notice?

“You okay, sugar? You look a little pale.”

Gracey feigned a small smile, shooing away her friend’s worry. “Oh, I’m fine, I’m just glad to hear Audra’s home safe. I thought…”

“You thought Minerva Katherine Auckland got her?”

Marco had been so quiet during the whole exchange that the women had assumed he wasn’t paying them any attention, so his interruption surprised them both. Gracey looked down at him, smiling. “Who’s that, honey? That a super villain in one of your comics?

Marco’s forehead creased as he swallowed his pie, shaking his head. “Not from my comics,” he said. “Minerva Katherine Auckland. You thought she got Audra Fairgood, didn’t you?”

Gracey didn’t know what Marco was talking about, of course, but something about the conversation sent chills down her spine all the same. Minerva Katherine Auckland. It wasn’t anyone she knew, no one who lived in town, and yet the name was familiar for some reason. A character in a children’s book, perhaps? A movie character? She searched the pages of her memory, flipping through them for an image or a lyric she could hold onto, something that might pin a face to the name, but nothing came to her. She would have to google the name later.

“Well, thank God Shira got her daughter back,” Gracey said, “though I can’t imagine what she went through having to tell her daughter about Aleister.”

Bibi whistled, giving a slow shake of her head. “Fate I wouldn’t wish on nobody,” she agreed.

Comfortable silence settled between them as Marco finished his pie, Gracey and Bibi keeping the porch swing in motion with a gentle push of their toes. Although the fan whirred busily overhead, it offered little relief from the sweltering heat, and under other circumstances, three bodies on a porch swing might have been too much. But at that moment, closeness was a commodity. It made them feel safe.

“I guess I best get going,” Bibi said after a while, pushing herself up out of the swing with a gentle groan. “I got a bunch of vegetables from my garden I gotta take down to the Badlands. Plus I gotta put some more pink dye in that Japanese girl’s hair today,” she said.

Gracey smiled. “You’re a good head, Beatriz.”

Bibi waved away the compliment with a frown. “I’m a sucker with no business sense,” she said. But Gracey knew she didn’t mean it. She was well aware how much Bibi loved lending a helping hand.

“Okay, I’m done. I’m going home, too,” Marco said, hopping off the swing. He pushed his plate and cup into Gracey’s hands. “Thank you for the pie, Gracey. Can I come back tomorrow and have some more?”

Gracey chuckled, nodding. “As long as it’s okay with your mama,” she said. “You can have as much pie as I can make.”

She watched him scamper off, the heels of his sneakers kicking up dust as he made his way down the drive and across the street. When he was safely inside, Gracey stood, stretched, walking languidly back into her house, content now with the knowledge of Audra Fairgood’s safety, even though small doubts and fears still nibbled at her like a hesitant mouse.

She deposited Marco’s dishes in the sink, absently wiping down the counter where he’d spilled a few drops of milk and left a trail of crumbs. What was that name he’d mentioned earlier that seemed so strange? Minerva Something? She rinsed off the rag, wringing it out as she frowned, deep in thought, wracking her brain for the tickle she felt when the name filtered through her mind. She did know it from somewhere. From somewhere strange. From somewhere she wouldn’t expect and eight-year-old boy to reference. But where?

She blinked, shook her head, shaking herself out of her thoughts. She couldn’t remember. She knew if she stopped thinking about it for a while, it would come to her on its own later.

Sunlight streamed through the kitchen window, and Gracey planted herself in its beam, ambivalent to its warmth, but smiling as she looked out across the street. Marco, who was not one to be easily contained (she supposed that was an indigenous quality of most eight-year-old boys), had come back outside, was playing in the yellow-and-brown grass that constituted the Esquivel lawn. He was normally animated, but now he was speaking loudly and gesturing to someone who was not there, and Gracey’s smile widened, remembering the entourage of invisible friends she’d amassed in her own childhood.

“What are you doing?”

Yelping in surprise, Gracey spun on her heel to find the Prime of Darkness standing in the doorway, filling it up, his head cocked lazily to one side, a puzzled expression on his face. Gracey shut her eyes, opened them, taking in a breath. “I’ve asked you a million times not to sneak up on me like that,” she said, her voice unsteady. “You scared the shit outta me.”

“Sorry,” he said. “It wasn’t my intention. I was just curious about whatever it was you were looking at.”

Gracey stepped to one side, a wordless invitation for the demon to sidle up beside her. She pointed to the window, indicating the scene across the street. “It’s nothing, really. I’m just watching Marco play with his imaginary friend. Brings back memories.”

The Prime of Darkness said nothing, his mouth settling into a perfect line as he joined Gracey in watching the boy across the street. Then, “Why do you call his friend imaginary?”

It was Gracey’s turn to look confused. “Because it isn’t real. Kids do that, sometimes. They invent a friend when there’s no one to play with. That’s why it’s called imaginary.”

The demon gave her a disdainful look. “I know what imaginary means,” he said.

She blushed. “Right. Sorry.”

The Prime of Darkness returned his gaze to the boy across the street. “Are both of the children playing with the imaginary friend?”

“Both what children? I’m just talking about Marco. He’s over there playing by himself.”

The Prime of Darkness furrowed his brow. “No, he isn’t. There’s a little girl playing with him.”

Gracey turned slowly, her eyes taking in the demon’s facial expression. As far as she knew, he wasn’t able to joke, or lie, or exaggerate. But there was no one else on the Esquivel lawn. Marco was alone. “Darkness…you see Marco with another child?”

The demon nodded. “Yes. A little girl. Short, brown hair. Pink shirt. Looks the same age as he is. You don’t see her?”

Gracey looked again, but there was absolutely no one with Marco. Either the demon was lying, seeing things, or… “That’s impossible,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t see anyone. I don’t see anyone at all!”

The demon shrugged. “There’s probably a great deal in your world that you cannot see that I can,” he said. “What’s interesting isn’t that you can’t see her, but that that little boy can.”

She was about to ask the demon what he meant by that, but when she turned to him, he had gone, leaving only a chill in the air and an impression of undulating shadows in her peripheral vision to indicate that he had ever been there at all.

She drew in a deep, steadying breath, and looked back out the window. She saw the Esquivel’s front door swinging shut. Marco had gone back inside.

Author’s note: Hover your mouse over Spanish phrases for their English translations.

As his eyes fluttered open, Conchis’s visage slowly floated into view, tongue clucking, eyes smiling. “You’re waking up, huh? How does your head feel?”

Marco blinked, rubbed his face sleepily. He was lying in his bed. “It feels fine,” he said. “Why?”

Conchis giggled, shaking her head. “Sometimes when you drink too much it makes your head hurt in the morning.”

Marco swallowed, trying to hide his embarrassment. “I feel okay,” he said again.

Conchis gave Marco a good, hard look, arms akimbo, head cocked to the side. “What made you drink the pulque anyway? ¡Vas a matar a tu madre, Marquito!You’re going to send your mother to an early grave, Marco! What you was thinking, huh?”

Macro, having no believable defense, said nothing.

“I know your brother and that troublemaker down the street put you up to it,” Conchis said. “After they came in here tattling we put the screws to them. They’re bullies, but they scare easy.” She smiled down at her nephew, but then her face took on a slightly more serious edge. “If you’re not careful you’ll end up like that good for nothing drunk rabbit, Ometotchtli. You don’t want that, do you?”

Marco was about to say that no, he didn’t, when something tugged at the back of his mind. “What drunk rabbit?”

Conchis clucked her tongue again, pouring Marco a glass of water from the pitcher at his bedside. She pushed it into his hands. “Your ancestors, the Aztecs, were fond of the pulque, too. But nobody was more fond of the pulque than that curious rabbit, Ometotchtli.” Conchis smiled as Marco drak thirstily from the glass. “I tell you what,” she said. “I’ll tell you the story another time, okay? You must be hungry. You want me to make you some migas?”

Marco smiled, and Conchis kissed her nephew noisily on the cheek. “Try not to drink any pulque while I’m gone,” she teased.

Marco watched as his aunt disappeared from his room. When he was alone, he spoke the strange name out loud. “Ometotchtli. Your name is Ometotchtli.”  The word filled him with warmth and calm, and in his mind’s eye, Two Rabbit’s kindly face swam up before him, smiling a beatific, if disconcerting, smile. “You have my name now,” he heard the rabbit say. “Keep it close to your heart.”

Marco snuggled down under his sheets, a small smile on his lips. Though he was still afraid of the undertaking that loomed before him, having Two Rabbit’s name filled him with content. He would go see Gracey very soon.

Marco had never stolen anything before. Though the miserable task had fallen to him (as he had known it would) he wasn’t at all sure how to begin.

Heart thumping wildly in his chest, mouth dry, palms clammy, Marco looked over his shoulder, an involuntary response to an imagined sound and a guilty conscience. He stood perfectly still, ears at attention, listening. He could hear the adults murmuring in the livingroom, but he heard no tell-tale footsteps. He was alone in the kitchen. It was now or never.

He opened the refrigerator, wincing at the noise it made as he broke the vacuum seal, and scanned its contents for the beer Chucho had brought home just an hour earlier. He saw a gallon of whole milk, a half-empty bag of coffee beans, some avocado, tomato, orange juice, a beef marinade and three cans of Coke. But he didn’t see the beer.

Closing the refrigerator, he tiptoed to the kitchen’s doorway and peered around the corner. The grown-ups were talking quietly, their faces somber. They’d looked like that for weeks now, at least the women had. Chucho had only returned from his last haul a few days ago, but already the news of the recent deaths had settled into the lines of his face, making him appear older, careworn. Even Aunt Conchita, who was usually a grab bag of laughter and smiles, had replaced her usual merriment with an intense melancholy.

Looking at them made Marco feel sad.

Then he saw what he was looking for. On the coffee table were four tall, frosty bottles of Corona. Chucho and his friend Manny were drinking the other two.

There was no way he was getting to that beer without anybody seeing.

Marco withdrew into the kitchen and considered his options. He could go back to the shed outside and tell Alejandro and Cheehawk that he couldn’t get the beer and suffer their taunts and name calling. That certainly wouldn’t be anything new. But there was another option, and on this night, Marco wasn’t yet ready to concede defeat.

Chucho kept the tequila on the top shelf of the pantry, out of the twins’ reach. But the six pack of pulque that he’d brought back from Mexico last winter sat collecting dust on the  pantry floor, underneath a sack of potatoes, forgotten by everyone.

Everyone except Marco.

He didn’t know what pulque was except that everyone had laughed when Chucho had brought it back from the homeland, saying they hadn’t had pulque since they were teenagers. Chucho had popped open a can, taken a deep swig, made a face that was a cross between revulsion and merriment, and passed it around. Everyone had tried it, shaking their heads, declaring they much preferred beer and that the agave should stick with producing tequila. They’d finished off that one can and put the other five in the pantry where Marco now knelt, silently retrieving a single can from its plastic yolk.

He sighed with relief, glanced around once more, and, finding himself still alone, hid the can under his t-shirt and, triumphant, slipped quietly out the back door.

“What the hell is this?”

Cheehawk held the can of pulque with a look of bewildered disgust on this face. “This isn’t beer. It isn’t even cold,” he complained. “You got the wrong stuff.”

Marco shrugged. “The beer was in the living room with the grown-ups. I couldn’t get it without them seeing me. Anyway, this has alcohol in it, too.”

Cheehawk looked skeptical.  “How do you know?”

“Because when they were drinking it at Christmas they wouldn’t let me and Alex have any.”

Alejandro nodded. “That’s true.”

Cheehawk popped the top open, closed one eye, and peered into the small, dark opening. “I can’t see anything,” he said. “I’m not gonna try this, Marco, until you try it first.”

Marco’s jaw dropped. “I don’t even want any! I got it for you! I’m not drinking that!”

“But you were supposed to get the beer,” Cheehawk said. “So since you got the wrong stuff, you should have to try it first!”

Cheehawk pushed the can into Marco’s hands, and the younger boy sighed, closing his fingers around the warm can. He should have known it would end up like this. He wasn’t remotely curious about the effects of alcohol, but he didn’t want to look like a scaredy-cat either.

He put the can to his lips. Holding his breath, he took a tiny sip.

“Do you feel anything?” Cheehawk asked.

Alejandro elbowed him in the side. “Doesn’t work like that, stupid! You don’t get drunk right away!”

Cheehawk scowled, returned his attention to Marco. “What does it taste like?”

Marco had been prepared for the worst. When they were very little, Alejandro had made Marco taste a cup of black coffee that their mother had left on the patio overnight. It had tasted awful, and had left an oily, acid taste in his mouth that seemed to linger for days. Using that awful experience as a baseline, Marco had sipped gingerly and fretfully at the pulque, steeling himself for the worst.

It wasn’t anything like he expected.

The warm liquid was thick and frothy, and tasted like strawberries dipped in honey. He took a second sip, less fearful, and this time it tasted like tres leches cake with cinnamon and nutmeg. A fuzzy, warm sensation filled his chest and began to spread slowly to his stomach, his cheeks, until suddenly he was warm all over.

“What’s it taste like, Marco?”

Marco set the can down in front of him and shrugged. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “It kinda tastes like a carnival.”

“A carnival?” Alejandro rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Well, I said it was hard to explain,” Marco said. “You can just try it yourself!”

Cheehawk and Alejaandro exchanged looks, and finally the older boy gave a litte shrug and picked up the can. Hellbent on not being upstaged by a weenie like Marco, Cheehawk knocked the pulque back, taking in a large swig.

His eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he choked, retched, and spit the pulque out. Droplets splattered all over Alejandro, who gave his friend a push. “HEY! Watch it, Cheehawk!”

“It’s nasty!” Cheehawk sputtered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He leaned over, spat a few times on the dirt floor of the shed, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. “Marco, you liar, that’s the worst taste I ever tasted!” He pushed the drink toward Alejandro. “Here, Alex, you try it!”

Alejandro shook his head vigorously. “No, thanks. I believe you,” he sad, shrinking away from the drink.

Cheehawk changed tactics and pushed the drink into Marco’s hands. Marco accepted the drink wit a confused look on his face. “It was nasty to you?”

“Not cool, Marco!” Cheehaw howled. “You made me drink it even though you knew it was gross. You should drink the rest of it,” he said.

Marco chuckled. “I didn’t make you drink it,” he said. “Plus, it doesn’t taste bad to me. I like it.”

To prove his point, Marco brought the can to his lips and took another long, slow drink. This time, the warm, thick liquid that filled his mouth tasted like pineapple sprinkled with brown sugar. That flavor slowly faded to be replaced by another:  roasted almonds and toffee. And finally, thick, hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and drizzled with hot caramel sauce.

When he sat the can down in front of him, the can was empty, and Marco, unbeknownst to him, was drunk.

“He drank it all,” Cheehawk breathed, incredulous. “He drank the whole thing! Marco just drank a whole can of that nasty alcohol!”

While the boys stared at him in frank disbelief, Marco felt his eyelids grow heavy as a pleasant, warm sensation took over his senses. He felt as though he were floating, and he couldn’t stop the goofy smile that was spreading over his face.

Marco’s transformation did no go unnoticed.  Cheehawk turned to Alejandro, pointed an accusing finger. “You said it didn’t happen right away,” he said. “But check him out. He’s gonna pass out!”

Alejandro, though he would never admit it, was impressed. “It’s not supposed to work right away,” he said. “I don’t know! Maybe that stuff is different from beer. Don’t ask me!”

The two boys watched as Marco gazed off into space, eyes unfocused, grinning like an idiot.

“We should tell on him,” Alejandro said, a wicked smile of his own appearing on his face. “We should go tell Mama and Chucho that Marco drank their pulque. I bet he’ll get in so much trouble!”

Marco was nominally aware of what his brother was saying and what they planned on doing to him. He had a vague sense of their betrayal as they scrambled to their feet, giggling at their own mischievousness.  But as the warm feeling enveloped him, and his eyes began to close and he curled himself into a ball on the ground, he found that he just didn’t care. The sweet, heady flavors of the pulque were still fresh on his tongue, and the fringes of reality began to fade and blur as Marco drifted off into his first alcohol-induced slumber and dreamed his second lucid dream.

She seemed to be attending a lot of funerals lately.

Too many.

The evening was still as the very Earth seemed to hold its breath out of respect for the dead. The funeral had been over for the better part of an hour, but Gracey lingered behind, moving slowly down the graveyard’s rows, walking a labyrinth whose passages only she could see. It was a lonely ritual born of confusion, deep grief, and the question that had gnawed at the back of her mind since she’d heard the disquieting news: Where was Audra Fairgood?

The girl had been missing ever since the night Aleister had been discovered dead in his bedroom.  According to local gossip Gracey had been unable to avoid, Audra and her mother had had an argument and Audra had left the house in a fury. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, apparently. Friends of the family indicated that Audra was prone to spending the night with friends when she and her mother fought, but she’d never been gone more than an evening.

Audra Fairgood had now been missing for a week.

Gracey’s flesh pimpled over as she thought of the missing girl and the mother who had lost her husband. She’d watched Shira Fairgood surreptitiously from the corner of her eye—she supposed they all had. She’d seen the way the woman sat, expressionless, red, unblinking eyes unseeing, vacant. She’d watched Nora Goldman hold her daughter’s hand, the solid rock around which everything else crumbled. There they sat in the middle of the storm, a missing daughter and a dead husband. People would talk. In a town this size, they always did.

Gracey shivered despite the heat. So much anguish. So much guilt. So many unanswered questions.

Shaking herself out of her morbid thoughts, Gracey looked up to see Marco Flores skipping toward her at a fast clip, hand raised in the air. He was still wearing the dress shirt and trousers he’d worn to the funeral, but he’d shed the heavy jacket and removed his sock and shoes. His clip-on tie dangled from a pocket. As he came closer, Gracey could see he was clutching a large bottle of bubbles in one hand. In the other he held a bright yellow bubble wand high in the air, giggling as the ephemeral spheres blew daintily into existence and floated slowly skyward.

“What are you doing out here, Marco?” Gracey asked with a smile. Something about the boy always lightened her mood. She was glad to see him. Her mood needed lightening.

“Blowing bubbles,” he said. “What are you doing out here, Gracey?”

It was a fair question. She’d been walking the cemetery grounds for long enough now that her legs, unused to exercise, had begun to tingle uncomfortably. But she’d come to no conclusions, and no answers had deigned to descend upon her. “Just thinking,” she admitted, arms wrapped tightly over her chest. “It’s quiet here. I needed to be alone.” She hadn’t realized the truth of this statement until she’d made it.

“Want me to leave you alone?”

Gracey admired the boy’s respect for her feelings and found his presence comforting. “No. I like having you around,” she said, smiling.

Marco nodded, an innocent wisdom flickering behind his bright, brown eyes. “I try to be alone sometimes. But sometimes it doesn’t always work.” He looked over his shoulder, frowned.

“Does your mom know you’re here?”

Marco shook his head. “No, but she doesn’t care. I’m allowed to come to the cemetery whenever I want.”

Gracey lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “Do you come here often?”

Marco donned a sheepish expression, looked briefly off to the side, avoiding Gracey’s eyes. “Well…not so much anymore,” he said. “But I do sometimes. When it’s not scary.”

The boy’s purity and candor brought a small smile to Gracey’s lips. “How’s your mom? She doing okay?”

Marco shrugged. “She’s sad a lot,” he admitted. “She’s scared something bad’s gonna happen. A lot of people have died. She’s at home right now making salsa and crying.”

Marco lifted the bubble wand to his lips and blew slowly, making a large, heavy bubble that wobbled in the air and began to fall instead of rise. Marco bent his knees and positioned himself beneath the bubble, poked out his tongue until the bubble landed on it, sat a moment, and popped. Marco grinned at Gracey, awaiting her approval.

“Yech,” she said, making a face. “You know bubbles are made out of soap,” she said. “You just ate soap.”

The boy shrugged, dipping the wand once again into the bubble fluid. “It doesn’t taste too bad. Didn’t you ever get your mouth washed out with soap when you were little?”

“Of course not. I never use foul language,” she answered with a prim smile.

But Marco wasn’t persuaded. “That’s a lie. I heard you say shit before,” he said.

“Marco!”

“What! I did!”

Gracey chuckled, shaking her head. “That may be true, Marco, but that doesn’t mean you should say it.”

“I’m allowed to say bad words,” Marco said.

Gracey doubted very much that this was true, but decided not to pursue the matter.

As she began walking again, Marco kept pace beside her, blowing his bubbles and shuffling his bare feet in the dirt. Occasionally he would stop and cock his head to the side as if listening and then would resume his childish ambling. A few times he muttered something under his breath, but when Gracey asked him to repeat what he’d said, he ignored her. Sometimes he would sing a few notes of a song Gracey didn’t know, and sometimes he would laugh. It was unnerving, perhaps, but he was a child, and she supposed children did those things. She wished she knew for certain, but she’d had so little occasion to be with children.

She pushed that thought out of her mind.

But pondering the ways of children brought Gracey’s attention full circle, and once again Audra Fairgood was at the forefront of her brain. Wherever Audra was, was she safe? Was she alone? Was she scared or suffering? Had she gone away of her own accord or had she been taken? This last thought Gracey could scarcely bear—Audra was no more than thirteen, a mere slip of a girl, and though Gracey didn’t know her well, her heart broke each and every time the watery memory of Audra’s face swam before Gracey’s mind’s eye.

She couldn’t imagine the horror Shira Fairgood was living with.

“Where’s your brother, Marco?” Gracey asked. They had fully circumambulated the cemetery, and were once again on its northernmost edge, the oldest part of the cemetery. It was also the most beautiful; most of the graves were still tended with real flowers left by family members and loved ones, not the gaudy, plastic flowers the cemetery attendants left on the newer graves. Holes in the the crumbling stone walls served as tiny shrines within which pieces of hard candy and colored candles whose glass containers bore the faces of saints were placed. When Tiny had first moved to Love & War she’d spent many hours amid the old graves with paper and wax, taking rubbings of the headstones. The rubbings were framed and hanging in the hallways in Gracey’s home.

“I don’t know,” Marco said, stopping to scratch his foot. “I guess he went home with Mother. He’s afraid of the graveyard.”

“Aren’t you afraid of the graveyard?”

It was a moment before Marco answered. “Yes and no,” he said. “I’m not scared of it during the day. But at night…” His voice trailed off, and Gracey thought she saw a small shiver. “But Alma says I got nothing to be afraid of. She says ghosts are not real.”

“Who’s Alma?”

Marco shrugged, indicating the question’s small importance. “Just my friend,” he said.

Gracey, who, given her unusual circumstances and intimate awareness of the occult, had reason to believe in ghosts, also believed in white lies, especially where children and their innocence were concerned. “Well, Alma’s right,” she said. “There are no such things as ghosts, and graveyards are nothing to be afraid of. Still, I do think it’s a place where you should be respectful. Do you understand that?”

Marco was watching Gracey with unblinking eyes. “Yes. Is bare feet not respectful?”

Gracey smiled. “I think bare feet are okay.”

“And bubbles?”

Gracey’s smiled widened and she put her hand on Marco’s head, mussing his hair. “I think bubbles are probably okay, too. After all, bubbles are very beautiful.”

Smiling, Marco retrieved the wand from the plastic container and blew another stream of bubbles. They floated slowly on the still air, catching unseen currents and drifting away toward a darkening sky.

Gracey watched the bubbles float away, noting the reflections they carried across the graveyard. Here they hovered over Buddy Heffman’s grave, there over the graves of Carmen and David Olaya. And now they lingered over the fresh grave of Aleister Fairgood.

Gracey’s heart froze in her chest.

Mentally, she conjured up all the people who had died recently. Rubio Bautista. Buddy Heffman. Carmen and David Olaya. Aleister Fairgood. They did all have something in common. Fear gripped her and pushed her forward, quickening her feet as she moved through the northern end of the cemetery, noting the family names on the headstones. They were all there: Heffman. Bautista. Olaya. Fairgood. The northern part of the cemetery had seen five new graves in a short amount of time.

The south end of the graveyard—the newer end—had seen none.

Gracey closed her eyes against the realization. The founding families. Only members of the founding families of Love & War had died.

Murdered, Gracey thought suddenly. These people were murdered.

Gracey’s throat went dry and her breathing became ragged. She didn’t want to believe it. Yes, Buddy Heffman’s death was questionable at best, and Aleister Fairgood had certainly been a victim of an attack. But Rubio Bautista’s death had been ruled a suicide, and Carmen and David Olaya had died in a car accident.

The logic was sound, the evidence incontrovertible. And yet Gracey knew with steely certainty that penetrated every fiber of her being that all five citizens of Love & War had been murdered.

The realization made her dizzy with fear.

Steadying herself, Gracey knelt in front of Marco, placed her hands on his arms, caught his gaze. “Marco,” she said, her voice faltering only just, “I want you to go home now. Go on home and hug your mom. I bet she misses you. You can come over tomorrow and have pie,” she amended, just in case the boy wondered if he’d done something wrong.

At the mention of pie, Marco’s eyes lit up and he nodded a hurried agreement before running off down the street toward his home. Gracey stood alone in the graveyard amongst the tombstones, a numbing cold boring into her bones even as beads of sweat dotted her brow.

It was only a moment before Gracey realized that Audra Fairgood was the last birth member of the Fairgood clan, one of the founding families of Love & War.

Her vision was blurred by tears as she ran for home.

The bakery was quiet as afternoon melted into evening, and though the sun still hung high in the sky, Gracey could feel quitting time in her bones. She glanced at the clock; six o’clock. She removed her apron, shook her hair free from its scarf, and flipped the ovens off. Stretching her arms over her head, she smiled to herself, ready to close up shop and spend the rest of the evening with a bottle of wine and good company. Tiny was taking herself to a movie in Placerita, so Gracey had invited Simon over for television watching and, with any luck, cuddling.

She blushed at the thought of it.

As she was wiping down the counter, the bell over the front door tinkled, and Gracey looked up to see a smiling Nora Goldman entering the shop, face creased with a thousand wrinkles, hair a fluffy white halo about her head. Mrs. Goldman had to be in her eighties, and she’d been a regular at the bakery since its inception. Gracey grinned at the sight of her.

“Howdy, stranger,” Gracey teased, arms akimbo as she gave the older woman a warm smile. “Haven’t seen you in a while. You been on a diet?”

Mrs. Goldman clucked her teeth, a rosy blush coloring her cheeks. “Nothing like that, sweetheart. At my age you have to appreciate all God has to offer and that includes pie! I was out of town for a while, staying with my sister in Austin. Her husband passed away.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Gracey said, but Mrs. Goldman waved the sentiment away. “Old people die, that’s just the way it is. Have to make room for the new generation.”

“I suppose that’s one way to look at it,” Gracey admitted, “but when someone you love dies, that’s pretty cold comfort.”

Mrs. Goldman gave a brief nod, then her face brightened. “I need a pie for my granddaughter’s husband,” she said, changing the subject. “I know it’s short notice, but my memory isn’t what he used to be and the anniversary slipped my mind. It’s his birthday, and I happen to know that your chocolate pecan is his favorite. Do you happen to have any?”

Gracey dried her hands, pulled a collapsed rectangle of cardboard off the shelf. “I’ve got some,” she said, manipulating the cardboard into a pie-size box. “I have two; would you like them both?”

Mrs. Goldman shook her head. “One ought to be good enough; my granddaughter is always watching her weight,” she said, disdain flickering across her face. “Shira’s skinny as a willow as it is; what is it with young girls and their silly ideals of beauty these days?”

Gracey, who wore an extra fifteen pounds around her hips and suspected women had long held silly ideas of beauty, could only chuckle. “If she were happy with her weight, she’d find something else to be unhappy with,” Gracey said. “That’s just how we women are.”

Mrs. Goldman shared in the laughter. “That is the truth, though, isn’t it, sweetheart? I could do with a sight fewer wrinkles myself.”

Gracey grinned,  pulled the pie from the refrigerator and slid it carefully into the box. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

A small look of embarrassment passed over Mrs. Goldman’s face as she wrung her hands nervously. “Actually, I do have on other request, sweetheart, if it isn’t too much trouble. I normally wouldn’t ask it of you but I have a ladies’ auxiliary meeting today and I’m running late as it is. I wondered if you wouldn’t mind taking the pie over to Shira’s house tonight? If it isn’t too much trouble,” she repeated.

As far as Gracey knew, the Goldmans were the only Jewish family in Love & War, and Mrs. Goldman served on the auxiliary board of Temple Beth Shalom in Fort Stockton, the closest temple but still a good forty minute drive from their town. She glanced up at the clock; it was only a few minutes after six. Simon wasn’t coming over until seven, the house was already clean, and Shira and Aleister Fairgood’s house was only a few minutes from Gracey’s.

“I’ll take it over there right now,” Gracey said as she collected the cash for the pie.

Mrs. Goldman took Gracey’s hand in her own, squeezing softly. “Thank you, dear. Please tell my granddaughter that I expect a phone call this week; it’s been too long since she’s indulged an old woman’s ramblings.”

Like most of the other families in Love & War, the Fairgoods kept a modest property, a lawn more weed than grass, a front porch in a moderate state of disrepair. As Gracey pulled into the driveway, she noted two trucks parked outside the garage. Shira Fairgood worked on and off as a substitute elementary school teacher, and Aleister worked in Placertia as a cable repair man, but it appeared they were both home. Pie in tow, Gracey marched up the porch steps and rang the doorbell.

No one answered.

She knocked. When she got no response, she pressed her ear to the door, listening for movement. Nothing. She tried the doorknob and, finding the door unlocked, she pushed it open slowly. “Hello? Y’all home? It’s Gracey Daylittle from Want Some Pie? Bakery. Nora sent me.”

Silence.

Gracey considered her options. Both cars were in the driveway and the front door was unlocked, indicating that the Fairgoods were probably home. Still, if it was Aleister’s birthday, the couple could be engaged in private birthday shenanigans that Gracey sorely wouldn’t want to interrupt; the very thought made her blush.

Door open behind her, Gracey took a tentative step inside. “Shira? Aleister? Y’all here?” Gracey vaguely remembered a daughter, but couldn’t remember her name.

The house was still, and Gracey didn’t want to take the pie home with her. She figured she could leave it in the refrigerator with a note explaining where it had come from. Her mind made up, she pulled the front door closed, waited a heartbeat more for someone to make themselves known. She’d never been in the Fairgood house, and she was keenly aware of her status as an intruder as she tiptoed her way into what she thought must be the kitchen.

As she rounded the corner, she stepped into a brightly lit kitchenette, satisfied with her home navigation skills and almost tripped over Shira Fairgood.

Shira was huddled on the linoleum, knees pulled into her chest, arms wrapped about her legs. Her eyes were wide and unseeing as she rocked back and forth, her lips moving as if to whimper but no sound escaped. Her face was white as a ghost. Gracey set the pie on the floor placed both her hands on Shira’s shoulders, giving her a small shake. “Shira? Shira, honey, are you all right? Look at me.” Gracey placed her fingers under the woman’s chin, turned her head. But Shira’s eyes did not blink, did not move, did not register Gracey’s presence. She was utterly catatonic.

Heart beating wildly in her chest, Gracey jumped to her feet, knowing she had to search. “Aleister?” He or the daughter had to be here somewhere. Even as she pushed herself through the house, she didn’t want to know, oh God, she didn’t want to know whatever had forced Shira into that state of shock. “Aleister? You here?” She ran into the adjacent dining room, into the living room, down the hallway, into the guest bathroom, a child’s bedroom, and finally crossed the threshold into the master bedroom where she drew up short, covered her mouth with both hands and let loose a wild, ear-piercing scream.

Aleister Fairgood was propped up on the bed, head lolling to one side, the front of his clothes saturated with blood.

A black maw just underneath the ridge of his brow sent thin tendrils of white smoke up to the ceiling. His eyes had been burned out of his face.

Gracey turned and vomited on the carpet.

She’d managed to make the necessary phone call and it was only a matter of minutes before an ambulance and the sheriff’s department arrived, perimeters were taped off, and onlookers began amassing. Gracey was sitting on the front porch; someone had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. She watched as a couple of paramedics loaded Shira into an ambulance, took her vitals, placed an oxygen mask over her face. She had recovered from her stupefied state and was crying now, nearly hyperventilating. The paramedics were trying to calm her. They were giving her water, drugs. People with notepads were asking questions. Everything was happening in slow motion, underwater.

“Gracey?”

The voice rippled through her, yanking her out of the nightmare. She looked up, saw Simon’s tired, worry-creased face looking down at her. In a moment he was crouching, at her side, and Gracey felt the internal dam break, tears rushing out of her as she pressed herself against Simon, sobbing.

He stroked her hair, her back, saying nothing, letting her cry until she was empty. He wiped her eyes, her nose, held her close to his body. When the sobs subsided, she said, “It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen, Simon. How could anyone do that? How could anyone hurt another human being like that?”

Simon said nothing. He held her for a long time.

A deputy approached, tipped his hat at Gracey. “I’m sorry to bother you after such a traumatic event, ma’am, but I’m gonna have to ask you some questions.”

She had known it was coming, of course. She’d been the one to find the body, the one to report the crime. Still, she didn’t want to relive it, didn’t want to remember any of it. She just wanted to go to sleep, to wake up and find none of this had ever really happened.

“Has anybody seen the daughter? The Fairgoods have a little girl, I think?” Gracey’s stomach rolled with the realization that the little girl would come home to find that her daddy had died. Thank God she hadn’t been the one to find him. Gracey thought she might be sick again.

The deputy nodded. “Somebody’s looking into it,” he said. He looked at Simon, cleared his throat. “Would you mind excusing us for a bit? I need to interview Miss Daylittle in private.”

Simon looked to Gracey. “Will you be all right?”

She gave a wordless nod, her eyes full of gratitude. He kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be just over there if you need me.”

She watched him walk away, and when he was out of earshot, the deputy cleared his throat again, ready to get down to business. Gracey returned her attention to him reluctantly. “I need you to start at the beginning. Why were you over to the Fairgood place?”

With quivering voice and frequent pauses to steady her nerves, Gracey recounted the events leading up the discovery of the body: Mrs. Goldman buying the pie. Gracey making the delivery. Finding Shira in shock on the floor. Finding the body sitting up in the bed.

“Does Mrs. Goldman frequently ask you to do favors for her?”

The question caught Gracey off guard. “No,” she admitted. “This was the first time.”

“Did you think the request was odd?”

Gracey shook her head. “Mrs. Goldman is old,” she said, as though that itself were plenty explanation.

The deputy seemed to think a moment, scratching his head. Then, “You didn’t see nobody suspicious around here, did you? Anybody shouldn’t have had no business here?”

Gracey shrugged. “I didn’t notice anything out of place, but then I wasn’t looking.”

The deputy tried again. “You didn’t see a … strange lookin’ fella, about yea tall, dresses in a funny costume? Has some sort of a…skin problem?”

The image the deputy painted formed perfectly in Gracey’s mind’s eye. The Prime of Darkness. Gracey’s eyes flew open even as her heart sank. Why would the deputy ask about the demon? Had he been implicated in some way? Was it possible he’d been involved? She recalled her conversation with Lakmei in the graveyard, the angel’s assertion that the demon hadn’t been involved in the recent death of Buddy Heffman.

Had probably not been involved.

“No,” Gracey said, surprised at how level her voice came out. “Certainly not.”

The deputy snapped his notebook shut, pulled a card from his front shirt pocket. “If you think of anything else you let me know. Don’t matter if you think it’s important; you let me decide.” His smug grin made Gracey’s skin crawl. She closed her fingers around the card, certain she wouldn’t have need of it.

“One last thing, Miss Daylittle,” he said. “We’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell nobody what you saw in there. After what happened with Rubio Bautista, we don’t need no serial killer hysteria going around. Got it?”

The words rang through her, stilled her to the core. Rubio Bautista. Serial killer. The deputy hadn’t mentioned Buddy Heffman, but after seeing with her own eyes a reality frighteningly similar to the rumors about Buddy’s demise, Gracey began to link these deaths in her mind. Rubio Bautista. Buddy Heffman. Aleister Fairgood. Three men murdered. Why? What was the common thread?

As the deputy walked away, Gracey’s mind filled with questions. Why had he asked about the Prime of Darkness? It wouldn’t be the first time the demon had been implicated in a crime; Gracey knew first-hand that Darkness was capable of murder. But she didn’t think he had anything to do with this. He couldn’t.

Could he?

Simon appeared by her side again, and Gracey pushed all the thoughts of Darkness out of her mind. The magician took Gracey’s hand, entwined his fingers with hers and gave a gentle squeeze. “Let’s get you home,” he said. “You probably need the rest.”

Overwhelming gratitude flooded her, and once again Gracey felt on the verge of breakdown. She looked into Simon’s eyes and saw her own sadness reflected back at her, and her heart skipped a beat. Two. As Simon helped her to her feet, Gracey was amazed at the depth of the magician’s empathy, that he could feel such grief on her behalf. Her own mother hadn’t been able to do that, had pushed Gracey out when she’d needed her the most. Thinking of her mother, and how much more caring Simon was, Gracey’s heart swelled and she had to bite back her tears. She clung to the magician like a child as he led her down the road towards home.

Past a half dozen trailers and RVs where the edge of the Badlands cozied up to the edge of empty desert, Satsuko led Marco to a gutted, wheelless van raised on cinder blocks, windshield smashed and lacking a door. She ducked down, crouching low, and climbed into the gray, dusty mouth of the van. Turning, she held her hand out to Marco, beckoning him to join her inside the abandoned vehicle.

Marco, however, wasn’t so sure. Looking around, he opened and closed his fists at his side, trying to calm his jangling nerves. “Um, Satsuko? Is it safe to go in there?”

It didn’t look safe. To Marco’s eyes, the van looked precariously balanced, and the inside of the van looked like it might have housed any number of vermin or spiders. But Satsuko’s smile was warm and comforting. “It’s safe,” she assured him. “Mitsuo and I come here before, right, Mits?”

Mitsuo, who lagged a few paces behind Marco, gave a noncommittal shrug of the shoulder. “It’s safe,” he said. Marco didn’t think he sounded sure, either.

“Don’t worry, Marco,” Satsuko said, her voice dropping low. “Mitsuo’s not afraid because the van is dangerous. Mitsuo don’t like what’s in the van. But the cards said you have to see,” she said. Her eyes twinkled with mischief. She held out her hand again. “Come on,” she said.

This time, Marco placed his hand inside Satsuko’s and allowed her to lead him inside. It wasn’t as dark as Marco expected even though the van lacked windows; it seemed to get enough sunlight form the open door and the space where the windshield should have been.

The inside of the van was completely gutted, empty of upholstery or furniture but for a small table at the rear where Satsuko was now crouched. The table was low to the ground, raised on a pair of upright cinder blocks. It was draped in black cloth and in its center stood a small, bronze crucifix. Two tea lights, completely burned out and now devoid of wax, flanked the crucifix. A collection of burned-out matches were littered amongst a collection of curious statues, each more macabre than the last. They were figurines of skeletons clad in robes of every color, from white, to black, to every color of the rainbow. Some of the skeletons carried scythes; others wore flowered shawls about their shoulders and inside their hoods. The skeletons, with their eerie, smiling skulls, sent shivers down Marco’s spine and pimpled his flesh. He shuddered, afraid, but found that he could not look away. As frightening as the figures of death were, he found them strangely alluring. Beautiful.

The statues were arranged near the back of the altar on either side of the crucifix. At the front of the altar were hundreds of blue pebbles arranged in a wave pattern three inches wide, flowing from one end of the altar to the other. The pebbles ranged from sky blue to deep lapis. Some were made of glass, others of plaster, still others of rock, but their pattern was unmistakable. The pebbles composed a river.

With tentative fingers, Marco reached out, stroked the tops of the pebbles. He closed his eyes, heaving a deep sigh. “This is the river from the cards I pulled, isn’t it, Satsuko?”

Satsuko only nodded, her expression somber. She watched Marco with careful, unwavering eyes.

The river of pebbles drew him in, infected him at his deepest level. He didn’t know why the river made him feel such deep sadness, but the more he looked at the small, makeshift waves that traversed the altar end to end, the deeper the sorrow set in his soul. It wasn’t the kind of sorrow that made him want to cry, however; it was instead a kind of helplessness, a deep-seated melancholy that all but emptied him out.

His eyes traveled from the transverse river to the cloaked skeletons. They seemed to beckon to him, their haunting smiles cajoling him. Feet tucked under him, hands in his lap, he settled in, leaned forward, his nose pushed into the middle of the ghoulish scene before him.

It was then that the figures began to sing.

Marco, at eight years old, knew little of death, had never known the feel of its icy fingers upon the heart, or how its foul breath suffocated the lungs. Marco did not know death’s face or the weight of its words, but in that moment, as the skeletons clacked their jaws and delivered into the world their terrible dirge, Marco came to know death’s song.

“Miserere mei, Deus, secundum misericordiam tuam;
et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum
dele iniquitatem meam.

Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea
et a peccato meo munda me.

Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco,
et peccatum meum contra me est semper.

Tibi, tibi soli peccavi et malum coram te feci,
ut iustus inveniaris in sententia tua et aequus in iudicio tuo.”

The skeletons’ mournful melody filled the hollows the sadness had carved from his soul until all else melted away and he was alone alongside the river, waters flowing silently over a bed of black rocks. That he couldn’t understand the words only deepened his fear and grief; the melody alone told him all he needed to know. The robed skeletons on the far side of the water were facing him, eyeless skulls turned in his direction, their unnatural, long fingers pointing at him. Their singing grew louder until the words and ululations reverberated through him, seeming to collect in his knees until they could no longer sustain the weight of his small body. He fell to his knees at the river’s edge, gazed down into the dark waters, and was unnerved to see his face staring back at him times three.

Except, they weren’t his face. At least, not all of them. One face was his own, the second belonged to Alejandro, and the third was a blend of his own face and his twin’s: Alejandro’s smaller nose, his own inquisitive eyes. To almost anyone else, the faces would have appeared identical, but of course Marco could tell himself apart from his brother. He knew the faces in the river were distinct, though their differences were subtle. His own face elicited from him no reaction, nor did the face of his brother, but the third face, the face that was half his own and half Alejandro’s, filled him with a dread ten times worse than the requiem the skeletons intoned.

Afraid and confused, Marco reached into the water, disturbing the images until the water’s surface stilled, reflecting only his own face back at him. He sat back on his heels, brought his fingers to his lips. He tasted. Salt.

He looked up again, and this time, just a few paces to his right, a woman clad all in black was kneeling by the side of the river, supplicant, her face buried in the palms of her hands, shoulders heaving with sobs. Her tears slipped between her fingers, down the backs of her hands and onto the sleeves of her black dress where the saturated fabric dripped directly into the river; Marco surmised that this was the cause of the river’s saltiness. He watched her silently, sensing that she would not want to be disturbed, and when he looked across the river again, he saw that the skeletons were watching her, too. Their singing was for her. And they were laughing.

“Little man? You okay?”

It was Satusko’s voice that yanked him out of his trance, anchored him once again to the real world, the world of flesh, the world in which he was kneeling before a makeshift altar in the back of an old, empty van. He blinked, lifted his head, found Satsuko’s eyes in the dark. He threw his arms around her, buried his face in the hollow of her neck, and burst into tears. “It’s a sad river, Satsuko,” he said, shivering though the air was still and hot. “It’s a river made of her tears.”

His outpour of emotion was unsettling, and Satsuko wasn’t sure how to comfort the small boy sniveling against her breast. But before long, Marco relieved her of her discomfort. Untangling himself from her awkward embrace, Marco wiped his face. “I was supposed to see that river,” Marco confirmed. “I have to stop those skeletons from tormenting that woman,” he said.

Satsuko, who of course had not witnessed the scene at the river, did not know what Marco was talking about, but she knew enough about the mysteries to know not to question him on this point. Instead she said, “We seen a woman come here a few times. Not one of us. Not from here,” she said. “She always dressed in black, and she come back here, to this van. This is her altar.” Satsuko pushed the hair off Marco’s forehead, held his gaze steady. “Do you know what you need to know?”

Marco swallowed, remembering. He saw Two Rabbit in his mind’s eye, remembered the rabbit’s words. He nodded. “I can find her,” Marco said, “once I learn her name.”

The first day of spring break smelled suspiciously like the beginning of summer.

Backpack slung over his shoulder, Marco hopped onto his bike and checked one more time that neither Alejandro nor Alma was following him. In Alma’s case, it didn’t much matter, he knew—even if she wasn’t following him now, it didn’t mean she couldn’t pop up uninvited later if she wanted. She had an eerie knack for it.

But it was Alejandro he was really concerned about. Ever since Marco’s miraculous recovery from near-death and his visit with God, Irma was convinced that her son was protected by Divine providence. It had never occurred to her, of course, to inquire whether the god in question was The Father Almighty, the Holy Triumvirate, I Am That I Am. If she had known that this particular god was an impatient Leporidae with a self-proclaimed penchant for beer and no omniscience or omnipotence to speak of, things would have turned out differently. But for a devout Catholic woman with little exposure to cultures outside her own, the word “god” had only one meaning.  Which was lucky for Marco, for the upshot of her new conviction was that she believed whole-heartedly that her youngest son was immune to the perils of the world. She had largely withdrawn herself from the role of his protector; as long as he was home for dinner, Irma no longer inquired about her son’s whereabouts.

But her leniency toward Marco did not extend to Alejandro, an injustice the older twin sought desperately to right. In the past, Alejandro suffered Marco’s presence grudgingly, but now that Marco had much freer range than he did, Alejandro became Marco’s shadow, stealing opportunity for adventure and trouble.

But a thorough check assured Marco that Alejandro wasn’t following now, so with a smile and a breath of relief, Marco took off for the Badlands, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.

Satsuko and Mitsuo were sunning themselves on a couple of beach towels when Marco rode up. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Satsuko sat upright, smiled brightly at the boy. She waved to him, dropped him a wink. “The prodigal son returns!” she called. “Thought you forgot about us, little man. Thought maybe you were too good for us.”

Marco hopped off his bike, nudging the kickstand into place with his toe. “Naw, I didn’t forget,” Marco said. “I just had school, and my brother’s been following me everywhere even though he’s not supposed to. It’s spring break now, though. I think he got other friends to play with.”

Marco dropped down next to Satsuko, crossing his legs Indian style. He leaned back onto his palms and looked up into the sky. “It’s getting hot,” he said. “Last year for Easter me and Alex didn’t find all our chocolates and they melted in the sun.”

Satsuko giggled, mussed Marco’s hair. “You ready for your tarot lesson? We have ice cream.” She said this last part with a broad smile.

“Cookie dough?”

“Candy jar,” Mitsuo said.

Marco nodded his approval, and the trio gathered the towels and made their way to the ramshackle trailer Mitsuo and Satsuko called home.

Satsuko kept her cards on the top of an overflowing and dilapidated bookshelf. While Marco cleared the paper plates and soda cans off the kitchen table and Mitsuo scooped out three cones of candy jar ice cream, Satsuko retrieved the cards, shuffling them noiselessly in her expert hands. She placed them on the table in front of Marco and pulled up a green plastic lawn chair to sit beside him.

“This,” she said, tapping the deck with her index finger, “is for you.”

She pushed the cards towards Marco, who looked up at her with wide, incredulous eyes. “You’re giving these to me?” he asked. “I don’t even know how to use them.”

“Someone has to give you your first deck,” Satsuko said. “It’s bad luck if you buy it yourself. So I give you mine.”

Marco took the cards in his hands and rifled through them, taking in the strange imagery and the stark primary colors. They felt good in his hands—they had the worn feel of old paper and smelled of cedar. They pulsed with the warm, erratic undercurrent of Satsuko’s energy. He set them on the table, face up.  Mitsuo handed him his ice cream.

He licked around his cone to keep it from dripping, and with his free hand he spread the cards over the face of the table. Satsuko plucked one from the pile and placed it on front of Marco. “This one is the Fool,” she said. “This is where everything begins. You have to start here. Like a baby. Babies don’t know nothing. But not because they are stupid, they’re just new. This is brand new, you get it?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

Curious, Marco eyed the cards, a beautiful cacophony of obscure imagery he didn’t understand. After a moment, he found a card depicting three women dancing together, holding golden cups in their hands. He tapped it with his finger. “This one is friendship,” he said. “This one is us.”

Mitsuo leaned in to get a better look at the cards. “What? No, that’s all chicks on that card.”

Marco picked up the card, pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. He knew the people dancing were all women, of course, but to him it made no difference. All the people he had ever really cared about—his mother, his Aunt Conchita, his grandmother, Alma, all his teachers since pre-school—had been women. Men like his father, or his brother, or that rascal Cheehawk Parker, had only let him down. Chucho, though a decent enough man, was never around. The foundation of his world was built on a bedrock of loving femininity.

He put the card down, unruffled. “It’s us,” he said again.

Satusko winked at Marco and leaned in close to him, keeping her voice low. “That why I don’t teach Mitsuo the cards. Got no imagination.” She tapped at her temple with her forefinger, her smile growing brighter.

Sitting back, Satsuko accepted her cone from Mitsuo, and slapped the table with her free hand. “So! Let’s see our first story. You mix up those cards real good and when you ready you draw three. Let’s find out where your story begins.”

“Satusko,” Marco said, uncertain. “How do you know I got a story? Maybe I don’t.”

Satsuko grunted and waved her hand. “You only eight, little man, but you got a story. Everybody do.” She licked her cone and smiled.

Marco couldn’t shuffle the cards while holding the ice cream, so he handed his cone to Satsuko. “Don’t lick it,” he warned, cutting his eyes at her. He liked Satusko, even trusted her, but you could never be too careful with your ice cream.

“Cross my heart,” she said.

Marco gathered the cards in his hands, tapped them lightly on the table top to help them settle. They were overlarge in his small hands, and he frequently dropped them as he attempted to shuffle them. But Satsuko didn’t seem to mind. Patiently, she licked her ice cream—and only her ice cream—until Marco was satisfied that the cards were sufficiently shuffled. He plucked them down on the table in a neat stack and reached for his cone.

Satsuko nodded once in approval, a brisk up, down movement. “Now choose three cards,” she said. “And lay them in a row on the table.”

Marco slipped the first card off the top of the deck and flipped it over. It was a picture of a man walking along a river, his back toward the viewer.

“The eight of cups,” Satsuko said. “Pull another.”

Marco pulled the second card. It was a man wearing a cloak by a river near a few overturned goblets. He appeared deeply troubled.

“Five of cups,” Satsuko said, brow furrowed. “One more.”

Marco didn’t notice the look of worry that had settled into Satsuko’s expression as he flipped over the last card. It was a image of a large heart, floating in the middle of a rain storm, pierced all the way through by three swords.

Satsuko studied the cards a moment, making up her mind. Then she sighed, turned so she was facing Mitsuo. Her face was full of the soft contours of resignation. “Come on, Mitsuo. We have to show Marco the shrine.”

“Oh my God, Gracey. You’re completely crushed out.”

Gracey looked up from her newspaper and offered her sister an innocent look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tiny, ambling into the kitchen in her nightie, motioned toward the vase of pink peonies on the kitchen table. “What’s with the flowers? You’ve got them in here, in the bathroom…where did you even find peonies this time of year?”

Gracey shrugged, looking back down at her newspaper to hide her grin. “Simon left them.”

Tiny raised an eyebrow. “Simon left them,” she repeated.

Gracey bit her lip, pretended to be reading. “I found them on the porch this morning when I set the pie out to cool. Oh, there’s cranberry apple fig on the counter.”

Tiny shuffled to the sideboard, pulled a plate from the cupboard. “You had time to bake a pie already? How long have you been awake?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Tiny cut herself a healthy slice of pie and poured a mug of lukewarm coffee. “So your freaky friend left two dozen peonies—which are not even in season—on the porch, and you made pie.” Tiny’s eyes flew open in bewilderment. “Oh my God, Gracey, you guys didn’t…bow chicka wow wow?” Tiny pumped her hips in a suggestive movement.

“Tiny!”

“Well what am I supposed to think?” With her pie and her coffee, Tiny slid into the chair across from her sister. “I love you, Gracey, and I love to see you happy but I really don’t know what you see in that guy.”

Gracey sighed. “He’s intelligent, he’s charming, he’s polite—”

“He’s corny as hell,” Tiny cut in, scooping a bite of pie into her mouth. “What is up with the hat? And the way he talks?”

“He’s old fashioned,” Gracey sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Tiny echoed. “So you really don’t think that guy’s even, like, a little…” She swiveled her index finger near her temple, making the universal crazy sign. “…Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? Froot Loops?”

Gracey grimaced. “Love the cereal references. Very mature.”

Tiny cocked an eyebrow at her sister.

Gracey threw up her hands in exasperation. “Well, what do you want me to say, Tiny? He’s different! I noticed! But that doesn’t make him crazy. I mean, Tiny.” She shook her head, sighing. “I am the last person who could condemn someone for being a little different.”

Tiny shrugged in tacit agreement, chewing her pie thoughtfully. “But it’s not just how he talks and dresses. There’s just something off about him. He kinda gives me the creeps.”

“Just drop it, Tiny. He makes me feel really good about myself. When I’m with him, I feel normal. And I don’t mean by comparison,” she explained before Tiny could interrupt. “I just mean, I feel like I can be myself. It’s very liberating.”

Tiny took a sip of coffee. “You don’t feel like you can do that with me? Or Bibi? Or Darkness?”

“Darkness!” Gracey laughed, rolling her eyes. “Nothing—nothing—about Darkness makes me feel normal. Where is he anyway?”

“Don’t know. I just woke up. Answer my question.”

Gracey sighed. “I’m talking about feeling normal with a man. A real man, not a demon that looks…sort of like a man. I’m talking about a man that I could love.”

Tiny’s jaw dropped, eyes practically bugging out of her head. “Wait, you’re falling in love with Simon St. Laine? Are you kidding me? You’ve been on one date!”

“I didn’t say I was in love, I said…” Gracey shook her head, standing up and clearing her place. She took the dishes to the sink. “You’re right, it’s silly to keep a bouquet of flowers in the bathroom. Let’s take them to the cemetery so more people can enjoy them.”

Tiny licked her fork. “What people? The dead dudes? I don’t know, I kind of like having something pretty to look at while I pee.”

Gracey walked over to the table and kissed the crown of her sister’s head. “Aw. Then you can just look in the mirror.”

Tiny wrinkled her nose. “While I pee? Seriously, Gracey. You are so weird.”

The cemetery was a short walk from the Daylittle house. It had been a long time since Gracey had been there, and she was surprised to see so many fresh graves. She’d known that Rubio Bautista had been recently buried, of course, but as she walked up and down the rows she noticed three graves that had only recently been dug. Two were on the Galina family plot, and the other was a single for Buddy Heffman.

Walking over the Buddy’s grave, Gracey threw her sister a look over her shoulder. “What on earth…? When did Buddy Heffman die?”

Tiny stood, arms akimbo, surveying the cemetery. In the year she’d lived in Love & War, she’d never set foot in it. “Like a week ago, I think? I heard about it when I was visiting Darkness at the salon.”

Gracey separated out one of the peonies she was clutching and laid it on Buddy’s grave. “And you didn’t tell me about it?”

Tiny kicked at a stone lodged in the dirt, shrugged a shoulder. “I’m telling you about it now.” She ignored the look Gracey threw her. “I heard he didn’t have any family left, so there wasn’t much of a funeral. That’s kind of sad, to die alone?”

Gracey knelt down, nodded. “He lived with his sister Evangeline on the far edge of town, but she died a couple three years back. Emphysema, I think. Neither of them ever got married or had any kids.” Gracey chuckled to herself, shaking her head. “When I first moved to town Buddy used to find all sorts of reasons to show up at my house, fix things. Used to hint about how he wouldn’t mind seeing me in a swimsuit.”

Tiny made a face. “You moved here eleven years ago, so Buddy must have been…what, seventy?”

Gracey smiled at the memory. “Randy old fart,” she agreed. “It’s sad he never had kids. I think the Heffmans were one of the original settlers of Love & War. His death is…mildly historical, I guess.”

Tiny looked around, noticed there were no other Heffmans buried nearby. “Where are the others buried?”

Gracey shrugged. “I don’t know; fair question. Lots of families are buried on their own land. I’ve never been out to the Heffman place, but that could be it.”

“I heard Mr. Heffman’s eyes were missing when they found him.”

Startled, Gracey and Tiny looked around and found Lakmei standing behind them, arms crossed over her chest, her porcelain face drawn, hiding behind a curtain of white hair. She was wearing an oversized rugby shirt and jeans. Gracey had never seen her dressed so casually. For that matter, Gracey had never seen her without Lilac at her side. Seeing only one of the two identical women temporarily threw Gracey for a loop.

“Lakmei.” Gracey stood, dusted herself off. “I didn’t see you come up. You look…What was that about Buddy’s eyes?”

Lakmei remained stoic, slid her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Horace Green found Mr. Heffman dead on the floor of his garage. His eyes were missing. Not ripped out or dug out. More like burned out. I heard he had a black hole in his face where his eyes should have been.” She paused a moment, shrugging. “I can’t say for sure. The only people to see Mr. Heffman were Mr. Green and the coroner. But it’s what I heard.”

Tiny looked from Lakmei, to Gracey, and back to Lamkei. “I suspect Mr. Green in the garage with the tire wrench.” When Gracey snapped her head around and gave Tiny a horrified look, she changed tactics. “Well, I didn’t hear that,” she said. “How come I didn’t hear that? That’s the kind of thing people would be talking about, isn’t it?”

Gracey returned her attention to Lakmei, her horror still evident in the lines of her face. “Where did you hear such a nasty rumor?”

Lakmei shook her head, clear, blue eyes locking on Gracey’s. “I don’t remember,” she said. “But I heard that’s why he wasn’t buried with the other Heffmans. They’re Catholic,” Lakmei explained. “And what happened to his face was the work of the devil.”

Gracey’s mouth dropped open as she glanced anxiously from the angel to her sister. Finally she asked, “Well…was it?”

It wasn’t what she had planned to say. Until a year ago, Gracey had no reason to believe in Hell or devils or angels for that matter. But the night she and Tiny had found the Prime of Darkness lying on the side of the road, everything had changed. Gracey wasn’t sure what to believe in anymore.

But Lakmei only shook her head, unblinking eyes never breaking contact. “Probably not,” she said simply. “I thought you didn’t believe the Prime of Darkness was dangerous.”

The slight mocking in Lakmei’s voice wasn’t lost on the pie baker. “I never said I didn’t think he was dangerous,” Gracey said carefully. “But I have no reason to think Buddy Heffman would be Darkness’s enemy. Besides. I assume Darkness doesn’t have a monopoly on diabolic acts.”

Lakmei, chagrined, said nothing for a moment as she watched Gracey work through her own inner conflicts. It was no secret to either of the angels that Gracey’s feelings toward the demon were not altogether logical. Lakmei cocked her head to the side, expression evaluative. “There’s something different about you, Gracey.”

Gracey blinked. “Different how?”

Lakmei watched her a second, then shook her head slowly. “I don’t know exactly.”

Breathing an agitated sigh, Gracey nodded toward the other two graves. “Do you know what happened over there?”

Lakmei followed her gaze and sighed. “Car accident,” she said. “Carmen Olaya and her son, ah…”

“David,” Gracey whispered.

“That’s the one.”

“David was just a baby,” Gracey said. A wild shudder ran through her and she wrapped her arms across her chest in the same manner as Lakmei.

“But why is she buried with the Galinas if her last name is Olaya?” Tiny asked.

“Olaya was her married name,” Gracey said. “The Olayas and the Galinas don’t get along. Most of the Olayas have left Love & War by now; they came into money about twenty years ago, I think. Carmen’s husband Christopher was the last of them, if you don’t count the baby, of course, and he left about a year ago when he and Carmen divorced.”

Lakmei glanced down to the flowers Gracey was still holding. “Were you going to lay those anywhere in particular?”

Gracey had forgotten all about the peonies. She glanced at them, suddenly feeling foolish. She shook her head. “No, I just thought…” she shrugged, letting her words trail off.

“Do you mind if I..?” Lakmei reach for the flowers, and as though jarred out of a daydream, Gracey shook herself, handing the small bouquet to the angel.

“Not at all, please.” She handed the flowers over to Lakmei and for a brief moment, their hands brushed against each other. Lakmei drew in a sharp breath, eyes popping wide as saucers. Her lips parted, drew close in a round little O. She caught hold of Gracey’s hand, closing her delicate fingers around Gracey’s strong ones. She leaned in, pulling Gracey to her in a furtive embrace. “Is that what’s different?” She shook her head, blue eyes filling with tears. “Oh, Gracey! Whoever he is, I hope he doesn’t break your heart.”

She hadn’t been on a date in ages, but some customs are like riding a bike. Perfume dabbed behind each ear, a fresh coat of gloss across her lips, her wild mane tamed with a silk scarf, Gracey sat across a linen covered table smiling nervously at Simon St. Laine. The magician had chosen a posh Italian restaurant that Gracey had never been to, and had just finished ordering their second bottle of wine. Gracey was already beginning to feel the alcohol go to her head.

“So you got into magic by accident, then,” Gracey summarized, still smiling.

The magician swallowed that last bit of chianti in his glass, grinning. “That is a very kind way of putting it,” he said. “I suppose to an extent, we are all predisposed by some circumstance of nature to evolve along certain lines and destinies. Mine, it seems, was bent toward a perfunctory display of mild incompetence.” His eyes twinkled as he said this, and as Gracey moved to interrupt, surely to offer polite contradiction to this self deprecation, the magician held up his hand, shaking his head lightly. “No matter,” he said. “I won’t be doing this forever, I assure you.”

The evening was going better than Gracey had expected. When Simon had picked her up earlier wearing his signature top hot and violet glasses, Tiny had given her sister a weird look and whispered, “That guy is a total freakazoid”. But having sailed cleanly past the first few awkward silences and neatly evaded the choppy waves of past relationships, Gracey and Simon were now resting easy in safe waters. The expensive bottle of chianti Simon has ordered didn’t hurt.

“What about you? Did you always want to operate a bakery?”

The waiter appeared, refilled their wine glasses. Gracey took a small sip, settled back into her chair. “In a way, yes. But I guess it happened on accident,” Gracey explained. “I’ve always baked. I bake when I’m bored, I bake when I’m happy, I bake when I need to think something through. Anyway, after I moved here—which was unintentional, but that’s a whole ‘nother story—I was baking up a storm, you know, being in a new place. But I was baking more pies than I could eat, naturally, and I couldn’t just throw them out. Well,” she paused, looked thoughtful. “I threw out the ones I baked when I was bored or angry.” She wondered if she should explain, but decided not to bother. “So I started baking pies and setting them out on my porch with a little ‘Free pie’ sign. At first, people thought I was crazy. But slowly I started noticing the pies were disappearing. Turns out one of my neighbors, Beatríz Armstrong— do you know her?” When Simon shook his head, Gracey pressed on. “Anyway, she knocked on my door and told me she’d been taking the pies over to the Badlands. Bibi—that’s what everyone calls her—owns a salon, a renovated house on the corner of Church Street and East. Once a month she closes up shop and has the homeless in for showers and haircuts. I guess she feeds them, too, when she can, and apparently she’d been feeding them my pie. So she came by to introduce herself and to tell me I had no business giving away pie that good. She said I should open a proper shop.”

Gracey stopped to catch her breath, momentarily embarrassed that she’d been talking so much, but Simon didn’t seem to mind. He was watching her with a soft smile that warmed Gracey’s cockles. “So, Bibi helped me find a property and when the time was right…it just made sense to buy it and open the bakery properly.”

The magician was nodding, listening carefully. “So you bought it outright, then? Must have been a frightening investment for you.”

She thought a moment about how she wanted to answer. She was usually tight-lipped about her financial situation, but something about the magician’s formality and his sincere interest in her put her at ease. “My family is wealthy,” she explained. “I live off the interest of a trust fund. I’m lucky; I had the option of doing something just because I loved it without having to worry about making a living at it.”

The magician whistled. “You are lucky,” he agreed. “It could easily have gone the other way for you. A life of leisure is not without its own pitfalls. I understand it can be difficult to find fulfillment when everything has been handed to you.”

Gracey thought briefly of Tiny and the messes she had frequently found herself in before coming to Love & War to live with Gracey. It hadn’t ever occurred to Gracey before that the family’s wealth could have had a hand in Tiny’s wildness. She pushed this thought aside. “I originally studied sociology in college,” Gracey said, changing the subject. “But things happen. I found myself here instead and for the most part, I couldn’t be happier. The universe is unpredictable.”

Simon laughed and was about to respond when something just beyond Gracey caught his attention. He stiffened, his demeanor changing abruptly. He sat straighter in his chair, folded his hands in front of him on the table. Gracey turned slightly to see a slight woman approaching their table wearing a fur stole, glinting diamond earrings, and a too-wide smile. It was Simon’s cousin, Kit St. Laine.

“Well, fancy meeting you here!” she exclaimed, leaning down to kiss her cousin on both cheeks. She left a trail of thick, French perfume in her wake. “I didn’t realize you had a taste for Italian fine dining,” she said, winking.

“It’s a pleasure to see you, Kit.” The magician barely met his cousin’s eyes. “I hadn’t realized you were in town.”

Kit giggled prettily. “I hadn’t intended to be! But you know how things go—my line of work can be so unpredictable!”

Simon nodded, cleared his throat. “You remember Gracey Daylittle?” He nodded toward his date.

Kit flicked her eyes to Gracey briefly, and Gracey thought she saw the barest flicker of irritation pass over her face. But then the woman took an exaggerated step backward, and motioned quickly between the two of them. “Hold on just a minute!”she exclaimed, her mouth drawing in to make a perfect o. “You’re not…are you two on a date?”

Simon continued to stare steadfastly down into his plate. Gracey noted a flush of red creeping up the magician’s neck, but something about his expression and the slight tremble in his upper body led Gracey believe the color was from anger, not embarrassment. “I had requested the pleasure of Miss Daylittle’s company for a leisurely evening,” he replied, his voice level.

Kit threw her head back and laughed. It was the kind of laugh that made other people turn their heads and look, which they did, which made Gracey’s cheeks flush red. The small woman shook her head in disbelief, her shining curls bobbing around her face like a dark halo. “Well that is just magnificent,” she patronized. “I mean it, Simon, you are just full of surprises.”

There was a hard edge to her voice, something decidedly unfriendly that set Gracey on edge. Still, she was a southern girl born and bred, and some customs die hard. “Kit, we’ve already finished dinner, but we’d be delighted if you wanted to join us.” Gracey smiled sweetly, hoping she sounded more sincere than she felt.

The woman lifted the wine bottle from the table, turning the label toward her to read it. “Wow, a very nice vintage,” she purred. “I would never have thought you’d know a good wine from a hole in the ground.” She gave Simon another dripping grin, which the magician didn’t notice as he was still staring into his plate. Kit turned her attention to Gracey, whose upturned face was starting to betray her annoyance. “I thank you for the invitation but I sense this was supposed to be a very intimate evening,” she said, winking. Gracey felt her stomach turn an unpleasant flip. “Simon, you will be home at a decent hour, won’t you? I have something we need to…discuss.”

For the first time, Simon looked up to meet his cousin’s eyes, his face stoic. “Would you prefer that I come home now?”

The contrite response caught Gracey off guard, but she was careful to keep the surprise out of her face. Go home with this woman? In the middle of their date? She felt another flush of embarrassment color her cheeks. Was he trying to get out of the rest of the evening? She’d thought things were going so well. But when she sneaked a quick glance at her date she could sense that going home with this woman wasn’t what the magician wanted at all. His expression was impassive, but Gracey could feel displeasure coming off him in waves, and she couldn’t help but wonder at the nature of the undercurrent she felt flowing between the cousins. Kit merely shook her head, the mischievous gleam in her eye all the more apparent. “Not necessary. It can wait,” she said simply. Gathering herself together, the woman gave Gracey a final, tight smile and said, “Very good to see you again, Gracey. Simon.” She bent low and kissed him again, and in an instant, she was gone.

The magician took a moment to compose himself, and then downed the last of his wine. He filled a second glass and it swallowed it as well. When he was finished, he sagged in his chair, his previous glow diminished, if not gone altogether. He smiled apologetically at Gracey, his eyes full of a regret Gracey could scarcely read. “I apologize for the interruption,” he said.

Gracey shrugged, offering an understanding smile. “We can choose our friends,” she said, nonchalant. “We can’t choose our family.”

The corner of the magician’s mouth trembled in what Gracey thought was an attempt at a smile. He gave an absent nod. “There is a deep truth in that statement,” he said. “For all that we are blood relations, Kit and I have always been a difficult pairing. I’m afraid I find her rather abrasive. Still,we have precious few allies in this world. It would be a pity to alienate them.”

His statement hit a little too close to home, and Gracey shifted uncomfortably in her seat as her thoughts shifted to her mother’s letter. She tried to think of a way to save the evening, but her own energy was waning, and she could tell Simon was faring no better. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and said, “Maybe we should call it a night?”

The magician motioned for the bill and offered Gracey a grateful, if weary, smile.

He walked Gracey to her front door. Tiny had left the porch light on for them. For a moment, Gracey wished she’d had a reason to lock her doors, and therefore a reason to search her purse for her keys, a reason to keep Simon standing there, waiting for her. But she had no such convenient excuse to prolong the moment before his departure. She met his eyes and smiled into them, wracking her mind for something useful to say, something that could relay, without chance for serious repercussion, what she was feeling. She could think of nothing, however, and sensing that if she didn’t find the courage he certainly wouldn’t, Gracey leaned in, face upturned, and kissed the magician full on the lips.

Smoke from the bonfire wound its way  upward into the night sky, carrying off the laments and woes of the day. The residents of the Badlands huddled around the fire, palms stretched toward it, taking in its warmth and comfort. Stone strummed her ukulele quietly and badly, though she was improving—the tentative melody of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” eeked its way out from between blundered notes and sloppy misfingerings. Some of the men passed a joint around. Satsuko and Mitsuo stared into the fire, watching the flames dance their transcendent choreography.

“There’s that woman again.”

Following Satsuko’s gaze, Mitsuo’s eyes fell on a woman clad all in black, a shawl wrapped over her head and shoulders. They’d seen her a few times now at the Badlands— a woman who was not a regular and whose business in their enclave they could not ascertain. She kept her head bent low as she moved nimbly through the shadows, making her way through the shambles as though she had been there many times. No one stopped to speak to her, which wasn’t unusual, and she stopped for no one, scurrying toward the back of the camp. When they couldn’t see her anymore for the thick darkness, the teenagers turned to each other and shrugged.

In the distance, Satsuko could hear thunder. The horizon blinked with pink and lavender light as electricity set the desert sky aflame. The thunder rumbled low, accompanied by the eerie descant of the coyote’s mournful song. Desert music. Satsuko sniffed the air, leaned her head against Mitsuo’s shoulder. “Witching hour,” she whispered.

“What?”

Satsuko closed her eyes, a slow smile spreading on her face. “Got to stick together tonight,” she said. “Spirits are out. Take all your good luck, you don’t watch out.”

Mitsuo smiled, unperturbed. He was used to Satsuko’s superstitious babbling. “Which spirits?”

Satsuko yawned, snuggled closer into Mitsuo’s chest. “Mostly yokai,” she said. “Maybe zashiki-warashi. Steal your drawings. Put gum in your hair.”

Mitsuo felt his skin pimple over. When Satsuko got going it was hard to stop her, and the effects of her tales were often palpable. “Okay,” he said, grinning. “Tell me about it.”

“Yeah, Satsuko,” called another voice. It was one of the regulars, Cannon, so called for his propensity to pass gas violently and loudly. “Let’s hear one of your stories.”

“Ooooh, please?” Stone stopped her strumming, putting the ukulele on her lap. “Your stories are so good.”

Satsuko, who could hardly resist being the center of attention when she was in the mood, cocked an eyebrow at Stone. “What you know about my stories, hippie? Thought you didn’t listen to nothing I say.”

Stone shrugged. “I hear what I wanna hear,” she said.

“Come on, Satsuko,” Mitsuo urged. “We all know you have a story for us. Spill it.”

Satsuko sat up, ran a hand through her tangle of hair. The amber glow of the fire lit up her face like a jack-o-lantern. She grinned, amplifying the effect. In her way, she was beautiful.

“All right! I’ll tell you a story. But you don’t interrupt me!” She cut her eyes at Stone as she said this. “You can ask me your questions after.”

Satsuko cleared her throat and slipped into the subtle trance of the storyteller.

As Satsuko finished her tale, a slow smile spread over the face. She could barely make out the expressions of her audience, but she could tell they’d been listening to every word. After a moment, Cannon cleared his throat and leaned his elbows onto his knees. “So that fox, Zorro-san, was gay?”

Satsuko rolled her eyes, sucked her teeth. “Not gay,” she said. “Zorro-san is a spirit, not man or woman. So he can’t be gay.”

“But you keep calling him a he,” Cannon retorted.

Satsuko shrugged. “It’s just how the story goes,” she explained.

“But what was Zorro-san doing there?” Stone asked. “Why was the fox at the Emperor’s court to begin with?”

Again Satsuko shrugged. “Probably he was going to destroy the court from the inside so he could take over and rule everybody, cause lots of trouble, get famous. Classic espionage,” she said, her eyes twinkling even in the darkness.

Stone looked confused as ever. “But why?”

Satsuko grinned. “For fun. Don’t know much about foxes do you, Stone?”

Stone shook her head. “Guess not.”

“I have lots of fox stories,” Satsuko said. “I can teach you all about foxes. Raccoon dogs, too.” She dropped a wink at Mitsuo, who blushed and looked away.

Now that storytelling hour was over, the Badlanders slowly took their leave of the bonfire, making their way to their own domiciles. Only Satsuko and Mitsuo lingered long enough to see the woman clad in black making her way back into town.