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.”

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.

Situated on the northeastern edge of Love & War on the north side of the tracks, the Badlands bloomed, against all odds, like an apple on a cactus. The Bohemian community that made its home amid the abandoned trailers and detritus of a long-defunct trailer park comprised transients, squatters, wayward artists, and hippies. Though banded together by little more than a long streak of bad luck in life, the settlers of the Badlands slum stuck together and looked out for each other, which was more than could be said of folks with more affluence in larger towns, so by some measures, the folks in the Badlands were getting by better than maybe they realized.

Insular and forgiving as it was, the Badlands had come to attract misfits and nomads of various sorts: pagans, nudists, ex-carnies, gypsies, and communists. What was once merely a blemish on Love & War’s backside had developed into a full-blown infection, but one that, to their credit, the townsfolk saw little reason to treat. As long as the folks in the Badlands kept their philosophies, worldviews, and medicinal herbs mostly to themselves (which they were generally happy to do) the residents of Love & War left the Badlands well enough alone.

Which was a shame really, because the Badlands was a spectacle. Colorful, decrepit, and exuding the constant stench of nag champa, marijuana, and body odor, the Badlands encompassed a variety of contradicting stereotypes and lifestyles without so much as batting an eye. Broken-down RVs and silver trailers were strewn with tie-dyed scarves and motley assortments of table cloths, shawls, and tattered American flags. They served as personal banners, marking territory,  announcing to the community an intention, a presence, an expression of self. Belly dancers sewed tiny bells to the scarves that hung from their doorways; makeshift tribes claiming 1/8th Blackfoot heritage decorated their trailers with animal skins and feathers. NPR, tinny drums, and the crackling of cooking fires composed the bass line of the Badlands soundtrack, against which all other sounds were a blissful, discordant descant.

In the center of this chaos, Mitsuo was sitting cross-legged on the ground, drawing pad balanced precariously on his knee, sketching the profile of the unsuspecting young woman who had arrived the week before with a couple of bikers. She was unconventionally pretty, with a crooked nose and a mouth slightly too big for her face. He liked her eyes the most; they were the color of turtle skin.

He had just begun sketching the curve of her nose when he was bumped from behind by a black and pink whirlwind who tumbled to the ground beside him, flashing a bright smile. “What! You drawing that girl again?”

Mitsuo frowned, scooted away from his assailant. “What’s it to you?”

Satsuko shrugged. “Nothing to me. You could try talking to her, though. Pretty sure she speaks English.”

“Better than you do, I’m sure,” Mitsuo quipped. He shrugged. “I don’t have anything to say to her.” He sketched in rough outlines of her lips. He made them too thin. He erased.

“Well,” Satsuko said, scratching her head, “who knows how much longer she’ll be here, anyway. She’s not permanent. She looks like city to me.”

Mitsuo looked up at the girl, squinted. Satsuko was right. With her hair pulled into a loose ponytail and a faraway look in her eye, the girl had an air of culture about her, and her cheeks were too full to have ever known true hunger. She was probably just passing through, sowing her wild oats before going away to an all-women’s college on the east coast. They got a surprising number of folks like that in the Badlands: folks with an artistic or counterculture curiosity trying to see how the other half lived. They meant no harm. But they were insulting all the same.

“So now I got your attention, why don’t you draw me for a little while? I need a new portrait.” Satsuko tossed her mop of shaggy, badly cut hair and struck a pose. “You haven’t done any of me in a long time.”

Despite himself, Mitsuo grinned. He flipped the page and penciled in a quick sketch of Satsuko with her head tilted back and eyes closed. Her sticking-out-in-every-direction, black and pink hair framed a pale, heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, a broad nose, a full mouth. Her almond eyes had been painted, as usual, with so much shadow she appeared to be wearing a mask. Today she had painted tiny pink stars at the corners of her eyes and the tops of her cheeks. If she were a snake she’d be a warning: too colorful. Poisonous.

“Hey hey, Satsuko, strike that pose, girl. Like RuPaul. Do a twirl!”

Opening her eyes, Satsuko fell out of character and turned to see a tall, skinny white woman strutting behind her, hands on her hips, doing a decent imitation of a model on a catwalk. She strutted a few paces, turned sharply, and posed. Her dreadlocked hair was pushed off her face and held in place by a bandana. She was as deeply tanned and dirty as she was unwelcome. Satsuko scowled at the intruder. “What you want, hippie?”

Stone snapped her fingers, gave a sexy look over a bony shoulder. “You better work! Cover Girl! Sashay, shante!” Her RuPaul impression was flawless, but neither of the teenagers smiled. RuPaul was before their time.

Stone smiled, became herself again. “You got any weed?”

Satsuko and Mitsuo exchanged irritated looks. Satsuko sat down beside her friend as Mitsuo flipped back to his original drawing, concentrating. “No,” he said. “We don’t smoke.”

Stone wasn’t dissuaded. “You don’t smoke, or you don’t smoke?” She wriggled her eyebrows up and down.

Mitsuo looked up, gave Stone a hard, cold stare. The hippie held up her hands, shrinking away from the glare. “All right, all right, the straight-edge vibe, man, I dig.” Craning her neck, she stretched to see Mitsuo’s art pad. She let out an appreciative whistle. “Hey, Mitsuo, that’s pretty good,” she said.

“I don’t need you to tell me that,” he muttered.

But Stone didn’t take the hint. “No, man, I mean, you’re really good. Like, professional quality. I bet you could sell those if you wanted. Well, I wouldn’t pay for it,” she said, smiling, “‘cause I’m broke as shit. But folks with money would. Definitely.”

Mitsuo grunted in response, but stopped sketching just long enough to evaluate his work. He’d started drawing when he was five, and over the past twelve years he’d honed his talent considerably. Having moved beyond the mechanics of catching a person’s physical characteristics on paper, Mitsuo had learned to capture something of his model’s inner fire, that spark that made them who they were. Every line seemed to jump off the page and breathe with life. He’d amassed hundreds of drawings over the years, but having nothing else to do with them, he’d boxed them up and stowed them in one of the trailer’s empty closets.

The sketch on his lap was breathtaking; he’d perfectly captured the new girl’s prim expression, the self-assured way she enjoyed her own company. As a drawing it was lovely, but the portrait would become even more beautiful when he laid down the watercolor. But he’d meant what he said about not needing Stone’s approval. He wasn’t sure of anything else about himself or the world, but he was sure of his talent.

His sketchbook was full of impromptu sketches and watercolors. It was a snapshot of how he saw the world.

“Her name is Alison,” Stone said, pointing with her chin.

Mitsuo flushed a deep red, turned his back to Stone as much he could and still keep Alison in his sights. Satsuko growled.

“Hey, Stone, ain’t you got nothin’ else to do? Can’t you see we’re busy?” Satsuko’s voice was rich with contempt. She gave Stone the evil eye over Mitsuo’s shoulder.

“You’re not doing anything,” Stone said, brow furrowed. “Mitsuo doesn’t need you to draw pictures of other girls.”

“She’s my muse,” Mitsuo said, chuckling. Satsuko punched him playfully in the shoulder.

“Anyway,” Stone said, changing the subject, “I was gonna tell you. Y’all going to the church for that blessing thing?”

The two kids looked up at Stone, this time without scowling. “What blessing thing?”

Stone straightened her back, clearly proud to have town news they didn’t. “You know those Applewhite chicks got that new office over on Church Street? The ones renovating Trinity?”

The kids nodded.

“Well, they’re having some kind of blessing. I think they called it a consecration ceremony? To dedicate the renovation and the ground or something? Everybody’s invited.”

Mitsuo and Satsuko exchanged looks. “Why the hell we’d go to that?” Satsuko asked. Her broken English was completely affected. She was capable of speaking properly if she wanted to. She just rarely wanted to.

“There’ll be free food,” Stone said in a sing-song voice. Her smile was smug.

In the Badlands, “free food” was a magic phrase. Although those in the community who managed a meager income were quick to share what they brought in with the others, nobody every exactly got enough to eat. Cast-off cans of black beans were common debris around the grounds.

Mitsuo shrugged, returned to his drawing. “Sure, that sounds good. As long as they don’t expect us to sing any hymns or anything.”

Stone took a chance and crept closer, dropping to her knees when she got as close as she figured Mitsuo or Satsuko would tolerate. She was in bad need of a shower. “You ain’t got religion?”

Mitsuo smirked. “Don’t have much need for it,” he said, eyes fixed on his model. “They want us to donate money we don’t have to save souls we don’t believe in. I figure if there’s really a God, He wouldn’t be so concerned about whether or not I believe in Him. He’d have better stuff to do.”

Stone snorted. “I guess. Those two women, though—they know somethin’ I don’t. They got this…way about ‘em, I guess? Makes you curious, don’t it?”

Mitsuo shrugged. “Lilac and Lakmei, you mean?”

Stone nodded.

Across the way, Alison stood, stretched, and disappeared into one of the trailers. Sighing, Mitsuo closed the drawing tablet and leaned back onto his hands. “I don’t know much about them,” he admitted. “Haven’t ever seen them come into the bakery. Saw them once with a work crew outside the church, taking pictures. I haven’t ever talked to them, though. Just heard stuff.”

Now, even Satsuko was interested. “What kind of stuff you heard?”

Mitsuo, who wasn’t much for gossip, gave a little shrug. “I don’t know, same kind of stuff you hear about newcomers to any small town, I guess. They keep to themselves too much. They don’t leave their office. They didn’t go to the Simon St. Laine show in Placerita. Stuff like that.”

“I heard the show was awesome,” Stone said. “I heard he floated this woman up off the stage and everything.”

Satsusko sucked her teeth. “No way. That magician need to learn a thing or two about not sucking. Who do you know saw the show anyway, hippie? Your friends ain’t got ticket money,” she said.

“I know some folks,” Stone said, cool as a cucumber. Nothing seemed to rile her up much. She managed to keep pretty mellow no matter what Satsuko said to her, which only served to irritate Satsuko all the more. “So y’all are gonna go, then? To the blessing thing?”

Stone’s intense curiosity was suspicious, and Mitsuo cut his eyes at her, drawing a breath. “Why are you so interested?”

Now, Stone’s cheeks flushed pink and she rubbed at an invisible spot on her arm. “Well, I just wondered, since you got that job at the pie place, if that pie lady was gonna be there? ‘Cuz I’d like to meet her, maybe? And she could tell me what kind of pie I like. Maybe she would let me try some. On the house?”

To anyone else, the request might have sounded ridiculous, but Mitsuo understood. It wasn’t the pie she was after; it was what those pies were purported to do to the eater that she wanted.

With this new understanding,  Mitsuo felt slightly less antagonistic toward his irritating neighbor. He gave her a small smile. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.