"Louis came to me, desperate as a starving dog," Katey says, "said he looked up and down, went to your old motel, tried calling your old cell, and couldn't find you. Good thing he decided to check in with me." She frets at Miriam like a mother monkey picking mites off her baby. "Heavens, you got banged up pretty good."
Miriam shrugs. "At least I didn't get stabbed in the boob this time."
"At least you made it out
alive
."
"Keener sure didn't." A sick swell of pride rises inside her. Like a red balloon inflating. Floating above her head.
"And that other poor girl. Amy Valentine?"
"Annie. Yeah, I don't know if she'll ever be the same."
The look on Katey's face strikes Miriam then. The way her brow furrows, the way her lips move to form words that don't yet come. When they finally do, Katey says, "You sure you're okay? You have a concussion. Is that right?"
"I know what year it is. And I know how many fingers and toes I'm supposed to have. Why?"
"Then that wasn't a funny joke."
"Joke. I wasn't making a joke."
"That girl, Annie Valentine. She's dead, Miriam. It's all over the news."
FORTY-THREE
Black Valentine
They find a room nearby. A proper hospital room. An old guy sleeps in the bed like a broken doll, a ruined puppet with his leg lifted and his hip propped up.
In the corner, a TV. Miriam hobbles over, grabs the remote off the old guy's nightstand, flips on the tube. The patient mumbles but doesn't stir.
She flips, flips, flips.
There.
And she doesn't believe what she sees.
It's a whole scene. A whole fucking nightmare of a scene.
Cops. News vans. A helicopter. All over Keener's property.
Which is, in fact, on fire.
The house burns despite the rain. So too do various pockets of the labyrinthine junk-land. Fire and black smoke bellow from a shipping container, a few cars, and the long decrepit bus.
She tries to put it together.
Maybe the girl flipped her shit. Maybe whatever tiny little thread was holding her sanity together just snapped and she went and found a… a gas can and started burning everything.
But then they say they found two bodies.
Carl Keener, fifty-six. Body burned up.
And Annie Valentine, eighteen.
They found her outside the house.
Shot in the head.
Miriam grabs the waste can, throws up atop the remnants of hospital food.
Maybe she found a gun. In the house.
Killed herself.
That's what it has to be.
Something pecks at the back of her mind. A bird catching a bug.
A phone rings.
When Miriam pulls her head out of the trash, Katey is there. Holding the phone. "It's for you."
Miriam takes it. Clears her throat. "Hello?"
"You said to call you if anything strange is going on," Wren whispers.
Miriam clears her throat, wipes her mouth. "What? Tell me. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. I snuck out to use the hall phone. The guards haven't seen me. This isn't about me. It's about you."
"What are you talking about?"
"Someone left something under my door. A white piece of paper with something… something written on it."
"What does it say?"
"It says, 'Wicked Miriam, turn from your sins lest you despair, or the Devil take you without care'."
An ice-pick of fear drives sharp and cold through Miriam.
"Go back to your room," she hisses. "Go. Now."
"I'm… a little scared."
Miriam draws a deep breath. Tries not to puke again.
"Lock your door. I'll be there soon. I promise."
FORTY-FOUR
A Bad Time for Confessions
The cab of Louis' truck feels tight, like Miriam's stuck in a body bag that's been dragged under dark water. The rain cascading down the windshield does little to help. It's not just because they've got one more passenger – Katey, who sits behind them on the bunk – but because Miriam can't parse what's happening. Too many questions. This mystery a clock with broken parts.
Annie Valentine's death. Self-inflicted? Maybe. Her sanity was a doll without stuffing, and Miriam feels a twist of guilt for leaving that poor, empty girl behind. And her sores: Those weren't fresh. Couldn't have been from Keener. Meth addict? Maybe. That might explain the suicide.
But the paper left under Wren's door…
Turn from your sins, lest you despair.
The Devil take you without care.
Keener's song. "Wicked Polly."
Except here it's "Wicked Miriam."
Someone knows. Could it have been Keener? She was unconscious long enough for him to go back to the school. If he's been watching Wren all this time, premeditating her murder all the way back to now – it tracks. Maybe.
Still. Something doesn't feel right.
Peck, peck, peck.
Miriam turns on the radio. Scans stations, listening for news.
"Phils are out of it this year but with all that pitching power–"
"–rain intensifying for another four days as we catch the edge of Tropical Storm Esmerelda–"
"And now a jazz selection from Mumbai Xochitl as part of our Sounds from the Global Café program– "
She turns the radio off. Rubs her head. It feels like her sinuses are wadded up with bloody cotton. The Dermabond pulls her face tight. Tugging and biting and burning.
"Maybe we should have stayed at the hospital," Louis says. "They wanted you to stay overnight. Keep an eye on that concussion."
Miriam grunts. "Fuck that noise. It's not that bad. In fact–" She taps out a cigarette, opens the window and lets a blast of cool night time air wash over her. "This is just what the doctor ordered. Spoonful of sugar."
And 37 types of carcinogenic chemicals. Yummy
.
"There's something I have to tell you," Louis says.
"This isn't the time for confessions."
"Maybe it is."
Katey watches the exchange. Miriam sighs, lights the cigarette with her injured hands, blows a plume of smoke outside.
"Fine. Then I get to confess first." Before Louis can interrupt she blurts it out. "I had… something go on with one of the teachers. The coach. Or sensei. Or whatever the hell you'd call him."
Katey is the first to speak. "Beck Daniels?"
"I… I know him. I met him. Once." Louis straightens in his seat. "Delivered some gym mats."
"We didn't fuck," Miriam says.
"All right."
She can see his hands tighten hard around the steering wheel. Were the wheel a man's shoulders, that man would fall to the floor with shattered collarbones.
"We fought. Literally. And then – we collided together and we almost – but we didn't and – you know what? I should have just kept this to myself. Like I said, this is a bad time for confessions."
Louis draws deep breaths through his nose, like he's trying either to calm down or to build up enough psychic energy to kill everybody in the truck with his mind.
"I belong with you," Louis says suddenly.
"What?"
"I've got a job. And it's to protect you." Another deep nostril-flaring breath. "I saw something."
"You saw – what? Louis? What did you see?"
"A bird. A crow."
Miriam tenses up.
He tells her everything. Not just one crow, but a whole road full of them – but only one that mattered. The crow that spoke with Miriam's voice. And then, from his eye socket, the feather. The muddy strands of hair.
"The Trespasser," she says aloud without meaning to. Her inside voice let out of its cage.
That means the Trespasser is real. Not kept to the prison of her own mind. Not merely an expression of her subconscious.
"I've been seeing the Trespasser for a while now. I always thought it was just me, just a thing that's in my head, but–"
"It still could be," Katey says. "Maybe what Louis saw was you… well, for lack of a better word, transmitting. Putting out a beacon."
"That message is why I raced here," Louis says. "Katey might be right. Besides, The Bird
did
speak with your voice."
Up ahead, the gates to the school.
Nobody mans the booth this late – it's already 1 AM. Katey hops out, though, and heads to the stone pillar sporting the Caldecott Crest. She pulls back a brick to reveal a white-button touchpad.
A few button-pushes later and the gate drifts open.
They head toward the school. They pull up out front, and Louis kills the engine, but Miriam touches his hand.
"No – you stay in the truck. Stay here just in case we gotta bolt. Katey's going to take me in because she has keys."
Katey jingles a key ring and offers a sad smile.
"I'm coming in," Louis growls. "I just got done telling you: I'm here to protect you. I can't let you go in alone."
Miriam half-laughs. "It's a girls' school. A school full of
girls
. Okay, sure, one or two of them might know how to carve a shiv out of a bar of Dove soap but,
by and large
, I think I can take them."
"Whatever psycho left that note for you could still be in there."
"Dude, we're trying to go in there and not attract attention. I don't call you Frankenstein because of your taste in platform shoes.
You're huge
. We'll be fine." She says it, and she hopes she means it. It's not that she doesn't want to attract attention. It's that the truck cabas-confessional has made her a bit uncomfortable. She needs the space. He does too, she figures.
He doesn't smile, but he nods. "Fine. Don't linger."
"I won't."
She thinks to kiss him on the cheek but then isn't sure – is that a mixed message? Does she even know what kind of message she wants to send?
Instead, she salutes him.
Then she winces and says, "I don't know why the fuck I just saluted you."
He stares at her like she's a total moon unit. Which she probably is.
Red-faced and confused, Miriam goes to join Katey at the entrance.
FORTY-FIVE
The Hall of Red Doors
The girls' dormitory is a wing off the main house. Right now the main house is dark, all lines and shadows, but Katey knows where to go. As she stands by the door, going through the key ring, feeling each one by one, a sudden beam of light appears from the upstairs balcony.
Miriam grabs Katey by the elbow, and pulls her down behind a wooden side-table sporting a coffee percolator and ceramic teapot.
The beam intensifies. A shadow steps up to the balcony, then begins walking down the steps toward the lobby. The light bounces until it reaches the bottom. Then it drifts back and forth, searching, searching.
Like the beam from a lighthouse.
A radio squelches, and the shadow speaks.
"I swore I heard something. Yeah. I'm in the lobby."
Miriam knows that voice.
Sims. AKA Roidhead.
A voice chatters from the radio, but Miriam can't make it out. The other guard? Horvath?
"Yeah," Sims says. Pause. "No, I don't see anything. Uh-huh, I'm heading back to finish rounds. And you better not have eaten my sticky bun again."
Miriam's worst instinct is to blurt out a joke about two men eating each other's sticky buns, but for once wiser heads prevail. She feels a small surge of pride.
Aw, baby's all grown up.
Sims retreats back up the steps.
Katey lets out a held breath and says, "I'm not sure we should be doing this."
"We have to. Something real fucking goofy is going on, and I wanna know what it is. Please?"
Katey nods. Goes back to the door.
Finds the key. Opens it.
Inside is a stairwell. All dark wood and dusty ochre carpets. Brass wall sconces sport white electric candles.
Katey whispers, "Up here is the Dorm Mother's desk. Miss Betty. She walks rounds sometimes so I'm going to go distract her, just in case. Lauren Martin's room is on the third floor – room 322. You good?"
Miriam's not good. But she nods anyway.
And then Katey's off to the races, and Miriam's taking the carpeted steps two by two until she reaches the third floor. She pops open the door and peeks out: nobody. She creeps through.
It's a hallway of red doors. More cherry wood, more moldy-oldie carpets that might as well be from a Victorian brothel, more of those brass sconces. Beneath the doors: a dark line. The girls are all asleep.
Miriam darts along, looking for 322.
The Rolling Stones in her head.
I see a red door and I want to paint it black.
There. Wren's room.
She raps lightly on the door.
The door flings open–
Hands grab her and yank her into the dark.
FORTY-SIX
What Fate Wants, Fate Gets
Miriam's hip slams hard into the corner of a dresser, rattling its contents. She's already reaching in her pocket for the knife when a pair of flashlights clicks on beneath a pair of chins.
Lauren Martin and another moon-faced girl. She reminds Miriam a bit of the chunky one from
Facts of Life.
"Hey, psycho," Wren says.
"Hi, psycho," the other girl says.
"Okay," Miriam says, pointing at the roommate, "
you
don't get to call me that unless you want
me
to call you Fatalie-Natalie. You dig?"