《Little Death》 Chapter 1 In the international aisle at Whole Foods, Sam switched the plastic shopping basket to his left hand and held his cellphone against his ear with his right. Amy¡¯s voice, once she answered, sounded distracted. ¡°I told you, it¡¯s in the Indian section.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not seeing it. There¡¯s a hundred things here and not one of them is labeled in a language I speak.¡± ¡°It¡¯s in a canister. It¡¯s called ghee. G-H-E-E. Clarified butter. I know it¡¯s there.¡± ¡°Amy, it¡¯s not¡ªah. Got it.¡± He chucked the canister in the basket. ¡°Right in front of me the whole time.¡± ¡°Great. Any idea when you¡¯ll be home?¡± ¡°Forty minutes or so.¡± ¡°Forty minutes? How long does it take to get through the checkout line?¡± ¡°Yeah, well.¡± He hurried down the aisle past a woman stopped with two toddlers hanging off her cart. ¡°I need to make a pit stop on the way back.¡± ¡°Just hurry. Everybody will be here in an hour.¡± ¡°Got it.¡± He clicked out of the call, swung past the floral displays, and grabbed three bouquets of flowers. Spilling out everything onto a conveyor belt, he stretched his arms behind his head and exhaled an energetic sigh. The cashier, a slender woman about his age with dark hair tucked under a sky-blue bandanna, offered a sly smile. ¡°Busy evening?¡± He smiled back, but without the subtle flirtation. ¡°Oh, I¡¯m only getting started.¡± ~ * ~ After leaving Whole Foods, he drove to Fairview Lake on the eastern end of Portland. The parking lot was beginning to clear out, as families gathered up their kids and took them home to dinner. Sam grabbed the bouquets from the back seat of his car¡ªAmy¡¯s car, really¡ªand carried them over to the lake¡¯s most isolated corner, far from the playgrounds and spray park and even the old guys fishing for trout. Taking a pen and a folded scrap of paper from his pocket, he wrote a note, his thigh making do as a writing surface. He went over every letter several times to darken it, until at last it was satisfactory. TABBY, LOVE YOU ALWAYS. The result, thanks to the scratching of his pen, came out looking a little violent. A little desperate. But then, that wasn¡¯t wrong. He fastened it to the stem of one rose using the skinny rubber band that had secured the bouquet. Then, one by one, he began tossing the flowers into the water. They rested on the surface at first, drifting along briefly, before gradually succumbing to the pull of gravity. He tossed them far enough out that they would not get caught in the lake¡¯s muddy edges, and would drift, he hoped, to the bottom at full depth. After the last flower of the second bouquet, he threw in the rose with the note attached. It went down headfirst, its stem tipping upward. He imagined it falling slowly past her eyes down there, the little note waving like a bit of waterweed. He wondered if she even knew it was April the twenty-third. One year, exactly. He threw most of the remaining flowers into the lake in a single fistful. They disturbed the surface, sending out ripples in every direction, and lingered for some time before disappearing beneath. If she could see them, they would come upon her like a shower of blossoms from above, and she would have no doubt that he remembered her. It was a fanciful idea and he knew it, but it was what he needed, to go on. For several minutes, he looked out over the still surface of the lake, his hands tucked into his jeans pockets, and simply suffered his thoughts. His memories. The long, long list of things he wanted to say to her, and tell her about, and reassure her that he was doing. But Amy was waiting for him. He needed to go. He waited one final minute, as if she might emerge, and then set off reluctantly for his car. ~ * ~ The house was a Craftsman bungalow on one of Portland¡¯s older streets, set back from the street and half-hidden behind the sprawling, low-hanging branches of a eucalyptus tree. Along the porch, large potted ferns partially concealed the occupants from view when they stepped out to chat or smoke or escape the close air of a home that harbored six busy adults. Sam hurried up the steps and pushed the door open with his shoulder, stepping directly into the kitchen in which Amy was bent over the oven, pulling out naan bread. Tufts of her hair had rebelled from her chestnut ponytail, and her gaze looked a little frantic. She wore an apron-- the one her sister had sent her for Christmas, pink and covered in cartoonish drawings of cupcakes, trimmed with a white frill. She had made a face of disgust when she first opened it, but it would suffice when all the ones from the bakery were in the wash. ¡°Finally, you¡¯re back,¡± she said. She set the tray of naan on the stovetop and pushed her hair out of her eyes with the side of her hand. ¡°Did you find everything?¡± ¡°Yep.¡± As she looked through the paper shopping bag, he grabbed her around the waist and nuzzled her just above the ear. ¡°That apron¡¯s kind of hot.¡± ¡°Oh, stop. I feel like a ¡¯50s housewife.¡± ¡°Maybe that¡¯s what¡¯s hot.¡± She elbowed him in the ribs, although he knew she didn¡¯t mean it. In a few hours, once dinner was over and the other couples had wandered off to their rooms and left them alone, she would be on him like a junkie going after a fix. She always was. He left her to her cooking¡ªit irritated her when he tried to help, anyway¡ªand climbed the stairs to their bedroom. The door beside theirs was closed, with murmuring noises coming from behind it; Rose and Kevin were already here, then. He shut his door quietly and sat down on his side of the unmade bed, touching the contact name of his missed call from earlier that day. The call connected immediately. ¡°Isaac,¡± he greeted his friend, keeping his voice low despite the mercifully thick plaster walls. ¡°Sorry I missed you earlier. I was at the grocery store for Amy.¡± All the way down in Tennessee, Isaac was laughing at him. ¡°Gotta say, I never thought I¡¯d see you on this short of a leash.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not that bad.¡± ¡°Sure. So tell me what I can do for you.¡± ¡°I need an Oregon driver¡¯s license.¡± Isaac made a noise of disdain. ¡°The New York one I made for you is just fine. It doesn¡¯t expire for like three more years.¡± ¡°Yeah, except¡ªone, I¡¯m in Oregon now¡ªand two, it says ¡®Jesse Maclaren¡¯ on it.¡± ¡°So what?¡± ¡°Eventually Amy¡¯s going to see it. Look, man, I¡¯ll pay you whatever it costs. I just need one that says ¡®Sam Sullivan¡¯ and shows my current address. And fairly quick, if you can.¡± ¡°Sam Sullivan,¡± Isaac repeated. ¡°I¡¯m sorry-- have you lost your damn mind? I am not putting your real name on a fake license. And what current address are you even talking about?¡± ¡°This house. The one I¡¯m living in, in Portland.¡± ¡°With Amy?¡± Now he sounded genuinely dismayed. ¡°You¡¯re living with Amy?¡± ¡°At the moment. I moved in the rest of my stuff a couple weeks ago.¡± ¡°You¡¯re living there full time? How are you even pulling that off?¡± ¡°Very carefully.¡± Isaac snorted. ¡°Man¡ªyou don¡¯t need a driver¡¯s license. What you need is an intervention. Listen to me¡ªright now, pack your shit, get in your car, and come down here to stay with Susanna and me. There is no way you can¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s going just fine,¡± Sam interrupted. ¡°I only need a license.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not fine.¡± Isaac¡¯s voice had risen to something closer to a shout. ¡°It¡¯s bullshit and you know it. We all know you miss Tabitha, and I know it¡¯s hard to hang on, but living with a¡ªJesus¡ª¡± ¡°Is that a no?¡± Sam¡¯s patience was thin, but more of concern was that this would become a shouting match that Amy would overhear. ¡°Do I need to order one from China or something?¡± ¡°You need to leave tonight,¡± insisted Isaac. ¡°She¡¯s going to figure it out. If you think she won¡¯t, you are fucking delusional. And then you¡¯re never going to get Tabitha back. Have you given any thought to that at all?¡± Sam blurted a laugh. All I do is think about her, he wanted to say. But instead he replied, ¡°Let me be the one to worry about that.¡± ¡°Listen, I gotta go. But I¡¯m gonna have Susanna call you tomorrow to sort this out. And in the meantime, I¡¯m dead serious, man. I¡¯m making up the guest bed tonight. Your ass had better be in it by tomorrow night.¡±Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. From downstairs, Sam could hear Amy calling his name. He clicked out of the call and stepped out of the bedroom, falling behind Rose and Kevin as they headed down to dinner, his presence attracting no more attention than it ever did. Blow me, Isaac, Sam thought, but he smiled at Amy as if nothing was amiss. ~ * ~ Sure enough, after the meal, once Rose and Kevin had returned to their room and Lola and Remy had left to catch a movie, Amy caught up with Sam out on the porch. She snuck up behind him as he leaned against a support beam, smoking his after-dinner cigarette. Her timing wasn¡¯t great; in that moment of peace and quiet, after the several hours of convivial chatter and meal-sharing and even a game of Cards Against Humanity around the kitchen table, Sam¡¯s mind was inevitably pulled back to the significance of the day. April the twenty-third. One year ago, almost precisely to the hour, he had kissed Tabby goodbye on the shore of that lake, feeling her sob in his arms. At the time he had taken it in stride, certain that she was overreacting, that she would be back before dawn. The news, when it finally came, struck him like a series of seismic waves. He had actually vomited, which he had believed his body couldn¡¯t even do in its current state. And yet here he was, one year later. Working a job at the restaurant supply warehouse, paying bills, forming one little wedge in an intimate circle of friends who, twelve months ago, he hadn¡¯t known at all. Standing on the porch of a comfortable house, finishing a smoke and feeling a girl¡¯s cool hands slide up under his shirt, waist to ribs. He turned around, crushing out the cigarette in the ashtray, and grinned at her. She took the opportunity to run her hands over his stomach and up to his chest, moving them as if torn between whether to memorize him or devour him. ¡°This body,¡± she said, and stopped there, as though the phrase explained it all. He cradled her face between his hands and kissed her. This face¡ªthe elfin angles of her wide cheekbones and pointed chin, the cool hazel of her eyes, the way the tiny stud in the corner of her nose accentuated its rounded shape. Hers was a bohemian face, distant gypsy ancestors mixed with paler folk of the peasant class. Beside him, with his black hair and broadly formed Irish features, they called forth whispers of an ancient Europe. Their children, if it had been possible to have them, would look like imps. ¡°You ready to go upstairs?¡± she asked. He slid her hand down to the front of his jeans, and she had her answer. In their bed, he kissed down her body, pausing on each of the places he found most worshipful¡ªher nipples, the tattoos at each of her hips, her navel, the smooth insides of her thighs. He went down on her until he felt the throbbing pulse of her orgasm, then kissed up her arms as she recovered. From his kiss she turned away, disliking the taste of herself, but she was eager when he aligned his body with hers and eased himself into her. She twined her legs around his and made little effortful noises as he worked on her, until at last he grew tired of this polite form of lovemaking. He disentangled himself from her, coaxed her sideways on the bed and slid her up until her head hung off its side, and he took her decisively, lifting her hips as he thrust into her. Her climax rocked her muscles so thoroughly that she nearly slipped from his grasp, but he held her firm and took his own. By the time he set her down, he was panting from the exertion. ¡°Holy shit,¡± she said, her head still more or less inverted, her voice slow and gravelly. ¡°How do you do stuff like that.¡± Sam knew better than to answer. He laid down on his side of the bed and pushed the sweat from his forehead to his hair. She followed slowly, with clumsy, half-drunken movements, until she lay nestled against his side. He wrapped an arm around her and tried to focus on the ceiling, but still his eyes closed to relish the moment of postcoital bliss. Getting off felt so good. There was no better high this world could offer. She reached a curious hand between his legs and began to play with him. At his body¡¯s response, she laughed. ¡°You have no waiting time at all,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s called a refractory period.¡± ¡°Yeah, you don¡¯t have one of those.¡± ¡°Sure I do,¡± he told her, though it was mostly a lie. To distract her, he brushed away her hand and said, ¡°I have to pee.¡± She rolled onto her stomach as he stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. The fan turned on automatically with the light, which he was grateful for. That feature had saved him many, many times from actually having to produce urine, or at least the sound of it. Instead, he looked at himself in the mirror over the sink. He couldn¡¯t imagine how she couldn¡¯t see on his face what was going on inside his mind. To his own gaze, his dark eyes looked hollow and distressed, the set of his mouth reflected resignation, and his overall expression¡ªhis countenance, as they used to say¡ªboth weary and bleak. But Amy didn¡¯t see that, or if she did, she didn¡¯t let on. Maybe it read to her as an appealing, brooding quality. Or maybe she was so obsessed with his body that she cared little about his face, which was not handsome by anyone¡¯s definition, anyway. He flushed the toilet, then quickly washed his hands and face. While he was at it, he took a swig from the Listerine bottle and rinsed out his mouth, so she would kiss him again. Of all the sexual quirks that Amy had introduced to his life lately, her refusal to let him kiss her after he had serviced her with his mouth was one of the top three most obnoxious. Tabitha had liked the taste, and with good reason. But then, Tabitha did a lot of things that would have set Amy shivering with Puritanical repulsion. He emerged from the bathroom and, at the sight of Amy half-asleep on her stomach, felt a wave of remorse about his critical thoughts. Amy was lovely. She indulged his bottomless sexual appetite, and put up with his foolishness outside the bedroom, too. She was fun and mischievous and provided him with constant companionship, which, when compared with the miserably lonely months he had spent after Tabitha¡¯s vanishing, was downright blissful. And she gave of herself freely and honestly, which was far more than Sam could say of himself. He flicked off the light and crawled into bed beside her, setting her alarm for the next morning. Carefully, he nudged her into his arms, her back curled against his chest, the way he had fallen asleep with Tabitha for years and years. ¡°You¡¯re so warm,¡± she murmured, and shook back her hair as if his heat bothered her. For a moment he remembered Isaac¡¯s words of warning: she¡¯s going to figure it out. But he was tired, and she was soft against him, and so he fell asleep without a further thought. ~ * ~ Six Months Earlier Sam had seen the trio at Brunson¡¯s Restaurant Supply dozens of times in the months before the conversation that shifted everything. Checking receipts at the exit, examining people¡¯s carts to ensure they only carried out what they¡¯d paid for, he chatted daily with many dozens of the regulars who kept Portland¡¯s brewhouses and delis and bakeries running. Some he knew by name, others by face, and these particular three fell into the latter group¡ªbut they were easy to remember. There was a tall, bespectacled guy in his late twenties who bore a passing resemblance to Jude Law, though more Cold Mountain and less The Talented Mr. Ripley; a ballerina-thin woman with cornsilk hair streaked with pink and magenta and twisted up into two tight little buns like a nymph¡¯s horns; and the shorter, darker, cuter girl whose bed he would eventually share. He knew only that they worked at a bakery-and-coffeehouse called Cascade Mocha Crafters, specializing in coffee-flavored brownies and cake pops which had developed a cult following in the area. And this he knew only because they bought King Arthur flour and insanely expensive artisanal butter in copious quantities. On a particular afternoon, while he was taking a smoke break on the loading dock behind the building, he saw the three of them wheeling out their flatbed cart to a Saab that looked absurdly undersized for the task. By mutual effort, they loaded everything into the trunk and back seat, then stood there conferring as the man held the orange cart to prevent its drift through the parking lot. Some decision was reached; the man handed the cart to the pink-haired girl, and he walked over to Sam. ¡°Hey, man,¡± he said. He offered a half-chagrined smile that informed Sam that this errand was not fully by choice. ¡°The girls over there want to know if you¡¯re interested in coming to a party.¡± ¡°Depends on the party.¡± ¡°Like, food and games and stuff. And beer. Just hanging out.¡± He looked for Sam¡¯s reaction with an expression absent of any guile, although in retrospect, Sam suspected otherwise. ¡°At our place here in Portland, around eight. On Rockledge Street.¡± ¡°Tonight?¡± ¡°Yeah¡ªyou got plans?¡± Sam always had plans. But he said, truthfully, ¡°I¡¯m flexible.¡± ¡°That¡¯s cool. Here¡¯s the address.¡± He handed Sam a slip of paper written in a feminine hand obviously not his own. It listed an address and phone number, punctuated with a smiley face. He jerked his head toward the women. ¡°And Amy¡¯s number. She¡¯s the brunette.¡± Sam concealed a grin. He looked up at the girl in question, and she gave a sheepish little wave. He waved back and said, ¡°Tell her I¡¯ll try to make it.¡± It had all seemed a little childish at the time, almost hinting at a prank, but there was nothing dishonest about that party. When he arrived, the steps were already crowded with people drinking and talking; the distinctive perfume of weed drifted out the door, mixing with the crisp scent of the late-autumn air. He slipped inside and was greeted like an old friend¡ªIt¡¯s Sam from the warehouse!, the pink-haired girl shouted¡ªand within less than a minute, someone had plunked a beer into his hand and was giving him a sommelier-level description of its flavor notes and provenance. The party was, to his surprise, fantastic. And sorely needed. Things had been on a steady downhill spiral for him since that day in April, and the job at Brunson¡¯s was the one constant and dependable thing that he hadn¡¯t yet found a way to fuck up. He was technically homeless, although that was nothing very new, but his choices of sleeping grounds and had grown increasingly indifferent and careless. In early July, he had totaled his car by wrapping it around a tree¡ªan accident severe enough that he had climbed out the passenger window and sat by an adjacent tree for a while with his head in his hands, looking at the crushed metal and excoriating himself over what would have happened to Tabby if she had been in the car, which was an irrational line of thinking on every level. Fortunately it was in the middle of the night and nobody had witnessed it, and he eventually gathered the presence of mind to empty the car of identifying items and leave unseen, mourning for that SUV as he had mourned for nothing else, save one. It had been a good, faithful car. And then there was his sex life, the one thing he should by all rights have been able to control, and even that was shitty. But that was his own fault. He observed his partners¡¯ pleasure with a dim sympathetic satisfaction, like the sun peeking over a dark Arctic horizon, before collecting his own like a ticket from a machine. He took solace in the knowledge that they couldn¡¯t tell¡ªbut nonetheless, it was barely an existence. ¡°Hello, Sam-from-the-Warehouse.¡± The girl named Amy appeared in front of him, a coy smile lighting her face, a bottle of beer in her hand. Above the deep plunge of her neckline, he observed a tattoo of elaborate script that dipped in a semicircle from one shoulder to the other: Not all who wander are lost. ¡°Glad you could make it.¡± ¡°Thanks for the invite.¡± He gestured to the top of his own chest. ¡°That¡¯s a Grateful Dead thing, right?¡± ¡°No, Lord of the Rings. You see the stickers on Deadheads¡¯ cars sometimes, though.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a good quote, whoever said it.¡± Her smile broadened, showing a dimple. ¡°Do you have any?¡± ¡°Tattoos? No.¡± ¡°Not even one?¡± He shook his head. ¡°Oh, come on¡ªeverybody has at least one these days. Really? Wow. A real tattoo virgin.¡± He almost snorted at the characterization. It had been a very long time since anyone had accused him of being a virgin of any kind. ¡°I¡¯m saving myself for marriage,¡± he replied gamely. ¡°You should get one right here.¡± She traced a line on his bicep, lingering a bit longer than was necessary. ¡°Or here,¡± she added, and poked him in the hip. ¡°Those are sexy on a man.¡± ¡°I¡¯d have to think about what I¡¯d get.¡± She lifted the bottom edge of her shirt and flashed him a little skin-- her own hip, decorated with a stylized bird in flight, a dove or a swallow. The gesture stirred him, and he felt the spark of attraction¡ªthat zigzag of energy between them, setting aside any doubt that this flirtation was worth a try. But she was a little bit high, he could tell, and messing around with girls who were drunk or stoned ran afoul of his code of conduct. Still, he reached out and touched the bird with his thumb, tracing it from its tailfeathers to its beak. ¡°I like it,¡± he said. Before the evening was over, she lured him into the shadowy corner by the coat closet, and he gladly took the bait and kissed her. He did it the way he knew she wanted, backing her against the wall gradually, keeping up the banter while letting the electricity of the moment crackle around them until, at last, he locked his mouth over hers. It was a hungry kiss on both their parts¡ªone that spoke to a slow starvation each was experiencing unseen, and of the ruthless kamikaze desire that each would loose to satiate it. But for nearly a month, until he couldn¡¯t push it off any longer without causing her to take it personally, that was all they did. He knew she had no idea what she was getting into, after all. And there was also the matter of his heart. How could he lose himself in making love to her, he wondered, when he was already lost? Chapter 2 ¡°Hey.¡± Tabitha blinked awake, and the scene before her gradually came into focus. Pink-blossoming trees. The stone curve of the triumphal arch that formed the entryway to Washington Square Park. And a cop, looking at her with an expression of job-hardened concern. Beneath her head she felt the slumping waterproof fabric of her backpack. ¡°You okay, miss? Second time I¡¯ve seen you out here this week.¡± She sat up. Somehow she had believed that resting under a tree was passably normal, and unlike a park bench, she was not at risk to get pegged as a homeless person by the police. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m fine. I just had ... exams.¡± The cop did not look convinced. ¡°You got any ID on you?¡± She would have been within her rights to object, given that it was not against the law to sleep, but she knew she looked suspiciously like a minor. She rummaged in her backpack and produced her driver¡¯s license. ¡°Oh, twenty-two,¡± said the officer, not even flipping over the card to examine its authenticity. ¡°I took you for a high-schooler.¡± Nice work, Isaac, she thought. ¡°I go to NYU,¡± she said. The campus was directly behind her. The cop launched into a lecture about safety and situational awareness and the dangers of which young women needed to be mindful, but it was brief. She nodded politely and gathered up her things as if preparing to leave. Once he moved on, she unzipped her backpack again and took out a tattered black three-subject notebook. She flipped it open to the dog-eared page. Onto this page was taped a map of the park. The map itself was recent, taken from a tourist brochure produced by the New York City Department of Parks, but it was annotated with circles and arrows and her own scribbled marginal notes. Hangman¡¯s Elm (alleged). First fountain location. Yellow fever victim burial ground, ~1825. Military parade ground area. The map was half-covered in X¡¯es where she had already searched. Before it lay many pages of maps of this city, filled in with X¡¯es. After it, many pages of maps still blank. As she examined the page, she heard the sweet, high strain of a violin drifting from some place on the other side of the park¡¯s central fountain. Listening more closely, she caught a soulful male voice singing ¡°Tiny Dancer¡± to the melody. She smiled to herself, her mind automatically latching on to the familiar lyrics, growing distracted from the task at hand. After all the years she and Sam had busked in parks and outside train stations, getting by on the money earned with his guitar and their two good voices, she had a soft spot for such performers. She reached into her open backpack and unwound a pair of dollar bills from the ever-growing wad of cash tucked at the bottom. ¡°Excuse me, can we take a look at your map?¡± She looked up to see a pair of young women, not much older than herself, dressed in faded ball caps and identical, new-looking I <3 New York T-shirts. One had a camera on a strap around her neck. ¡°It¡¯s pretty marked up, but sure.¡± She passed the notebook up to them, and they examined it with apparent confusion. ¡°Looking for something in particular?¡± ¡°The Triangle Shirtwaist building. Where there was that big fire in the early 1900s.¡± ¡°Oh, that¡¯s right over there.¡± Tabitha pointed toward the park¡¯s northeast corner. ¡°There¡¯s a plaque on the side. You¡¯ll see it once you cross that street and walk to the end of the block.¡± The woman holding the notebook handed it back to her. ¡°Thanks. We¡¯re here with a couple of other friends, but they want to go shopping and we want to see the historic stuff. They kept the guidebook.¡± Tabitha held a hand over her eyes to shield them against the light. ¡°Have you been to Columbus Park? It¡¯s Chinatown now, but it used to be a neighborhood called the Five Points. In the 1800s it was full of slums and gangs and crime. The book How the Other Half Lives was written about it.¡± One of the young women looked at the other. ¡°That was the place in Gangs of New York. The Leo DiCaprio movie.¡± It was hard for Tabitha not to roll her eyes at the mention of the film. All the years of history in that place, all the real human suffering and groundbreaking photojournalism to document it, and all anyone seemed to remember was DiCaprio. But she said, ¡°Yes, that¡¯s the area. It used to be all tenements, and a really dangerous place to live. Where the park is now¡ªin 1852, a fire tore through a row of houses on that block and killed a dozen people. A guy named Sam Sullivan died there, and his whole family¡ªhis mom and sisters. And then slumlords just rebuilt the tenements, but even smaller and shabbier than before. It¡¯s very moving just to sit there and think about it. About how those people lived and died.¡±This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Both women looked uneasy. ¡°Thanks,¡± said the one who had looked at the notebook. ¡°We¡¯ll check that out.¡± The pair wandered off, and Tabitha got up and walked in the opposite direction, stopping to drop her donation into the busker''s violin case. She felt a little awkward about the reaction her Five Points lecture had brought, but they were, after all, on their way to see a building with a different tragic history. For that matter, the very park on which they stood was built upon a cemetery, and beneath their feet lay the bones of thousands upon thousands of people. Most of those people had long since gone to Heaven, or perhaps Hell, according to the complex arithmetic of their lives and the orientation of their souls. Not many had remained in between, trapped in a sort of terrestrial eternity. It was meant to be a punishment, Tabitha knew, but most days it hadn¡¯t felt that way. For more than three hundred years, half of which she had spent with Sam at her side, this life had seemed more like the distant borderlands of Heaven, thin on luxuries and conveniences but altogether fulfilling. Until a year ago. And then, at last, the day arrived when it was finally indistinguishable from Hell. ~ * ~ As evening began to fall, Tabitha stepped into the nicely kept public bathrooms of Washington Square Park and changed from her college-kid jeans and tee into an older, more broken-in set of clothes. She didn¡¯t like the way the short dress attracted male attention, but it looked upscale enough that she could avoid all presumptions of homelessness, and in any case she still hated wearing pants¡ªalthough she had conceded that an active daytime life in the city required them. Old habits died hard, and even after all these years, wearing pants still made her feel like she was dressing in drag. She walked a few blocks to the self-storage lockers to secure her backpack, made her way to the subway, and took the train uptown. It was strange to imagine now that six months ago she had never set foot in this city and knew it mainly through Sam¡¯s stories¡ªall of which told of a New York of cobblestone streets and horse-drawn wagons, of violence and filth and alleys filled with drunken women and young men with knives tucked into their sleeves. He had told her of the cholera outbreak that killed his two brothers, the misery of tannery work under a sadistic manager, and, when he was feeling generous in remembering his previous life, the fleeting joys of a fresh pretzel eaten on the pier or the exhilaration of kissing a girl. He remembered the terror of the fire, and the strange detachment of watching from a distance as the firemen pulled his charred body from the wreckage of the tenement. The new Sam would have been a simple spark then¡ªan ember drifting above the scene, inhabited by his old soul, unaware that a new body even awaited him. Tabitha had experienced the same thing, but the watery version of it: staring up from the bottom of the pond in her Massachusetts village to see her old body flopped just beneath the water¡¯s surface like a rag doll, held in place by the ropes wound around the dunking stool. Her drowning, such an honest human death, had been the definitive evidence that she was not, in fact, the witch her peers had accused her of being. The trial by water had cleared her name, and turned her into something much worse. She got off the train at the 86th Street station and walked the now-familiar route to a particular apartment building near Central Park. Such buildings, which catered to the super-wealthy and the well-known, all had doormen and codes and tight security; they were built to keep out all intruders, and to guard against every possible way a motivated outsider might get in. Every way but hers. Name the forms of water, the Searcher had said to her, when she found her at the bottom of the pond on that chill winter day. Ice and vapor, and¡ªwell¡ªwater, Tabitha had said. The solid, the gas, and the liquid, said the Searcher. Yes. And there¡¯s one more form. The enchanted one. You. It had made no sense to Tabitha. She could tell that her soul was free of her body. She remembered a brief flash of a moment after her drowning, when the space above her burst white and a form made of light appeared, reaching out to her, and she had scrambled away from it in terror. She did not want to take its hand. She would not succumb to its pull. Instead she swam hard against it, plunging herself deeper into the dark water. And it had worked. The light shrank and snapped away, leaving her to the cool formlessness of the watery space. You rejected the Angel, the Searcher explained, but you aren¡¯t damned. Take comfort in that. You chose Earth over Heaven, and so Earth it will be. But your body will be formed now of the element that consumed you. I suppose you could call it magic. The idea had petrified her. She had been raised all her life to know of what this woman spoke, and she knew it was a kind of evil. I want to change my mind, Tabitha told her. I¡¯ll go with the angel. The Searcher sounded weary, and perhaps a little amused. Child, if your soul cried out for Heaven, it would have chosen Heaven. There¡¯s no need to fear what you wanted, and no need to long for what you didn¡¯t. We all end up in the place where we belong. Sam said it much better, many years later, as they sat in a little booth at a smoky and jovial bar in Boston with his arm around her shoulders, taking stock of each new person who walked through the door. She remembered Sam¡¯s leather vest, his floppy half-groomed hair, the way the cigarette smoldered between his fingers as he watched the carousing crowd. Let¡¯s be honest, he said then. I was born to be an incubus. The apartment building loomed thirty stories high, its roof a deep blue against the blackness of the night. Up on the rooftop patio of the penthouse, bright lights showcased the topiaries¡ªleafy balls and spirals, plants from a dream world. She snapped into a thousand droplets and splashed down to the sidewalk, then drew together again, a small puddle rolling toward the gray Emergency Exit door on the building¡¯s side, with its tiny crannies that stood no chance against a sudden unlikely storm. Chapter 3 After work, Sam swung by the bakery with the three bars of Guittard chocolate that Lola had requested. It was just past closing, but Kevin let him in and waved him back to the kitchen, where Lola was sitting at the stainless-steel table with a notepad and pencil, surrounded by the rest of the staff on random chairs and stools. ¡°Three to five items that really represent Portland,¡± she was saying. ¡°Or at least the Pacific Northwest. We can¡¯t just offer a pan of brownies and some chocolate chip cookies and call it a day. This a region-specific food tour, and they want hyper-local stuff only.¡± ¡°They¡¯re kickass chocolate chip cookies,¡± Sam offered, taking a few from the remaining batch on the tray. ¡°Be that as it may,¡± Lola continued, ¡°we need to brainstorm, and give this some deep thought. Because this is one opportunity we don¡¯t want to screw up.¡± Amy raised her eyebrows. ¡°We need at least one vegan item. That¡¯s something that says ¡®Portland¡¯ for sure. I think we should go with the almond milk salted caramel bar.¡± Sam grimaced, but paused as he passed behind her to lean down and kiss her on the neck. ¡°God, get a room, you two,¡± said Lola. She pointed at Sam accusingly with her pencil. ¡°How does he eat like that and stay in that kind of shape? I never even see him exercise.¡± ¡°He doesn¡¯t,¡± said Amy. ¡°It¡¯s weird.¡± ¡°I work it off in the sack,¡± said Sam. Laughter rose up from around the table, and Sam polished off his second cookie. But Lola had turned to him with a serious gaze, which was a little intimidating. Like Amy she was covered in tattoos, and the pink hair and sparkling studs that climbed her ears gave her a pixieish, ethereal beauty, but the tight pull of those little buns made her thin face more severe. She asked, ¡°Seriously, how do you do it?¡± He shrugged. ¡°Fast metabolism.¡± ¡°A good metabolism won¡¯t make you that muscular if you don¡¯t exercise.¡± ¡°I lift fifty-pound bags of flour all day. Believe me, it¡¯s a workout.¡± With a slight frown and a lift of her eyebrows, she conceded the argument. ¡°What about some sort of wild mushroom tart? Should we include a savory item?¡± An energetic debate arose, and Sam palmed his buzzing phone from his pocket. Two missed calls and a text from Susanna. Call me, you moron, it read. Sam slipped out the back door and made the call. The sweet tone of Susanna¡¯s feminine voice belied her recent text. ¡°I¡¯m a little confused,¡± she said. ¡°Isaac was telling me your living situation has changed.¡± ¡°All I did was ask him for a driver¡¯s license. I appreciate the concern and all, but really.¡± Sam¡¯s laugh was short. ¡°Nobody ought to be judging me. I¡¯m being discreet and I¡¯m putting one foot in front of the other. That¡¯s all anyone can ask of me.¡± ¡°Nobody¡¯s judging you. I think our concern¡ªIsaac¡¯s and mine¡ªis that right now, Tabitha¡¯s the one who got in trouble, and it¡¯s because of her that you¡¯re on a temporary ban from each other¡ª¡± ¡°Seventy-five years,¡± Sam interjected. ¡°That¡¯s a pretty broad definition of ¡®temporary.¡¯¡± ¡°But it¡¯s still not permanent.¡± Susanna¡¯s voice stressed each syllable. ¡°Yet if you do something stupid, where you draw attention to yourself, and people start watching you closely and figuring you out¡ªthen you¡¯ll get in trouble, and it will be permanent. So you have to keep your eye on the prize, like they say in sports. This won¡¯t last forever.¡± ¡°Just seventy-four more years.¡± ¡°Well ... yes, but you¡¯ve lived more than twice that long already.¡± Sam laughed ruefully. ¡°I can¡¯t make it. You can¡¯t imagine¡ªI mean, we hit the one-year mark the other day, and I went down to the lake where they took her. It¡¯s absolute torture to stand there, knowing she¡¯s down there, and not be able to see her. And at the same time, I can¡¯t leave her. Portland is practically the worst place in America for somebody like me¡ªI mean, the rain alone ... but I can¡¯t leave knowing she¡¯s here.¡± ¡°Sam¡ª¡± Susanna sounded almost apologetic. ¡°She¡¯s not in that lake. Why do you think she¡¯s there?¡± The words seized his heart. ¡°What are you talking about?¡± ¡°I mean, yes, the Searcher made her come to that lake to deal with the ... issue, but they only held her there for six months or something. She¡¯s moving around freely. But she¡¯s definitely not in Oregon.¡± The thought that he had been wrong all this time¡ªso wrong, and for so long¡ª made Sam instantly frantic. ¡°Where is she?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. You can¡¯t talk to her anyway. You can¡¯t, Sam. But it isn¡¯t right for you to go on thinking this is like her grave right down the street from you. I mean, no.¡± ¡°You know where she is,¡± said Sam. ¡°Just tell me. I know the ban means I can¡¯t talk to her or see her. I just want to know.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, okay? I only heard that she left Oregon. That¡¯s it.¡± ¡°Who told you that?¡± ¡°Meridiana.¡± Meridiana was Tabitha¡¯s oldest friend. Of course she knew. And Sam had asked her that exact question directly, twice in the past six months, and she had claimed to have no idea. He didn¡¯t believe Susanna, either, in her dubious claim to know where Tabby wasn¡¯t but not where she was. He closed his eyes and wished with all his soul that it were possible to strangle a succubus. ¡°This is good news for you,¡± Susanna said¡ªpersuading, soothing. ¡°See, you don¡¯t have to take some crazy step of living with this Amy person just so you can stick around for Tabitha. Travel the country. Come visit me and Isaac. Live it up like you¡¯re still single. The time will pass like it¡¯s nothing. And before you know it, Tabitha will be off punishment and you can go back to being the sweet, adorable couple you¡¯ve always been.¡±If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. That gave him a pang. He leaned back against the wall and rubbed his face wearily. ¡°I¡¯ll figure it out.¡± ¡°Our offer will still stand, anytime you need a place to crash. But text first, because we¡¯ll probably move in a couple years. Last week one of my neighbors asked me my secret to looking so young, and I said ¡®Neutrogena.¡¯ Isaac had to stop me from packing my bags that very night.¡± Sam laughed, already feeling a bit more relaxed. It was good to have options¡ªbut now, faced with the truth, he wasn¡¯t sure whether it eased things or complicated them. All this time, it had crushed him to imagine Tabitha in a place where he couldn¡¯t reach her, couldn¡¯t touch her. If none of that was true, he had no idea how he would handle the temptation just to see her face or hear her voice. If there was one thing this life had taught him, it was that avoiding temptation was not his strong suit. That was, after all, how he had ended up here in the first place. ~ * ~ Owing to their early shifts at the bakery, Sam¡¯s housemates retired very early¡ªat eight o¡¯clock, most nights, so they could rise at three. It was Kevin¡¯s business, in the legal sense, but Lola and Amy and Remy had all been with it from the beginning, and it was easy to see why. Kevin was a generous benefactor. He paid the lion¡¯s share of rent on the house, plus most of the utilities, and threw around money here and there when somebody needed a car repair or dental work or any of the surprise expenses that came with being a regular human living an ordinary life. A few days after Sam¡¯s talk with Susanna, his mind was still in a fog over how to handle the new information, and thus nothing had changed. He fell asleep beside Amy as he always did, curled up against her, knowing that before the night was over he would be awoken by the dependable alarm clock of his own desire. Prepared for this inevitability, he had mentioned to her in passing that he was on the schedule to unload a late-night shipment at Brunson¡¯s and would be gone when she awoke. She was used to this; as far as she knew, Brunson¡¯s took such deliveries two or three times a week, which was the most he had dared to use this excuse since he began sleeping there regularly. It was fortunate that bakery workers had no blessed idea of how their suppliers operated. When he awoke, he slipped out of bed carefully so as not to disturb her, pulling on the boxers he had dropped on the floor a few hours earlier. The rest of his clothes lay in a heap beside the dresser¡ªit was a good thing she was nearly as messy as he¡ªand he quietly carried them downstairs to dress. But when he reached the landing, he spotted a small light glowing in the kitchen. It was the one above the stove, illuminating one corner of the room with a moonlike glow while leaving the rest shrouded in darkness. Turning the corner, he saw Rose sitting at the table with a mug of tea before her, rubbing her forehead with her free hand. Rose was Kevin¡¯s longtime girlfriend, and the one resident besides himself who didn¡¯t work at the bakery; she was a first-year teacher at a nearby elementary school, and to Sam, she looked the part. She had a round face with the faint beginning of a double chin, and a body that seemed to call out for children to sit on her lap¡ªsoft hips, soft breasts, but a nipped little waist. Her long brown hair was usually gathered up in a careless bun, which drew attention, at least for Sam, to her large, vulnerable brown eyes, which Sam suspected were part of the source of her day-to-day tribulations in her classroom. He had been a schoolboy once, and for all her apparent sweetness, she was not a teacher he would have taken seriously. ¡°Oh, hey,¡± he said. ¡°Sorry, I didn¡¯t realize anybody was up.¡± She dismissed his intrusion with a wave of her hand. ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± He set down the bundle of clothes on the floor and quickly pulled on his pants¡ªblack jeans, well-worn¡ªto at least be decent in front of her. As he buckled his belt and glanced at her, he realized her face was wet with tears. He asked, ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± ¡°Just work.¡± ¡°Something happen?¡± She replied with a jerky shrug, but then began crying in earnest. He hastily finished pulling on his black t-shirt and stepped over to her. Crouching beside her chair, he rested his hands against her arm and knee. ¡°Hey. Don¡¯t be upset, okay? Tell me about it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s the same thing as always. My boss, the kids¡ªthey all hate me. Well, the kids don¡¯t hate me. They terrorize me, and then when I try to crack down on them, their parents hate me.¡± She roughly brushed away her tears. ¡°And then they email my boss. It¡¯s an endless cycle. And I know they¡¯re not bad kids¡ª¡± ¡°Sure they are,¡± said Sam. ¡°They¡¯re demonic little bastards.¡± She burst out with a laugh, made uneven by her crying. ¡°No, I know they aren¡¯t,¡± she said dutifully. ¡°I bet some of them are. Every asshole adult starts somewhere. You should have seen the kind of stuff I did when I was a kid. I once cut open my teacher¡¯s blouse with a pair of scissors when she was helping the kid next to me because I wanted to see her, uh¡ªher bra.¡± Rose laughed again, and Sam privately congratulated himself for dodging the word ¡°corset.¡± Rose said, ¡°But you didn¡¯t grow up to be an asshole.¡± ¡°Depends on who you ask.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not. You¡¯re nice.¡± She took a shuddering breath and wiped away her remaining tears. ¡°Kevin says I should just quit. He¡¯s tired of hearing about it. All he ever says is that this is why a person should own their own business and not have to deal with BS from administrators and the state.¡± ¡°That¡¯s one way to do it. Not sure running a bakery gets you out of BS from the state, though. Between inspections and licensing and taxes and everything else.¡± She jutted out a hand in agreement. ¡°Right? Ugh. I don¡¯t mean to complain about him. I just had a bad day. I know you have to get to work.¡± He rose up from his crouch and held out his arms to offer her a hug. She stood and accepted it, wrapping her arms around his neck. The gesture began to make her cry anew, a single shuddering sob, but then she stopped herself. He held her tight for a few moments, and then she pushed back. She said, ¡°That¡¯s one heck of a cologne you¡¯re wearing.¡± He felt momentarily embarrassed. Eau de Sam, Tabitha used to call it¡ªthe cocktail of pheromones his body produced to make him appealing to human women, which in quantity was practically an enchantment in itself. His prowling clothes, in which he had just dressed, were saturated in it. He let her go. ¡°How are you doing?¡± she asked, to his surprise. He cocked his head. ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°Just¡ª¡± Her shoulders lifted and fell, as if the words to explain it eluded her. ¡°You always look so sad.¡± In the awkwardness of her observing this, he laughed. ¡°Just getting past a rough year.¡± ¡°Well, if you ever want to talk about it¡ªI¡¯m glad to listen, all right? And I can keep a confidence.¡± He smiled tightly. Not about this stuff, you can¡¯t, he thought. He could just imagine how she would react if he sat down beside her and spelled it out. It¡¯s like this, see, he would begin. I¡¯m one of the Mara¡ªthe people of nightmares. It¡¯s an old Norse name, because we¡¯ve been around for a long, long time. We bring you your filthy dreams, and make you think it really was just a dream, and not us physically in your bed, having you. Those big brown eyes. How they would grow. But then, she would surely think it was just another of his jokes. He could probably keep going and tell her anything¡ªabout his partnership with Tabitha, and their role in the creation of the half-magical children called cambions, and the one inviolable rule never to interfere with the illusion that such a dream was merely a dream. He could tell her how Tabitha had broken that rule, but that it had been his fault, too. And then he would nosedive into genuine despair, and Rose would decide he was insane. Unlike Tabitha, he couldn¡¯t be punished. As an incubus, the leaders who ruled over the succubi held no power over him, in the technical sense; they couldn¡¯t punish him directly. They could only label him an Obstructor and make it a crime to partner with him, once and for all. That was what Susanna kept trying to remind him about, and she was right. If it ever came to that, he would throw up his hands and call it a day. He wasn¡¯t immortal, just hard to kill. There were still plenty of ways he could snuff himself out. ¡°Thanks,¡± he said. Right now his existential crisis was off less importance than his immediate need, which was to get the hell out of this house and find himself a dreamer. ¡°I¡¯ll keep that in mind.¡± He kissed her on the top of her head, spontaneously, and headed out into the chilly spring darkness. Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Twenty-six stories above Fifth Avenue, Tabitha found her dreamer fast asleep. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief when she slipped under the door and saw him lying in his bed, one arm lazing off the edge, dressed in basketball shorts and nothing else. The past two times she had visited him, he had been gone. The boy¡ªand he was really not much more than a boy¡ªhad rebelliously longish blond hair tousled by sleep and a long Roman nose a bit too prominent for his narrow face. He stood at least six feet tall and his biceps were rather pretty, but he was otherwise skinny and quite pale. She had first seen him standing outside a coffee shop wearing his private school blazer and khakis, eyes locked on his phone. He was a senior, she learned, rummaging around in his bedroom once she¡¯d followed him home. That was good enough for her. On the last day of her human life she had been seventeen years old, so in mortal terms, they were the same age. He was not her type, physically. She sought out bigger men, thicker men, ones with strong shoulders and indifferent haircuts and noses that suggested they didn¡¯t always walk away from a fight. She liked variety, but even when she ventured far from her usual preferences, she rarely wandered as far as the Kid. He had other endearing qualities, however. She stepped over to his bedside and lowered her face to his, tucking her long hair behind her ear. Softly, she breathed over his mouth and nose. The unique quality of her breath¡ªthey called it miasma¡ªwas how it worked as a sort of twilight anesthesia, allowing the dreamer to see and move and express their desires while still rendering it all as a dream in their mind. This was the crucial moment, because if he spurned her presence, she had to leave. And she very much hoped that he would not do that. Instead, he parted his lips and kissed her. The kiss excited her more than she had expected it would. She climbed into his bed, straddling his hips, and kissed him deeper. He pulled at her dress, and she tugged it over her head, letting it drop to the floor. His hands were on her breasts, pushing her bra roughly down, but she didn¡¯t care that he was overeager. For that, she was hardly in a position to criticize. The space around them was unnervingly silent, but for the sounds of their kissing. It was an impossibly large bedroom for a boy of seventeen, with a ceiling raised up at an extravagant height and windows that looked out over the busy side street, where it had started to rain, causing the stone of the nearby buildings to gleam in the streetlight-gilded dark. It was a tidy room, too, cleaned daily by a maid, who arranged the blue accessories on the white desk and the blue curios on the white bookshelf, and on and on around the room, at whose center was a white bed with blue pillowcases and a senior boy with a slender woman straddling him. She took him out of his shorts and mounted him, and at this he clasped her hips and moaned. She tipped her own face upward, toward that grandiose ceiling, and closed her eyes, letting the feeling of him suffuse her. There was pleasure to be had with men like this, even if they were not the ones she would have chosen, and even if she would rather be, every day and every hour, with Sam. After they had finished, and she had kissed him one last time to keep him dreaming, she pulled her dress over her head and quickly located his khakis by the laundry bin. In the left pocket she found a set of earbuds and a cigarette lighter. In the right, a business card, a wrapper from a Jolly Rancher, a small empty cocaine baggie, and two hundred and seventy-six dollars. She tucked the money into her bra and slipped back under the door, a shimmering puddle. Down on the street, she hurried toward the subway station, past police officers and businessmen coming home from the bars, and the occasional homeless person, though on rainy days like this one they mostly found shelter in one place or another. Soon she would do the same, slipping into one of the many water features that made the city parks so beautiful in the spring. But for now, she got on the train and headed downtown, where she could safely stash the cash in her bag with the rest of it. She knew the fear was probably irrational, but she worried that the money wouldn¡¯t stick with her when she was under the water all night, and it would somehow return to its form and float to the surface, offering a windfall to the locals and a night of wasted effort to her. It would all be worth it if she found the relic. When she did¡ªand she was certain she would, she had to believe she would¡ªshe would have enough money to pay for it, whatever it cost. It was the only way out of this punishment, or at least she hoped it was, because she could think of nothing else. And she had to keep moving forward. She owed Sam everything, but to start with, at least this much. ~ * ~ The section of Brooklyn that was called Williamsburg was a hipster paradise. The clothing shops were all minimalist, the grocery stores advertised organic and vegan and non-GMO specialties, and the coffee shops showed rows of Mac laptops along the window tables. As Tabitha walked up the street toward the museum she was seeking, the people flowing past her, especially the men, all had a certain unifying look. Close-fitting band T-shirts under plaid flannels, jeans that fit snugly all the way to the ankle, messenger bags, knitted beanie hats over carelessly mussed hair: it reminded her of the way Sam began dressing after they moved to Portland, which she had teased him about with regularity. Those pants look very inconvenient for prowling, she would point out, but he shrugged off her jests with the line he¡¯d been using for a very long time: When in Rome.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. She stopped beside a glossy ¡°speakeasy¡±¡ªa claim that forced her to control a snort of derision¡ªto check the map on her phone. The museum was just a few blocks ahead, two up and one over. This neighborhood, in the balance of things, was not so bad; she would have to keep it in mind for evening excursions, for nights when she needed a break from the more pragmatic options. The vaguely industrial grittiness of its architecture reminded her of Lowell, which she still sorely missed, and she had passed a couple of very appealing small bookstores, which would be a fine way to kill time while awaiting a later hour. Besides, while she was fairly confident that there was a Searcher keeping an eye on her in Manhattan, she probably wouldn¡¯t be bothered to track Tabitha all the way across the river to Brooklyn. The nature of a Searcher was that she was a very old and weary succubus, and that she operated within certain geographical boundaries, trolling the waterways for newly created succubi and keeping watch over the troublesome ones in the same area. Manhattan itself had to be an exhausting assignment, and a second borough was surely not in her job description. It would be refreshing to be able to visit a dreamer without feeling as if someone might always be watching her, waiting with bated breath to see if she would awaken him and speak to him directly again. As if she would ever have reason to do that twice. She arrived at the entrance to the museum, which proved, to her surprise, to be nothing but a small storefront with a slightly dilapidated sign. Museum of Gotham Ephemera, it read in Victorian script. Immediately inside, two dark wooden cases fitted into a corner caught her eye with a magnificent assortment of mementos. Painted ceramic plates and old bottles and medicine boxes from the pharmacies of days past, worn wooden tools, tickets on sepia paper, milky Depression glass and an old clock in an intricate silver setting. She pulled in a sharp breath and walked up to the display, enchanted. ¡°Good morning.¡± The man sitting at a desk to the left was portly and scruffily dressed, with a frizz of gray hair and a bushy beard to match. He had on a tweed newsboy¡¯s cap, like the kind Sam had worn for many years and still sometimes did. Tabitha said, ¡°I¡¯ve seen you before.¡± ¡°And I, you.¡± He smiled in a shy way, lips closed over his teeth. ¡°Playing chess in the park.¡± The memory came back to her. He was one of the men who sat at the stone chess tables in Washington Square Park, offering to play against people for five dollars per game. She stood and watched sometimes, enjoying the mild entertainment of some good-natured but cocky young man getting flustered as the old master slowly wiped the table with him. She smiled. ¡°You never lose.¡± ¡°Sometimes I do.¡± He took out a ticket from the stack beside him, though it looked more like a memento itself than a necessity in this place. ¡°Are you here to see the museum?¡± ¡°I suppose so.¡± ¡°It¡¯s five dollars.¡± She unrolled a bill from the wad inside her bag and handed it over. ¡°Did you help put this place together?¡± ¡°Somewhat. It¡¯s a community effort. I¡¯m more of a curator of what¡¯s offered to us. Not every broken bottle swept up in a storage room is a piece of New York history.¡± ¡°Depends on what it held, I suppose. Or who held it.¡± ¡°Correct. We do have quite a few bottles that passed muster. They¡¯re over there, in the cabinet with the horses¡¯ teeth. People dig those out of their courtyards all the time.¡± He nodded toward the back of the room. ¡°Something in particular you¡¯re interested in?¡± ¡°As a matter of fact, yes.¡± He looked up at her with interest. She was glad to see it was not merely a polite question. This was a man who liked puzzles. ¡°I heard about a saint¡¯s relic that made its way to New York many years ago,¡± she told him. ¡°It¡¯s called the Hand of St. Bridget, but they say it was probably a finger bone. An Irish immigrant woman brought it here, supposedly, and tried to sell it to a priest when she ran short of money. Have you heard of it?¡± He gave a single shake of his head. ¡°Can¡¯t say that I have. Did she sell it, or only try to?¡± ¡°Well, as the story goes, he looked it up and saw that it had been stolen in the twelfth century¡ªthat a knight led an army through a village, and ransacked it, and took the relic from the local church. So this priest¡ªsomewhere in Manhattan, it¡¯s said¡ªclaimed it as stolen church property and refused to pay her for it. She was angry, of course, and returned with her son, who demanded it back, and knocked the priest out when he refused. They got the relic back, but in the end they were both arrested and sent to prison, and she refused to say what she¡¯d done with it.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± Tabitha shifted her backpack on her shoulders. ¡°Of course, it could just be an anecdotal story. I ... I hope it isn¡¯t, though.¡± The man looked at her with faintly amused curiosity. ¡°You have some connection to all this?¡± ¡°I just like St. Bridget.¡± ¡°Any idea what year this happened? The tussle with the priest, I mean.¡± ¡°No.¡± He nodded. ¡°Well, I can do a little research for you. See if anything turns up about it. Interesting story.¡± He pulled a hand through his beard. ¡°Sounds like she could have sold it on the black market. That, or she chucked it into the fireplace or the river.¡± ¡°She didn¡¯t throw it in the river.¡± The man looked at her sharply, and Tabitha realized at once how her comment had sounded. ¡°I mean, it wouldn¡¯t make sense for her to do that, if it was valuable.¡± ¡°No, but sometimes people would rather destroy something than let the wrong person get their hands on it.¡± ¡°Yes. Well ... I¡¯d love it if you could let me know if you find out anything.¡± She wrote her phone number on the back of her ticket stub and handed it to the man, but he looked doubtful. ¡°Believe it or not, I¡¯m not very good at keeping track of things,¡± he said. ¡°And I don¡¯t really do cellphone business. You could just come by in a week or two, and I¡¯ll tell you if I¡¯ve learned anything. Or if you happen to see me in the park, but only after I¡¯m done playing for the day.¡± ¡°All right. That works for me.¡± It seemed an interminable wait, but she had been here for four months already. She could manage a little patience. ¡°In the meantime, enjoy the museum.¡± He swept a hand grandly toward the exhibits. ¡°Welcome to old New York.¡± Chapter 5 Chapter 5 After an afternoon rainshower finally cleared, Sam headed out to the backyard with Kevin to grub out a stump that was taking up space in the women¡¯s designated organic gardening area. The three of them together had pored over seed catalogs over the dark winter months and decided they had urgent need of a garden, and for weeks the tables beneath the windows had held clusters of seedlings approaching an increasingly pot-bound state. Now Sam needed to stop procrastinating and build the thing. The garden, to Sam, was a stupid idea in every respect. Standing in the yard, he gauged the level of sun that managed to make its way past the branches of the many surrounding trees. It was laughable, the idea that any vegetables might consider this patch of shadowy land to be hospitable. Besides, the people who lived here had no time to weed and water and address any nascent infestations of bugs or mildew before they flourished out of control. Sam did not actually need to eat in order to survive, but food was one of the primary pleasures of life, and at least here in America it could be had cheaply and easily. He didn¡¯t understand this mentality of people in the twenty-first century going to nineteenth-century efforts to produce a tomato. He had been around then, and it wasn¡¯t that great. But then, nobody had asked his opinions about time management or the perspectives of history. They had only asked him to grub out a stump. He lifted the pickaxe above his head and brought it down around the roots. The stump was half-rotted and had been softened slightly by the recent rain, and so the work was relatively easy. As he worked, Kevin moved gingerly around the space, picking up sticks and eyeing the configurations of the land as if there might still be some debate over the size and orientation of the garden box. Back in Lowell, when Sam worked intermittently as a house painter, he had worked with a lot of managers like Kevin: people who weren¡¯t about to get dirty, but would keep a hawkeye on you to ensure you stayed on task. Still, it didn¡¯t bother Sam in this instance. He knew who paid the bills. ¡°Suppose you and Rose¡¯ll be watching over this thing while the rest of us are away on the food tour,¡± said Kevin. ¡°In late June it¡¯ll really look like something.¡± ¡°What about Remy?¡± Kevin had mentioned that Remy would be left behind to run the bakery in their absence, along with the various staff who didn¡¯t share the house. ¡°Yeah¡ªhe¡¯ll be real busy, though.¡± For a minute, silently, he watched Sam work. Then he asked, ¡°You used to live in Boston, right?¡± ¡°Near there. Lowell. I spent a lot of time in Boston, though.¡± ¡°It¡¯s one of our stops. You¡¯re gonna have to tell us some good places to hit while we¡¯re there.¡± ¡°Sure.¡± Sam paused, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. ¡°I used to eat off the food trucks a lot, when I was painting, and I hit a lot of bars. There was this one place¡ª¡± He laughed, remembering. ¡°The Blind Tiger. Me and my girl¡ªTabitha¡ªwe used to go there pretty often, because I could kind of hustle people at darts. She always thought I was going to get nabbed for illegal gambling, but I mean, it¡¯s just a bet. I can¡¯t help it if I¡¯m a better player. One night I was playing with this guy, and all of a sudden seven or eight cops busted in and arrested him. It turned out he¡¯d murdered two people. But in the chaos of it, she thought they were coming after me. The girl about had a heart attack.¡± Kevin grinned broadly. He was a serious guy, not much for laughing at people¡¯s jokes, but Sam could tell he liked the story. ¡°So this wasn¡¯t that long ago. You¡¯re how old¡ªtwenty-three?¡± In fact, it had been almost fifteen years ago, but the bar was still around, and you could still play darts there. And Sam knew that if he gave the actual year, it would have appeared he was eight years old at the time the story took place. So he only said, ¡°Yeah, a couple years, maybe.¡± ¡°Amy told me what happened. About the accident. Sucks, man.¡± It took a moment for Sam to place what he was saying. Then he remembered the tale he had told Amy months ago: that Tabitha was his high school sweetheart, and that he¡¯d lost her in a car accident the previous spring. At first, with Amy, he¡¯d tried not to say a word about Tabby, but soon realized that it was impossible to undo a hundred and sixty years of habitually telling stories using the word ¡°we.¡± Still, he tried to speak of her as little as possible. It wasn¡¯t fair to Amy to make her feel like he was always lost in the labyrinth of his memories, even if it was true. ¡°Yeah, it sucked,¡± Sam agreed. He went back to hacking at the stump. Kevin kept talking to him. ¡°So, with you living here now¡ªthis means you and Amy are, like, exclusive, right? You¡¯re not both still dating other people.¡± He shot Kevin a screwy look. ¡°Were we ever?¡± ¡°Well, I don¡¯t know. Remy and Lola, you know ...¡± Sam knew. They were openly chatty about being polyamorous, which gave Sam the heebie-jeebies, which he knew was ridiculous given that he was, at this very moment, about as polyamorous as it was possible for a person to be. Only the previous night, just after he had hugged Rose in the kitchen¡¯s intimate dimness, he found his way into the bed of a dreaming woman who had more than appreciated the providence of his arrival. And on top of that, there was the fact that he and Tabitha weren¡¯t broken up, only separated by a sort of dictatorial court order, and that they still loved each other every bit as much as they always had. He had no doubt that she felt the same as he did, even though he couldn¡¯t ask her. Lola and Remy¡¯s version of polyamory was child¡¯s play by comparison with his own life. Of course, theirs was by mutual consent. He knew perfectly well that Amy would be furious if she knew about his nighttime rounds, but he also knew he could just as soon give it up as she could give up eating. And within the demands that his nature imposed on him, he tried to be sporting about it. He wasn¡¯t greedy; he paced himself; if anything, he starved a little between encounters, so diligently was he trying not to raise suspicion by being out of the house too much at night. And when he observed how Lola and Remy lived, he felt a sort of thieves¡¯ virtue. In all his time with Tabitha, they had never found it acceptable to build intimate bonds with people besides each other, pursue other partners for the recreation of it, or¡ªof all the repugnant ideas¡ªinvite other people into their own bed. When they were together, it was only them. They gave themselves entirely to each other, and in those moments the rest of the world could go to hell. ¡°We¡¯re not like that,¡± said Sam, finally pulling his thoughts back to Kevin¡¯s suggestion. ¡°Good for them that they can handle it. I wouldn¡¯t be able to. And I don¡¯t think it¡¯s Amy¡¯s speed, either.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve known that girl for a long time,¡± he said. ¡°She¡¯s a sweetheart. She¡¯s gotten trampled on by assholes more than once.¡± Sam stopped swinging and grinned at the provocation. ¡°What are you trying to say?¡± ¡°Nothing, just ... she let you in, so, you know ... be good to her. Treat her right.¡± Sam threw him a look of side-eyed reprimand and hoisted the pickaxe again. ¡°I know how to work a relationship,¡± he said, and muttered under his breath, ¡°Do I ever.¡± Kevin tossed the handful of sticks onto the haphazard woodpile by the fence. For months Sam had spent nearly all his free time with Kevin and the others¡ªfar more time than he had spent around any humans, or at least waking ones, since he¡¯d stopped being one himself. All things considered, they knew him well; knew his habits and quirks and weaknesses, his sense of humor, the things that delighted and disgusted him. Kevin¡¯s sudden paternalistic concern for Amy annoyed him more than he wanted to admit to himself. He turned his attention back to the hard physical work at hand, which was gratifying and good, and which showcased the uncanny strength and endurance of his body. If that intimidated Kevin, then all the better. He didn¡¯t need to know where it came from. ~ * ~ Once Amy got home from the bakery, Sam proposed they go out to dinner¡ªjust the two of them, for once. They ended up at a gastropub¡ªthe type with brick walls and high ceilings and pseudo-industrial decor, which was Sam¡¯s favorite type of dining establishment¡ªwhere he got two very good beers and a corned beef hash that made him want to weep with its perfection. He and Amy shared a plate of truffle fries, and alone there with her, on a date, it struck him anew what a supreme pleasure it is to share food with someone, especially a lover. It was something he had never been able to do with Tabitha. His body quickly burned whatever food he put into it, but in hers, food was a foreign object that simply sat there and made her feel deathly ill until she broke herself apart into droplets to get rid of it. There were many advantages to being made of water rather than fire, but the inability to eat was a particularly bad tradeoff. On this night, when he still felt touchy about Kevin¡¯s comments and was trying to take to heart Susanna¡¯s advice to get down off his cross about Tabitha, he leaned in to feed Amy fries across the table and let himself feel the genuine joy and intimacy of the moment. After dinner¡ªfor it had been early¡ªthey drove to a nearby park and hiked through the springtime woods, where the trees were just beginning to burst forth with yellow-green leaves and the wet moss formed a rolling carpet in varied shades of sage and emerald, dotted with purple and gray. The park¡¯s keepers had laid down wooden paths over the muddiest places, and on these Amy walked ahead of him, giving him the chance to admire her from the back. She had put on a light nylon jacket and her hiking boots, but also wore shorts that barely reached below her inner thighs, and with her hair down and spread across her shoulders she looked incredibly youthful, younger than even her twenty-two years. At length they arrived at an abandoned stone house a little way off the path¡ªa remnant of some long-ago settler, now with one wall caved in and the remaining ones mostly covered in graffiti and moss. They went over to explore it, and when they rounded it to the side that faced the woods, Amy backed him against the wall and unbuckled his belt, thrusting her hand into his shorts to get him excited¡ªnot that he needed much help. It wasn¡¯t long before they traded places and he took her quickly in the shadow of the far corner, finishing just before a family wandered over with two boisterous kids. Amy giggled as he hastily zipped up his fly and tried to maintain his balance. Afterward, they made their way over to a low stone wall and heaved themselves up to sit on it. Sam took out a cigarette, and Amy held out her hand to request one as well. It made Sam smile with secret pleasure as he lit it for her. Amy didn¡¯t smoke very often¡ªnot cigarettes, anyway¡ªbut he liked it when she did, and it made him feel somehow closer to her, more aligned. It was yet another indulgence he couldn¡¯t enjoy with Tabby, not because she couldn¡¯t but because she didn¡¯t care to. ¡°We should do that kind of thing more often,¡± said Amy, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. ¡°Keeps it interesting.¡± ¡°I¡¯m in.¡± She grinned. ¡°Of course you are. You¡¯re the one who finished.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll take care of you when we get home. Promise.¡± ¡°Oh, I know you will.¡± She looked thoughtful as she took a drag. ¡°Kevin texted me about the conversation he had with you earlier.¡±The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Sam looked away from her, ostensibly to exhale but also to conceal any visible scowl. ¡°Yeah. He couldn¡¯t have made his point any better unless he¡¯d been polishing a shotgun as he said it.¡± ¡°He¡¯s just being protective. I don¡¯t think he was expecting you to move in when you did. I thought he understood, but apparently the communication wires got crossed a little.¡± ¡°Is it a problem?¡± ¡°No, not at all. You know he¡¯s a control freak, that¡¯s all. He doesn¡¯t like being caught by surprise.¡± She glanced at him. ¡°Anyway, he¡¯s probably also trying out his daddy mode. Rose is pregnant.¡± Sam turned his head abruptly to face her. He hadn¡¯t seen that coming at all. ¡°For serious? Are you sure?¡± ¡°Yeah, she told me almost a month ago, but it was top-secret.¡± She issued a jaded laugh. ¡°Anything to get out of that job, apparently.¡± ¡°Maybe that¡¯s what she¡¯s been so emotional.¡± ¡°Could be. And obviously it was a surprise, or maybe one of those ¡®let¡¯s pretend the inevitable isn¡¯t going to happen if we do this¡¯ surprises. But it caught Kevin off-guard, that¡¯s for sure.¡± Sam shook his head. ¡°Thank God for the gift of birth control pills.¡± ¡°And the fact that you don¡¯t ejaculate.¡± He cut a sideways glance at her¡ªa look he knew, even in the moment, reflected perfect guilt. ¡°What, you thought I wouldn¡¯t notice?¡± Amy¡¯s tone was light, but there was something hardened in her eyes. ¡°Of course I¡¯m going to notice. You¡¯re not the first guy I¡¯ve been with, you know. Normally, it¡¯s kind of a mess.¡± Sam dragged on his cigarette to buy himself a moment. It had crossed his mind, early on, that this might come up, but at the time he hadn¡¯t expected the relationship to keep on for so long. From the beginning he¡¯d claimed that oral never did it for him, and when she took that as a challenge, a little well-timed domination always moved things forward before it got awkward. He wasn¡¯t new to this game; in particularly lean times he and Tabby had both done their share of standard sex work, and on the rare occasion the client commented on it, Sam was used to claiming he was simply spent from an earlier engagement. But that excuse didn¡¯t fly in a relationship. He¡¯d been foolhardy not to expect that she would eventually ask. ¡°It¡¯s just the way I was born,¡± he told her. Which was true. Not of his first life, but of his second, when the purpose of this new body was to take in the seed his partner collected, render it within the furnace of his body, and deliver it, in turn, to women who would never know their role in the great hidden machinery that kept humanity going. The children they bore¡ªthe cambions¡ªlooked and acted human, but weren¡¯t, exactly. They were all immune to death by war and famine and pestilence, and thus blessed to survive the disasters which periodically threatened the world. Sometimes, though rarely, they were born with extraordinary skills. Over the years he and Tabby had made thousands of them¡ªand when the Spanish flu arrived in 1918, they all survived, sometimes alone among their unenchanted siblings in a family wracked by loss. When wars broke out, and soldiers were called up, the cambions all came home. The magic lasted only a single generation, and the children they bore were fully human. Whether Sam was inclined to feel guilty for the duplicity or proud of the moral high ground, it didn¡¯t matter. He would do what his nature called him to do, because he couldn¡¯t do anything else. Amy looked skeptical. ¡°But you do come, right? Because if you don¡¯t, those are some Oscar-worthy performances you¡¯ve been giving.¡± Sam nodded avidly and blew smoke out the side of his mouth. ¡°Oh, yeah. Not faking that, believe me.¡± ¡°So, are you ... sterile?¡± That was a sensitive subject for Sam. Could he ever have a child of his own body? No. But it wasn¡¯t accurate, and it felt more than a little emasculating, to suggest that he couldn¡¯t impregnate a woman. In fact, when he was with Tabby, he impregnated women all the time. He couldn¡¯t do it without a succubus, and the children he made would not resemble him, but still he made them¡ªearly and often. ¡°No,¡± he said succinctly. ¡°Oh, you¡¯re not.¡± She looked surprised by this. ¡°Well, I guess that makes sense, since sperm are microscopic and all that. Maybe it¡¯s just the rest of the stuff that your body doesn¡¯t make.¡± Sam shrugged. Getting into further details was bound to end in some sort of conversation that would end up winning the attention of that pair of deranged harpies the succubi called their Leaders. ¡°Anyway, you¡¯ve never seemed too concerned about it,¡± she added. ¡°I¡¯m not. All the pleasure, none of the mess. Seems like a good enough deal to me.¡± She laughed. ¡°True enough. Come on, let¡¯s head back home.¡± ~ * ~ On a Saturday early in May, when the house was nearly empty from bakery people working the crazy weekend-morning shift, Sam awoke to the sound of Rose getting sick in the bathroom on the other side of the wall. The poor girl sounded miserable, and as if by instinct he rolled out of bed and padded over to the other room, pushed open her bathroom door, and gathered up the hair she was trying to hold back from her face. ¡°Oh, Jesus,¡± she said at his sudden intrusion, but her voice was weak and she lacked the energy to shove him away. She threw up again, coughing pitifully. Sam rubbed her back with his remaining hand. ¡°I¡¯m okay,¡± she claimed, dubiously, and sat back on her heels. Sam let go of her hair and filled the tumbler beside the sink with water, then handed it to her. She rinsed out her mouth and spat, made a small sound of disgust, and sat back against the wall. Her eyelids dropped closed in something like exhaustion. He leaned against the sink cabinet, his hands wrapped around the marble edge, and waited for her color to turn from its current green. She took a small sip of water, then another. Her gaze flicked up to him, her nose and mouth still obscured by the cut glass of the tumbler. She looked embarrassed. ¡°I don¡¯t have the flu or anything,¡± she managed to say. ¡°You¡¯re not going to catch anything from me.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not worried about it,¡± he said. He wouldn¡¯t have been, in any case. ¡°I¡¯m just¡ª¡± ¡°I know.¡± She lowered the glass. ¡°Who told you?¡± ¡°Amy.¡± Rose rolled her eyes with a vehemence that was unintentionally revealing. After a moment she said, ¡°Kevin doesn¡¯t want me telling anyone yet.¡± ¡°Kevin¡¯s kind of a dick sometimes.¡± She smiled. ¡°Well, you¡¯re a gentleman. It takes a real gentleman to hold back a lady¡¯s hair while she¡¯s puking.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a nice thing for you to say while I¡¯m standing here in my underwear.¡± Her laugh was almost silent, seemingly more for herself than for him. She seemed to ponder her thought before she spoke. ¡°I hear you guys all the time, you know.¡± ¡°Hear what?¡± ¡°You and Amy. Having sex.¡± She gestured toward the dividing wall. ¡°It¡¯s funny. I¡¯ll just be sitting in bed reading, and she¡¯ll be going and going.¡± ¡°Sorry. I thought the walls were pretty thick.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. It¡¯s just ... it¡¯s funny.¡± She rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Her hair, normally twisted up in that simple bun, was wild around her shoulders. ¡°Oh, Sam. What am I going to do.¡± The question, spoken with such resignation, seemed strange. Perhaps she had just said it to fill the silence¡ªbut the answer was obvious. Finish the job, at least for the year. Have the baby. Raise it. ¡°What else do you need?¡± he asked. It was the only thing he could think of to say. She opened her eyes and looked at him. He wondered what he was supposed to understand. After a silence she said, ¡°Crackers.¡± ¡°Like, saltines?¡± ¡°Yeah, those are good.¡± He turned smoothly out the bathroom door and jogged down the stairs to fetch them for her. ~ * ~ ¡°Okay, I¡¯ve given this some thought,¡± said Isaac. ¡°Have you ordered a license from China yet?¡± ¡°No.¡± Sam wished this call had come at virtually any hour all day other than this one. It was a beautiful evening, and all six of them had gathered in the yard, in high spirits, to make the most of it. Remy was setting up the cast-iron fire pit, and Lola and Kevin were carrying out most of the liquor from the house by double handfuls of bottlenecks. Someone had set up a stereo and cued up ¡°Last Dance with Mary Jane.¡± ¡°Good. Here¡¯s the deal. Susanna and I really just want to make sure you¡¯re okay. Why don¡¯t you come down here for a few days and we¡¯ll make the license while you¡¯re here? And whatever other paperwork you need, Social Security card or whatever, we can put it together at the same time.¡± It was an obvious ruse designed to lure him to Nashville for some sort of intervention, but Sam wasn¡¯t sure this was such a bad deal. The first leg of the food tour began in a week, and everyone would be gone then anyway. He could get the time off from Brunson¡¯s. And the part of him that was all incubus, the monster part he wrestled with constantly for control, rejoiced at the idea of escape and travel and novelty. ¡°Maybe so, yeah,¡± he said. ¡°Let me put in for time off at work. I¡¯ll see which days they give me.¡± ¡°Awesome.¡± Isaac sounded so happy, Sam knew at once that Susanna must have put him up to this. ¡°Text me when you get the dates.¡± Sam tucked away his phone and jogged back over to the group. Amy had dragged over a patio table and was setting up a mojito bar on it¡ªwhite rum, mint, lime wedges, little cans of soda water stacked in a pyramid. This was what he loved about her¡ªthat she threw herself fully into the experience of whatever fun presented itself, whether it was setting up a Martha Stewart-worthy mojito bar at a spontaneous backyard gathering, or taking the well-timed appearance of picturesque ruins in the woods as an opportunity for a quick semi-public screw. His conversation with Susanna had lifted from his shoulders the weight of his stay in Portland, but not in the way he¡¯d expected. He no longer felt a duty to stay here, but instead a kind of relief that he wasn¡¯t living it up while Tabitha languished in a lake just a few miles away. Logically, he was doing the right thing by not pursuing her. And he knew she wanted him to survive this, not spend every waking minute pondering just how close he was to sticking a gun in his mouth. ¡°Sam!¡± He held up a hand to catch the beer Remy was throwing to him. There were s¡¯mores. The burned marshmallows didn¡¯t bother him at all, and the girls squealed with revulsion when he happily ate the ones they had inadvertently set on fire. There was music, and there were Amy¡¯s mojitos, and there was Lola demonstrating, with Remy spotting her, the acrobatic feats that had won her competitions when she was a teenager. Rose wasn¡¯t drinking, but when Remy handed Sam his guitar, she cheerfully sang a Barenaked Ladies song that he managed to strum out, while he joined in with the harmony. Amy hadn¡¯t realized that he could play at all, and she seemed dazzled by this particular ability of his. It made him feel good. He handed the guitar back to Remy and got up to grab another beer and light a smoke, turning away from the group so he could light it the way he did when nobody was looking, with a touch of his finger, and not have to bother with his Zippo. When he stopped at the cooler to pick up the beer, Kevin grinned. ¡°Jesus, how many is that for you?¡± ¡°Five. I think.¡± ¡°Man, you¡¯re going to be piss-drunk.¡± Sam didn¡¯t get drunk¡ªon the contrary, drinking was literally throwing fuel on the fire, and it energized him¡ªbut the phrasing made him realize now was an excellent opportunity to play human for the observant eyes around him. He couldn¡¯t drink liquid unless there was a good amount of alcohol in it to counter the quenching effect of the water, and the way he processed it, he never actually needed to pee. But with enough beers working their way through his system, he could make it happen. It was a surprisingly important thing, living alongside humans. People¡¯s entire days revolved around the proximity of a bathroom, and if you didn¡¯t need it, they noticed. ¡°Now that you mention it,¡± he said, and staggered off to a nearby tree. Repulsed and scandalized shrieks went up, but he gamely opened his fly and peed anyway. It was oddly soothing, the old ritual of assuming a bracing stance and pulling back his foreskin and shaking himself off when he was done. He felt uncannily human. He picked up his beer again on the way back. Lola said, ¡°Sam, the first step is admitting you¡¯re powerless over your addiction.¡± He popped off the cap with a twist inside his elbow. ¡°Are you calling me an alcoholic?¡± ¡°I¡¯m just saying, when do we ever see Sam drink anything that isn¡¯t alcohol.¡± He cocked his head toward his girlfriend. ¡°Amy¡¯s the alcoholic. You can sobriety-test me anytime you want.¡± ¡°Hey, I¡¯m fine,¡± returned Amy. ¡°I think you¡¯re both shitfaced.¡± ¡°You¡¯re dead wrong,¡± Sam informed her good-naturedly. ¡°I¡¯m steady as a rock. We could do the goddamn lift scene from Dirty Dancing if we had to.¡± Lola burst out in inebriated laughter. ¡°You lose man-points just for knowing Dirty Dancing that well.¡± ¡°You can¡¯t take man-points away from Sam.¡± Amy, though not actually shitfaced, was definitely drunk. ¡°You ought to see how this guy is hung. He¡¯s got like Vegas jackpot man-points.¡± ¡°It¡¯s all in how you use it,¡± said Kevin. Sam smiled at him. ¡°I also know how to use it.¡± Amy giggled. Sam held out a hand in a magnanimous gesture. ¡°What do you say, baby? You want to prove we¡¯re still sober enough to dance?¡± ¡°Fucking yes.¡± She walked backwards across the yard, arms out slightly for balance, and Sam crouched a bit to brace himself for her run. ¡°You¡¯re going to set her on fire,¡± called Lola, but they were well back from the fire. She began running toward him, laughing, and hit his hands with a little too much speed, but he was prepared for that. Her position was good, and she was light. He managed to lift her into the air for a moment, almost fully above his head, his hands firm around her waist as she stretched out in an airplane posture, shrieking with delight. Their friends erupted in applause and hoots of approval, and he staggered backward with the momentum before catching her in his arms. She laughed exuberantly, clutched against his chest. ¡°I love you,¡± he whispered into her ear. She looked up at him with a radiant smile. Before she could say it back¡ªand he could tell she was about to¡ªhe closed his mouth over hers and kissed her as if they were alone in their room, with no other eyes watching. In that sublime hour all he had felt was so simple, so comprehensible¡ªthe taste of food and the warmth of friendship, the exhilaration of a little risk, the joy of a strong and healthy body, and desire only for her. Only for her, as if his mind held no space for any other. He knew it wouldn¡¯t last, but it was blissful to feel it. In that hour, in the eye of that hurricane, what he felt was love. Chapter 6 The line at the Delancey Street Starbucks was long, but seating was still plentiful, and so Tabitha was willing to wait. Once at the front, she ordered a venti caramel macchiato with whipped cream, which would probably make her feel slightly sick, but would taste good enough to make the next half-hour less painful. Once she had her enormous coffee in hand, she settled into one of the black leather armchairs, took a cleansing breath, and opened up Instagram on her phone. She had first tripped over Amy¡¯s account when, not very long after her release from the lake, she had stopped in at the Whole Foods where she bought her favorite brand of flavored water and almost ran smack into Sam. It had been wholly unintentional; she had never imagined Sam would enter a Whole Foods at all, because it was exactly the sort of earnestly pretentious environment he couldn¡¯t stand, and yet there he was. She had never before seen the girl beside him, but it was clear that they were together. Though Tabitha instantly snapped herself into a little puddle in the produce section as soon as she spotted them¡ªa risky but instinctive move, no doubt one of the odder moments on the day¡¯s security video¡ªshe continued to watch them. It wasn¡¯t as painful to see him then as it would be now, because she had spent so many months underwater, in an elemental state, and that had the effect of sapping her human emotions; she was a kind of demon, after all, and the longer she lived in the form of a monster rather than a human, the more she came to resemble one in soul as well as shape. What she felt then was mainly puzzlement, seeing Sam with this apparently human woman in a Cascade Mocha Crafters logo shirt, walking through an environment that should have been a foreign land to him. When they stopped at the mushroom display and he passed behind her with a covert squeeze to her backside, Tabitha was even more confused. She had looked up the name from the T-shirt logo online, found her way to their Instagram, and from there to Amy¡¯s personal profile. Ever since then, she had checked once a week¡ªno less, but definitely no more. It was a habit that needed to be managed for Tabitha¡¯s own mental health. She sipped her coffee and clicked over to Amy¡¯s photos, scrolling back quickly to find the spot where she had left off. There she was, in khaki cap and apron and teal-blue shirt, posing with a tray of cookie bars. The girl¡¯s entire life seemed to revolve around the bakery, and it was a wonder she had time for any sort of an outside life, let alone one with Sam in it. Yet there amid pictures of co-workers and friends, meals and pretty scenes of Portland bursting into springtime splendor, he smiled out from a crowd gathered on a great brick town square¡ªPioneer Square, she figured out¡ªwith Amy at his side. First live show of the season! she had captioned it. #lovemusic #pioneersquare #portlandstyle #stillfreezing. The girl was a serial hashtag abuser. It was only one of the things Tabitha disliked about her. Sam, however, looked adorable in the picture. He wore his old black leather jacket with a hooded flannel beneath it, and a knit cap pulled over all but the frontmost part of his hair, which spiked at all angles for lack of combing. Although Amy was looking directly at the camera with a big-eyed gaze and an impish smile, Sam was glancing at someone beside him, mouth slightly open in laughter. Mischievous. Mildly rakish. It was how he managed to look in most photos¡ªsomething about the elongated shape of his eyes, and the round prominence of his cheeks, and the way his mouth was a shade more sensuous than that of most men. When Tabitha had first seen him, in a seat across the aisle on a Salem and Lowell Railroad train so many years before, it was his charisma that attracted her. Here was this man, black-haired and swarthy and coarse of features, and rather short besides¡ªand yet he carried himself with a swagger that was lacking in men far more aristocratic or aesthetically pleasing. When another traveler vacated the seat across from her and he moved to take it, she felt an instant shiver of flattery at his attention. Yet until he began to talk to her, throwing in the carefully coded phrases used by the Mara¡ªit¡¯s a strange world, isn¡¯t it?¡ªshe hadn¡¯t even realized that he was an incubus. He was simply a man who moved like he had something to offer. She was willing to bet it was that same quality which attracted Amy to him¡ªand of course, by now, Amy would be well aware of what that something was. It was obvious enough what Sam saw in her, too: an undeniably cute body, a lighthearted outlook, and a shared obsession with food. Here was a plate of truffle fries; here was a slice of the chocolate cake she and Sam were sharing. Here she was on a hike in the woods, in a selfie in front of some stone ruin, #nature #datenight #youcrazykids. A group of her friends from the bakery¡ªthe tall guy with glasses, and the gregarious-looking French guy, and the pink-haired chick, all toasting marshmallows around a fire ring in a cozy little scene. And then, most recently, a picture of herself and Sam lying on the grass, taken with the camera held straight above their faces. It hit Tabitha with a clutch in her gut. She drank a slow sip of her coffee and took in the photo. It wasn¡¯t the picture that got to her, exactly. Amy was smiling, as always¡ªtattoos on display, the little silver stud in her nose glinting, her wavy brown hair spread around her. She wore a pink flannel and a white T-shirt of fabric so tissue-light that the lines of her bra were visible. Beside her lay Sam, dressed in the same type of tight black T-shirt he wore for prowling, his forearm resting just above his forehead; between his index and middle fingers, a cigarette smoldered. He looked at the camera with something between patience and mild annoyance. No better way to spend a spring day, Amy had captioned it, and then began her litany: #splendorinthegrass #thosearms #youandme #loveyoumore. Those arms, indeed. It was the first thing Tabitha had noticed: Sam¡¯s bicep bulking the space between their faces, the masculine shadow of hair at the inner edge of his sleeve. How intensely she missed his body¡ªthe warmth of him and the scent of him and the touch of his beautiful hands, the play of shadow and light against his back when he undressed, the way he whimpered when she pleased him especially well. All of that was in Amy¡¯s custody right now, and she had to grit her teeth and abide it; Sam was someone who needed a companion, and she couldn¡¯t fault Amy for wanting him. The love, however, stopped her short. It shouldn¡¯t have surprised her¡ªthey had been together for months, after all. She didn¡¯t fear that Sam had replaced her, because she knew him better than that. Besides, if he was truly done with her he would have found another succubus, not a human. Her dismay was in the absurdity of the claim of love, not in real fear of it. Sure, she thought. See how that works out for you. He and Amy had been together since the winter, and it was now May; pretty soon, Amy would get the idea to spend a day at the beach. Or a backyard pool, or perhaps to shower off together on a nice hot day. There weren¡¯t going to be any hashtagged photos of those things, because Sam couldn¡¯t tolerate a single one of them, and had no doubt been running the shower all this time in a locked bathroom while cleaning himself off with a washcloth safely outside the tub. Eventually she would grow inspired that they should get a tattoo together, and he would refuse, because it would last perhaps a few days on his body before his skin renewed itself and coughed it up. Or she would get in the mood for a road trip up to Vancouver, B.C., or a cheap long weekend in Iceland, and it would no longer seem unimportant that American passports were the one document Isaac refused to crib together.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. But then, it might not take a Mara-related crisis to throw their #splendorinthegrass into disorder. She hadn¡¯t yet lived with Sam through baseball season, for one thing. She hadn¡¯t argued with him enough to have brought out the Victorian-era chauvinist he could become when backed into a corner, and for that matter, she had not yet heard him quote Fight Club one million times. She sighed and thumbed the picture back and forth on her screen. What are you doing, Sam, she thought¡ªpartly with disappointment in him, partly with the sort of fondness that forgives a mistake before the error has even been acknowledged. Lying there like one of you hasn¡¯t already lit the fuse. ~ * ~ It was just past ten o¡¯clock in the morning when Tabitha arrived at the museum again. No visitors had yet arrived, and the curator looked up hopefully when she stepped through the door. At the sight of her face, he broke into a gap-toothed smile. ¡°Hello again,¡± he said, with a hitch to his voice that sounded as if he was trying to conceal greater excitement. ¡°Wasn¡¯t sure if you were going to come back after all.¡± ¡°You said a couple of weeks. I was trying not to be pushy.¡± ¡°Let me find you a chair.¡± He raised his bulky frame from the seat and returned with a wooden chair that looked like a museum piece. Once she sat down beside him, he methodically opened several tabs on his computer screen. ¡°I thought I¡¯d start with theft reports,¡± he began. ¡°That didn¡¯t turn anything up, but they only go back to 1895 online. You could go to the NYPD archives and put in a request, of course. But I decided to go with newspaper archives next, because those are much better indexed. And I found this.¡± He turned the screen a bit toward her and pointed at the spidery, inked text. ¡°From 1862. An article about a Tom McGowan, arrested for assaulting a priest on Charles Street. No mention of any relic, though, or of an angry Irishwoman. I thought, eh, could be¡ªbut I came up with at least a dozen similar items. Priests were an easy target, it seems. However, in my wanderings¡ªvarious search terms¡ªthis also came up.¡± He switched to a different tab and drew a stocky finger down the image. ¡°Another article in a different paper from only a week later. A member of the Dead Rabbits gang¡ªthis Cian O¡¯Malley¡ªarrested for murdering a member of the Swamp Angels gang, quote, ¡®for stealing items of his own possession, including small cash and a luck-charm made of blessed bone.¡¯¡± Tabitha read down the article herself. It was strange to read the antiquated language, and to see the old style of the printing, as if her life from very long ago had suddenly arrived in the present. ¡°All right,¡± she said, trying to make a connection she might be missing. ¡°Was Tom McGowan a member of the Dead Rabbits? That he might have passed the relic along to O¡¯Malley, I mean?¡± ¡°Well, I don¡¯t know. Both of these men turn up in the Department of Corrections records for Sing-Sing a while later. Those have been digitized by a genealogy site. Tom McGowan is there for assault upon a clergyman, and Cian O¡¯Malley for murder and theft¡ªpresumably, stealing the items back. But it doesn¡¯t give anything more specific than that. The Dead Rabbits were a well-known Irish gang operating in a section of the city called the Five Points at that time, and if Tom McGowan had an item he needed to sell privately, he could have given it to O¡¯Malley to fence it. The incidents don¡¯t look related, but it¡¯s an odd coincidence to see them so close together, once we factor in your story. An assault on a priest, and a fight to the death over a piece of bone.¡± And cash, Tabitha thought. It was probably the cash that had caused the argument. But it was a worthwhile theory. The curator tapped two fingers against the table and looked at her. ¡°None of this mentions St. Bridget, of course. Is there anything especially significant about her that might cause all these people to get so verklempt?¡± Tabitha shrugged slowly. For her own part, she knew next to nothing about saints. They were a Catholic thing, and in her own Puritan upbringing, the ministers had regularly preached from the pulpit that the Catholic Church was the Great Whore of Babylon, a corrupt monstrosity led by the devil himself. So deeply had this notion been drummed into her head that when she and Sam were first together, it felt unsettlingly scandalous to take up with a born-and-raised Catholic, even though by that point they were both, in fact, demons. But she knew what St. Bridget meant to the Leaders. According to the Church, she was the patron saint of watermen, sailors, and illegitimate children. They had made her feast day the same as that of the ancient Irish mother goddess, Brighid, who was associated with sacred wells, and neatly replaced the one with the other. The Leaders loathed this deception, but what was more, it was rumored that the relic had come from the human daughter of one of the two Leaders, who had been orphaned by her mother¡¯s drowning. The fact that it had been stolen by the Church, and was still out there somewhere with no resting place, was a long-standing affront. ¡°I think it¡¯s just the history behind it,¡± said Tabitha. ¡°Stolen by a knight and all that. How old it is. And maybe they were superstitious about it, too.¡± He drew his lips together thoughtfully. Up close, his face had a ruddy, sun-worn look, and his beard contained every shade of gray from charcoal to the lightest ash. ¡°Hmm. Impossible to say where it might have ended up, based on this. The only other record of any of these guys is here, at Hart Island.¡± He indicated another tab. ¡°The burial records at the potters¡¯ field show all three of them¡ªMcGowan, O¡¯Malley, and the man who was murdered, Johnny Poole. The potters¡¯ field, you know, is¡ª¡± ¡°I know what it is.¡± Potters¡¯ fields had been around all her life¡ªthe clay-soil fields, useless for agriculture, where the poorest of the poor were laid to rest, often if no one claimed their bodies or if the family could not afford a decent burial. ¡°Just dates listed for the two convicts, and a bit more for the Poole character. See here¡ª¡®Beloved son of so-and-so, survived by brother, sister, brother,¡¯ et cetera. And a contact name for the genealogy. Some people really get into this stuff and submit information to these sites. The black-sheep ancestors are the most interesting, sometimes.¡± Tabitha picked up her phone and quickly typed in this information. It was a shame there wasn¡¯t a similar record for O¡¯Malley, but she would take what she could get. As she typed in the birth and death years, a thought insinuated itself into her mind. ¡°You can search for anyone on this site, right?¡± He pointed with his whole hand, indicating the search bar. ¡°Can you look up Sam Sullivan?¡± He typed in the name, and the results appeared immediately. ¡°Five of them. There¡¯s¡ª¡± ¡°This one.¡± He clicked. ¡°Samuel Sullivan, 1829-1852. That who you were looking for?¡± She swallowed. ¡°Look up Mary Sullivan. And Anna.¡± There were many by those names, but each had a listing for a burial in 1852. The curator asked, ¡°Anybody else?¡± She shook her head. She couldn¡¯t bring herself to ask about Riona, Sam¡¯s youngest sister. Seeing her relatively unique name would have made it feel too final. ¡°Who are these people?¡± asked the curator. ¡°Just¡ªrelatives.¡± ¡°Ah. It¡¯s always fun to find your dead ancestors on these sites.¡± He turned on the screensaver and offered her a satisfied smile. ¡°Anything else I can help you with?¡± Again, she shook her head. Outside a group of tourists were peering through the window, engaged in discussion; in moments, they would probably come in. ¡°Just let me know if you think of anything. I enjoy this kind of work. Better than sorting old subway tokens.¡± She managed a smile and gathered up her backpack, too disquieted to even manage basic politeness. She thought about that vast, depleted field with the gray sea beyond it, all the bodies stacked beneath rugged yellow grass, and somewhere in there, without a marker, the dearest one. Chapter 7 Sam returned from a Monday shift at Brunson¡¯s to find Lola and Remy hard at work in the kitchen, making some sort of rapturous-looking chicken in cream sauce with fettuccini and a Caesar salad. With the bakery closed on Mondays, it was the day when everybody slept in and relaxed, and it usually meant the best meal of the week. ¡°That looks amazing,¡± said Sam, standing behind Lola and resting a hand on the small of her back as he leaned in to smell what she was cooking. Lola could be icy and a little too calculating sometimes, but he liked her anyway; her domineering streak was something of a turn-on, and he had wondered more than once what she would be like if he paid her a visit when she was fast asleep. He would never do that¡ªstrangers were one thing, but people who trusted you quite another¡ªbesides which, Remy was nearly always beside her. But that didn¡¯t stop him from imagining it now and then. She pecked him on the cheek before shooing him out of the way. ¡°Run downstairs and tell the others that dinner¡¯s almost ready.¡± ¡°Is Rose back from school yet?¡± ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s showering. She said she¡¯ll be down right after.¡± Sam opened the door to the basement and was immediately hit by the smell of marijuana. At the bottom of the stairs he found Kevin and Amy sitting on the floor in front of the small TV, passing a half-finished joint back and forth. Cops was on, which struck Sam as ironic. ¡°Heyyyy,¡± Amy greeted him, her smile big and sincere and stoned. ¡°We were just talking about you.¡± ¡°Uh-oh.¡± ¡°All good things,¡± said Kevin. Amy held out the joint. ¡°Want a hit?¡± Sam held up a hand to decline. He tried to keep his feelings on the subject to himself, but smoking weed annoyed the crap out of him. It had no effect on him, so he didn¡¯t even grasp the appeal, and all he could observe was that it turned his friends into boring conversationalists with goofy, childish senses of humor. Its only advantage was that it made Amy horny as hell, and a lot less inhibited about being on top. He turned away from dreamers when he saw evidence that they were under the influence, but he¡¯d long since made an exception for Amy, because she did it so often. It was a pity that she hadn¡¯t waited until after dinner to get high, because it had been a while since she had treated him to that particular position, and he missed it. They followed him up the stairs to dinner, where Rose wrinkled her nose at the smell emanating from Kevin¡¯s clothing. It was almost a farce at this point that she wasn¡¯t admitting her pregnancy to the group as a whole; they all could see that she was sick, that she turned down wine, and when she learned that Lola had used raw eggs in the Caesar salad dressing, demurred the bowl that was offered to her. If Lola and Remy hadn¡¯t figured it out at this point, then they were even more self-absorbed than Sam had given them credit for being. But it wasn¡¯t his place to tell anyone. After dinner, his stomach pleasantly full, he laid down on the sofa on the side porch to enjoy his post-dinner cigarette. It had been three days since he had slipped out at night, and he was feeling it; for most of the day he¡¯d had the sort of erection that TV commercials warned him he should see a doctor about. He was feeling wistfully nostalgic for his human days when such a problem could be dealt with by stepping into the soaking room of the tannery and making a quick contribution to the liming tubs. He crushed out his cigarette and let himself fall asleep on the sofa, hoping to kill a couple of the hours that stood between him and his evening plans. When he awoke again, the sky was only beginning to grow dark, and Rose was bending over him, shaking his shoulder. ¡°Sam,¡± she said. ¡°Everybody¡¯s sick.¡± He rubbed his eyes and pushed up on his elbows. ¡°What? Sick?¡± ¡°Yeah, they¡¯re all barfing their guts up.¡± He got up and walked foggily into the house, where, as promised, the first-floor bathroom door was closed and clearly holding one unwell person or another. He hurried up the stairs to his and Amy¡¯s room, and found her curled up on the cool tile beside the bathroom rug, her face strained. She opened her eyes enough to see who had opened the door, met Sam¡¯s eye, and said, ¡°Get ouuuttttttt.¡± ¡°Are you okay?¡± ¡°No.¡± She covered her eyes with her hand, and he could hear Kevin on the opposite side of the wall, sounding no better. ¡°Go away. Just let me die.¡± He could tell she had aimed for a theatrical tone, and came out sounding more serious than intended. ¡°Can I get you anything?¡± ¡°A razor blade?¡± He clawed back his hair from his forehead. He had no clue how to treat any form of human illness anymore. ¡°Okay, listen, just yell if you need anything. Or text me.¡± She offered a moan of assent, and he stepped out into the hallway, where Rose was standing with her arms folded over her chest. He looked at her in utter confusion. ¡°What the hell happened?¡± ¡°Food poisoning, is my guess.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± He frowned, looking back and forth between the two bedrooms. ¡°Well, what do we do about that?¡± ¡°Wait for it to pass. Keep them from getting dehydrated. And buy a lot of Lysol.¡± He shook his head helplessly. ¡°I hope you don¡¯t come down with it next.¡± ¡°If it¡¯s what I think it is, I¡¯m not going to. I didn¡¯t eat the Caesar salad.¡± When he narrowed his eyes in confusion, she explained, ¡°Raw eggs.¡± ¡°Oh, right.¡± ¡°But you ate it. You ate a ton of it.¡± Something uneasy in her expression rattled his nerves. ¡°Good thing I¡¯ve got an iron stomach. I¡¯ll make a run to the store for some bottled water and Lysol.¡± ¡°Okay. Sam.¡± He was already halfway down the stairs, but turned to look up at her. ¡°Once it settles down a bit, I¡¯m going to make them all stick to the bathroom in your room and the one downstairs. I¡¯ll clean mine up, and that¡¯s the one you and I can use until this passes. All right?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± He breathed out a distressed sigh through his lips and hurried out to the car. The nostalgia for being human had definitely passed, at least for today. ~ * ~ Despite the deteriorating conditions in the household, there was no way Sam was going to make it through the night without prowling. At midnight he set down a fresh water bottle at Amy¡¯s bedside, checked in on Remy and Lola sleeping fitfully in their downstairs bedroom, and snuck outside, setting off in Amy¡¯s car to park in the lot behind Brunson¡¯s. For years and years, when he and Tabitha lived in the abandoned factory at the edge of Lowell, going out at night had been so simple; he could climb the stairs to the roof, turn into an ember, and let the winds carry him in the direction that seemed most appealing. When he returned home there was nothing to hide, because Tabitha had been up to the same thing. Now he had to take the car, because Brunson¡¯s was eight miles away and Amy needed to believe that¡¯s where he had gone. At least the car gave him a place to stash his phone, which¡ªunlike his clothes, which would travel with him as long as they had enough of the essence of his body on them¡ªwouldn¡¯t survive the elemental shift. And because Amy could see his location on his phone¡¯s GPS, leaving it in the car added credibility to his claim of late-night work. In the lot, he stashed his keys behind a stack of wooden pallets, then sparked away. On this night, in the interest of not being away from home any longer than necessary, he was making a repeat visit. The weather was pleasant, and this particular dreamer liked to sleep with the window open. That was convenient for Sam.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Her house was a little yellow one at the end of a row of townhomes. She owned a cat, but she closed it out of her room at night, which was also fortunate; Sam hated cats, and cats hated him, and he had seen many a wonderful opportunity thwarted by an affronted housecat. Dogs were not so bad; they recognized him as fire, and shied away from him as they would from a torch. Among humans, he claimed to be allergic to them, although it was really more the other way around. With the window open, silvery moonlight struck across the foot of the bed. Sam bent over the sleeping woman and breathed gently over her nose. When he touched his lips to hers, she responded readily, kissing him back. Permission granted. He folded the covers aside and climbed into her bed. She was older than the dreamers he pursued when he was with Tabby¡ªin her forties, past the age where he would have imposed anyone¡¯s seed on her, had he been carrying it. But he liked women of this age, and they certainly liked him. He took his time in touching her, though once he took off his shirt, her hands caressed his shoulders and arms and chest with such avid interest that he simply closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the smoothness and ardor of her touch. Without prompting, she tugged at the fastening of his jeans, and once she got her hand into his boxers, her thighs parted as if by reflex. He smiled. He kissed her again and laid his body over hers. She moaned when he entered her, clutching at him to pull him deeper. She was very wet, so much so that it could interfere with friction, and so he compensated by adjusting his angle to stimulate her outside as well as in. That worked more swiftly than he had anticipated, and her orgasm caught him by surprise¡ªa rush of wetness, a moan that pierced his left eardrum, and her fingers gripping so hard at his ass that he felt her nails scratch his skin. It was a good thing he healed so quickly. And also that Amy wasn¡¯t likely to see him naked for a couple of days. She rolled her hips against him in pursuit of another, and he knew he would have to finish when she did if he hoped to be satisfied before she dismissed him. He slipped his arm beneath her shoulders, pulling her closer so he could feel her breasts against his chest, and increased the pace of his thrusting. This time he knew to bury his ear against her neck, and the contractions within her made him come with an intensity that blocked out everything except the flashes of lightning that were the pathways of his nerves, the flickering fire that consumed him and would never stop consuming him. She went limp against the mattress with satisfaction, and he rose up on his hands, exhausted and energized. He brushed his lips against hers for a final kiss¡ªboth to keep her asleep, and to thank her. He wished he could roll onto his back and take a few moments to savor the serenity and well-being that flooded through him after a good encounter, because those feelings were so fleeting in his life these days. But he could only do that with Amy. He straightened her clothing and his own, stepped back to the window, and sparked out into the cool night. ~ * ~ By Thursday afternoon everyone had recovered, and on Friday morning Sam drove Lola, Kevin, and Amy to the airport to catch their flight to Los Angeles for the food tour, right on schedule. Amy was still looking a little wobbly, and Sam felt sorry for her; usually effusive in her physical affection, she had barely let him kiss her since she fell ill. When he got out of the car at the terminal to help unload the massive amount of stuff the group was bringing to Los Angeles, she hugged him goodbye with both arms almost desperately tight around his neck. ¡°Love you so much,¡± she said, and her breath was warm against his skin. ¡°Love you, too, baby.¡± ¡°Have fun in Nashville.¡± His flight was leaving that night from this same airport. ¡°I will. Not too much, though.¡± She replied with a little laugh, and her smile looked relieved. He wished them all a successful trip and drove back to the house, where he still needed to pack for his own journey. Fortunately, his needs were very few; for most of his afterlife he had lived on much less than he did now. He plunked his gym bag on the bed and tossed in a few items of clothing, his cellphone charger, and a comb. He added a set of earbuds and glanced around the room to see if he had missed anything. Rose was standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. Her posture was a little tenuous, as if she wasn¡¯t sure if she would stay. ¡°You leaving soon?¡± ¡°Not until after dinner. Red-eye flights are cheaper.¡± He threw her a smile. ¡°Hope Remy isn¡¯t going too crazy at the bakery by himself.¡± ¡°I said I¡¯d help him this weekend.¡± ¡°That¡¯s nice of you.¡± She nodded and flexed one of her ankles a bit, shifting her weight incrementally. For a moment she hesitated. Then she asked, ¡°What are you?¡± The question hit him like a fist, making his stomach clench as if he had been physically struck. It was not the first time he had been asked this over the years, but he had not expected it from her at all. Still, he managed to keep enough presence of mind to push an amused smile to his face. ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°I mean ... I don¡¯t think you¡¯re a ... person.¡± The only solution to this situation was one he deeply disliked, and that was to gaslight her¡ªto respond as if she were worryingly crazy. Every other time this had happened, the suspicious individual had been someone to whom he felt indifferent¡ªan employer, a bartender who had noticed his patterns, a homeless person who saw him around too much late at night. In those cases it didn¡¯t bother him much. To his thinking, being Mara was kind of like being in Fight Club, where the first rule was not to talk about it, and it was ultimately nobody else¡¯s damn business anyway. But he had never needed to lie to the face of a true friend, and to turn their questions back on them. He replied with one lifted eyebrow and a confused tip of his head. ¡°Rose, are you okay?¡± She nodded and bit her lip, looking uncomfortable. ¡°You¡¯re looking at me like I¡¯m crazy.¡± ¡°Well ... I mean ... I¡¯m obviously a person. So I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about.¡± He stepped into the bathroom to get his toothbrush and razor, like a human would do, and added them to his bag. ¡°I mean, you didn¡¯t get sick,¡± she persisted. ¡°That¡¯s not how salmonella works. You should have had it. And the whole time they were sick, you never used my bathroom. You never used any bathroom.¡± He felt like kicking himself. It was true¡ªhe had been so busy taking care of people, and rushing to and from work, and squeezing in a prowling run every night because Amy was completely off-limits, that the finer details of being human had completely escaped his attention. Still, he had a recent example to fall back on. ¡°Well, you¡¯ve seen me use a tree. That doesn¡¯t count?¡± ¡°That¡¯s like the only time, ever.¡± ¡°Since when are you tracking when I take a leak?¡± Somehow this seemed to embolden rather than intimidate her. ¡°Just explain it to me. I don¡¯t care. I just want to know.¡± He zipped up his bag and looked at her with irritation. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re asking me to explain. Why I didn¡¯t get sick? Why I¡¯m not filling out a potty chart? I can¡¯t exactly¡ª¡± ¡°More like how you can light a cigarette with the end of your finger,¡± she interrupted. ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve seen you do that. Last week when we were all outside, but at least a couple times before that too, and I thought I must be imagining it. But even if I factor that out¡ªeven if I say, okay, that¡¯s not happening¡ª¡± Her hands shaped the air in front of her with adamant gestures, but here she stopped, and the muscles in her jaw tightened. ¡°There¡¯s something off. It¡¯s not just that you didn¡¯t get sick, it¡¯s that you seemed to know you wouldn¡¯t. You went to work that night and everything. And you never smell bad, either. You pulled out that stump last week and came inside covered with sweat but smelling like roses. Even your dirty laundry smells good. It doesn¡¯t make sense.¡± He covered up his panic with a perplexed smile. ¡°You¡¯re sniffing my dirty laundry?¡± ¡°Can you just explain it to me?¡± ¡°Yeah. I bathe and use deodorant.¡± She threw her hands up in the air. ¡°I¡¯m not crazy. And I¡¯m not saying I think you¡¯re an alien or something. I mean, I can see that you look normal. But you¡¯re ... more than a person, somehow.¡± He laughed quietly, already hating himself for what he was about to say, but knowing he had few options if he wanted her to end this line of questioning. ¡°I could tell you what the problem is, but I think it¡¯s better if we don¡¯t get into that.¡± ¡°What?¡± He adopted a regretful tone and didn¡¯t fully meet her eyes. ¡°You¡¯re attracted to me. And I can¡¯t say it isn¡¯t mutual, but¡ªI mean, I¡¯m not sniffing your laundry.¡± ¡°What? No!¡± ¡°Come on. We can be adults and just admit it. I mean, what else do you want me to say? That I¡¯m secretly an elf or something?¡± She shook her head. ¡°That¡¯s not what I meant. It isn¡¯t about whether I¡¯m attracted to you. It¡¯s just very Twilight Zone. It is.¡± ¡°Fine.¡± He crossed the room to where she stood and pulled off his shirt. She looked taken aback, but he drew closer to her and turned over his arms and hands, offering himself for her inspection. ¡°Go ahead. Poke and prod.¡± She laughed a little. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Well, if want to feel around for horns, or wings, or magical fire-shooters in my fingers, or whatever. I¡¯m not sure what you¡¯re looking for, exactly.¡± He knew, from this distance, she could readily smell him. He knew that would distract her, as well as make her feel uncomfortable and a little sheepish¡ªthe swirling inner conflict between wanting to explore his body and knowing she should not. She would choose the way that was loyal to Kevin, and that would be the last Sam would hear of this, because he had given her the opportunity. ¡°Never mind,¡± she said. Her voice blended frustration and a little disgust. ¡°This pregnancy must be messing with my mind. Just forget it.¡± He picked up his shirt from the floor and shook it out to put it back on, and she closed her eyes as the burst of air touched her face. ¡°No problem. I¡¯ll try to make my bodily functions more obvious from now on.¡± She grimaced in embarrassment. ¡°Ugh. I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°Hey, no big deal. I¡¯m going to take it as a compliment.¡± She offered a smile of grudging appreciation and, curling her hand into a gentle fist, let it rest in the middle of his chest. He knew what lay behind that gesture¡ªwhat she was holding back. She wanted to hammer both fists against his chest and demand real answers; she wanted to shove him backward with the force of her desire to know, and her desire for him, and have it end in the tumultuous fervor she lay listening to through the wall when she fell asleep at night. Just like with Lola, he had imagined what she would be like in bed: vanilla, difficult to get off, inhibited even in her dreams. Kevin probably didn¡¯t have the patience. She probably told him she didn¡¯t need anything, not to worry about her, and he took her at her word. ¡°Enjoy Nashville,¡± she said. He left the house within the hour. The entire day stretched ahead of him before he needed to catch his flight, but the less time he spent around Rose, the better. She needed time to second-guess herself, not more opportunities to watch him.