chapter three.

"Everything in the modern world functions as if death does not exist. n.o.body takes it into account, it is suppressed everywhere . . ."

-OCTAVIO PAZ.

CONSUELA shouldered her skin of air like an overcoat as she and Sissy said their good-byes. Stepping out into a swirl of color and movement, she whisked herself away.

Gliding smoothly through the air, she landed on her own windowsill in no time, feeling impish, like Peter Pan visiting a lost-childhood room. Consuela crawled into the bathroom and wrapped herself in its steamy, familiar warmth. Stepping out of her skin of air was hardly an effort. She strung it on a paper-wrapped hanger and placed it in her bedroom closet, padding back into the bathroom to fetch her own skin before her mother came in to check on her. The Flow was amazing, but she was glad to be home.

Consuela glanced at the tub. She hadn't actually finished enjoying her bath. The air was still thick with lavender and steam. She couldn't've been gone too long . . .

The tub quickly filled with the splash and sluice of warm water. Although she doubted she could feel the temperature, there was something soothingly real about the smell of a hot bath. This time, she lowered herself slowly, feeling the water fill every crevice, tiny bubbles of air escaping from the nooks in bone. The slight shadow still held her together, but the water engulfed her as much as the air had blown through her.

Consuela glanced at her toes-no longer buried treasure, but bleached driftwood, sunken ships, and coral bones. She smiled her forever-smile.

Lying back, she wrapped the water around herself, cuddling inside it because she could. Her head stuck out of her liquid poncho, the bath tucked in all around her. Consuela b.u.mped her skull against the inflated bath pillow. Why was I so worried before? And about such silly things-sickness, school, shopping, clothes? Without flesh, she had left all her cares behind. She laughed and dunked her head.

The water rushed in through her eye sockets and nose and the crux of her jaw, swimming up her sinuses and between her teeth. She wondered how she'd been speaking to Sissy without a tongue. I can see without eyes, so why the h.e.l.l not? Consuela wondered if she could breathe underwater.

Easier to become the water itself.

Consuela resurfaced, wearing a skin of water. No sealskin or wet suit-skinny-dipping would still be one too many layers to compare-Consuela reveled in the hedonistic feeling of the water, licking ever so slightly with her every move. It was delicious. Decadent. She felt as if she were salivating all over, craving something she couldn't name. Hungry. Eager. It pounded like a drumbeat in her chest.

I could dive down the drain! I could merge with the ocean! I could escape the world entirely and become a cloud of steam . . .

She splashed explosively against the back of the tub, throwing herself aware. She trembled, scaring herself. Consuela huddled into a ball of fluorinated water and pushed away as far as she could go, like she was four all over again and afraid of being sucked down the drain. Except this time, it was real.

I really could fall down the drain! Consuela felt herself tempted by an elemental pull. If I'm not careful. If I'm not thinking, I could lose myself in this.

Between one blink of her eyes and the next, it clicked.

The world snapped open.

The world snapped shut.

The fear melted away, replaced by purpose.

She leaped and, like a needle-borne thread, she spun, funneling down the drain.

past the pipes and the processing plant, the alum and sand, fluoride and grates, Consuela swiveled in a direction she could feel at her core-a spinal column compa.s.s inside her liquid skin.

Water into water, she emerged; the temperature changing dramatically, the immense feeling of being one with the lake. Consuela felt all that was skirting in and around her muddy edge: plants and algae, fish and frogs, eggs and sp.a.w.n and pollywogs, water bugs kissing the surface, birds dipping their beaks-every thing, everywhere, held within her. Life. To be water was to be alive.

The ruffled-feather, splashing, plinking, diving motion tickled in ripples and soothed her in waves, except for one spot on the edge of her tasting sight.

There.

She felt the tug draw her closer. She swam without thought.

Skimming the surface, disturbing dragonflies as she pa.s.sed, Consuela sank below the tumult, looking up from within. He was a skinny boy of eight or nine, twiggy legs and arms, wildly thrashing; a dark bluish-black blur against the reflection of the sky. The boy was doing a poor job keeping afloat. His limbs were barely twitching now, the spasms hardly kicks. His round head began sinking, tiny pearls of air nesting in his close-cut curls like a crown. His eyes closed. His face relaxed.

No, she thought. It is not your time.

She cupped herself like a net beneath him and, bending backward, pushed him up toward the light. He broke through the water and hung there. She could feel his fleshy weight, still slack against her frame.

Breathe! she commanded as she flattened with him on her surface. Flipping over, she hugged him to her. Breathe!

Nothing. A gentle panic seized her. Was she too late?

Consuela tightened herself around him, wringing his soggy chest in undulations and waves. His mouth slid open, a pool wobbled behind his teeth.

I'm coming, she thought, and touched a finger to his tongue, reaching deep into his throat and lungs and pulled.

Lake water sprayed from his purpled lips as Consuela flung it away. The child rolled over and coughed up a great bubble of wet. He hacked hoa.r.s.ely, filling his lungs with air. Gasping, he started to cry.

Consuela relaxed into her element, letting him sink against her water skin until he could touch the silty sh.o.r.e with one outstretched foot. He crawled onto the bank, heaving and sobbing. Consuela glanced at the little lakeside cabin in the wan yellow light. It was still early morning.

The boy gave a whining moan. Lights came on. Shouts.

I did it! Consuela thought with a secret grin.

She exploded in a geyser and hit the storm drain like a gong.

SHE landed on the floor of her shower with a slap, uncertain of how she'd gotten there or how long it had been.

Consuela blinked up weakly from the tiles. The realization of where she was, what she was, and what she had done without a second thought quivered through her water and quaked along her skin.

What's happening? What am I doing? Becoming? Thinking ?

Consuela hugged herself, feeling her fingers melt seamlessly into her arm. Enough of the Flow. I'm home.

She dragged herself from the shower, her body sloshing with surface tension but failing to leave wet footprints on the floor. Consuela yanked off the water skin, dropping the strange, silvery-blue pool on the tiles. She watched it from the edge of the tub in case it moved on its own, its innocent shimmer betraying nothing of its true nature.

Beautiful. Powerful. Terrible. It's so much bigger than me.

She gingerly picked it up and carried it to her closet, hanging it next to her thin skin of air. The two impossible things looked eerily beautiful together, as if she should have a wardrobe full of unlikely things. It drew her and chilled her.

She found a garment bag and stuffed the skins inside, zipping it closed. She shut the closet door and pushed her desk chair up against the k.n.o.b.

Consuela changed into her own skin, adding another layer of underwear and flannel pajamas, tucking herself into cool sheets, warm comforters, and familiar feather pillows. She willed herself into an unsettled sleep, waiting for Mom, or Dad, or morning, to come.

It was impossible to tell whether she was awake or in a dream. Or if she had been dreaming that she'd been asleep, and she was only waking up now.

She lost her train of thought like a helium balloon.

She was in her room-or the dream of her room-inspecting her bedroom door. It sounded like there was a party going on downstairs, whispering with voices and music and the shuffle of feet on hardwood floors. It was hard to hear from where she was. She felt like a kid put to bed early while the grown-ups stayed up late.

Consuela pressed her face flat against the crack under the door and listened. There was something elusive, whispering enticingly at the edge of her senses. She strained to hear what could almost be heard, tried to follow a flicker of what might have been shadows down the hall, could almost smell something like chafingdish smoke or identify a s.n.a.t.c.h of conversation made by voices she ought to have recognized. Consuela tried, but she couldn't place any detail-it haunted her like a lingering taste of anise and orange peel, something half remembered from childhood. For some reason, she never thought to open the door.

She pressed herself deeper into the carpet until the fibers stung her cheek and the tip of her nose wedged beneath the lip of the door. It was no good.

Sighing, she stood up and returned to bed, tucking herself into the dream-within-dreaming, wrapped in an unrequited feel of almost.

* Bones. *

Consuela couldn't tell if she'd woken up in the world or in a dream. She wondered if she was beginning to lose the distinction between the two.

She pulled off the covers and sat up, straining to hear. Nothing. She relaxed.

* Bones. *

Consuela's hair stood on end. She didn't believe in ghosts, but she believed in burglars. Although the voice had an ethereal, unreal quality-as if electric violins formed whispered words. Where had she heard it before? She couldn't think about it now; there was someone in the house!

She looked for what she might use as a weapon. A chair? Her old soccer trophies? She tried remembering her freshman-year gym cla.s.s on personal safety, but she was full of gibbering thoughts. Panic, she recognized. Not good.

Afraid to move in case someone was listening, Consuela had frozen half off the bed, her calf muscle spasming in its awkward pose. This is crazy. I'm imagining things. I'm still sleeping. I've been asleep since yesterday. I've drowned in the tub. I'm anesthetized in the hospital and am having a CAT scan on my head. This was some nightmarish hallucination. Nothing seemed quite real. She wondered if cell phones and cable TV really did affect your brain.

* Bones. *

Consuela fell onto the carpet. It took her a second to realize what had happened: her legs had given out in fright and she'd collapsed onto the floor. I thought that only happened in movies.

She grasped for her necklace, her tiny topaz cross. A present from her father. She wanted him here, but didn't dare shout. Are Mom and Dad awake? Did they hear that? Could this be real . . . ?

* Bones. *

"STOP IT!" she screamed, frightening herself with the sudden sound. Her throat stung in the aftermath. She swallowed. It hurt.

Silence.

She wanted to wake up, because then she would have known she'd been sleeping. Then this all could be unreal. She had to know . . . She felt for the soft lump on her neck.

Still there.

The confirmation brought no comfort.

Consuela pulled one of her blankets off her bed and wrapped it tightly around her body, right there on the floor. She felt like a tiny anthill about to get stomped . . . waiting for the universe's other shoe to fall.

Consuela kept listening. Nothing.

She surprised herself: she prayed.

There was nothing else to do.

He left after that. Now that he knew for sure.

What was she doing here?

He flicked the lighter crisply on and off, birthing and killing its single star in the dark.

He'd have to keep an eye on her, ask the Watcher, wait and see.

Obviously, he hadn't saved her yet.

chapter four.

"In every man there is the possibility of his being-or, to be more exact, his becoming once again-another man."

-OCTAVIO PAZ.

HER phone rang.

Adolescent instincts took over. She picked it up without thinking.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Isn't this convenient?" Sissy's voice chirped. "You're listed in the book!"

Consuela fumbled for words, cohesive thought, something. The clock said 11:19, but it felt later. She fiddled with her cross, rubbing her fingertips over the stones.

"Hi, Sissy."

"I wanted to invite you over-have any other plans?"

Consuela could hardly think through the just-got-up fog. "None that I know of," she admitted.

"Then grab your favorite skin or come as you are, we're pretty informal around here." Consuela could hear the casual humor in Sissy's voice, but couldn't dredge up the energy to match it. She was tired. Bone tired? She thought of skeletons and drainage pipes and bedroom doors and eyeball beads.

"I'll be there in a minute," Consuela croaked. "Did you call me before?"

"This is the first time I've dialed your number."

"No," Consuela said. "I mean . . . out loud." She scratched her fingernails over her scalp. She felt filthy. "I thought I heard someone calling my name." The one you nicknamed me.

"No," Sissy answered, "but that could've been anyone, really. Anybody drop by for a visit yet?"

"No."