"All right," he said softly. "If that's all right with . . . ?"

"Bones," Sissy reminded him.

"Consuela Chavez, actually," Consuela added.

V nodded. His eyelashes lowered and lifted once. Slowly.

"Right. Consuela Chavez. Bones," he said, stepping back. "After you."

Consuela stood. He watched her move, but pretended not to. She pretended she hadn't noticed right back. Two could play at this game.

"See you later, Sissy," Consuela said as casually as she could.

"Ha ha. Funny!" The Watcher jeered, pointing at her empty eye sockets. "It'll be a lot easier when I get these back in." She swiveled in her chair, following their footsteps as they approached the door.

"And V?" Sissy called.

He stopped, hand on the doork.n.o.b. He didn't look back. "Yes?"

"Explain things, if you can."

His fingers tightened on the doork.n.o.b. Consuela barely heard his answer.

"I'll try," he said, and held the door open like a gentleman, allowing Consuela to go first. She shied from the sudden sun-drenched wildflower field bursting right outside the threshold.

"What's that?" she blurted.

"Echoes of the real," Sissy called tiredly. "Everything b.u.mps up against everything else in the Flow. You'll get used to it." She waved her hand. "Have a nice walk."

V shook his head and Consuela stepped out, crushing flowers underfoot. V closed the door behind them and sighed.

"Okay," V said, more to himself than her. "Where to?"

Consuela glanced around. The mysterious tension made her itchy. "How about a nice, relaxing tromp through Mother Nature?" she quipped. "Got a machete?"

V laughed. It transformed him from brooding to strikingly beautiful. Consuela was strangely happy that she'd caused it.

"Not on me," he said. "And we don't have to stay here. We can go anywhere in the Flow, but it's good to have an end point in mind." He hesitated, then offered his hand, fingers curled like a question. "Step when I step," he said. "Intention is key. Move like you know where you're going. The first one's a rush."

Consuela placed her hand in his. He watched her phalanges slide over his skin, folding them gently in a guitarist's grip.

"Ready?" he asked, keeping his eyes on their fingers.

His tremulous confidence fed hers. "Sure."

Consuela might have imagined him squeezing her hand, but by then they'd taken their first step.

Visions of the Flow flew by, a hundred scenes reduced to smears of color. Her mind reeled trying to follow it. Four steps and they stopped.

"Wow," she said.

"Dizzy?" V asked.

"A little," she confessed. They were in a small kitchen, retro-tiled like a fifties diner. A red-checkered potholder stood out against the yellow countertop. The silver stovetop gleamed.

"Give it a second. It's like a roller coaster," V explained.

"I love roller coasters," Consuela said, mildly giddy.

He gave a sort of half smile. "Me, too."

"Can we do it again?"

V chuckled. "Sure. Hold on."

They marched forward. This time, she was ready for it: stepping out into the Flow, knowing they could walk through s.p.a.ce, doors, walls. V stopped abruptly in a town green. There was a redbrick church between two lazy country roads, a flagpole in the courtyard, and a gazebo strung with Christmas lights in the middle of what looked like a June afternoon.

Consuela swayed with delayed vertigo.

"I've got you," he said, steadying her spine, then pulled away quickly as if he'd accidentally touched her breast.

"Thanks," she said, covering his unease. "I think I've had enough for one ride."

"All right," he said gratefully. "Want to sit?"

She nodded.

They walked through the emerald gra.s.s. Black boots thumped and tiny bones clicked against the worn wood of the gazebo steps. The benches were peeling black paint and the rails were peeling white. There was an abandoned bird's nest tucked under one corner of the roof and a few tired cobwebs hung in the rafters. The air was soft and still.

V placed his foot on the octagonal bench and Consuela hugged her knees to her ribs, preparing herself for whatever was coming next. V rubbed his fingers hard against his sternum, his knuckles turning white.

"You okay?" Consuela asked.

"Yeah," V said, adjusting his collar. "It happens sometimes." He flexed his fingers in and out of fists. "Okay," he began, "So. You can cross into a place called the Flow . . ."

"I know that much," Consuela said, waving off the intro. "Sissy told me."

"The Watcher. Right." V paused. "Well, we're each called to our a.s.signments-people who we're compelled to save-to stop them from dying before their time." Consuela nodded. He continued. "Sometimes we have to save them from something or someone or simply keep them from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Other times, it's personal-something about them." He tapped on his chest. "Something inside that has to decide to live."

V cleared his throat and shifted position. "After a while, you'll notice there'll be a pattern to your a.s.signments, a certain type of person that you're drawn to protect." He stretched for the words. "But these people are all important, destined to do great things, huge things, help lots of people-more than you or I could ever . . ." He was leaning forward, facing her, his eyes full and earnest. Consuela hung on his speech and the look in his eyes. Startled, he backed away, circling the floor, caught in the belly of the gazebo.

She watched him pace, her silence a question.

"Sorry," he muttered, and wiped his hands on his pockets. "It's just . . . it's hard seeing you here."

That caught her attention. "Me?" she said. "Why?"

"You . . ." V said. "You are not supposed to be here. You are not supposed to"-he gestured at her naked bones-". . . look like this." He shook his head. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

Nerves bubbled along her limbs. "What?"

"And it's my fault," V said in a rush. "It's my fault and I'm sorry."

"Your fault?" Consuela struggled to understand. "And you're sorry?"

He tapped his fist against his lower lip. "I promise, I'll fix it."

"What are you talking about?" Consuela said, standing.

"I'll fix it," V insisted.

"Fix what?" Consuela snapped, strangely insulted. "This is me."

"No, it isn't," V said patiently. "It's a mistake."

"A mistake?!"

"My mistake, all right?" V retreated, storming in circles. "I get it! I screwed up, okay?" he shouted while flicking his hand in the air. "I know it happens, but it's never happened to me before! And no one's ever shown up here . . . !"

"Will you stop?!" Consuela shouted. She took a deep breath the way her father always told her to do, tempering the Aguilar temper.

"Listen. You brought me here? You made me this way?" She laughed a little. "Fine. I forgive you, okay? It's amazing. It's . . . indescribable!"

V deflated, stricken. "Don't . . ."

"No," she insisted. "It's wonderful!" She spread her arms, showing their glory-sunlight dancing on her luminous skeleton. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me!" V said, horrified. "Madre di Dio, please don't thank me." He ran his hand over his eyes and closed it in a fist, beating it lightly against his forehead. "You. Shouldn't. Be. Here."

"Well, I am here," Consuela said. V retreated. She chased him. He wasn't taking this away from her so soon. "You and Sissy say I get to save people. Me!" Consuela touched her own breastbone. "I get to be part of something good. Something real that makes a difference." She had to convince him. She deserved this. She wanted this! "A huge difference," Consuela insisted. "Not only for these people, but for hundreds, maybe thousands . . ."

He spun around so fast, she nearly ran into him. His eyes burned.

* Let me save you! *

Consuela heard it, felt it. The sound of electric violins swelled so close, it buzzed along her bones. Echoed inside her skull. Imploring. Impa.s.sioned.

It was him. V.

The sound poured off him, but his mouth hadn't moved. He trembled.

"I was supposed to save you," he whispered. "But you couldn't hear me."

I can hear you, she thought. I still hear you. But the words wouldn't come. She wanted to understand. Ached for it. They stared at each other, speaking without words.

"I will make things right," he said solemnly. "I promise."

V launched out of the gazebo, down the stairs and onto the lawn, the gra.s.s flattening under his boots and the Flow bending around him as he strode into nothing. His final stanza hung in the air.

* I can save you. *

V's footfalls erased themselves from the gra.s.s as if they'd never been.

SHE returned to her room, drew on her skin, her U-of-I sweatshirt and jeans, and took some familiar comfort in making her bed. If Mom was going to let her sleep in for the day, she was going to do it in straightened sheets.

There was a hard rapping at her window. A black bird hovered outside.

Consuela quickly slid open the pane, praying n.o.body saw, and the bird settled itself on the sill as if waiting politely to be let in.

"h.e.l.lo," said the bird. "I am Joseph Crow."

A lot of what Sissy had said now made sense.

"Hi," she said, keeping her voice down. "I'm Consuela Chavez."

The bird dipped its beak in a tight approximation of a bow. "I saw when you flew in to see the Watcher," clicked the crow. "You looked different, then."

"I was wearing a skin of air," she said, taking a seat on her bed. "This is how I normally look."

"Ah." Joseph Crow nodded sagely, his beak clacking as he talked. "I understand. This is my totem form; I am human back in my tent."

Consuela remembered Sissy's etiquette, politeness trumping the worry that her parents might walk in and see her talking to a bird. "Would you like to come in and change forms?" The words sounded odd in her mouth.

The crow hopped a couple of quick steps right and left. "Thank you, no," he said with mild amus.e.m.e.nt. "I need white sage to shift. Can you switch skins so easily?"

"I guess so," Consuela said, picking at the pilling on her bedspread. "I just . . . feel the need to make one, and before I know it, I put it on and go."

"Really?" The crow sounded impressed.

"Yep," she said. "Although not the water skin. I made that on a whim, but I ended up going, anyway. To save someone from drowning."

A shiver fluffed the crow's feathers from nostrils to tail. "A water skin, a skin of air . . . how many skins do you have?"

"Just those two," she answered. "So far."

"Multiple skins," he said, preening with quick stabs of his beak. The erratic motions reminded her of Wish. "Like the snake," he added.

"Excuse me?"

"The snake. It's a powerful totem: acceptance, self-reliance, flexibility, rebirth," he said. "Do all your skins have power?"

Consuela thought about the things hanging fantastically in her closet. To ride the winds, to rush down the drain. "I guess so."

"What does this one do?" he asked, pointing a wing at her.

She touched her face as if checking which pair of earrings she had on. "This?" she said, surprised. "Nothing. This one's just me."

Joseph Crow cackled drily through his beak. "That didn't answer my question." He taunted gently. She'd meant to say that this was the skin she'd been born with, not made; it was nothing special. Just her.