62.

"He loved you," the dead girl says. "He would have died for you. He did, I think."

Then the wind rushes by and pulls the girl apart, steals her away in a spinning cloud of rot and baby spiders, and now Daria can see what's waiting for her past the open window. The white, unfinished thing hanging head down from the bedroom ceiling, and when she opens her eyes, Niki is kneeling next to the love seat, tears streaking her cheeks and the bandage on her hand starting to unravel.

"I'm so sorry," she says. "I tried. I tried to die and make it be over. I tried to keep them from finding you, too," and part of Daria Parker's head is still lost in the dream of snow and angel wings and smiling, zombie ghosts. She sits up slowly, dizzy, disoriented, and the nausea and pain in her stomach are worse than before she fell asleep.

"No . . . it's okay," she says, mouth gone as dry as cracker crumbs, tongue like something she doesn't quite remember how to use. "I was having a nightmare, that's all, Niki. Just a stupid, G.o.dd.a.m.n nightmare." And she puts an arm around Niki's waist, pulls her close and holds her while the dream begins to fade, and Niki sobs, and long, late-afternoon shadows fill the room.

"No, it's absolutely out of the question," Daria says, and then her cell phone starts ringing again, and this time she turns it off instead of answering it. "Jesus, Niki, stop and think about this a minute. It's crazy."

"Then it ought to be right up my alley." Niki's curled into the window seat, knees pulled up beneath her chin, and she pretends to watch Alamo Square while Daria fusses about with the tangle of clean and dirty clothes stuffed into her bulging overnight bag sitting at the foot of the bed.

"That's not what I meant and you f.u.c.king well know it."

"I know that's why you never listen to me anymore.

Anything you don't want to hear, all you have to do is remind me I'm crazy, and that's the end of it."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Daria mutters and bends over to pick up a

63.

pair of pale yellow panties that have escaped the bag and fallen to the floor. "But you're not about to guilt-trip me into thinking that you going back to Birmingham is any kind of good idea, so you may as well stop trying."

Niki pushes her bangs out of her eyes and stares down at the park. There's a child playing Frisbee with a big black dog and for a moment she thinks the dog has noticed her, that it's staring up at her, and she looks away.

"If I'm crazy, Daria, then what difference does it make?

If it's all in my head, I'm just as safe there as I am here."

"I said no, Niki, so how about let's just drop it," and somehow the yellow panties have gotten pushed under the edge of the bed, and Daria has to get down on her knees to retrieve them. Niki watches her instead of the dog and tries to think of something to say to get Daria's attention, get her mind off the airplane and the band and Atlanta, because it's already three o'clock and she's running out of time.

"I know the things you dream about," she says. "I know you see things too, even when you're awake."

Daria stands up, stands staring at Niki, the panties in one hand and she rubs at her forehead with the other.

"What the h.e.l.l is that supposed to mean?"

"You know what it means," Niki says and turns back to the child and his dog because it's easier than the bright flecks of anger and resentment in Daria's eyes. The dog is definitely looking at her, stealing glances at the high bedroom window whenever it knows for certain that its boy won't notice.

"No, Niki, I don't. That's probably why I asked you."

"You try to be just like everyone else, like you don't know better. You want me to believe you don't know better."

Daria sighs loudly and clicks her tongue once against the roof of her mouth, but Niki doesn't turn around. The child throws the Frisbee, and it sails twenty or thirty feet before the dog leaps into the air and catches it.

"I know you feel alone," Daria says, and Niki can hear 64 how hard she's trying not to get p.i.s.sed off, the fraying calm in her voice. "I understand that it would probably make you feel better if you were right and I did see these . . .

these things. But I don't, Niki, and I'm not going to lie to you and say that I do."

"You have dreams," Niki says, sounding defensive and wishing that she didn't.

"Yes, I have dreams. I have nightmares, and sometimes they're really f.u.c.king awful, but what the h.e.l.l do you expect?"

"You were there, " Niki whispers, close to tears again, and she's sick of crying, doesn't want to start crying again because Daria will only think it's a trick to get her to listen, to get her to stay. "You were there, and you saw what happened in Spyder's house."

"She hung herself, Niki. That's what I saw that night.

That's all I saw."

"I know you're lying to me, Dar," and now she is crying, and Niki smacks the window once with her bandaged hand. The gla.s.s quivers in its frame, but doesn't break, and the noise makes the dog and the child pause and look up at her. "You're scared to death and so you pretend it never happened, that you never saw anything you can't explain away or-"

"That's not true, Niki."

"Yes, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, it is true," and Niki turns to face Daria, speaking through clenched teeth, and both her hands are balled into small, hard fists. "It's true and you know it's true.

And no matter how many therapists you send me to or how many pills I take, it's still going to be true. Spyder didn't kill herself, and you know that as well as I do."

"I've heard enough of this, Niki. I have a plane to catch,"

and Daria stuffs the panties back into the overnight bag and zips it shut. "Some of us have to live in the real world."

"f.u.c.k you, Daria," and Niki wipes her nose with the back of her bandaged hand. There's a small, dark splotch of blood seeping through the gauze where it covers her palm, so she knows she's ripped the st.i.tches loose.

65.

"You can't stop me from going back," she says. "Not if I mean to."

Daria picks up the bag and glances at the clock beside the bed, the clock and the vase of lilies, then back at Niki.

"No, you're wrong about that, too. I could stop you.

You're not well, and if I thought it was the right thing to do, I could stop you. You'd still be in that f.u.c.king hospital, if I'd let them keep you. But I couldn't stand that, knowing you were locked up in there like some kind of a lab animal."

"I have to go back," Niki says, and she knows she's f.u.c.ked it all up again, too late to even hope that Daria will listen to anything else she says, too late to stop her from walking away. Walking out, and now she's pleading, the fury drained from her as quickly as it came, and she wishes that her hand didn't hurt so d.a.m.n much and then maybe she could think more clearly. "I don't want to, but I have to.

I don't ever want to see that place again, I swear to G.o.d."

"You're a grown woman, Niki. You have to make your own decisions. I love you, but I can't play these games with you, and I can't spend the rest of my life trying to be sure you never hurt yourself again."

"I don't want to go," Niki says, and when Daria turns away from her, heading for the bedroom door, for the stairs and the airport, she jumps to her feet, and "Please,"

she begs. "Please, Daria. I don't want to have to go back there alone. I don't think I can face it alone."

"Then stay here. I'll be back in two weeks, and I'll call you when I get to the hotel." Then she takes her bag and leaves Niki standing by herself in the bedroom.

"I don't want to," she says, after Daria and Marvin have stopped talking downstairs, after the sound of the front door opening and slamming closed again, whispering the words for herself because there's no one to hear her now except the ghost of Danny Boudreaux smirking from a corner. A few drops of blood have leaked through the gauze and dripped from her hand to the hardwood floor; in a little while she goes back to the window seat, and the boy 66 with the Frisbee and the dog have gone, if they were ever there at all.

And later, two hours, two and a half, and by now, she thinks, Daria's plane is probably in the air, somewhere high above the clouds over Arizona or New Mexico, winging its way far from Niki and everything she represents. And in the big house on Steiner Street, Niki has finished packing her own suitcase, has only left the bedroom once on a quick trip down the hall for the stuff that she needed from the bathroom-toothpaste and her toothbrush, maxi pads and deodorant, a bottle of shampoo-and she's trying to remember anything she might have forgotten, anything she might possibly need, when Marvin finally comes upstairs to check on her.

"Hey there," he says. "I would have looked in on you sooner, but Daria said to give you some time alone." And then his eyes are on the open suitcase instead of her.

"You're really serious about this, aren't you."

"I already called the airport. I couldn't get a flight out until almost nine tonight."

"She told me not to stop you, Niki."

"I don't think she gives a s.h.i.t what I do, as long as I stay out of her way while I'm doing it."

"You don't believe that. I know you don't believe that,"

and he comes in, sits down on the bed beside the suitcase.

Niki closes it and the zipper sticks twice before she gets it to work right.

"Whatever. It doesn't matter."

Marvin scratches at his chin, and "Jesus," he sighs. "Can we please just talk about this for a minute. Maybe Daria has decided it's a good idea to let you go wandering off alone-"

"I'm not 'wandering off' anywhere. I know exactly where I'm going. When I'm finished, I'll try to come back."

"What do you mean, you'll try?"

"I mean I'll try, that's all," she says, then wrestles the heavy suitcase to the floor between them and sits down on

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the edge of the bed next to Marvin. "In the kitchen, I told you everything I could, everything I know for sure." But the way Marvin's looking at her makes her feel like she hasn't tried to tell him anything, like she's holding back, even though she isn't, and she wishes he would stop.

"This is so totally f.u.c.ked up. You know that, right? I mean, yesterday you almost died on us, Niki."

"I feel better now."

"You look like Death with a hangover. Daria must have been thinking with her a.s.s, taking you out of the hospital like that."

"Look, I asked you to help me, and you said that you couldn't, so the least you can do is lay off. I know what I did, Marvin, and I know what I look like. All I said was I feel better."

Marvin kicks once at the suitcase, halfhearted kick with the toe of his right sneaker and the bag rocks back on two of its small plastic wheels, but doesn't fall over.

"I'll be okay," Niki says. "I'll let you know when I get into Denver."

Fresh confusion on Marvin's face to make her flinch and "Denver?" he asks. "I thought you said you had to get to Birmingham."

"I have to go to Colorado first. I have to see Mort and Theo, and I have to look for something I left there."

Marvin glances up at the ceiling, white paint and plaster and a jagged, hairline crack from an earthquake last spring that no one's gotten around to having repaired. He closes his eyes and Niki wonders what he's been taking to stay awake.

"I want to believe you," he says. "I'm sure you probably think that's a load, but it isn't. I want to think this isn't all some twisted fantasy bulls.h.i.t your brain's spitting up because it isn't wired the right way or it's not getting enough dopamine or whatever. I'm trying so hard, Niki-"

"Don't, Marvin. You can't force yourself into belief. I never should have told you. I should have kept my mouth shut. None of this even has anything to do with you."

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He opens his eyes, clears his throat and turns towards her. "Before, the girl I was taking care of before you . . ."

and he pauses, standing here at the brink of some confidence because he thinks he owes her one, t.i.t-for-tat, recip-rocal confession, and I should stop him, she thinks. I should stop him now before this goes any further and it's too late to go back. But he's already talking again, and she doesn't have the courage to do anything but sit on the bed and listen.

"The girl before you, I lost her. She was only fifteen, and she'd already tried to kill herself four times. She said she saw wolves whenever she was left alone-not real wolves, but that's what she always called them because she said there wasn't a word for what they were. She told me they'd come after her because she was really one of them, but she'd been born wrong. That's exactly the way she put it. 'I was born wrong.'

"I hadn't been with her a month when she broke a mirror and slashed her throat. Her parents were both at work, and I couldn't keep pressure on the wound and reach the f.u.c.king telephone. So this fifteen-year-old girl bleeds to death right there in my arms. And the whole time, I could see how scared she was. I knew, I f.u.c.king knew she thought the wolves were coming, that she could see them coming, and this time it didn't matter if I was there or not."

He stops, breathless, his Adam's apple and a spot beneath his left eye twitching, and Niki realizes that he's holding her hands now; Marvin holding both her hands in his like he's about to kiss her or get down on one knee and propose marriage. Like he's afraid of losing her, too, the same way he lost the girl who saw wolves, the same way she lost Spyder and Danny, and maybe if he can just hold on to her long enough it doesn't have to happen.

"I've never seen wolves," Niki says uncertainly, all she can think of, and the silence between them so absolute it's starting to hurt, starting to embarra.s.s, and now there are tears leaking from Marvin's eyes and winding slowly down his stubbled cheeks.