"This is difficult. I don't really know how to treat babies."

"Neither do I," he says, giving me a long look. "So it's a good thing Raymie is basically not a real baby."

"I'm not a baby?" Raymie asks, catching a cluster of bubbles and trying to eat it.

"No, you are," I tell her. "You're just a different kind. Special."

She looks at me with suds dripping from her chin. Then she nods. "Special," she repeats, like the idea pleases her.

Her hair is bristling crazily around her face and she's pale and grimy, but solid. The dust on her skin makes her look abandoned-discarded, even-but she doesn't look starved.

"Raymie," I say, wiping her face clean with a washcloth. "Do you know how to count? Like one, two, three, four?"

Truman is watching us like we've both gone crazy, but Raymie nods. "I can count like in the song. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, and four for a boy."

"Do you know how long were you in the shed, then? How many days?"

Raymie shakes her head. "It was dark all the time, like one long night."

"Christmas," says Truman suddenly, and we both look at him. "Were the Christmas lights still up when you went into the shed?"

"No," she says, with grim conviction. "The lights had already gone."

Truman nods. "Okay, what about hearts?"

Raymie glances at me and scowls. "A heart is a muscle," she tells me. "It has four chambers-two atria and two ventricles. It pumps oxygenated and deoxygenated blood." And this, I can't disagree with.

But Truman shakes his head and holds up his hands, joining them together with his thumbs pointing down and his fingers curved to make the shape of a candy box. "Like this," he says.

Raymie watches his hands, still scowling. "That's not a heart, that's a valentine."

"Okay, fine. But were there valentines like this when someone took you to the storage shed?"

She nods and I smile encouragingly. I'm waiting for her to go on, when Truman turns and walks out of the tiny bathroom. He sits down on the bed, raking his hands through his hair and staring fixedly at the wall.

"Jesus," he says in a small, dry voice, like the words are stuck in his chest. "That's not even possible. She was in there for almost a month, with no food and no water. How is that possible?"

"Well, she's a demon," I tell him, leaning sideways to talk through the open door. "We're almost impossible to kill through adverse conditions or neglect. I mean, you have to actually want us dead. This is more like someone just ignored her for awhile."

Raymie nods in staunch agreement and piles bubbles on top of her head like a hat.

"Who put you in the shed?" I ask her, cupping my hands, pouring water over her to rinse the soap off.

"My mother." She scrubs at her eyes. "She told me I'd be safe and to wait for my father. But he never came."

Something is humming uneasily in my chest. It beats against my ribs like a bird, and I kneel beside the bathtub, looking down at her.

If I hadn't found the key, she'd still be sitting there in the dark and the cold, waiting for her father. How long? Maybe forever. I imagine Raymie's mother, bringing her to Asher Self-Storage, tucking her away to wait for a man who can't come for her, who's chained to a table in a dark church.

I have a litany of reassuring stories, things to tell myself-that the situation is not completely dire and Truman's dream is definitive proof that my brother's still all right. But deep down I know that Truman may be right. A dream is no substitute for the real thing. Maybe Raymie is not a clue after all, just a complication.

"I want to be dressed again," she tells me.

Her plastic bag is in tatters on the floor and I can't put it back on her. In my head, I make a list of all the things we need, soap and shampoo, clothes for Raymie and for Truman, and the list makes things seem orderly. The world, falling into place.

"I'm going shopping," I tell Truman. "Raymie ought to have clothes, and I'm going to get you a toothbrush and some socks and shirts. What else would you like?"

He smiles at me and shakes his head. His eyes are very blue. "Nothing. Don't buy me anything."

"You need things, though. I'll get you a comb, at least. Is there anything else you can think of?"

"Yeah," he says, nodding toward Raymie. "Yeah. Maybe a toy?"

THE ROSARY.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

I find a drugstore without much trouble and wander the aisles, choosing things and putting them in a plastic shopping basket. The store is mostly empty and the overhead lights are harsh and florescent. The whole place smells like cleaning products.

I find sleepers for Raymie and a toothbrush for Truman and a white cloth rabbit with black button eyes. The orderliness of the shelves is comforting. It helps me think. By the time I'm done comparing the relative merits of two different sun bonnets, I've decided that we have absolutely no choice but to leave Chicago.

It's dark when I start back to the hotel, and the street is a sea of headlights and traffic lights. It bothers me how nervous I've become. I feel skittish and on edge. Every shadow of every building could hide the monstrous form of Dark Dreadful.

When I open the door to our room at the Arlington, Truman's sitting on the bed with Raymie. They're watching television while he holds her in the crook of his arm and explains about fish, how they live underwater. There's a towel tucked around her like a nest.

I tip the shopping bags out onto the bed. "Here, I got some things for both of you."

Truman sets Raymie on the pillow, bundled in her towel, and begins to pick through my purchases, examining a black book bag with shoulder straps. He holds up a fuzzy baby suit with long sleeves and built-in feet.

"Do you like it?" he asks Raymie.

"Maybe. What's that?" She points to a synthetic duckling appliqued on the front. "The yellow thing?"

"A duck," he tells her. "Are you telling me you know how many chambers a heart has, but you don't recognize a duck when you see one?"

Raymie shakes her head. "My father knows about hearts. He told me all the kinds of muscles and blood and bones. Why is there a duck?"

"It's a decoration. You know, something fun."

"No." Raymie shakes her head. "I don't know fun."

Truman stands over her, still holding out the yellow sleeper. "So, do you want to put it on?"

She looks over at me. "May I?"

"Yes, that's why I bought it." I pop a plastic comb out of its packaging and toss it into my black bag. "Now we need to get you dressed and pack our things."

Truman is wrestling with the yellow sleeper, trying to remove the price tag, which is fastened on with a little plastic cord. I yank it out of his hands and snip the cord with my teeth. Then I tuck Raymie into the suit, zip it closed, and deposit her on the bed. Looking down at herself, she pats the applique duck with both hands, then begins to rifle through the pile of recent purchases.

"What's this?" She holds up a small vinyl package.

"It's a sewing kit," Truman says. "See the little scissors, and all the thread?"

Raymie clutches the package to her chest, rocking back and forth with it.

"It's not a toy," I tell her, offering the rabbit instead. "That's for Truman to fix his clothes. This rabbit is for you."

Raymie considers the rabbit, watching it flop in my hand. When I shake it at her, she drops the sewing kit and takes it. Squeezing it against the front of her sleeper, she bites the top of the rabbit's head. She's still looking at the little vinyl package on the bedspread though.

"Did you have a good time watching television with Truman?" I ask, tidying my purchases-one pile for Truman, one for Raymie.

"I like him," she says. "He's lost, like my mother."

Truman is examining the four-pack of socks and the T-shirts, but that makes him look up. "What does that mean? What's she talking about?"

I collect the new toothbrushes and drop them in my bag. "Nothing. It's not important. Right now, we need to be concentrating on our next move. On leaving town."

"Will you take me with you?" Raymie asks, gnawing on the rabbit.

I stare down at her. "Of course I'll take you. I'm not going to just leave you here."

"Last time, I stayed," she says. "We were pretending to move away, but I stayed with the things. My mother said to wait until someone came for me. It was a trick."

I kneel by the bed so I can look directly into her face. "Do you know what you were hiding from, or if it was bad?"

Raymie scowls, shaking her head. "I don't know what it was."

Truman gives me a sharp look, still holding the package of socks. "She just spent at least four weeks in a storage shed, in sub-zero weather," he says in a low voice. "She didn't eat for a month. If her mom thought the best solution was to put her in a cardboard box and leave her there, then yeah, it was bad." He drops the socks on the bed, watching me carefully. "Maybe even the same thing that killed Deirdre."

His expression is challenging, like he's waiting for me to tell him all the secrets of Dark Dreadful. But I find myself reluctant to describe her. It suddenly seems reckless even to speak her name.

"Deirdre was the victim of a terrible attack," I say, keeping my voice flat and matter-of-fact. "We don't know who or what killed her."

"What about that rosary? Myra said they found it on the-" His voice falters then and he looks past me, toward the window. "She said it was with your sister."

I remember Myra's nervous behavior at the Prophet Club, fidgeting with the token Moloch had given her. "You mean the string of beads?"

"Yeah, only it wasn't beads. I mean, they were beads, but it was a rosary."

The word is Latinate and only marginally familiar. I know the meaning, but not the significance. "Are you saying the thing that killed Deirdre adorned her body with a holy artifact?"

Truman shrugs, looking apologetic. "Not exactly an artifact, more like an accessory. I mean, they're pretty common. People-Catholics-use them for church all the time."

As soon as he says it, my skin goes cold and I'm transported back to the dream of my brother, bound to the table. Church. The rosary-whatever it signifies, whoever left it-came from a church. For a moment, I only stare up at him. My eyes feel wide and dry and electric.

"Hey," he says catching me by the arm. "Why are you looking like that? What's wrong?"

"We need to go to Las Vegas," I say, forcing myself to stand still when what I want is to wrench away from him and start packing. "Myra's there. She has the rosary and maybe she can tell us what it means. It must be some kind of a clue to finding Obie."

"Wait, what? How are we going to Vegas?"

"I'll draw a jump-door. We just need an east-facing wall."

"Daphne, do you realize that you are totally not oriented in reality?"

I grab the book bag off the bed and shove it at him. "Just pack, please. We have to go."

He puts the socks in the bag without conviction. Behind him, Raymie just sits placidly on the bed, watching us. He reaches for the package of undershirts next, then stops.

"We. I'm assuming we means you, me, and her. Christ, I can see so many problems with this. I can't go."

"Why not?"

"I just-it's too weird and school's starting back up and I live here and I barely know you."

I want to tell him that I'm worried about him. That he's come too close to dying too many times and that if I leave him behind, he's going to manage it eventually. But that's not the only reason I need to bring him with me. His dreams are crucial, the only link to my brother, and no one in my family has the slightest knowledge of holy articles or churches. None of us are equipped to handle this.

I suspect I need him almost as much as he needs me.

"Please come with me," I say, and my voice sounds very small. "I need your help."

He takes a deep breath and glances from me to Raymie and back again. "Can I think about it?"

"That depends. How long will that take?"

He touches his mouth, looking someplace else. "Daphne, this is a big deal. I can't just walk away from my life." He says it like he's trying to convince me, but when he looks back at me, his face is stoic and resigned. We both know that he can.

MARCH 9.

1 DAY 10 HOURS 10 MINUTES.

Daphne was pacing around the room, gathering up the things on the bed and tossing them into her bag.

Truman watched her open a package of plastic barrettes, drop them, pick most of them up off the floor, and shove them into her coat pockets. He felt a surge of sympathy for this new version of Daphne, a twitchy and agitated version. Her eyes were wide and unfocused. It was a stare he recognized-that glassy, panicked look, like the room was shrinking.

"Daphne," he said, keeping his voice low and calm. "Daphne, stand still. It's going to be fine."

She stopped pacing and looked at him. Her eyes were wide and she was breathing fast and shallow. She glanced away and whispered, "Things aren't fine."

"Okay, that's okay. But just for a little, let's pretend they are anyway. Do you know how to do that?"

She shook her head, still giving him that wild, uncomprehending stare.