“Of course I get afraid.” Her eyes flashed.
“Sorry.” I’d almost forgotten how Mindy had become a ghost. Even if she was beyond suffering now, her last hours were something I could never imagine. “You know I won’t let any bad men hurt you, right?”
“I know.” But she didn’t look convinced.
“Listen, Mindy. Maybe he died a long time ago. Maybe he’s already faded into nothing.”
She looked away from me, toward my mother’s room and the closet, where she always went when she got scared.
No matter what promises I made, she remained certain that the bad man was out there, still alive. That he would die one day, and then wander the earth looking for her.
Maybe it was better to change the subject. “So what do you think that was, down in the school basement?”
She started tracing the pattern of the bedspread with one finger, not much happier. “I don’t know.”
“But it was the ghost of something, right?”
Mindy only shrugged.
“You must have some idea,” I said. “Is there anything out there besides ghosts? I mean, what about vampires and werewolves?”
A laugh sputtered out of her. “Don’t be a dummy. Those are just make-believe!”
“Are you sure? I mean, if ghosts are real, why not all the other creatures of legend? Golems? Garudas? Selkies?”
Mindy’s smile faded. “I don’t even know what those are, but I think some monsters never got legends. Some places are just bad.”
“Okay,” I said. “You don’t have to know everything, I guess.”
“Good, because I don’t.”
Mindy was an eleven-year-old girl, I reminded myself. To her, a monster wasn’t something to be analyzed, it was something to be feared.
Not that I had the energy for monster analysis. The last dregs of my adrenaline were fading, and school was starting back up the day after tomorrow. The beginning of my last semester, and my first day in public as a national symbol of hope.
I’d avoided my friends since getting home, except for sending Jamie an email saying I wasn’t ready to see anyone. My dad still hadn’t bought me a new phone, despite promising to, so avoiding people had been easy enough. But I was going to have to face the real world soon.
I put the antiseptic away and slipped under the covers.
“Good night,” I said, and turned off the bedside light.
Mindy, as always, sat on the end of my bed. Ghosts didn’t sleep, which probably contributed to their boredom and restlessness. It was clear that Mindy wandered the neighborhood at night. She knew all the neighbors’ names, and their secrets too.
“Sleep tight, Lizzie,” she whispered.
“Thanks for taking me to ghost school.”
She giggled, and we were silent for a while, my brain searching for sleep. But the pain of my injuries came and went like ants traveling around my body, first one scraped palm itching, and then the other.
The sting of the antiseptic slowly faded, though, and I was almost asleep when the scratching sound began.
It was like a fingernail running along the underside of the floorboards, almost too soft to hear, too quiet to believe in. But the sound persisted, refusing to disappear even as my brain tried to ignore it.
By the time I opened my eyes, Mindy was standing on the end of my bed, staring wide-eyed down at the floor.
I sat up slowly, carefully, but already my skin was damp with fear.
“What the hell is that, Mindy?”
“I think it followed us home.”
“What did?”
The sound came again, scraping its way from my bedroom door toward me. My spine turned to water as it traveled beneath the bed.
It fell silent again, and Mindy whispered, “It’s all connected.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s down there, Lizzie. That thing we heard singing.”
“What do you—!” My voice rose almost to a shout, and I forced my mouth shut. Mom was a heavy sleeper, but I didn’t dare wake her with a monster in the house.
“I’m sorry, Lizzie.” Mindy’s voice was shaking. “I didn’t know it would follow us home!”
“Where is it?” I hissed. “This house doesn’t have a basement!”
She looked at me with exasperation. “It’s not in the basement. It’s down in the river.”
I shut my eyes, trying to make sense of Mindy’s words. My body was wide awake, but my brain was still spinning up from being half-asleep.
“Come down, come down, whoever you are!” sang a voice from beneath my bedroom floor.
CHAPTER 15
THE INVITATIONS TO DARCY’S HOUSEWARMING party had said seven, but at seven thirty not a single person had arrived.
“Crap.” Darcy kicked the bucket of beer and ice waiting in the corner. A pool of condensation had collected beneath it, like an unloved and sweaty pet left by its owner on a country road.
It was awfully hot in here in the big room, and would only get worse if any guests ever arrived. Darcy pushed open another of the windows, letting in the roar of Chinatown traffic and a tired breeze that stirred the hem of her sundress. She’d bought the dress at a vintage shop that morning, only to realize moments out of the store how close it was to the one Imogen had worn the day they’d found apartment 4E.
It wasn’t rust colored, at least, but the blue-gray of an overcast sky.
Darcy stared at her phone. Imogen had promised to arrive at six for moral support, but had texted an hour ago to say she’d be late. On top of that, Sagan and Carla had missed their intended train from Philly and wouldn’t be showing up till after nine. Aunt Lalana was out of town on business.
The inevitable question was forming in Darcy’s mind: What if no one came? It had been pure hubris, having a housewarming party in a city where she knew hardly anyone. Of course, a few people would show up, just enough to witness and ratify her humiliation.
The phone pinged in Darcy’s hand, and she raised it eagerly.
Still nobody there? #Loserfest
Only 438 days till publication!
“Thanks a lot, Nisha,” Darcy muttered, resolving never again to share doubts with her sister.
As she composed a suitably rude reply, the intercom sounded.
Darcy ran and buzzed open the downstairs door without asking who it was—party crashers were better than no one at all. She primped her hair in the wall of mirrors, opened the door, and stuck her head out. Climbing the stairs were Moxie Underbridge, her assistant, Max, and a young woman whom Darcy recognized from YA Drinks Night—Johari Valentine, a writer from Saint Kitts.
A moment later the three were inside, drifting past Darcy’s greetings and toward the windows of the big room. Darcy felt a swell of pride as they exclaimed over the views. This was the best time for looking out, the hour before sunset, when the sky was rosy and the shadows long and sharp.
For the first time all day, Darcy felt that neither the party nor the apartment had been a terrible mistake.
“This’ll be splendid in winter.” Johari was staring down at the street. “The rest of us down in the darkness, you up here in sunshine!”
“Really now, Johari,” Moxie said. “It’s July. Are you still traumatized?”
Johari gave Darcy a mock shudder. “My next book’s set on an ice planet. Dark and freezing, like winter up here.”
“It’s called Heart of Ice,” said Max. “ ‘Who holds the secret of fire, rules the world!’ ”
Johari shook her head. “Listen to you, Max. Peddling taglines for a book that isn’t half-done. Might be about penguins by the time I’m finished.”
“ ‘Who holds the secret of penguins, rules the world’?” Max said. “See, it works with everything.”
“Sounds awesome,” Darcy said, but all the talk of fire made her think of Imogen, and wonder again where she was. She glanced at her phone—nothing.
“Sorry to arrive so early, my dear,” Moxie said. “But we have a dinner at nine.”
“I’m just glad someone’s here!” Darcy put her phone away, praying that more people would arrive before they left. It would be inhumane of the universe to make her suffer two preparty freak-outs in one night. “You guys want drinks?”
They did, and as Darcy set to work, Johari and Max poked their heads into the bedrooms.
“Great idea,” Johari called, “having a party before moving in your furniture. Nothing broken if we get too lively!”
Darcy didn’t explain that all her furniture was, in fact, moved in. Her new desk was in the corner of the big room, holding soft drinks, plastic cups, and two bowls of guacamole. It wasn’t a real desk, just an unfinished door laid across two sawhorses. Page proofs and copyedits needed large surfaces, and doors were cheaper than desks.
Darcy was sleeping on her futon from home, which her father had driven up from Philly, along with a chair, some linens, and a few dozen indispensable books, which were now in the second bedroom on cinder-block shelves. Sagan and Carla had been warned to bring sleeping bags, but Darcy had forgotten to buy them pillows.
“And no TV?” Max was laughing. “The sign of a true writer.”
“I’m all about the words,” Darcy said, though she had yet to write a single sentence in apartment 4E.
She’d hardly noticed her lack of a television, given all the other things she didn’t own. Aunt Lalana had been right. She had no extension cords, no vacuum cleaner, no umbrella, nor a vase if anyone brought flowers tonight. She had no bathroom curtains and hardly any real dishes, only two bowls and a tea mug, and exactly one pan for making masala chai and instant noodles, the only cooking she’d done so far. She had a spice rack, complete with cardamom and tamarind and even saffron, but that had been a housewarming present from her aunt.
As Darcy handed out red plastic cups, she wondered what else she was missing. She’d only remembered to buy a corkscrew this afternoon, and the tiny speakers connected to her computer were unlikely to get anyone dancing tonight.
“Thank you, darling.” Moxie took her drink and swirled it thoughtfully. “Did you know Stanley David Anderson was in town?”
“Really? For an appearance?”
“Business. That’s who we’re dining with. You follow him, I presume?”
“Who doesn’t follow Standerson?” Darcy asked. That was one of his internet nicknames. The other was the Sultan of Social Media. Standerson had a million followers, and there were a dozen YouTube channels about his YouTube channel. “But you don’t represent him.”
“Not at the moment.” Moxie brushed an index finger across her lips. “But he’s a bit unhappy over at Sadler Lit, and might be looking around.”
“Whoa, that’s great,” Darcy said, though she was suffering a moment of petty jealousy. She wasn’t invited to dinner with Moxie, Max, Johari, and Standerson, and her housewarming party wouldn’t be the most glamorous YA event in New York tonight.
But this irrational moment passed when the buzzer sounded again, and Darcy sprang for the door.
* * *
As if the party’s surface tension had been broken, the guests arrived quickly now. Soon the big room was pleasingly full. Darcy recognized a dozen writers from YA Drinks Night (thanks to Oscar Lassiter’s email list), and Nan Eliot had come down from Paradox with a young assistant editor named Rhea. Carla had texted that she and Sagan were approaching Penn Station, but Imogen was still missing.
Darcy found herself poised between worry for Imogen and a sense of betrayal that she still wasn’t here.
“I admire your monklike simplicity,” Johari was saying. “A room for sleeping, one for books and clothes, one for food, and the biggest one for writing.”
“Are you going to keep it like this?” Oscar asked. “Au naturel?”