Kiseko blurted, “Yes!”
The unseen boy groaned and muttered something Suzy couldn’t hear, then stepped up to the pentagram, putting his hands against it. Suzy could see him then, a tallish boy of twelve or thirteen, with a serious, apologetic expression. “Aunt Jo’s going to kill me,” he announced. “I’m really sorry. We’ll get you out of there in a minute.”
“Who are you? What are you—oh, nevermind. Kiseko talked you into this, didn’t she?” Suzy sat down and put her face in her hands, not sure if she should laugh or cry. “Kiso, what did you do?”
“Oh, I just wanted to try a little magic,” Kiseko said with an impatient stomp of her foot. “Robert, why won’t this thing come down?”
“You’re putting too much energy into it,” Robert repeated. “You need to calm down.”
“Kiseko,” Suzy said into her hands, “doesn’t do calm. She’s Kiseko Anderson, Superhero.” Which was nicer than super-emo, which was what Suzy’s mother used to call Kiseko. She used to say that Kiseko was hysteria waiting to happen. She’d said it with a smile, but she hadn’t been wrong. The first time Suzy had met her, Kiseko had been sprawled full-length on her belly, sobbing piteously into her arms. There had been no one else around. Suzy, concerned, had crouched to ask what was wrong.
Kiseko, seven years old and dripping snot, had lifted her head, discovered her parents had gone inside rather than remain on the street to observe her tantrum, and shut off the waterworks as if they’d never happened. Her face wasn’t even red from crying. Kiseko had sat up, wiped her nose, and shrugged. “I don’t want to live in Seattle. My parents made me move here.”
“Oh! You’re the new family? I watched you move in. I’m Suzy.” Suzy had offered her hand like a little adult. Kiseko had burst out laughing and hugged Suzy instead. Overwhelmed, Suzanne had thought Kiseko was the strongest, wonderful est, and most dramatic person she’d ever met. They’d made friends, been friends, through everything, right up until Suzy’s parents and four high school students had been murdered.
Kiseko hadn’t come to school for a week, not even for the memorial services. She’d barely been able to say goodbye when Aunt Mae had come to take Suzy to Olympia. It wasn’t that Suzy blamed her. It was only that she’d never seen Kiseko take the world at anything less than full tilt, and her friend’s pallor and quietness still haunted her.
It wasn’t in evidence now, thought. Kiseko tossed her hair proudly. “Superhero nothing. Superwitch! I built a power circle! I still don’t get why you’re in it.” She squinted through the brightness at Suzy. “Or why you’re glowing.”
Robert mumbled, “She doesn’t know about y—” and then more clearly said, “If you don’t know about Suzanne, why did you want to try magic in the first place? How did you know it was real?”
Kiseko stopped with arms akimbo and looked at Robert like he was about half his actual age. “The zombies, hello? OMG, don’t tell me you didn’t even notice the zombies—!”
“Sure, it’s just most people—”
Kiseko blew an exasperated breath. “Most people are morons, hello! As if the entire city of Seattle could get turned into a film set without, like, everybody noticing? As if some director would think digging up my back yard and resurrecting my dog was worth the time and money? As if Suzy would just show up at my house to console me after we had to bury Fluffy again? Actually, Suzy, seriously, what were you doing there? I was all, like, emotional. I forgot to ask.”
Suzy peered through her fingers at her best friend, who still stood arms akimbo, but now with her attention directed away from Robert and at Suzanne. As far as Suzy had known, Kiseko wholeheartedly believed Suzy had shown up at Kiseko’s house a little after midnight after Halloween simply so Kiseko would have somebody’s shoulder to sob on as they re-buried their beloved family pet. Not once, not once, had Kiseko ever suggested that she thought there was any other reason for Suzy to show up in Seattle beyond Kiseko needing her at that very moment in time. But now light was starting to gleam in her eyes. “OMG, what were you doing there, and does it have to do with me, like, summoning you?”
“Were you summoning me on Halloween?” Suzy asked faintly.
“No, just now! OMG! Are you dangerous?”
Suzy’s response was so even, so steady, that she barely even knew it for her own voice: “You have no idea.”
For the first time since Suzy had arrived, Kiseko actually went silent, her eyes round and her throat moving as she swallowed heavily. When she spoke again, it was hardly more than a squeak: “So should I, like, not let you out of there?”
“You couldn’t keep me in if you tried. Kiso, what are you doing? Who is this boy?” Suzy’s somber tone changed as she squinted again at Robert. “You’re too young to be her boyfriend, right? I mean, no offense, but you look like you’re twelve.”
“I am. I’m Robert Holliday. My dad—”
“Detective Holliday? Detective Walker’s partner?”
“Yeah.” Robert looked apologetic. “If I’d had any idea she was going to summon you…”
“I wasn’t summoning her! I wanted a nature god, because it’s like April and it’s snowing and I don’t want my sixteenth birthday party to be in a snowstorm—!” Kiseko broke off with a small noise of dismay. “Um, Suzy, are you a nature god?”
“No.” Suzanne flicked a finger against the power circle, shattering the shields. “But my father is.”
Kiseko fell over with a thud. Suzy winced and stepped out of the circle—Kiso had drawn on the carpet with chalk, her mother was going to kill her—to help Kiso sit up. “My head’s ringing,” Kiseko mumbled. “It feels like somebody broke a crystal glass inside it.”
“I think I kind of did. Hang on, I’ll get you some aspirin.” Suzy stepped over Kiseko and scurried to the bathroom, which hadn’t changed at all since she’d last been there. Well, the towels had probably been changed, but otherwise it, and the rest of the house Suzy glimpsed, looked the same as it had six months earlier. That was a relief. Houses should stay the same, even if the people in them changed. She came back with water and aspirin, which Kiseko took as obediently as she ever did anything. Then she gave Suzy a gimlet stare, though Suzy didn’t know what a gimlet actually was, and said, “Well?”
“No, wait, first I want to know how you know Detective Holliday’s son.” Suzy sat down between Kiso and Robert, close enough that their cross-legged knees were all touching.
“I summoned you,” Kiseko muttered. “I should get to ask the questions. We’re in chess club together.”
Suzy eyed Robert. “You’re twelve and in high school?”
“I come over from the middle school because I can beat everybody there too easily.”
“Oh. Cool. Okay, um.” Suzy pulled her hair over her shoulder and twitched into a nervous braid, then undid it again. “Um.”
“Suzanne’s biological father is Herne, a nature god,” Robert volunteered into Suzy’s nervous silence. “She didn’t find out until last January, when her parents were killed. He was going to sacrifice her so he could take over his father’s position as a wild god, but Aunt Jo stopped him. Also Suzy really, really helped with the zombies last Halloween. Like, she got her grandfather, the wild god, to ride early and save Seattle from them.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably as Suzy and Kiseko both goggled at him. “Is that right?”