Fire Island was dormant. The wall of copper kettles, pots, and skillets was fully armored. Beyond the wall of windows, a swollen half-moon skunk-striped the black lake. Harbored boats rocked naked masts. Flashlights and colored wands bobbed around the airfield. A plane, twin engines whining, passed by the windows, eased itself away from the earth, and disappeared.
In the kitchen, only one small, elbowed lamp was lit beside a large pot — a copper vat — squatting on a low-flame burner near the windows. Spices, bottles, and a tub of molasses were scattered around it.
Cyrus rounded the island and approached the light. Steam was rising from the pot, and so was a smell to melt his heart. Barbecue sauce. It had to be. And stronger than most. Cyrus’s mouth was suddenly liquid. Dan had tried to barbecue at first, but only ever with bottles of store sauce, and not for a while. Meat was expensive. This simmering joy was different. This would be sauce like his father’s had been — or better.
Inhaling slowly, Cyrus rose onto his toes and examined the thick brown surface inside the pot. A slow bubble grew and burst, releasing spiced breath from the depths. He couldn’t resist. Cyrus tapped the side of the pot, testing for heat, and then dipped his finger. Hot. Perfect. He raised it to his mouth.
A hairy fist clamped onto his wrist and spun him around. Big Ben Sterling loomed above him.
“What thief is this?” the cook asked.
“I–I’m sorry,” Cyrus stammered. “I — You said—”
“Cyrus Smith, is it?” The cook scratched his unnetted beard. The very tip was tied tight with a small pink ribbon. Sterling grinned. “Ben did tell you to help yourself, didn’t he? Well, not to this.” He looked at the pot. “This needs testing, and that’s a job for the vice-cook.”
Grabbing a rag, he swabbed Cyrus’s finger clean.
“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said again. “It smells really good.”
“That it does, lad,” Sterling said. “But smell is only the beginning.” Releasing Cyrus’s wrist, he stepped back, and his thin metal legs were invisible in the darkness. He looked like a huge man levitating on his knees. The bells were missing from his ears. “Now tell me why Cyrus Smith is out wandering the night’s middle while the Keepers are all in a beer froth about his safety?”
Another plane rattled the windows. Cyrus looked back over his shoulder, watching its wing lights disappear. He felt dizzy, and his legs were weak.
“I just …” He paused. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Sterling tugged on his beard and lowered his brows. “And you look to have had a fright, too. Well, frights are easy things to find in Ashtown.” He slapped Cyrus on the shoulder and winked. “Lad, if it’s your brother you’re frettin’ about, Rupert Greeves is the bloodiest of bloodhounds. He gets his man, don’t you worry about that.” He nodded out the window. “He’ll be running planes till the sun rises, no matter who’s complaining. You rest easy. He’ll find what’s there to be found.”
“What are they looking for?” Cyrus asked. “What can you see from a plane at night?”
“Oh, they’re not looking out the windows,” Sterling said. “Rupert will have his hunters out.”
“Hunters?” Cyrus looked out the window. “Hunters, like people, or like … things?”
Sterling laughed. “Things. The planes just follow along like horses behind the hounds. Hold on now, lad.”
The cook bounced slowly toward a pantry and returned with a cloth napkin. He held it out to Cyrus. A hunk of cold chicken sat in its center, coated with a skin of spiced molasses.
Laughter wandered into the kitchen. Sterling slapped the chicken into Cyrus’s hand, grabbed his shoulders, and pointed him toward the dining hall.
“Get on now, quick. I don’t want to be explaining you to the watchmen, not in the mood they’re in. Back through the dining hall, and quietly, too.”
Cyrus hurried to the door. The laughter was growing louder. “Thanks,” he whispered, and the legless cook saluted.
Thirty-two minutes later, a relieved Cyrus stepped into orange light and the sound of two breathing sleepers beside a tocking grandfather clock. He’d been lost and found and lost again, but he’d found his way in the end, and without getting caught. And he’d be able to do it again.
With chicken in his teeth and the sound of airplanes in his ears, he slid beneath his blankets. Sleep was waiting for him, soft and swift.
Cyrus flew in his dreams. He flew all the way back to the sea, back in time, back to a cold night on the north coast of California with the moon sliding low beneath broken clouds. He flew down beneath the cliffs, above thundering winter surf and into a red station wagon sitting on the sand. There he shivered with his sister and his brother while his mother stammered quick prayers in a language he didn’t understand. He watched distant rocks and the lights on the small boat when they disappeared forever. He watched his mother plunge into the midnight water and strike out into the surf. He heard Dan yelling, calling for her. Splashing. Searching.
Daniel Smith opened his eyes. His throat was desert-dry and desert-hot. He blinked, and the world hardened a little, regrowing its edges. He squeezed his eyes tight and tried opening them again. This time, he could see a blue curtain partitioning his bed from the rest of the room. Was he in a hospital? What had happened? The fire? The smoke? He remembered the fire trucks leaving before dawn. He remembered Cyrus and Antigone unconscious across his bed.
He had been standing in the parking lot, alone with the Golden Lady, staring at the ruins of his life. And there had been … a man. With very worn teeth. And knives.
He tried to sit up. An invisible weight on his chest crushed the breath out of him, pinning him down.
Cold fingers stroked his cheek. Dan flinched, twisting his head to the side.
An extremely thin man seated next to Dan’s bed withdrew his hand. He was wearing a jarringly white suit and vest beneath what looked like a tattered and stained lab coat. His thick black hair was slicked into heavy curls at the back and shone like polished wax. His needle-sharp eyes were as pale as blue pearls.
The man smiled slowly, folding long, tight lines into his cheeks. His teeth were whiter than his suit, and a large gap in the front punctuated his smile like an exclamation mark. “Mr. Smith,” the man said, his voice crawling out slowly in a musical drawl. “Welcome to my home. I apologize for your unconsciousness, and for any pain you may have been caused. My name is Dr. Edwin Phoenix, and I do hope we can be friends. There’s just so much I can do for you and for yours.”
He leaned forward and turned Daniel’s head to the right.
“If we’re friendly, that is.”
Another bed was just beside Dan’s. His mother, breathing softly, as peacefully unconscious as she had been for the past two years, was propped up on pillows.
Phoenix sat back, his smile shrinking. “Are you my friend, Daniel Smith? Do please say yes.”
Dan tried to kick but only managed to wiggle his toes. He tried to roll, but his shoulders wouldn’t come off the mattress. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped into his eyes. The man stood and leaned his thin body over the bed, eyes locked on Dan’s.
“Don’t rush your answer, now.” He pressed cold lips against Dan’s forehead, then straightened and turned away.
Anger and panic inflated Dan’s veins. A roar filled his lungs, but it rose from his chest as silent as a breath.
Cyrus Smith jerked, opening his sleep-clouded eyes. He blinked, his mind still half-dreaming. In the doorway, Nolan was writhing, jerking at his skin, scraping his naked body with a knife, peeling off translucent sheets, stepping out of his legs like reptilian socks. The skin, empty and weightless, floated out to the clattering spiders.