The place is still a mess, but it’s home. One of my duffel bags is on the floor by the door. I yank out an old dirty sweatshirt and jeans, plus some socks, hauling them on as quickly as I can. My cell is in there, too. I pull it out, flip it open. One message received, it says. It was sent at 7:08. Maybe it’s from my mom. My heart leaps with hope—A.M.? 7:08 A.M.? No, no, it’s P.M. Yesterday. Just after the game started.
I retrieve it.
It says, “Do not come home. Will tell more later. Do not come home. Stay at seppie’s. Wait 4 my call. I love you. Mom.”
How did I miss this? Did I just totally fail to check? Or did it come through late? Gulping, I make sure that there aren’t any missed calls. None. She texted me. She never texts me. I didn’t know she knew how. It makes no sense that she wouldn’t call and leave a voice mail. And it makes no sense that she didn’t want me to come home.
Why?
I lock the door. It clicks into place. The thermostat is right near the door and I crank it all the way up. The furnace shudders on, making me jump. The baseboards start thumping. It reminds me of last night and the creature, and for a second I think maybe that’s why she didn’t want me to come home. But she couldn’t have known about the Windigo. Not Mom. My mom doesn’t believe in craziness. Once, when Seppie and I were in seventh grade, we had this séance, and we swore that we saw a sparkly lady in white walk across the living room and disappear into the bathroom. Mom? She scoffed. Really. Scoffed is a stupid word, but that is totally what she did.
I was so mad at her. I was all, “Why don’t you believe me?”
And she straightened the hem of her slip and said, “I only believe the things I see.”
I thought that was so boring, almost as boring as actually wearing those beige slips under her skirts, but maybe it wasn’t boring at all, because I sure am seeing a lot of things that I never, ever would have believed if someone had just randomly told me.
I dial her cell phone. Nothing. It goes directly to voice mail, like it does when it has lost its charge.
Wait. It was in the car anyway. Ugh. I am losing it, just operating on automatic and not even thinking about what I’m doing anymore. Slumping over to the love seat, I end up sitting on the one cushion that has been put back in place, and pull my knees up to my chest. I know it’s stupid to be here. Especially if Mom warned me not to come home. But right now I have nowhere else to go. Right now, if a Windigo thing appears, then, well … let it freaking exterminate me. I don’t care.
How can any of this be real?
“This makes no sense,” I announce to the room, to the house, to the possible hiding Windigos.
“Sure it does.”
I startle and see China standing in the kitchen. “God! What is up with you? Do you have to keep creeping up like that?”
He shrugs. His shoulders are massive under the leather jacket. His eyes don’t shift, totally unreadable.
All the weird stuff? This all started with him and the gym.
I stand up and stomp over to him. I make my voice strong, bossy. “I mean it. What are you doing in my house?”
He doesn’t back down. His voice is mellow, with just a tinge of anger. “A better question is, what are you doing here?”
“It’s my house.”
“It’s dangerous.” His eyes scan the mess, the Windigo footprints on the ceiling.
“Obviously.”
He moves a step forward. He brings his eyes back to me. They’re dark eyes, deep. They match his voice. “I thought you and your little boyfriend went to his house.”
“He is not little and he is not my boyfriend.”
“He’d like to be.”
“Whatever. Wait. Really?”
He starts laughing. “Nice comeback.”
“Nice comeback?” I stare at him. I force my mouth shut, my hands to unclench. “Is that what we’re doing? Trading comebacks?”
He spreads out his hands, then drops them again to his sides. “It seems that way.”
“That is so stupid. My mom is missing and you think it’s fun to banter.”
“You have to have a little fun. Even your mom had fun sometimes.”
“Like you would know.” My fists clench up again, because he just shrugs, and this time I don’t unclench them. Instead, I ask, “How did you know I went to Lyle’s house?”
He leans against the wall. “I put a tracking device on your clothes. Obviously, you are no longer wearing the same clothes, because according to my tracker you’re still upstairs at the boy’s house.”
“Lyle. At Lyle’s house. Not ‘the boy.’ He is not a boy.” As soon as I say this, I realize it sounds pervy somehow, like “He is not a boy. He is a man … all man.”
“What happened? Did you have a lovers’ spat?” He smiles like this is possibly the funniest idea in the known universe, which makes me want to kick him.
“Spat? You are so stupid. I just told you…” I give up, whirl around, pick up a pillow from the couch, pivot back. “Never mind. Why did you put a tracker on me?”
“So I’d know where you were.”
“Obviously. And…”
“And what?”
“And why do you want to know where I am?”
“Because you’re in danger.”
I put the pillow in place. “Right. And you care that I am in danger because why? Let me guess. You’re magically in love with me, instantly, devotedly, after our wonderful interaction in the locker room? That would be a lovely cliché, wouldn’t it?”
“Stop smirking and being so sarcastic. You know you are.”
“I am not in love with you!”
“Not in love with me.” He laughs. He actually laughs. “In danger. You know you are in danger.”
“And why am I in danger?” I swear, it’s like trying to get information out of a three-year-old.
He kneels down and picks up a copy of The Naked Gun, my mother’s favorite movie. It’s old, and one of those comedies that are really stupid on purpose. He smiles, a real smile, softer. It makes his face glow. How can his face glow when everything is so crappy? I snatch the dvd case out of his hand.
“Are you always so grumpy?” he asks. His smile vanishes.
“Yes.” I hesitate and wobble my head around like an idiot. “No.”
It’s like all the air inside of me suddenly whooshes out. I flop back down on the love seat and say, “You just bring it out of me. I mean, I thought you were a kidnapper, and you keep surprising me, and … and … everything is so inexplicable, you know? It’s hopeless, and all the weirdness seemed to start when I saw you at the game.”
China lifts a slashed cushion off the floor and plops it onto the love seat. Then he sits next to me. I lean forward and rest my head in my hands.
“I’m not always grumpy,” I say. “Only when my mother goes missing, I fail tests, and find out aliens are real.”
His voice comes out soft and almost nice. “Just most of the time, then?”
I half punch him. I cannot believe I do that. It’s like he’s Lyle or Seppie or one of my friends. He almost smiles. He’s not really that old, I guess, and he has crinkles around his eyes, which are nice, now that they aren’t hidden behind sunglasses. The crinkles are like he’s been squinting in the sun, not like he’s ancient. His hair is dark and cut close to his head, like he’s been in the army or the marines, but not anymore.
“Checking me out?” he asks, leaning back. “Evaluating whether or not to trust me?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Are you going to tell me why I’m in danger?” I ask.
“How about you go take a shower and get some clean clothes first?”
I raise my eyebrows.
“It’s safe,” he says. “I’ve checked out the house. You’re shuddering.”
Technically, I’m shivering, but I let it go.
“What if the Windigo thing comes back?” I ask.
“They’re nocturnal.”
“That’s co
nvenient.”
“Yes, it is. It’s one of the few things in our favor.”
Our? We’re on the same team? I guess we are, since he saved us in the woods, but still …
I stare him down. “And how do I know I can trust you while I take the shower?”
“You can lock the door.”
“I bet you can pick it.”
He laughs a choking sort of laugh. “True.”
“Will you tell me what’s going on, after?” I ask, standing up, because the truth is I am bloody and gross and I need a shower—like, really, really need a shower.
He holds up his right hand. “I swear.”
“And nothing bad will happen while I’m in there?”
“I’ll keep you safe.”
His eyes gaze at my eyes. My eyes decide to focus on the ceiling.
“This is all too weird,” I finally say.
I start walking to the stairs. He follows me up. He watches as I find some clothes in my demolished bedroom. I pull some clean jeans down from the ceiling fan. I find two matching socks. A pair of clean underwear is inside my copy of Brian Kell’s Crud. I take a new shirt that is wrapped around Sherman Alexie’s Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
He scoops the book off the floor. “You read?”
“Yes.”
He gives me this expression and I have no clue what it means.
“What?” I say, stomping away from him toward the bathroom. “Why does that shock you? Everyone thinks stupid people don’t read. It is so bigoted.”
I turn to watch his face. An emotion flickers past it.
“I wasn’t saying that you’re stupid. It’s just that your mother’s not much of a reader,” he finally says, flipping through the book, not making direct eye contact, not reading any words on any pages, just flipping the pages fast.
I stop. “You really know my mother?”
“Yes.”
I wait for more. He does not give me more.
Pulling my clean clothes closer to my chest, I ask the obvious question. “How do you know my mother?”
This time, emotion catches on his face. His lips move in and out again. It would be sexy and endearing if he wasn’t such a jerk. He stops riffling through the book. Instead, he holds it still in one big hand.
“She’s my partner, Mana. Your mother is my partner.”
“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” I back up against the wall. My head knocks into one of the paper lanterns on this electrical chain that is normally hanging nicely on the ceiling. Now, it’s dangling down, kind of like my tongue. Not really, but it might as well be.
I swallow, try to calm down, try to tell myself that this is not ridiculous, that mothers have secrets, that they do not have to tell their kids everything, and that, yes, just like all the old-women magazines say, women can get it on after thirty, even with hot men who are younger than they are.
“So,” I finally say, “how long have you and my mom been doing it?”
His shoulders jerk back. “What?”
“How long have you been together?”
“You said ‘doing it.’”
“If you heard me, why did you ask me to repeat it?”
“Because I couldn’t believe you said it.” He pulls his hand over his buzzed-off hair and starts smiling, really smiling. “You’re difficult, aren’t you?”
“Better than being easy.” Which, apparently, my mother is. I lift Teddy, my oldest stuffed animal, off the floor. He’s missing an arm. I haven’t actually slept with Teddy for a decade, but rage still fills me. “Those bastards hurt Teddy. At least Mr. Penguinman is in one piece still, but really? Hurting a teddy bear?”
China doesn’t respond. I stare out the window and hug poor Teddy and think about how life was so much simpler when I got him, innocent and simpler. Now, like Teddy, that innocence is all ripped apart. I outgrew Teddy and innocence long ago, but that doesn’t mean that I want to throw it away or have it ruined. I’m not taking this well, and I try to focus on the immediate world. It snows now, tiny little flakes fluttering down. Soon everything alive will be covered in white.
“Is she okay?” I ask, pivoting to face China. My toe touches a disembodied teddy bear arm. I try to stick it on. It won’t go in right, just dangles. “Is she?”
“I have no idea. I wish I did. Believe me.”
I turn around again, stare out the window, watch the snow touch the ground. More comes, falling, falling, falling. China takes a step toward me and rests his hand on my shoulder. It’s not a bad feeling, so I don’t move away.
“You’re scared?” he asks, but he’s not really asking. All of his questions are more statements.
I nod.
“The tough thing was just an act, huh?” He waits for me to answer, and when I don’t, he keeps going. “That’s okay. The act keeps you moving. Almost all of us have an act.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I call it the Rambo–Terminator–Death Squad, He-Without-Emotions act.”
“You’re pretty self-aware for an old, mean guy in a leather jacket.”
“So are you … for a cheerleader.”
“That was low,” I say, “but funny.”
“I couldn’t resist. Plus, you called me old.”
“Everyone over eighteen is old.”
The snow keeps coming, giving a visual to the cold, obscuring the old grass, the driveway, the walkway, all the things that I should be able to see. God, everything is so messed up.
“Go take a shower, quickly.” He steers me away from the window and gives me a tiny push across the room. “I’ll stand guard. Then we’ll go search for your mom. Deal?”
He stands there, calm, far too handsome for Mom, whose last man was Dad, and let’s face it … my dad? He’s kind of bald and not much of a looker. This guy is so different—younger, obviously. China’s feet are planted. He has a wariness about him, a stability thing. And I don’t know if I can trust him, I just know that I have to. But, if Mom trusted him, if she dated him, she would have told me about him, right? Maybe all this is his fault.
I stand on the threshold of the bathroom but keep my eyes on him before I go on in.
“Were you guys dating long?”
He groans. “We weren’t that kind of partners, Mana. That’s why I laughed.”
“What? Like dating my mom would be bad?”
“No. Not at all. We’re not exactly each other’s type.”
The bathroom door frame feels a bit loose beneath my hand. I press my clothes into the frame. It wiggles as I study China.
“You’re a little too leather for her. You probably have ink. She hates ink.”
The corners of his mouth creep up. “I do have one. Want to see?”
“No. With my luck, it’s on your butt.” I smile back at him, because I know he knows that I know he’s teasing. I shake my head, confused anyway, and throw my clothes into the bathroom. They land in a heap on the floor, right on top of the yellow ducky rug. I toss Teddy and his broken leg in the trash can. There’s no fixing him. “So, what kind of partners were you?”
He walks across my bedroom and stands in the hallway, right by the bathroom door. He moves me in, flicks on the light switch. There are no windows in here.
“We worked together keeping people safe by capturing aliens. Now take a shower. We need to get moving.”
He nudges me into the bathroom and shuts the door before I have a chance to close my mouth, or say the obvious thing here, which would be, “What?”
CHAPTER 8
I decide that he’s full of crap, and that he just wants me to slam open the bathroom door and get into it with him right there. So I rebel instead and take my shower. The water warms my skin. It lulls me into believing things could be all right. I have someone who is going to help me find my mom. I am clean. I am warm.
Then I start thinking about what the guy just said.
Mom never really explained exactly what she did for work. She always made it sound stupid and dull.
Mom was act
ually really brilliant—is really brilliant. She always knows all the answers on game shows like Jeopardy! or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I would tease her about going on and she would be all, “It’s too high profile for me, Mana. I want to be under the radar.”
I pick up the soap that’s on the floor. It’s cracked in half, like someone threw it down hard.
Mom always wears skirts. You can’t be an alien hunter if you wear flowing cotton skirts with beige slips. She makes chocolate-dipped pretzels. Alien hunters would make guns or bombs or sonic screwdrivers or something.
There’s a dent in the soap, too.
China’s obviously teasing me. Right? Right.
But if he isn’t …
That means that the monster/alien things at the game were here because of her, for some reason. That means this is not random, and that she is in some serious danger. I can’t just hope that the police do their best and find her, because this is bigger than the police.
And what about me? What about that weird leaping stuff that happened in the locker room? How does that fit into it?
I step out, dry off, and put my clothes on, trying to hurry. My hair drips because I haven’t wrung it out well enough, but I don’t care.
I step out of the bathroom. “China?”
No answer.
He’s gone.
“What a complete asshole,” I announce to the empty hallway. “He said he would guard the door.”
When I was little, I saw this snippet of the movie Psycho. It totally freaked me out because it had this scene where a woman was in the shower and this crazed guy kills her. There’s a lot of scary music, and slashing, and blood. Lots and lots of blood.
For a whole year I wouldn’t take a shower without Mom standing outside the door. The thing is, she never complained about it. She was always straight out of the Good Mother Handbook, saying, “There are times in our lives when it’s okay to be scared, Mana. I’m just glad I get to be here for you during one of those times.”
“This is one of those times, Mom,” I say. The empty stairs wait below me. She should be running up them. She should be throwing open her arms and getting ready for a hug, about to explain everything away—a big practical joke, a mass hallucination caused by some sort of chemical released from the locker room … anything.