Rating: R (Violence, language)

Sunset on Haven Street

Chapter One

Bianca Stephens walked slowly around the living room, head down, mind wandering. The living room was dark except for the orange glow of a fire in the hearth and the gentle shimmering light that came from three candles on the mantle above. Her hands were clutched behind her back, and she twisted her fingers together as if to make a Celtic knot.

It was a nice house, small and well kept. The dead give-away of a single woman who grew up on the right side of the tracks. The carpet was smooth and unmarred, and the ceiling had been lovingly pocmarked. Bianca had felt nervous the moment she stepped inside a place so foreign and surreal.

Her throat ached to hum but she stayed quiet, only sizzling of the fire and the floor boards squeaking under her tennis shoes. They were old shoes, stained and warped and the plastic tips has fallen off the strings. Mrs. Alderworth had wanted to replace them but Bianca said no. The shoes were as much a part of her as her feet.

She waited and waited but there was nothing. Tomorrow school would start and she'd have that to deal with on top of everything. She'd been a good student once, a lot of teachers would have said great, but Bianca knew she'd be lucky if she could pass all her classes this year. It being her senior year, that meant she'd be lucky if she graduated.

If she lived to see the end of the year, that is.

She paused in pacing to examine herself in the mirror above the mantle, wondering how she would stack up to the other kids around, if she'd stick out horribly. Her hair wouldn't be a problem if she could tame the mane of black waves that turned to curls below her shoulders, and her face, when she crammed it into a smile, was friendly enough. Her features worked together like instruments in an orchestra, moving one's eye from hair to chin to mouth to nose to eyes but still presenting a complete overall picture. She'd been told one that she looked like a fairy's darker half, with her slightly pointed chin a high cheekbones, the straight nose that seemed to lead directly to her gray eyes.

Bianca stopped smiling and remembered that someone else had told her she looked like an elf's bad-ass girlfriend.

It struck her as funny that she had to practice smiling, that she was nearing her eighteenth birthday and it still didn't come naturally to her. Even babies smile, she thought, throwing a beaming grin against the glass and then cringing. She looked so incredibly phoney, as if her mouth belonged to that of a magazine advertisement and she was just borrowing it for the afternoon.

She tried again, a little less wide, a little less teeth, a dash more sincerity. The result was acceptable, even if it didn't touch her eyes.

The fire began to die down and she debated stocking it up again. Her muscles were aching but her thoughts had yet to die down some. She wasn't sure she'd be able to sleep, but decided to give it a try anyway. Since she didn't have a car she had to take the bus back and forth to school, and that meant rising no later than six A.M. the next morning. It was already past two.

After carefully trapping the flames behind two glass doors, Bianca blew out her three white candles and carried them upstairs. Her new bedroom was sparsely furnished, just a cot and a dresser, but Mrs. Alderworth said she thought they could go shopping that weekend and pick up a few things. Bianca hoped one of those things included some carpeting; her own footsteps sounded like those of an elephant to her ears.

She'd arrived at Mrs. Alderworth's that morning, glad to be out of the state home and in a real house. Her belongings fit into two suit cases and a cardboard box, all of which were sitting in the otherwise empty closet. Bianca removed the larger of the two red cases and opened it, taking out a clean tee-shirt and a brocade pouch bag. She slipped into the shirt, placed her worn cloths in the laundry bag and secured the suit case again.

There was a tooth brush in the bathroom with her name stenciled on it with a Sharpie. As she was loading it with tooth paste, she glanced into the mirror and frowned. Her gray eyes were a ghastly light color, reminding her of another comment some past acquaintance had made: "Girl, you got those freaky devil-child eyes."

Luckily, her eyes only turned that color when she was either very tired or very sad, and by morning both could be remedied by a few hours of sleep.

She took from her cardboard box two sheets and an olive green army blanket that had been with her for years. There was a pillow already laying on the cot, along with another blanket. Again, Mrs. Alderworth had apologized for the sparsity.

"It was just such short notice," she said, and Bianca had nodded politely and said it was a lovely room. In reality, the room was a plasterboard chamber with no carpet and no curtains, and huge spots on the walls where the last occupant had tried to set the house on fire. A deadbolt that turned from the outside was still on the door, although Mrs. Alderworth had cautiously given Bianca a key.

"I know I don't need to worry about you running off in the night," she'd said meaningfully as she showed Bianca around the house.

Now, hours later and alone, Bianca stared at the key and wondered what to do with it. The room was so empty and lonely and rebellious, and in a way it almost seemed wrong to fight that. Of course, later she'd have to unpack her thing into the dresser drawers, which screamed like abandoned children when opened, and maybe hang her laundry bag on the door knob to make the room look a little colorfull. What I need, she thought, is brick-a-brack type stuff. Something to make the room looked lived in.

But that would all wait, probably until the weekend when hopefully there would be a real bed to sleep in and a nightstand to lay her watch on, and curtains to hide behind.

Bianca lay down on her cot between the two sheets so well used they were covered in knotted balls, dragged the army blanket up to her shoulders and tucked the pillow, which smelled of Mrs. Alderworth and strangers and Tide, under her head.

Just before dropping off to sleep, she mouthed the same prayer she had said every night since her expulsion from Tessa's school. The words formed silently her lips, and back to their destination of her own ears.

"Listen wisely in the night, keep me safe from harm or fright. Until sunrise do we part, you my guard and I your cart."

It was a prayer for a child, and Bianca had been only a child when she learned it. An image flashed in her drowsy mind, of a pale, crying child laying on the floor in a dark cell chanting the words over and over, delirious from fear. Bianca grimaced and pushed the image away. How I've suffered for my art, she thought bitterly, and then pushed that thought away a well. There were hours here, in front of her, when the past would be unable to touch her.

Her eyes closed again, drew the blanket closer around her shoulders, and in the space of minutes, she had sunk into a deep sleep.

Her parents had been young smokers. Her mother, a TV weather person, had sworn daily that she would quit, and her father, a highly stressed politician, had sworn he wouldn't let her. He said it was the only thing that kept him from bursting a blood vessel every afternoon. They'd lived together, the three of them, in a tidy house at the mouth of a cul-de-sac in Madrid, Nebraska, with a handful of poodles and closets that were larger than the bathrooms. Julie Stephens had come from a family with money and taste, a natural combination Bianca's father used to say, and though the house wasn't particularly large, it was filled with plush, elegant fainting sofas and silk curtains.

But none of its wealth had hindered the flames that consumed it when Bianca was eight years old. She was spending the night at a friend's house, and recalled that she'd slept very soundly. Her parents had died in their sleep, after Myryn drifted off with his cigarette in his mouth, trying to stay awake so he could watch Julie Stephens on the eleven o'clock news.

Afterward, when no living relatives could be found, Bianca had been temporarily placed with a foster family. Six months later she was scooped up and whisked away to Tessa's school, unsure exactly where she was going or why. And they'd shown her to that dark, tiny cell with its metal door and soundproofing...

If her ears had in fact obeyed and listened wisely for the alarm was of some debate the next morning when Bianca woke to find she was forty minutes late for school. "Breath of my breath," she swore, bolting out of bed and into the bathroom. Her hair was beyond repair, strands flying in every direction, and there was no time for a shower. She clamped it back with a tortoise shell clip and forced on a pair of gray chinos and a black tank top.

Mrs. Alderworth had left almost an hour ago; she worked at the local musuem and had to open every morning at seven. She left a muffin for Bianca in the bread box and a note that was held the same underlying note of warning her voice always did.

Bianca bit into the muffin and stared at the note in her hand. It was written on pink stationary with a blue pen and all the letters were conjoined loops. Deep in thought, Bianca lay the note back on the counter and stared at her pale reflection in the silver toaster. Mrs. Alderworth was used to working with kids who had attitude problems, and she wasn't entirely trusting in Bianca.

She turned just in time to see a big yellow bus drive down the block. Her head had been so deep in the clouds she hadn't even heard it pull up, or drive off. Now what am I going to do? she wondered, pulling on her half dead shoes. Mrs. Alderworth owned one car, the one she'd driven to work in, and Bianca didn't know any one she could call for a ride. A taxi was out of the question; she would be lucky if she could pull together five dollars at the moment.

Groaning, she yanked out a Yellow Pages and looked up Terabeath Principal. "Good morning, this is Donna. Can I help you?"

"Yes, my name is Bianca Stephens. I'm a student and today is supposed to be my first day, but I missed my bus so I'll have to walk. Can you give me directions?"

"Where are you?"

"Off Peston, near the K-Roger."

"The what?"

"The Kroger."

"Well that's a good hour walk, at least. You won't make it in time for homeroom."

Bianca bit her tongue and then practiced smiling for the toaster. "Yes, I know, but I figured better late than never."

Donna gave her directions and she set off with a dozen empty notebooks and an apple in her plastic bag. She would have to put a back pack on her shopping list for this weekend. The day was slightly chilly for late October, and a fog lay over Secret Bethlehem Cove, but her eyes had always been a little sensitive to light and she didn't mind. Peston was a major road and had no side walks, so she stuck to the shoulder and tried to avoid getting hit by cars pulling out of shops.

She didn't know if there was really any point in going in that day or not, it being a Friday and the semester more than half over. Assuming her grades had been transferred from Kelsey Village High, her last school, she was probably still failing four classes. I've really got to do something about my grades, she thought glumly.

There was a roaring in her ears and she spun, trying to leap out of the middle of a restaurant driveway. The car was already almost on top of her by the time she saw it, a red Mazda that was attempting to swallow her whole. Brakes screamed as she threw herself into the air and landed on the hood. It lost its shape under her, sharp corners and unyielding metal tossing her upward. Her cheek smacked into the cold windshield as she rolled over the glass surface, then tumbled off the side onto the asphalt.

Viciously disoriented, she lay still for several seconds and checked herself quickly for pain. Bumps, bruises, nothing more, although she felt like she'd just been clobbered by a football team. Then natural panic set in and she sat up frantically.

The driver's door opened and came crashing into the back of her head. The world was sucked out from under her.

The dream was a memory, as were most of her dreams. Clouded, painful memories of her tiny room in Tessa's school, of seeing the insolation tank door close over her head and knowing she couldn't get out no matter how long she screamed, of forever hours sitting under the bright lights in the interrogation room.

The memory came from seven months ago, as clear and sharp as broken glass. She was standing in the tower room with her eyes wide open, ears wide open, making her breaths long and slow and silent. She wanted to scream and run, hated the standing and the waiting, and her own inability to do more of it. Downstairs, people were calling her name. "Bianca! Come out!"

The window was open and she could taste forest air, thick and

(like the fire)

sweet. How she had loved having that taste in her mouth every morning when she woke up, and knowing the woods were no more than twenty feet from her bed, all around her, and humming. But in the tower room, the smell made her sick and she pressed herself into the furthest reaches of the closet and drew the door back. The pie slice of light on the floor shrank and shrank until the lock snapped, muffled by Bianca's hand, and the door closed her in.

She woke up on her back in the parking lot of the McDonald's. Above her was the upside down face of a guy her own age who was frowning deeply. She saw his eyes first, green hazel with flecks of gold and sienna, and the long lashes above them. His hair was a pretty chestnut, slightly too long around the face but accenting his decisive bone structure. He had dimples so deep they must have touched inside his mouth. He was appealing, and not in a brotherly way.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

She made a coughing noise and he helped her sit up. There was another guy squatting next to them, with a crop of fair brown hair above his swimmer's build. He didn't have the first guy's smashing good looks, but there was something interesting in the way he crouched, poised and ready. His face was gentle and beautiful, but not it a gentle way. The tenderness of his mouth in no way softened his intelligence or dampened his perceptions.

"I'm so sorry," the first guy was saying. "I just didn't see you until we'd already hit you, and I didn't realize you were so close to the door when I opened it. Goddamn, I can't believe I did that!"

Bianca felt the lump on the back of her neck and decided it wasn't terribly serious. "It's okay," she said. "I'm alright, I should have been watching where I was going."

"Are you sure you're okay? I mean, I'd be glad to take you over to the hospital so they can check you out."

"You did loose consciousness," the second guy warned. "You could have a concussion." His wire-rimmed glasses were all but hidden by unkempt strands of hair.

"What time is it?" Bianca asked, as her shoulder gave a satisfying pop.

"About twenty to eight."

With a groan, she climbed to her feet. "I've got to get to school."

"Where do you go?"

"Terabeath Principal. Today was supposed to be my first day, but I missed the bus so I was going to walk."

"Talk about bad luck."

"No," the first guy said. "This is good luck now. We go to Principal, and since we just hit you with our car, I'd be more than happy to give you a ride in."

"You just hit her," the second clairifed softly, but didn't press it.

Lucky indeed, Bianca thought, weight resting on one leg. Her left knee was throbbing fiercely from where the bumper had smashed into it. "That would be great," she said, forcing one of her smiles.

The second guy looked at her oddly but gave a small smile. "I'm Brody Malvitch," the first guy, the one who was freakishly good looking, told her. "This is Zane. He doesn't have a last name."

Zane's hands were delicate and long fingered. "Do you not have a last name?" Bianca asked.

"I have one," Zane told her. "I just don't use it. It's very difficult to pronounce."

"Oh." She realized they were waiting on her and added quickly, "I'm Bianca Stephens."

"Are you really sure you're okay?" Brody asked. "And you know, if your parents want to sue or something, it's totally justified."

Bianca chuckled lowly and shook her head. "My parents," she began, and then shrugged. "No, don't worry about it. I'm fine."

Her plastic bag had landed in the bushes and busted apart. Brody helped her pick up the notebooks and pens and got a paper bag from McDonald's to put them in. Her apple, speared on a shrub branch, was a loss.

Zane said he was more than happy to sit in the back seat, so Bianca was left up front with Brody. The car was warm and smelled like fancy egg McMuffins, one of which Zane was eating. Bianca carefully folded the top of her paper bag and leaned back. Her blood was pounding in her ears, like a butcher softening meat, and she let the adrelin go gently. Not a big deal, not one of Tessa's suprise tests, just a couple of teenagers stopping for breakfast on their way to school.

"So today's your first day?" Brody asked.

"Yes. I just moved here yesterday."

"Where from?"

"Nebraska."

"What for?"

She paused. Nebraska Social Services hadn't wanted anything to do with her after she burned down the Tips' farm. Of course, no one had been able to prove anything. She and Claude had seen to that when they rigged the wiring. The farm went up like a Roman Candle.

"Bianca?" Zane asked. She liked the way he said her name, like an exhalation.

"Well," she said slowly. "I'm sort of an orphan, and my last foster family wasn't so great, so they moved me here."

"So your parents aren't going to sue me because they're dead," Brody connected.

"Brody!" Zane breathed in alarm. "I can't believe you said that."

He was flustered, Bianca noticed with interest. "It doesn't matter," she said easily. "I mean, it's true and all."

"Still, we barely know you and he already ran you down."

"Sorry," Brody said, but didn't sound particularly sorry.

"My parents died when I was eight," Bianca said. "It isn't a fresh wound or anything."

"What was wrong with your last foster family?" Brody asked, and Zane shook his head in exasperation and turned to the window.

"They thought a couple of foster kids would make great slaves. Like they got us right off the orphan wagon or something."

"That's cruel," Zane said.

"I know," she told him grimly.

"Staying here permanently?" Brody asked.

He didn't see Bianca's face cloud as she lowered it.

"What do you mean you don't have my name?" she asked, standing in Terebeath Principal's office.

"I don't see it," the secretary told her, bent over a file drawer. "How do you spell Stephens?"

Bianca spelled it, and the secretary shook her head. "Are you Donna? I think we spoke on the phone this morning. I missed my bus, you gave me directions. Ring a bell?"

"Oh yeah, I remember." She glanced at the wall clock with her beady eyes. "You must be some sprinter."

"No, Brody gave me a ride in."

"Brody!" Donna cried, looking at him in surprise. He was standing behind Bianca, close enough to make her nervous. "I didn't see you standing there, hon! How've you been?"

Brody smiled like a knowing player and told Donna he was fine.

"But back to my file," Bianca interrupted, not wanted to be rude but determined to make homeroom on time. "My custodian registered me-"

"Your who?" Donna asked.

"My foster mother," Bianca explained slowly. "Her name is Elisabeth Alderworth, and she registered me two days ago."

"Alderworth," Donna cooed, and raked through her files. "Oh! Here it is. Bianca Alderworth."

Brody laughed but Bianca was getting exaspirated. The office was a symphony of sounds, paper shredder and the copy machine and telephones ringing and the low grumble of endless conversations. It made it hard for her to concentrate.

"Now let's see. We weren't able to match most of your classes, unfortunately, but we did put you in your normal English class, and trigonometry. Instead of forensic science, you're taking physics, and we replaced Russian history with sociology. Now, you still have two electives to take, at the end of the day."

"Sign her up for double drama," Brody told Donna, and Bianca looked at him in surprise. "Trust me," he said to her. "Zane and I are both in it. It's a cake walk."

"You could do that," Donna agreed.

Bianca had never been involved in drama and wasn't too sure she wanted to be, seeing as how she had a case of paralyzing stage fright. But there was something compelling about Brody's easy smile. "Okay, put me down for double drama."

I hope I'm not making a huge mistake, she thought as Donna made her notes and Brody flashed a thumbs-up on his way out to door.

She had trig first period. Of all the luck, she thought miserably, realizing they had completed more than half of a book that was thicker than a double Big Mac. "This is a nightmare," she muttered, mentally adding, Eyes, read clearly and understand.

"Ain't all of life?" asked a voice near by, and Bianca turned to see a slight, muscled girl sitting behind the desk next to her. She had henna red hair and a vicious glare.

"You're new?" asked the girl.

"Yeah, today's my first day."

"Why would you start school on a Friday?"

"I wanted to get a feel for it."

The girl nodded and stared at her. Bianca selfconsciously tugged the ends of her hair and wondered if she should have worn something more colorful. Gray wasn't the most friendly shade.

"How did you get that bruise on your elbow?" the girl asked.

Bianca glanced down and realized her left arm was turning a little purple. "I got hit by a car this morning on my way in."

Nonpulsed, the girl nodded. "Must have hurt like a bitch."

"It wasn't going too fast."

"Hm." The sound was faint and connatationless. "I'm Zoe Roahs," she said then, and her tone was as friendly as it was hostile, which is to say it was neither.

"Bianca Stephens."

"Nice to meet you." Zoe turned back to the front of the class room, as if looking for something. She was wearing a blue teeshirt over green sweat pants, and had a thick woven bracelet around one wrist. "Where you from?"

"Nebraska."

"You like trig?"

"Not particularly."

"Neither do I. Want to cut?"

Surprised but interested, Bianca replied, "Probably not on the first day."

"You could have started on Monday, and cut with me today."

"I already registered with the office."

"Then you should have called me last night."

Bianca found herself unexpectedly amused. Zoe caught it and smiled, but she said, "I should warn you that I'm a misfit. My only friend is a poet with no last name who's almost completely color blind."

"Zane?"

Delighted, Zoe said, "You met him?"

"Brody was the one who hit me with his car. Zane was in it."

Zoe laughed beautifully. "He's such a terrible driver, but his ego won't let him buckle down and get some lessons. I'm still not sure he understands the concept of a blindspot."

Destiny, Bianca thought. I'm destined to be friends with these people. They run me down, they offer to cut class with me, what more can a girl ask for?

Then Mr. Hons introduced her and she decided her destiny might be of a more sucidal nature.

"Class, we have a new student today. Her name is Bianca Stephens, Bianca, please stand up."

Bianca half rose from her chair and then plopped back down into it. Hons gave her a disapproving look and went on, "Bianca is a foster child who just moved here, and she's suffering from a terminal disease, so let's all try to make her last few months pleasant, alright?"

The floor dropped out from under her. The words took a moment to sink in, spreading like ink from a leaking pen, and then she jumped out of her chair and bolted from the room.

Bianca was sitting on the floor of the girls' bathroom, curled up in a ball and shaking uncontrollably when she heard the door open. She could tell by the rubbering thud of boots who it was.

"Hey," Zoe said softly, touching her shoulder.

Bianca knocked her hand away, but Zoe wasn't deterred.

"Hons is an asshole, forget him. Come on, let's get out of here. I've got your bag."

Bianca lifted her head and stared at the lush brown eyes waiting for her. Suddenly a smile, a real one for once, broke out on her face and she started laughing.

"What?" Zoe shrugged, smiling faintly herself. "You think I'm going to just let them all push you around like that? Hell no. The world is a dangerous place, but I'll protect you."

Bianca got clumisly to her feet and said, "Protection from what?"

There was a startling intensity in Zoe's gaze as she responded, "From anything that might try to hurt you."

They spent the day on the beach, lolling on a huge wool blanket some sunbather had left behind. The sky was overcast, dousing everything with a cool blue hue, and the waves seemed to crash less, as if they, too, were interested in the conversation.

"I've never done that before," Zoe addmitted, unlacing her boots.

"Done what? Cut class?"

"Oh, no, I've done that a million times. I mean, I've never just gotten up and walked out of class to go find some girl crying in the bathroom."

"I wasn't crying."

"Why not?"

"Huh?"

Bianca turned her head to look at her. "Why weren't you crying?" Zoe asked. "I would have been. Some jerk-off announces to pretty much the whole school that I'm a foster kid who's gonna die, yeah, I'd be balling my eyes out."

She looked at the sky again, at the hazy steel clouds floating overhead. "I guess I've gotten used to it." She paused, then chuckled. "Hell, listen to me. You never you get used to this kind of thing. It always comes like a splash of cold water in your face."

"Yeah," Zoe mused, "I bet it does. Where are you from?"

"Nebraska. Social services said they didn't want anything to do with me, so I got sent to California."

"Can social services do that?"

"Disown a kid? Sure, if they've burned down a farm."

Zoe pulled a package of cigarettes out of her bag and laughed heartily. "What'd you burn down a farm for?"

"Oh, spite, I guess. The people who owned it were my foster family, and they had been treating me like a slave for a couple of years. Me and this other kid, Claude. He was good with wiring and stuff, so he just rigged the stove to catch on fire. We made sure the smoke detector had no batteries, and there you go. The whole farm went up in flames."

She hadn't told Brody and Zane the whole story that morning, but somehow with Zoe it felt right, as if this was just one in a long line of confessions the girl had heard.

"If he rigged it, how did social services know you were responsible?" Zoey asked.

"We wanted them to know. We let all the animals out of the barn before it burned so they wouldn't get hurt, and we packed all our stuff up and carried it to the end of the driveway. Yeah, everybody knew we were responsible, they just couldn't prove it." She sighed, smiling. "I am glad to be out of there."

"No shit, I would be, too. Where are you parents?"

"Dead. Once again, in a fire. That seems to be the recurring theme in my life, things burning up."

She took the cigarette Zoe held out to her and sipped it lightly, then handed it back. "I've never seen the ocean before."

"Never?"

"No. Nebraska is a long way from either shore."

"What's out there?"

"Not much. Plaines, farms, that kind of thing. What about you?"

"What about me?"

"What's your family like?"

Zoey brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. "Father, stepmother, and a toddler half-brother. My mom lives in Florida. I don't get along with her, but I don't get along with my stepmother much better. I guess I'm just not into 'mom' type figures. My boyfriend's name is Cade, he lives about an hour away from here. I spend most of my time with Zane and Brody, at Zane's house."

"And that doesn't bother Cade?"

Zoey was momentairily confused, but then she laughed again. "I couldn't figure out what you were talking about for a second. No, Cade doesn't care. Cade doesn't care what I do."

"Why not? Isn't that a boyfriend's job?"

"Yeah, but not Cade's. It's complicated."

Bianca thought for a while, then and sat up. "I'm going to wade in. You want to come?"

"Are you nuts? Your pants will be soaked."

"I'll take them off. I just want to get my knee into the cold water. It's throbbing."

"Well, go ahead without me."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I can't swim."

"You live next to the ocean and you can't swim?"

"That's right. Brody wants to teach me, but I don't trust him."

Bianca stood up and glanced around as she kicked her shoes off. It was just after noon, and anyone who had been around had gone off to find lunch except for an old guy reading a newspaper who would probably enjoy the show. She pulled her chinos off and tossed them in a lump onto the blanket. Zoe lit a fresh cigarette and chuckled.

"You're going to freeze to death if you don't get arrested for indecent exposure first."

"My tank top and panties cover more than most bathing suits."

"Doesn't matter. People are weird."

She wandered down to the water, tossing her socks over her shoulder as she went, and reached the damp sand. It was cold, like stepping on a fallen snow cone, and she jumped straight up into the air the first time a wave ran over her foot. A childlike giggle escaped her lips and she stared out at the long flat line of the horizion. The sun still hadn't appeared, and there were coulds in the distance.

I saw the ocean before I died, she thought, as though making a tally on her mental chalkboard. I saw the ocean and I walked through it.

She got down on her knees, being careful not to put any weight on the left. It had swollen up and turned a molted purple and green color. She wondered if she had brusied the bone or something.

Zoe was still stretched out on the blanket, watching her and smoking. Even though they were forty feet away, Bianca could see her brown eyes as clearly as if they were inches apart. There was light in her stare, hidden in the back, realms of fervent emotion. It was the same way Zane's look had been, unconsciously hiding something.

Zoe smiled suddenly, a secret smile that played with her face in strange, shifting patterns. One minute there was a haunting in the slant of her eyebrows, the next an iron strength in the set of her jaw. Finally she lay back and Bianca couldn't see her face any longer.

When her knees were numb, she rose and walked back to the blanket. "Was it everything you hoped it would be?" Zoe asked.

"Well, it was cold."

She pulled her pants back on, feeling them cling to her damp skin, and then sat down. As she brushed the sand off her feet, she said, "This is nice. I think I like California."

"Want to go shoot skeet?"

"Do what?"

"Throw plates up in the air and then shoot them. I do it all the time."

"What's wrong with the plates?"

"Nothing, I just like shooting them. It's fun. Zane's even better than I am. Today's probably not a good day, though. Too much wind. He swears a good wind will blow his bullets in the wrong direction, but somehow I doubt it."

Zoe drove her home then, on her big black motorcycle. It seemed somehow fitting that Zoe would ride a Harley.

Bianca groaned when she saw Mrs. Alderworth's car in the driveway. "Damn," she mutted as she climbed off Zoe's bike.

"Everything okay?"

"Probably. I'll give you a call. Thanks for the ride."

"No problem, bye."

Zoe tore off and Bianca started up the front steps. Mrs. Alderworth had the door open before she could touch the knob, and the expression on her face wasn't welcoming. "Where have you been?" she snapped, grabbing Bianca's arm and jerking her inside.

Mrs. Alderworth was in her early thirties, with hair almost as dark as Bianca's but twice as curly, and a long straight mouth that looked positively set in stone at that moment. "The school called and said you registered and then cut all your classes. Where did you go and what were you thinking, young lady, and who is that motorcyle chick outside?"

Bianca sank onto the battered couch in the living room and said a quick prayer to her temper, hopeing she could keep it in check. Blowing up at her foster mother was not going to help the situation.

"I went to my first class-" she explained, and Mrs. Alderworth broke in.

"Well that's something."

"-and the teacher announced to the whole class that I was dying. It wasn't the best way to start the morning," Bianca continued. "Plus, before that I missed the bus because my alarm clock didn't go off, and while I was walking to school I got hit by a car. So I just figured that maybe I should wait and start on Monday, and one of the kids in my trig class asked me if I wanted to go to the beach for a couple of hours. That was her on the bike."

She glanced up, expecting to see Mrs. Alderworth biting back her words, and instead found the woman's face curled into something like a sneer. "You expect me to believe that?" she demanded. "That a teacher, and your first period teacher, no less, would tell the whole class about your illness, forcing you to flee the building? It's absurd!"

"It happened," Bianca defended.

"I won't listen to lies. Go up to your room, and don't come out."

"No!" Bianca jumped to her feet and brushed past her into the kitchen. "Call the school if you don't believe me. I'm sure all the students know about it by now, you can ask one of them."

Mrs. Alderworth snatched the phone out of her hand and slammed it back into its cradle. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Fine, I'll do it myself."

She reached for the pad of paper she'd written the school's number on that morning and started dialing. "Yes, I need to speak with the principal," she told the secretary.

Mrs. Alderworth stood a few feet away, fuming. "You stop that this instant," she hissed, barring her teeth.

"Not until you believe me." She turned back to the phone. "Can you please call him out of the meeting, it's very important that I speak with him right away."

Mrs. Alderworth made another grab for the phone and Bianca jumped out of reach. "Principal Miriam? This is Bianca Stephens, I'm a student at your school. My foster mother recieved a call from the office today saying that I had skipped all my classes, and I just wanted you to explain to her why....Yes, that's it. She doesn't believe Mr. Hons really said that, so if you could just confirm it with her, you'd being doing me a huge favor."

She held out the phone to Mrs. Alderworth, who shook her head. Bianca grabbed her head by the hair and crammed the phone against her ear. "Talk," she ordered.

Mrs. Alderworth's eyes shot daggers. "Principal?" Her voice sweetened and she shoved Bianca off of her. "Yes, this is Elisabeth Alderworth, Bianca's custodian. I'd like to appologize for her behavior today, espically on her first day, and..." Her head lowered suddenly. "Oh, I see...No, I didn't realize."

Bianca wiped the sweat off her brow and started mounting the steps to her bedroom.

The knock came an hour later. Bianca was sitting on her cot, leafing through her well-worn copy of A Beginner's Dictionary of Brain Spells, and wondering if there was a prayer for becoming invisible.

She'd managed to keep her stomping down to a minimum, but despite the cool countenance she assumed the moment the knock sounded, she was still burning up inside. Why couldn't people learn to accept that just because something was far fetched, that didn't automatically mean it wasn't true?

"Come in," she called, shoving the book under her pillow and straightening up.

The door opened and Mrs. Alderworth stepped inside. She closed the door with the precision of one desperately stalling, and then set her jaw and met Bianca's eyes squarely.

"I spoke with the principal," she said. There was a Victorian air about her Bianca hadn't noticed before, a kind of stature she carried. "I'm sorry I accused you of lying. I'm sure you can understand why, since that story is on the unusual side, but just the same, I should have believed you."

"I'm not a liar," Bianca told her.

"I believe that now. Anyway, I'm sorry I was so quick to judge you, and I'm hoping we can just forget about this and start over."

The older woman stood silently, as if awaiting the verdict, and Bianca thought a moment. She wasn't opposed to having a friendly relationship with her custodian, she just didn't think it likely.

"You've kept foster kids before, right?" she asked. Mrs. Alderworth nodded. "Then where's the furniture?"

"Oh." A faint smile crept over her face, and it wasn't an unpleasant sight. "My last pawned it all for booze money. I'll find some more as soon as I get the time."

Bianca nodded, thinking again. When she finally spoke it was firmly and without pause. "We both know why I'm here. They sent me to you because you deal with problem kids and that's how I'm classified. But I'd like you to know that I'm not a problem kid at all. I burned down the Tips' farm, yes, but I did it because I'd spent seven months there being forced to do physical labor most prison inmates haven't dreamed of. That was self defense, not just something I did for a kick. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs because of my condition, and I'm not about to shorten my life any more than I already have. When you face the facts, chances are I won't live that much longer, and I since I'm going to die in your house, I'd like us to be on good terms." Her tone lighted and she leaned back on her hands. "So sure, let's wipe the slate clean. Sounds good to me."

Mrs. Alderworth was apparently startled by her cadidity, and the ghost of a smile had dissapeared. "Well, thank you for explaining that," she managed to say.

"Any time."

She turned back toward the door, then stopped and glanced over her shoulder. "I'm having dinner with a friend tonight. Would you like to come?"

"Sure."

When she was gone, Bianca lay on her cot and stared at the ceiling. "Note to self," she murmured aloud. "Don't mention your impending doom to the custodian. She can't handle it."

As she picked up her book again and started flipping through, she barely heard her lips form the words, "Some mother."

They went to a Chinese restaurant called Merry Moon. It was warm inside, and the all the immigrant waiters spoke in tiny, subserviant voices, so soft they could barely be heard. Bianca sat on Mrs. Alderworth's left and smoothed out the folds of her gray skirt. She had fallen asleep in the afternoon and was still froggy.

"Something to drink?" asked the petite Chinese waitress. Bianca couldn't actually hear the words, but she guessed what they were.

"Coffee," Mrs. Alderworth said.

"The local cola," Bianca told her.

She left, and they sat in silence for a few minutes.

I've spooked her, Bianca thought. She isn't used to kids talking to her, or at least not telling the truth when they do. She thinks I'm some kind of rebel posing as a born-again, that it will all flake apart later like a cheap pastry. She thinks I'm telling her stories.

Their eyes accidently met and Mrs. Alderworth gave a quick smile. Bianca nodded and ran her hands over her skirt again.

"Grant," the older woman said suddenly, and jumped out of her chair. Her feature came alive as she said, "Grant, this is Bianca Stephens, my new foster daughter. Bianca, this is Doctor Grant Hazeley, my fianse. He works part time at the meuseum."

He was a large man, not fat but imposing. He had shoulders like a mine worker, Bianca noted as she watched him sit down and unfold his napkin.

"Nice to meet you," he said. He was wearing a casual suit that didn't really fit but had a nice smile. It shared a quality with Brody's; friendly appeal.

They went to the buffet line and filled their plates. Bianca found some cute little strips of chicken on sticks that didn't look too spicy, added a roll, and filled a bowl with orange slickes. She was the first back at her table and wondered if she should wait for the other two. Alderworth's doubt was getting to her, suddenly she was worrying about educiet.

She had a terrible thought: What if I never go out to dinner again?

Panic zipped through her shoulders and the colors in the room sharpened dramatically. She tried to banish the thought but it was already through the gates and corrupting everything else. What if, what if? Could she live a whole lifetime's worth of meals this evening? She she sample every dish the place offered, spend a few minutes eating in silence with her fingers, and then grab some chopsticks and leap into the conversation?

She rose and put her napkin down. In the bathroom, she stood feeling stupid in front of the mirror and started washing her hands.

The time's growing near, she mouthed silently, pouring more soap into her palm. But I can't do everything before it arrives.

She watched the cold water run off her fingertips and splash against the porcelin. Like sands through the hour glass, like the drops down the drain, so are the days of our lives.

She shut off the water and felt her eyes fill with tears. I'm going to loose this life and I don't even know what it means, she told the mirror image, and still made no sound.

The part of her that hadn't grown soft and semential over the last seven months came back. "Don't concentrate on doing," it said. Her voice came out as a whisper even softer than the waitress's. "Just enjoy the moment. Whatever you're doing, even if it's watching Sally Jessy, enjoy it."

The meal progressed nicely. Bianca felt oddly refreshed, like a kid who's just jumped into the pool and washed off summer's stickiness. Mrs. Alderworth and Doctor Hazeley talked about art and literature, and the horror of a television show called, "South Park." Bianca had never seen it; she didn't watch much tv.

"Well, I'm going to run back and try some of that lemon merangue," Mrs. Alderworth said, standing up. "If the waitress comes, don't let her take my fork."

Bianca smiled and turned to Hazeley. "What are you a doctor of?" she asked, eyeing something on her plate that she didn't remember picking up.

"Medicine," Hazeley told her. "I'm a hand specialist at Saint Mary's most of the time, I just work at the museum on weekends."

He pushed some food across his plate and glanced at her, then quickly away, then up again. "Um, since you're Beth's foster child, I guess that kind of makes you mine, too, and if you ever need anything, you know, in terms of medicine or treatment or anything, feel free to give me a call. I work with hands, but I've got a lot of friends at the hospital, and I know Beth isn't terribly comfortable talking about it."

He stopped abruptly and forced a huge quantity of rice into his mouth. His jaws worked like he was chewing tar.

He was doing Beth a favor, helping arrange things so that she would have to deal with Bianca's illness as little as possible. It was sweet in a way, endearing, but it gave Bianca the sinking feeling that she should have headed for a hospice instead. She didn't come to Secret Bethlehem Cove to play healthy.

"Thanks," she finally said. There was really nothing else to tell him. "I'll do that."

Chapter Two

She overslept again on Saturday, and this time didn't wake up until after noon. "Must be the time change," she muttered as she climbed off her cot. Her internal alarm clock had never failed her when she was at Tessa's.

She wandered into a shower and let the hot water run out. When she finally rinsed her hair it was ice cold, a sparkling contrast of the blurry comfort of sleep. After ten minutes dragging a comb through her hair, she pulled on a pair of canvas shorts and a V-neck tee-shirt and went downstairs.

"Good morning," she said to Mrs. Alderworth. The older woman was sitting at the dinning room table reading a hardcover book.

"Did you sleep alright on that cot?"

"Must have, I was out for twelve hours." Bianca paused and looked back at the clock. How could that possibly be right? For years she had survived on five hours a night.

"There are bagels in the bread box, juice and milk in the fridge. Or do you drink coffee? It seems like most teenagers do these days."

"I don't. Do you mind if I make some oatmeal?"

"Go ahead, it's in the cupboard over the sink."

Five minutes later she sat down at the table with a bowl of sluggish oats drenched in butter and brown sugar. "Feel like doing some shopping?" Mrs. Alderworth asked. "There's a church yard sale today, I thought we could pick up some furniture for your room. A real bed, a desk, maybe a bookshelf or something. I don't know how you are in the way of clothes..."

"Oh, I'm mostly fine, unless I need to dress up for something. Do you go to church?"

"Well, if you'd like to I'm sure we could go. There's a place just down the road-"

"No," Bianca said quickly. "That's alright. I haven't been to church in like eleven years or something, I just thought I'd ask, since I don't have any church clothes." She smiled brightly, trying to dispell Mrs. Alderworth's sudden anxity. "Yeah, shopping would be great."

They spent most of the afternoon hitting yard sales and trying to haul the new furniture upstairs. Bianca ended up with a four-poster iron bed that came straight out of the Victorian era, an efficient pressed-wood secretary, a hand-woven area rug made from braided strips of fabric and already worn bare in some places, and a set of silk curtains in blue and green.

"I can call Grant to come over and help me get this stuff upstairs," Mrs. Alderworth offered, once they had the secretary out of the trunk.

It took Bianca a moment to understand what she meant. "Oh, don't bother. It won't hurt me at all to carry stuff."

"You're sure?" Mrs. Alderworth asked, but she looked relieved.

"I'm sure."

It took almost three hours to get the furniture set up. The staircase had three lands and turns, and Bianca ended up taking the secretary upstairs in pieces and reassembling it. "This looks much better," Mrs. Alderworth said when they were finished. "Much more like a bedroom."

And less like a prison, Bianca finished mentally. "Yeah, thanks a lot."

"It was my pleasure." Her eyes continues roaming, then landed on the bedside clock. "Look at the time, I'd better go start dinner."

Alone, Bianca stood up and glanced around. The area rug covered almost the entire floor, and the last rays of sunlight floating through the blue-green curtains turned the walls aquamarine. She felt slightly underwater and reached for the overhead light. The mattresses were old and stiff, but she'd purchased three sleeping bags for a scandelous two dollars and laid them out as padding. Then her bally sheets and army blanket, and suddenly the bed was hers.

From out of the closet she retrieved her suitcases and cardboard box. Clothes were folded, for probably the only time ever, and tucked into the protesting dresser, and then she glanced at the desk and cautiously placed two of her books on the shelf running above it. Believing Make-Believe and Prayers For Telekenesis didn't look particularly out of place so long as one didn't read the titles, so Bianca went ahead and added her other volumes to the shelf.

She didn't have much to put away. Her box of magnets, a couple of photo albulms, a few things of her parents' that had been retrieved from the wreckage, a corn-husk doll Claude had made while they sat in the dirt and watched the Tip farm go up in flames. But with a new backpack slumped on the desk chair and her laundry bag tied to the door knob, the room seemed much friendlier than before. All she needed to do was get rid of the burn marks on the walls.

"Bianca!" Mrs. Alderworth's voice was faintly muffled as if came upstairs. "Dinner's ready."

They were just finishing up when the doorbell rang. Mrs. Alderworth glanced up in surprised, then slowly rose and lay her napkin on the table. "I wonder who that is," she said as she walked out of the dinning room.

Bianca took the opportunity to pluck a couple of small pills from her pants pocket and toss them back with the rest of her milk. With her custodian's demure, Victorian habits, she wasn't sure how to broach the topic of medication without sounding vulgar. So for a while at least, she would just take her medicine when no one was looking.

"Hi, is Bianca home?" she heard a voice from the front room say. "God, I feel like a ten year old saying that." Zoe's voice pinched into a high-baby talk. "Can Bianca come out and play?"

Smiling, Bianca quickly deposited her dishes in the kitchen sink and joined her foster mother in the front hallway. Zoe was standing on the doorstep wearing a white ankle-length dress with short sleeves and had tied a green scarf around her waist that brought out her green eyes.

"Oh, hey," she said. "I was just asking your mommy if you could come out and play tag." She smiled charmingly. "I promise we won't cross the street."

Mrs. Alderworth answered in an excellent worried-mother voice. "Alright, but stay away from that dog two doors down, and try to keep your shoes on this time, okay?"

Surprisingly cool, Bianca noticed, leaning against the banister. She noticed Brody's car idling at the end of the driveway. "Is it alright if I go out for a while?" she asked seriously.

Mrs. Alderworth nodded. "What time will you be home?"

"Zoe?"

"What time do you want to be home? I'm flexible."

Biance shrugged and looked back at her custodian. "Now would be the time to set a curfew," she said.

"How old are you?"

"My eightteenth birthday is in January."

"How's midnight sound?"

"Fine. Oh, by the way, this is Zoe. Zoe, this is Mrs. Alderworth."

Zoe made a little curtsey and skipped down the steps. "Bianca?" Mrs. Alderworth called as she stepped onto the porch.

"Yeah?"

"You can really call me Beth."

"Oh." Bianca smiled and nodded. "Okay. Bye, Beth."

"Have fun."

Bianca could almost hear the, "Don't do anything stupid," Beth was bitting back.

"Where are we going?" she asked as they drove down Peston, the same street she'd been walking down when Brody's car ran her down.

"The bowling alley," Zoe said. She was driving, the skirt of her dress unbuttoned so that she could move her legs freely. Or maybe just because she liked showing off a lot of leg.

Zane was sitting in the backseat again, looking quiet and thoughtful. Today he was wearing a gray banded-collar shirt and brown pants. He looked like a color-blind alter boy.

"Where's Brody?"

"He's already there. He stayed to meet Camilla, so I took his car to come get you. Foster Mommy's nice."

"Yeah, she's okay. How did you find me?"

"I drove you home Friday, remember?"

"Oh yeah, you did."

Bianca rubbed her temples, feeling a headache coming on. Maybe she should have stayed in tonight and taken a long nap on her new bed.

"How are you doing back there?" she asked Zane, wondering how he and Brody had taken the news about her emminent demise. The whole school had probably heard about it by now.

"I'm fine," he told her. His voice was a little wistful, and he stared out the window as if distracted.

"Little jerk-off loves the privacy of the back seat," Zoe added, and Bianca saw him smile in the side mirror.

The bowling alley was crowded and hot, big stinky truckers crammed shoulder to shoulder at the bar, slow-smiling waitresses asking them what they'd like, preps from the local high schools complaining about broken nails. Bianca sat down on a curved plastic pew beside Brody and he smiled at her as if nothing was out of the ordinairy. "Hey," he said. "How you feeling?" He stopped, suddenly aware of what he had just blurted out, and quickly tacked on, "I meant your leg, where I hit you. And the back of your head, and that elbow you scraped."

She gave him a forgiving smile. Things were bound to be a little tense, she could understand. "Just bumps and bruises."

"Shoes or socks?" Zane asked.

"Huh?"

"Do you want to bowl in your socks, or should I rent you some shoes?"

She shrugged. "Socks, I guess."

"Bianca," Brody interrupted, gesturing to the girl sitting on his lap, "this is Camilla Thert. Camy, Bianca Stephens."

"Nice to meet you," Camilla said. She was incredibly short, with a very soft look about her. Her limbs were all gently curved as if the joints had been made with string knots, like seperated sausages. A pretty, if somewhat perky, heart-shaped face peered out from under her cloud of dyed blond hair.

Bianca nodded, giving a smile she hoped didn't look phoney. "Ready?" Zoe asked as she hefted a shinning black ball in her hands.

"Are we waiting for Cade?"

"He's working. He said he'd swing by Zane's after he got off, probably around eight."

They started the game. Bianca hadn't bowled since before her parents died, ten years earlier, and couldn't even remember which hand to hold the ball with.

"Like this," Brody told her, pressing two of her fingers into the holes of a nine-pound house ball. "Rest the weight against your thumb and other fingers."

He stood behind her and wrapped his arm around hers. His body was warm, and he had big hands. She wondered if Camilla was watching this. "Now we take three giant steps, ready? Left first."

He smelled like sweet soap, she noticed as he swung her arm forward. The weight off the ball pulled at her fingers and then flew back, like a giant pendalum, and the brunt of the swing landed on her knee.

"Ohw!" She dropped the ball to the floor and leapt back, almost knocking Brody over. "I guess I was supposed to let go then, huh?" she chuckled, rubbing her knee.

"Did you hit that same knee I hit?"

"Yeah, but I'm okay. Why don't you take this roll for me?"

Brody managed to get her an opening strike, but her score went downhill from there. She threw seven gutter balls, one of which landed in somebody else's gutter, and ended round one with a score of thrity two.

"That's not bad for your first game in a decade," Zane told her. He had only scored twelve points higher. Camilla, on the other hand, easily broke two hundred. Bianca hadn't expected someone so tiny to be able to roll a sixteen pound ball so fast.

Round two began with another gutter ball after Bianca stepped over the boundry line and went sprawling onto the well-oiled lane, limbs flailing. Zoe laughed so hard she couldn't take her turn.

The noise from the crowd grew but blended like non-descript elevator music, and Bianca found herself beginning to relax. Her headache had been thwarted by two Advil Camilla had in her massive straw purse, and since she had no chance of winning she could sit back and enjoy playing.

"You guys do this often?" she asked Zane under the din of truckers cheering and pins clacking together.

"Every other week or so. Camilla got us started."

"She's good."

"Brody met her through the league she plays with. He works here part-time, when he isn't getting himself fired or re-hired." As an afterthought, he added, "She has incredible arms. She can do two hundred push-ups."

"Your turn, Zane," Zoe said, messing his hair up as she sat dowm. He stood up and hefted a ball off the rack. "Aren't you going to meditate with it for a couple minutes before you go?" she asked. There was a slight note of mocking in her tone, Bianca noticed, but Zane's expression didn't change as he took his turn.

They swung by a McDonald's on the way to Zane's house. "Hey," Brody called into the speaker box, leaning halfway out the window. "Is Wayne working tonight?"

"Yeah," the static replied.

"Tell him Brody's here to pick up his Happy Meal."

"Will that be all for you?"

"I'll have a half-dozen hamburgers and a cheese sandwhich."

Three Happy Meals and a bag of burgers landed in Bianca's lap. She unfolded one of the cardboard boxes and found it stuffed full of tiny liquor bottles of every color.

"Ah, I think they got our order wrong," she mentioned.

Zoe, beside her, peered inside. "Either that or they realized Beanie Babies just aren't cutting it with today's generation."

Zane's house was a two-story ranch painted a putrid and peeling yellow. A paper sign on the front door proclaimed, "Please use side entrace," and they went in through a long, narrow kitchen lined with cupboards.

"What's that smell?" Bianca asked, sniffing.

"What smell? Oh, the rubbing alcohole Zane uses in his bath. We've all gotten used to it." She shook her head. "Don't ask."

Connected to the first kitchen was a second, a small room with tattered blue wall paper and a decaying floor. A circular table took up most of the space between the refridgerator and the sink, and was sticky to the touch.

"I'll get another chair," Zane said, leaving through one of the three doorways.

"Is anybody else home?" Bianca asked as she watched Brody dump the plastic bottles of booze onto the table. He pitched the burgers into the freezer and sat down.

"Zane's parents moved to Europe last summer, but he convinced them to let him stay until he graduated. His brother and sister are around if he needs them, but they've both moved out."

"So it's just him here, all by his self?"

The idea of someone so quiet being along all the time in a house so large bothered her, but she had lived in a dorm for so long that she was undoubtedly prejudice. Zane was obviously an introvert by nature; he probably liked his privacy.

"Yup. Except for sometimes when his brother's girlfriend kicks him out and he needs a place to stay. That's where we got this stuff," he gestured to the assortment of bottles on the table. "Wayne works part-time as a flight attentant, and part-time at McDonald's. He's less likely to get fired from a part-time job for not showing up."

"His name is Zane, and his brother's is Wayne?"

Brody grinned. "And he's got a sister named Elaine. Pick your poison."

Bianca sifted through the bottles and chose a Wild Turkey.

"Good choice. Zo?"

Zoe took a cherry vodka.

"Camy, I assume you'll have the usual," he handed her a bottle of peach shnops, "and I think I'm in the mood for rum."

Zane returned with the extra chair, and opened a bottle of Merlot from under the sink. "Zane's got taste," Zoe told Bianca, as she poured three cherry vodkas into a baby bottle painted with pink swans.

"To your initiation," Brody toasted, and drained a shot glass full of rum. Everyone else did the same, but over the rim of her coffee mug, Bianca saw Zoe watching her with a look she didn't entirely trust.

She'd been told she held her liquor about as well as a bottomless bucket, and this soon proved to be more than true. Almost two hours later she was laying on Zane's living room floor, staring at the ceiling and giggling uncontrolably.

"What's in there?" she asked, waving her arm. Zane's living room was warm and dark, with a high ceilng and a wide doorway that led to the formal dinning room. Above a white marble fireplace were several dozen votive candles, and hung above the mantle was a huge landscape. The furniture was old and worn, and none of it matched. Victorian here, prarie farm house there. The floor was covered in a Turkey carpet, and scones built into the wall, along with the votives, gave off the only light.

She was pointing through another doorway, into an almost black space beyond the candles' jurisdiction.

"That's the library," Zane told her. He was drunk, she could tell, but maybe not much. Or maybe he just didn't get drunk as fast as she did. The liquor didn't seem to have had much affect, he was sprawled on a white brocade fainting sofa that looked entirely out of place, eating lemon flavored hard candies and humming.

"Can I go in it?"

"You can go anywhere you please."

She sat up, dizzy, and glanced around to get her bearings. Zoe had a food-processor on the coffee table and was making peanut butter, still holding the baby bottle between her teeth. She'd had to refill it twice already. Camilla had thrown back an astounding six bottles of rum, plus her peach shnops, which she continued to sip leisurely from a champaign flute. She was laying on the couch threatening to be sick if Brody didn't go find her some crackers.

"I'll get them in a minute," he said, reasonably drunk himself. He'd stretched out on the back of the couch, but it wasn't really wide enough to hold him and he'd almost crushed Camilla falling on top of her. "Wait till Zoe's done. What do you need crackers for without peanut butter?"

"I'll have thrown it all up again by that time," she said, letting her head dangle off the couch.

Zoe started to giggle. She had a great laugh, the full, merry, and infectious kind. "You know what I just thought of?" she said, and went on without waiting for an answer. "You know what our names are? Brody, Bianca, Zane, Zoe, Cassie, Cade and Camilla. That's so messed up, oh my god."

"You're the one who's messed up," Bianca told her. "You're drunk as a sailor on his night off."

"Are you always so poetic when you're tipsy, you drunk hoe?"

Her stomach hurt, either from laughter or booze. "Your momma's the hoe," she said.

"My momma? It's your momma, and your sister, too."

They were howling. Bianca rolled onto the floor and stared at the ceiling, which had been covered in glow-in-the-dark stars and planets. "Hey," she said. "Who's Cassie?"

"Zane's bitch. Excuse me, ex-bitch. Stupid hoe ran out on him."

"Huh? Ran out on him where?"

Bianca rolled over so she could see Zane's face. Laying on his side, head cushioned by a plaid throw pillow, his face took on the golden glow of sunset in the candlelight. He watched Zoe almost warily, with a faint disapproval Bianca knew he would never voice, and kept his own side of the story to himself. She wondered if anyone had ever gotten to hear Zane's story.

"Dumb broad left town," Zoe was saying. "Left the state, left the whole damn planet for all I know."

"No, she called a couple times," Brody put in. "I mean, she let us know she was okay."

"The little whore just up and left!" Zoe snapped. "You don't do that, especially not with a little guy like Zane."

Zane smiled faintly. "Thanks for the compliment."

"Hey, I'm not talking shoe size or anything, I'm just saying that you're one of those teddy bear guys. No, wait, I mean--dammit, you know what I mean. You've got a girl heart in a boy body."

"And he's got breasts, too."

"What?" Bianca asked. Brody tossed Camilla's torse into the air like a rag doll and shifted around before she landed on him again.

"I don't have breasts," Zane muttered, burrying his face in the pillow.

"There are these pictures of his dad without a shirt on, and he's got these huge man tits. Zane's gonna get man tits, too. It runs in the family."

"Man tits," Zoe echoed. "Man tits. I like that."

Bianca laughed until her head hurt.

The phone rang and Zoe tossed the reciever to Zane, then turned on the food processor so that he couldn't hear. Brody snickered, then jerked the plug out of the wall.

"It's Cade," Zane told Zoe, handing her the phone. "Do you need a hand up, Bianca?"

"That would be nice."

She leaned on him, stumbling forward into the library. "Remind me not to drink so much next time, would you?"

"It's not how much you drink," he told her, wrapping his arm around her waist, "but what you drink. You keep laying on the Wild Turkey like that and there's no hope."

"Wine's better?"

"It tastes better. And it isn't as hard on your system. Let me get the light."

He deposited her on another fainting sofa, this one made of black demask, and turned on a Tiffany lamp in the corner. The room was tiny, no larger than an average bathroom, and panneled in beautiful redwood. Books of every size and shape lined the walls from floor to ceiling, and beside the Tiffany lamp sat a wicker bowl full of book marks.

"Have you read all of these?" Bianca asked in awe.

"Almost all, I think. Except for a few my parents left behind. I didn't bother with Mom's romance novels or any of the home repair books."

She climbed to her feet again and walked closer to the shelves. Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft, The King James Bible, Far Memory, Opening to Channel, The Spiritual Seeker's Guide, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul, The Bhagavad Gita.

"Breath of my breath," she murmured. "You could open an occult shop with all these." She ran her fingers along more spines and concentrated on focusing her eyes enough to read the titles. Am I Going to Heaven?, Breaking Bread 1996, The Healing Runes. Then she saw one that could have come right out of her own room and her heart skipped at least three beats.

"You have Asha's Concerns," she said, taking it out.

"You've read it?" Zane asked in surprise.

"Yeah, it was on the mandatory reading list where I used to go to school."

His eyes widened dramatically. "Where did you go to school?"

She didn't answer, leafing through the pages. There were pages dog-eared and lines underscored with a red pencil, notes scribbled into the margins. "You've read it, too."

"I didn't understand most of it, since it referrs to the Tacitum method mostly and I can't seem to find any literature on it at all."

Bianca paused to read one of the lines he had underscored. The Tacitum method has cut off its nose to spite its face. Bianca smiled; that was why she never read Asha any more.

She put the book back and continued glancing down the line. "These are all spiritual and new-age, aren't they?"

"No, some are classical, self help. I've got all the latest Christian stuff, Budist texts, that sort of thing."

"Anything to save your soul, huh?" she joked. The smile faded when she saw how stricken he suddenly looked.

"Hey, I'm just messing around with you. I didn't mean anything by it. It's cool that you're into this stuff, getting to know your inner child and all that."

He stared at her for a moment and then turned and sat down on the sofa. He looked deadly serious, and Bianca felt the alcohol in her viens start to bubble to the rescue. If she could just return to being slightly drunker, she probably wouldn't care if he cut off his nose to spite his face, let alone worry about having hurt his feelings.

"You don't ever worry about the meaning of life?" he asked.

"There is no meaning. We're just an evolutionary fluke." Her more sober brain cells jumped in and politely added, "That's how I see things, anyway."

He nodded and opened his mouth, but Zoe tumbled into the room, laughing gaily. "Here," she said, thrusting Bianca's coffee cup into her hand. "You look down. Drink some more. It's a celebration, the night of your initiation! Drink and be merry." She did a little dance and fell onto the sofa beside Zane.

Bianca held the mug but couldn't actually bear to take another sip. "The night of my initiation into what?"

Zoe stopped laughing, then started up against twice as hard. "Damned if I know." She took a few hard sucks on her baby bottle and her eyes roamed around the room. "Zane's showing you his obsession, huh? Does that make it three to one that he's crazy?"

Zane's expression didn't change, but it was bleak to begin with. "Not crazy," Bianca said, "just hopeful. And there's nothing wrong with hoping."

"It's this whole thing with his family, you know? That's what it is. He thinks they don't love him so he's looking for somebody who does. And hell, Jesus will love anybody as long as they dump their whole life savings into the church box and scrub homeless peoples' asses all their lives. He's only got ten rules, you know, that's a lot less than some other dignities."

"Dieties," Zane corrected.

"Same difference. You just need to get over all this and have some fun."

He smiled at her, faintly, fondly. "I'm here getting completely wasted with you, aren't I?"

"No, I'm here, getting you wasted. See the difference?"

"I think it's the same."

"The same as what?"

"You tell me, it's your saying."

Zoe burst out laughing again and rolled onto the panneled floor. Bianca stepped over her and went back into the living room, where she found Camilla throwing up out the window.

"I guess I should have gotten her those crackers after all," Brody said, taking Bianca's hand and pulling her onto the couch with him. "Have I met you before?"

"I don't think so."

"You look familiar."

"Yeah, when you've had as much gin as you have, everybody looks familiar."

He didn't just look familiar, he looked incredible. There was a drunken flush in his cheeks, and stars twinkling in his hazel eyes. Bianca wondered how close he and Camilla were, how strongly he believed in fidelity. Then she remembered her situation and slapped herself.

"What the hell's that about?" Brody asked, grabbing her arm. "You're not one of those nuts into pain, are you?"

She chuckled and turned her face away. She wanted to say something witty, but all that came to mind was, "No."

I'm a temproary guests in these peoples' lives, she thought. I don't have any right to go around messing things up when I won't be here to pick up the pieces.

Shame colored her face and she put her head between her knees. "Not you, too," Brody groaned, laying a warm hand on the back of her neck. "Hey, Camy! Is there room for Bianca at the window? Yeah, I think she's gonna blow."

Bianca could see the tops of Camilla's shoes as she walked over. They were red and blue bowling shoes, like the kind clowns wore only smaller. "She just needs some food. I'll heat up a burger for her, even though you wouldn't even get the crackers for me."

"No, that's okay," Bianca told her. "I really can't eat right now. Thanks anyway."

"Have some merlot," Brody suggested, pressing the cool bottle into her hand. She lifted it and lay the glass against her cheek. The sweet smell surrounded her and she felt nausious.

"Let's have a seance," Zoe was saying distantly. "We haven't had a good old fashion seance since we were like ten."

"There's a reason for that," Camilla muttered.

"We did a lot of dumb shit when we were ten," Brody agreed.

"Is being drunk so different from being young?" Bianca asked him, lifting her bowling ball head. Why were all her thoughts going back to bowling tonight?

"Excellent point," Brody said. "Sure, yeah, let's do it. Zane, man, you look like crap. Go stick your head under the faucet or something."

His face was dead white, Bianca noticed, and his expression hinted at fear. No, that had to be her imagination. The reason none of them had participated in a seance since they were ten was that they hadn't been afraid of them since they were ten. On the other hand, Zane had probably read all sorts of books that made ghosts sound like huge energy masses that blew through the windows and destroyed things, and now felt that he was the only one who knew what kind of dangerous forces they were playing with.

She laughed. She started retching and dashed for the window, Brody cheering her on.

Camilla was collecting her things when Bianca finished. "I've got to get home," she said. "I'm driving my dad to the airport in the morning."

"There's no way you're driving yourself home," Brody told her. "No way. You're sloshed worse than Bi over there."

"No, I threw it all up."

"You didn't throw up any blood, did you?" Zoe wanted to know.

"Of course not."

"Well, the alcohole's in your blood, so I guess it's still in there." Zoe giggled, looking pleased with herself, and tossed a bottle of peppermint shnops to Bianca.

"You aren't driving," Brody said again. "That's crazy. That's just utterly stupid."

Camilla put her hands on her hips. "What, are you going to drive me?"

"No, you can crash here in my room and then wake up early and drive home. You'll have slept it all off."

She frowned but appeared to see the logic in his plan. "Okay, but I need to go to bed now. I've got to leave in about five hours."

"Speaking of leaving and driving drunk," Bianca cut in, "how am I getting home?"

She gargled with the shnops while the others exchanged blank looks, and then spit out the window. She'd had enough for one night. Probably longer.

"You aren't too trashed, are you, Zane?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I can't drive. I never learned."

"You live alone and you can't drive?"

"That's why we're always over here," Zoe chuckled.

"The guest room's made up, you're welcome to just stay here."

Bianca plopped down onto the fainting sofa. "Yeah, that might not be a bad idea. I told my custodian I didn't drink."

"Why'd you do that?" Zoe asked.

"That's what she wanted to hear. Besides, this is like the third time I've ever gotten drunk."

"Why do you call her your 'custodian'?" Brody asked, kissing Camilla's cheek. "G'night, babe. I mean, it's not like she keeps you clean or does maintenance on you or anything, does she?"

"Maybe it's because of those clothes she wears," Zoe told him. "She dresses like a girl janitor."

Bianca smiled dimmly and reached for the phone. Unable to access the memory banks in her drunken stupor, she got her new phone number from information and called home.

"Hello?" Beth asked.

"Hi, it's me." Bianca concentrated very hard on making herself sound sober. "Do you mind if I stay over with Zoe tonight? We rented a couple of movies that we haven't finished, and we're having a pretty good time."

Beth paused, and Zoe let out a hoot as she tripped on a plastic bottle and crashed to the floor.

"What was that?" Beth asked.

"Oh, Zoe's being stupid. We finished off a whole twelve-pack of Mountain Dew, we're both really hyper."

"I can tell." Another pause, and then she sighed. "Alright, it's fine it you stay over. Can you get a ride home tomorrow?"

"Yeah. I'll call in the morning to tell you what time I'll be there. Thanks a lot, bye."

She hung up and leaned back. It occured to her that she wasn't giving Beth the best first impression, cutting school and then spending the weekend with a chick who rode a motorcycle. Well, there was time. Not much, but probably enough.

"Okay, now that that's settled," Zoe said, "let's get on with the seance."

Zane had a huge stash of candles in every color, shape, and scent. They covered the mantle, the coffee tables, the dresser, and the floor with them, and by the time they had all been lit, the room looked as bright as daytime.

"Maybe we should blow some out," Zane said. He was smoothing a third comforter out on the floor.

Zoe finished refilling her bottle. "No, they look cool. Who's our medium? Zane, you know how to do this stuff, right?"

He sat down on the blanket, frowning, and wrapped his arms around his knees. "Not really. Reading about something and having experienced it are two totally different things."

"I'll do it," Bianca offered. She was struck by the sick urge to pretend to be dead and let somebody else have her decaying body.

She lay on her back, the blankets underneath her cloud-soft. Zoe had instructed her to cross her arms over her chest and go limp. "The spirit won't take over your body unless it thinks you aren't in it any more," she said. Zane coughed as if trying to bite back his words.

Her head rested in Brody's lap, which was nice. He rubbed her temples and she wondered how long they would sit there waiting on her if she fell asleep. With that in mind, she closed her eyes.

Zoe began saying something in a loud, commanding voice. "Oh great spirits, we offer up this temple for your worship..."

Blah, blah, blah. Bianca sank back and let herself fall into a trance. It was like sinking abruptly, sliding down a firepole in a baby basket, and not entirely pleasant. The first time she did it she thought she'd killed herself.

Her second eyes opened, and she could see through her eyelids as easily as if they were made of glass. The room was too bright and it stung her watery vision. Zoe was on her left, chanting, Zane on her right, looking half amused and half disgusted. Brody was just watching her face kind of fondly.

She shut her eyes again and let herself float. No problems here, none allowed. She sank deeper and deeper until she could no longer feel her body or the affects of the booze. Her consciousness went down and down into murky blackness so slowly she could barely tell she was moving without looking back to where she had been, and she waited for whatever was coming next.

The bottom fell out of her trance and she plumeted.

She sat on a stiff couch holding a magazine at the end of a long corridor. The waiting room smelled sweet, as if it had been purfumed to cover up the scent of dead bodies and medication. Her eyes were still reeling from the flashes of light and her ears were humming, but she could hear the phone ringing.

What's a pay phone doing in the middle of the hospital anyway? she wondered, staring at it. There was no one else around, not even at the reception desk, so she climbed to her jelly-knees and walked over.

"Hello?"

The voice was abrupt and cloudy. It whispered and in the background were a hundred other whispers so that the line sounded crawling with ghosts. "Remember that all good things must come to an end," it hissed. It took Bianca a second to realize it was addressing her, and not someone in the connected room.

"There is a purpose for this," it whispered, and then came a click. She held the phone to her ear until the dial tone began, and then kept holding it so long that it rang the electronic operator.

"Bianca!" She heard her name called down the corridor and turned numbly. Her throat was thick with dread and she felt faint.

"The doctor's ready to talk to you," Tessa called, and gestured that she could come.

Bianca knew the news was bad before she took her first step toward the office.

"Woah!" somebody yelled, and she hit the floor hard. Her knee smashed into something sharp and her head snapped back.

"Again!" Brody cried. "Again! Why do you keep getting beat up like this?"

Bianca opened her eyes and winced at the light. She was in the dinning room, on the floor, and it appeared she'd just run in to the table. "What happened?" she asked, seeing Zane hovering over her with a video camera.

Brody looked at Zoe and then away. "You were floating," Zoe said. "Like a foot off the ground. We did that thing were you lift somebody with two fingers, but then you just took off."

Suicidal, Bianca thought. She rubbed her knee, the same one she'd hit with a bowling ball earlier, and stood up. "It probably just looked like I was floating," she said, knowing full well that it hadn't.

"We taped it for proof," Zoe told her. "Come on, we've got to watch this."

She swore silently and limped after Zoe. If she'd known the camera was on she could have distrupted the electricity in it, and all they'd have shot was static. But since she'd slipped into one of her damn memory-mares, they had filmed the entire episode.

"Are you okay?" Zane asked, as they went down the basement steps. "Watch it, these are steep."

She used the banister to keep the weigh off her knee and then fell onto a loveseat. The basement was even more strangely furnished than the rest of the house, the walls obliterated by yards of dark fabric that hung from the ceiling. A drink bar beside the back door was covered in more books and an assortment of crystals.

A couch was next to the love seat, and an older model television rested in the corner, the kind built into a floor unit. Zane sat down next to Bianca and put an afghan over her legs. She smiled at him in spite of her bad mood. He was a sweet guy.

"Okay, here it is," Zoe announced. She was perched on the edge of the couch, ready to leap off and jump up and down. Brody had a deep frown on his face that caused crinkles around his eyes.

The video image was pretty good. Apparently all those candles had come in handy for something after all. Bianca could clearly been seen floating a foot off the floor, drifting over the blankets and toward the library.

"Watch out," Zoe said on the tape. "Don't let her hair get into the candles."

They gave her a shove and she drifted back in the other direction, like a balloon without helium. The tape went on about three minutes, during which time Bianca floated through the hallway, the kitchen, and into the dinning room. Then, without warning, she dropped to the floor and woke up.

"This is so incredible," Zoe cried. "I mean, we've got actual video footage of her floating. We must have channeled something, you know, like a spirit or a demon."

Bianca limped to the VCR and popped the tape out. She dropped it onto the floor and then brought her heel crashing down on the little plastic square. Zoe stopped speaking and just stared as Bianca finished pounding the tape with the heel her hiking boot.

"I'm leaning toward demon," Brody mentioned, and Bianca realized they were all afraid of her suddenly, afraid that the unknown and impossible might have invaded their house.

"I'm not possessed by a demon," Bianca said tartly, and then hobbled back to the loveseat. They all watched her.

"Are you sure about that?" Zoe asked.

"Yeah," Brody agreed, "in The Exorcist, Reagan didn't know what was going on, not even when she went and peed in front of all those party guests."

"I'm not going to pee on the floor."

"Well." Brody looked at Zoe again. "That's good news."

Bianca picked the baby bottle up off the coffee table and sipped it just enough to wet her lips. "Maybe I should explain."

Brody nodded. "Yeah, that would be nice."

"Okay." She wondered where to begin. She decided to give them the short run down and then let them ask questions. "Okay, when my parents died, I was eight, and the social service people couldn't find any living relatives so I ended up at this boarding school for orphans. At the school, they do a certain sort of...training with the kids, and it teaches them how to tap into other areas of the brain that do other things. That's why I can float off the ground like that."

"How did they teach you that?" Zane asked quickly.

"A lot of ways. I can't really describe it, and I was just a baby when I had to leave."

"When was that?"

"Seven months ago."

"Don't look like a baby to me," Brody told her. He gave her a sly grin.

Zoe raised her hand. "Is floating off the ground an elective, or is it a required course?"

"It's required."

She sat back. "Bitchin'. I want to go to school there."

No you don't, Bianca told her silently.

"So the whole floating thing it just something your brain can do naturally that you've been taught to tap into?" Zane clairifed.

"Right."

"What else can you do?"

"Not a lot. Sometimes, when I'm really upset, I can make stuff fall over without touching it. I can affect electricity, turn lamps off and stuff. I was really just getting the hang of it when I left."

"Why did you leave?"

"Brody." Zoe elbowed him harshly.

"Oh," he said suddenly.

Bianca smiled. "Don't worry about it. Anyway, that's why I was floating on the tape."

"Can you do it again now?"

"No, I'm too tired. And being drunk probably didn't hurt my preformance earlier, either."

There were footsteps above them. "Hello?" a deep voice called.

"That's Cade," Zoe said, jumping up and dashing toward the staris.

"Don't mention about me floating," Bianca told her, "okay?"

Zoe looked surprised but nodded. "Alright."

"Thanks."

She was left alone with Brody and Zane. Brody was about to dooze off, and Zane appeared deep in thought. "You used the Taciturn method?" he asked. Bianca nodded. "And you read Asha's Concerns."

"It was on the reading list."

"Isn't it against Tacitrun training?"

"Not really, it just has...Well, Asha had some concerns."

Zane nodded, unamused.

Zoe came bounding down the staris again, estatic. "Tomorrow, you'll show us, right?" Her green eyes were aglow with excitment.

Bianca's first instince was to say, "Sure, I'll cook you breakfast without using my hands," but the reality of her health hit her and she shrugged instead. Tessa had told her that using her brain unnecessairly would only tax it and make it melt faster. "If I'm up to it," she told Zoe.

"Here you are." Brody clapped twice and a cleverly scuptled lamp came on, illuminating a double bed with a large wooden headboard, a heavily glazed wardrobe, and several small cubits that formed a countertop. The walls were covered in fake wood panneling, cheap but homey, and on the floor was another Turkey carpet like the one downstairs. The stiff threads prickled Bianca's bare feet delightfully as she walked over it.

"This is the spare room?" she asked, turning around to stare at the painting hung everywhere. Framed, loose, tacked up, taped, sticky-tacked, propped. Magical scenes of forests and dwarves and valiant warriors astride horses which no doubt talked.

"Yeah," Brody replied, "we call it the wall-junk room because of all the pictures. Zane has a thing about yard-sale art. He just can't stop buying it, or anything else. Practically everything in this house came from somebody else's garage."

He sat down on the bed, hands in his pockets, and Bianca watched his eyes roam around the room. They came to rest on a cardboard box, plain and brown, very out of place, sitting in the corner. "Oh, that's Cassie's old stuff. I'll get it out of your way."

"She left her stuff here?"

"Some of it. Zane didn't really want to give it to her parents." Brody shrugged. "I think a lot of it's pornographic. Anyway, I'll haul it downstairs and Zane can bother with it later."

"You don't need to. I'm only using the bed."

He didn't respond, and a hush fell over the room. Bianca had met Cade as he was brushing his teeth in the bathroom, a tall, hulking guy with sharp looks and a cool manner. He and Zoe had retired to her bedroom, which was on the second floor with Zane's and the spare. Camilla and Brody stayed in the first floor suite, which had once belonged to Zane's parents. It was a large, ornate house, Bianca found, with quaint architecture and huge, cavernous closets.

She was startled when Brody spoke. "Just the bed, huh?" he said. There was a half smile on his face and his eyes had darkened beneath their long lashes.

He laughed, stood up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "That wasn't what I meant," Bianca said, but not defensively.

"Sure it wasn't," he teased as he went out the door. "Sleep tight."

She sat on the floor with Lily, trying to stifle her laughter with a pillow. Her sides were throbbing and Lily's face was tomato-red.

"You are a tease," Bobby said in the room next door. "You think grabbing me when I'm walking down the hall and pulling your shirt up isn't teasing me?"

"I was just trying to cool off," Ana snapped. "I was hot!"

Lily rolled right off the bed, she was laughing so hard. She had most of her fist stuck in her mouth, and Bianca tried to shush her but couldn't speak.

Her calm started to break and she let it dissolve around her long enough that she could get herself under control. Then she shut her eyes and whispered, "Please my ears, show me my peers. Let me evesdrop on their jeers, let me giggle at their fears."

It was an awful little spell. She's made it up herself; certainly Dictionary didn't have anything so cruel in it. But Bianca didn't care, just as long as she could hear the rest of Bobby and Ana's fight.

"I'm not saying they aren't nice tits," Bobby cried, "I'm just saying that I don't think you should be flashing them at me if you aren't interested...."

Bianca opened her eyes. It took her a few longs seconds to remember where she was, snuggled into Zane's spare room. The blankets smelled like lavendar soap, and everything was down, the quilts, the pillows, the mattress top. A small Buddah sat on the nightstand with a neon clock face built into his pudgy belly. The was was three seventeen.

There were at least two other people in the room, and they were having sex. Very loud sex. Bianca recognized one of the voices as Zoe's, and she assumed the other's was Cade's.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" she asked, and clapped her hands twice. The lamp burst to life and her eyes pinched shut. She peeked between her fingers and glanced around the room. Empty. Yet the moaning and groaning and slobering sounds continued.

She climbed out of bed and peered into the corners of the room, finally stumbling across an intercom that had been hidden by an X-Files poster. She twisted the volume knob but it came off in her hand, so she walked out into the hall to Zoe's bedroom door.

"Hey!" she yelled, banging her fist against the wood. "One of you's laying on the intercom, and I can heard every sound you make. Knock it off, would you?"

There was no response. The sounds continued to pour out of Bianca's room, Zane's, and the bathroom. Finally she noticed a light at the foor of the stairs and followed it.

Zane was sitting at the kitchen table, looking over a scatter of pages. He glanced up and smiled at her. "Did they wake you up?" he asked, and pointed to the ceiling.

"They're broadcasting it all into my room through the intercom, and I can't get them to shut it off."

He pulled out a chair for her and went to the refridgerator. "Something to drink?"

"What's available?"

"Soda, juice, milk, water. There's probably something stronger laying around if you'd like it."

"No, juice is fine. I'm going to be so hung over tomorrow, it's not even funny. Anyway, Zoe's door is locked and I guess she couldn't hear me calling. Do you have a key?"

He set a mug of dark grape juice in front of her and poured a glass of milk over ice for himself. As he sat down again, he said, "I have a key, but it won't make a difference. Zoe wants you to hear, that's why she does it. She broke all the volume knobs, too, so we couldn't help but hear her." He gestured to a pillow which had been wedged against the wall with a chair back.

Bianca took a moment to register disbelief and then felt herself begin to get angry. "What's she trying to prove?" she damanded, and Zane smiled gently. His air was different when he was alone, more secure and commanding, but no less sensitive.

"You're very perceptive," he said. "I think Zoe likes the attention. Or maybe she's just trying to prove that she doesn't care what we think. Yeah," he tapped his pen against the juice glass, "that could be it. If it's not one thing it's another. Her clothes, her hair, her boyfriend. It has a lot to do with her mother. She denouced the Church last summer and her mom went balistic. The only thing she could do to top that was become a Satanist."

Bianca snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure he can help."

"You don't believe in Satan?" Zane asked with suddenly interest.

"No, but I don't believe in God, either, so I guess it evens out."

Zane dropped his glass and it hit the table. Juice as dark as blood sloshed over the papers he had been studying, and the glass rolled away, shattering on the floor. His eyes, they were a stormy blue, were wide behind his glasses, and his lips had parted in awe.

"You don't believe in God?" he asked very slowly.

Bianca ran a hand through her hair, off-guard. "I don't want to offend you, but no, I don't."

Still speaking piecemeally, he said, "Then what do you believe?"

"Darwin. Evolution. Mother Nature's ability to create weird stuff with chemicals."

"So you're Pagan."

He looked relieved until she said, "No, I don't actually believe Mother Nature is a diety or anything, I was just saying that. But I think we're just products of science."

"And what happens when we die?"

"We stop being conscious. That's it, we just stop. There's juice all over your papers."

Zane looked down in surprise and then stood up. "I...don't worry about them. I'll clean it up later." He started backing up toward the stairs. "Uh, good night."

Bianca stared after him. What just happened? she mouthed to the air, but of course the air didn't answer. Hesitantly, she took a towel from the fridge door and started mopping up the juice. A door slammed upstairs and the muffled panting that still issued from the intercom stopped. She pulled the chair away and the pillow fell to the floor.

"You did this on purpose," she heard Zane say, his voice crackling with anger as much as static. "You knew all along!"

"Knew what?" Zoe said.

"What are doing in here?" Cade wanted to know. "In case you hadn't noticed, we're kind of busy."

Brody's door opened and Camilla stepped out, frowning. "What's Zane doing up there?" she asked, and Bianca shrugged. She could hear the words coming from the suite's intercom, and a muffled mimic from the kitchen extension.

"I could kill you," Zane said. "I could really do it."

Zoe chuckled and answered leisurely. "I'm sure you could, but then I wouldn't be around to help you cover it up."

A long silence, followed by the slamming of the door. Footsteps above illuminated Zane's path from Zoe's room to the bathroom. A moment later the shower came on.

"What the hell's wrong with him?" Cade asked tartly. Wet sounds.

"Oh, the usual," Zoe replied. "God dropped by and he wasn't prepared."

Cade was laughing when the transmission cut off.

Brody stumbled out of his bedroom, blinking. "It's just Zoe being an exobiologist, don't worry about it," he mumbled, unaware that Zane and Zoe had been fighting on Candid Camera.

"You mean an exobistionist," Camilla corrected.

"Yeah, same thing. Go back to sleep."

Bianca finished cleaning up the juice, drying the papers as best she could. They were mostly Xeroxed pages with pencil scribbles and underlines. Well, he could probably iron them and they'd be alright.

She went back upstairs and eased into bed. The Buddah-clock said it was almost four. She closed her eyes and heard the shower shut off. A few minutes later doors opened and closed.

Chapter Three

"Bianca," Jemmy said, "let's hear from you next."

Groaning, she stood up. She wasn't opposed to theater, it was fun watching people get up on stage and make idiots of themselves, but she didn't particularly want to participate in it. Not to mention that today she had a splitting headache which had plagued her all week.

Jemmy was the drama teacher, the chorus director, the orchestra conductor, and the senior class counsilor all rolled into one pudgy blob of a man who looked remarkably like Santa Clause. He didn't have a classroom, so he just taught in the auditorium, and he was never without a bag of munchies nearby. Today, it was Cheese Nips.

Bianca got out of her chair and walked up to the stage. On her way up the stairs she plucked a piece of paper from the cardboard box labled, "Wednesday."

It was a Wednesday tradition to read in front of the class. Everybody took a short speech or monologue from the Wednesday box, hiked up to the stage, and read. It was one of the most awful school traditions Bianca had ever heard of.

The rest of her class was scattered throughout the first four rows of the theater, their feet propped up on the seats in front of them, wearing their caps backwards and chomping on gum. Jemmy didn't really care what you did when you weren't on stage.

Double drama had turned out to be the high point of her day. She made it through trig with Zoe, then scociology, physics, lunch, and English, and then just when she was starting to feel tired, she could plop down in Jemmy's class and enjoy herself. He was actually a good teacher; she'd been surprised to realize that after seeing him flirt with one of the other students. But hell, he had to be a great teacher to have gotten her on stage at all.

"Whenever you're ready," he said.

She glanced down at the paper but didn't bother reading it before starting. Her voice was monotone and didn't carry, and she skipped most of the commas. "I have some very bad news, Joey. I'm afraid we can't save Misty, her leg is just too badly broken. I know you loved that horse, but sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind. If we let her live, she'd have to be hung from the barn ceiling for almost a year, and that's no way for a horse to live. She wouldn't be happy if she couldn't run. So I'm going to have to put her down. I'll do it real quick and she won't feel a thing. Now don't cry, Joey, we just have to trust that the Lord has a place for horses in heaven."

She stopped, letting the page fall. Last week it had been worse, an excerpt from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

"Read it again," Jemmy said.

"Why?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "Just read it again."

She ground her teeth and started reading. The words came out faster this time, and she skipped the periods as well as the commas.

"Again."

Her toes curled up inside her shreded shoes. "IhavesomeverybadnewsjoeyI'mafraidwecan'tsavemistyherleg-"

"Okay, okay," Jemmy cried. "Stop. Come on, read it one more time, slowly."

She took a deep breath, let it out, and started reading.

He heckled her.

"I have some very bad news-"

"Bad news? How bad?"

"-Joey-"

"My name's Eugene!"

"-I'm afraid we can't save Misty, her leg is just too badly broken-"

"What are you afraid of? That we'll all find out you're the one who broke it?"

"-I know you loved that horse-"

"Boy, I sure did. She had the cutest ass."

"-but sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind-"

"Especially in bed."

Bianca's head snapped toward him. "Would you shut the hell up?"

He didn't appear fazed. "Why? My heckles are more interesting than your reading."

"You're the one who wrote it, if it's boring that's your fault. You're going to give us lectures about preforming great art and then hand us this to work with? Who cares about the stupid horse anyway? I'd shoot it in the head myself just so I wouldn't have to keep reading about it."

Half the class burst out laughing, the others sat there pretending to be offended by her crude manner toward animals. Jemmy smiled at her.

"Look at yourself now. You're yelling. Maybe it's just a matter of getting you away from paper. Hmm." His picked up a notebook, dusted the chesse crumbs off his fingers, and made a note. "Okay, from now on, instead of reading on Wednesdays, you can stand up there and just talk for three minutes. It seems to work better for you."

She crumpled up her page and threw it at him. He smiled and watched it bounce off his belly and onto the floor. She jumped off the stage, winced at the sharp pain in her knee, and fell back into her seat beside Zane.

"You really thought the horse thing was boring?" he asked her.

She kicked off her shoes and tossed a Crybaby into her mouth. Without wincing, she chewed it to bits. "Yeah, why?"

"I wrote it."

The sour sugar hit her throat and she gagged. "Oh," she said, as Brody leaned up from the row behind to thump her on the back. "Nothing personal. I'm not an animal person."

Zane shrugged. "It's okay. I was watching that Lassie episode when I wrote it. Besides, if Jemmy wants something interesting he can write them himself."

They hadn't spoken of the Saturday night incident, Zoe's weird conduct, her floating, or Zane's irrational upset. He was as polite as ever, Zoe was rude but somehow endearing, and Brody was full of heart and empty of tact. In the last week and a half, she'd found something between them, a familirity that reminded her so much of Tessa's school it was almost painful. They'd been celebrating Camilla's first perfect bowling score at Zane's house and few nights earlier, and when Bianca mentioned that she was cold, Zane told her, "Your green sweater is clean, I went ahead and put it in your dresser."

My dresser? she thought. Then, Sure, my dresser. Up in my room.

Somehow they had adopted her, without questions or an interview, or even a reasonable amount of time to get to know her. They had just decided that she was theirs, and that was that.

For as long as it lasted, that was that.

"Bianca," Jemmy said as the class broke up, "have you got a minute?"

She glanced at Zane. They both knew what this meant. "We'll meet you at the car," Brody said easily. "Have fun."

"Sure," she muttered, and her headache abruptly increased ten fold. She walked toward the stage.

Jemmy was sitting on the edge, dangling his feet so he could kick them. He patted the floor beside himself and Bianca reluctantly boosted herself up next to him.

"So here's how it works," he said in a simple, friendly tone. "There's no easy way for me to talk about this. Everybody at Principal knows that you're dying, and except for that idiot Hons, I think we've all tried to avoid the subject. But I can't really, because I'm the senior class counselor and you're a senior. So I'm just going to be flat out blunt about it, since you seem to be the kind of girl who can handle that."

Bianca nodded, frankly relieved. Yesterday a fellow student had approached her after an Sociology class focusing on death, and appologized profusely. "I feel so sorry for what you and your family are going through." Then she paused and burst into fresh tears. "I forgot, you don't have a family!"

Jemmy went on. "I'm not really equipted to handle the kind of counseling you need. I mean, the teachers draw straws for this position and the hand book is six pages long. But I imagine there's bunch of stuff going on that it would help to talk about, so I got you the card of a therapist in the area. She's the sister of a friend, and she works with all kinds of people. Supposed to be really good, so you might talk to your foster parents about sending you to see her. In the meantime, if there's anything I can do that I actually know how to do, all you've got to do is say the word. I already bitched Hons out for you, but if anybody else gives you crap, just tell me. Is there anything you'd like to add?"

"If I say the word, can I just sit through Wednesdays all together?"

Jemmy grinned. "No, but it was a good try."

"What did he want?" Brody asked as Bianca approached the car.

He looked so good just then, leaning against the side of his Mazda with his hair all in his eyes and his long legs crossed. If she had been a religious person, she might have thought it a punishment from God to send her someone so adorable during her final days.

"Just to clear the air about my whole illness thing."

"What have you got, anyway?"

She smiled slyly and opened the passenger door. "Ali MacGraw disease," she told him, and he laughed. "What happened to Zane?"

"Oh, he decided to go home with Zoe and Cade. What are you doing tonight?"

She pulled down the sun visor and tried to sound casual. "I've got a couple errands to run, then I thought I'd crash early."

"You look tired today."

"Yeah, it's no wonder."

He looked at her sharply. "I don't know how to handle this," he told her honestly. They cruised through a stop sign.

She put her hand on his knee. "I'll tell you a secret: Neither do I."

She parked her bike outside the Secret Bethelhem Cove Medical Centre and went inside. Beth had offered to drive her, but she said no. This was something she wanted to do by herself.

She gave her name to the receptionist and sat down to wait. The bright sunlight on the ride over had hurt her eyes, and her head was pounding worse then ever now. Plus her knee was aching from the peddling. I'm just a basket case here, she thought with a grim smile.

And it's only going to get worse.

A mere half an hour after the schedueled appointment, the doctor was ready to see her. She sat on the examining table and he straddled a stool and made notes on his clipboard. She recognized the cool, distant manner as that of a doctor who knew all about the Tacitum method and the more unpleasant side offects.

"How've you been feeling?"

"Alright. A little tired."

"Any dizziness?"

"No."

"Headaches?"

"Bad ones." Before he could ask she added, "In the top of my head, toward the back."

"Diorientation? Loss of balance?"

"No."

"Numbness?"

"No."

"Muscle spasms?"

"No."

"Have you sneezed any blood? Had any nose bleeds?"

"No."

"Okay." He tossed his clipboard aside and pulled out his perscription pad. "I'm giving you a perscription for Joselphin, it's a painkiller. You might get an upset stomach from them, if you do, take them with food. Call me if you have any questions."

She took the slip of paper, paid, and left. No x-rays, no CAT scan, no MRI. He'd never even touched her head.

She was wandering around the drugstore, waiting for her pills, when she bumped into Zane. "Hey," he said, smiling at her. Today it was black pants and a gray-green sweater. Zoe must have laid out his clothes for him. "What are you doing here?"

She picked up a box of hair dye and handed it to him. "I'm thinking of going blond."

"That's interesting."

He gave her the box back.

"You don't have a suggestion?"

He shrugged sheepishly. "I'm colorblind, so I don't really know what color your hair is now."

"Oh." She put the dye back on the shelf and felt her cheeks color. "I'm actually here picking up my medication," she admitted, and he nodded.

"You're still being treated then?"

"Not really. I'm taking some painkillers and stuff to slow the cancer down, but there's no chance I'll be able to stop it."

"Have you tried any of the homopathic stuff? It can work wonders."

"I tried. It didn't help. With my kind of cancer, there isn't really anything that can make a dent in it. It's not even a real cancer, in the sense of the word."

They both stopped talking. MuZak was playing softly over the store, a piano version of Maria. Bianca shoved her hands into her pockets as deep as they could go to see how fast she could pull them out. Zane read the instructions on a can of spray-on hair.

"Do you want to come over?" Bianca asked suddenly.

Zane smiled.

They sat on her bed and played Thirty One with a deck of mangled cards. Bianca won continously because she knew the dent marks on the back of each card to identify them before they were turned over. But she didn't mention that to Zane. He was too busy being astounded to have heard anyway.

It was inevitable that the mood would change. She wanted to talk, he wanted to listen, and the cards moved more and more slowly as they got ready. Her inviting him over had been a pretext all along. "Are you scared?" Zane asked finally.

"I'm scared of being in pain with no way to end it. But I'm not scared of the actual death."

"Doesn't it bother you that whatever you've gotten out of this life won't go on?"

"No. I don't believe in souls, just chemical consciousness." She pulled her hair down and let it fall over her shoulders. Her headache had left soon after she took one of the little purple pills.

"It's really cool, in one way," she said, dealing again. "It's like everything just evolved, and out of it sprang this one particular animal that could think up all these other things. God and poetry and art and stuff."

"Dogs and cats don't do that," Zane agreed.

"Right. It's neat that one particular species does. It's like we outgrew our programming."

"Knock." Bianca took her turn and Zane laid down his cards. She won, and he delt again.

"But you don't think being able to think other stuff is a sign of anything?"

"No, I think it's a fluke of nature."

"What if you're wrong?"

"What if I am?"

"Then you'll end up in Hell."

"But I don't believe that I am wrong."

"But you still could be."

"Theoretically yeah, I guess I could be. But if I was worried about it, then I wouldn't have to worry because by worrying that it might be real I would be accepting that I sort of believe in it. Which should save me from eternal damnation."

Zane chuckled. "Well, I guess you've go it all figured out."

The comment bothered her for some reason. They played in silence for a while, and even though she kept winning she felt uneasy. The memory of the phone calls, there had been three now, kept playing back in her mind, that hard, hissing, genderless voice that had changed the direction of her life thrice and hung over her head like a hawk swooping over a field mouse.

"If there's no god," Zane said after a long time, "then is that why you burned down those peoples' farm?"

"Huh? Where did you get that?"

"Well, since you don't believe your soul is being judged by a god of any type, then it must be okay to do whatever you want, right?"

Now she was horrified. "Hell no!"

Zane's eyes widened behind his wire-rimmed glasses and he let his cards rest against his knee.

"Explain this, won't you?"

She ran a hand through her hair and tried to speak clearly. "Just because there's no god doesn't mean I have no morals. Usually I'm a law abiding citizen, except for stuff like drinking age or cutting school. Relatively unimportant stuff can be junked. But even though we're just over-grown science projects, we still have to obey the laws of the society we've created. That's how it works in my mind. There's justice outside of God, and we're the ones who have to serve it."

"You burned the farm down as punishment for how they treated you?"

She knew she could never explain this. She couldn't tell him about the phone calls without admitting that she wasn't sure, that she was afraid there was some higher power watching her, afraid that she was being used as a puppet. How would he think of her if he knew her belief system had been in shambles since the day she adopted it, and her heart was as homeless as his own?

So she lied.

"Yes."

It was always unexpected, the call. She picked up the phone while nursing a black eyes from Jay Tip's punches of night before, and could barely speak her jaw was so stiff and swollen. The kitchen was temproarily deserted, as the kids were at school and Mary Tip had gone shopping. Claude and Bianca were sitting with a First Aid kit and a bucket of ice, mending various wounds.

"Hello?" she asked, her voice garbled.

The line was full of static. "Burn down the farm. Do it tomorrow night." A low hiss, as if to puncuate the words, and then the click.

Bianca turned around and saw Claude sitting at the table. He was retaping two broken fingers. She nodded, and then he nodded.

She opened her eyes and wondered when she'd fallen asleep. Zane was sitting on the bed beside her, leafing through her copy of Onevay. She smiled; he was mesmerized by her book collection.

"You shouldn't have let me doze off like that," she said, struggling to sit up.

"You were tired." He picked her bottle of Joselphin and read the label. "Unlimited refills. Interesting."

"You like that book?"

"Once again, I don't understand most of it. Tacitum method books are so hard to find. These are classified as either spells or prayers, but you say the idea behind it all is scientific."

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and nodded. "Here."

She found a box of sturdy kitchen matches in her desk, with the rest of her dust-gathering paraphinalia, and took the book from him. Her fingers turned the pages, their edges furry with use, back and forth until she found an old spell.

"I don't know if I can still do this, but I'll give it a try."

Shaking her hair out, she inhaled deeply and pinched the match between the fore finger and thumb of her right hand. "Flames of freshness, flames of old. Flames of burning I control. Let your flame burn strong and bright, then go blazing in my sight."

She closed her eyes, the matchbox in her left hand, and by feel alone lit the match. "How high is it burning?" she asked breathily.

"Half an inch or so," Zane whispered.

Her eyes opened, already focused directly on it. The flame lept up until it was almost a foot tall, and the heat shot out in every direct. Zane made a strangled sound and tumbled backwards onto the floor. Bianca giggled and eased off a little, letting the cylinder of fire drop several inches.

"It's alright," she told him. "I'm in control."

Zane cautiously climbed back onto the bed, his face slack with awe. "Why isn't it burning down?"

"I'm not letting it."

"And this is what they taught you at Tessa's school?"

"Yeah. Beats trig, doesn't it?"

"Definately."

She blew the match out a moment later, feeling her strength begin to ebb. It had been a long time since she'd done something like that, and she was weak besides being out of practice. Coughing, she slumped back against the pillow.

"That's how you explain miracles?" he asked. "Just unconscious tricks of the mind?"

"Yeah. Healing is the same thing, just people believing they can get well."

He hesitated, and she knew he was going to ask. Before he had time she said, "I've already tried. It was too late when they diagnosed me. Too much of my brain was already gone."

Zane lay down opposite her, curling his legs against his chest. "What exactly is it?"

Feeling sad but strangely nostalgic, she told him, "I worked areas of my brain that haven't been in use for a couple million years, and after a while they malfunctioned or whatever and started disengrating. Turned to mush, that's why I'm so bad at that spell now."

"You didn't look bad to me."

"Yeah, but you didn't see me before. I used to be able to light twenty candles, and then make each one to burn a different height. Anyway, the rest of my brain is turning to mush bit by bit. First the centers that control telekensis or whatever, then all the rest of it." She sighed. "It isn't going to be pretty."

Zane reached out and took her hand. His was cold but soft. "Death is more beautiful than we ever except," he said gently, but it took her a long time to figure out what he meant.

Grant came over for dinner that Friday, and Bianca offered to cook. He went into the den with Beth and she could hear them giggling like ten-year-old boys discovering the wonder of pouring salt on snail. It reminded her of the letter she'd gotten from Claude's friend Alice, saying that he'd died the Monday before. There was a little ache in her chest she'd been walking around with all day, but she hadn't told anyone, and she'd been cheerful for Beth's sake. Her custodian still hadn't been able to talk about Bianca's illness with her.

She cooked stir fry, a simple enough meal, and then set out some boiled corn and carrots. "Dinner's ready," she called down the hall, tossing back her medicine with a mouthful of milk.

They sat down at the table and she was praised for her cooking, which had taken all the skill of licking a stamp but was still nice to hear. She didn't mention that Beth's pale lipstick had been smudged high enough across her face to double as blush, or that Grant looked like a beginner queen.

"How's school going?" Grant asked.

"Okay. I found out that Zane's writing the play we're going to put on."

"Really?" Beth was impressed, but frowning. She had wiped soy sauce off her chin and noticed the lipstick on her napkin.

"Yeah. He won't tell me what it's about, but he wants me to be in it."

"You think you'll be feeling well enough for that kind of thing?" Grant asked, and Beth looked up sharply.

Bianca ingorned her. "I'll have to wait and see. We're starting work on Monday, and we'll probably have the preformance before the end of January. Even if I'm not, it'll be fun watching Zane try to get people to realize his vision or whatever. Sometimes his vision is so obscure. Not to mention colorless."

They both liked Zane, but she had expected that. It was hard not to like Zane, especially if you were an adult. She thought his hesitant shyness made them feel powerful and needed, even though underneath it she doubted he needed anyone.

"We finally set a date," Beth said, eager to change the subject to something more upbeat.

"Did you? When?"

She had been surprised to find she was looking forward to the wedding. Sure, Beth wasn't her real mother and Grant wasn't her real father, but in her head they were taking over the boothes her parents used to run. The ones with the taking maniquins that said, "What time are you coming home?" "Do you need a ride?" and "Take your jacket, it's getting cold out." Tessa hadn't cared if they froze to death or not, so long as their brains were still working once they thawed out, and Bianca found herself enveloped in an almost sickening glow by the parental concern.

"February first. It's a Sunday, and we'll probably be gone that week."

"Where are you going?"

"Sante Fe." Beth was beaming. "That's where we're taking our honeymoon. It's warm year round."

"Sounds nice."

The doorbell rang, and Bianca stood up. "That'll be Brody."

"Oh, are you spending the night with Zoe?"

"Yeah, but I'll be home early tomorrow. The play starts at noon, right?"

Beth nodded. "Do you want me to call in the morning to make sure you're up?"

Bianca supressed a smile as she pulled on a thick Irish sweater and slung her backpack over her shoulder. "No, that's okay. I'll be home by ten thirty."

Grant walked her to the door, touching her shoulder just before she opened it.

"You know," he said in a voice too low for Beth to overhear, "we won't leave town if you're sick. We can always postpone the honeymoon. I mean, we wouldn't leave you here alone if you weren't feeling well."

She nodded and tried to pretend she wasn't suddenly close to tears. "I know." Impulsively, she kissed his cheek and then flashed a grin. "You two have fun tonight."

Grant blushed like a girl.

"It's way too cold to be doing this," Zoe grumbled, hunching down beside the rusted metal circle that marked the grill. "I'm freezing my ass off and we haven't been here ten minutes."

"When's Cade getting here?"

"An hour or so, if he can ever find the place."

Bianca sat on a sleeping bag, feeling sand slide into her shoes, and rubbed her arms. The ocean was half a block away; if she listened, she could hear the mechanical crash of waves, hitting the beach over and over like a cheap thrill ride. Brody was popping the tent, although maybe "popping" wasn't the right word, since he'd been at it for almost half an hour now, and Zane was coming back from the car with more wood.

"What's that?" Bianca asked, watching Zoe soak a ball of squashed, moldy newspaper with a thin liquid that in the moonlight looked like amber.

"Lighter fluid."

"Aren't you using kind of a lot?"

"Kind of a lot compared to what?"

"Compared to how much they used on the Waco compound," Zane told her, dropping a load of wood a few feet away. "Are you cold, Bi?"

She shrugged, then nodded, and Zane wrapped a black and purple checked blanket of polar fleece around her shoulders. It smelled like his house, beeswax and incense and rubbing alcohole. "Thanks," she said to him, and he fondly scraped the back of his knuckles over her head.

"Ready?" Zoe asked, and without waiting, struck a match. She tossed it into the pile of paper balls, which looked like an unorganized gym class supply box, and Bianca felt the heat find her face like a hard slap.

"Christ!" she cried. She threw her weight backwards and scrambled away from the three foot flames in a tangle of blanket.

Zoe laughed delightedly and clapped her hands, then chucked a log onto the pile, causing a tornado of sparks and flaming shards of newsprint to fly through the air. "What the hell are you doing?" Brody called, nailing tent stakes into the ground.

"Barbacuing! We're having Bianca for dinner, with a little A-1."

Zane shook his head and helped Bianca sit up. He muttered something under his breath, but all she could make out was the word "morbid." Yeah, it was morbid, but worse than that. For a moment, there had been a little scorpion in Zoe's voice that said she might not be joking.

God, Bianca thought, I'm more morbid than she is. Then again, she had every reason to be. Claude had only been three months older than her.

"Are you hungry?" Zane asked.

"Not really."

"Do you want something to settle your stomach before Zoe starts filling it with booze?"

She gave him a little smile and he returned it, passing along a box of peanut butter crackers. Bianca lifted one to her mouth and then stopped. Her stomach turned painfully at the thought of food. She pitched the cracker-sandwhich into the fire and breathed in the scent of artifical chesse as it burned.

"I'm freezing," Zoe said again. "I mean, I really can't feel my toes."

"This is absurd. We're six weeks from Christmas," Cade agreed. "What the hell are we doing out here?"

"We just need to move closer together," Zane said.

"Bi's shivering like a wet puppy," Brody told them all cheerfully.

"Thanks for the compliment. Why don't we just go home?"

"All in favor say 'aye.'"

"Aye!"

They hit a deer on the way home. It happened without any kind of warning, and Bianca hadn't even realized what had happened until she heard Brody yell, "OhsweetjesusIhitit!"

"You hit what?" Zoe demanded, jumping up from the back seat.

"I think it was a horse."

Cade leapt out of the car and into the woods. As his door opened, it activated the dome light inside the car and illuminated Brody's face, which had suddenly gone dead white and was covered in sweat. Bianca grabbed his hand from the passenger's seat. It was shaking. "Don't freak out," she said. "It's okay. It's just a horse, all the important people are alright."

She got out and walked into the glaring headlights. The buck was huge; she could see why Brody had thought it was a horse. The thick brown fur was dripping with blood, and she caught a flash of bone above his eyes. The jaw, dislocated, flopped against the ground as he tried to cry, and three if not four of his legs were broken.

"It's still alive," Cade said, putting his hands on his hips. Bianca nodded. From the corner of her eye, she saw Zoe climb from the car.

"We'll give the forest ranger people a call when we get to Zane's," Cade told her, and then turned away. "They've got a vet place for these things."

Bianca knelt down and examined the buck's head more closely. She thought there were scull fractures, and blood was pouring out of his mouth. There was no point in calling the ranger.

"Bi?" Zane called from the car as she stepped off the road and picked up a large rock. She took a couple of lumbering steps and called, "Turn off the headlights."

"Do what?"

"Turn off your lights!"

"Why?"

"Just do it!"

She saw Brody talk to Zane, and then the lights went out and she stumbled closer to the deer. Setting her weight up, she hoisted the rock over her head and brought it squarely down on the buck's scull. His miserible bleeting and crying stopped.

She leaned down and lay her hand on its stomach. No more breathing, good. She gave the fur a gentle pat, feeling akin to the pretty dead animal on the road. Nobody's gonna put me out of my misery, she thought.

"What the hell did you do?" Zoe screamed from behind her. The headlights came on again and Bianca blinked frantically.

They built another fire back at Zane's house, this one using less lighter fluid. Cade, with his Mr. T arms, pushed the couch and the fainting sofa up next to the hearth, and the five of them settled down with coffee and vodka 151.

"No, don't make me drink that," Bianca said, trying to maneuver her mug away from Zoe's pouring hand without spilling. "Seriously, I'll throw it all up, I promise."

"But it's so much fun watching you make an ass of yourself," Zoe lamented as she filled half her baby bottle and spiked Cade's coffee.

"I'm sure you'll make an ass of yourself enough for all of us, Zo," Brody told her. Camilla was out of town for a family reunion, and he looked a little lost without her.

Bianca pulled the polar fleece blanket around her shoulders again, curling her toes up. "You're quiet," Zane noted.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

"Silence is a welcome relief compared to your usual psycho babble about the nature of the universe," Zoe said.

"Actually, she has some very interesting theories."

"About as interesting as watching paint dry."

Bianca was surprised to hear Zane say sharply, "Have you even heard them?"

"No, but I know about your clan and it's whole hippie philosophy."

Zane looked away, turning his gaze directly at the fire, and his jaw clenched.

"This whole thing with eating veggies and meditating and finding your soulmate, it's the same sphiel again and again. There's never anything new to say because it's a crock of bullshit."

Tell her off, Bianca thought angerily, but Zane continued to pretend he didn't hear. It was Brody who said, "Just shut up, okay Zoe? Just let it be for tonight."

"Fine." She sounded pissed; her voice was like a drill. "Let's go to bed," she said, jumping to her feet and yanking on Cade's hand. He rose, with the same disinterest he did everything else, and allowed her to lead him toward the stair well. He grabbed the vodka on his way. "Night, Brody, Bianca."

"Carpe p.m.," Brody replied.

Bianca glanced at him, sitting on the couch with his arms wrapped around his long legs. "What does that mean?"

"Carpe p.m.? It's like carpe diem, but with p.m. Sieze the night, I guess." He laughed, mostly at himself. That was one of the things Bianca found herself admiring in him. One of many. "I don't know, I got it off tv."

Zane sighed. It was a long, deep sigh, the kind an old man gives at the end of the day when he can finally take his dentures out. "She doesn't respect me, you know."

"She doesn't respect anyone," Brody told him. "Zoe doesn't understand the concept of respecting other peoples' opinions."

The intercom buzzed to life.

"Speaking of which..." Brody finished, gesturing to it. "I mean, jesus, some of us are trying to sleep."

Bianca tilted her head. "Like who? None of us are sleeping."

"It's the principal of the thing."

Bedsprings, panting.

How many times have I heard them go at it now? Bianca wondered, counting on her fingers under the blanket. This must make five.

"It's like The Truman Show meets porn radio."

They were quiet for a couple of minutes, and the sound of clothes rustling filled the room.

"Why do I let her push me around?" Zane wondered aloud.

"Why do you?" Bianca asked frankly. "She says horrible things about you to your face, and you don't even blink. I'd be smacking her left and right."

Zippers, slurping.

He shrugged, mouth drawn with embarrasment. "Sometimes it seems like it's easier to put up with her than to not be friends with her."

"How's that?"

Zoe moaned and Brody swore, standing up.

"If I tell her I don't want her around any more, she won't believe I mean it forever. It'll always just be a question of when we'll make up again. It's easier to just ignore her than to deal with her calls and notes and messages through Brody."

Bianca nodded. Some people weren't worth the trouble of ending a friendship with, but she hadn't realized it was this way with Zane and Zoe. They seemed so close, and strangely affectionate at times.

But there was a streak of cruelty in Zoe Bianca hadn't seen at first. She did not bite often, but when she did, she knew just where to strike.

"Goddammit," Brody said, and Bianca realized he'd fetched the baseball bat they kept by the front door for protection. With a quick, forceful swing, he smashed the face of the living room intercom. Plastic slats shattered and tinkled to the floor, and Bianca jumped almost out of her seat.

But the sound wasn't stopped, so Brody hit it again. He has really nice arms, Bianca thought, watching him wind up, or whatever it is one does before they smash an intercom extension. More pieces of plastic and metal broke off like a minature building being demolished, and Bianca and Zane winced together at every slam.

Finally Brody turned around and shook his head. "It won't die," he said, letting the bat fall to the ground with a hollow clunk. "The blasted thing won't die." He pushed the hair off his forehead, which was damp with sweat, and then scratched the neck of his shirt. His tone lightened as if the intercom had never come into existence. "Okay, I'm hitting the sack. G'night."

When he was gone, and the living room was quiet again except for the garbled sounds of sex still coming from the intercom despite Brody's attempt at beating it into submission, Zane and Bianca looked at each other and burst into laughter.

"Zane?" She knocked on his door, noticing the latch hadn't caught, and it swung open. "Zane?"

"I'm in the closet," he called. "I should also mention I'm completely naked. I don't know if that kind of thing bothers you."

She smiled to herself and stopped outside the closet door. Zane was the coolest gentleman she'd ever met. "I was just wondering where the toilet paper is. The bathroom up here is out."

"Oh, there's some in the closet in Brody's bathroom. If he's alseep just sneak past. He sleeps like a rock."

"Okay."

She padded downstairs, her arms drawn up by her sides. She couldn't stop thinking of Claude, of how young he'd been, of how much he'd helped her at the Tips's. She wanted to cry but couldn't seem to, as if her mind didn't want to mourn Claude's death when her own was so ignored. The sadness was both comforting and lonely, like an empty room full of beautiful art.

Brody's door was open as well, and Bianca let herself in. "Hello?" Beyond the sitting room was a crack of light under the bathroom door. She sat down to wait.

She'd only been in Brody's room once or twice before, and had been surprised to find it tidy and well-kept. Probably Camilla's work--no, undoubtedly Camilla's work. Brody couldn't find a squeeling baby pig in the mess inside his locker.

The walls were painted beige, with a seafoam boarder, and the carpet had been recently vacumed. (Or "Hoovered," as Zane called it.) A marble fireplace backing the one in the living room was in the sitting room, along with another of those blasted fainting sofas, this one pale pink, and a china cabnite covered in peeling paint. Inside was Zane's collection of odd teacups, saucers, and other dishes. He had an incredible number of teapots, none of which had been used since he bought them.

There was a tv in the bedroom, on top of the fake-wood dresser. Camilla's spare bowling shoes were set neatly beside the metal architect's desk by the window.

Bianca sat on the bed and sank down into it a ways before realizing it was filled with water. She'd never actually seen a water bed before, frivolities being a no-no at Tessa's, and poked it experimentally. Waves, interesing.

"It seems like you'd get seasick," Brody said from the doorway, startling her. "But you don't. The motion is actually kind of soothing, and the water can be heated."

He leaned against the doorway, wearing only jeans and socks. He must have just taken a shower; damp strands of dark hair were curling around his face. Bianca had to stop from licking her lips.

They stared at each other for a good ten seconds. Brody's gaze wasn't intense or challenging, and he didn't look her over like a piece of meat on the block. He just looked at her in a friendly, admiring way, the kind of look that said nothing outright but spoke volumns just the same.

"Do you ever get the feeling you're about to fall off the sidewalk and right into the ocean?" he asked conversationally. "Like you're at the top of the first hill on a roller coaster and the real ride's about to start?"

Ohhh, she thought. Is this good or not?

Of course she knew what he meant. Something had been building between them for the last few weeks with an operetic intensity that could easily turn dangerous. I could mess things up for you and Camilla, Bianca thought. Do you realize that, or are you assuming I'll keep my mouth shut? Why are you getting involved with a half-dead girl like me?

He was standing at the foot of the bed now; somehow he'd taken her hand without her noticing. She tilted her head back to meet him as he leaned down and their lips met in a simple flush of heat over her face. Her fingers masaged his hand as they intertwined with his. She craned her neck, trying to reach him more easily, but he was already pulling away.

He stood above her and she looked up at him, into his green-hazel eyes that were almost hidden by his long lashes. Flecks of gold sparkled in his stare like twinkling stars. He smiled faintly, still holding her hand, and looked so ready to kiss her again, to go cook a meal, to climb a tree. Bianca was not ready for any of those things.

"This isn't Love Story," she told him. Her voice came out as hollow as she felt, as empty of happiness.

Brody's expression darkened slowly, like the moon as it covered the sun. For a moment her old brain surfaced, and she heard clearly his thoughts: Is that what you think? The flash came quickly and with a dart of pain that forced her to close her eyes against the light.

She stumbled to her feet and toward the door. "I'm sorry," she croaked, feeling tears hit her eyes, and pushed him away before he could try to help. Nothing was going to help this. She was dying. They were all dying, bit by bit.

Zoe was finished, and the bedroom was quiet. Bianca huddled in the sinking center of her mattress and cried as quietly as she could. Sadness coupled with exhaustion had brought her to the edge of a desert hysteria; she babbled incoharent prayers to gods she didn't believe in and a brain no longer capable of carrying out her orders.

"Just let it make sense, let there be some purpose," she mouthed silently. "Don't let me hurt this much for nothing, oh christ, there's nothing there, I'm talking to myself and I can't do anything about any of it."

She half hoped the phone would ring, that this time she might have the courage to reply, to say, "Who the hell are you and how do you know about me?" To unmask the Fates who taunted her and arranged her life.

The phone didn't ring, and she tried to stop crying long enough to realize that she couldn't, which only made her cry harder. The Off switch is broken, she thought miserably, and barely heard the knock on the door.

"Bianca?" Zane whispered. The shadow of wood swung inward and then the lock clicked, and she pulled a sheet over her head.

"Go away, nothing's wrong."

The bed shifted and she toppled over, allowing Zane to catch her before she rolled onto the floor. She rested there with her head on his shin and continued to cry. "Just go away, alright? I'm a pathetic specticle."

"Come here." He slid an arm under her and helped her sit up, knees pressed to her chest. With baby-sitter hands he drew the blankets up and wrapped his arms around her, continuing to talk in a soft, breathy voice. Bianca began to struggle but he held tight and finally she let her head fall onto his shoulder.

She closed her eyes again and let the tears do as they pleased, soaking Zane's sweatshirt and dripping down her face like candle wax. Her throat had choked off the air supply and she was gasping for breath, and her teeth had started to chatter uncontrolably the way they did when she got too upset.

"Shhh," Zane urged, rubbing her back and rocking slowly. "Take it easy."

His neck was warm and smelled of lavendar soap. The blankets made a little cocoon around them, a safe bubble to cry in, and she realized that even thought most of the house must have heard her, he was the only one who came. Bianca couldn't remember the last time anyone had sat and held her while she cried.

Rain beat against the window, a train whistle blew. The bedroom was all blue glaze and thick air. "I'm sorry," she said, as the shaking sobs finally subsided. Her teeth were still hitting together hard enough to crack quartz.

"You don't have to appologize."

"Yeah I do. I want to believe in something but I don't. And I don't want to believe in anything but I can't help it. Sometimes I get these phone calls from somebody who knows everything about me, and I just wanted life to be simple, right? Everybody follows the rules, and everybody else enforces them. I didn't..."

She winced and let the tears seep into Zane's neck. Her heart had suddenly appeared like a tangible organ and was filling every inch of spare space in her chest. She could barely breath around its mass.

"Bianca," Zane said softly.

She shook her head. "Don't," she mouthed, because she knew what he was feeling, and dreaded it. She was dying; he would only hurt himself by loving her, and she was too tired to stop him.

"I..." He stopped, smoothing the damp hair off her hot cheek. "I'd do anything for you, you know," he said, stumbling over the words. "Anything you ever need, just tell me."

Crying harder, she stuck a finger between her jaws to stop the shaking, but she bit the tip and tasted blood. "Why?" she asked, misery draging her down into the blackness.

Her vision swam and she started to pass out. From far away, she heard Zane reply, "Because I believe you."

Lying in bed, terrified, tiny, hearing dogs barking and sirens wailing as they rushed past. Her special green army blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, but it wouldn't protect her if the fire reached her house.

She scrambled out of bed and flew down the hallway into her parents' bedroom. Her father was muttering, only half awake, but her mother was sitting up in bed, starring at the window. "Mommy?" Bianca asked, and did a flying leap into bed with them.

"It's okay, it's just a fire."

"Will it get our house?"

"Of course not. The firemen are here to take care if it. They'll put it out long before it reaches our house."

"Why are they so noisy?"

She fell asleep listening to her mother explain about traffic and emergency automobile laws.

Bianca started awake with a little gasp and a moment of sickening dissorientation. Mom, she thought, and rolled over, only to find Zane still curled around her, one arm supporting her neck. Her natural reaction was to pull away, but it was nice here, comforting and warm. She hurt, but if one was going to hurt, this was the right way to do it. Dried tears were sticky on her face. She pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and stared at his chin.

The pain had drifted a little ways away, far enough out of reach that she was no longer being pelted by its glass-shard rain drops. "Are you awake?" Zane asked.

"Yeah." She sniffled. "Sorry," she said, chuckling with embarrassment.

"It's not necessary."

"I don't usually break down like that."

"I don't mind."

"Really?"

"Really. You...I can't find fault with you."

It made her strangly sad. Was he that blind? "Why not?"

Zane thought for a long time, then chose his words carefully as he spoke. "I've studied every spiritual practice I've been able to find, and looking at all of it, the facts, the fictions, the pure myth, none of it is solid. All I can conclude is that there is no higher power. The stories all contradict each other." He paused again, and sighed deeply. The arm under Bianca's head vibrated and she realized he was trembling like the ground before an earthquake. "But I can't believe that there's nothing there. No destiny, no devine will, no grand plan. Nothing to watch over us. I know it's true, but I can't accept it."

And I can, Bianca thought. Now she understood: he needed her to fill the void all his books and religions and tofu cereals couldn't. She was a truth that was scientific and solid, and she believed what he couldn't bare to. He looked up to her.

"Oh," she said simply. "I see."

His eyes opened to her, as blue as the sky just before dawn, when it is darkest. Bianca ran her fingers down the side of her face and smiled faintly, then tucked the blankets in around his shoulders. "Good night."

She closed her eyes and returned easily to drifting.

She woke some hours later, when the dawn was still far distant but the moon was out of reach. Alone and cold, she rolled to the edge of the mattress and began pulling her blankets off the floor. Her face felt puffy and swollen, and her throat was miserably sore. Not to mention the throbbing headache behind her temples.

She climbed wearily out of bed and stumbled to the dresser, trying to locate her pills in the dark. She wondered where Zane was, and felt a little empty to find him gone. Until tonight, she'd had no idea how much she needed someone to cry with.

Grinding the child-proof cap off, she thought, Maybe you should go see a therapist.

Without turning on the bathroom light, she poured a glass of luke-warm water and tossed back two Josephin. The Buddha clock hadn't been legible to her blurry eyes, but she imagined she'd slept for at least two hours.

The soft murmur of voices from below as she passed the stairwell surprized her. Bianca paused, and then treaded down slowly, careful to avoid the steps she knew would squeak. It was Zane's voice she heard coming from the living room, low but angry, and the sound gave her a moment's scare. It was sicking how afraid of loosing him now she was.

"You brought her here to hurt me," Zane accused. There were shuffling sounds that made her think he was pacing.

Zoe answered, tired and bored. "Of course not. Why would I do that?"

"Then why did you?"

"Because I knew you would love her."

"And it would hurt me."

"Well forgive me for forgetting that you aren't a normal human being who enjoys being loved." Slightly indignant, and added, "I didn't try to hurt you with her."

Zane wasn't even listening, judging from the contents of his response. "What the hell are you trying to prove, Zoe? You think it means something that you brought me..." He stopped, and the springs in the old fainting sofa squeeled.

Bianca hovered at the foot of the steps, just out of sight, and gripped the banister so hard her knuckles glowed in the dark. Every few seconds her vision would break up and she'd see doubles and splintered images.

Going on, Zane said in a much gentler voice, nostalgic even, "She understands everything Cassie didn't."

"And you're going to loose her," Zoe replied matter-of-factly. "Kind of fitting, don't you think?"

Zane's tone sharpened again. "What does that mean?"

"You threw away Cassie when she wasn't good enough, and now you're going to loose Bianca by chance when she's perfect. Karma, darling."

Something broke, and Zoe yelped. Bianca turned and sprinted up the stairs as fast as her sleep-laden legs would carry her. Her stomach lurched and she threw herself back into bed and burrowed under the blankets. She held perfectly still, waiting like a child playing Hide-and-go-Seek, and listened to Zoe shouting downstairs. A door opened, and Brody was hollering at her. Zoe abrutply fell silent, making Bianca strain her ears.

She frowned, unable to hear. "Ears of mine," she mouthed, "loosen low, to hear the speaking, far below." A child's prayer, simple, but she still wasn't supposed to be using it. Everytime she did, it would only help quicken her death.

"No, you've woken me up," Brody was saying. The words came to Bianca as easily as if she'd been in the room, and the sound of Cade snoring was increased as well. "I should at least get to hear why you're fighting at. . . four in the morning."

"Politics," Zoe told him.

"Sure."

"Let it drop," Zane said softly.

Brody sighed; Bianca heard it as easily as if he'd exhaled against her ear. "Fine, whatever. Just shut the hell up, would you?"

His door slammed, and Bianca reflexively tightened her hearing. A few minutes later she heard footsteps on the stairs. They paused in front of Zoe's door and were accompanied by fierce whispering, and then another door opened and closed.

Zane slipped in. "Bi?" he whispered. She had to loosen her hearing again just to make out the word.

"I'm awake."

He came over and sat on the edge of the bed. "So we woke you up, too?"

"I had a headache. I got up to get my pills."

"Are you feeling better?"

"Not yet. They'll take a few minutes to kick in."

She stopped, her throat blocked up. Mostly from the crying; her eyes were be almost dead white again in the morning. "What was that all about?" she asked weakly.

Zane sighed, then reached up to rub his head. "I don't know. Zoe and I are very different."

What about you and Cassie? she wondered. What happened between the two of you? The way Zoe talked, it sounded like you broke up for religious reasons. You said I understand everything she didn't, are you saying she believed in God? I hate to break it to you, Zane, but I would do anything to trade places with her right now.

She was too tired to be thinking. Her mind was a jumble of all the things she refused to think when she was strong, all these weak sadnesses about her lack of destiny.

None of this means anything, she thought, and put her arms around Zane. He hugged her tightly and neither of them moved for a long time. The rain had stopped outside; the room had turned warm again and it felt like a cocoon. Again, the safe bubble, the haven.

She kissed his cheek and pulled him down beside her. "Don't get up again," she said as she covered them both with the black and purple checkered blanket. "Promise?"

He was plumping the pillows under her head. "What if I have to use the bathroom?" he joked.

"There's an empty Coke can on the bedside table."

He laughed, and Bianca kissed him again. "Let's go to sleep," she said.

"Sweet dreams."

Cassie was crying, standing in the living room with tears running down both cheeks and sobbing. "I'm sorry," she moaned, "I'm sorry."

Zane was sitting on the couch. Bianca was nearby but unable to pinpoint her actual location, and knew without being told that they couldn't see or hear her. This had already happened, she was just a guest watching the memory.

"Tell me you don't believe," Zane said again.

Cassie turned back to him, thick brown hair that hung to her waist floating out behind her. "I can't! Don't you understand that?"

Zane had his elbows on his knees, his hands folded, his chin resting on the rough sphere the fingers made. "Do you love me?"

"Yes!"

"Then tell God you don't believe any more."

"I can't!"

"If God asked you to stop believing in me, would you do it?"

Bianca watched her knees drop out from under her and she collapsed into a puddle on the floor. "I don't even know what that means," she said.

Zane did nothing for several seconds, as if considering. Then he sighed and crouched down beside her. "I'm sorry," he said, laying hand on her shoulder. "I didn't mean that. I don't know what's gotten into me."

"I'd do it if I could," Cassie told him. "You know I would. But God? To stop believing in him, just like that?"

"But think of all the evidence I've given you. God doesn't exist, that much is clear."

"Zane." She lifted her head and touched his face with gentle fingers. "I know you don't believe that."

He didn't respond, but allowed her to draw him close. She closed her eyes as Zane reached for a parring knife on the coffee table. They had been using it to slice apples, but Bianca knew that the size of a knife had little to do with its killing effeciency.

"Tell me the truth," Zane said. "Do you believe you'll go to Hell?"

Cassie shook her head. "No, I can't imagine God-"

Her words broke off into a chocked gargle as Zane plunged the knife into her back. It pulled out with a sickly plopping sound, and he rammed it in again. this time a little higher. The blade slipped between ribs and Bianca knew, just as she knew that they couldn't see her, that the point ruptured Cassie's heart.

Blood spilled out of her chest, out of her mouth. It poured onto the carpet and Zane sat and stared at it with a stunned expression on his face. "Do you believe God will avenge your murder?" he asked. The doorbell rang abruptly, and he let her fall onto the floor as he stood up to answer it. "Yeah, me too," he said.

Chapter Four

Bianca opened her bleary eyes and reached immediately for her pills. It had been three weeks, and she'd already had to refill her subscription once.

Zane's bed was the softest she'd ever slept in. He had comforters piled up under the bottom sheet, and more packed at the head and foor boards so that it was almost a nest of stuffing and cotton. She was covered neatly enough by blankets that she didn't think Zane could have been gone long, up it was odd to wake up in his bed and not have him beside her.

Wednesday, she thought, and glanced at the Buddha clock, which she'd moved from her room to Zane's. If she hadn't been awake ten minutes later he would have come to get her up. He said he had some kind of internal alarm clock and didn't need conventional ones, and she didn't miss the jarring mechanical scream of her own.

She reached up and touched the intercom button that allowed her to talk. "Zane?"

"He's in the bathroom," Zoe said. "Good morning."

"Morning. What are you doing here?"

"Brody's giving me a ride in."

Muffled, Brody said, "Brody appears to be giving everybody a ride in."

"Goodmorning, Brody," Bianca said, and waitied for an answer.

"He's waving," Zoe told her.

She sighed and eased back onto the bed. Things hadn't been the same between her and Brody since the almost-kiss, and she wasn't sure she had any right to correct them. Would it be easier for him this way? If she died having never given him anything? She doubted she could applogize without admiting how she felt about him.

"You've got to find a middle point," Zane had told her last night, as they were laying in the dark of the witching hour.

"Like what? I like to finish what I start."

"Tell him you want to be friends, and you don't want to die and leave him all bitter, but you don't feel like you can get into a relationship now because it will inevitably end badly."

Zane always had an answer; how was that? Bianca had agreed with him to wait for a time when she and Brody could talk a little, and then bring it up. "I feel like I'm putting my affairs in order," she'd said.

"You are. That's what every thoughtful person does before they die."

She climbed out of bed and wandered downstairs into the kitchen, where Camilla was making oatmeal and Zoe was reading horoscopes. Ah, these nights at Zane's. With or without the others, she felt at home.

"Juice?" Camilla asked her.

"Sure." Brody was sitting at the table, and Bianca plopped down beside him. "Hey, what's going on?"

He shrugged and focused on the newspaper. Zane walked in, pressed and colorless for the day ahead, and opened the refrigerator. He checked out the stocking, closed the door, and kissed the top of Bianca's head.

"Good morning," she said. "I think your internal alarm clock is rubbing off."

"And those things take a lot of rubbing to shed," Zoe quiped, never taking her eyes off the page. The cordless rang and she picked it up. "Good morning, Zane's Summer Home. Some are home, some aren't. Hold on." She turned to Bianca. "It's your mother."

Bianca took the phone from her and pressed it to her ear. "Mom?" she said, without really thinking about it.

"Hi, honey. I'm just calling to make sure you're up."

When she hung up a moment later, something occured to her. "Did I just call Beth 'Mom'?"

Camilla nodded. "Are you guys getting close?"

Bianca felt uncomfortable, and scratched the back of her neck. "I guess."

That was another thing she'd talked to Zane about the night before, her foster parents. Being there for the wedding and the months leading up to it felt wrong and traitorous. She was going to trespass through their Christmas, too, and then vanish before spring.

"If you hadn't dropped into their lives," Zane had said logically, "then it would have been someone else's. You can't go off alone into the woods to die like those South American tribes do."

"But by staying here, it's like I'm making a conscious decision to hurt people."

Zane had found her hand among the blankets and grabbed it. "It's more than worth it to have you here now."

Not for Brody it isn't, she thought, but didn't say it aloud.

She got her copy of the play that afternoon. "Sunset on Haven Street," read the title, and below that, "a play by Zane." Just Zane, no last name.

Let's see what our resident genius has cooked up this time, she thought, and flipped it open.

Jemmy caught her after class. "Bianca, got a minute?"

"Sure."

They sat down in the front row, and Jemmy gestured to her copy of Sunset. "Have you read it yet?"

"No."

"Zane's pretty determined to have you play the lead."

"So he says. I don't think he realizes that I can't act."

Jemmy smiled. "Actually, I think you don't realize that you can. You're a natural up there, now that we've gotten you past your stage fright."

"Making an idiot of myself in front of twenty classmates making idiots of themselves in return is a lot different from doing it for two hundred strangers."

"Yes, but if you look at the script I think you'll realize that this script has nothing to do with making an idiot of ones self."

Bianca glanced down at it, the heavy papers folded together, so like Zane in their elegence. "Never mind about the acting part, I don't know if I'll be able to see it through."

Jemmy nodded. "That's a concern I have as well. But I tell you what, how about it you take the part and Jada can be your understudy? She's been acting since she was five years old, and she isn't really interested in doing high school plays any more, but if something happens and you can't make it through to the performance, she could easily take over for you." He touched a chubby hand to her arm. "I think it's mostly the experience of being in a play Zane would like you to have."

Bianca brushed the hair out of her eyes. God, Zane is so sweet. "I'll think about it," she told Jemmy.

She read the play over Christmas break, sitting on the living room couch sipping bottomless mugs of spiced eggnog and listening to Beth's endless caroling CDs. Grant moved in for a couple of days while he was off from work, and the wedding coordinator was over all the time talking about dresses and flowers and cakes.

She went dress shopping with Beth, who picked out one of those extravagent lace contraptions with yard after yard of gauze. "It...flatters your figure," Bianca told her, backing back from saying, "It dwarfs you." She also tactuflly avoided mentioning that the amount of material it was made from could clothe an entire village of homeless kids.

Grant took her to at least a dozen movies. "Beth doesn't like them," he said. "I mean, she's okay with a Schwartgenager once in a while, but she doesn't really understand the art form."

He, on the other hand, apparently understood it perfectly. A spy thriller one night, a foriegn satire the next. Some of them Bianca could barely sit through, and she fell asleep twice. Afterward, they'd go to Denny's or a Waffle House and Grant would babble on and on about the direction and the writing and the score, and the history of filmmaking right back to the silent era.

"You've really got to read Lillian Gish, or D.W. Griffith if you want to know what that time was like. They were two of the real masters."

Bianca nodded her head, which was achy, and asked if he could drop her off at Zane's.

"Hello?" she called, walking in without knocking. "You home?"

"In the basement!" Zoe returned from below.

She clumped down the steps, sleepy from the dark movie theater and clutching her copy of the script in one hand. Zoe was drinking--wasn't she always?--and Zane was watching an infomercial.

"Hi," he said, "have a seat. I didn't know you were coming by."

Bianca sank onto the loveseat and pulled a blanket around her shoulders. "I don't understand your play."

He looked at her. "Oh?"

"Did you name the main character after me, or is that a coincidence?"

"The main character isn't named Bianca," Zoe said.

"No, he used my middle name."

Zane's eyes were dark, but Bianca met them squarely. "I named her after you," he addmitted.

"The whole play is like some pseudo reality. There's you and me and Cassie and Zoe and everything, and we're all using our middle names."

"Jemmy thought it was very original."

"Jemmy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about."

Zane lowered his eyes and Bianca leaned back on the couch, sighing. She'd passed off the dream of Zane and Cassie, had had no other choice. Until now, it had been a singular incident, just a dream that for once was a product of her subconscious and not a memory. But here was the play, and here was a character using Zane's middle name, Michael, killing his girlfriend and then telling everyone she had left town. Here was a character who acted remarkably like Zane himself, questioning the existence of God and testing ultimate powers of revenge. Here was a girl named Arabell dying of bone marrow cancer who believed the one thing Michael couldn't bare to.

Zane was watching her again. "It's fiction, Bianca," he said. She nodded and closed her eyes.

The phone was ringing. Bianca ran through the house, giggling, calling, "Phone! I'll get it! I'll get it!"

She ran right into the telephone table and cried out. "Are you okay?" her mother called from down the hall.

"Yeah." She picked up the phone with both hands and said in her most grown-up voice, "Hello?"

The voice that was low and gravely and not girl or boy said, "Go to Mandy's house. Spend the night. Do it."

Bianca's teeth started to chatter. "Hello?" she asked weakly.

"Who is it?" her mother called.

"Hello?" The dial tone started.

Her father's figure appeared in the kitchen doorway. "It's a wrong number," she told him, and hung up. "I forgot to tell you, Mandy invited me over tonight. Can I go?"

"Bianca?"

She grimaced and opened her eyes. Her head was hurting again; it seemed like it was always hurting these days. The basement was dark and the television was silent. Camilla's hand rested on her shoulder.

"What time is it?"

"Almost seven. We're about to eat dinner, are you hungry?"

Bianca sat up and gather the blanket closer around her shoulders. Zane really needed to have the heating checked, this place was like Alaska. "Yeah, I'll be up in a second."

She called Beth and told her that she was staying with Zoe tonight, omitting, as always, that she was staying with Zoe at Zane's house. She went upstairs and picked at pasta shells stuffed with cheese, then popped a couple more painkillers and wandered into her bedroom.

She'd hadn't slept here for a while, finding comfort in falling asleep next to Zane in his nest-bed. Now she closed the door carefully, locked it, and reached for the cardboard box in the corner.

Sitting on the bed, she emptied its contents. A couple of battered novels, a rosary made of sparkling glass beads, clothing, size ten, two note books full of loopy writing, hairbrush, tooth brush, Crest, deodorant, shoes, and a...purse.

Bianca shoved the other things aside and concentrated on just the handbag. She pulled the zipper back and dumped the contents onto the bedspread. Another brush, a lipstick, a Kleenex travel pack, and a wallet.

Why would Cassie leave town and not take her wallet? Bianca thought as she opened it. There was sixty dollars inside, along with a credit card and a photo of her with Zane. The girl in the picture looked exactly like the one in Bianca's dream.

She found another image of her on the driver's license, which said her name was Cassandra J. Macise. J, as in Jennifer. As in Jenna. As in Zane's play.

No, Bianca did not believe Zane's play was fiction.

Someone slapped her and her eyes flew open. "What?" she cried, jerking awake.

Brody collapsed in a heap on the floor, and behind him, Zane fell against the wall. "We thought you were...you know, dead," Zoe said from a few feet away. "We kept beating on the door but you didn't answer. Brody picked the lock."

Camilla reached for the light. "I was asleep," Bianca told them. "I guess I didn't hear you."

Brody's face had taken on the stricken, white look he'd had when he hit the deer. The doorknob was in his hand; apparently he'd done more to the lock than pick it.

"Sorry," Bianca said. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Brody got up off the floor. "Just don't lock the door any more," he said as he walked out.

Zane rubbed his temple and reached for her hand. "Come on."

She woke up a few hours later, spooned up against him. He was warm, and he smelled of lavendar, but the muscles in his back were rock hard. Yes, she'd given him a scare alright. His hand was still in hers, gripping as tightly as he had when he first burst into her room.

She held his hand up and examined the long fingers, gently muscled. True typist's fingers. Could this hand have possibly hurt Cassie? She couldn't imagine it, Zane was too gentle. Confused, yes, but still gentle.

She climbed out of bed, careful not to wake him but doing so anyway. "Bi?"

"Yeah, I'm just going downstairs for a minute."

"Are you okay?"

She kissed his cheek and tucked the blankets around his shoulders. "I'm fine. Go back to sleep."

She found Brody in the kitchen, which surprised her until she realized it was only one in the morning. He was sitting at the table, wearing BVDs and Camilla's terry cloth robe with his head in his hands. He looked like a cross between a queen and a Calvin Kline model.

"Hi," she said, opening the fridge.

She was surprised to hear him say harshly, "You scared the shit out of me tonight."

Bianca took out a carton of orange juice and closed the refrigerator. She turned back to him slowly. "Sorry," she said weakly.

He nodded.

"Where's Camilla?"

"Downstairs, watching TV."

She didn't know what to say. The clock was ticking, they were running out of time and she didn't want to die with him angry at her. "I didn't mean what I said the other day."

"What other day?"

"Like a month ago, when I came down for the toilet paper. I didn't mean that about Love Story."

"Then why did you say it?"

"I didn't know what else to say."

His hands dropped from his head and he looked at her. "I know this isn't Love Story," he told her. "I hated that movie."

Bianca nodded. "Me, too. I just don't want to start anything I can't finish."

Tendrils of thick black hair hung in his intent eyes. "I think we already have," he said, and she heard Camilla's footfalls on the steps.

She left the orange juice on the counter and scrambled to the second stairwell, then darted into Zane's room and did a flying leap over him. He gave a laugh that was partly a groan and rolled over to look at her.

"Hey? What are you running from?"

Bianca wormed her way under the blankets until she was pressed close to him again. "Brody."

"Oh yeah?" He was mostly asleep again, curled up beside her. "What did he say?"

She tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder. "That he loves me."

The words were just a sleepy murmur. "That's nice."

Bianca closed her eyes. There was no way Zane could have hurt Cassie. No way in hell.

Grant took her to a doctor a few days after Christmas. She wanted to go alone but was too tired to walk and didn't trust herself to drive. This was a different doctor, a warmer one who felt the lymph nodes in her throat just to be nice and then suggested a CAT scan.

Bianca hadn't realized how little she really believed she was dying until he told her that she had three months, maybe a few weeks longer. It came like a blow to the stomach, knowing all the air out of her. Summer vacation, she thought. My whole life is going to play out in the length of summer vacation.

Grant started crying in the car, and an unexpected rush of anger hit her. "You barely know me," she said, "what the hell are you crying for? Do you cry for everybody you don't know who dies, because it must take up a lot of your time."

She wished he would pull over so she could get out. The stinging, icy rain would have felt good on her feverish skin, and never mind worries of pnumonioa. She was dying; she was invincible; she had nothing to loose.

Chapter Five

"'It isn't that easy,'" Bianca read, then stopped and turned to Jemmy. "Do you want me to walk over at that point or wait?"

He shrugged. "I'd wait, but it's your call."

Your call. She was considered an actor now, everybody was worried about pissing her off. "I'll walk," she said, and sauntered over to the couch, where Ollia was sitting. She pretended to swig from a bottle and burped loudly.

Ollia started laughing. "That sounded so fake," she said.

"Don't look at me, look at Zane. He knows I can't make myself burp. Take it out, Zane." She glanced around. "Zane?"

The doors at the back of the auditorium flew open and a brass quartet marched in playing, "Happy Birthday to You," and everybody on the set soon joined it. The tuba had a dozen helium balloons tired to it.

"Happy birthday," Zane whispered into her ear. He was crouching behind the couch.

She kissed his cheek and shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. "Everybody should have a last birthday like this," she told him.

There was a huge party at Zane's house that night. "These people don't even know me," Bianca said to Zoe, standing in the kitchen. Half the high school had shown up, most of them carrying or already stoned.

"Free booze," Zoe noted, "free beds."

A guy from trig stumbled over and slapped Bianca's butt. "Hey baby, happy birthday. You're one hot chick."

"Most of them aren't even bothering with beds," she went on as he wandered off. "Did you see the front lawn? It looks like a piece of honeycomb covered in bees."

"My, you're quite poetic tonight."

Something crashed downstairs, and the television volume went up to compensate.

"Where are Brody and Zane?"

Zoe opened the fridge and took out a beer. "Brody's making an idiot of himself in the living room while Camilla tries to stop him, and Zane's probably up in his room."

Bianca glanced at her. "In his room?"

"He's not much for parties." She popped the beer and took a sip, then grimaced. "No, this isn't two years old."

"Flat as a ten year old's chest, huh?"

Zoe snorted and took another drink. "You're weird tonight. This is your birthday party, don't you intend to get hammered?"

"So that I won't remember any of it tomorrow? Nah, I'm kind of enjoying watching it through sober eyes. I can't believe Zane invited all these people into his house and now he's holed up in his room."

Zoe rolled her eyes. "He did it for you, of course. He'd do anything for you, even kill. That's right, he'd kill."

Bianca looked at her again, at the beer in her hand, and said, "Is that the first thing you've had tonight?"

Zoe smiled coyly. "It's the first beer."

"You're wasted and it isn't even nine o'clock."

"I know. Wait until midnight."

She knocked on the door of Zane's bedroom after stepping over a couple necking on the landing. "Zane? It's Bianca."

The door unlocked and opened quickly. She darted inside and found the room dark. "Hey," she whispered. She could barely hear herself out the thumping base, which was causing the floorboards to quiver. "What are you doing in here?"

He found her hand. "Just thinking. What are you doing?"

"Seeing what you're doing. Why aren't you downstairs? This is your party."

"It's your party, and I don't really like parties. Go have some fun."

"How am I going to have fun knowing that you're up here moping?"

"Pretend I'm not here. Go on, Bi, I want you to enjoy this."

He's so sweet to me, she thought. There really is no God, because I know I don't deserve this.

She jumped onto the bed and snuggled into the pile of comforters. "Come lay down with me."

"Bi," he groaned, "you're supposed to be down there at the party."

"Most of those people don't even know me. Come on, talk to me for a couple minutes. Then we'll go down together."

He reluctantly sat down on the edge of the bed, and Bianca pulled him onto his back. "So, talk," she said.

"You make it sound so easy. I don't have anything so say."

"Sure you do. Tell me about Cassie."

He stiffened. She wasn't sure, but she thought he stiffened.

"What about her?"

"Why did she leave town?"

"She had problems. She decided to run away from them."

"Did she tell you before she went?"

"No."

"Then how do you know she wasn't kidnapped or something?"

"She's called me twice since then. Once from L.A., and once from Oregon. The second time Zoe talked to her, on my birthday."

"Oh." Relief flooded through her. Cassie couldn't be dead if she was traveling and making calls. The dream had been a dream after all. "Well, at least you know she's okay."

"Yeah," he agreed halfheartedly.

"Is she coming back?"

"I doubt it. She didn't get along with her parents. They finally kicked her out, and she moved in here."

How could I have been so stupid? she thought. Just listen to how sad he sounds, she broke his bloody heart, and here I am thinking he killed her. Yeah, I'm a great friend.

"How about you?" he asked. "How are you holding up?"

She sighed, staring at the glow-in-the-dark-stars on the ceiling. "I wish they'd never told me I had brain disease. Everybody's going to die, but you don't worry about it until they tell you how long you have. Then suddenly it's all in a rush and you've got to make every moment count. I hate feeling this desperate. I never heard any clock ticking before all this."

"How long have you known you were going to die?"

"A year. The headmistress told me and then she sent me back to the state. I was with the Tips for eight months after I got out of the state home, and then I came here after Claude and I burned down the farm."

"Did Claude have brain cancer?"

"No." She wondered if she had stiffened, and if he had felt it. "Claude got killed by his stepfather. That's why he was in the state home in the first place, but after he burned down the farm with me, they sent him back to his mom, and his stepdad finally killed him."

"Sorry. That's sad."

"Yeah, you would have liked him."

"Are you scared of dying?"

"No, what's to be scared of? I'll fall asleep, and I won't wake up. I've never been unhappy while sleeping."

"Are you....sad?"

He was sad, she could hear it. "I'm sad that....I wish I could believe in some greater destiny. I'd like to think that despite dying young, my life had meant something. There are so many beautiful ideas about God and the afterlife and greater consciousness. It would be nice to believe one of them was true."

"So believe."

"What?" His face was smokey in the dark, but silver highlights clearly marked his eyes.

"If you don't believe there's an afterlife, or any one religion that you have to be a part of, why not believe anything?"

"I don't understand."

"You're dying, Bianca. Eat all the chocolate you want."

She didn't go back to the party after all. Despite the noise, her body was tired enough that sleep became manditory, and she dozed off with her head pillowed on Zane's chest.

The doorbell rang, and Zane dropped the bleeding sack of girl onto the floor. "Yeah," he said, "me, too."

He found the back door, pulled back the locks and flung it open. He was covered in blood.

Zoe was standing on the porch.

"Zoe!"

Bianca sat straight up in bed, something she'd never done before. Her body was soaked with sweat and trembling. The air hung tensely, as if someone had just screamed, and she touched a cold hand to her burning lips. Her head was throbbing.

It was morning, and she was alone. The Buddha clock read 10:30. Isn't it Thursday? she thought. Why didn't Zane get me up?

She climbed out of bed in her soggy jeans and tee-shirt and stepped into the eerily silent hallway. "Hello?" she called. There was trash on the floor, beer cans and empty chip bags. Somebody had put out a cigarette on the stairwell banister.

She found a note in the kitchen. "Bi, You're sleeping like an angel and I can't bear to wake you. Take a day off and get your strength back. Z."

Hmm, so he knew how crappy she'd been feeling. Her head was constantly about to explode, her ears were always popping, and her sinuses had clogged permanently, as if with concrete. "Go see the doctor," he's told her more than once. "See if they can't do anything to make you more comfortable."

More comfortable? She'd finished with the Joselphin and and moved on to Morphine, which she was taking in huge doses. What does it matter if I die addicted? she had told Beth. Now she added silently, And I can eat all the chocolate I want.

She walked back upstairs and the dream returned to her. Why was it so important that Zoe had been the one on the stoop? It was just a stupid dream.

The second time Zoe talked to her.

Zane was there when Cassie died, Zoe arrived shortly after, and they were the only ones who had heard from her since...

Bianca shook her head. The brain cancer had come promised with pain, but she hadn't expected dream hallucinations and paranoia.

The phone rang.

She turned slowly on the stairs, looking back toward the kitchen. It rang again, her heart was racing. It rang a third time, she couldn't breath. The answering machine was supposed to come on at the fourth ring but it didn't. Breath of my breath, she moaned in her head, Why isn't the machine getting it?

But she knew. The call wasn't for the machine. It was for her.

She walked down the stairs with feet she could barely feel and back into the kitchen. There was more trash, Zane's note, the remains of Zoe's breakfast cereal in the sink, and the cordless, on the counter.

Her hand shook as she lifted the phone to her ear, and she hit the redial button twice before stabbing TALK. "Hello?" she tried to say, but her voice caught and nothing came out.

"Check the bottom left drawer of his desk-"

She sank onto the floor, crying already. Not now, she thought, now when I only have a few more months. Just let me be, please, oh please...

"-and look for her name. Then go into the basement-"

The voice was coarse as steel wool and hissing like an evil fairy godmother. Bianca cringed at the sound of its daggers digging into her ears.

"-and get into the crawl space. Turn left, go ten feet, and that's where she'll be."

Click.

Bianca flung the phone away from herself and watched it skitter across the linolium until it hit the stove.

Dial tone.

She lay on the floor sobbing.

Her hands were wild. She didn't even think of what might happen if she was wrong, she just grabbed the bottom lefthand drawer of Zane's desk and dumped the contents onto his bed. Tears were still pouring down her face, blurring everything so that she had to wipe her eyes constantly to be able to see at all.

"Cassie, Cassie," she murmured in a broken voice. Her fingers were so taunt with adrenelin she could barely pick up the slips of papers.

There were old loose leaf pages, post cards, Christmas cards from the grandparents, a birth certificate, notebooks missing half the pages, crayon pictures, sketches, photos of Brody, of Zoe, of Cassie.

She set anything having to do with Cassie aside, and put the rest back in the drawer. Never mind tact, there was no way Zane would not notice that someone had gone through it all unless he almost never looked in there. Which was possible.

"Anything is possible," Bianca mouthed as she worked. "It's even possible that Zane is a murderer, and that Zoe helped him cover it up."

She sorted through all the Cassie papers, then sorted again, reread them, looked at all the backs. Nothing that struck her as meaningful. No goodbye letters, no diaries, no plane tickets...

Tickets, train tickets.

Her, the voice had said. Not Cassie.

Bianca grabbed the drawer again and fished out the train ticket stub.

Zoe Roahs, it read. From Secret Bethleham Cove, California, to Portland, Oregon. Then back again. The train home left twenty minutes after the first one dropped her off.

Just long enough to make a phone call, Bianca thought. So that when they check the phone records to try to track her down, they'll see she was in Portland. So they can throw the police off track.

She started crying again.

It was almost noon by the time she got into the crawl space. She'd taken a long, hot shower, eaten some soup, and boned up on painkillers. Her sanity was back in place, her composure firmly in hand. Becoming hysterical, she had told herself as the hot water ran over her swollen face, isn't going to help. Get the proof, and then decide what to do with it.

She got a spade from the garage, a tape measure, a lantern and a flashlight, and then went down into the basement. She stuck the phone in her back pocket, both praying for and dreading further instructions.

Beyond the rec room was an unfinished laundry room with a closet and bathroom branching off. The closet had two more closets inside it, but the entrance to the crawlspace was right above the toilet. Bianca unlatched the wooden door and shone her light around inside. It was two by two feet, with just a dirt floor and concrete walls. She took a deep breath, checked her equipment, and climbed inside.

She could barely move without hitting a wall. The tip of the phone antenna was rubbing against the ceiling, and she expected that all the rubber would be worn off by the time she got out. The air was damp and moldy, and she couldn't stop sneezing, which only increased the pressure inside her head.

She reached a place where the crawlspace forked, and she had a choice between going left and continuing in the dirt, or going right and climbing through an alluminum cylinder. Left, the voice had said, so she hooked her tape measure and went left.

Ten feet. She probably could have guessed it, but she measured just to be sure. Six, seven, eight...The dirt became uneven, and Bianca stopped moving. There was a lump here, a lump about six feet long and two feet wide. Her breathing echoed in the cramped space.

She plunged her spade into the dirt and immeditaly met resistence. Removing the tool carefully, she saw something sticky clinging to the point of the blade.

She scraped the dirt off the mound, flinging it in either direction. A bit of cloth appeared, then a bit more. The cloth was sticky and rotton, stiff with drying moisture. It was blue, like jeans might be.

Bianca tossed the spade and dug with her hand, careful not to touch the pant leg. She was quite sure it was a pant leg now that she had uncovered the sock.

Why are you still digging? a little voice asked her. It's a body, you've found a body. That's all you need to know.

But no, she had found a pant leg, and a sock, and a shoe. For all she knew, the pant leg might be full of clay.

She took the tip of the spade and hooked it under the cuff of the jeans. She positioned her flashlight and lifted.

There was the dull white of bone, and the brown-black sludge of spoiled meat. Bianca turned her head and threw up everything in her stomach.

She took another shower and then watched some television. Mindless stuff, Telly Tubbies, infomercials. She took another dose of painkillers and washed it down with vodka. She wanted to destroy something, even if it was herself. She lay on the couch and stared at the empty fireplace.

She cried again, but only for a little while. This time it was for Cassie and not for herself. Then she took more pills and went to sleep.

"Bi?" She woke up to the intercom, the sounds of books being dropped on the table. "Are you still sleeping?"

The clock; almost three. She'd only slept for ten minutes. "Bianca?" Zane said again. "Are you okay?"

Her head suddenly weighed at least thirty pounds, but the rest of her was liquid and floating. She got weakly off the bed and stumbled into the hallway, trying to keep her balance on a bouncing floor. At the top of the stairs, one of her knees buckled and she would have tumbled forward if not for the banister.

Zane met her at the bottom of the steps, and relief relaxed all this features. "I was worried," he said, taking her hand. She tugged it away and shook her head.

"We need to talk," she said hoarsely.

"We do? Is it because I didn't wake you up?"

"No." She pushed past him. "It's much more serious than that. Get Zoe and Brody."

"Brody's getting take-out for dinner. Zoe! Come into the living room. Bianca's upset about something."

She sat gratefully down on the fainting sofa and closed her eyes for a moment. "Are you all right?" Zane asked. She brushed his hand off her shoulder and nodded.

"Don't sit here," she told him. "Sit on the couch."

Zoe came in and plopped down next to Zane. She was wearing an extremely loud black and white sweater and torn jeans, and her hair was freshly red. "What's going on?" she asked.

Bianca took a deep breath, noticing that the air seemed thin. Very meticulously, she asked, "Zane, did you kill Cassie?"

She barely dared to watch for his reaction, but it was hard to miss. He put his head in his hands and his shoulders started heaving.

"Did you?" she repeated. "Zane, answer me."

He looked up at her, face suddenly flushed and sweaty. "You don't understand, Bi, it wasn't like you think-"

"I understand perfectly," she cut. "Zoe, did you help him bury the body in the crawlspace? Did you take the train to Oregon so that you could fake a call from Cassie?"

Zoe was calm, annoyed. She nudged Zane, then forced him to sit up. "Of course not," she said.

"Have you been to Oregon in the past six monthes?"

"I've never been to Oregon in my life."

Bianca nodded. "Then why is there a train ticket upstairs with your name on it that says round trip to Oregon?"

There was only a slight pause. "My step-mother was going to Oregon, but she had my name put on the ticket because I could get a student rate."

She was a good liar. She even sounded indignant. "Why is your step-mother's ticket stub in Zane's drawer?"

"He collects them."

"May I see this collection?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It got burned up."

"What about the train ticket then?"

"We poured water on it in time."

Bianca opened her mouth and Zane snapped, "Enough! Just shut up, Zoe." He rubbed his temples, which Bianca imagined were aching as badly as her own.

"Did you kill her, Zane?"

This time he met her eyes, and she saw tears rolling down his cheeks. "Yes," he said, so very softly, just a padded footstep of a word.

"And you buried her in the crawlspace."

His head fell back into his hands. "Yes."

"And you told her parents you didn't know where she was."

He nodded.

"Was Brody in on it?"

"No. He never knew anything."

Bianca stood up on her wobbly legs. "Where are you going?" Zoe demanded, her eyes a blazing green.

Bianca didn't answer as she walked in an unbalanced gait to the kitchen. She had the phone in her hand and was about to hit the second 1 when a huge hot thing with metal bands attached to it collided with her face.

She flew backwards, feeling the corner of the counter top dig sharply into her side. Her head snapped against the china cupboard and she knocked her funny bone while sinking to the floor.

The world was spinning and disenegrating into black patches. The back door opened. "Hey, I'm home," Brody called, and then tripped over Bianca's outstretched leg. "Oh, god, what happened?"

"She collapsed, just a second ago. Call an ambulance."

Zoe grabbed her ankles and dragged her out from behind the table. "Watch her head," Brody cried, and Bianca felt something warn wash over her right ear.

"Brody," she groaned.

"I'm here, Bi. Yes, I need an ambulance to 1000 Brown Avenue..."

She couldn't breathe. Her lungs felt as it they had been punctured repeatedly and only a third of each breath she took reached her heart. Zane appeared in the doorway, his cheeks redder than ever, and Brody handed him the phone.

"They're sending an ambulance," he said, crouching down on the floor beside her. Zoe tried to block him but he was determined, and Bianca felt him lift her up off the floor. "Christ, Zoe, look what you did to her head. Don't worry, Bi, you're going to get through this. Slow down, I think you're hyperventilating."

"Brody..." She coughed as he set her down on the living room sofa and grabbed a couple of blankets.

"Don't talk. Are you cold? Here."

"Brody," she tried again. He spread two comforters over her and sat down on the floor. Zoe was hovering in the doorway, looking both scared and guilty. "Brody, Zane killed Cassie."

His eyes darkened. "What? No, Cassie left town."

"Zane killed her..." Bianca realized her limbs were floating and she couldn't move them. "And Zoe helped him cover it up. They..." Her head went on spin cycle, "buried the body," and she sank out of consciousness.

Chapter Six

The next time she opened her eyes, the room was full of light. She didn't recognize the ceiling; it had no glow-in-the-dark stars and planets, but she recognized the sterility of it.

She rolled her feather-weight head to the side and saw Brody sitting in a chair beside the bed. Guard rails on the bed, she was back in the hospital. "Hi," she said, and he looked up from the script he was reading.

"You're awake," he said in surprise.

"Uh huh. How long have I been out?"

"Three days. How are you feeling?"

Her throat was scratchy, her stomach had alerady turned repeatedly, and she had a light head ache. "I've felt better." She smiled a little forced smile. "I've also felt worse. What happened?"

She fumbled around for the buttons that would sit the bed up and Brody dug them out of the sheets for her. "You ODed on morphine. Doctor said the vodka didn't help either. You collapsed when Zane got home from school, stopped breathing, passed out. They put you on a respirator until yesterday."

"Oh, that's why my throat hurts. I thought maybe it was just strep."

Brody didn't laugh, he didn't even smile. She wondered why healthy people could never make jokes about being sick the way patients could.

She glanced around at the room. It was a double, but the other bed was unoccupied. The window held out a brilliant electrical storm that was turning everything gray and blue. She wondered what time it was.

"You said some pretty wild things just before you passed out," Brody added, and she glanced back at him.

"Did I?"

It took her a moment to remember, the phone call, the train ticket, the crawlspace. The memory hurt like a bruise when she touched it, but it wasn't the flairing firecracker of pain it had been three days ago. A sadness settled over here as she thought of Zane, of how much he'd meant to her. Her redemption, she'd once called him, someone who made dying so much easier. He wasn't afraid to look at it and he wasn't afraid to debate it, and when she needed to be comforted he had a junk food buffee already laid out.

He was confused, she thought. He was confused about God and himself, and what it all means, so he decided to see. He killed Cassie and nothing every happened. He still wants to believe in devine judgment, but he's proven it non-existant.

"Yeah," Brody said. "You did. Do you remember?"

There were dark circles around his hazel eyes, and his hair hung in stringy strands. Bianca nodded.

"Zoe told me you were just ranting," he said quickly, leaning closer as if they might be overheard. "She said you were drunk and it was delirium. But..."

"Wait." She fumbled for one of his hands. "You believe me?"

There were tears in his eyes, which he brushed angerily away. "I didn't at first. It seemed so poposterous. But I was here with you and your parents all night and neither one of them ever came over. So I went to the house that night with Camilla, and they just said they thought they'd be in the way. Zane was really upset, I could tell, and there was dirt all over the basement, but Zoe was all indignant, like I was challenging her or something. They wouldn't let me go into the kitchen, but there was a really bad smell coming from in there. I asked them what it was and they said the oven was self-cleaning itself. Zane started crying and went upstairs, and Zoe told me to get out. She said I was making things worse, what things I don't even know, but I left." He ran a hand through his hair and blinked slowly. "A long time ago Zoe told me about a book she read once. It was about a woman whose husband beat her up, and one day she shot him and then cremated his body in a self-cleaning oven."

The image flashed brightly in Bianca's mind and a lump rose in her throat. She grabbed the plastic pail on the bedside table and gagged into it for several minutes but nothing came up. Brody held her hair up off her face until she was finished and then poured her a glass of water.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded, chugging. It wasn't the best course of action; a moment later her stomach rebelled and it took all her strength to keep it at bay. "Sorry," Brody said, "I shouldn't have just sprung that on you."

"No, it's fine." She took a deep breath. Her head was feeling increasingly as if it had been put on backwards. "They buried the body in the crawl space, so they must have dug it up and burned it after I went to the hospital."

Brody had closed his eyes and didn't appear to be listening. "They're my friends," he said in a shaky voice. "I never thought they'd do anything like this."

She wanted to comfort him but the weight on her own shoulders was too great. She had believed in Zane, loved him, cherished the haven he created for her. "Feel it," he would say. "Don't die with anything on your chest."

Was that what he wished he had given Cassie? Did he look back now and regret?

Bianca shook her head. There was no use in wondering. Zane had done what he'd done, and she couldn't change that. She watched a teaspoon worth of tears roll out from behind Brody's eyelids and realized she couldn't cry. She'd cried plenty a few days earlier, but now she had no tears.

She knew why. The phone call had been made. There would be justice.

The doctor bitched at her for almost an hour about the morphine and vodka. He put brought her foster parents in and let them join the festival, and by the time they were done Bianca felt as though she'd accidentally detonated a bomb instead of taking a few too many pills.

It was careless, of course. She understood that. Sometimes when she was hurt she did destructive things, and this had been one of those times. It wouldn't happen again. Especially not with Grant controlling her medication flow.

"How's your head feeling now?" the doctor asked. It was the same one who had seen her two weeks ago.

"Better. My sinus headache is gone, and nothing feels like it's going to explode any more. But my jaw is really stiff. Is that from the respirator?"

He shook his head. "There were a lot of fluids building up in your brain causing pressure, so we made a small incision behind your right ear and drained it. There are a couple of stitches in the muscles that control your jaw we cut through that are probably a little sore. On a scale of one to ten, ten being ready to run a marathon, how would you say you're feeling?"

What number is sad? she wanted to ask. She told him she felt like a six. It wasn't true, but Beth had already turned four shades of white and cringed when she saw the cut on Bianca's head.

"I think you should reconsider seeing a therapist," the doctor added. "I've given your parents the phone number of a very good one."

Beth and Grant were both pretty gungho about the whole idea. "It will help you prepare," Beth said, rubbing another Kleenex against her eyes. "So that you can accept what has to happen."

Everyone appeared to think this had been a suicide attempt. I don't need to kill myself, Bianca thought, I'm already dying.

She didn't argue, though, just agreed. She was tired and heart sick and had noticed something disturbing. And she'd just lost her best friend.

She called the doctor back in after her foster parents left. "I didn't want to mention this while Mom and Dad were here," she told him, "but I don't think I can hear out of my left ear, and I can't feel my right elbow."

There was nothing he could do. "I'm sorry, but your brain is deteriorating. As pieces of it vanish, you'll begin loosing feeling and motor skills."

She sighed and lay back in bed, starring at the ceiling again. "I'm a legal adult now," she told the doctor. "I want a Do Not Resecitate Order."

He brought it to her immediately and didn't question her decision. But Bianca felt compelled to say, "I don't think my mom is really strong enough to take me off life support once I'm on. I don't want her paying for my stasis forever."

"Most people are worried about being trapped in their bodies."

Bianca glanced at him. "If I won't have a brain to feel trapped with, what's the problem?"

"I guess they were looking at it from a more spiritual level."

"I don't have a spiritual level," Bianca told him flatly.

Jemmy called once she was back home. "I'll be in on Monday," she told him. "No, it turned out to be no big deal, just some fluid build-up. They drained it and I feel a million times better. No, I haven't talked to him in a couple days, but I'm sure he's just been busy. Tell him everything is still go ahead."

She was memorizing her lines for the last scene of the play when Brody came in. "Hi," he said, and Bianca smiled faintly. He'd come at a bad time; Grant had just given her a Valium.

"Hi." She patted the bed and he sat down. He looked both better and worse. His hair had been washed and his clothes were clean, but the circles around his eyes were deepening into canyons and his smile lines were ruler-straight. "Are you okay?"

"I saw Zoe today. She grabbed me at lunch and demanded to know what was wrong. I told her that I knew what she'd done and she damn well better stay away from me."

"What did she say?"

"She said you had brain disease and didn't know what you were talking about. I asked her why she didn't come see you in the hospital, and she said she thought it would only make things worse." He shook his head in frustration. "I almost caved. I kept thinking, Man, this is Zoe. Zoe would never do anything like that."

Bianca didn't know what to say. She covered his hand with her and lay back against the pillows. Her sleep had been messy of late, nightmares that definitely weren't memories and sour stomach aches that woke her up. Beth thought it was stress; Bianca thought it was probably from lack of Zane.

"Sorry, I shouldn't be dumping this on you," Brody apologized. "Hey, have you heard what Zane wants to do with the play?"

"No, what?"

"He wants to put it on Friday."

"This Friday?"

"Yeah, because he's not sure you'll be up to it in a couple of weeks."

"Oh." Zane wasn't an idiot, he knew the end was coming fast. With a sinking feeling, so did Bianca. "I guess we could do that."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'll be back at school tomorrow."

He smiled, and despite the age that had come into his face recently, the smile was still bright. "Good, I've missed you."

Their eyes met, and Bianca wished Grant had let her have a couple more Valium. She didn't want to be here, struggling to do the right thing one more time.

"I guess I should let you get some sleep," he said.

"I guess," Biance echoed.

He leaned forward and she didn't stop herself from sitting up to meet him. Their lips met in a slow-motion collision, arms coming up as they drew close. Bianca let herself fade into the kiss for a moment, let it sweep her away, and then turned her face into his neck.

"I don't want to hurt you," he whispered, running his mouth over her throat. "I know this can't be anything, there's no time. But I....you know I care about you, and it's going to hurt like hell when you're gone." He lifted his head and gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. "It could have been great, Bi."

He stood up and slowly back away from her. Bianca shook her head as he opened the door. "It already was great," she said.

The show would go on. Bianca was back in school on Monday, attending classes, staying after for practices, helping Jemmy print the program. Sunset on Haven Street was predicted to have a good attendance, at least partially because everyone knew the lead actress was six steps from the Death's door.

She saw Zoe and Zane at school, but neither one of them tried to approach her. She met Zane's eyes a few times in the hall, and he always looked back at her with sad, begging eyes, but she had no sympathy.

Evenings were spent with Grant and Beth, who had both taken time off work to be with her. It was a blessing Bianca had not expected, that she would die with two loving parents hovering over her. Biology counted for nothing, it was the woman who tucked her in at night she called "Mom."

Things were coming to a close, but Bianca knew it was going to be a fiery end.

She got home from school on Thursday feeling exhausted. The feeling was gone from both of her arms now, and she had inadvertently burned one hand this morning after laying it one a hot tea kettle. The hearing in her right ear was starting to get fuzzy, and she'd noticed a couple of blind spots in her perriferial vision.

Just get through twenty-four more hours, she thought. Finish the opening night of the play, and you can collapse into bed and never get up again.

There was no God. She had accepted it. She was so tired, so exhausted. Everyone said that dying young meant there were a thousand million things you never had the chance to experience, but Bianca didn't think she would have made it through her twenites if all of life was this harrowing.

There was no God. But there was something.

The phone rang.

Bianca knew before she picked it up. She took a deep breath, made her way steadily across the kitchen, and held the phone up to her ear. She waited.

The voice was cooler this time, less slithery, more feminine. "Justice must be served. You know what to do."

Dial tone.

Bianca stared at her reflection in the toaster and hung the phone up numbly. If her life was to have meant anything, she wanted it to be Justice. But she had one thing she had to do first.

Grant drove her to Zane's house. "You haven't seen much of him in the last few weeks."

"Yeah," Bianca agreed. "We had a fight, but I want to make up before I go. It doesn't seem fair to leave him with that kind of guilt."

He patted her shoulder. "You're a good kid, Bianca. What time should I come back?"

"I won't be longer than five minutes."

"Okay, I'll wait."

She used her key and let herself inside. "Zane?" she called, breathing in the scents of incense and rubbing alcohol.

He appeared instantly in the living room doorway. His lips were parted in surprise and he stammered, "Bianca?"

She nodded and unbuttoned her jacket but didn't take it off. "Yeah, I came to talk to you."

He pulled out a chair for her and she shook her head. "I'll only be a minute, Zane." She made her voice cold but she couldn't help longing to close her eyes and slip into the comforter nest with him.

"I came here to explain something," she said. Zane hovered a few feet away, as if trying not to reach out and hug her. She hoped he couldn't tell that she was having the same problem.

"There's no God, Zane, and that's a fact you have to live with. Maybe it seems strange to you that I'm upset about your killing Cassie-" He opened his mouth and she stopped him. "No, don't contridict me. I'm not going to turn you in, so we may as well be honest here. You killed her, and Zoe helped you cover it up. No Divine wrath had been visited upon your house, no karma has screwed with your life. There's no higher power. Her death doesn't offend me because it was a death or some kind of insult to God. It offends me because we're creatures of our own making. We built this society, we became more than just dogs and cats and bushes, and you betrayed everything we've built. We're the only civilization that has promised not to kill other members of our species, and what did you do but just that?"

She took a deep breath. "At the end of your play, Arabell forgives Michael before she dies. I can't forgive you, Zane. It doesn't matter that you're my friend and I love you, and you've gotten me through the hardest time of my life. You did something that I find unforgivable. That's that."

There were tears rolling down his cheeks. "I'd never live long enough to testify," Bianca added, her voice softer. "You're off the hook. You got really lucky." She stopped again. It was like Brody had said, this was Zane, her Zane. She wanted him to hold her while she died.

"I just thought I should clear the air," she finished, and buttoned her coat up again. "Thanks for everything you've done for me."

He didn't say anything as she turned and walked out of the house.

"You two make up?" Grant asked as they pulled out of the driveway.

Bianca caught sight of Zane watching her through the kitchen window. "I'm at peace with it," she agreed.

Chapter Seven

Bianca eased into a pair of baggy jeans and a sweater that hung over her butt and slightly off her shoulders. She smiled at herself in the dressing room mirror, and found the expression only slightly more sympathetic than she had months earlier when she tried it out in her mother's living room mirror.

The play had gone off without a hitch, and if Bianca had believed in a higher power, she would have seen it as a good omen. The way things stood, she was just glad she had put on a good show.

Beth and Grant were in the audience, Brody and Camilla were nearby. She could hear Jemmy backstage hissing directions, and Zoe was in a nearby dressing room, changing. Zane was already on stage, building up to the final scene.

There was a gun on the dressing table. It was usually in a locked box in the principal's office, held for special occasions during plays when it could be filled with blanks and help explode packages of fake blood, but now it was on Bianca's dressing table, and, as they say, loaded for bear. She'd spent half an hour and almost all her energy prying the box open with her mind that morning, and she could feel the strength it had taken out of her. The adrenelin rush that used to come with performing was gone, as was the feeling below her knees. She hadn't eaten since last night; her stomach wasn't accepting visitors.

Bianca looked at herself in the mirror again. Tears filled her eyes and she reached out to touch her reflection. I'm dying, she thought. I'm about to die.

I want to finish this before I die.

There was a gentle knock on the dressing room door, and she quickly stuck the gun in the waistband of her jeans, covering it up with her sweater. "Come in," she said, and Brody opened the door. He was carrying a dozen yellow roses in a crystal vase.

Bianca lifted her eyebrows. Or maybe she wrinkled her nose. It was hard to tell any more. "Wow," she said.

"They're from Zane," he replied. "He asked me to give them to you."

Brody set the vase on the table top and Bianca plucked out the card. There was no point in sniffing the petals; her nose had totally given up.

"I've got to get on-stage," Brody said urgently, but he didn't turn for the door. Maybe he sensed that something was about to happen, something more than just the last scene of a high school play. Biance smiled genly and hugged him.

He pulled away, glancing down at the almost imperceptible buldge under her sweater. Bianca met his eyes silently and a long moment passed. Finally he nodded and stepped back.

"I'm going to miss you."

"Go break a leg," she told him.

He hesitantly kissed her forehead. "I'll see you out there."

When he was gone, she opened the small envelope. The card was blank on the outside. Inside was written, "I know you'll be wonderful tonight, and I'm just writing this to tell you that I love you, and I'm sorry. I've only known you for a few months but you've changed my life forever."

"No shit," Bianca mouthed, laying the card back on the table.

"Arabell," Michael said as he opened the door. "You're here."

"I thought you were in the hospital," Aaron said, getting up from the couch. Ann was sitting just a few feet away, and he looked tense.

Arabell closed the door behind herself and walked into the living room. "You killed Jenna, didn't you?" she asked, addressing Michael and then Ann. "Don't deny it, there's no point. I just want to know why."

Michael stepped forward, silencing Ann with a gesture. "Let me answer this. Aaron didn't have anything to do with it, Ara, he really thought Jenna had left town. I killed Jen, and Ann helped me cover it up."

Arabell melted into tears. "But why? You loved her, how could you do that?"

He seemed to struggle with the words. "I...I had to see. I needed to know if there was something out there to believe in or if it was all make-believe. I thought that if I offended God, no matter how he punished me, at least I'd know he was there. That I wasn't alone."

"You were scared," Arabell said hopefully.

"Yes! I was terrified. These years are so strange and confusing. I just wanted to know that I wasn't alone." He took a few steps forward and fumbled for her hand, finally clutching the left one as if his life depended on it. "Please try to understand, Ara. Please try to forgive me."

Tears ran down her face as she slowly let herself be drawn into his arms. "I love you," Arabell said, reaching for something under her sweater.

Bianca added, "But I can't forgive you."

There were sudden gasps from the audience and Zoe jumped to her feet. Zane looked at Bianca with wide eyes, shocked, but it was too late. She wrapped her arm around his neck, pulled his chest into the barrel of the gun and pulled the trigger.

Her face was instantly sprayed with blood, which started seeping down the front of her sweater. There was screaming from the audience, and Brody dropped to the ground in a tornado-drill position, hands sheltering his neck.

Bianca stepped back, letting Zane fall out of her arms. He collapsed to the ground, blinked twice, opened his mouth, and died.

Zoe was already trying to run when Bianca threw herself forward. The two girls crashed to the floor and Bianca fired blindly, catching herself once in the belly. Finally she managed to wedge the tip of the barrel against Zoe's ear and pull.

Covered in blood and scull and brain matter, she stumbed to her feet before the screaming crowd. A hush fell over the audience when they realized that she still had the gun in her hand. "Bianca?" Brody asked behind her, rising.

The world wavered, and blood continued to pour out of her stomach. She could see Beth and Grant in the audience, Grant half out of his chair, Beth frozen with her hand over her mouth. Bianca turned her face up to the hot stage lights for a moment and smiled; it was warm like sunlight. She felt Brody's arms come around her, pry the gun from her hands, and the eyes of the silent, trembling crowd still focused on her.

Loud enough for everyone to hear, she said in her best carrying stage-voice, "Let this be a lesson to you. There is no Divine justice, there's only us."

Brody's arms wrapped around her as her knees gave out. He lowered her gently to the stage floor and she stared upward, into the track lighting. The heat soaked into her face and she felt Brody's tears on her cheeks. A tiny smile--a beautiful, heartfelt smile--transformed her lips, and she let herself float away into the light.

Epilogue

The police were gone. Beth and Grant had gone home. Bianca was alone in her hospital bed with the lights out, staring at the starless ceiling. Brody had fallen asleep in the plastic couch beside the bed. A uniformed cop was stationed outside the door.

The phone rang.

With a hand stiff from IV needles, she reached out for the receiver. Brody didn't stir, and the cop didn't come in to check on her. Biance started to reach for the phone, then stopped.

"Hello?" she mouthed.

The hissing voice said one word in the silent room: "Thanks."

Biance smiled and said soundlessly, "You're welcome."

Bianca Arabell Stephens died three days after the shooting in the Secret Bethlehem Cove Community Hospital from multiple internal hemmorages of the stomach, spleen, and brain. It was ten thirty in the morning, and she was watching news coverage of the double funerals for Zoe Ann Roahs and Zane Michael Kalogeropoulos.

The End

13 September 1998

Jory San-Corinth