Chapter Ten

Kinsey Hummingbird woke on Monday morning hoping Trevor might have come back in the night, though he had not seen him all day Sunday. Kinsey couldn't imagine anyone sleeping in that house. But apparently Trevor had; at any rate, he wasn't here.

There were so many things Kinsey wanted to say to the boy-but he had to stop thinking of him as a boy. Trevor was twenty-five after all; even if he had had reason to lie, the chronology was right. Kinsey remembered the date of the McGee deaths well enough.

It was just that Trevor looked so young. That scared five-year-old was still a big part of him, Kinsey thought as he got up and went to the kitchen, though some flintier core must have kept Trevor alive and sane. There was an undeniable strength there; many people in Trevor's situation would have retreated into the numb fog of catatonia or blown their brains out as soon as they were able to lay hands on a gun.

But even for a soul of enormous strength, what would a night in that house have been like?

After the investigation of the McGee deaths was over- and of course there had been little investigating to do; the bodies told their own mute tale-the cops had locked the door behind them and the family's things had sat in the house, gathering dust in the silent, bloodstained rooms. A FOR SALE sign went up in the scrubby yard, but no one saw it as anything other than a ghoulish joke on the realtor's part. That house would never be rented again, let alone sold.

Browsing the aisles of Potter's Store one day deep in the summer of 1972, the FOR SALE sign outside the murder house already niggling at his mind, Kinsey found himself wondering what had happened to the McGees' things. Potter's was a cavernous thrift establishment downtown, huge and dim and cool, its rickety rows of metal shelves crammed with chipped plates and battered silverware and obsolete (though usually functional) kitchen appliances, its cracked glass display case filled with strange knickknacks and costume jewelry, its bins heaped high with musty clothing. Kinsey, with his love of junk, often spent long afternoons browsing here.

But he didn't think the McGees' belongings had ended up at Potter's Store. He wasn't sure what he thought he should have seen: bloodstained mattresses, maybe, or splattered shirts and dresses woven through the pile marked MISC WOMENS CLOTHS 25 CENTS. But there hadn't been any jazz records or underground comics either, and there sure as hell hadn't been a drawing table. He supposed everything was still out there, moldering in the silent rooms.

The house on Violin Road never sold. The FOR SALE sign was stolen, replaced by the realtor, whose optimism apparently knew no bounds. The paint on the new sign faded throughout the long dry summer. Tall weeds grew up around it, and it began to list. At last it fell face forward and was soon hidden in the long grass.

By that time kudzu had begun to climb the walls of the house. Where the children of Violin Road had thrown rocks through the windows, the insidious vine snaked in. Kinsey imagined it twining through the rooms, sucking nourishment from blood long dry. He did not doubt that this was possible. As a child, he had seen a kudzu root unearthed from the Civil War graveyard where his own great-great-great-uncle Miles was buried. The root, fully six feet long, had eaten its way through a grave and taken on the shape of the man buried there. Its offshoots formed four twisted limbs, the root-tips bursting from them at the ends like a multitude of fingers and toes. At the top had been a skull-sized tangle of delicate fibers in which the planes and hollows of a face could almost be made out.

Twenty years later the house was nearly hidden under its twining green blanket. Driving past it, you could barely tell that there was a house on the overgrown lot at all. Only the wooden porch and the peak of the roof showed forlornly through the vines. A stand of oaks shaded the house, their heavy canopy of foliage turning the yard into a deep green cave of light and shadow. The fronds of a willow brushed the roof, fingering the jagged edges of glass in the rotting window frames, strumming the kudzu like the strings of a lyre.

Kinsey wondered again how much of the family's stuff was still in there. He knew kids had broken in over the years, daring each other, showing off. Terry, Steve, and R. J. had been in years ago, though Ghost would not even go as far as the porch.

So most of the things in the front room would be long spirited away. But not many kids would have gotten past the gouged and bloodied doorway to the hall, and Kinsey doubted that any would have made it farther than the first bedroom, where the little boy had died. The back rooms would be dusty but intact. He wondered what Trevor would find in them.

Kinsey measured coffee, poured cold tapwater into the machine, and, as the old percolator began to bubble and steam, fell to gazing out his kitchen window at his own backyard. He had a little vegetable garden, but otherwise the grasses and trees grew wild. Kinsey liked it that way, home to any flying, slithering, or crawling thing that cared to take up residence. But it was not as snarled and shadow-stained, not as forbidding a landscape as the house on Violin Road.

The house where Trevor must be now, even as Kinsey sipped his first milky cup of morning coffee.

Kinsey's mother had cured him of Christian prayer long ago. He tried to think of a Zen koan that might be of use to Trevor, but the only one he could remember was “Why has Bodhidharma no beard? ” which didn't seem to apply. But then koans weren't supposed to apply.

His head full of ghosts, little smirking Buddhas, and secondhand treasures, Kinsey stood woolgathering for the better part of an hour in his own clean comforting kitchen.

Hank Williams's nasal twang poured out of the car speakers as raw and potent as moonshine spiked with honey. Zach pondered it as he drove. It should not have been a remarkable voice; it was nothing but a po'bucker whine straight from the backwoods of Alabama. But there was something golden and tragic in it, some lost soul that fell to its knees and sobbed every time Hank opened his mouth.

He'd been meandering north on 1-40 and surrounding roads when he saw the turnoff for Highway 42. Zach loved the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, and the sign reminded him that the number forty-two was the answer to life, the universe, and everything. It pulled him as inexorably as the lights of South of the Border had done. Soon he was driving down a two-lane blacktop shrouded in rags and tatters of predawn mist, and several times he caught himself singing lustily along with Hank.

The little town only caught his attention because of its curious name and weird architecture; to his road-weary eyes it seemed that the entire downtown was decorated with wagon wheels and spinning barbers' poles. He almost drove on through, but caught himself drifting across the center line and decided to stop for a quick nap.

Zach pulled into an alley and came upon a small lot where several other cars were already parked. The friendly local deputy-dawg wouldn't bother him here; at any rate he was only going to stretch his tired bones across the seat, close his eyes for a few minutes, then get moving again. . .

He slept for six hours in the parking lot behind the Whirling Disc record store. The lot was also used for storage by an adjacent auto parts store, and the Mustang was not noticed among the other junkers for some time. When he finally woke, the sun had risen high and hot, his body was bathed in sweat, and Terry Buckett was peering into the car, tapping worriedly on the window.

“Man! I thought you were dead for sure! ” Terry took a hit off Zach's pipe and passed it back, shaking his head, letting the fragrant smoke leak out the corners of his mouth. “You looked like somebody had shot you and left you lyin' there across the seat. All that was missing was the brains on the window. ”

Zach suppressed a shudder. He didn't think the FBI would shoot a hacker on sight, but he wasn't sure about the Secret Service. (The NSA probably kept hackers alive for torture and interrogation later, but their jurisdiction was largely military, and military secrets had never much appealed to him. )

They were sitting on crates in the dim, cool back room of the record store, and though Zach felt an undeniable echo of Leaf and Pass Christian, Terry was obviously as straight as the day was hot. There was no definable characteristic that told him this; the pheromones just weren't there. It was a good thing too, Zach thought; after stewing in his own juices all morning he was sure he stank abominably.

As if to confirm this, a girl with long brown hair stuck her head through the curtain, blinked big Cleopatra eyes against the gloom, and wrinkled her nose. “Terry? ”

“Back here, Vie. ” The girl picked her way through the boxes and rolled-up posters, long gauzy skirt swishing around her ankles. When she got closer, Zach saw that she was wearing a skintight tank top, as if to accentuate the fact that she had absolutely no breasts. Eddy had had a phrase for strippers built like that: Nipples on a rib.

The girl leaned down to Terry. Zach thought they were going to kiss, but instead Terry blew into her mouth a long stream of smoke, which she sucked in expertly. Tendrils of it seeped from her narrow nostrils and curled around her head. Terry cupped the back of her thigh through the full skirt. “This is my gal Victoria. Vie, meet Zach. He just rolled into town this morning. ”

“Looks like we gain two for every one we lose. ” At Terry's questioning look, she added, “You told me about that guy who came in Saturday. Now him. ”

“Yeah, so who'd we lose? ”

“Omigod, you don't know! ” Victoria clapped her hands over her mouth. Zach wasn't sure, but it looked as if she might be hiding a sudden, guilty smirk. “That girl Rima? The one Kinsey fired for stealing from the Yew? She had a wreck out on the highway. Totaled her car and broke her back. They found cocaine all over the place. ”

“Gee, Vie, you sound pretty upset about it. ”

“Yeah, right. ” From the sudden chill in the air Zach guessed that Rima had come on to Terry at some point, though if she was such a loser he doubted Terry had slept with her. Terry seemed like that rarest of all creatures, a genuinely guileless Decent Guy. Besides, you probably couldn't get away with much in a little town like this.

“Well. . . ” A shadow passed over Terry's face. He obviously felt bad about the girl, but didn't want to hurt Victoria's feelings. “She didn't kill anyone else? ”

Victoria shook her head, and Terry brightened a little. Zach believed this was known as Looking on the Bright Side, also as Pulling the Wool Over Your Own Eyes. He didn't say anything, though; the last thing he needed now was to annoy anyone.

So he loaded another bowl and sat around the back of the store with them for a while longer, listening to gossip about people he didn't know, occasionally asking a question or offering a comment, hacking the scene, making the connections, weaving himself into the net. It was possible anywhere, though it could be a damn sight tougher than breaking into a computer.

When Terry's morning crew (one sleepy-looking teenager with a tattoo so fresh it was still bleeding) showed up, Terry and Victoria took Zach down the street for greasy grilled cheese sandwiches at the local diner. The waitress refilled Zach's water glass with tea, and when he took a sip of it without noticing, his nerves began to crackle and fizz like a string of firecrackers. For all of that, he felt good. He liked this town.

After lunch Victoria had to go to work-she sorted and mended old clothes at some downtown thrift shop-and Terry offered to show Zach the local dive before he went back to the record store. By the time they were halfway down the street, Zach was eagerly picturing the inside of a bar. It would be calm and dark and air-conditioned, like a little pocket of nighttime in the middle of the hot afternoon. It would be comforting with the sharp scents of liquor and the grainy smell of beer on tap, lit by the soft watery glow of a Budweiser clock or a neon Dixie sign. He might have been picturing any of a hundred bars in the French Quarter, but the Sacred Yew was like none of them, and Zach had yet to learn how difficult it was to find Dixie beer anywhere but New Orleans.

Trevor woke at the drawing table with cramped muscles, an aching head, and a painfully full bladder. The green-tinted sunlight streaming through the studio windows made him wince and rub his eyes as he had seen Bobby do in the grip of countless bourbon hangovers. But he hadn't had the dream of not-drawing last night.

He stood up without looking at the pages he had drawn, stumbled out of the room, back through the hall and living room, out onto the vine-shrouded porch where he stood urinating into the kudzu, squinting out at the empty road.

The day glistened in emerald splendor, grass stems and spiderwebs still bejeweled with yesterday's rain, inviting Trevor to come out and enjoy the sun awhile. Instead he stood for a few minutes in the shelter of the porch, breathing deeply of air that did not smell like mildew or dry rot. From the quality of the light he thought it was early afternoon.

This time twenty years ago, Momma's friends from the art class had been coming up these steps, knocking worriedly on the door, then letting themselves into the house and finding him among the bodies. The man with the gentle hands had been picking him up, carrying him out of the carnage. For an instant Trevor almost remembered what he had been thinking at that moment: something about the Devil. But it eluded him.

Soon he turned and went back into the soft gloom of the house. Without giving himself time to think about it he crossed the living room, walked a few paces down the hall, and let himself into Didi's room.

It looked smaller than he remembered, but that might have been due to the kudzu vines that had burst through the window and taken over more than half the room. They twined up the walls, around the light fixture on the ceiling. They trailed into the closet on Trevor's left, where he could still see a few of Didi's toys mired in the leaves, as if the kudzu had actually twined around them and lifted them off the floor. A smiling plush octopus, a windup grandfather clock, a once-red rubber ball. All were covered in dust, faded with time and neglect. Twenty years never touched by a little boy's hands, a little boy's love.

The kudzu filled the left half of the room with rustling heart-shaped leaves and shifting green shadows. The mattress sat in a clear spot to the right. Instead of a tiny body it bore only a huge, irregular bloodstain, dark crimson and wet-looking in the center, fading to the most delicate pale brown around the edges. Trevor noticed splotches and runners of blood on the wall above the mattress too, five or six feet up. How many blood vessels were in the brain? And how far could they spray when the head was crushed like a juicy grape, made to spill out the red secrets of its wine, the electric potion of its cerebral fluid, the very chemistry of its thoughts and dreams?

It's a glorious summer day, some remotely, annoyingly sane voice in his head nagged him, and here you are buried in this tomb of a house staring at the twenty-year-old deathstain of a brother you barely had time to know.

And another part of him answered, We get to the places where we need to be.

He pulled the Whirling Disc T-shirt over his head, let it fall to the floor, and stretched out on Didi's mattress. Stale dust puffed up from the ticking as he centered his head on the bloodstain. It was stiff and dry against his cheek, and smelled only of age, with perhaps a faint sour undertone like the memory of spoiled meat. He nuzzled his face into the stain, spread his arms wide as if to embrace it.

From somewhere in the room came a faint popping sound, then the noise of something heavy hitting the floor. Trevor jerked reflexively but did not look around. He wasn't sure he wanted to see what new surprise the house had dealt him. Not yet. Can't you even give me a minute with Didi? he thought. Can't I even have that before I have to start thinking about you again?

But by now he knew he wasn't calling the shots, not many of them anyway. He had come here to learn, and whatever was here would teach him. . . something. He pushed himself up on his elbows and turned to look into the corner of the room from which the sound had come, over by the closet. A small dark object lay near the edge of the kudzu, as if it had tumbled out of the vines. The object was perhaps a foot long, half-shrouded in shadow. Trevor tried to tell himself it could be anything. A stick. A stray piece of wood.

A hammer.

He got up and crossed the room, stared at it for a long moment, then leaned down and picked it up. The stout wooden handle was scuffed and streaked with dark stains. It felt slightly warm in his hand. The head and claw were rusted, caked with a delicate, crumbling dry brown matter like powdery fungus, like desiccated petals. He touched his finger to it, rubbed it against his thumb. The scrim of matter between them felt dusty, gritty. Pale brown, like the edges of the bloodstain. He remembered reading somewhere that any human tissue would turn to some shade of brown eventually, given time. It was the color of all skin, the color of waste, the color of rot.

Cause of death: blunt trauma. . .

Trevor had no idea what had happened to the hammer that had killed his family, but he knew it could not have stayed in the house. It would have been taken as evidence, photographed, probably even fitted into the holes in their skulls to prove it was indeed the murder weapon. That was how they did things. Yet he knew too, just as surely, that this was the same hammer.

He stood for a long time turning it over and over in his hands. He felt a few slow tears leaking from his eyes, running into his mouth or dripping off his chin. But he had done most of his crying last night, with Kinsey. Now he was beginning to feel as if he were being taunted. Here's a hammer; what can you do with it?

He didn't know yet.

But when a noise came from the living room-no scrape or creak of the house, he was already starting to get used to those, but a distinct footfall-he whirled and raised the hammer before he knew what he was doing.

And when he heard a stranger's voice, Trevor moved swiftly and silently toward the door.

“Shit! I better get back to the store before it pours. Tell Zach I'll see him later if he decides to hang out. ”

Terry tipped a quick salute at Kinsey, who was on his knees ripping several weeks' worth of silver duct tape off the stage, and took his leave of the Sacred Yew. A few minutes later Zach came out of the rest room, his face and hands freshly scrubbed, his dark eyelashes still beaded with water, settling his glasses on the narrow bridge of his nose. “It's raining, ” he told Kinsey.

“I heard. How could you tell? ”

“The ceiling's leaking. I put the trash can under it. ”

Kinsey sighed, pushed his feathered hat back over his stringy hair, and kept tugging at the duct tape.

“Did Terry leave? I was going to ask him if he knew a place I could crash. ”

“He'll let you have his spare bedroom if R. J. isn't camped there. You can sleep on my couch, too, if you'll do me a favor. I was going to do it myself, but I need to stay here and make sure the place doesn't flood. The landlord won't fix our pipes and sometimes a heavy rain just comes right in. ”

Zach had an open Natty Boho in his hand-he'd grabbed it out of the cooler and slapped two dollars on the counter before Kinsey could card him-and looked in no great hurry to go anywhere, but he agreed readily enough. “Sure, I'll do you a favor. ”

“There's a young man living in an abandoned house out on the other side of town. ” Kinsey explained briefly about Trevor, giving none of the details of why he was in the house. “He has no electricity or running water. I brought in a few things for him-blankets, bottled water, some food. Think you could take it out to him? ”

Zach looked dubious. “Okay. ”

“He doesn't bite. ”

“Oh, well then forget it. ” Zach saw Kinsey's blank look. “Sorry. What's he doing in this abandoned house? ”

“I'll let him tell you himself, if he wants to. You'll like Trevor. He's lived in New York-the two of you can compare notes on that pestilent hellhole. ”

Zach followed Kinsey behind the bar to get the box of supplies. Kinsey noticed that Zach's hands were restless, nervous, their slender spatulate fingers always manipulating something: skating over the keypad of the adding machine, toying with the phone. Once he reached for the keys of the cash register, but drew back as if realizing that would be impolite. The boy seemed to have a fascination for switches and buttons. He refrained from actually pushing them, but stroked and tapped them gently as if wishing he could.

Kinsey gave him directions to the house and let him out the back door. Zach could hardly miss the place; there were several run-down houses on Violin Road, but only one that was barely even there. Kinsey went back into the club. Now a thin trickle of water was seeping from under the door of the men's room. If the rain kept up, he could spend the whole afternoon mopping and wringing, mopping and wringing. Damn the landlord.

He wasn't sure he had done right by sending Zach out to Violin Road, but it felt right somehow. He hated the thought of Trevor staying out there another night without food or water. Someone should at least make sure he hadn't fallen through a rotten floor and broken his neck.

Zach was an all right sort, if a little shifty. Kinsey didn't think he was really from New York, or anywhere near it. There was a type of New York accent that sounded something like his voice, true. But Kinsey had heard a distinctive one from New Orleans-a weird blend of Italian, Cajun, and deep-South-that sounded a lot closer. And Zach had perked up visibly when Terry mentioned that the name of his band was Gumbo.

But if he wanted to be from New York, then he was from New York as far as anyone around here was concerned. Kinsey only asked questions when he could tell a kid wanted him to. Right now Zach, no last name offered, looked like he wanted to stay as far away from questions as possible.

Zach swerved to avoid the swollen carcass of a possum in the road, slowed, and turned into a likely-looking driveway. It was barely more than a rutted track losing a battle to tall grasses and wildflowers; the house itself was so overgrown that it was invisible from the road unless you were looking for it. Zach thought it looked like a wonderful place to live.

He finished his beer, got out of the car, and pulled the box of supplies out after him. Kinsey had put a six-pack of Coke in with the bottled water, blankets, and various packaged food. There was even a pillow in a flowered case at the bottom of the box. Whoever this Trevor Black was, Kinsey had done him up right.

The rain had slacked off some, but it was still drizzling drearily, beading on his glasses, making his hair straggle into his face. The day had taken on a cool, slightly eerie cast. Zach hoisted the box and lugged it up the steps to the vine-draped porch.

The front door hung askew on its hinges, half open. Zach knocked, waited, knocked again. No response. He squinted into the damp gloom of the house, then shrugged and let himself in.

For a moment he stood in the center of the living room letting his eyes adjust to the absence of light. Gradually details resolved themselves and he saw the holes in the ceiling, the vines twisting in the windows, the rotting hulks of furniture. A tendril of unease touched him. He cleared his throat. “Hello? ”

Nothing. The doorway to the hall was a black rectangle, the wall around it smeared with indistinct dark stains. Zach stared at it, feeling worse. What had that old hippie sent him into?

He would just put the box down here on the floor and turn around and go. Nothing to it. He lowered it halfway, his eyes never leaving the hall door.

When a tall pale form appeared in the doorway, Zach stifled a scream and dropped the box. It hit the floor and tipped over on its side. A can of Chef Boyardee ravioli rolled across the floor, disappeared under the couch. Absurdly, Zach wondered if Kinsey had remembered a can opener.

The pale form came out of the darkness toward him. A shiftless, skinny, ridiculously beautiful boy, long blond hair spilling over his shoulders and dirt-smudged chest, eyes wide and blazing and utterly mad, a rusty claw hammer clutched in his upraised hand. He looked like some malevolent avenging angel, like a pissed-off Christ come down off the cross ready to pound in some nails of his own.

Zach stood paralyzed as the hammer-wielding angel, presumably Trevor, descended on him. He could not seem to make himself speak. He did not want to die like a character in a splatter movie, did not want to die quick and stupid or slow and mean, with a chunk of metal buried in his frontal lobes and syrupy blood gradually obscuring the dumb, startled expression frozen on his face for all eternity. But even less did he love the idea of turning to run and feeling the claw end of the hammer take a divot out of his skull.

His heart caromed crazily off the walls of his chest. A wire-thin pain shot down his left arm. Maybe he would just have a heart attack and avoid the whole thing.

Trevor's other hand snaked out, wrapped long fingers round Zach's wrist. His touch was galvanizing, akin to an electric shock or a whole pot of coffee. Zach thought his nerves might just rip out of his skin and go twining up Trevor's arm like the stinging tentacles of jellyfish.

But his synapses refused to save him. Think, his mind yammered, flex your brain and THINK because if you don't it's going to end up splattered all over this dirty floor, and is that any fate for this rare and superior organ that has served you so well for nineteen years? Wanna go for twenty? Then HACK THIS SYSTEM, D00D! What's the first thing you need? THE PASSWORD!

“TREVOR! ” he hollered. “NO!!! ”

He had made his voice as loud and sharp as he could. He saw Trevor hesitate, but his grip on Zach's wrist didn't loosen, and the hammer stayed upraised, ready to fall.

But passwords always required more than one try. “Trevor! ” he shouted again, letting an extra edge of fear and deference creep into his voice. “Kinsey sent me! Please don't kill me! Please! ”

Zach felt a tiny bright pain deep in his head, wondered if that was the spot where the hammer would go in or if he had just managed to have an aneurysm instead of a heart attack. It seemed the body always had some time bomb lurking in its depths.

But some of the madness appeared to melt off Trevor. His eyes met Zach's, really saw Zach, and a glassy film cleared from them. The black-rimmed irises were the palest, most delicate ice-blue; moments ago they had been muddy with killing rage. Now Trevor looked horrified, and years younger. He let go of Zach's wrist. His shoulders sagged. He tried to swallow but could not seem to work up the spit; the curve of his throat worked convulsively. The skin there was creased with sweat and grime, as if he had not shaved or bathed in days.

Okay. You found a crack in the system; that doesn't necessarily mean you're in. Verify yourself. Reassure the system that you belong here.

“Trevor? I... didn't mean to scare you. My name's Zach and I'm new in town too and. . . uh, Kinsey from the club sent me out to bring you this stuff. ”

The quicksilver eyes flickered; then Trevor's lips moved. His voice was deeper than Zach had expected, and very quiet. “You must think I'm crazy. ”

“Well-” said Zach, and stopped. Trevor tilted his head. “Well, it would help if you put the hammer down. ”

Trevor stared at the grisly tool in his hand as if he had no idea how it had gotten there. Then, very slowly, he bent and placed the hammer on the floor. “I'm sorry, ” he muttered. “I'm really, really sorry. ”

Bingo! In with full user privileges! Bells and whistles should have been going off in Zach's head. But he didn't feel as triumphant as he usually did when he cracked a system. He was starting to remember that Trevor was more than a system; he was a person, and people were volatile things, and that hammer was still within easy reach.

And on top of all that, the stricken look on Trevor's face and the jagged catch in his voice were so genuine that Zach actually felt a little sorry for him. He was a beautiful boy with fierce intelligence behind the craziness flickering in his eyes. Zach wondered what had brought him to this place, to this extremity.

“You're the only person who ever tried to kill me that apologized for it afterward, ” he said. “So I guess I accept. ”

A trace of a smile might have crossed Trevor's face. It was gone before Zach could be sure. “How many other people have tried to kill you? ”

“Two. ”

“Who were they? ”

“My parents. ”

Trevor's eyes went very wide, paler still. Then suddenly they shimmered with tears. A couple spilled over the rims of his eyelids before he could stop them, great fat crystal drops of pain.

Once in a while you happen purely at random upon the right password in a million, the unguessable code sequence, the needle in a program's haystack. Once in a while, you just get lucky.

“I can explain everything, ” said Trevor.

The thought of what he had nearly done made Trevor feel light-headed. The house spun around him; the floor threatened to tilt, to yawn wide open beneath his feet.

He couldn't remember what he had been thinking as he grabbed Zach's wrist. He wasn't sure he had been thinking; his mind had felt as empty as the rooms of the house, and that scared him worse than anything.

“I can explain everything, ” he said, though he doubted he really could, and doubted even more that Zach would want to hear it.

But Zach just shrugged. “Sure, if you want to talk about it. I'm not hurt. It's no big deal. ”

Trevor looked at him. Zach was trying to smile, but his face was terribly pale in the gloom, and his eyes still showed too much white. Even his hands were shaking. Trevor wondered what kind of threat Zach would consider a big deal.

“I want to talk about it, ” he said. “Let's go outside. ”

They walked around to the side yard and sat beneath the glistening canopy of the willow. The leaves back here were so thick that the ground was almost dry, though a shimmer of droplets fell on them from time to time. Trevor was still shirtless, and the water beaded on his shoulders, made trickling paths through the dirt on his chest and back.

Zach seemed to be watching him closely, waiting to hear what he had to say. In the daylight Trevor saw that his eyes were a startling shade of green, large and slightly tilted. His face was fine-boned, sharp-featured, interestingly shadowed by his wild spiky hair and the round black frames of his glasses. Trevor realized who Zach resembled: his drawing of Walter Brown, the singer who'd been arrested with Bird in Jackson, Mississippi. The singer whose face Trevor had had to imagine because he'd never seen the man's picture. The likeness wasn't exact, but it was strong enough to put him more at ease with Zach. This was a face he knew, a face that pleased his eye.

Trevor began to talk. The words came slowly at first, but soon he could not stop. Never in his life had he talked for so long at one time. He told Zach everything: the deaths, the orphanage, the dreams, the things that had happened since he'd been back in the house. He even talked about the time he had cracked that kid's skull open in the shower, though he didn't mention how much he had liked it.

He was surprised at how good talking felt. Not since he stopped letting blood from his arm with a razor blade had he felt such a welcome sense of release, of poison draining from his system.

He wasn't sure why those two words Zach had spoken — my parents-had opened him like this. Certainly there had been other kids at the Home who had taken plenty of abuse from their parents, and probably would have told Trevor about it if he had asked. But those kids had not appeared in the house of his childhood like embodiments of someone he had drawn. Those kids had not stood their ground and talked him out of... whatever he had been about to do. He had never gripped those kids' thin wrists hard enough to leave red impressions of his fingers in the flesh.

And if he had, he doubted they would have stayed around to hear his reasons why.

Trevor's face was hidden behind curtains of long hair, and his voice was so low that Zach had to lean in close to hear it. Trevor kept sneaking looks at Zach as if to gauge his reaction, but would not look him full in the face.

Slowly the tale unfolded, beginning with the bloody history that had been branded upon the house before Zach was even born. He would have heard much of this in town soon enough, Trevor said rather bitterly; word was no doubt getting around Missing Mile that the last survivor of the murder family had come home. He said it just like that, the murder family, as if he knew that was what they would be called in the local legends that must have unfolded around them. But Trevor's own story got weirder and weirder until hammers were appearing from thin air and drawings were undergoing sinister mutation betwixt hand and page.

Zach kept nodding his encouragement. He was far too fascinated to let Trevor quit. Back in his familiar French Quarter, back in his comforting little corner of cyberspace, Zach thought he had seen strange things, maybe even done some. But he had never met anyone who had lived through experiences like this, anyone who had taken such damage and remained among the walking wounded.

Eventually Trevor's flood of words ran down and he sat staring out through the drifting, glistening fronds of the willow. Through the undergrowth one weathered corner of the house was just visible, paler gray than the threatening afternoon sky. Zach watched a single raindrop making its way down the knobby ridge of Trevor's spine. At last Trevor said, “I don't know why I told you all that. You still must think I'm crazy. ”

“Maybe, ” Zach told him, “but I don't hold it against you. ”

It was obvious no one had ever said such a thing to Trevor before. He didn't know what to make of it. He looked wary, then surprised, and finally tried a tentative smile.

Zach thought Trevor might indeed be quite insane, but was developing a healthy respect for him in spite of it. Terry, Victoria, and Kinsey were fun to hang out with, but if he was going to stay in Missing Mile for any length of time, he wanted Trevor for his first friend.

He'd have to sublimate the attraction, though. He'd done it before, once he realized that he actually liked someone. He didn't think it would be a problem: whereas Terry gave off the wrong kind of pheromones, Trevor didn't seem to give off any. It was as if he had no sexual awareness at all. Zach caught himself wondering how hard it would be to teach him.

He watched the raindrop finish its navigation of Trevor's spine and disappear beneath the waistband of his jeans. There was a dusting of the palest golden hair there, slightly damp, right in the hollow of the back. . .

He bit his lip painfully and realized that Trevor was asking him something. “Huh? ”

“I asked what you do. ”

“Oh. ” After the raw honesty Trevor had shown him, Zach could not entirely bring himself to lie. “Well, I work with computers. ” With great relief he watched Trevor's eyes glaze over. It was the look of the willful computer illiterate, complete with the hasty little nod that said that's enough, that's all I need to know, please don't start talking about bits and bytes and drives and megarams and all that incomprehensible mop. Zach had seen that look hundreds of times, welcomed it. It meant he wouldn't have to answer any uncomfortable questions.

He dug into his pocket and found his last prerolled joint, flattened and mauled but more or less intact. “Do you mind? ” he asked. Trevor shook his head. Zach produced one of the lighters Leaf had given him and set it afire.

Trevor's nostrils flared as the smoke drifted past his face. “I better not, ” he said when Zach offered him the joint, though Zach saw his fingers twitch as if wanting to reach for it. “I smoked some pot yesterday and almost passed out. I'm not used to it. ”

Zach gathered all his considerable nerve. “Want a shotgun? ”

“What's that? ”

Oh god. How to explain a shotgun without making it sound like the obvious scam it is? I'm not going to take this any further, I'm really not, I LIKE him, dammit, but there's no harm in a little innocent frustration. “It's, uh, where one person breathes in the smoke and then blows it into the other person's mouth. See, my lungs filter the smoke before you get it, so it won't be as strong. ” Yeah, right. Heavy science gain' down.

Trevor hesitated. Zach tried not to slip into social-engineering mode, but he thought he could feel the power radiating in great joyous waves through his brain now. He felt as if he could convince absolutely anybody of absolutely anything. “C'mon, ” he said. “Pot's good for you. It relaxes you, clears out your brain. ”

Trevor eyed the smoldering joint, then shook his head. “No, I better not. ”

“What? ” Zach couldn't hide his surprise. He had known Trevor would say yes as surely as he'd known Leaf would give him those damn lighters. “Why? ”

Trevor studied Zach's face as intently as anyone ever had, more intently than most of his one-night lovers had done. Zach felt almost uncomfortable under the scrutiny of those striking, serious eyes. “You really want me to do it, don't you? ”

Zach shrugged, but he felt Trevor had looked straight through his skull to the whorls of his devious, treacherous brain. “It's more fun getting stoned with somebody, that's all. ”

Another long searching look. “Okay then. I'll take one. ” Zach thought Trevor might as well have added, But don't fuck with me too much, hear? He realized that his heart was beating more rapidly than ever, that his blood was surging and his head felt like a helium balloon ascending fast into an achingly blue, cloudless sky. No one ever got to him this way; this was the way he liked to make other people feel.

He took a deep hit off the joint, held it in for a second, then leaned over and exhaled a long steady stream of smoke into Trevor's open mouth. Their lips barely grazed. Trevor's felt as soft as velvet, as rain. Ribbons of smoke twined from the corners of their mouths, swathed their heads in an amorphous blue-gray veil. Zach kept his eyes open and saw that Trevor had closed his, as if being kissed. His eyelashes were a dark ginger color, the pale parchment of his eyelids shot through with the most delicate lavender tracery of veins. Zach thought of putting his mouth against those eyelids, of feeling the lashes silky against his lips, the secret caged movement of the eyeball beneath his tongue. . .

. . . and he was doing a damn fine job of sublimating his attraction, wasn't he?

He pulled back, shaken. Once he decided he wasn't going to be turned on by someone, he just wasn't anymore. At least that was how it had always been. He let himself have anyone he wanted unless he had good reason not to want them, and his libido had always paid back by giving him complete control.

Until now.

Trevor lay back on the damp grass and put a hand to his forehead. Zach saw pine needles snarled in his long hair, fresh dirt under his fingernails, tiny beads of water trapped in the fine hairs around his nipples.

“So, ” said Trevor, blowing out his shotgun, “how did your parents try to kill you? ”

“My dad beat the shit out of me for fourteen years. My mom mostly just used her mouth. ”

“Why did you stay? ”

Zach shrugged. “Nowhere else to go. ” From the corner of his eye he saw Trevor nod. “Sure, I could have run away when I was nine or ten, but there would've been a lifetime of stiff dicks in Town Cars waiting for me. I waited until I knew I could take care of myself some way besides giving blowjobs. Then I ran. Just disappeared into another part of the city. They never tried to find me. ”

“What city? ”

Zach hesitated. He still didn't want to lie to Trevor, but he couldn't start giving different stories to different people.

“You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. ”

“New Orleans, ” Zach said, not even sure why. “But don't tell anybody. ”

“Are you on the run or something? ”

Zach's silence spoke volumes.

“It's okay, ” said Trevor. “I've been running from this place for seven years. But you know, you get sick of it after a while. ”

“Yeah, so you come back and it tries to make you bash people's brains out. ”

Trevor shrugged. “I wasn't expecting company. ”

Zach started laughing. He couldn't help it. This guy was so fucked up. . . but smart, and despite his weird asexuality, entirely too beautiful. Trevor stared at him for a moment, then tentatively joined in.

They grinned at each other in ganja-swirled camaraderie. Suddenly Zach found himself wondering again if it mightn't be possible after all to love someone and make love with them too. Something about such a spontaneous sweet smile on a face that didn't smile too often made him wonder why he had always denied himself the physical pleasure of a person he truly cared for. Wouldn't it be fun to see someone-all right then, someone like Trevor- smile that way just because Zach knew how to make him feel good? Maybe even more fun than getting sucked off by a cute, all-but-anonymous stranger in the back room of a convenience store in a state he might never see again?

Probably not. Probably it would end in cutting words and tears, pain and blame and regret, maybe even blood. Those were the risks of such a relationship, almost guaranteed.

But where along the line had he decided that he could not take those particular risks, while cheerfully taking- indeed, seeking out-so many others?

Trevor was watching him closely. He looked as if he wanted to say What are you thinking? but didn't. Zach was glad. He'd always hated that question; it seemed people only asked it of you when you were thinking about something you didn't want to share.

Instead, very hesitantly, Trevor asked, “Have we met before? Do I know you? ” He frowned as if that weren't precisely the question he wanted to ask, but he could not find the words for the right one.

Zach shook his head. “I don't think so. But. . . ”

“It feels like we have, ” Trevor finished for him.

Zach snuffed the half-burnt joint and put it back hi his pocket. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Neither wanted to be the first to say too much, to take this strange new notion too far. Zach mused on how irretrievable words were in the real world. In many ways he preferred the simplicity of the computer universe, where you could revise and delete things at will, where you acted and the system could only react in certain ways.

But there you ran up against an eventual wall of predictability. Here the slightest shift in semantics could make a situation run wild, and that appealed to him too.

The rain had nearly stopped. Now it began to come down harder again, though they were still protected beneath the canopy of branches and vines. The sky rumbled with nascent thunder, then erupted. All at once it was pouring.

Zach saw a chance to defuse the awkwardness. He caught Trevor's arm and pulled him up, noticing how Trevor's flesh seemed to simultaneously cleave to and cringe from his touch. “Come on! ” he urged.

“Where? ”

“Don't you want a shower? This is our chance! ”

“Out here? ”

“Sure, why not? Nobody can see us from the road. ” Zach ducked out from under the curtain of willow fronds and ran to a clear patch in the yard. He kicked his sneakers off, pulled his shirt over his head, stuck his glasses in his pocket, and started unbuttoning his pants. Trevor followed, looking doubtful. “Are you going to get naked? ”

Zach undid the last button and let his cutoffs fall. He wasn't wearing any underwear. Trevor raised his eyebrows, then shrugged, unbuckled his jeans, and pushed them down over his skinny hips. If he'd grown up in an orphanage, male nudity was probably no big deal to him.

The rain sluiced over their bodies, washing away the grime of the road and the old crumbling house. Trevor was only a wet blur several feet away; Zach could barely see him flinging his arms about as if dancing or performing some wild invocation.

Zach raised his face to the downpour and let it fill the tired hollows of his eyes, wash the taste of smoke from his lips. He was not aware that he was grinning like a fool until he felt rain trickling between his teeth, over his tongue, and down his throat in a little silver river.