“Yeah.” I nodded. “I know what you mean. I can feel something kind of… underneath us when you sing.”
“Something in the ground.” She was breathing harder now. “You do know things.”
“Sometimes I feel like my music’s just buzzing around in the air. But you pull it down, tie it to something that’s real.”
“Mmm. It’s realer than you think.” She breathed slowly for a while, and I just listened until she said, “Do you want more, Moz?”
I swallowed. “How do you mean?”
“Do… you… want… more? I can give you the rest of it. You’re only tasting a little tiny fraction.”
I opened my eyes. The darkness in the kitchen was suddenly sharp. “A fraction of what?”
“Of what I have. Come over, and I’ll show you.”
The table seemed to tremble: my heart beating in my fingertips. “Come over… now?”
“Yes, Mozzy. Come rescue me and Zombie.”
“Um… Zombie?”
“He’s my undead slave.”
I swallowed. “Yeah?”
She let out a giggle, just above a whisper. “And his breath smells like cat food.”
“Oh.” I let out a slow breath. “Zombie has whiskers too, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, and he also knows things. But… Moz?”
“What?”
“I’m hungry.”
I laughed. She was so skinny, I never thought of Minerva getting hungry. She ate a lot of beef jerky at rehearsal, but I figured that was for her voice or something.
“You want to go and get something? I’ll wait.” I wanted to sit there in silence for a minute or two, just to recover. Just to scratch myself all over.
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“See, here’s the thing. The door of my room has this smelly lock. On the outside.”
“Really?” I blinked. “Like, your parents keep you locked in at night?”
“Daytime too. Because I was sick before.”
I closed my eyes again. A new layer of hovering badness sprang up all around me, filling the room with a buzzing sound.
“That’s why you have to come rescue me,” she said. “Come let me out and I’ll show you everything.”
I bit my lip. “But you live in… Brooklyn, right?”
She groaned. “Don’t be lame. Just take the F train. Half an hour.”
Just half an hour. Plus however long it took the train to come, maybe an hour total. Not forever; I wasn’t afraid of the subways yet.
And if I didn’t go see her, how long would it take to fall asleep in my room all alone? A thousand hours, at least.
Every time I’d watched her sing, her songs moving through my hands as I played, I’d gone to bed that night with her cries still echoing in my brain. Every time, I’d imagined a thousand ways of following her back to Brooklyn, and now she was inviting me.
If I said no, this itch would never leave my skin.
“Everyone’s asleep here,” she was saying. “And I can show you where my music comes from.”
“Okay, Min. I’ll come.” I stood up, like I was heading out the door right then, but my head started to spin. I sat back down. “But how are you going to get out?”
“You’re going to rescue me. It’s easy. Pearl does it all the time.”
“Um, am I supposed to climb up to your window or something?”
“No, silly. Just walk up the stairs.” She giggled. “But first, you have to find the magic key…”
16. LOVE BITES
— MINERVA-
Mozzy was taking forever.
I was dressed up so pretty, it was killing me just sitting here at my desk, staring at myself in the mirror. Zombie was pacing, knowing from the tinkle of my earrings that we were going out.
“Not long now,” I said softly. My stomach rumbled.
The thought of Moz coming over had changed the balance inside me—the hungry thing had woken up, stirred from the sleep Luz had forced upon it. I’d already chewed through all my emergency beef jerky, trying not to think of the way he smelled. So yummy and intense.
I took a bite of pork rind, letting its unctuous texture coat my mouth. Zombie wandered over and mur-rowed, so I gave him my fingers to lick.
“You can go play with your little friends soon.”
I looked at the clock: after two. Smelly Moz. What if he’d chickened out? I wanted to get closer to the earth. Singing felt wonderful, but I needed to feel the dirt under my fingernails, to smell and taste the things down there.
I needed to learn more, to put flesh on the words in my notebooks.
My stomach rumbled again, and I felt funny in a way I hadn’t for a while. Like before Luz came along—kind of… inhuman. That wasn’t good.
Mustn’t eat Mozzy, I thought, and peeled a clove of garlic. It was fresh, the way Luz said was best, the papery skin still flecked with purple. The clove split between my teeth, sharp and hot as fresh chicken blood. My next breath sucked the flavor into my lungs, and my nerves steadied.
“That’ll teach you,” I whispered to the hungry thing inside me, then took a swig from the little bottle of tequila Pearl had smuggled in, swishing it around my mouth. Didn’t want to taste funny for Moz.
In the clarity of my garlic buzz, I took off my dark glasses and stared into the mirror, wondering in which direction I was headed tonight.
Some things, like Luz’s teas and tinctures, made me better, more boring and sensible. Others, like singing with Pearl’s band, brought out the magnificent beast inside me and summoned the big things underground. It was the same old balancing act—how far to go with boys, with booze, with dangerous places—but magnified until the whole earth shook.
I wasn’t sure yet which way Moz was going to take me. I knew that both halves of me wanted badly to take him under the ground, but I was pretty certain they had different ideas about what to do with him down there.
I gnashed another clove of garlic, swilled another shot of tequila, just in case.
The stairs creaked… Moz.
I stood up, crossed to the door, and pressed my ear against it. He was down at the very bottom, making his slow way up. My thirsty hearing swept through the house: Max’s heart beating in the room next door, Daddy snoring low and even, no pages turning from my mother reading late in bed. Silence, except for the slow, cautious feet creeping up the stairs, the occasional crinkle of the house cooling down.
Zombie did figure eights around my feet.
“No purring,” I hissed. “Mommy’s listening.”
I slid my cheek along the door, put my nose up to the crack. Sniffed.
Moz was still too far downstairs to smell. I counted my own heartbeats to a thousand, spread my palms out on the door, pressed my anxious weight against it, groaning. Even shiny Pearl didn’t climb the stairs this slowly.
Finally he reached the top floor and I caught his scent, nervous and unsure.
And hungry. I smiled.
He turned the hasp free, the faint vibrations traveling through wood and into my thirsty skin. The metal bolt slid across.
I took a step back, dizzy. Being rescued was much better when it was Mozzy doing it.
The door opened the tiniest crack.
“Min?” On a little puff of air, smelling of yummy Moz breath.
I didn’t answer, just stood there behind the door, Zombie warm against my ankle. Everything was tingling.
The door pushed open another nervous inch. “Minerva?”
“Mozzzz,” I buzzed.
“Jesus.” His face peeked through, shiny in the candlelight, expressions squirming across it.
I put my hand out to stroke his cheek. Brought it back and licked my fingers. Nervous-tasting, but Mozzy.
He pushed through into my room, leaned back to softly shut the door. Closed his eyes. “Jesus, Min. Those are some creaky-ass stairs.”
I giggled, slipping a hand through the unzipped top of his jacket, pressing my palm against his chest. His heart was pounding deliciously. If he hadn’t been breathing so hard, I could have heard the warm blood rushing through his veins.