The trash rustles and shifts. I see the shadow of a second dog dart through the alley. Another growl. I hurry down the stairs. “She says you’re the Finder.”

“You can call me Peter,” he says. “I think definite articles are too formal, don’t you?”

“It’s better than Sisyphus.” I tell myself that I’m not being stupid. He could have hurt me before out in the desert, and he helped me instead. But I don’t like how dank and dark the hallway is. The concrete walls are painted black, and a single bare bulb swings from the steel beam rafters. It throws our shadows, black against the black, until they twist and contort. Swing, twist. Twist, swing. He stares at me, and I stare back. In the shadows, he looks mysterious and perfect, also dangerous.

“You don’t seem to be an interesting person,” he says. “Lost your way emotionally, psychologically, and physically. Cut-and-dried, really. Yet Claire has never brought me a visitor before. There must be more to you.” He closes the door and bolts it.

I clutch my sweating hands behind my back. My heart is beating rapid-fire. I won’t show fear. Or awe. He is just a man, and it’s the situation, not him, that makes me feel off-kilter. “I am not an interesting person. I went for a drive, that’s all. And I just...didn’t want to stop. Now I’m stuck in a town full of hostile lunatics who want me gone.”

“That’s a little bit interesting,” he says. “Not the lunatics part. That’s usual. But the fact they want you gone. You aren’t repellent. In fact, you’re pretty, in a standard California sort of way.” He smiles at me, and the force of that smile stuns me again for a moment. It’s as potent as a shot of whisky. I have the wild thought that he’s thinking about kissing me. Or maybe I’m thinking about kissing him. But I don’t, and he doesn’t. I don’t know why I’m even thinking it when I’m in the middle of this nightmare.

Three cookies crammed in her mouth, Claire trots back into the hallway. “Come on!” she says around her cookies. Crumbs tumble to the floor. She tugs my hand.

“Her Highness demands it—we must obey,” Peter says. “Come inside, have a cookie, and we’ll talk. A little tête-à-tête, if you will.” He places his hand on my back to guide me. His palm feels warm through my shirt. I scoot forward, away from his touch.

I follow Claire through a set of black curtains...and I gasp. Inside sparkles like a thousand stars. Covered in tiny white Christmas lights, a tree grows in the center of the room. Colored scarves are draped from every branch. More lights chase over the ceiling as if to make their own Milky Way.

Claire plops onto an oversize plush chair. Her feet barely reach the end of the cushion. She dangles them in midair. Beside her, her teddy bear is holding a blue-and-white china teacup. In miniature chairs around her, a circle of stuffed animals also hold teacups.

“Tea?” Peter offers me. “It’s always teatime when Claire comes.” He shares his beautiful smile with her, and she beams back as if he’s a beloved big brother.

“May I have more?” Claire asks in a polite little princess voice. She holds up her cup, and Peter pours air from an empty teapot into her cup. She sips it. She looks so innocent, and I wonder where she’s stashed her knife.

“Do you have anything non-imaginary?” I ask. “I’d love a glass of water.”

He winks at Claire. “Let’s show our guest what’s in the magic trunk. Bibbity-bobbity-alakazam.” With a flourish, he flings open an old-fashioned steamer trunk. In it are prepackaged snacks of all kinds: Ritz crackers with peanut butter, Little Debbie snack cakes, Twinkies, Entenmann’s Pop’ems. He bows to Claire as she applauds, and then he hands me the crackers with peanut butter. “You look like the healthy snack sort, even if there is dog shit on your shoes.”

I look down at my shoes. My best office shoes are smeared with brown and green. “Crap,” I say, and Claire giggles. Peter tosses me a bottle of water. I open it and drink. It feels like pure joy pouring down my throat. I close my eyes and drain half the bottle, then I tear open the package and pop a cracker in my mouth. The salt melts into my tongue.

I sink down into a chair near Claire and look around the room. Lava lamps light the corners, and chess pieces fill the shelves. A pile of records lies in one corner, along with a stack of comic books with dog-eared corners. A train set curls underneath a worn sofa. There are also jars and jars of pennies, buttons, paper clips, rubber bands... On the walls, I see photographs of hundreds of different people: portraits in sepia, families on vacation laughing together, wedding pictures, school photos.

Peter plops cross-legged onto the floor next to the tree and rips open a Hershey’s bar. “And now, Oysters dear, ‘the time has come to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax...’ Tell me, how have the beloved citizens of Lost earned your censure as ‘hostile lunatics’?”

Claire offers tea to her teddy and says matter-of-factly, “They planned to kill her.”

I shudder. “I don’t know that they would have—”

“It would have been messy.” Claire wrinkles her nose at the dolls. “We don’t want to see the pretty lady all messy, do we? No, we don’t.” She points to an empty chair and says to Peter, “You gave away Mr. Giraffe!”

“It was a necessary sacrifice,” Peter says gravely. He turns back to me. “But I am still the cat dying of curiosity. How did you enrage the homicidal instincts of the peasantry?”

“I told my name to the Missing Man,” I say.

Claire is scowling at Peter. “I think Mr. Giraffe’s friends are angry at you.”

“I hope not,” Peter says to her. “It would be a shame if Mr. Giraffe’s friends were too angry for the secret surprise in the back closet.”

Claire leaps out of her chair, knocking over her teddy bear with his teacup. Peter dives forward and catches the teacup in one hand as Claire scampers out of the room through a set of multicolored beaded curtains.

“What’s in the back closet?” I ask.

Peter flashes me a grin. “I have no idea.” I listen to Claire’s squeal of delight. Perhaps a new doll, I think. Or a machete.

“You’re good with kids.”

He shrugs. “Tell me what’s so fearsome about your name.”

“I’m Lauren Chase.”

He raises one eyebrow. “It’s a fine name. Not as fine as mine, of course, whatever it was. If I ever remember what it was, I’ll prove it.”

“The Missing Man said ‘no’ and walked out of town without a word to anyone. He hasn’t returned yet, and everyone blames me.” I hold my breath, waiting for him to react.

Peter laughs out loud. The sound fills the room, and my mouth quirks up into a smile, though I don’t know what about any of this is laughable. But his laugh is infectious.

Claire skips back into the room. She’s hugging a new teddy bear with polka-dot fur. “Peter! I love him!” She plants a kiss on his cheek and then carries her new acquisition to her oversize chair. She sets him beside her old teddy bear. “I’ll name him Prince Fluffernutter.”

“Extremely dignified name,” Peter says with no hint of mockery. “Consider Prince Fluffernutter a thank-you gift for bringing me Miss Lauren Chase. I have never met anyone whom the Missing Man has refused before. Aside from me, of course.”

“You?” I ask.

“Indeed. A number of years ago, we had a spat. He nearly destroyed my universe. I nearly destroyed his soul.” He rubs his hands together. “So, given his unkindness toward you and me...I say we think of a way to defy him.”

I like the sound of that. “Do you have a plan?”

“Let’s start with keeping you alive,” Peter says.

Poem

Things I lost:

a slice of leftover pizza, intended for lunch

a cheap set of headphones

an opportunity

my dreams

the future I was supposed to have