I stiffen.
Somewhere in the Narrows, someone is humming.
I blink and push off the wall, thinking of the two girls still on my list. But the voice is low and male, and Histories don’t sing. They shout and cry and scream and pound on walls and beg, but they don’t sing.
The sound wafts through the halls; it takes me a moment to figure out which direction it’s coming from. I turn a corner, then another, the notes taking shape until I round a third and see him. A shock of blond hair at the far end of the hall. His back is to me, his hands in his pockets and his neck craned as if he’s looking up at the ceilingless Narrows, in search of stars.
“Owen?”
The song dies off, but he doesn’t turn.
“Owen,” I call again, taking a step toward him.
He glances over his shoulder, startling blue eyes alight in the dark, just as something slams into me, hard. Combat boots and a pink sundress, and short brown hair around huge blackening eyes. The History collides with me, and then she’s off again, sprinting down the hall. I’m up and after her, thankful the pink of her dress is bright and the metal on her shoes is loud, but she runs fast. I finally chance a shortcut and catch her, but she thrashes and fights, apparently convinced I’m some kind of monster, which—as I’m half carrying, half dragging her to the nearest Returns door—maybe I am.
I pull the list from my pocket and watch as Jena Freeth. 14. fades from the page.
The fight has done one thing—scraped the film of fear away, and as I lean, breathing heavy, against the Returns door, I feel like myself again.
I retrace my steps to the spot where I saw Owen, but he’s nowhere to be found.
Shaking my head, I go in search of Melanie Allen. I read the walls and track her down, and send her back, all the while listening for Owen’s song. But it never starts again.
FOURTEEN
LIST CLEARED, I head back to the coffee shop, ready to save Wesley Ayers from the perils of domestic labor. I use the Narrows door in the café closet, and freeze.
Wesley isn’t alone.
I creep to the edge of the closet and chance a look out. He’s engaged in lively conversation with my dad, talking about the perks of a certain Colombian coffee while he mops the floor. The whole place glitters, polished and bright. The rust-red rose, roughly the diameter of a coffee table, gleams in the middle of the marble floor.
Dad is juggling a mug and a paint roller, waving both as he sloshes dark roast and finishes a large color swatch—burnt yellow—on the far wall. His back is to me as he chats, but Wesley catches sight of me and watches as I slide from the closet and along the wall until I’m near the café door.
“Hey, Mac,” he says. “Didn’t hear you come in.”
“There you are,” says Dad, jabbing the air with his roller. He’s standing straighter, and there’s a light in his eyes.
“I told Mr. Bishop I offered to cover while you ran upstairs to get some food.”
“I can’t believe you put Wesley here to work so fast,” says Dad. He sips his coffee, seems surprised to find so little left, and sets it down. “You’ll scare him off.”
“Well,” I say, “he does scare easily.”
Wesley wears a look of mock affront.
“Miss Bishop!” he says, and I have to fight back a smile. His impersonation of Patrick is spot-on. “Actually,” he admits to my father, “it’s true. But no worries, Mr. Bishop, Mac’s going to have to do better than assign chores if she means to scare me off.”
Wesley actually winks. Dad smiles. I can practically see the marquee in his head: Relationship Material! Wesley must see it too, because he capitalizes on it, and sets the mop aside.
“Would you mind if I borrowed Mackenzie for a bit? We’ve been working on her summer reading.”
Dad beams. “Of course,” he says, waving his paint roller. “Go on, now.”
I half expect him to add kids or lovebirds, but thankfully he doesn’t.
Meanwhile, Wes is trying to tug off the plastic gloves. One snags on his ring, and when he finally manages to wrest his hand free, the metal band flies off, bouncing across the marble floor and underneath an old oven. Wes and I go to recover it at the same time, but he’s stopped by Dad’s hand, which comes down on his shoulder.
Wes goes rigid. A shadow crosses his face.
Dad’s saying something to Wes, but I’m not listening as I drop to the floor before the oven. The metal grate at the base digs into the cut on my arm as I reach beneath, stretching until my fingers finally close around the ring, and I get to my feet as Wesley bows his head, jaw clenched.
“You okay there, Wesley?” asks Dad, letting go. Wes nods, a short breath escaping as I drop the ring into his palm. He slides it on.
“Yeah,” he says, voice leveling. “I’m fine. Just a little dizzy.” He forces a laugh. “Must be the fumes from Mac’s blue soap.”
“Aha!” I say. “I told you cleaning was bad for your health.”
“I should have listened.”
“Let’s get you some fresh air, okay?”
“Good idea.”
“See you, Dad.”
The café door closes behind us, and Wesley slumps back against it, looking a little pale. I know the feeling.
“We have aspirin upstairs,” I offer. Wesley laughs and rolls his head to look at me.
“I’m fine. But thank you.” I’m struck by the change in tone. No jokes, no playful arrogance. Just simple, tired relief. “Maybe a little fresh air, though.”
He straightens up and heads through the lobby, and I follow. Once we reach the garden, he sinks down on his bench and rubs his eyes. The sun is bright, and he was right, this is a different place in daylight. Not a lesser place, really, but open, exposed. At dusk there seemed so many places to hide. At midday, there are none.
The color is coming back into Wesley’s face, but his eyes, when he stops rubbing them, are distant and sad. I wonder what he saw, what he felt, but he doesn’t say.
I sink onto the other end of the bench. “You sure you’re okay?”
He blinks, stretches, and by the time he’s done, the strain is gone and Wes is back: the crooked smile and the easy charm.
“I’m fine. Just a bit out of practice, reading people.”
Horror washes over me. “You read the living? But how?”
Wesley shrugs. “The same way you read anything else.”
“But they’re not in order. They’re loud and tangled and—”
He shrugs. “They’re alive. And they may not be organized, but the important stuff is there, on the surface. You can learn a lot, at a touch.”
My stomach turns. “Have you ever read me?”
Wes looks insulted but shakes his head. “Just because I know how doesn’t mean I make a sport of it, Mac. Besides, it’s against Archive policy, and believe it or not, I’d like to stay on their good side.”
You and me both, I think.
“How can you stand to read them?” I ask, suppressing a shudder. “Even with my ring on, it’s awful.”
“Well, you can’t go through life without touching anyone.”
“Watch me,” I say.
Wesley’s hand floats up, a single, pointed finger drifting through the air toward me.
“Not funny.”
But he keeps reaching.
“I. Will. Cut. Your. Fingers. Off.”
He sighs and lets his hand drop to his side. Then he nods at my arm. Red has crept through the bandage and the sleeve where the bottom of the oven dug in.
I look down at it. “Knife.”
“Ah,” he says.
“No, it really was a teenage boy with a really big knife.”
He pouts. “Keeper-Killers. Kids with knives. Your territory was never that much fun when I worked there.”
“I’m just lucky, I guess.”
“You sure I can’t give you a hand?”
I smile, more at the way he offers this time—tiptoeing through the question—than the prospect; but the last thing I need is another complication in my territory.