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“Super,” I say. Though I’m keeping my cards close, I’m rejoicing in the changing tide of his acceptance of the way things are. Even if it’s subtle and for my benefit. Even if it’s the opiates talking.

“We’ll take the car tonight. I don’t feel ready to ride. We’ll leave at five for the Governor’s, hairdo or no hairdo.”

“I’m not my mother,” I say, though the ghost of a memory settles over me: Pi and my dad noisily folding their newspapers and exasperatedly checking their watches until my mother came down the stairs, mesmerizing them both.

“Look, Syd. Don’t think I’m buying a ticket on your conspiracy train, but be careful what you say tonight.” He sounds like he’s trying to chase the doubt from his own mind. “I don’t know what the Bishop and Priam are up to with this dinner, so it’s probably best to give them both a wide berth.”

“Maybe they can sit together. Hot air plus bullshit can cause spontaneous combustion.”

Pious touches his forehead. “Spirit, intercede for us,” he says. But there’s a smile beneath the reprimand.

Around noon, someone else knocks. I half expect it to be Troy again, maybe even Cas coming to smooth things over. It’s a Willis outside the peephole, for certain, though this time it’s Len. There are bluish circles under his eyes, and he’s got dried blood all over his shirt.

I throw the door open. “What happened to you?”

Len shoves past me into the kitchen, lighting a cigarette. “She’s okay. I got her home and resting. It’s this damned dinner. I looked through her closet and there’s nothing with sleeves. My mom. She buys her these dresses and they’re all . . . like something
you
would wear.”

I let the insult slide, because I need to get him to calm down enough to tell me what has him so worked up. “You want a glass of wine, maybe? Hair of the dog. Calm your nerves?”

“No!” He shakes his head and tries again less forcefully. “I mean, no thanks. Do you have a dress that will work? I can’t ask anyone at the house because our mother will ask questions.” He ashes into the sink, then runs the water. Repeats.

My attempts to calm him down are failing. “Len, look at me. Right this second. I will give you a dress, but you’re going to have to tell me what the hell is going on.”

He puts his free hand on his forehead. “I was there this morning, and she was fine.”

“Where?” I pour a glass of wine anyway and set it in front of him. If he’ll breathe, maybe I can drag a complete thought from his head.

He gestures to the east, toward town. “The Acolyte apartments. The Governor must’ve taken her there after her vision so she’d be ready for another this morning. He probably thought I’d been sleeping there, too, since I haven’t been home in a few nights.” He pauses, rakes his hair. “But I wasn’t there. I was at Al’s. He’s my . . . I don’t know, Syd. My friend. And more. I just wanted to be somewhere else. Someone else for a minute, you know?”

“Okay.” Len never really talks much about his relationship with Al Truax. He never talks about himself at all, come to think of it. Too busy hiding from himself.

“And when I got there, I ran, Syd. Like a coward. I mean, she covered for me, she wanted me to go, but I should’ve stayed. If I’d been there . . .”

I put my hands on his shoulders so he’ll focus on my face. “Slow down. She had to do the vision thing last night, right? Then your dad took her to the Acolyte quarters, and you weren’t there?”

“The Bishop and the Governor were there this morning, looking for me, but she broke something to distract them. When I stopped by later, she was out cold in the middle of a bunch of broken glass. She won’t tell me which one of them did it or what happened.”

“Maybe she’ll tell me?”

“She needs to rest right now. And Syd,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “there’s something else.”

“Anything,” I say. “Name it.”

“Look, she told me to tell you to go.”

“Go where?”

“To get out of New Charity.”

This is far worse than being called a whore. It feels like Len is using my heart as an ashtray instead of the sink. “I know she’s mad at me, but . . .”

“It’s not that. She’s in danger. She thinks you’re in danger. She wants you to get your things together and leave, quick as you can.” He takes a big swig of the wine. “I couldn’t get her to make any more sense.”

I’m angry and anxious and desperate all at the same time. How could she really want me gone and not tell me herself? Cas Willis—the angel, the optimist—has written me off? It doesn’t seem possible. “Look, Len, you have to believe me. I’m going to make things right.”

“You say that, but you keep making things worse.”

I recoil, and he shakes his head.

“You know what I mean. You’re always fighting. And whatever she saw in her vision last night really messed her up. I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t think she was serious.”

“The visions of the future aren’t set in stone, right? At the power plant, she thought I’d get hurt, but we were fine. What about being better than all of this, better than your father, better than the Bishop? What about making New Charity the place that rebuilds the world, instead of the place that holds its rebirth hostage?”

“That’s more of your pie-in-the-sky bullshit, Syd. I didn’t think your being here could hurt anything, but now . . . I don’t know. Maybe the best we can hope for is some semblance of the way it used to be before you and Nelle got your mitts on things.”

The comparison with Nelle hurts. Maybe I was a scheming monster at one time, but not anymore. “This Blessing thing is ludicrous and you know it. You of all people. What’s the matter with you?”

“What’s the matter with
me
? Fuck you, Syd.” Len picks up the bunch of wildflowers Troy left earlier and brandishes them at me, pollen and petals flying. “Everything. Everything is the matter. We could start with my despot of a father or my deeply unhinged mother. Or Perry, who got sent away and involuntarily returned bereft of all emotions except an obsession with a Survivor who just happens to be an engineer. Troy is still straddling his childhood devotion to my father and you. My sister has a concussion and she’s sliced up from hell to breakfast and she won’t tell me why. And to top that all off, no matter how much I drink or smoke or screw I can’t keep my own head from conjuring up some of the strangest horror I’ve ever seen. So if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d give me the damn dress and pack your shit.”

Len is in tears. I hand him the blue handkerchief from the pocket of my jeans and head upstairs to retrieve my mother’s long-sleeved velvet dress, the one Cas and I had twirled around the room my first morning here. I hand it to him, wordlessly. I want to tell him it’s special, and by giving it to Cas, I’m telling her that she is special. I feel a profound sense of loss and I can’t quite figure out why. I’ve never been attached to “things” before.

He nods, takes the dress, and walks into the glaring sunshine. He clears his throat, but doesn’t turn around. “Happy trails, Syd Turner.”

Pious drives us over to the Willis mansion in the car that is still barn-primer gray. I flatly refuse to give him any more painkillers until we’ve arrived, and he promises me on the spot not to have any wine. He prattles on about another goodwill dinner he attended years ago, shortly after Perry returned with the headmaster of his school. The headmaster was fascinated by New Charity and wanted to start a big research project into the town’s immunity. But the Bishop put the kibosh on it and no one really knows where the headmaster went once he left New Charity. Pi says he thinks the man was well on his way to losing his mind, but “One never knows, does one? Some people are just naturally strange.”

“No comment,” I say, staring at the jewelry box in my hand.

“Well, do they?” Pi asks in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Do they what?”

“Make you happy?”

I thread the earrings through my earlobes. “Yes.”

While our ranch house is beautiful, a handcrafted relic built by my late grandfather, the Willis mansion is something else entirely. Five wings branch from the central ballroom overlooking the modest skyline of New Charity, with elaborate gardens in between each wing. It’s an easy place to get lost—on purpose or accidentally.

The Willis men are standing in the door of the foyer, escorting ladies inside. Troy heads toward us before we’re even parked. His face falls when I nod him toward the driver’s side, where Pi needs a gentle hand getting out of the car. Len looks downright stormy, taking my arm to escort me down the stairs into the ballroom. I look back toward Troy, and push my hair back over my ears to reveal his present. He breaks into a wide grin.

Under the lights of ten bleached antler chandeliers, the faux royalty of New Charity is sitting down to dinner. I breathe a sigh of relief as Len guides me past the Bishop’s table, where my uncle feigns good-natured surprise at being seated.

“Still not finished disrupting lives, I see?” Len’s been drinking, but doesn’t smell heavily of it. Gin, if I had to guess.

“I’m attending a dinner I’ve been invited to, Len. Get a grip.”

“You follow directions so well, Syd. No wonder you were a big dancing star.”

I yank my arm away from his. “How was it going to look if I just took off and didn’t show?”

“I don’t care how it looks,” he half growls, giving me a small shove.

“What’s wrong with you?” Troy turns Len around by the shoulders. Len just waves at him dismissively and disappears behind a tapestry on the wall.

“That’s Cas’s spot next to you,” Troy says, pointing to a silver scarf on the chair next to mine. “Do you need anything else?”

“No, I’m fine, thank you.” At the other end of the room, ladies are queuing up in the doorway, awaiting their escorts. Heaven forfend they walk themselves to a table.

Troy pauses. “I’m sorry about Len. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m sorry if yesterday . . . I didn’t mean to cause you trouble.” I don’t know how to say the rest of what I should.
I didn’t mean to kiss you. I didn’t mean to toy with your emotions. I didn’t mean to keep changing my mind about you.

He finishes for me. “You’re worth it, Syd.”

I disagree, but I’m not sure how to argue without sounding ungrateful. “I really like the earrings. Thank you.”

He blushes and backs away a few steps before Perry collects him with a slap on the back on the way up the stairs.

The tapestry Len disappeared behind is moving. I can hear Len and Cas bickering. I have no doubt I am the cause of their current disagreement. I could continue to pretend I don’t hear, but at this point, I prefer a reduction in subterfuge.

“What are you doing in there?” I ask, prodding the curtain at shoulder level until something yelps. “You’re doing a shitty job of hiding, because I can still hear you.”

Cas looks out from behind the curtain to show me her face. Her hair is in a lopsided updo and her eyes are so heavily rimmed she looks more raccoon than young woman. “Help.”

I slip behind the tapestry, which conceals a long hallway—one I haven’t been down before, at least recently. “Where am I?”

Len pulls out his flask and leans against the adjacent wall, talking to himself. “I give up. What do I know? Screw you, Len!” He turns to a potted tree, boxing the leaves.

“Let him work this out,” Cas says. She hustles me down the hall, which somehow connects to the hallway to her room. I make her carefully blot everything off her face, avoiding the cuts on her cheeks. Underneath her base makeup, she sports the traces of a shiner. While she works, I pin her hair up in soft blonde loops.

“Thanks for the dress,” she says. “I know it was your . . . it was special.”

I hold my hand out for more bobby pins. “It is special. You look way better in it than I ever would. You should keep it.”

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

“I’m sorry I told you that you should change, Syd. I hope you know I don’t want that.”

I put the pins down and grab her hand. “Do you want to talk about it? Who did this?”

“Not right now.”

“Okay, prizefighter. But I can’t put makeup on your eyes if you won’t quit with the waterworks.”

“I’m never going to be good at this,” she says, dropping her eyes from the mirror and picking at a piece of lint on her thigh.