“Will your feet be all right in those?” I point with the tip of my umbrella. “We’re going to hit gravel here pretty soon.” I direct my umbrella forward to where the asphalt ends and the unpaved road begins.
“I walked here from the bed and breakfast. I’ll be fine.” His voice has a clipped quality, a schoolmaster disappointed in his student. The message is clear: Worry about yourself, Agent Little.
Fortunately, it’s early, and not many people are out. Still, one of my neighbors jogs past and nearly trips for staring. If anyone is peeking through their curtains, they’re going to want details. Pansy Little and a handsome, well-dressed stranger? Off on a romantic morning stroll? Yes, this is going to be hard to explain. If we don’t hurry, it’ll be all over the Hey Neighbor app before noon.
We leave the concrete sidewalk and the neighborhood behind. Without hesitation, I strike out onto the dirt road that leads to the source of all my troubles here in King’s End. Agent Darnelle balks at the sidewalk’s edge, his eyes darting from his shoes to the dust I’ve already kicked up. Then, without protest or complaint, he follows me.
“They were supposed to pave this road,” I say over my shoulder. “But the construction company never got around to it.” Then again, they were supposed to do lots of things. Just one of the many broken promises of this place.
We arrive at the entrance of the abandoned housing development. The stone façade is half-complete, and the wrought-iron gate doesn’t work. I’ve managed to drag it a few feet, but the metal screeches and then halts. Not that it matters. No one ever comes back this way.
Agent Darnelle pauses, shields his eyes against the morning sun, and squints at the billboard that looms over the gate. The sign casts a long shadow across the dirt road. Step into its shade, and the temperature drops by several degrees. It’s uncanny. Even in the sun, the chill touches my skin, and I rub my arms.
“Camelot Lots,” he says.
The name is spelled out in a typeface that was trendy for a month and now simply looks sad. Beneath that, in fancy, old-timey script, is the phrase: Because King’s End needs more castles!
“Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue,” he adds.
“That’s the least of its problems.”
“So I gathered.”
I start up again, but he remains in place. This is not an unusual reaction, not when confronting Camelot Lots. Most everyone with a bit of sense gives in to the urge, turns around, and heads in the other direction.
Hand still shielding his eyes, he peers through the gate. “I feel as though I’ve seen this place before.”
“You’ve been to King’s End?”
“Never.”
“Then I don’t know how?—”
“Neither do I.” He gives me a look, a quick up and down, and then says, “Shall we?”
His tone is mild, but beneath it lies that challenge. Prove yourself, Apprentice Agent.
I scan the area, almost hoping for an ambush today. That would prove any number of things, maybe even get Agent Darnelle to leave early. Who needs a manufactured obstacle course after thwarting a full-fledged Screamer attack?
Near the entrance, the few completed houses bask in the sunrise. The lawns are spare, but in the morning light, the brown patches aren’t quite as obvious. This is the best time of day here, and I make a point of patrolling as early as possible. Hope is strongest then, and despair a mere aftertaste. If you squint, you could almost pretend to have stumbled upon a sleepy suburb not yet up for the day.
If you don’t look too closely, that is. The few birds that nest here do so in empty windowsills, all the panes devoid of glass. And except for the model homes near the entrance, most houses are skeletons of themselves, with missing doors, missing walls, missing life.
“Do you patrol here often, Agent Little?”
“Nearly every day.”
All that crisscrosses the dusty path in front of us are tiny mice tracks and larger ones, perhaps of a fox chasing after dinner. Yes, Agent Darnelle excels at looking closely, I’m sure. Evidence suggests I haven’t been here in years, never mind the other day.
I tap the dust in front of me with the toe of my shoe. “It just does that.”
“Does what?”
“Sweeps my footprints away when I leave.”
He raises a skeptical eyebrow but otherwise doesn’t comment.
My first task is the chain-link fence that surrounds the development. Overnight, holes appear, as if something has clawed its way out—or in. The fact that I can’t tell has always unnerved me, and my mother never said. But I follow another of her iron-clad rules:
