“And bring him this.” Bushra hands me a donut. “He’ll die if we don’t feed him.”
It’s been ages since I’ve visited the second floor of this building. Back when it was all used as one big house, my cousin Nitya and her parents lived here, and I used to be so jealous that she had a bathroom connected to her bedroom. It was a preteen’s dream—spacious, well-decorated, with a mini fridge and a blow-up plastic couch. She and Luna liked to pretend it was their apartment, and that Romina and I “lived” across the hall in an alcove where Nitya’s mom, Aunt Sylvie (technically, I think Sylvie is my cousin, but we’ve always called her Aunt Sylvie) kept the litter box.
There’s now a wall blocking off what had been a wide cased opening, and a new green door with a mail slot and letter stamps. They’ve been applied crookedly, a smidge too far to the right, so that his whole name can’t fit on one line.
M. ANGELOPO
ULOS
I knock four times.
There are some mutterings in the apartment, and footsteps. I sense a body on the other side of the door, checking the peephole. There’s a gentle thump as he…well, itsoundslike Morgan’s turned and flattened his back against the door. A moment later, three deadbolts unlock and it swings inward a crack, a narrow strip of Morgan staring back. “Hi,” he greets me, somewhat breathless.
I try to peer past him. “Haven’t seen you lately. What’s up?”
“It’s, uh…” His gaze darts off to the side. “Not a good time right now.”
“You want to go adventuring? I’m itching to explore.”Crash!“Whoa, that was loud. What’s going on in there?”
Morgan swears. Tries to close the door, but I stick my foot in. “I’m sick,” he insists, coughing into his arm.
“You don’t look sick.”
He perks up at this. Lets go of the doorknob so that he can smooth back his hair, preening. “Does that mean I look good?”
“Undone by your own vanity.” I successfully elbow my way in.
Nitya’s hot-pink wallpaper and inflatable plastic couch are gone. Her posters of Ashanti posing in bikinis have been replaced with framed, and often signed, posters of Tears for Fears, Mike + the Mechanics, Devo, The Cars, and Modern English. Morgan’s surrounded himself with a shock of colors: neon palm trees on the walls,Back to the Futurememorabilia, lava lamps. A wall of bookshelves so stuffed with books that he’s got vertical stacks on top of horizontal ones. A poster that looks like an illustrated 1980s pulp horror novel cover, with thefigure of a woman running in front of a full moon drawn low over a hill, surrounded by zombies climbing out of the earth. Through an open door are clothes strewn all over a bedroom floor.
I rotate slowly, taking it in. “It looks…”
“Yeah?” he prompts nervously when I don’t finish my sentence, nibbling on the donut.
“This is the most landlines I’ve ever seen.”
He’s got a collection of novelty phones: one that looks like the Batmobile, one shaped like Garfield, the cartoon cat. A banana, a gas pump, Pac-Man, big red lips. They’re all exhibited on a shelf that runs the perimeter of the room, close to the ceiling.
“That one’s my favorite.” He shows me a phone that doubles as a working Dubble Bubble gumball machine. I am simultaneously speechless and yet not surprised at all.
His desk is pushed against the window, facing The Magick Happens. Across the street, the ghosts of two curtains flutter in my own attic window, framing my desk, and I can see the little lights in my terrariums. I think about what Morgan might see when he sits here, and what he thinks about that view.
I take great delight in inspecting his shelves, lingering over each title.Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience. The Everything Ghost Hunting Book. Ghost-Hunting for Dummies.
I smile.
Morgan steps closer. “We don’t all have witchy grandmothers and sisters to teach us stuff,” he explains self-consciously. “Some of us have to read how-to guides.”
“I adore how-to guides. Can I borrow some?”
“Please take whatever you like.”
When he looks at me with those bright eyes, I think of the way I felt when I first read the poem “Annabel Lee,” and I wanted to know what it was to be loved in such a close-up, flaws-and-all, forever-and-ever way. For me, the notion of aching for somebody’s heart and the rhythm ofcan ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee, morbid as those lines may be, are inextricably spun together.
It is unwise to link that emotion with Morgan, who cannot possibly be my True Love. There is too much risk with him; I can never guess which moves he’ll make, and that wild instability leaves me seasick on solid ground. Does he want anything from me besides my help? He has said he wantedme, and he has also said he didn’t mean it. Yes and no. The no came second, which cancels out the yes.
“Meow.”
I turn. “You have a cat?”
