“I’m always serious.”
“I don’t believe that.” But I close my eyes. “If this is your plan to murder me and hide the body, just know Bob will avenge me.”
“I’m… not going to murder you,” he manages. “But if I were, I wouldn’t need you to close your eyes to do it.”
I peek one eye open. He’s looking at the floor, but I catch a small curve in his mouth.
So hedoesstill have a sense of humor. A dry, slightly murdery sense of humor, but still.
“Did you just make another joke?” I ask.
“I’m very funny,” he says. “I joke all the time.”
He does. He just delivers his jokes with the enthusiasm of someone reading assembly instructions.
“Imagine a place where you feel safe.” Nico’s voice settles back into that instructional tone. “Somewhere you can control.”
I try to think of somewhere. Anywhere. My childhood home? I don’t feel safe there anymore. My car? I wouldn’t say I feel exactlysafethere, especially given the week I just had.
“What if I don’t have anywhere?” I ask.
“Everyone has somewhere,” he says.
I wonder which place he chose. What I wouldn’t give for a peek inside his head. I open one eye to find him staring at me, and quickly slam it shut again.
“Where are you from?” I ask, keeping my eyes closed.
The pause is long enough that I almost stop hoping for an answer, but one comes. “Maine.”
“Is that where you go? In your head?”
“Build your walls, Eden.”
Shaking the tension out of my shoulders, I turn my attention inward. I try to imagine a place, any place, but my mind keeps circling back to the back seat of my car. Bob and me, windows up, doors locked, engine running in case we need to escape.
I guess it’ll do for now. “Got it.”
“Good. Picture it in your mind.”
I concentrate as hard as I can, focusing on the smell of my car, which usually smells like mildew, wet dog, and old French fries mixing together, and the feel of the rough fabric covering the seats, but it doesn’t feel right. The car isn’t safe. People can get in. It’s nothing more than a rolling metal coffin that’s only better than sleeping beneath an underpass. Not exactly the impenetrable fortress Nico’s asking me to build here, but what other place do I have?
The answer hits me all at once.
The stage at my middle school. I can picture it exactly as it was on opening night ofThe Addams Family. I can almost feel the warm light on my face—hearthe chords of the piano booming from across the room. Dad told me, if I got nervous, to find his eyes in the audience and sing just to him. I was so scaredI was going to mess up the high notes in front of everyone that my voice started shaking, but I found him sitting in the first row, smiling up at me with all the love in the world, and I knew right then I could do it.
I picture his eyes when I hit that note, filled with pride and crinkled at the corners. Clouded and glassy behind the plastic.
Stop.
I close my eyes tighter and focus only on what I need. The solid stage under my feet. The glow of the spotlight. The way my voice sounded when it filled the auditorium, strong and clear and mine.
“Okay,” I say, and this time I mean it.
“Now build walls around it,” Nico says. “Real or metaphorical. Whatever makes sense to you.”
I picture the wings of the stage sealing, and the curtains turning solid. The piano begins playing itself. The doors disappear. The audience empties except for Mom, Dad, and Rosie.
“Your walls should feel natural,” Nico says, his voice soothing. “You’ll sit inside these walls when you talk to any entity, and you’ll be able to hear their voice, but they can’t get in. You need to practice enough to keep your walls up when you stop thinking about them.”
