“The house was clean,” said James.
Her throat ached. “Yes. But it wasn’t all bad. They had their good points. Which makes this worse somehow—I know they’re people. My mom is so kind, ridiculously so at times. She always stopped to talk with homeless people, when most everyone likes to forget they’re people. Dad would try, sometimes.” She swallowed. “But when I was thirteen, things changed.”
“How?”
They had finished their sandwiches by now; Dee stood, tossed her napkins in a trash can made from a vintage barrel.
She bent down and pulled off her boot, carefully placing her sock on top of it. She held up one foot by the ankle, turning so that her back was to James. She heard the moment he saw the scar—the smallest inhale.
“He’d thrown a plate,” she said tonelessly. “She was crying in the yard. I tried to clean it up, but I ended up stepping on a piece instead. I tried to hide the blood—I didn’t want anyone to worry, so I dug the glass out myself in the bathroom. I was stupid, though. I left bloody towels in the hamper, so it was obvious.”
“Was that a wake-up call for them?” asked James.
Dee smiled, felt it crack her face wide-open. She kept her back to him, so he couldn’t see her. “The bloody towels were obvious. But they never noticed a thing.”
James touched her shoulder. “A wake-up call for you, then.”
Dee turned around, eyes on the sidewalk. She let go of her ankle, and her toes brushed bare ground. She hadn’t let Gremma paint her toenails in a couple of weeks, so the purple polish had chipped. “It was then that the bad stuff started outweighing the good. I started researching boarding schools a month later.”
James looked at her, but it wasn’t a look of pity or disgust. It was one of awe. “You saved yourself. And when the money for the boarding school ran out, you did it again. You went out and found a demon.”
“More like he found me,” admitted Dee.
“Still,” said James. “It was brave.”
She snorted. “Running away?”
He answered her with all seriousness. “Surviving.” He bent down, took her sock, and glanced down at her bare toes. “May I?”
She balanced with one hand on his shoulder. He was still wearing that plaid flannel, the material gone soft with wear. He tugged her sock back on, straightening it so the seam lined up perfectly with her toes. The boot was next. He carefully pulled it into place.
The gesture was such a small thing, but it touched her.
When he stood, he was smiling. “All right. So today is Friday. You’re skipping school. Anything you want to do while you’re being a delinquent?”
She considered; something had been nagging at her, something she hadn’t allowed herself to truly think about until now.
“Can we go to a library?” she asked.
He laughed.
There was a public library. It was well cared for and clean. Everything smelled of old paper and clean carpets and people—students and adults alike, deodorant and sweat and perfume. It was a very lived-in scent, and it was comforting. Dee asked a librarian for the computers and found herself directed around a tall series of shelves.
James trailed behind her, curious but agreeable—his default state, as she thought of it. She went to one of the computers and opened up a web browser. “That female d-thing,” she said, stumbling over the worddemon. There were too many normal people about—students and seniors, browsing the shelves. “She said something. A word I didn’t recognize. I wanted to look it up.”
“You do realize we have phones for that, right?” said James, smiling.
Dee threw him an annoyed look. “Maybe I feel like not staring at a screen the size of my palm.”
That got her a laugh. “What did the demon say?”
“Burrower,” she replied. “She asked how we would do up against a burrower.”
James’s brow creased. “So the demons’ mortal enemies are… gophers?”
Dee held back a snort. Her fingers typed the word and at once—sure enough, the first hit was a page on vermin control. “What a terror,” said James drily as a picture of a mole came up. “Look at those whiskers. Truly a thing to be feared.”
“There’s got to be more than one meaning,” said Dee as she scrolled down the search page. Pest control, wildlife, a brand of shovel, and then—
