“How do I go home?”
“Better. But still not quite it.”
“How do I find what I lost?”
“Close.”
I want to yell at Peter, shake him until he tells me how to go home. But I don’t want to alienate the only person with answers who’s willing to talk to me. “So tell me. What should I be asking?”
He scoops a button off the ground and tosses it into the air. It’s a black disc that winks in the moonlight. “You could ask why the caged bird sings. Or what is in a name? ‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’” He catches the button.
Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Stay calm. He might not even know how absolutely infuriating he is. Gorgeous, yes, but infuriating. “Where did you find Mr. Rabbit?”
“You know that’s a highly unoriginal name.”
“Can you just try to answer a question? Any question?”
“Granted, it’s more dignified than Mr. Bunny.”
I peer into the darkness for any hint of movement. She’s just a kid. I shouldn’t have let her wander off. I picture everything that could have happened to her: tripped over junk in the dark and broke her ankle; found by hungry feral dogs and ripped to bits; lost in the dark...or more lost. Lost in Lost.She knows this place better than I do,I think. My bumbling around after her won’t help. “Claire?” I call softly, knowing it won’t work.
She bounds out of the darkness like a happy puppy. Her arms are full of shoebox-size boxes. School lunch boxes. “Peter!” Her voice is full of joy. Running to him, she dumps the boxes into his arms, and then she skips over to me. He dramatically mimes being wounded by this quick rejection. She doesn’t see. “Entire school bus with backpacks and lunch boxes!”
“Great,” I say, and in the light of the moon, I see her smile. She has the ideal kid smile, one missing front tooth and one fat grown-up tooth, recently grown. Her cheeks puff up round like she’s a chipmunk with nuts. “Where are the kids?”
“What kids?”
“From the bus. The bus must have had kids that owned those lunch boxes.”
She shrugs. “Not in the bus.” She pauses. “But I bet they’re hungry.” She skips after Peter. I follow them inside and shut the door. Instantly, it’s darker. I widen my eyes as if that will help me see better, and I find the dead bolt by feel and slide it locked.
I wish there were more locks.
I wait in the hallway for my eyes to adjust. After a minute, I can see the shadows of furniture, a hint of the staircase, the dark holes that are the doorways. Feeling along the wall, I follow the sounds of Peter’s and Claire’s voices to the dining room, and I wonder if I should do something about a busload of kids who might or might not be here somewhere. I picture them scared and shivering in the cool desert night. I picture them shuffling off the bus as zombies. And I decide that since I can’t do anything about them and since I have zero evidence that this place has zombies, I refuse to worry about it.
The dining room is bathed in blue shadows. Over the table, the chandelier is a tangle of glass that catches the stray bits of pale blue moonlight. Peter dumps the lunch boxes on the dining room table—there are at least half a dozen. He and Claire rifle through them.
“Where did all this come from?” I ask.
“Told you,” Claire says, chewing. “School bus.”
“I mean, all the lost things. This place.”You. Me.
“From the void,” Peter answers, as if this were obvious.
“But whatisthe void? Do you mean the dust storm on the highway? It’s not just a storm, is it? Where did it come from? Is it always there? Why have I never heard of it, of Lost, of Finders and Missing Men? None of this should exist.” And I shouldn’t be here.
“Eat,” Peter says, not unkindly.
“But...”
“I don’t know,” Claire says. “But the void is real. I think.”
“It’s a servant of despair,” Peter says, “and it will destroy you if it can.”
“And you?” I ask. “What are you?”
“A servant of hope.” He bows but there’s no mocking in his voice or his eyes. In fact, he looks sad, an ancient kind of sad, as if he carries the weight of a century’s sorrow.
