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Lorraine shrugged. “Beats me. I almost felt like humoring him, though.” She stared gloomily through the bookstore window. “Yuck! Hey, that reminds me, Dad sent me a reading list from this school I’m supposed to be going to. Great, huh?” She rolled her eyes. “It’s supposed to help me fit in. I wonder what it’ll be like.”
Zoë tensed. “Listen, why don’t you go on home? The bookstore’s open late tonight. I want to browse for a while.” She was appalled to hear the words come out stiff and remote.
Lorraine glanced sharply at Zoë, but her voice remained neutral. “Bookstores make me break out.”
“I know.” Zoë’s tone was carefully gentler. “So go on. You’ve got to get ready for Naughty Neil.”
Lorraine took the cue. “Well, okay. I’ll call you tomorrow and tell you the juicy details.”
“Spare me.”
“It’s the only way you’ll find out anything at this rate,” Lorraine yelled over her shoulder as she took off for home.
Zoë waved her on with mock impatience. “Get outta here.” Her voice was meant to sound jolly but, I don’t want to hear about your shitty new school, she thought. I don’t want to hear about your stupid date, and I don’t want to go home.
It won’t work. It’s not magic, Zoë told herself as she entered the store. Just ‘cause you’re not there to hear of it, doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Nevertheless, it felt better to put off going home for now. She headed straight for the window display, but the intriguing title turned out to be merely a cookbook. She looked around for half an hour anyhow, until screaming sirens pulling up outside brought her and the other browsers to the front of the store.
She panicked for a moment. Lorraine. But, of course, Lorraine was long gone. How Zoë hated sirens. They howled to the scene of an emergency like ravenous banshees and left behind emptiness.
A bald man came pushing into the store, white-faced, babbling with shock. “They found a body in the alley. Briggs at the pharmacy found it,” he announced to no one in particular.
The smart blond woman who ran the bookstore sat down heavily in her seat behind the sales counter. “What?”
“Briggs was leaving work,” the man continued. “He had his bicycle in the alley. He almost fell over the woman. Her throat is slashed.”
People looked at each other, dumbfounded. “Another one,” someone whispered. Zoë remembered seeing the bald man stocking shelves at the grocery store.
More people gathered outside—late shoppers, people going home, others going out for the night. Drawn like flies to blood, Zoë thought, and shuddered. She had to get home.
She squeezed past the bald man and went out the door. The bell above the door rang with cheery dissonance. A couple moved to let her out. She found herself next to a hastily erected police barrier, just in time to see something under a sheet being loaded into an ambulance.
“Must have happened recently,” she heard a woman say in hushed tones.
She felt hot and ill. “Excuse me. Excuse me.” She had to get home. She navigated the crush of the still-forming crowd on the narrow sidewalk. “Excuse me. Excuse me.” Where did they come from? Flies. She was sweating. She felt trapped. People jostled to keep their vantage point as she tried to get by.
Then she was past them into the night, leaning against the window of the grocery store, eyes closed, gasping deep, ragged breaths.
And a cold, soothing hand was stroking her forehead, cooling, comforting.
“It’s death,” came a whisper.
Her eyes shot open.
6
Simon
He saw the dark-haired girl push herself from the crowd as if drowning, and lean against the shop window, gasping for air. He went to her helplessly, drawn by her fear. He couldn’t help but touch her to taste it.
“It’s death,” he told her, wanting to explain.
Her eyes burst open, pinning him with a stricken look.
“It’s death that frightens you so.”
He felt slightly afraid himself now. This was the second time her eyes had held him. Combined with the enticing smell of fear, it was almost more than he could bear.
“Yes,” she said, blinking, relaxing, breaking the spell.
