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She nodded. She felt firmer now that she’d decided.
He turned to a clean page and drew an octagon. “This is that little structure in the park.”
“The gazebo,” she muttered, and he nodded.
He drew an oblong on one side. “This is a pit on the opposite side from your bench. I dug it last night.”
“But surely someone would notice it today?”
“I disguised it.”
“Simon, what if someone fell in?”
“No one walks around that way. Hardly anyone would be playing there in this weather.”
He seemed oblivious to the danger to innocents. It frightened her, because it made him less human. “Why a pit?”
“There are stakes at the bottom. I want you to lure him over them. They’re very sharp. I think they’ll do the job.”
Her stomach roiled. “I always wondered why they worked. In the movies, I mean. When you’re supposed to be invulnerable.”
“We have to be pierced right through,” he said, looking uncomfortable himself. “Not just injured, impaled. It holds the unnatural body long enough for the soul to escape. The soul that’s been trapped and kept in torment. Then there can be true death.”
She wondered at the selfishness of a body that could imprison its own soul. What would it do to someone who threatened it? “What if he catches me?”
“I’ll be there, Zoë. I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll be watching. He won’t suspect you, so you can lead him. If it were me, he wouldn’t follow so blindly. If he catches on, I’ll be out there like a flash to distract him. Get him to cross that patch of ground.”
“But how will I get him to follow me?”
“We’ll pass by his house. I know the time he leaves. He has to wait for the family to sleep. He’ll follow you—beautiful and alone—I know it.”
“When do we go?”
“Not for a few hours yet.”
“That’s a long time.”
“I have some things to tell you, about the earth he needs, about his bear. Things that might help you. Anyway”—his voice became soft and eager—“I thought you might let me kiss you again.”
She glanced away nervously, her hand flying to her throat.
“No,” he whispered. “Just a kiss. A real kiss.”
* * *
While Zoë retrieved her coat from the banister, Simon stood at the front door, kicking at the frame. “Stop that,” she said. “I’m nervous, too, you know.”
He looked up as if forcing himself to do so. “There’s a chance he might know about you,” he said in a rush. He walked out.
She ran out after him, her nerve endings screaming. “What do you mean?”
He stood outside, head bent, hands shoved into his pockets. “I’ll understand if you don’t go.”
She felt herself turning white. “You weren’t going to tell me, were you?”
“No.”
“What changed your mind?”
