The gravel crunches under my feet as I follow him. My skirt swirls around my legs, and I realize I'm back in my prom dress. Changing my clothes should take less than a second—having a wardrobe defined only by the limits of my imagination has been one of the few benefits of death—but no matter how hard I concentrate, the green silk remains. Suddenly, the reason for the apprentice's confusion makes a lot more sense. The Ocean Lady is somewhere between ghost and goddess, and on her ground, there is no difference between the living and the dead.
I shake my head, and follow the apprentice routewitch inside.
***
Every diner, roadhouse, and saloon is a tiny miracle, a peace of comfort and safety carved out of the wild frontier of the road. I died in the age of diners, when chrome and red leather and the sweet song of the jukebox were the trappings of the road's religion. From the outside, that's what this waystation on the Ocean Lady looked like to me. The perfect diner, a place where the malteds would be sweet and gritty on the back of the tongue, the fries would be crisp, and the coffee would be strong enough to wake the dead. As the apprentice reaches the door, some ten feet ahead of me, I catch a glimpse of what he sees; his hand ripples the facade, and for a moment, it's a roadhouse, tall and solid and hewn from barely-worked trees. Then he's inside, and the diner is back again.
The diner remains as I finish my trek across the parking lot, and the burnished metal door handle is cool and solid as I curl my fingers around it. I can hear music from inside, Glenn Miller singing about that old black magic. That song got a lot of radio play in the weeks before I died, hit of the early summer, soundtrack of Gary's hands cupping the curve of my waist and his breath coming hot and sweet against my neck.
I open the door, and step inside.
The diner melts away—as I more than half-expected that it would, carnival illusion meant to call the faithful and the faithless alike—and I am standing in a saloon pulled straight from the American West, miles and centuries away from the time and place that I came walking from. There are easily two dozen routewitches here, talking, laughing, eating. One pair is making out in a corner, randy as teenagers. I've never seen this many routewitches in one place before. Their sheer power of the road distorts the fabric of the room, dragging it into a shape that I don't know.
"Told you she wouldn't stay on the curb, Paul," calls one of the routewitches, a middle-aged Hispanic man with a bristling mustache. "You owe me a cup of coffee."
The apprentice who met me at the gate scowls and kicks the bar, refusing to look at me. Every society has its hazing rituals. I'm not sure I like being part of this one. "Excuse me," I say, looking around the saloon, studying the routewitches. The oldest I see must be in his nineties; the youngest, no more than eight. The road isn't picky about who she calls. "I've walked the Ocean Lady to see the Queen. You think that could happen today, maybe?"
"That depends," says the mustached routewitch. He stands, walking toward me. "What are you here about? This isn't a place for ghosts, little one, even those who've died on the road. You have your own cathedrals."
"The Queen of the Routewitches doesn't visit our cathedrals." And neither do I. Hitchers are spirits of the running road, the diners and the dead ends. The cathedrals of the dead are built in frozen places, moments sealed in ice and locked away forever. Road-spirits can't last in places like that for long, not without curdling and going sour, turning into nothing but sickness and rage. I avoid the cathedrals of the dead whenever I can. Stay in them too long, and I wouldn't be Rose Marshall anymore. "My mama taught me that when you can't get the mountain to come to you, you'd better be prepared to go to the mountain."
"So you hopped onto the Ocean Lady like she was just another road, and thought our Queen would see you, is that it? Seems a bit arrogant for a long-dead thing like you."
"Yeah, well, your attitude seems a bit asshole-ish for a guardian of the American road, but you don't see me judging, do you? Oh, wait. I just did." I cross my arms, glare, try to look like I'm not a reject from a 1940s prom night that ended more than half a century ago. "I'm here to see the Queen. A routewitch named Eloise told me how to get here, if I ever had the need."
His mustache curls upward at the corners, his grin spilling out across his face like it's too big to be contained. "Shit, girl, why didn't you say? How is that old carretera bruja? She running hard?"
"She's a phantom rider driving the length of California, giving rides, giving advice, and picking oranges, last time I saw her. She said it was more fun than the alternatives." I continue glaring. "Was this some sort of trick question to get me to prove that I didn't know her? Because math would be better if you wanted me to give you a wrong answer. I suck at math."