She motions me to a seat at a battered card table with a slightly-stained lace tablecloth spread across it. "I'll be right with you," she says.
I sit.
When she returns, she has a red glass wine bottle in one hand, and a deck of cards in the other. "Now, what is it that I can do for you tonight?"
"Bobby Cross," I answer.
"I thought as much. I asked myself, 'what could bring the Phantom Prom Date to walk the Ocean Lady, even knowing how dangerous it is for someone like her,' and the only answer I could come up with was 'revenge.'" She places the bottle between us as she sits, waking me with faint amusement. "People are pretty simple, really."
"It's not about revenge," I protest, but I'm lying. It's been about revenge for decades. It's been about revenge since the day I understood just what was really going on. "It's about stopping him. He needs to be stopped."
"I didn't say he didn't. I only said that this was about revenge—and it is. Lie to me, if you like, but take care not to lie to yourself. That won't make things better when the cards are down, and you've done what you feel needed doing." The Queen begins to shuffle the cards, sliding them through her hands with quick, practiced ease. "Sin applies even after death, Rose Marshall, and if he's what's held you here all this time, disposing of him could very easily send you to your eternal rest. Were you in a state of grace when you died? Do you think you're in a state of grace now?"
"I don't know." There's something about the cards that pulls my eyes to them, making it difficult to look away. "I don't think it matters, really. He has to stop. It's gone on too long now."
"Bobby Cross. Some men don't need introductions, do they?" She stops shuffling, sets the cards between us, and looks at me. "Ask your question, Rose Marshall, and we'll see what we can see."
I swallow, hard, and ask, "How do I stop Bobby Cross?"
"Ah." The first card is flipped, sleek black muscle car with red headlights racing along a midnight road. I can't tell the make or model, and I don't need to; I know what this represents. "The Chariot," she says, voice sweet as cherry wine. "Robert Cross loved to drive. He loved the speed, and the thrill of the chase, even when all he chased was the wind. He chased that wind all the way to Hollywood, all the way to the silver screen. They called him Diamond Bobby. Some people say James Dean died the way he did because he was chasing the ghost of Bobby Cross, trying to catch up with a legend." Her eyes dart up toward me, gaze piercing and cold. "You know the truth in that, don't you?"
I don't speak. I don't need to. The Queen quirks the smallest of smiles and flips a second card, little girl with hair the color of late-summer wheat standing in front of an old-fashioned movie theater. "The roles came fast and the lines came easy, and still he kept racing to catch up with the next big thing, the next thing that could prove to be worth chasing. They said he'd be one of the greats. But he was getting older, and he was afraid."
"Everybody gets older," I say. Everybody who lives to have the chance. I've watched my family grow old and die, leaving me alone in the world, and I'm still sixteen, and I'm still here, and all because of Bobby Cross.
"Age may come for us all, but there are...ways...to beg indulgence." She turns a third card, and there's the truck stop on the Ocean Lady, neon bright and seeming to glow even when it's only ink on paper. Her fingers caress the image, ever so lightly, like they might caress a lover. "He came to the King of the Routewitches in the summer of 1941, a living, breathing man whose need and desire burned bright enough to set him on the path of the Atlantic Highway. He was no routewitch, no ambulomancer or trainspotter. He was just a man. That's why, when he walked this far and begged for audience, his request was granted."
My stomach lurches with the sudden need to lose what little I'd managed to eat in the bar. "Bobby Cross made his bargain with the routewitches?"
"No." Her answer is sharp, silk circling steel, and she raises her head to glare at me. "Not only ghosts are allowed to come to us for answers, and the road answers the questions it decides deserve response. Bobby Cross asked the King how he could live forever, and the King sent him to the crossroads, where bargains can be made, if you're willing to pay them. He made his own choice, and he made his own deal, and when next the time for the passing of the crown came due, our King removed himself from the throne, and I was chosen. Place no blame without the knowledge to support it."
"But Bobby—"
"Routewitches are born in the daylight and live in the twilight. We die in the midnight, and the ghostroads are the closest thing we have to a true home. Without them, the Ocean Lady will not open her arms or her heart to us, and we wither and die. Who has once worn the crown and sets it aside is no longer welcome on the ghostroads." The Queen's gaze remains coldly challenging. "When our King realized what he'd allowed by answering Bobby's question, he exiled himself by passing the crown along. He died in the daylight. He has been more than punished for his sins."