Baldino began hammering her with questions now: "Can you confirm that you took this photo last night? Can you confirm that you took it outside the former residence of Bertram and Elizabeth Wallace?"
Zoe felt dizzy. Only Vilkomerson noticed. He put a gentle hand on her arm, and said something she couldn't quite process. Everything was sliding. Everything was flying sideways.
And Baldino wouldn't shut up.
"We know that this man here is Stan Manggold," he said. "The truck was stolen but we ran his prints, and it turns out he's wanted by the State of Virginia for a whole bunch of nasty stuff. What we don't know is who the other man in the picture is-the one with the tattoos. We ran the image through our database, and came up empty. So why don't you stop wasting our time and tell us who he is?"
"I don't know," said Zoe.
"Do you know if he was involved in the murder of Bertram and Betty Wallace?"
"He wasn't involved. No way."
"How can you know that if you don't even know who he is?"
"I just know."
"How about you tell us everything else you just know about him?"
"I told you-I don't even know his name."
Baldino grunted. He was sure she was lying.
"You want to sit here all night, Miss Bissell?" he said. "I don't-but I will."
"I'm telling you the truth," Zoe said. "He came out of the woods, and then he went back into the woods. I didn't say two words to him. I don't know who he is."
"Then why have you been lying to protect him?"
Zoe was close to tears now. She looked to her mother.
Her mother stood up.
"This is totally unacceptable," she told Baldino. "You're harassing a girl who's talking to you of her own free will. You think because I do yoga, I can't find a lawyer who will kick your ass?"
In the silence that followed, there was a racket on the stairs. It sounded like a prisoner with a ball and chain. Everybody turned.
It was Jonah, looking horribly betrayed. His fingertips were covered with Band-Aids. His right ankle was dragging a skateboard on a piece of purple yarn.
Baldino shook his head and said, quietly for once and to no one in particular, "These people are not normal."
Jonah told the police everything-because, as Zoe feared, he'd seen everything. He had woken up on Bert and Betty's couch. He had shouted for Zoe. When she didn't answer, he'd wiped the window with a cold little hand and peered outside.
Now Jonah was sitting on Zoe's lap at the table, and pointing at the Instagram.
"That's Stan," he said. "He said his last name was The Man, but he maybe made that up so you should check."
Jonah stopped for a second.
"I threw a rock at him," he said, then looked at his mother uncertainly: "I'm sorry."
"It's okay just this once," she said. "Your dad introduced me to Stan many years ago, sweetie-way before you kids were born-and I wanted to throw a rock at him, too."
"What else can you tell us, son?" Vilkomerson asked.
"Stan was mean," Jonah said, his voice breaking for the first time. "He hurt Bert and Betty, and he tried to hurt my dogs. I don't know why. This other person in the picture, the kind of naked one … I don't know his name, but he's magic-and he saved them. He also made the ice get all orange like that."
When Jonah finished speaking, everyone let his words settle. No one spoke, except for Officer Maerz who said, "Seriously-it's a filter."
Baldino turned back to Zoe.
"Young lady, can you corroborate any of what your brother is saying?"
"I can corroborate all of it," she said.
Did he think she didn't know what the word meant?
"Interesting," said Baldino, the patronizing edge creeping back into his voice. "Even the part about the magic?"
"Especially the part about the magic."
Chief Baldino announced that he was sick of being lied to-of being "trifled with by a damn teenager"-and soon he and his men were driving off into the night. The Bissells watched from the front door until darkness swallowed the squad car a quarter of a mile down the road.
Zoe's mom asked her and Jonah to follow her out to the garage.
"There's some mess we have to clean up," she said.
"Now?" said Zoe.
It was four in the morning.
"Now," said her mother.
"I hate raccoons," said Zoe.
Her mother seemed not to have heard her-she probably hadn't slept in 24 hours-but at length she responded.
"Hmm?" she said. "Yeah, I hate them, too."
The garage stood on the other side of the circular drive. Zoe had lived on this plot of ground her whole life, but it still amazed her that it could be so quiet-deep-space, science-fiction quiet-when it was nighttime and there wasn't a wind. Silence, her mother liked to say, could heal you or it could make you crazy. It all depended on how you listened to it.
Zoe couldn't tell what the silence would do to her tonight.
"Why'd you tell me to shut up when I said the thing about the cops not going to get Dad's body?" she asked her mother.
"First of all," her mother told her, "I would never tell you to shut up, because those are uncool words. But nothing good's going to come from stirring everything up now. The police didn't do their job. End of story."
Zoe let it go, and they trudged along some more.
"I know you think we were lying about what happened with Stan," she said as they crossed the drive.
"We weren't, Mom," Jonah interrupted. He had stopped to stab holes in the snow with a stick. "We weren't lying at all."
"Of course you weren't, sweetie," said Zoe's mom.
"Stan really did hurt Bert and Betty," he said. "And the magic man really did save Spock and Uhura."
"Of course he did, sweetie."
Zoe was annoyed by the way she was just yes-ing him. She fell behind to walk with her brother, who was still hacking at the snow like it was his enemy.
"Can you not?" she told him. "The snow is dead. You killed it. You win."
She loved Jonah, even during his weird outbursts. She felt it strongly now. She wished the night could have bound them even closer to their mother, and for a while it'd seemed as if it would. Now her mom was floating away from them, looking up at the stars like Zoe and Jonah weren't even there.
"We didn't lie, Mom," said Jonah, trying to reel her back in. "We didn't."
"Just drop it, Jonah," Zoe said. "It's not important that Mom believes us-because we believe us."
They were 20 feet from the garage, and only now was it taking shape in the darkness, like the bow of a ship approaching through fog. It was a shingled shed built for two cars and divided down the middle by a thin wall. Jonah was strong enough to open the doors all by himself. He rushed forward delightedly.
"Which one?" he asked his mother.
"The one on the right," she said. "But let me do it, please."
The carport on the left held her mother's silver Subaru Forester. Zoe's car-a heinous old red Taurus that she referred to as the Struggle Buggy-used to be parked on the right. But Zoe had let Jonah convert her side of the garage into a mini – skate park so he could practice year-round. Her brother had installed a quarter pipe and a rail, and covered the walls with posters that said, Shred Till Yer Dead, and, Grind on It!
Zoe's mom let out a sigh that made a cloud of vapor in the air. She asked Jonah to step back. Jonah wasn't happy about it-he stamped his feet in the snow like an impatient horse-but he did.
Zoe stood by her brother, his partner in pouting. From inside the garage, she could hear scratching and scrabbling. She pulled Jonah even farther away, prepared for the raccoons to come tearing out. They were nasty animals. She picked up a snow shovel that was leaning against the garage and gripped it like a baseball bat.
Zoe's mother reached down to open the door, then stopped and turned to them.
"I do believe you guys," she said. "I'm sorry if it seemed like I didn't."
She appeared to have more to say, but she opened the door before continuing. It swung up with a metallic groan.
"Later, I want to hear all about the magic man," her mother said. "But right now-"
Zoe saw a dark figure huddled on the floor of the garage. The figure turned to her, his face damp and beautiful and as pale as chalk.
"Right now," her mother said, "you've got to help me get him inside."
part two
A Binding of Fates
four
X heard a flurry of noises outside the garage: Voices. The rustling of clothes. Boots in the snow.
The door rose with a shivery screech, and the wind rushed in around him. He felt feverish, nauseated, depleted. Every sound was like a detonation in his head.
He looked up and saw three figures approaching in a funnel of light. It was the girl from the lake and her brother. A woman stood in front, shielding them. Their mother, surely. X winced and closed his eyes, as if it would make them disappear. He wasn't afraid that they would do him harm. He was afraid they'd try to save him.