New Books to Read During Spooky Season –– October Upcoming Novels

It has been nearly thirteen years since Death and Fortune claimed me for their own, and I have come far enough through winter and cold that almost no one calls me Vanja now.

Thump-thump. Two raps of gloved knuckles against the carriage roof. The driver’s muffled voice carries down to me inside. “Almost there, Prinzessin.”

I don’t reply. I don’t have to; I learned long ago that princesses don’t owe their servants answers.

And for most of the last year, that’s the face I’ve worn: the princess.

Or to be precise: Gisele-Berthilde Ludwila von Falbirg of the Sovabin Principality, Prinzessin-Wahl of the Blessed Empire of Almandy. Soon to be Markgräfin Gisele you-get-the-idea von Reigenbach of the empire’s largest territory, the border march of Bóern, once its margrave gets around to a wedding.

Though not if I can help it.

(We’ll come back to that.)

I squint out the gilt-trimmed carriage window, studying the timber-and-plaster blocks of Eisendorf Manor as the horses draw us closer. Shadows pass behind the first-floor windows, turning them to rosy eyes winking into the frosty twilight gloom. It looks crowded already, even for a Sunday-night party. Good—a princess ought to be the last of the von Eisendorfs’ guests to arrive. There was a reason I dawdled in my bedroom at Castle Reigenbach: to make sure we hit peak Minkja traffic when we left an hour ago.

But I have more motive to survey the manor’s scenery than just making sure the Prinzessin arrives fashionably late. Lit windows are fewer on the third floor, but I still spot two bracketing the double doors where the master bedroom lets out onto its telltale grand balcony.

The real question tonight is whether it’s the only balcony.

It is not. Balconettes frame it on either side. Lamplight gilds only one of the balconettes, spilling from an adjacent room that looks to share the fat main chimney with the master bedroom.

That chimney is currently chugging smoke into the dimming sky. One might wonder why the von Eisendorfs would keep a fire going up in their bedroom when they’ll be busy entertaining guests downstairs all evening.

I’d bet three solid gilden that they’re heating the guest chambers next door instead, in case I—well, in case the prinzessin needs a respite. An opportunity to suck up to the margrave’s bride-to-be can’t be missed.

One also might wonder why I care about chimneys, balconettes, and suck-ups. It’s because tonight, the von Eisendorfs are handing me an entirely different sort of opportunity.

And I would loathe for either of those opportunities to go to waste.

The faint reflection of my grin cuts across the glass. A moment later it vanishes as my breath clouds the pane in the late-November chill.

I should play it safe, settle back into my seat, resume the serene, graceful façade of the prinzessin.

Instead I size up the remaining distance between us and the first guard we’ll pass, and quickly draw a simple, distinct set of curves in the fogged glass. Then I sit back and smooth my grin down to a placid smile.

When we pass the first guard, I see him do a double take. He elbows the guard beside him, pointing to the carriage window, and I’m pretty sure I hear: “… an arse!”

“And no one will ever believe you,” I hum under my breath as the fog melts from the glass.

The jingle-stamp of the horses stops when we draw even with the manor’s stout oaken front door. I sneak a look under the opposite seat and confirm my satchel, an unassuming toilette bag, is still stowed away. For now, it will stay there.

Then I close my eyes, swaying with the carriage as the footman jumps off, and think of three playing cards dancing facedown across a table. It’s time to begin my oldest game, Find the Lady.

There are many tricks to running the game, but the absolutely ironclad one is this: Only one person should know where the Lady is at all times. That person is me.

I run my fingertips over the string of heavy, perfect pearls around my neck. It’s habit more than anything; I would know if they were unclasped. I would know.

The carriage door opens. In my mind, I flip the first card faceup.

The Prinzessin. Silver eyes, pale-golden curls, pristine pearls under glacier-blue velvet and burgundy brocade, a gentle smile with a hint of mystery. Even the name Gisele is an intrigue, shunning sturdy Almanic for the Bourgienne pronunciation, with its honeyed vowels and a butter-soft G. It’s just the sort of pretentious affectation Dame von Falbirg loved to dish out, knowing people like the von Eisendorfs would eat it up.

This is how the game begins, you see. Step one: Show them the card they’re looking for.

The prinzessin descends from the carriage like a vision. Ezbeta and Gustav von Eisendorf are hovering in the entrance hall, faces lighting up when they see me finally gliding toward their open door. It’s not just about arriving on my own schedule, of course. It’s about making sure the otherguests see Ezbeta and Gustav waiting for me.

I alone see the surest sign that this night is going to go off without a hitch, for when Fortune is your godmother, you can always see her hand at work. Faint, dull clouds like coal dust are coalescing around the von Eisendorfs as they flutter in the hall. It’s an omen of the ill luck I’m about to bring upon their house.

The Count and Countess von Eisendorf are celebrating their twentieth anniversary tonight—well, commemorating, at least. “Celebrating” may be too strong a term. All I’m saying is that there’s a reason Komtessin Ezbeta is already ruddy-cheeked and stashing a goblet behind an urn on the entrance hall’s credenza.

Something about her always puts me in mind of a stork, though I’ve never put my finger on why. She’s pale-skinned like much of the Blessed Empire, with middling brown hair and angular features—aha. That’s it. Ezbeta has a habit of pointing with her chin, and with her long neck and a tendency to cock her head, it gives the impression that she’s scouring the area for a frog to snap up.

She’s dressed to impress, at least, her wrists and throat gleaming with a small fortune in gold and emeralds. It’s almost certainly the most expensive jewelry she owns. My fingers fairly itch: It’s another opportunity, perhaps.

“Oh, Markgräfin Gisele, how good it is of you to come!” Her voice carries like a trumpet, and I hear a fleeting hush of anticipation dart through the crowd inside as the countess sweeps her forest-green samite gown into a curtsy.

“It was ever so kind of you to invite me,” I reply, extending a hand to Gustav.

He mashes his lips to my doeskin-gloved knuckles. “We’re absolutely delighted.”

Komte Gustav is a withered ghoul of a man in a tunic pricey enough to feed Eisendorf Village through Winterfast, and yet incredibly it does nothing to help the piss-puddle where his personality should be. Nor does the wet smudge he leaves on my glove.

I pull free and bounce a teasing finger against the tip of Ezbeta’s nose. “I’m not the markgräfin yet, you know. Not until my darling Adalbrecht returns and makes me the happiest woman in the Blessed Empire.”

My darling betrothed, Adalbrecht von Reigenbach, margrave of the sprawling march of Bóern, has spent the entirety of our year-long betrothal at his share of the southern and eastern borders of the Blessed Empire of Almandy. He’s been instigating skirmishes like your garden-variety invade-a-kingdom-because-Papi-didn’t-love-me-best nobleman, all while I wait in his castle. And for all I care, he can stay there.

“Well, you’re already the most generous,” Komtessin Ezbeta simpers as a servant takes my cloak and gloves. “The cushions you sent are positively divine!”

“I could hardly let such an occasion go by without gifts. I’m just glad they arrived safely.” It isn’t even a lie, I am glad. Just not for the reason they expect. “Was the spiced mead also to your liking?”

Gustav clears his throat. “Indeed,” he says with a faintly strained air. “I thought to serve it tonight, but my wife took a … significant liking to it, in fact.”

“I can’t help it if Princess Gisele has impeccable taste.” Ezbeta winks. Saints and martyrs, if she’s already soused enough to be winking at me, she might just hand me that absurd necklace herself before the party’s over. “Come, come! Everyone’s waiting for you!”

I let her lead me into the manor’s main parlor, which is overflowing with minor nobility. Much of the crowd are knights and landed gentry who serve the counts, but the von Eisendorfs have also managed to attract a handful of Adalbrecht’s vassals equal to their own rank. I see Komte Erhard von Kirchstadtler and his husband, and Lady Anna von Morz in a plum satin atrocity that could charitably be called a gown. Even Minister Philippa Holbein has traveled into Boérn from the nearby Free Imperial State of Okzberg.

I scan for one particular face and find it thankfully missing. Godmother Fortune may have tilted the odds in my favor, or maybe Irmgard von Hirsching thinks she’s too good to get drunk with the von Eisendorfs. Either way, that’s one less problem to deal with tonight.

“I hope the guards didn’t give you too much trouble, Prinzessin,” Lady von Morz cackles, sauntering up to me with a goblet of glohwein in each hand. She tries to pass one off to me and fumbles a bit until I steady her grip. “Really, Gustav, even the margrave doesn’t post this many soldiers at his front door.”

Gustav gives a disgruntled wheeze. “No such thing as too cautious these days. They say the von Holtzburgs lost nearly fifty gilden to the Penny Phantom.”

We all gasp. That’s no trifling sum; a skilled tradesman would be lucky to amass fifty gilden over one season. “I’d no idea the Pfennigeist struck them too,” I say, wide-eyed.

Ezbeta nods, leaning in closer. “Oh, yes. Holtzburg Manor was robbed back in January, but they didn’t know what the red penny meant until Dowager von Folkenstein said they’d found one after theirburglary. We think the von Holtzburgs may have been the first victims.”

“How dreadful,” I murmur. “And their bailiff never found anything?”

“No. He swears only a ghost or a grimling could have broken in without a trace.” The delight-tinged pity on the countess’s face congeals into syrupy comfort. “But never fear, Princess Gisele. We’ve taken every precaution, just as we promised you. The Pfennigeist won’t get so much as a button off your gown.”

Lady von Morz snorts into her glohwein. No one has ever caught the Penny Phantom. No one has even seen the Penny Phantom. Not even my betrothed could keep the devil from Castle Reigenbach, where Marthe the maid found my jewelry box cleaned out, with a single red penny left behind as a calling card.

And if even the margrave’s walls can be breached, what chance do the von Eisendorfs have against such a creature?

I make my rounds through the crowd, clasping hands and admiring outfits, discreetly emptying my goblet into a vase when the coast is clear, only to make sure everyone sees me flagging down servants for many, many refills. Komte von Kirchstadtler wants to know when the wedding will be (not until Adalbrecht returns), newlywed Sieglinde von Folkenstein natters my ear off about how poorly she’s felt in the mornings (I make a note to commission a baby rattle), and Minister Philippa Holbein offers apologies for her husband’s absence.

“Kalsang fell behind on paperwork over the sabbath,” she sighs, absently thumbing the tassels of a pair of white silk cords twisted together and draped over her shoulders. Congregants of the House of the High typically just wear the cords for their sabbath prayers, but those among the public officials tend to keep theirs on day and night.

I suspect it’s for the same reason her husband, a soft-spoken Gharese tea merchant who’s much happier at home with their two little apso hounds, is avoiding this party. Dealing with a bunch of red-faced, competitively self-important Almanic aristocrats would make anyone pray for divine intervention.

His absence is fine by me. I like Kalsang and Philippa. I know exactly what’s about to befall Eisendorf Manor, and I’d rather their part in it be minimal.

I spend the rest of the hour making small talk and seemingly chugging glohwein like it’ll cure boils. (Not that Princess Gisele ever gets blemishes. The pearls see to that.) All the while, I keep an eye on Komtessin Ezbeta.

At last, I see my opportunity and start moving toward the parlor door.

“Nooo, Gisele!” A hand latches on to my brocade sleeve: Ezbeta has taken the bait. By now, she has had at least one glass of glohwein for every glittering emerald in her heavy necklace. That would be roughly seven more than I’ve had and, judging by her flaming face, about five too many.

And that is why I waited until now to head for the exit, when I knew she would make a tipsy scene.

Ezbeta, of course, obliges me. “You cannot leave us so soon! We’ve a five-course supper, just for you!”

One might wonder why I’m about to visit such misfortune upon my gracious hosts. Why tonight, on their anniversary? Why them, when they’ve been nothing but eager to please?

And the truth of the matter is this: If they saw me without the pearls and the face of the prinzessin, if they had any idea who I really was, they wouldn’t give a damn if I was staying for supper or scraping it out of the swine trough.

That’s why.

I hiccup in her face, then burst into giggles. My billowing skirts rustle as I wobble in place like a ship in an uneasy harbor. “Of course I’m not leaving, silly goose! I simply need … I need…” I trail off, twirling a pale-blond curl around a finger. The goblet of glohwein lurches in my other hand and spills a few drops onto my bodice. Not enough to ruin it, of course, only to sell the idea that I am at least as drunk as the good Komtessin Ezbeta.

Late 1800s
London, England

The legend they tell about me goes something like this:

First, you’ll see a streak of silver across the sky, like a comet burning through the fog.

Then, the clock hands will still halfway between this second and the next.

The world will fall silent, and the Reaper will knock three times on your bedroom door.

Whether you answer or not, Death will enter through the light in the keyhole.

She will reach down your throat and pull your soul out from deep, deep inside you, like an endless length of rope, and you will die in a world entirely your own. There will be no one but you, and the Reaper, and her unblinking green eyes.

But, of course, urban legends are rarely ever true.

On one particular collection night, the man was already awake when I opened his bedroom window and came in to take his soul. Humans, especially the very sick ones, always sensed when one of us was coming for them.

I stepped in through the window, pulling my long skirts after me, and found the man staring at me from his bed. He lay so still that I might have thought him dead already, but his eyes tracked me as I turned to slam the window shut. I pulled my clock from my pocket and closed my fingers around the silver-and-gold casing, locking the world into a time freeze.

The sounds outside of our little room silenced. No wind beat against the glass panes, no footsteps crunched through snow on the sidewalk outside, no floorboards creaked from the tenants below. The human lay frozen in his blankets, as if already dead. I crossed the room and pressed a finger to the hollow of his cheek.

With the touch of my cold skin, the time freeze unlatched its teeth from his throat and he jolted awake, joining me in our frozen infinity between moments. Our tiny world filled with his ragged exhales and scraping inhales, his wet blinks of fever-bright eyes, his twitching limbs shifting against the stiff sheets.

“Are you going to kill me?” he said.

Technically, I wasn’t. His time of death had been written in the high ledgers since the day he was born, and I had done nothing to interfere with that destiny. I was not his executioner but his deliverer, and I couldn’t extract a soul that wasn’t ready to abandon its body.

“Yes,” I said. I stepped closer and my shadow loomed over his bed, a wraith casting darkness over his pale face.

He closed his eyes and took several croaking breaths. When he opened his eyes again, tears pooled in the corners.

“Will it hurt?” he whispered.

I let him wait in suspense for my answer. I did not blink, did not breathe, only looked down at him with an unchanging expression.

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I’ve never died.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but that wasn’t my problem. He’d asked a question and I’d answered. His pupils grew wide, like two yawning chasms of black, his bones quivering against the thin tarp of his skin. He reached out a shaking hand as if to touch me. I watched him struggle but made no move to help him, taking a small glass vial from my pocket.

“Is there a Heaven?” the man said, his frail hand somehow latching on to the sleeve of my robe. I looked down at the grayed skin stretched taut over bones, wrapped in the shimmering silver fabric and trembling hard. “Please, Reaper, tell me. Will I go to Heaven?”

I smirked. His trembling stilled, maybe in breathless anticipation of my answer, or maybe in horror that I’d smiled so cruelly over his deathbed. That look in his eyes—like I was horrible and magnificent and could tear the whole universe to ribbons if I wanted to—was the only part of the process that I truly liked. No one but humans looked at me with that kind of reverence.

In truth, I didn’t know where souls went after we released them. The High Reapers spoke of Heaven and Hell, but I had never seen such places and suspected they were fantasies conjured to absolve us of responsibility. Those places were no more real to me than Santa Claus, or unicorns, or God. But the humans believed in them so fervently, just like they believed that I came from a comet and slid through keyholes. The man wasn’t the first to ask me for answers, thinking I was Death and not one of his children playing messenger. When they asked me, I always answered.

“There is no Heaven,” I said. The man’s twisted expression went gray, his grip on my sleeve suddenly weak. “There is no Hell, either,” I said. “There is nothing but Death.”

The tears that bled from his eyes told me that if there was a Heaven, I would never see it. But my teachers always said that tainted souls like mine would burn for eternity anyway, so what difference did this brief unkindness make?

He started calling out names, probably those of the humans in the rooms next door who would never hear him as long as I kept the clocks frozen. But I didn’t like the sound of begging. I could tolerate threats and bribes and rage, but something about begging made my body wither into itself like a dried flower, as if every desperate word was being scratched into my skin in scars that only I could see. Long after the begging stopped, my skin always itched for hours and the words always rang in my head, shaking me from shallow dreams.

I looped the chain of my clock around my neck like a pendant, making sure the metal still touched my bare skin, and got to work.

I pressed one hand to his forehead and held it still while I forced his jaw open with my thumb. He choked and cried as I crammed my hand down his throat. When my fingertips finally brushed the milky edges of his soul, I grabbed hold and yanked it out.

From between his lips, a cloud of gold mist rose into the air, speckled with bright lights that moved in tandem like a chain of constellations. I’d seen souls made of black tar and bile, others of pale pink candy floss, and even ones that sizzled and burst like fireworks. Just like every human life, souls were unique and beautiful for a single moment, and then they were nothing but dust.

His soul spun aimlessly in the air until I uncorked my glass vial with my thumb. The soul rushed inside, magnetized by the bone glass. As soon as I sealed it shut, the soul turned murky gray and settled as ashes at the bottom. I carved a 7 onto the lid with my pocketknife, for it was my seventh collection of the night, then dropped it into the drawstring bag in my pocket, where it clinked against the other six vials.

The man lay dead in his sheets, jaw hanging open and eyes still wet with tears that dripped down to his pillow. I closed his mouth and eyes, then whispered a compulsory prayer to Ankou, the Father of Death and King of the Reapers.

Though I had never met him, I felt his presence everywhere the same way that humans felt love or hate or other intangible things. All Reapers were his servants, born halfway between the realm of humans and gods, bound to serve him and keep the human world in balance. Though the humans spoke of us as villains or nightmares, they needed us more than they would ever understand. Death brought humans fear, and fear made humans interesting. Without Death, humans would grow complacent and stale. Even we Reapers would one day surrender to Death’s scythe.

One 

And here he was, Dante, with his head resting on my chest. In the stillness of the dawn, there was only the sound of Dante’s breathing. It was as though the universe had stopped whatever it was doing just to look down on two boys who had discovered its secrets.  

As I felt the beating of Dante’s heart against the palm of my hand, I wished I could somehow reach into my chest and rip out my own heart and show Dante everything that it held. 

And then there was this: Love didn’t just have something to do with my heart—it had something to do with my body. And my body had never felt so alive. And then I knew, I finally knew about this thing called desire.  

Two 

I hated to wake him. But this moment had to end. We couldn’t live in the back of my pickup forever. It was late, and already it was another day, and we had to get home, and our parents would be worried. I kissed the top of his head. “Dante? Dante? Wake up.”  

“I don’t ever want to wake up,” he whispered. 

“We have to go home.” 

“I’m already home. I’m with you.” 

That made me smile. Such a Dante thing to say.  

“C’mon, let’s get going. It looks like rain. And your mother’s going to kill us.” 

Dante laughed. “She won’t kill us. We’ll just get one of her looks.” 

I pulled him up and we both stood there, looking up at the sky. He took my hand. “Will you always love me?” 

“Yes.” 

“And did you love me from the very beginning, the way that I loved you?” 

“Yes, I think so. I think I did. It’s harder for me, Dante. You have to understand that. It will always be harder for me.” 

“Not everything is that complicated, Ari.” 

“Not everything is as simple as you think it is.” 

He was about to say something, so I just kissed him. To shut him up, I think. But also because I liked kissing him. 

He smiled. “You finally figured out a way to win an argument with me.” 

“Yup,” I said. 

“It’ll work for a while,” he said. 

“We don’t always have to agree,” I said. 

“That’s true.” 

“I’m glad you’re not like me, Dante. If you were like me, I wouldn’t love you.” 

“Did you say you love me?” He was laughing. 

“Cut it out.” 

“Cut what out?” he said. And then he kissed me. “You taste like the rain,” he said. 

“I love the rain more than anything.” 

“I know. I want to be the rain.” 

“You are the rain, Dante.” And I wanted to say You’re the rain and you’re the desert and you’re the eraser that’s making the word “loneliness” disappear. But it was too much to say and I would always be the guy that would say too little and Dante was the kind of guy who would always say too much. 

Three 

We didn’t say anything on the drive back home.  

Dante was quiet. Maybe too quiet. He, who was always so full of words, who knew what to say and how to say it without being afraid. And then the thought came to me that maybe Dante had always been afraid—just like me. It was as if we had both walked into a room together and we didn’t know what to do in that room. Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe. I just couldn’t stop thinking about things. I wondered if there would ever come a time when I would just stop thinking about things.  

And then I heard Dante’s voice: “I wish I were a girl.” 

I just looked at Dante. “What? Wanting to be a girl is serious business. You really wish you were a girl?” 

“No. I mean, I like being a guy. I mean, I like having a penis.” 

“I like having one too.” 

And then he said, “But, at least, if I were a girl, then we could get married and, you know—” 

“That’s not ever gonna happen.” 

“I know, Ari.” 

“Don’t be sad.” 

“I won’t be.” 

But I knew he would be. 

And then I put on the radio and Dante started singing with Eric Clapton and he whispered that “My Father’s Eyes” was maybe his new favorite song. “Waiting for my prince to come,” he whispered. And he smiled.  

And he asked me, “Why don’t you ever sing?” 

“Singing means that you’re happy.” 

“You’re not happy?” 

“Maybe only when I’m with you.” 

I loved when I said something that made Dante smile. 

When we pulled up in front of his house, the sun was on the verge of showing its face to the new day. And that’s just how it felt—like a new day. But I was thinking that maybe I would never again know—or be sure of—what the new day would bring. And I didn’t want Dante to know that there was any fear living inside me at all because he might think that I didn’t love him. 

I would never show him that I was afraid. That’s what I told myself. But I knew I couldn’t keep that promise.  

“I want to kiss you,” he said. 

“I know.” 

He closed his eyes. “Let’s pretend we’re kissing.” 

I smiled—then laughed as he closed his eyes. 

“You’re laughing at me.” 

“No, I’m not. I’m kissing you.” 

He smiled and looked at me. His eyes were filled with such hope. He jumped out of the truck and shut the door. He stuck his head through the open window. “I see a longing in you, Aristotle Mendoza.” 

“A longing?” 

“Yes. A yearning.” 

“A yearning? 

He laughed. “Those words live in you. Look them up.”  

I watched him as he bounded up the steps. He moved with the grace of the swimmer that he was. There was no weight or worry in his step. 

He turned around and waved, wearing that smile of his. I wondered if his smile would be enough. 

God, let his smile be enough. 

Sweltering heat hit me like the sudden leap of a bonfire when I traded the protection of the mule-drawn cart’s tarp for burning sand. I clutched my satchel, squinting against the dying sun. Heat waves created illusions of life out on the sand. Sometimes they came as ripples on a pool of water. Others, a snake looking to escape under a rock. Or an Afar caravan carting slabs of salt cut from the desert’s floor to be sold in the market.

They were all just the desert’s cruel trick. There was nothing out here. Nothing but me, the merchant I’d caught a ride with in town, and that towering mass of structured stone in the distance that was to be my new home.

My frizzy curls stuck to my temples and the back of my neck as I fished a sweaty bill from my pocket, but the merchant held up his hand against it like I was offering him a spider. “No charge.”

“To show my appreciation,” I insisted.

I should’ve just kept my mouth shut. The cart had been a godsend after six others had vehemently refused. A simple sheet of wood raised between two sturdy wheels on the back end and a sweating mule hitched to the front. Plenty of room for me to curl up and rest, even if I had to share the space with the merchant and his clay pots of spices. And it had a tarp to lie under for shade. A tarp. Even so, it was my last bit of money, at least until this new job paid. Besides, if I was going to pay him, the least he could do was drop me closer to the door.

But, God bless him, the merchant insisted more frantically, his raised hand turning into an aggressive shooing motion. “God have mercy on your soul,” he said, and smacked the mule into a sudden run, kicking sand into the air as the cart circled back the way we came to take the long way through the desert.

The cloud of dust left behind stuck to every sweaty inch of me. I licked the salt from my lips and crunched on it.

Sand didn’t bother me. My insides were so coated with it, at this point I was immune. But I wasn’t so sure my employer would appreciate my appearance.

Hopefully he’d be forgiving. I needed this job. Badly. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten a proper meal. I mostly relied on the sand to coat my stomach, to trick my mind into thinking I was full. This job supplied a room and food. And a future patronage, which would ensure work for the rest of my life.

But one step at a time.

I waited until I was sure the merchant wasn’t coming back, then held the collar of my dress open to pull my amulet out from where it was hiding, holding it up to examine it for damage. The thin, pure silver, carved by the heat of my welding pen into the shape of a Coptic cross, was wrapped along the edges with various colors of thread. Each welded line and curve, each row of color, built up protection against Manifestations of the Evil Eye. Any imperfection could throw off the design and ruin the effectiveness of the shield. It was the first real amulet I’d ever made—the only one I’d ever made, since there’s no way Jember would’ve ever let me waste something as precious as silver for multiple tries.

Not to mention that this much silver could feed someone for a month, longer if they were frugal.

I hid my amulet under my dress again, adjusting the collar so the metal chain wouldn’t show.

It was a survival habit Jember had taught me to live by since the age of five: Protect your amulet better than it protects you.

I spent part of the three-mile walk to Thorne Manor dusting myself off with one of my clean dresses, and the rest of it gaping at the castle itself. It looked like something from a fairy tale—brown stone ground down unevenly and undefined by dust storms, parapets where ancient emperors might have stood, carved-out windows with glass added to them. There were castles like that in grassier lands, I knew, but here? Who would want to be emperor of the hottest desert on the planet?

Some foreign travelers called it “exotic.” Others called it “hell.” The second was accurate, heat-wise. But to look at it? Heaven. Salt and iron crusted the land in yellow and rust, making the desert look alive with magic. But even a wonder like that wasn’t enough to get travelers to pass this way, not anymore.

The Evil Eye had made sure of that.

It’s said the Evil Eye was the first Manifestation of sin—namely jealousy and greed. In a constant state of longing, it latches on to any human who desires the same thing it does. Thriving crops, a random string of good luck, even receiving too many compliments could draw unwanted attention.

But material possessions, especially too much money, seemed to be the worst offender. Most of the clients Jember and I saw were people who insisted on having too many nice things in their house. Or, in the case of the man I was on my way to see, more money than any one human should be allowed to possess.

It didn’t matter that the curse was confined to the walls of the castle, that the desert was perfectly safe if you knew how to traverse it. When it came to the Evil Eye, it was better to be safe rather than sorry.

Evening was settling, the sun peeking over the horizon before it said good night, when I finally made it to the castle. I lifted my fist to knock, then went for the sand-crusted rope hanging beside the door instead. Inside, an ominous bell echoed my arrival.

I waited, maybe thirty seconds, probably less—I don’t know, my aching feet were impatient to get off the ground and into a proper bed. Only the sound of footsteps stopped me from pulling it again. The door opened, splashing me with a gust of cold air like a pail of icy water. I shivered and clutched at the amulet around my neck, nearly second-guessing its power to protect me from what was inside.

A white woman with greying hair and a sagging frown scrutinized me from behind small wire-framed glasses. She wore a wool sweater and a long, heavy skirt—an odd outfit for inside, let alone in the desert. Her pale face and hands stuck out like chipped spots on a dark painted wall against her grey clothes and the stone foyer behind her.

She raised her eyebrows, her gaze lingering too long on my face, but not looking me in the eye. My scar. I rubbed my cheek like I was soothing a sudden itch, wishing I could take the long mark on my skin with it. I always forgot it was there until I met someone new, and they stared at it like I’d grown a third eye.

“Andromeda, I take it?”

With just those few words I could tell she wasn’t from around here. Amharic didn’t leave her mouth comfortably—it stuck in all the wrong places.

That is, unless she’d intended to spit the words at me like a curse.

I bowed slightly, trying not to wobble on my exhausted feet. “Yes.”

“The exorcist?”

Exorcist. I forced myself not to roll my eyes at the word. It was vague, limited. We debtera led the worship services with hymns and chants, as well as performed all the duties of the priests, without benefiting from being ordained or esteemed. We were healers. Artisans. Trained to attune ourselves to the spirit world deeper than anyone else would dare to. But, I supposed, for the purpose of my employer … “That’s correct. The exorcist.”

The woman bit her lip. “You look awful young.”

“I look it,” I agreed, but left it there.

“This is not a job for a child.”

“How the fuck are you this rich?” I took in the old vestibule, the wood ceiling that domed our heads. Time etched itself into the shape and stretch of the Heian mansion, its presence apparent in even the texture of the crumbling dark. It felt profane to see the place like this: without curators to chaperone us, no one to say do not touch and be careful, this was old before the word for such things existed.

That Phillip could finance its desecration—lock, stock, no question—and do so without self-reproach was symptomatic of our fundamental differences. He shrugged, smile cocked like the sure thing that was his whole life.

“I’m— Come on, it’s a wedding gift. They’re supposed to be extravagant.”

“Extravagant is matching Rolex watches. Extravagant”—I slowed down for effect, taking time between each syllable—“is a honeymoon trip to Hawaii. This, on the other hand, is … This is beyond absurd, dude. You flew us all to Japan. First class. And then rented the fucking imperial palace or—”

“It’s not a palace! It’s just a mansion. And I didn’t rent the building, per se. Just got us permits to spend a few nights here.”

“Oh. Like that makes this any less ridiculous.”

“Ssh. Stop, stop, stop. Don’t finish. I get it, I get it.” Phillip dropped his suitcases at the door and palmed the back of his neck, looking sheepish. His varsity jacket, still perfectly fitted to his broad quarterback frame, blazed indigo and yellow where it caught the sun. In the dusk, the letters of his name were gilt and glory and good stitching. Poster-boy perfect: every one craved him like a vice. “Seriously, though. It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal, he says. Freaking billionaires.”

“Caaaaat.”

Have you ever cannonballed into a cold lake? The shock of an old memory is kind of like that; every neuron singing a bright hosanna: here we are. You forgot about us, but we didn’t forget about you.

Only one other person had ever said my name that way.

“Is Lin coming?” I licked the corner of a tooth.

“No comment.”

You could just about smell the cream on the lip of Phillip’s grin, though. I tried not to cringe, to wince, beset by a zoetrope of sudden emotions. I hadn’t spoken to Lin since before I checked myself into the hospital for terminal ennui, exhaustion so acute it couldn’t be sanitized with sleep, couldn’t be remedied by anything but a twist of rope tugged tight. The doctors kept me for six days and then sent me home, pockets stuffed with pills and appointments and placards advocating the commandments of safer living. I spent six months doing the work, a shut-in committed to the betterment of self, university and my study of Japanese literature, both formal and otherwise, shelved, temporarily.

When I came out, there was a wedding and a world so seamlessly closed up around the space where I stood, you’d think I was never there in the first place.

A door thumped shut and we both jumped, turned like cogs. All my grief rilled somewhere else. I swear, if that moment wasn’t magic, wasn’t everything that is right and good, nothing else in the world is allowed to call itself beautiful. It was perfect. A Hallmark commercial in freeze-frame: autumn leaves, swirling against a backdrop of beech and white cedar; god rays dripping between the boughs; Faiz and Talia emerging, arms looped together, eyes only for each other, smiling so hard that all I wanted to do was promise them that forever will always, eternally, unchangingly be just like this.

Suenomatsuyama nami mo koenamu.

My head jackknifed up. There it was. The stutter of a girl’s voice, sweet despite its coarseness, like a square of fabric worn ragged, like a sound carried on the last ragged breath of a failing record player. A hallucination. It had to be. It needed to be.

“You heard something spooky?” said Phillip.

I strong-armed a smile into place. “Yeah. There’s a headless lady in the air right there who says that she killed herself because you never called. You shouldn’t ghost people, dude. It’s bad manners.”

His joviality wicked away, his own expression tripping over old memories. “Hey. Look. If you’re still mad about—”

“It’s old news.” I shook my head. “Old and buried.”

“I’m still sorry.”

I stiffened. “You said that already.”

“I know. But that shit that I did, that wasn’t cool. You and me—I should have found a better way of ending things, and—” His hands fluttered up and fell in time with the backbeat of his confession, Phillip’s expression cragged with the guilt he’d held for years like a reliquary. This wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation. This wasn’t even the tenth, the thirtieth.

Truth was, I hated that he still felt guilty. It wasn’t charitable but apologies didn’t exonerate the sinner, only compelled graciousness from its recipient. The words, each time they came, so repetitive that I could tune a clock to their angst, sawed through me. You can’t move forward when someone keeps dragging you back. I trapped the tip of my tongue between my teeth, bit down, and exhaled through the sting.

“Old news,” I said.

“I’m still sorry.”

“Your punishment, I guess, is dealing with bad puns forever.”

“I’d take it.” Phillip made a bassoon noise deep in his lungs, a kind of laugh, and traded his Timberlands for the pair of slippers he’d bought at a souvenir shop at the airport. It’d cost him too much, but the attendant, her lipstick game sharp as a paper cut, had thrown in her number, and Phillip always folds for wolves in girl-skin clothing. “Long as you promise you don’t spook the ghosts.”

In another life, I had been brave. Growing up where we did, back in melting-pot Malaysia, down in the tropics where the mangroves spread dense as myths, you knew to look for ghosts. Superstition was a compass: it steered your attention through thin alleys, led your eyes to crosswalks filthy with makeshift shrines, offerings and appeasements scattered by traffic. The five of us spent years in restless pilgrimage, searching for the holy dead in Kuala Lumpur. Every haunted house, every abandoned hospital, every storm drain to have clasped a body like a girl’s final prayer, we sieved through them all.

And I was always in the vanguard, torchlight in hand, eager to show the way.

“Things change.”

A breeze slouched through the decaying shoji screens: lavender, mildew, sandalwood, and rotting incense. Some of the paper panels were peeling in strips, others gnawed to the still vividly lacquered wood, but the tatami mantling the floors—

There was so much, too much of it everywhere, more than even a Heian noble’s house should hold, and all of it was pristine. Store-bought fresh even, when the centuries should have chewed the straw to mulch. The sight of it itched under my skin, like someone’d fed those small, black picnic ants through a vein, somehow; got them to spread out under the thin layer of dermis, got them to start digging.

I shuddered. It was possible that someone’d come in to renovate, maybe someone who’d decided that if the manor was going to house five idiot foreigners, they might as well make it a bit more livable. But the interior didn’t smell like it’d had people here, not for a long, long time, and smelled instead like such old buildings do: green and damp and dark and hungry, hollow as a stomach that’d forgotten what it was like to eat.

“Does someone use this as a summer house?”

Phillip shrugged. “Probably? I don’t know. My guy didn’t want to talk too much about it.”

I shook my head. “Because something about this place doesn’t add up.”

“We’re probably not the only customers in the ‘destination horror’ business,” said Phillip, grinning. “Relax.”

Faiz whistled, interrupting me. “Yeah, this is the real deal. My man, Phillip. You’re a gentleman and six quarters.”

“Was nothing.” Phillip bared a bright fierce grin at the happy couple. “Just some good old-fashioned luck and the family money put to great use.”

“You don’t ever quit about that inheritance, do you?” said Faiz, smile only as far as the spokes of his cheeks, eyes flat. He cupped an arm around Talia’s waist. “We know you’re rich, Phillip.”

“Come on, dude. That wasn’t what I was trying to say.” Arms spread, body language open as a house with no doors. You couldn’t hate Phillip for long. But Faiz was trying. “Besides, my money is your money. Brothers to the end, you know?”

Talia was taller, duskier than Faiz. Part Bengali, part Telugu. Legs like stilts, a smile like a Christmas miracle. And when she laughed, low like a note in a cello’s long throat, it was as if she had been the one to teach the world the sound. Talia laid long fingers atop the jut of Phillip’s shoulder and bowed her head, precociously regal. “Don’t fight. Both of you. Not today.”

“Who’s fighting?” Faiz had a radio voice, an easy-listening tenor just about south of primetime worthy. Nothing some hard living couldn’t fix, some good cigarettes and bad whiskey. He wasn’t much of anything except doughier than ever. Not fat—not that there was anything wrong with that—but glutinous almost, soft as good clay. Beauty and her unfinished pottery, half-molded, still slick; the tips of Faiz’s hair jutting out at the nape, dewed with sweat.

I felt an immediate guilt at the unkind observation. Faiz was my best friend and he’d done more than his share, talking Talia down from walling me out. She and I made eye contact as the boys bantered, their voices prickling like the hackles of a Doberman, short and stark, animosity panting between the niceness, and Talia’s expression congealed with dislike.

I stroked a hand over my arm and tried to keep a smile on. A muscle in Talia’s jaw went rigid as she cracked her face into a similar configuration: her smile tense, mineral, bracketed with impatience.

“I didn’t think you were actually going to come. Not after everything you had to say about the two of us.” Courtesy velveted her voice. Talia peeled from Faiz and strode across the room, closing the distance between us two inches too much. I could smell her: roses and sweet cardamom.

“You two weren’t happy,” I said, hands burrowed into my pockets, a slight backward lean to the axis of my spine. “I’m glad that you figured out your differences but at the time, you were at each other’s throats—”

Talia had almost three inches on me and levered that to her advantage, looming. “Your insistence that we break up didn’t help.”

“I didn’t insist anything.” I heard my voice constrict, the registers narrow so much, every syllable caught and was crushed together into a slurry. “I just thought—”

“You nearly cost me everything,” Talia said, still staccato in her rage.

“I had both your best interests at heart.”

“Are you sure?” Her expression shaded with pity. I glanced at the boys. “Or were you hoping to get Faiz back?”

We had dated—if you could call it that. Eight weeks, no chemistry, not even a kiss, and had we been older, our confidence less flimsy, less dependent on the perceived temperature of our reputations, we’d have known to end it sooner. Something came out of that, at least: a friendship. Guilt-bruised, gestated in the shambles of a stillborn romance. But a friendship nonetheless.

The light deepened in the house, blued where it broke into the corridors.

“I’m fucking sure of it. And Jesus, I don’t want your man,” I told her with as much detachment as I could scrounge, not wanting to sell Faiz short. Not after all this. “It’s been years since we were together and I don’t know what more you want from me. I’ve apologized. I’ve tried to make it up to you.”

Talia let a corner of her lips wither. “You could have stayed home.”

“Yeah, well.”

The sentence emptied into a surprised flutter of noises as the two guys—men, barely, and by definition rather than practice, their egos still too molten—came tumbling back from the periphery. Phillip had Faiz laughingly mounted on a shoulder, a half fireman carry with the latter’s elbow stabbed into the divot of Phillip’s collarbone. Faiz, he at first looked like he might have been grinning through the debacle, but the way his skin pulled upward from his teeth: that said different. It was a grimace, bared teeth restrained by a membrane of decorum.

“Put my husband down!” Talia fluted, reaching for her groom-to-be.

“I can handle it.” A snarling comeback without an anchor, in fact. Phillip could have kept Faiz suspended forever, but he relented as Talia curved a shoulder against him, arms raised like a supplicant. He set Faiz down and took a languid step back, thumbs hooked through his belt buckles, his grin still easy-as-you-please.

The children are chattering. Some sing softly to themselves while others look around the room, lollipops in hand, occasionally glancing at their mothers, who are moving beyond the double French doors.

The doors click shut.

For a moment, the children look worried: mouths downturned, lollipop licking paused. They’re young, ages three and four, and their bodies stiffen with unease at watching their mothers go. But another woman enters the room smiling, and the children’s faces brighten at the sight of her. She’s beautiful, with diamonds the size of gumballs around her neck, a trail of heavenly perfume about her too.

The children look at her, awestruck, then confused. They’ve never seen her before. Until today, they’ve never had a reason to visit her Upper West Side apartment.

But I know Collette. I work for her, and not for much longer. After today, I won’t be her nanny anymore.

Collette hands them more candy and the children’s smiles widen, cherry-­red flavoring sticking to the corners of their mouths. She points to a display of balloons and they giggle. She tells them about a birthday cake that is soon to come: four layers of vanilla sponge separated by strawberry icing, and the children settle into their seats, their mothers forgotten. For a short time, Collette seems happy too.

But then I see the way she looks at me and it feels as if ice has been dropped down my neck.

Collette wants to keep me.

The children face one another at a table, four girls and two boys plucked from a playground I stumbled upon several days ago. It was one of only a few parks I could find where the mothers would accept an invitation to a birthday party for a child they did not know.

They’d looked at me incredulously at first, asking, Why? Doesn’t the girl have her own friends from school? They wanted to know if I was crazy. They thought it was a joke. But after turning over the invitation cards in their hands, they saw the address and promised to show up promptly at 3:00 p.m. I’m sure the cash I handed them helped too.

For the party, the children are seated in a room usually reserved for elaborate dinner parties, the occasional high-­profile guest. But not today—­those occurrences are fewer and further between these days, and never on July 10.

Today, only children are welcome at West Seventy-­eighth Street.

My eyes tick around the table and I see that the children are fidgeting again. They’re shifting in their seats, asking for cake. The patience of these preschoolers is waning by the millisecond, their shouts and sugar-­high bouncing turning the room into a ticking time bomb.

Collette looks flustered too. She smooths the tablecloth with a snap, her hands trembling, an unmistakable twitch beneath her eye as she steals another glance at the door.

Where is the birthday girl? What’s keeping her?

Collette bursts forward to fill juice cups and adjust centerpieces. When she moves like this—­jittery, sporadic, nerves jangling with caffeine and God knows what else she popped in her mouth before everyone arrived—­she reminds me of a small bird. Thin. Eyes flickering. Body perched before darting away again.

Collette Bird. She couldn’t have married into a more perfect name for herself, and one of the wealthiest families in New York City too. Her wealth is what allows her to throw parties like this. It’s what allows her to get away with them too.

I look at my watch. One hour to go.

The room quiets, overhead lights dim, and out comes the cake. The housekeeper wheels it on a table as the children erupt into cheers, their small hands clapping, and they toss aside their lollipops.

One of the girls counts the candles out loud, “One, two, three, four. Same as me. I’m four years old!”

She looks around. So do the others.

But where is the birthday girl?

Collette glances at the door. I can almost hear her heart racing, the children’s eyes following hers. She rushes to the head of the table, a place setting she’s purposely kept empty, and pulls out a chair. She peers into the light shining from the hallway.

“Wait for it . . .” she says, a sharp intake of breath as Collette whispers excitedly, “Any time now . . .”

And then . . .

A sharp noise from the next room pierces the air, getting closer. My eyes race to Collette, who looks as if her heart has just been ripped from her chest.

Nanny Needed

101 West 78th Street.

Call for interview: 212-­555-­0122 Paid weekly.

Discretion is of the utmost importance.

Special conditions apply.

The mistress of the house was at work on the mayonnaise when the kitchen wireless began to speak of war.

“This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note,” the voice said, “stating that, unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us.”

The others in the room had fallen silent. Agatha put down the bowl and whisk, the salad forgotten. She smoothed a strand of hair away from her face. Making mayonnaise was a physical task—it got the blood moving as well as calisthenics if done properly, though few put forth the proper effort. She insisted on doing it herself. Down the hall, the infernal ’phone began to ring.

“I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received,” Chamberlain was saying. Is it Chamberlain? Agatha thought his voice sounded quite reedy of late, an old man. “And that consequently,” the voice continued, “this country is at war with Germany.”

There were no gasps of surprise. At the table her husband and their friend Mrs. North sat listening, Max leaning forward with elbows on the kitchen table, his pipe jutting out of his mouth. Mrs. Bastin, in from the ferryman’s cottage to help with the meal, curled her shoulders over the sink and cried into the vegetables.

“Oh, do be quiet,” Max murmured, not as kindly as he might.

Later, Max would probably scoff at Mrs. Bastin’s tears. Hadn’t they watched the march of war arriving? It was nearly a relief to have the matter decided. What did Mrs. Bastin have to lose? But they all had so much to lose. How could it be war again, so soon?

The ’phone rang, rang. Agatha crossed to the wireless and nudged the dial in time to hear Chamberlain say, “You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed.”

She stood back. It put one on notice to have the Prime Minister both hoarse and weary, defeated before they’d begun. She imagined Chamberlain sitting up all night committing these words to the page, to have them ready for the deadline, Parliament’s ultimatum for Germany to release Poland from its grip. Would he have made another draft, too, in case the deadline had been met and all was well? They must have known no such plan would be necessary.

“Yet,” Chamberlain continued, “I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful.”

Strange to hear a man so publicly heartbroken. She listened as the PM mustered some vim for the pitch to the country to do their part. What could their part possibly be? She could wrap bandages, she supposed, but the brunt of it would hit the younger set. Rosalind and her friends.

But then even Max was all of thirty-five. Of all the reasons not to marry a younger man—she had gone through all the reasons—sending another husband off to war hadn’t been one of them. When Agatha looked over, he plucked his pipe out of his mouth, his expression exultant. He would want to be a part of it—would be an absolute nuisance until he’d been given a job. And where did that leave her?

Agatha lost track of Chamberlain, thinking of distance, of separation. She tugged at her apron and hurried from the kitchen.

“Ange?” Max called after her.

The corridor, then through the house to the front hall, where the arch of light in the scallop window above the front door was bright. It was a fine day; all the worst days were.

She neglected the ringing telephone and opened the door, hesitating in the threshold. Outside, James, the latest of the Sealyham terriers, lay near a garden deckchair, white belly to the sun.

The first dog her father had brought home and placed at her feet, she’d gone nearly catatonic with happiness. She had never been able to take in news—not good news, certainly not bad—without seeking seclusion and letting the new information break upon the old, like the river’s edge lapping at the shore.

Behind her, she could still hear Chamberlain. Never mind that now. She will hear his words repeated, reproduced, and read them in the evening edition.

Now she had time to wait out the cloud that passed over the hill and darkened the magnolias. Magnolia grandiflora. She had time to let her thoughts catch up, her concerns be absorbed. When she felt she could take it all in, plans began to form. She could call on the dispensary, couldn’t she? With a little brushing up, she could be useful, too. And of course there were always books to write. A Christie for Christmas, whether the Christie in question felt like writing or not.

When the cloud passed and the sun shone on the hill again, Agatha came out from under the portico, leaving the door wide, and crossed the gravel drive. She stood on the hill, chin pointed south toward the sea. She took it in: the river that led, so close, to the Channel; the fact of war; the eventualities. When she turned back, Greenway rose above her, the flat Georgian face catching the light like a temple of old. It seemed delicate to her just now. But hadn’t it survived a century and a half? Hadn’t it sent its sons to fight untold battles? The cannon mounted down the hill and pointed out toward the River Dart told the story. These grounds had already fended off wars long forgotten.

This time, however, they must expect bombs from the air, gas attacks. A modern war with modern consequences, the likes of which no one had ever seen.

Agatha gazed over the warm white stone, stalwart on the high ledge of the river. An ideal house, a dream house. They’d barely had a chance to settle in, hadn’t the chance to be happy here. Now she wondered if they would. A war was a rending, a death of how things had been. She had no concern for her life—but the life she had built? The people she had come to count on? Her marriage? This house.

She had traded her mother’s house, the home of her idyllic childhood, to stand on this hill and call this house hers. Winterbrook, their residence in Oxfordshire, was Max’s, but Greenway House was hers—hers in a way she knew might be seen as prideful, hers in her heart. Hers at last, since she’d come here as a child with her mother, visiting, walking the grounds that would someday be her own. Clever foreshadowing, she thought, credit to the author.

But that meant this was the beginning of the story, didn’t it? If they were to have a proper story, Greenway stood, Max prevailed, Rosalind thrived, and she, Agatha, strung it all together, a book each year. If they were to have a proper story, then this simply couldn’t be the end.

Auschwitz, 20 April 1945

THREE MONTHS AGO, I escaped the prison that held my body, but I haven’t found freedom from the one that holds my soul. It’s as if I never shed the blue-and-gray-striped uniform or set foot beyond the electrified barbed-wire fences. The liberation I seek requires escape of a different sort, one I can achieve only now that I’ve returned.

A drizzle falls around me, adding an eerie haze to the gray, foggy morning. Not unlike the first day I stood in this exact spot, staring at the dark metal sign beckoning me from the distance.

ARBEIT MACHT FREI.

I remove the letter from my small handbag and read over the words I’ve memorized, then pull the gun out and examine it. A Luger P08, just like the one my father kept as a trophy following the Great War. The one he’d taught me how to use.

I drop the handbag onto the wet ground, straighten my shirtwaist, and tuck the pistol into my skirt pocket. With each footstep against the gravel, the scent of fresh earth mingles with the rain, but I swear I detect traces of decaying corpses and smoke from cigarettes, guns, and the crematoria. Shuddering, I wrap my arms around my waist and take a breath to assure myself that the air is clean. 

Once I pass through the gate, I stop. No curses, taunts, or slurs, no cracking whips or thudding clubs, no barking dogs, no tramping jackboots, no orchestra playing German marches.

Auschwitz is abandoned.

When the loud voice in my head deters me, the little whisper reminds me that this is the day I’ve awaited, and if I don’t see it through I may never have another chance. I continue down the empty street, past the kitchen and the camp brothel. Turn by Block 14 and come upon my destination, my hand against my other pocket to feel the rosary beads tucked inside.

The roll-call square. Our meeting place. And he’s already here.

The bastard stands by the wooden shelter booth, and he looks no different than I remember. Hardly taller than I, slight and unimpressive. He’s in his SS uniform, crisp and pressed even in the rain, jackboots shiny despite a few splatters of mud. His pistol hangs at his side. And his beady eyes lock upon me when I halt a few meters away.

“Prisoner 16671,” Fritzsch says. “I prefer you in stripes.”

Despite the many times I’ve been addressed by that sequence, the way he says one-six-six-seven-one steals my voice. I brush my thumb over the tattoo along my forearm, such a sharp contrast to my pale skin, and pass over the five round scars above the tattoo. The simple gesture coaxes my tongue into forming words.

“My name is Maria Florkowska.”

He chuckles. “You still haven’t learned to control that mouth of yours, have you, Polack?”

The endgame has begun. My wits are my king, pain my queen, the gun my rook, and I am the pawn. My pieces are in place on this giant chessboard. White pawn faces black king.

Fritzsch beckons me with a jerk of his head and indicates the small table set up in the middle of the square. I’d recognize the checkered board and its pieces anywhere. Our footsteps against the gravel are the only sound until I prepare to sit behind the white pieces; then his voice stops me.

“Have you forgotten the terms of our arrangement? If you’re going to bore me, I see no need for a final game.”

As he moves to block my path, one hand rests on his pistol, and I take a slow breath. Somehow I feel like the girl surrounded by men in this roll-call square, all eyes on her while she engages in chess games against the man who would lodge a bullet in her skull just as soon as place her in checkmate.

The silence hangs heavy between us until I manage to break it. “What should I do?”

A hum of approval rumbles in his throat; I loathe myself for putting it there. “Compliance serves you far better than impertinence,” he says, and I watch his feet as he steps closer. “Other side.”

He’s taking my white pieces and my first-move advantage as easily as he took everything else from me. But I don’t need an advantage to defeat him.

I move to the opposite side of the board and study the water droplets glistening on the black pieces. Fritzsch will open with the Queen’s Gambit. I know he will, because it’s my favorite opening. He’ll be sure to take that, too.

And he does. Queen’s pawn to D4. The solitary white pawn stands two squares ahead of its row, already seeking control of the center of the board. When my black queen’s pawn meets his in the center, he responds with a second pawn to the left of his first, finishing the opening.

Fritzsch rests his forearms on the table. “Your move, 16671.”

I swallow the Jawohl, Herr Lagerführer rising to my throat. He’s not my camp deputy anymore. I won’t address him as such.

When I stay silent, the corner of his mouth tightens, and the heat of satisfaction courses through my body, mingling with the chill of this dreary morning. As I examine the board, I keep both hands in his view—the pistol remains tucked inside my skirt pocket, heavy as it rests against my lap.

Fritzsch watches while I reach for my next pawn, eyes alight as if he expects me to speak. Something inside urges me to comply, if only to get away from him, from this place, but I can’t, not yet. Not until the time is right. Then I will demand the answers I seek, but if I let the questions consume me now, if I lose focus—

After I make my play, I smooth my damp skirt, giving myself a reason to hide my hands under the table. The trembles can’t start. This game is too important. My hands are steady for now, but the slightest change is all it takes.

Finish the game, Maria.

Chess is my game. It’s always been my game.

And after all this time, this game will end my way.

SLEEPING BEAUTY IS pretty much the worst fairy tale, any way you slice it.

It’s aimless and amoral and chauvinist as shit. It’s the fairy tale that feminist scholars cite when they want to talk about women’s passivity in historical narratives. (“She literally sleeps through her own climax,” as my favorite gender studies professor used to say. “Double entendre fully intended.”). Jezebel ranked it as the “least woke” Disney movie of all time, which, in a world where The Little Mermaid exists, is really saying something. Ariel might have given up her voice for a dude, but Aurora barely uses hers: she has a grand total of eighteen (18) lines in her own movie, fewer than the prince, the villain, or any of the individual fairy godmothers.

Even among the other nerds who majored in folklore, Sleeping Beauty is nobody’s favorite. Romantic girls like Beauty and the Beast; vanilla girls like Cinderella; goth girls like Snow White.

Only dying girls like Sleeping Beauty.

* * *

I DON’T REMEMBER the first time I saw Sleeping Beauty—probably in some waiting room or hospital bed, interrupted by blipping machines and chirpy nurses—but I remember the first time I saw Arthur Rackham’s illustrations. It was my sixth birthday, after cake but before my evening pills. The second-to-last gift was a cloth-bound copy of Grimm’s fairy tales from Dad. I was flipping through it (pretending to be a little more excited than I actually was because even at six I knew my parents needed a lot of protecting) when I saw her: a woman in palest watercolor lying artfully across her bed. Eyes closed, one hand dangling white and limp, throat arched. Black-ink shadows looming like crows around her.

She looked beautiful. She looked dead. Later I’d find out that’s how every Sleeping Beauty looks—hot and blond and dead, lying in a bed that might be a bier. I touched the curve of her cheek, the white of her palm, half hypnotized.

But I wasn’t really a goner until I turned the page. She was still hot and blond but no longer dead. Her eyes were wide open, blue as June, defiantly alive.

And it was like—I don’t know. A beacon being lit, a flint being struck in my chest. Charm (Charmaine Baldwin, best/only friend) says Sleeping Beauty was my first crush and she’s not totally wrong, but it was more than that. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing my face reflected brighter and better. It was my own shitty story made mythic and grand and beautiful. A princess cursed at birth. A sleep that never ends. A dying girl who refused to die.

Objectively, I’m aware our stories aren’t that similar. Wicked fairies are thin on the ground in rural Ohio, and I’m not suffering from a curse so much as fatal teratogenic damage caused by corporate malfeasance. If you drew a Venn diagram between me and Briar Rose, the overlap would be: (1) doomed to die young, (2) hot, in a fragile, consumptive way, (3) named after flowers. (I mean, look: I have a folklore degree. I’m aware that Sleeping Beauty’s name has ranged from Talia to Aurora to Zellandine (do not Google that last one), but the Grimms called her Briar Rose and my name is Zinnia Gray, so just let me have this one, alright?). I’m not even blond.

After that birthday I was pretty obsessed. It’s one of the rules for dying girls: if you like something, like it hard, because you don’t have a lot of time to waste. So I had Sleeping Beauty bedsheets and Sleeping Beauty toothpaste and Sleeping Beauty Barbies. My bookshelves filled with Grimm and Lang and then McKinley and Levine and Yolen. I read every retelling and every picture book; I bought a DVD set of the original Alvin and the Chipmunks run just to watch episode 85B, “The Legend of Sleeping Brittany,” which was just as awful as every other chipmunk-related piece of media. By the time I was twelve, I’d seen a thousand beauties prick their fingers on a thousand spindles, a thousand castles swallowed by a thousand rose hedges. I still wanted more.

I graduated high school two years early—another one of the rules for dying girls is move fast—and went straight into the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology at Ohio University. Seven semesters later I had an impractical degree, a two-hundred-page thesis on representations of disability and chronic illness in European folklore, and less than a year left to live.

Dad would cry if he heard me say that. Mom would invent some urgent task in her flower beds, tending things that weren’t going to die on her. Charm would roll her eyes and tell me to quit being such a little bitch about it (it takes a particular kind of tough to pick the dying girl to be your best friend).

All of them would remind me that I don’t know exactly how long I’ve got, that Generalized Roseville Malady is still largely unstudied, that new treatments are being tested as we speak, etc., etc., but the fact is that nobody with GRM has made it to twenty-two.

Today is my twenty-first birthday.

My relatives are all over for dinner and my grandma is drinking like a fish, if fish drank scotch, and my worst aunt is badgering Dad about crystals and alternative therapies. My cheeks hurt from fake-smiling and my poor parents are doing their very best to keep the celebration from feeling like a wake and I have never been more relieved in my short, doomed life to feel the buzz of my phone on my hip. It’s Charm, of course: happy birthday!!

And then: meet me at the tower, princess.

* * *

TOWERS, LIKE WICKED fairies, are pretty rare in Ohio. We mostly have pole barns and Jesus-y billboards and endless squares of soybeans.

Roseville has a tower, though. There’s an old state penitentiary out on Route 32, abandoned in the ’60s or ’70s. Most of it is hulking brick buildings with smashed-out windows and mediocre graffiti, obviously haunted, but there’s an old watchtower standing on one corner. It should be exactly as creepy as the rest of the place, poisoned by decades of human misery and institutional injustice, but instead it looks … lost. Out of time and place, like a landlocked lighthouse. Like a fairy tale tower somehow washed up on the shores of the real world.

It’s where I always planned to die, in my morbid preteen phase. I imagined I would dramatically rip the IVs from my veins and limp down the county road, suffocating in my own treacherous proteins, collapsing Gothic-ly and attractively just as I reached the highest room. My hair would fan into a black halo around the bloodless white of my face and whoever found me would be forced to pause and sigh at the sheer picturesque tragedy of the thing. Eat your heart out, Rackham.

God, middle schoolers are intense. I no longer plan to make anyone discover my wasted body, because I’m not a monster, but I still visit the tower sometimes. It’s where I went after high school to ditch track practice and get high with Charm; it’s where I made out for the first time (also with Charm, before I instituted dying girl rule number #3); it’s where I go when I can’t stand to be in my own house, my own skin, for another second.

I switch off the headlights and coast the last quarter mile down Route 32, because the old penitentiary is technically private property upon which trespassers will be shot, and park in the grass. I pop my eight o’clock handful of pills and make my way down the rutted lane that leads to the old watchtower.

I’m not surprised to see the orange flicker of light in the windows. I figure Charm dragged a few of our friends—her friends, if we’re being honest—out here for a party, rather than hosting it in the hazardous waste zone she calls an apartment. I bet she brought red plastic cups and a half keg because she wants me to have a legit twenty-first-birthday experience, completely ignoring the fact that alcohol interferes with at least three of my meds, because that’s the kind of friend she is.

But when I step through the tower door, it doesn’t smell like beer and weed and mildew. It smells luxuriant, heady, so sweet I feel like an old-timey cartoon character hooked by the nostrils.

I waft up the staircase. There are murmuring voices above me, faint strains of very un-Charm-like music growing louder. The highest room in the tower has always been empty except for the detritus left by time and teenagers: windblown leaves, beer tabs, cicada shells, a condom or two. It’s not empty tonight. There are strings of pearled lights crisscrossing the ceiling and long swaths of blushing fabric draped over the windows; a dozen or so people wearing the kind of gauzy fairy wings that come from the year-round Halloween store at the mall; roses absolutely everywhere, bursting from buckets and mason jars and Carlo Rossi jugs. And in the very center of the room, looking dusty and rickety and somehow grand: a spinning wheel.

That’s when I recognize the song that’s playing: “Once Upon a Dream.” The main theme from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, a waltzing melody stolen straight from Tchaikovsky’s ballet.

I am way, way too old for a Sleeping Beauty–themed birthday. I can’t stop smiling. “Oh, Charm, you didn’t.”

“I one hundred percent did.” Charm passes her PBR to the girl beside her and flings herself at me. She does a little heel-pop when I hug her, like an actress in a black-and-white movie except with more tattoos and piercings. “Happy birthday, baby, from your fairy godmothers.” She waggles her wings at me—blue, because Merryweather is her favorite character—and mashes a plastic princess crown onto my head.

Our friends (her friends) clap and hoot and pass me warmish beer. Someone switches the music, thank God, and for a few hours I pretend I’m just like them. Young and thoughtless and happy, poised at the first chapter of my story instead of the last.

Charm keeps it going as long as she can. She forces everyone into a game of Disney trivia that appears to have no rules except that I always win; she passes around pink-and-blue frosted cupcakes in a plastic Walmart clamshell; she plucks petals from the roses and flings them at me whenever my smile threatens to sag. Everybody seems to enjoy themselves.

For a while.

But there’s only so long you can hang out with the dying girl and her best friend without mortality coming to tap her knucklebones at your window. By eleven, somebody gets drunk enough to ask me, “So like, what are you doing this fall?” and a chill slinks into the room. It coils around our ankles and shivers down our spines and suddenly the roses smell like a funeral and nobody is meeting my eyes.

I consider lying. Pretending I have some internship or job or adventure lined up like the rest of them, when really I have nothing planned but a finite number of family game nights, during which my parents will stare tenderly at me across the dining room table and I will slowly suffocate under the terrible weight of their love.

“You know.” I shrug. “Just playing out the clock.” I try to make it jokey, but I can tell there’s too much acid in my voice.

After that, Charm’s friends slither out of the tower in cowardly twos and threes until it’s just the two of us, like it usually is. Like it won’t be for too much longer. Her friends took their speaker with them, so the tower is silent except for the gentle rush of wind against the windows, the crack and hiss of another beer being opened.

Charm resettles her fairy wings and looks over at me with a dangerous softening around her eyes, mouth half open, and I have a terrible premonition that she’s about to say something unforgivably sincere, like I love you or I’ll miss you.

I flick my chin at the spinning wheel. “Dare you to prick your finger.”

Charm tosses a bleached slice of hair out of her eyes, softness vanishing. “You’re the princess, hon.” She winks. “But I’ll kiss you after.” Her voice is saucy but unserious, which is a relief. Dying girl rule #3 is no romance, because my entire life is one long trolley problem and I don’t want to put any more bodies on the tracks. (I’ve spent enough time in therapy to know that this isn’t “a healthy attitude toward attachment,” but I personally feel that accepting my own imminent mortality is enough work without also having a healthy attitude about it.)

“You know it wasn’t originally a spinning wheel in the story?” I offer, because alcohol transforms me into a chatty Wikipedia page. “In the original version—I mean, if oral traditions had original versions, which they don’t—she pricks her finger on a piece of flax. The Grimms used the word spindel, or spindle, but the wheel itself wasn’t commonly used in Europe until the mid-sixteenth … why are your eyes closed?”

“I’m praying for your amyloidosis to flare up and end my pain.”

“Okay, fuck you?”

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to fit a spinning wheel in the trunk of a Corolla? Just prick your finger already! It’s almost midnight.”

“That’s Cinderella, dumbass.” But I lurch obediently to my feet, discovering from the delicate spin of the windows that I’m slightly drunker than I’d guessed. I curtsy to Charm, wobble only a little, and touch my finger to the spindle’s end.

Nothing happens, naturally. Why would it? It’s just a dusty antique in an abandoned watchtower, not nearly sharp enough to draw blood, and I’m just a dying girl with bad luck and a boring life. Neither of us is anything special.

I look down at the iron spike of the spindle, slightly cross-eyed. For no reason I think of the girl in that Rackham illustration, blond and tragic. I think how it must have felt to grow up in the shadow of a curse, how much she must have hated the story she was handed. How in the end all her hate didn’t matter because she still reached her finger for that spindle, powerless to stop the cruel gears of her own narrative—

Distantly, I hear Charm say, “Jesus, Zin,” and I become aware that I’m pressing my finger into the spindle’s end, burying the point in the soft meat of my skin. I look down to see a single red tear welling at the end of it.

And then something happens, after all.