“Tell me what I can do for you, peanut. Can I make you something?”
“No! Are you even listening to me?”
Mia lowered her head and winced at herself.
“I’m sorry, Nana. I’m just . . .”
Her grandmother smiled softly. For all the girl’s neurotic self-loathing, she was still the darling treasure of the family, the one who stayed sweet and sensible while her brothers swung through the house like wrecking balls. The Farisi men loved her with such fervent devotion that Vera pitied the first boy who was foolish enough to give her grief.
“Come here, angel.”
Mia crossed the kitchen and embraced her, sighing with self-rebuke. It was hard to forget how Vera had grown up in fascist Italy, a barefoot orphan who’d lived from crumb to crumb. And now here was her granddaughter, wailing over a weight gain like it was the end of the world.
God help me, Mia thought, as the kitchen lights flickered. God help me the day I have real problems.
—
Mia blindly thrust the plank at the ceiling, her breath spilling out in high wheezes. Dirt rained down in clumps—falling into her hair, onto her face, down her pajama top. She felt an unpleasant tickle as something crawled across her cheek on tiny legs. Screaming, she dropped the board and furiously slapped her skin until the wriggling stopped.
She fell to her knees and wept. For all she knew, she was miles underground. Even if she stood just three feet under grass, she’d never make it out. She was too short. And digging would only bring the world down on her anyway. All things considered, she’d rather die with stale air in her mouth than fresh dirt. If she was lucky, she’d die sleeping.
A faint light suddenly pierced the blackness of the grave. Mia looked up to see a luminous white disc hanging in the air, two feet in front of her. It started out the size of a coin but then expanded vertically. Two quarters tall. Five quarters. Twenty.
At forty quarters of height, the strange object dropped into the soil.
Dumbfounded, Mia picked it up. It was a cigar tube made of some glow-in-the-dark metal. Unscrewing the lid revealed ten smooth plastic sticks, all wrapped in a long strip of paper with handwriting on the outside. She unfurled it, squinting at the words in the dull radiance of the tube.
PS—Shake the lumicands to light them up.
She shook one of the sticks, then squawked in surprise as a small flame ignited at the end. The fire was fluorescent white and gave off no heat whatsoever. Mia put her free hand above it and then in it. The flame licked her palm harmlessly.
In the new light, she caught more handwriting on the other side of the note.
Mia, there are only 16 inches of dirt between you and sunlight. Use the lumicands. Use the boards. Keep digging. Trust me.
She had to be imagining all this. Maybe she was hallucinating from oxygen deprivation. She noticed her breaths were sharper now. The air felt thicker.
Crazy or sane, she was running out of time.
Mia shook each of the candles and then stuck them into the walls, as if decorating a cake from the inside. By the tenth and final flame, her grave was as well lit as an office cube.
She took a moment to notice her silver bracelet, a strange new adornment that had mysteriously appeared overnight. It terrified her to think that someone had crept into her room and slipped it on her while she slept. She didn’t even know how that was possible. The band had no seam and was too tight to slide over her hand. Her mysterious gifter would have had to break her thumb.
She shelved the puzzle and resumed her frantic digging. After two minutes, she managed to carve a small hat of air at the top of the egg, but she had yet to pierce daylight. Her shoulder muscles screamed with strain. She couldn’t take a breath without coughing. She couldn’t stop crying as dark memories came trickling back.
“Nana . . .”
—
“I’m sorry,” Mia said, as she shivered beneath a blanket.
She huddled with her grandmother in the basement, stashed against the wall between old moving boxes. A dusty kerosene lamp burned at their feet, casting jittery shadows on the stone. The electricity had been out for five hours now. The Farisi men went out to investigate the clamor four hours ago. They had yet to come back.
Mia’s eyes glistened in the flame light. “I should have never gotten so worked up about those stupid girls at the mall.”
Vera squeezed her arm. Though the woman put on a brave face, Mia could hear the strain in her voice. Every instinct she had was screaming that her son and grandsons were dead.
She stroked Mia’s arm. “I know, peanut. I’m just sorry you never had proper advice on these matters. You could have used a mother in your life. Or a sister.”