The Shining Girls A Novel

Kirby and Harper

22 NOVEMBER 1931

Time heals all wounds. Wounds clot, eventually. The seams knit together.

As soon as she crosses the window frame, she is somewhere else. She thinks she must be going mad.

Maybe she’s been dying this whole time and everything has been an extended hero-trip, her brain’s last huzzah as she bleeds out in the bird sanctuary with her dog tied to a tree with wire around his throat.

She has to push through the heavy folds of curtains that weren’t there before, into a parlor, old-fashioned, but new. A fire crackles in the hearth. A decanter of whiskey sits on the side table beside a velvet chair facing it.

The man she followed into the house has already left. Harper has gone to 9 September 1980 to watch girl-Kirby from the parking lot of a gas station, sipping on a Coke because he has to hold on to something to stop him from crossing the street and grabbing the child by the throat with enough force to slam her off her feet and stabbing her again and again and again right there in front of the donut shop.

In the house, Kirby finds her way upstairs to a bedroom decorated with artifacts taken from dead girls, who are not dead yet, who are perpetually dying or marked to die. They shimmer in and out of focus. There are three that belong to her. A plastic pony. A black and silver lighter. A tennis ball that makes her scars ache and her head reel.

Downstairs, a key turns in the lock. She panics. There is nowhere to go. She yanks at the window, but it won’t budge. Terrified, she climbs into the wardrobe and crouches there, trying not to think. Trying not to scream.

‘Co za wkurwiajqce gówno!’

A Polish engineer, drunk on his winnings and actual alcohol besides, fumbles around in the kitchen. He has the key in the pocket of his coat, but not for long. The door opens behind him and Harper limps in on his crutch from 23 March 1989, with a chewed tennis ball in his pocket and Kirby’s blood still wet on his jeans.

It takes him a long time to beat Bartek to death, while Kirby hides in the wardrobe in the room and clutches her mouth. When the squealing starts, she can’t help it, she moans against her palm.

He comes clomping up the stairs with his crutch, dragging his leg, one step at a time. Tok-tok. It doesn’t matter that this has happened before in his past, because it is folded over into her present, like origami.

He comes to the threshold of the room and she bites her tongue so hard it bleeds. The inside of her mouth is dry and copper. But he passes right by.

She sits forward, straining to listen. There is a mad bear in here with her. Her breathing, she realizes. She’s hyperventilating. She has to be quiet. She has to get herself under control.

There is the unmistakable porcelain clink of a toilet seat being lifted. The splash of piss. A faucet running as he washes his hands. He curses softly. A rustling. The sharp tine of a belt buckle hitting the tiles. He turns on the shower. The curtain rings rattle as he yanks it across.

This is it. Your only chance, she thinks. She should walk into the bathroom, take up the crutch, and smack him in the skull with it. Knock him out cold. Tie him up. Get the cops. But she knows – if he doesn’t wrest it away from her – she won’t be able to stop until he doesn’t get up ever again. The connections between her brain and her body have petrified. Her hand will not move to open the wardrobe door. Move, she thinks.

The water sputters. She’s lost her moment. He’s going to emerge from the bathroom and cross over to the wardrobe to get clean clothes. Maybe if she rushes him. Shoves him and runs. The tiles will be wet. She might have a fighting chance.

The hiss of the shower resumes. The pipes playing up. Or he’s f*cking with her. Now. She has to go. Now. She shoves open the wardrobe door with her foot and scrambles out, across the floor.

She needs to take something. Some kind of evidence. She snatches the lighter from the shelf. Exactly the same one. She doesn’t know how that’s possible.

She steals into the corridor. The door of the bathroom is open. She can hear him whistling underneath the rush of the water. Something sweet and cheerful. She would be half-sobbing if she could breathe.

She edges past, her back pressed against the wallpaper. She is clutching the lighter so hard that her hand is aching. She doesn’t notice. She forces herself to take one more step. Another. Not so different to the time before. And another. She forces her mind to blank out the man with his brains smeared across the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

The water turns off when she is halfway down. She bolts for the front door. She tries to step over the body of the Pole, but she’s going too quickly to be careful and she stands on his arm. The give is horrible, too soft under the roll of her boots. Dontthinkdonthinkdontthink.

She reaches for the latch.

It opens.





Dan

13 JUNE 1993

‘In here,’ says the owner of the Finmark Deli, showing Dan to the back office. ‘She was in a state when I found her.’

Through the window of the door, Dan can see Kirby is sitting in a highback faux leather roller chair at a plywood desk under a calendar of fine art prints, currently showing a Monet. Or a Manet. Dan never figured out the difference. It’s an impression of high-brow taste that is undone by the poster of the girl with her tits squashed between her fingers sitting on a Ducati on the opposite wall. Kirby looks pale and hunched up, like she’s trying to shrink in on herself. Her fist is clenched in her lap. She’s talking softly into the phone.

‘I’m glad you’re okay, mom. No, please don’t come down. Seriously.’

‘You think it’s gonna be on the evening news?’ Mr Deli Guy says.

‘What?’

‘Because I should probably shave if it is. If they want to interview me.’

‘Do you mind?’ Dan is going to deck him if he doesn’t shut up.

‘Not at all. Civic duty.’

‘He means, can you leave us alone, please?’ Kirby says, hanging up the receiver.

‘Oh, right. Well, it is my office,’ he bristles.

‘And we’re so grateful you’re letting us use it to get some privacy,’ Dan says, half-shoving him out.

‘You know I had to beg him to use the phone?’ This time her voice cracks.

‘Jesus, I was worried.’ He kisses her on the head, grinning in relief.

‘Me too.’ She smiles, but it’s not really a smile.

‘The cops are there now.’

‘I know,’ she nods tightly. ‘I just spoke to my mom. The f*cker broke into her house.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Tore it apart.’

‘Looking for something?’

‘Me. But I was with you. And Rachel was visiting an old boyfriend. She didn’t even know about it until she got home and found the place trashed. She wants to rush over here. She wants to know if they’ve caught him yet.’

‘Don’t we all. She loves you.’

‘I can’t deal with that right now.’

‘You know you’re going to have to identify him. Down at the station. Will you be able to handle it?’

She nods again. Her curls are limp and dark with sweat.

‘Good look for you,’ he teases, brushing her hair away from the nape of her neck. ‘You should chase down murderers more often. Most manageable I’ve seen it.’

‘That won’t be the end of it. Still the trial.’

‘Sure, you’ll have to be here for that. But we can avoid the media circus. Make an official statement and then we can book out of town. Ever been to California?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Right. I forgot.’

‘Worth forgetting.’

‘Jesus. I was worried.’

‘You said.’ This time the smile is real. Tired, but real. He can’t help it. He can’t resist it. He kisses her then. Everything in her draws him in. Her lips are unbearably soft and warm and responsive.

She kisses him back.

‘Uh,’ the deli owner says.

Kirby touches the back of her hand to her mouth and looks away.

‘¡Por Dios!! Don’t you knock?’ Dan yells.

‘The uh, the detective, wants a word.’ He looks anxiously from one to the other, trying to figure out how to turn this into a TV-friendly sound-bite. ‘I’ll be, er, I’ll be outside.’

Kirby pinches at the skin between her collarbones, absently rubbing the edge of her thumb against the scar. ‘Dan.’ The way she says his name unhinges him.

‘Don’t say it. You don’t have to. Please don’t.’

‘I can’t right now. You know?’

‘Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I was just … F*ck.’ He can’t even get a proper sentence together. Of all the stupid moments.

‘Sounds about right,’ she says, not looking at him. ‘Hey. I’m glad you’re here.’ She punches his arm. It’s a brush-off. And something inside him breaks at the lightness and finality of it.

There’s a sharp knock at the door a millisecond before Detective Amato pushes it open.

‘Ms Mazrachi. Mr…’

‘Velasquez.’ Dan leans against the wall, arms folded, making it clear he’s not going anywhere.

‘Did you get him? Where is he?’ Kirby looks fearfully at the black-andwhite screen connected to the shop’s surveillance camera.

Detective Amato takes up a perch on the edge of the desk. Too familiar, Dan thinks, like he’s still not taking her seriously. He clears his throat. ‘Hell of a thing. The guy coming to your office like that.’

‘And the house?’

He looks uncomfortable.

‘Listen. It’s been very stressful. It was very brave and stupid to follow him like that.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Easy to get turned around. You don’t know the neighborhood.’

‘You didn’t find it?’ Kirby stands up, pale with fury. ‘I gave you the address. You want me to gift-wrap him and put him under the f*cking Christmas tree for you, too?’

‘Now calm down, miss.’

‘I am perfectly calm,’ Kirby shouts.

‘All right, everyone,’ Dan says. ‘Same team, remember?’

‘We couldn’t find the junkie you spoke to. I’ve still got guys asking around in the neighborhood.’

‘What about the house?’

‘What can I tell you? It’s abandoned. It’s a wreck. Pipes have been pulled out, copper wiring stripped, floorboards yanked up. Anything of value has been stolen and the rest has been trashed for kicks. There’s definitely nobody in there. But kids might have been smoking in there or having sex. We found a mattress upstairs.’

‘You actually went inside.’ Kirby says this with flat challenge.

‘Of course we did. What are you trying to say?’

‘And it was just a wreck?’

‘Lady, come on. I know you’re taking this hard. It’s not your fault if you got mixed up. It’s been very traumatic. Most people are terrible witnesses on a good day, let alone after they see the guy who tried to kill them.’

‘Coming back to finish it.’

‘So what happens now?’ Dan asks.

‘We’re going door-to-door. We’ve got the description. Hopefully we turn up your junkie and he can direct us to the place.’

‘The right place,’ she says, bitterly. ‘And then?’

‘We’ve got an APB on him. All stations. We find him, we bring him in. You have to let us do our jobs.’

‘Because you’ve done so well this far.’

‘Can you help me out here?’ Amato says to Dan.

‘Kirby—’

‘I get it.’ She shrugs him off angrily.

‘Have you got somewhere you can stay tonight? I can assign you an officer.’

‘She can stay at mine.’ Dan flushes as Amato’s eyebrows twitch upwards. ‘I’ve got a sleeper couch. I’ll sleep on that. Obviously.’

‘Have you caught him yet? Where is he?’ Rachel demands, sweeping into the tiny room in a storm of nerves and patchouli.

‘Mom! I told you not to come down.’

‘I’m going to claw his eyes out. Do we still have the death penalty in Chicago? I’ll flip the f*cking switch myself.’ She is full of fierce bravado, but Dan can see that she is at breaking point. Her eyes are wild. Her hands are shaking. And her being here is winding Kirby up tighter.

‘Have a seat, Ms Mazrachi,’ he says, nudging her towards a chair.

‘I see the vultures are out already,’ she flings at him. ‘Come on, Kirby, I’m taking you home.’

‘Rachel!’

The detective’s mouth narrows to a slit at having to deal with another crazy woman. ‘Ma’am, going home is not advisable. We don’t know that he won’t return to your house. You should book into a hotel for the night. And get some counseling. It’s been traumatic for both of you. Cook County has someone attached to the emergency room. All hours. Or here. Call this number. It’s a friend. Works with a lot of crime victims.’

‘What about the f*cker who did this?’ Kirby is furious.

‘You let us worry about that. You look after your mom. Stop trying to carry this on your own.’ He frowns, not unsympathetically. ‘Now, I’m going to send an artist in to do an identikit with you and go through some photos, and then you are going to see the counselor and check into a hotel and take some sleeping pills. And you are going to not think about this any more tonight. Got it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Kirby says, not meaning a word.

‘Good girl,’ Amato says, wearily, not meaning it either.

‘Sanctimonius prick!’ Rachel says, throwing herself into the vacated chair. ‘Who the f*ck does he think he is? He can’t even do his job.’

‘Mom, you can’t be here. You’re upsetting me.’

‘I’m upset too!’

‘But you don’t have to try to be coherent for the police. This is really important. I have to get this right. I’m begging you. I’ll call you when I’m done.’

‘I’ll look after her, Ms Mazrachi,’ Dan says.

Rachel snorts. ‘You!’

‘Mom. Please.’

‘The Day’s Inn is decent,’ Dan intervenes. ‘I stayed there when I was getting divorced. It’s clean. It’s reasonably priced. I’m sure one of the officers would be willing to drive you downtown.’

She deflates. ‘All right, fine. But you’ll come straight there afterwards?’

‘Sure, Rachel,’ Kirby says, ushering her out. ‘Please don’t worry. I’ll see you later.’

The atmosphere in the room changes the moment Rachel is out of the room. He can practically feel the temperature drop. There’s a different kind of intensity – a terrible focus. Dan knows what’s coming.

‘No,’ he says.

‘You’re gonna stop me?’ Kirby says, cold as he’s ever seen her.

‘Be sensible. It’s getting dark. You don’t have a flashlight. Or a gun.’

‘Yeah?’

‘And I have both in my car.’

Kirby laughs in relief and unclenches her fist for the first time since she left the house. She’s holding a black and silver lighter. A Ronson De-Light Princess with an art deco design.

‘Replica?’

She shakes her head.

‘Not from the evidence room.’

She shakes her head again. ‘It’s the same one. I don’t know how to explain it.’

‘And you haven’t shown this to the cops.’

‘Would there be a point? I don’t believe me. It’s so f*cked up, Dan. It’s not wrecked inside. It’s something else. I’m so scared we’ll get there and you won’t see it.’

Dan folds his hand over hers around the lighter. ‘I believe you, kiddo.’





Kirby and Dan

13 JUNE 1993

She is tense in the car. She keeps playing with the lighter. Flick. Flick-flick-flick. He doesn’t blame her. The pressure is unbearable. Flick. Catapulting towards something that can be averted. A car crash in slow motion. Not just an ordinary fender-bender either. This is like your ten-car pile-up halfway across the freeway with helicopters and firetrucks and people weeping in shock on the side of the road. Flick. Flick. Flick.

‘Can you stop that? Or at least stick a cigarette in the hot end? I could use one.’ He tries not to feel guilty about Rachel. About driving her daughter into danger.

‘Do you have one?’ she says eagerly.

‘Check the glove compartment.’

She pops the latch and the cubby dumps a bunch of crap in her lap. Assorted pens, condiments from Al’s Beef, a squashed soda cup. She crumples the empty packet of Marlboro Lights.

‘Nope. Sorry.’

‘Shit.’

‘You know there’s still as much cancer-causing stuff in the light versions?’

‘Never figured cancer would be the thing to kill me.’

‘Where’s your gun?’

‘Under the seat.’

‘How do you know you’re not going to hit a bump and blow your ankle off?’

‘I don’t normally carry it around.’

‘I guess these are special circumstances.’

‘You freaked out?’

‘Out of my mind. I’m so scared, Dan. But this is it. My whole life. There’s no choice.’

‘We getting into free will now?’

‘I have to go back is all there is to it. If the police won’t.’

‘I think you’ll find that’s ‘we’, pal-face. You’re dragging me with you.’

‘Dragging is a strong word.’

‘So is “vigilantism”.’

‘You gonna be my Robin? You’d look good in yellow tights.’

‘Hold on there. I am definitely Batman. Which makes you Robin.’

‘I always liked the Joker more.’

‘It’s because you relate. You both have bad hair.’

‘Dan?’ she says, looking out the window at dusk creeping in over the empty lots and boarded-up houses and the rat-traps falling apart. Her face is reflected in the car window with the flame as she clicks the lighter again.

‘Yeah, kiddo?’ he says tenderly.

‘You’re Robin.’

Kirby directs him down an alleyway, desolate even by this neighborhood’s standards, and Dan suddenly has a lot of sympathy for Detective Amato.

‘Stop here,’ she says. He switches off the ignition and lets the car roll to a stop behind an old wooden fence that leans out like a drunk.

‘That one?’ Dan says, peering at the abandoned rowhouses with the windows boarded up and weeds that have sprung up jungle-thick and blooming with flowers of trash. Clearly no one has been in here for a very long time, let alone set up a hidden den of yesteryear opulence. He tries not to let the doubt show.

‘Come on.’ Kirby unlocks the door and climbs out the car.

‘Hang on a sec.’ He bends down next to the open door of the driver’s side, pretending to tie his shoelace while digging under the seat to retrieve his revolver. A Dan Wesson. The name amused him at the time. Beatriz hated it. And the thought they might actually need it.

As he straightens, he’s blinded by the flare of light catching in the rear windshield from the sun, which is definitely on the way out. ‘We couldn’t have done this 11 a.m. on a sunny day?’

‘Come on.’ Kirby picks her way through the weeds to the rickety Z of wooden steps running up the back of the house. He holds the gun at his hip, out of sight of the casual observer. He’d settle for any observer. He’s unnerved by how quiet it is.

She shrugs out of his jacket and drops it onto the barbed wire blocking off the stairway.

‘Let me,’ he says. He shoves the heel of his shoe on the jacket, pushing down the razor-sharp coils, and extends his hand to help her over. He scrambles after her and as soon as the pressure’s off, the wire recoils like it’s spring-loaded, tearing into the fabric.

‘Never mind. I got it on sale. Bought the first one that fit me.’ He realizes he’s shooting his mouth off. Never figured himself for a talker. Never figured he’d be breaking into abandoned houses.

They’re standing on the back porch. The view through the window is as foreboding as f*ck; dim light that casts everything in shades of green, and detritus everywhere. It looks like the walls have been peeled and spread like confetti all over the floor.

He shrugs the jacket back on as Kirby puts one foot on the windowsill. ‘Don’t be freaked out.’ Then she hauls herself through and disappears. Literally. One second she’s there, framed in the window, next she’s gone.

‘Kirby!’ He lunges for the window, putting his hand down straight onto a jagged slice of glass that’s still miraculously intact. ‘Jesusf*ckingshit!’ She reappears and grabs hold of his arm. He half tumbles inside after her. Everything changes.

He stands there, stunned, in the dining room. Disbelief like a concussion. She knows the feeling. ‘Come on,’ she whispers.

‘You keep saying that,’ he says, but his voice is thick and far away. He blinks hard. Blood runs from his palm and patters on the floor in thick drops. He doesn’t notice. The fireplace casts an unsteady orange glow over the floorboards in the dark corridor. There is no sign of the dead man she said she’d had to step over in the hallway when she made her escape before.

‘Snap out of it, Dan. I need you.’

‘What is this?’ he says, low.

‘I don’t know. I know it’s real.’ That’s not true. She’s been doubting herself the whole way here. Thinking maybe everyone is right and she’s the delusional freak and what she really needs is anti-psychotic meds and a hospital bed with a view of the gardens through the bars. It’s such a terrible relief that he sees it too. ‘And I know you’re bleeding. You should give me the gun.’

‘No way, you’re unstable.’ He says it teasingly, but he’s not looking at her. He’s running his hand over the patterned wallpaper. Testing to see if it’s real. ‘You said he’s upstairs?’

‘He was. Three hours ago. Wait. Dan.’

‘What?’ He turns at the foot of the stairs.

She falters. ‘I can’t go up there again.’

‘Okay,’ he says. More decisively: ‘Okay.’ He goes into the parlor and her ribs squeeze tight. Oh God, if he’s in there, sitting in the chair, waiting. But Dan emerges, holding a heavy black poker from the fireplace. He holds the gun out to her. ‘Stay here. If he comes through the door, shoot him.’

‘Let’s just go,’ she says, as if that’s an option any more. He jabs the revolver at her. It’s heavier than she would have thought. Her hands are shaking badly.

‘Cover all the entrances. Use both hands. There’s no safety. You point and shoot. Just don’t shoot me, okay?’

‘Deal,’ she says, her voice shaky.

He starts up the stairs, the poker raised like a baseball bat. She presses her shoulder blades up against the wall. It’s like playing pool. You have to breathe out as you take aim and release. No problem, she thinks with a flash of hate.

The key scratches in the lock.

She jerks on the trigger the moment the door swings open.

The f*cker ducks as the shot nicks the edge of the doorframe, splintering the wood. (It cuts through 1980 and bores through the window of the house across the road, embedding itself in the wall next to a picture of the Virgin Mary.)

He is unfazed at being shot at. ‘Sweetheart,’ he says. ‘I was looking for you.’ He reaches for his knife. ‘And here you are.’

She glances down at the revolver, a millisecond is all, to see if she needs to reload or click the chamber. Six rounds. Five left. Dan is already halfway across the room when she looks up. Right in her line of fire.

‘Get out of the way!’

Dan brings the poker swinging down with force, but Harper, who is more experienced with violence, intercepts it with his forearm. It still cracks bone. He howls in pain and punches the knife into Dan’s chest. There is a bright spray of red. The momentum carries both men up against the door. It’s only on the catch. Not locked. They fall together, smashing through the boards nailed across the door, into another time. The door swings shuts behind them.

‘Dan!’ It’s only a few yards, but it feels like forever. It might as well be. When she opens the door, it’s on to the summer’s evening she came from. There is no sign of them.





Dan

3 DECEMBER 1929

They hold onto each other like lovers, tumbling down the steps of the front porch and into the cold and dark of early morning. The snow is a shock. Dan hits the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He gets his knee up to shove the psycho off and scrambles like a dog on all fours into the street, trying to get distance.

Everything’s f*cked up. Somewhere else again. Where there was an empty lot before, a brick warehouse has sprung up. He thinks about banging on the door for help, but it’s padlocked with a heavy chain. The windows of the houses are boarded over. But the paint is newer. None of it makes any sense; rolling around in the snow, bleeding on things, when it was June half an hour ago.

Dan’s shirt is wet. The cold cuts through it. Blood runs down his arm and drips between his fingers, blooming in the snow in pink crystalline fractals. He can’t even tell what it’s from any more, his ribs or the cut in his hand. It’s all gone numb and burny anyway. The killer pulls himself to his feet using the railing, still holding the knife. Dan is already sick of that f*cking knife.

‘Give it up, friend,’ the man says, limping across the snow towards him. The guy has his knife and Dan has shit. He’s crouching, his fingers digging in the snow.

‘You want to make it harder?’ The guy’s diction is slightly off. Old-fashioned, almost.

‘You’re not going to get a chance to hurt her again,’ Dan says. Closer, he can see that the bastard smashed open his lip in the fall. His teeth are red with blood as he smiles.

‘It’s a circle that has to be closed.’

‘I don’t know what the f*ck you’re talking about, man,’ Dan says, hauling himself up. ‘But you’re making me angry.’ He shifts his weight onto his right foot, ignoring the pain in his side, winding up. The compacted lump of snow is gripped between his thumb and two fingers splayed wide like a four-seam fastball. He raises his knee and breaks his arms round in a pinwheel, pivoting his hips, and coming down on his front leg, letting the snowball glide, not snap, off his wrist at the sweet spot of the arc. ‘Vete pa’l carajo, hijo’e puta!’

It sings across the street, this improvised ball, the perfect pitch to rival Mad Dog Maddux himself, and smashes into the psychopath’s face.

The killer staggers back in shock, shaking his head and brushing away the snow. It’s enough time. Dan runs across the street, closing the gap between them. He’s on him. He winds up again, smashing his fist into the man’s nose. He’s aiming low, hoping to drive the septum straight into the bastard’s brain. But if it were that easy, it would happen all the time. The guy twists his jaw as the punch connects and Dan feels the cheekbone crunch under his knuckles. Puñeta, that hurts.

He shoves himself backwards, ducking the knife weaving through the air, falling onto his back like a crab. He rolls himself over, lashing out with his shoe, connecting with something solid. Not the guy’s kneecap or his balls, which would have been useful. His thigh, maybe.

The lunatic is still grinning through the blood running down his face from his nose. The blade in his hand is slick. The thought makes Dan feel sick and very, very tired. Or that could be the blood loss. It’s hard to tell how bad it is. Pretty ugly, he reckons, by the red in the snow. Dan gets to his feet, reluctantly. He can’t understand why Kirby doesn’t come out of the house and just shoot the bastard.

He watches the hand with the knife. Maybe he can kick it away. Like some kung-fu master. Who is he kidding? He makes a decision. He lunges forward, grabbing hold of the guy’s injured arm, squeezing and wrenching it, trying to pull him round, unbalance him as he drives his other fist into the bastard’s chest.

The killer gives a surprised whuff as the air goes out of him, falling back a step, dragging Dan with him, but he is stronger and more experienced. He still manages to jab upwards with the knife, ripping into Dan’s stomach, pulling towards his ribcage with a shearing meaty-paper sound.

Dan collapses onto his knees, clutching his stomach. And then falls down onto his side. The ground is freezing against his face. There is a shocking amount of blood spilling into the snow.

‘She’ll die worse,’ the man says, smiling horribly. He nudges Dan in the ribs with the toe of his shoe. Dan groans and rolls away, onto his back, exposing his stomach. He tries to cover himself with his hands, a useless gesture. There’s something digging into his back, in the pocket of his coat. The goddamn pony.

Headlights sweep across the street as a boxy old-fashioned car turns the corner. Motes of falling snow swirl in the beams of the headlights. It slows as it catches them in the spot, Dan lying there bleeding to death and the man with the knife hobbling back towards the house as fast as he can, with dawn on the horizon.

‘Help me!’ Dan yells at the car. He can’t see the driver’s face past the sulfur glare of the round headlights, like spectacles. All he can make out is a man’s silhouette with a hat. ‘Stop him!’

The car idles in front of him, the heat of the exhaust forming sputtering cumulus clouds of carbon dioxide in the cold. Suddenly the engine roars, the tires spin, kicking up bits of ice and gravel, and it swerves around him. Barely.

‘F*ck you!’ Dan tries to scream after it. ‘You f*cking f*ck!’ But it comes out more of a jagged gasp. He cranes his head back to try and see the killer. He’s on the porch stairs already, reaching for the door. It’s hard to make him out, and not just through the flurries of snow.

Dan’s vision is going furry-dark around the edges, like a cataract. Like falling down a well and the iris of light getting further and further away.





Harper and Kirby

13 JUNE 1993

He kicks open the door, covered in blood and grinning insanely with anticipation, holding the knife and the key. But the grin dies when he sees what she is doing. Kirby is standing in the middle of the room, jerking the Ronson Princess De-Light to spray lighter fluid over a mound of stuff she’s gathered in the middle of the room.

She’s torn down the curtains from the window, soaked through with wet patches, piled up on top of the mattress from the spare bedroom upstairs. There are empty bottles carelessly tossed at the base. The kerosene from the kitchen. The whiskey. She’s upturned the chair and torn it open so the stuffing leaks out in white clumps. The gramophone is smashed to pieces. Glossy splinters of wood and hundred-dollar bills and betting slips rammed into the dented brass horn. She’s brought down everything from the room. The butterfly wings and the baseball card and the pony and the cassette with a snarl of unspooled black ribbon tangled up in a charm bracelet, the lab ID badge and a protest button, a bunny clip, a contraceptive pill packet, a printer’s letter Z. A chewed-on tennis ball.

‘Where’s Dan?’ Kirby says. The light from the fireplace behind her shines in her hair like a prophecy.

‘Dead,’ Harper says. The snowstorm of December 1929 whirls behind him through the open door. ‘What are you doing?’

‘What do you think?’ she mocks. ‘You didn’t give me anything to do but wait for you to come back.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Harper says as Kirby flicks the flint. A steady golden flame flares up. She drops it into the pile. It catches a second later, oily black smoke twisting up from the paper, leaping orange flames.

He yells in anguish, lunging for her, the knife out, but something brings him up short.

He smashes violently into the floor, dropping the key, as Dan half-tackles him, on his knees, his arms clutched around Harper’s legs. Still alive, even though blood is pooling under him, black and thick. He is pulling at Harper’s pants to drag him back and keep him from getting at her. Harper kicks at him, frantically. His heel sends the key skittering across the floor, skidding through the blood, and coming to rest on the doorjamb at the very threshold of the House.

He manages to get in a lucky blow, catching Dan under his jaw with his shoe. Dan groans and his fingers release their hold on his jeans.

Freed, Harper scrambles to his feet, still holding the knife, triumphant. He will kill her and put out the fire and then carve up her friend slowly for the trouble he has caused him.

But then he meets Kirby’s gaze as she levels the gun at him. The flames are hot at her back. She opens her mouth to say something and thinks better of it. She exhales slowly and squeezes the trigger.