“Hard to say. The sun never came up proper. It was like a sunrise in the Dark, kind of purple and weak. We got to get some city money through here soon or else. Everyone got so nervous I guess we all passed out. I can barely feel my body anymore.” First massaged her limbs. “What are we going to do, Little?”

  “How do you do, ma’am.” The Night Watchman had been standing a foot behind me. He thrust his hand forward to introduce himself to First.

  “How am I?” First sputtered, taken aback by the stranger suddenly before her. “Well, good sir, I’m afraid you caught me, well, all of us girls, in a bit of a dilemma. Forgive my poor manners.”

  “I’d be happy to help out, any way I can,” offered the Watchman. I started to tug him away. I could almost hear the wheels of First’s thoughts being put into motion, and I wanted the Watchman to at least have a decent meal before the Glories made their claims on him.

  I woke the triplets and shooed them out of their sleeping spots. Their booth was the best in the house, and I could count on them to wake the others and start the well-earned gossip. The Watchman swaggered when he came up to our table, trying to impress the ladies. The triplets giggled, hastily fixing their hair and clothes as he said hello.

  I shouldered up to Myra for a quick report. “Cops searched the Smoke Shoppe yesterday. I think it was yesterday. They claimed it was a routine inspection—Cuban cigars and all that. Mr Eddie looked scared to death as he told us. He barely poked his head out the back door.” Myra spoke in a sleepy monotone “Who’s the live one?” she asked, her voice perking up a little.

  “I found him in the Dark,” I told her, and took my seat across from him. Shirley attempted to give us menus. I’d never seen a menu at the Mayflower before. Everyone who ate there was a regular. I waved the menus away before she got a chance to put them down on the table. “Fish and chips,” I ordered, which was my favourite. “And the gentleman will have anything that isn’t chicken soup or beans.” I winked at the Watchman. He’d never had a lady order for him, I was sure. I bet he liked it, especially when within minutes he was brought the best pepper steak with mashed potatoes and peas. He nearly wept at the sight of his dinner plate. “Good food. Pretty girl, prettiest girl, I mean that,” he said and took my hand from across the table. “It must be a miracle that you ended up at my garage.”

  He ate in rounds; a bite of peas, of mashed potatoes, steak, then a sip of water before going back to the peas again. I was quietly tickled by this, by the way he swished each sip of water in his cheeks to clear his palate. I could barely imagine his face before I’d shaved and cut his hair, before his greasy skin came clean. The dimple in the centre of his chin deepened as he chewed his food.

  Arsen flicked and fumbled with a dead lighter on the other side of the room. First had their candle in her hand, ready for the flame. I could feel her giving me the eye. They were whispering. I wondered what kind of plan was coming together between them.

  Next to her the triplets chattered at full volume and not-so-discreetly pointed in our direction. Glories started circling like buzzards. Their actions were ridiculously contrived: polishing the spotless windows around us; coyly dropping coins so that they would roll toward our table—anything so they might get closer. They restrained themselves until the Watchman finished his dinner. When he started on his apple pie and coffee, First slid into the booth beside me, clicking coffee cups with him as she re-introduced herself. Fauxnique slipped in beside him. She had her hand on his thigh under the table; I could tell by his suddenly embarrassed expression.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not the jealous type.” Fauxnique took this as her cue to shimmy onto his lap, making room for Ling to sit down on the bench beside him. First and Ling tag-teamed the flattery: “That shirt makes you look so handsome,” “What a healthy appetite you have,” “That chin dimple is soooo old Hollywood,” and on and on.

  Outside, the sunrise previewed its purples and pinks. First leaned into me like a plant growing toward a sunny window. “Today’s sunrise is brighter already, my little angel,” she cooed in my ear. The Watchman craned his neck to see the oncoming daylight, nearly tipping Fauxnique off his lap. His once dog-like face achieved a new level of humanness as he watched the Sub Rosa sun spill colours over the rooftops. “What a sunrise,” the Dowager said as she strode up. “I bet it will be a beautiful day in the city. The sun sparkling off tall buildings, ladies in their summer dresses.” Fauxnique and Ling grimaced at the Dowager as Fauxnique re-rooted herself in the Watchman’s lap.

  “Well, I really should be getting back,” the Watchman said with barely an acknowledgement of the Dowager. “Can’t leave the garage unprotected for too long.” He shifted under Fauxnique, trying politely to get up.

  “My dear man,” said the Dowager. “You’ve only just got here. There’s no reason why we can’t enjoy a second slice of pie together, hmm?” The Dowager urged Ling and Fauxnique out of their seats and sat herself beside him. He flinched when she looped her arm around his.

  “I was just myself thinkin’ that today is the perfect day to visit the city,” said First. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. First hated the city.

  “You’re too right, Candy,” I said. “After a long, very long, work week, you deserve a little painting of the town. Why not take in the sights?”

  “I can’t imagine the city has any sights more beautiful than you girls,” said the Watchman.

  “Yeah,” barked Fauxnique. “Why bother with the city when you can stay here with us?”

  “It’s true, Sub Rosa is the nicest place on earth. But sometimes I miss those lemon gelati cones you can get in Little Italy. You ever have those?” asked the Dowager. The Watchman nodded in recognition.

  “Or hot smokies,” said First. She closed her eyes as she described the smell of beef smokies cooking in the street stalls, the sound of the buskers’ flute music floating around the subway station, the coo of pigeons gathered on the art gallery lawn. I doubted she really remembered the taste of a smokie. I didn’t. She was just reciting stories that Arsen had told us about the habits of live ones. Still, her depiction of the city got to me until I was authentically and vividly imagining everything she described. She was using Glory magic, I was sure.

  “Candy apples,” I said. “Granny Smiths dipped in caramel and sprinkled with chocolate shavings. And the city centre pool in the summer. They have a water slide there.”

  “A water slide?” First puzzled.

  “It’s just like it sounds, Candy,” Fauxnique said. “You slide, you land in water.”

  “Oh, oh,” I piped in again. “At the city zoo you can buy a bag of feed for a dollar, and they let you feed it to the deer yourself. They must have forty deer, or more.” And then I told the Watchman about kids playing skip rope in the street and jazz bands on a summer night. To my surprise, I had a whole arsenal of these images; I fired them off one after another, getting more and more astonished and excited as I did. The other Glories crowded around the table, urging me for more. I had no idea if the places or people were real or regurgitated tales I’d heard from Arsen or just stuff I was making up on the spot.

  “You see?” said the Dowager. “You really should go. You could be downtown before noon and make a whole day of it.” The Watchman agreed in shy nods.

  “You could go to the horse-race track. I bet you’d be lucky if I gave you a kiss,” First suggested. I noticed her beckoning Arsen, her hand held low so only he would see.

  “And if Little kissed you, I bet you’d come up lucky at the casino,” Arsen said in what sounded like his bedroom voice. I began to grow suspicious as he edged toward us. “Think of all the people gathered around you to applaud as your cards came up winners.”

  “The thing is, I’m not sure how to find my way,” the Watchman managed to say. How he would find his way back was what most concerned me.

  “That’s easy,” said the Dowager. “Your car is already parked in the entrance to the city. Ready to go.” I turned to the window and saw that the Watchman’s mint-green Ford was missing. I spotted its tailfins sticking out of Advent Alley. I looked back at the Watchman, panicked. Diamond’s arm was around him as he gawked at his mysteriously transported car. The Dowager blew me a little kiss, one that I actually felt hit my cheek. Phantom hand was itching to slap her. “You car’s been sitting there, ready, for ages. All you have to do is drive toward the tallest building and you’re downtown,” Diamond continued. “And when you want to find your way back, look for the 24 Hour Coffee Hut at the end of Trench Street.” I opened my mouth to correct her and she kicked me under the table. “All of us pretty working girls can be found just behind the Coffee Hut. This man here can draw you a map.”

  First shifted over to make room in the booth for Arsen. I was squished tight against the window as Arsen scrawled out his map leading from downtown to the skids on a paper placemat. Girls, he wrote beside a heavy-inked ‘x.’

  The Dowager tapped the ‘x’ with her slender finger. “All the girls are right here, behind the Coffee Hut,” she repeated softly. “Right, girls?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Ling joined her. “All the girls are behind the Coffee Hut.” Soon all of the Glories were saying it as if the words were a prayer or a song sung in rounds. By this point all of us had caught on: the Dowager was fixing to send the Night Watchman through Advent Alley, past the police car. It was a fine plan, seeing as none of us could risk going through the alley. The Night Watchman, in his old-model car and his tin box full of dated money, was soon to be the only action the police had seen in days.

  The Dowager turned to me. “Little, where are the girls, again?” she asked. I didn’t want to take part in their lies. But when she kicked me again under the table, I told the Watchman I would be there, waiting at the Coffee Hut, along with all the beautiful lost children turned Glories. We would all be there. His eyes lit up and he studied Arsen’s map, bewitched.

  “I’m off to the city,” the Watchman said. “To get back, I go to the Coffee Hut on Trench Street, it’s where the girls are.” There was no discussion of the squad car, which had moved away from Advent Alley a little, but still sat in front of the Smoke Shoppe.

  “I wish I could come with you, Watchman,” I lied again, leaning into his car to give him a big kiss. I doubted this would be fair payment for whatever might happen to him on the city side.

  As he pulled through the alley we gathered behind to watch him leave. A moment later, the squad car started its engine, the quietest I’d ever heard, and followed him. I knew it wouldn’t be long before they saw his expired driver’s licence and the “girls” map. I worried how he’d explain where he’d just come from if asked. Any explanation he could give would sound as if he were mentally ill. They wouldn’t know what to make of him. If he was detained for any amount of time, I worried that his hair would start to grow back and his arthritis would return. I pictured him a stubbly, gnarled shadow of himself, pacing a holding cell. After all the work I’d done to uncover him, the thought of him in yet another prison sickened me.

  “He won’t turn us in?” Ling asked.

  “Turn who in? The skid hos who hustle behind the Coffee Hut?” said Arsen. “That man is under such a spell, he won’t even remember Sub Rosa. We’ll get old No to say they thought his car was abandoned. Been there forever. Once we’re out of here, Klime and I will start making some anonymous calls about gunfire and junkie prostitutes and other disturbances in that same area, and the heat will be off us.” Although his usual confidence had returned to his voice, we all stood slightly crouched and still, not yet sure that it was over.

  “He will be let down when he sees the city,” Myra said. Likka and Portia nodded and hung their heads. “All your wild stories, Little. I guess you had to say something good to get him to go.”

  The Diamond Dowager was not the least bit sorry for him. “That shabby Dark dweller is a small sacrifice, Little,” she said. She turned and thanked me, “for protecting Sub Rosa.” Hearing her, the Glories cheered for me, quietly though, as they were still concerned about being heard. I braced against their gratitude, as if their cheers were stones.

  “You’ll forget him,” First assured me. “The Dark will wear off like it always does.”

  We turned Sub Rosa back on slowly, starting with the brown glass lamps at the Mayflower. Al counted to three before he flicked the switch. The lights tinkled like little bells as they lit up.

  Arsen drove in and out of Advent Alley a few times just to make sure he wasn’t being watched or followed. He headed back to his apartment without saying goodbye to anyone. I heard his tires screech as he accelerated away from us.

  The Dowager, in her final moments of authority, instructed us to redo our blackout jobs, but backward. The Firsts went home to brighten the apartments and take the charms out of hiding. The triplets visited the Smoke Shoppe. And I was back with Dearest, making the rounds. Her lips were cracked from all the sugar, and each time she smiled at me I winced at the thin red splits in the corners of her mouth. “My hero,” she said and took my arm, tracing her sticky fingers along my side, as if I were a live one. I shook her off.

  The beauty shop had beat us to it. Its rose-bulb marquee was already on before we arrived. It read: DARK CIRCLE EYE TREATMENTS AND SKIN BRIGHTENING. Eartha poked her head out the door. “I’ve had many visions,” she told me. “And you?”

  “The Night Watchman?” I asked and handed her half of what he paid me. She tucked the red bills in her apron pocket.

  “He has already done his Dark time in this life. The worst is already over for him,” she said. “There is no need for worry.” She had a point; anywhere was better than the garage, I assured myself.

  Mr Saragosa was also quick to get back to business, turning his neon back on as soon as we knocked on his door. Second Man came, bleary-eyed, out of the Pawnshop and crept back to the House of Man. Maria in Babycakes and June at Launderlove had not weathered the blackout as well. Maria had eaten herself sick. June had fallen into a deep slumber, from which we had to awaken her. When she did, she was angry. We hurried out of the laundromat as she launched mini-bottles of laundry soap at our backs.

  It didn’t take long before the first car entered Sub Rosa. Then another and another, as if the first car had broken the dam for all the others to rush in. Too excited to wait on our track patches to be chosen, we charged at the cars before their drivers had even parked. Alluring poses and sly comments were put aside. We were all raring to go to work. I tucked a wad of bills in my back pocket without counting it. I was not the only one. Glories wrapped their arms and legs around the live ones without naming a price. It was Dearest who started taking live ones outdoors, the last of her sugar buzz burned up as she flung herself around the back seat of a station wagon like damp clothes in Launderlove’s dryers. Bumper to bumper, the cars lined the curb on either side. Not one window was closed for modesty. Car stereos and squeaking vinyl and sex noises combined into a single ringing note. It rang louder than the Dark’s hum or the hailstorm of stone bugs or the vacuum silence when I fell down Jellyfish’s hole. It stayed in my ears after the last live one was gone and First carried me up the narrow stairs to our apartment.

  Exhausted, we didn’t bother to do much more than wash our hands and throw our clothes in a pile on the floor. “What’s that you’ve got on the back of your T-shirt, Little?” she asked. “Did a live one draw that on you?”

  I had forgotten about the map I had drawn to chart the Dark. My exploration seemed long ago. I retrieved the T-shirt to see what was left of it after the busy night. The lines were crooked and disconnected where I must have stumbled. I could see where I hit dead ends and had to retrace my steps. Looping circles represented the cobblestone square and strange fountain. In its sloppy entirety, the map appeared roughly to spell “go home.” First and I stared at it for a while before she plucked it from my hand.

  “I should keep it,” I said.

  “It’s filthy,” First argued. “Besides, you’ve come home. No need for it now.” She tossed it into the wastebasket. A moment later, phantom hand dragged it out again.

  XXI

  Mr Saragosa’s pawnshop had a new sign in the window. Quality Watches it read in neon-yellow letters, wrapped around a glowing clock face.

  “First!” I hollered from the bottom of the Wifey Wing stairs. What idiot needed a watch? The low-slung sun already made it clear that it was time for breakfast. The aroma of sugary dough wafting from Baby-cakes put the time at roughly half past eight. I didn’t need to be told by some cartoon-like clock. The sign was too close to the Wifey Wing door. Mr Saragosa could hardly expect us to walk past that thing every day. I sprinted back up the stairs.

  “Did you see the clock in the Pawnshop window?”

  “Don’t worry none,” said First. “I already spoke with Mr Saragosa about it. It’s only gonna be on in the daytime. He promised to switch it off at dusk. Last thing we wants the live ones thinkin’ of is time.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Live ones don’t want that.”

  “Mr Saragosa swears that watches will be the next big thing on Sub Rosa,” First sighed. “Seems everyone got a bright idea about somethin’ lately.”

  Recent changes had First on the defence. Mostly the changes were small, small and gratifying, I thought. At the triplets’ request, Eddie Senior bought a soft-serve ice cream machine for No’s, complete with a mini-bar stocked with crushed nuts and coloured sprinkles.

  Second Man got himself a cherry-red motorcycle, and every day he took turns parading us Glories up and down the street. “Sub Rosa was forced too fast, and now it’s time to feast,” is how First explained it. She still wasn’t so open, however, to the possibility of adding a new darling to the House of Arsen. Ever since Arsen suggested it, a few days after the blackout ended, First had retreated back into nonfiction. She started hitting the library daily, pulling whole stacks of books off the shelves at a time and piling them around the living room sofa where she sat for hours. She woke earlier and earlier each morning to read. I suspected she got up early to avoid me. We never spoke again about Jellyfish. I’d lie awake and alone in our bed with Jellyfish loose in my head, but the few times I tried to mention her First just urged me back to bed and encouraged me to get more rest. “Sleep in, you deserve it,” she had said several times. I took it as a sign that the entire topic of Jellyfish was also put to bed.