There are other hikers, too, which is good. I’ve even let a few pass me. But I don’t think Summers would notice me anyway. She’s been talking to Fullerton and pointing at stuff.

  Yeah, here we are, beautiful, towering walls of rock. Sharp blue sky, couple of lazy white clouds that look like they were painted there. Cloud shadows swimming far below.

  Like I said, it’s a hole in the ground.

  * * *

  —

  I had been riding behind Freddie all the way down the North Kaibab Trail, but my mule nudged past his as we came into a flat, rocky space below the Supai Tunnel. The mules all knew what to do here, and each had a preferred spot along the iron-pipe railing at the edge of the clearing. Our trail guide dismounted, tied his own mule to the rail, and then tied the others one by one, having each rider dismount in turn.

  My mule was named Ike, and I gave him a pat on the neck as I dismounted. He ignored it. I had the feeling Ike was not big on bonding with his riders. We were just loads to carry.

  The day had become sunny and warm, more so as we’d gone farther into the canyon. I was wearing cheap sunglasses I’d bought at the lodge gift shop, and I had tied my hoodie around my waist about halfway down the trail. I was wearing a cranberry-colored ribbed tank top, and there was a V of perspiration below my collarbone. Freddie gave it an obvious look as our guide tied his mule.

  I took my phone from my cargo pants. I had checked it a few minutes earlier, but there had been no signal. There wasn’t one now, either. So I had no idea if Billy Ray or the Angel had been trying to get in touch.

  I also had no idea how close the Midnight Angel was, or even if she was on her way. And now I realized that if I wasn’t getting a signal, she couldn’t home in on my GPS, either. But I’d had a signal at the lodge and had sent a text telling her that Freddie and I were taking the mule ride. So at least she would know which trail we were on.

  That might be important. On one of the trail’s switchbacks, I had looked up and spotted the rangy dude in the ball cap. He was hiking a short distance behind our mule train.

  After dismounting, Freddie patted his mule as I had patted mine, but his turned and nuzzled his arm. He had tucked his jacket into a rawhide loop tied to his saddle horn, and he was bare-armed in a new black Who T-shirt. His mule got in a good lick, then lowered its head and snuffled his faded black jeans.

  “What’s his name?” I asked Freddie as we started up the short hike to the tunnel. “My guy is Ike, but he doesn’t like me as much as yours likes you.”

  Freddie gave a chuckle. “It’s a ‘she,’ and I think she likes me because I’m salty. Her name is Clementine.”

  “Clementine, of course,” I said. “That explains the tune I heard you humming. How is it that a lad from London knows an old American song like that, anyway?”

  He shrugged. “I know a lot of old American songs, especially if they were in old American films. And the first film I ever saw about Wyatt Earp’s shootout at the OK Corral was My Darling Clementine. Henry Fonda, Victor Mature. Twentieth Century Fox, 1946. Watched it on the telly when I was nine or ten, I think.”

  I had known he was a classic-rock geek, but not that he was a classic-film geek, too. “And here you are in Arizona at last,” I said.

  Behind his blue-tinted spectacles, his eyes widened. “On a mule named Clementine!” Then he frowned. “But the film was shot in Monument Valley, which is over a hundred miles northeast of here. And the real Tombstone is all the way down by the Mexican border.”

  I had to laugh. He had gotten so freaking serious about his film trivia all of a sudden. It was adorable.

  He looked sheepish. “Too big a nerd?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “Just right.”

  We stepped into the Supai Tunnel. It was a narrow passage about fifteen yards long. Eight feet wide, ten feet high. It had been blasted through a wall of solid rock back in the twenties. The temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees as we came into it.

  Freddie stopped and looked behind us. More people from our group were starting up to the tunnel, but they were still down close to the mules. The people who had gotten here before us had already gone through to the other side.

  I knew what he was thinking. “Freddie,” I said, and he kissed me.

  I kissed him back. What the hell, Juliet?

  Then he pressed me against the tunnel’s rough wall and kissed me harder.

  I glanced down the trail. And I thought I saw the lanky dude with the ball cap coming into the flat space with the mules.

  I pushed Freddie away.

  He looked confused. “I’m…sorry?”

  I pulled him toward the far end of the tunnel. “There are things you don’t know,” I said.

  We came out to an incredible view of towering cliffs and a tree-lined abyss that plunged to the center of the Earth.

  Freddie didn’t seem to notice.

  “Like what?” he asked.

  I took my phone from my pocket again. Still no signal.

  Some of the people who had already come through were heading back toward us now. This was the turnaround point of the mule trip, and once we had all gone through the tunnel, taken in the view, and had a bathroom break in the outhouses, we would ride back to the trailhead. By the time we returned to the lodge, it would be almost sundown.

  If Freddie and I were lucky, the Midnight Angel would be there waiting for us. Otherwise, we might have a rocky night.

  I reached up, put my hand on Freddie’s neck, and pulled him down to kiss his cheek. Just his cheek.

  “I’ll tell you when we get back,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything. He just nodded, once. Then he looked out over that tremendous view. But he still wasn’t seeing it. His face was motionless. It was the face of someone who had heard bad news before and knew when more was coming.

  After a minute, we went back through the Supai Tunnel and down to the mules. I didn’t see the rangy dude anywhere.

  But he was there. I was sure of it.

  * * *

  —

  Caught Summers giving me the stink-eye again. It was from a distance, but it was definitely aimed at me. So I slipped off the trail into the brush. Squatted and waited for the mule train to pass by on its way back up.

  Heard a rattle before the first mule reached me. Looked down and there was a diamondback coiled beside my right boot. Maybe a four-footer. Tail buzzing, head up, neck cocked.

  Couldn’t move away without revealing myself. So I extended my right index finger with the long, sharpened nail.

  Here, snakey. Here, snakey snake.

  Dumbfuck went for it. Nail caught him in the roof of his mouth, fangs on either side of my finger. He was stuck.

  I unfolded my middle finger and let my venom drip over his snout, into his mouth, and into his wound.

  Then I shook my hand, and snakey snake dropped and writhed in the coarse dirt for a few seconds.

  Summers and the kid passed by. See you soon, assholes.

  When all the mules were well up the trail, I stood and stretched. Made my knees and shoulders pop.

  I picked up snakey snake, put his tail in my mouth, and bit off the rattle. Then I chucked him far out over the big hole in the ground. Snakey snake spun like a slow helicopter blade and vanished down among distant scrub.

  I took the rattle from my mouth, spat out a little blood, and stepped back onto the trail. I rattled my new toy as I started upward, watching the dry brown segments flop back and forth.

  So I had some fun on my hike after all.

  * * *

  —

  I liked my mule, Clementine, and I enjoyed the trip to the Supai Tunnel more than I’d thought I would. In fact, I liked it a lot, right up until just after I kissed Julie.

  Then I knew something was wrong. Bad wrong.

  It would have been awful enough if she had decided that the night before had been a big mistake.

  But the way she said, “I’ll tell you when we get back,” I knew it was worse. Girls had told me “I’ve had enough of this” before, but they hadn’t kissed my cheek when they’d said it.

  So the two-hour ride back up seemed to flash by in about five minutes. That’s the way time works. When there’s something wonderful ahead, an hour might as well be a thousand years. And when there’s something bad, it just can’t wait. Clementine zipped up to the rim like a falcon.

  On the ascent, Julie rode ahead of me. She glanced back a few times. Once she even smiled. One of those sad smiles someone gives you when something shitty is waiting around the next switchback. But it was still a smile, and her sunglasses had slipped down so I could see her eyes. There were no tattoos on her face now.

  I hadn’t taken any photos of her and didn’t think I would. So whatever happened next, I would have to trust my memory of what she had been like.

  They say your memory lies. But I didn’t think that would be true for my memories of Julie. Even if it was…well, what does it matter if a memory of joy is a lie?

  I was on automatic pilot throughout the climb to the trailhead and the shuttle ride back to the lodge. The sun was low, already touching the rim of the Transept, and turning the western sky a dusky pink by the time we disembarked. The air was cooling, and I had put my jacket on. Julie’s hoodie was still around her waist.

  “We should get dinner,” she said, taking off her sunglasses. She looked at our fellow passengers as they filed into the lodge. “And we should stay with people.”

  I assumed she thought if we went back to the cabin, I would try to pick up where we had left off that morning. But I knew she didn’t want that, so I wouldn’t have. “I understand,” I said.

  “You really don’t. But I’ll try to change that.”

  I followed her into the lodge and into the dining room. I had the sensation of walking off a cliff.

  My phone began buzzing in my hip pocket as we were seated next to a west window, away from most of the other diners. Outside, the Transept displayed a mix of reddish light and shadows across its massive walls. But I couldn’t appreciate the view. I checked my phone and found messages from Big Sis, all sent within the previous two hours.

  Freddie we still can’t get a flight.

  I have a bad feeling. Need to ask some friends if they know anything.

  Do me a favor. Stick close to other people. Groups. Don’t go hiking alone.

  Let me know you’re okay.

  I typed out I’m fine and tried to zap it. But the indicator said Pending instead of Sent, and I knew my signal had faded yet again. I put the phone away.

  “Messages?” Julie asked.

  I nodded. “My sister. She’s worried about me. I think it’s because she can’t get a flight, and it’s stressing her out.”

  Julie’s lips pressed together and she brought out her own phone. “Yeah,” she said, looking at the screen. “Michelle’s sent me a note, too.”

  I stared. Julie’s face had changed. Her cheeks were more rounded, her chin less sharp. She looked up from her phone. When she spoke, her voice was low. “That’s the first thing I need to tell you. I know your sister. Adesina, too.”

  It was as if she had told me she was a frog in human form.

  “How?” I asked. “I mean—how?” I heard my voice as if it were ten feet away, speaking from a box stuffed with cotton.

  “Michelle and I have known each other since she was on the first season of American Hero,” Julie said. “I was a production assistant, doing my part to keep the ‘reality’ in ‘reality show.’ But now I work for the Committee.”

  “She,” I said. I tried to swallow. “She hasn’t mentioned you. She’s never mentioned a Julie.”

  “My name is actually Juliet.” She was looking at me as if forcing herself to maintain eye contact. “Juliet Summers. And I’m not surprised if Michelle has never mentioned me.” She let out a breath. “We still work together as necessary, but we aren’t as close…as we used to be.”

  At that moment, a waiter brought us water and menus. Julie—no, Juliet—waved away the menus and ordered two veggie burgers. Which would have been fine, if I had felt like eating.

  Then, as the waiter left, the part of my brain that should have been making connections all along finally began to work.

  Her name was Juliet. She worked for the Committee. She had tattoos she could change at will. She had known my Big Sis since the American Hero days.

  Since before Big Sis had adopted Adesina.

  They had once been close.

  “But Michelle is right to be worried now,” Juliet said, “because—”

  “Auntie Ink,” I said. My voice was even farther away now. “You’re the one Adesina calls Auntie Ink. It’s because of your tattoos, isn’t it?”

  Now Juliet closed her eyes. “Yes. Adesina is my goddaughter.”

  You can’t trust memory. Memory lies. That’s what they say. I wished it were true.

  Because now I remembered one of the texts Adesina had sent me. It had been in late December, just after I had said goodbye to her and Michelle in New York and had gone back on the road.

  I can’t wait for you to come back so we can shop for my new amp, Adesina had written. We’ve almost got Mom sold on it. Oh, and I want to see if we can have lunch with my Auntie Ink. You’ll love her, because she’s awesome. But she and Mom had a “thing” a few years ago, and some stuff that’s “none of my business” happened. They don’t talk much now. But she’s still my auntie, and you’re my uncle, so you should know each other. And sooner or later she and Mom will get over themselves, and we can all do things together.

  “…So the people who sent me didn’t want to tell the Committee, and especially not Michelle, because she’s had a hair trigger ever since a mission in Kazakhstan. Not that it’s her fault. Just imagine demons from another dimension invading your brain and forcing you to commit atrocities, and then imagine trying to suppress those impulses afterward—while also trying to forgive yourself. Don’t get me wrong, she’s done an amazing job recovering. But at some level she’s still like a bomb that might or might not go off. She even attacked you during the Roosevelt Park riot because she thought you were going to hurt Adesina.”

  I wasn’t processing what Julie—no, Juliet—was saying very well. “But I wanted her to attack me,” I said. “That was the only way I could shout loud enough to stop the riot.”

  She and Mom had a “thing” a few years ago…

  “I know,” Juliet said. “But if she were to do something like that now, to protect you, it could lead to violence with a US government agency called SCARE. Because SCARE is looking for aces they can use as weapons…”

  Some stuff that’s “none of my business” happened…

  “Aces like you, Freddie.”

  But she’s still my auntie, and you’re my uncle…

  I stood up and pushed my chair away.

  “I don’t want a veggie burger,” I said.

  Then I left the dining doom. I heard “Auntie Ink” calling after me and I started to run.

  I wound up outside in the falling night, in the trees. I thought I was northwest of the lodge, but I wasn’t sure. I found a narrow path going down, and then limestone steps that went down farther.

  The steps took me to a wider, flatter path, and I followed it north. Sometimes it was illuminated by the rising moon, and sometimes there were too many trees. Sometimes the earth to my left dropped away into the Transept, its distant walls glowing, and sometimes I was running through a darkened forest.

  It was stupid. It was childish.

  But I had waited my whole life to meet my Big Sis. And now I was going to lose her. As well as the niece who had flown me out of a burning theater when she had just been a kid at a Who concert, and I had just been a roadie she had seen collapse. Brave Adesina with the beautiful wings.

  I had only had them for five months. Only since the fire at the Bowery Ballroom, and the madness of the riot that followed.

  Somehow, that madness had produced a miracle: my family.

  But now they were gone, because of what I had done. And with whom.

  Julie was gone, too.

  Because there had never been a Julie at all.

  I would have to stop running sooner or later. Sooner or later, the trail would end. Or maybe it would just turn and drop into the Transept.

  Might as well see which it was.

  * * *

  —

  This is gonna work out fine.

  They were in the dining hall in the lodge. I was watching from outside, from the west terrace. They were next to one of those wide, tall windows. Then the kid got up and he ran out. Summers tried to follow, but he was faster.

  I was pissed at first because I’d lost sight of him. So I started around to the main entrance, but before I could get there, he popped out in front of me, still running, and headed toward the Transept Trail. Into the trees and down.

  No idea why. But who cares? Sun going down, temperature dropping, and most other tourists getting dinner or heading to their cabins. Hardly anyone on the trail. And no lights, except the moon.

  So I took off after him. Glanced back as I started down, and saw Summers coming out. She was looking around like she had no idea where he’d gone.

  I got down to the trail, spotted him twenty or thirty yards ahead. He was wearing a gray jacket that might as well have been a beacon. I followed him north along the rim of the Transept, the trail taking us in and out of the trees.

  Half a mile in, two old farts came puffing along in the opposite direction. One was grumbling to the other about being out after dark. Those were the only other people.

  Just before that, I heard Summers calling “Freddie! Freddie!” far behind me. Only twice, then nothing. My bet is she went back to Cabin 309 to look for him there.