Last year they had a TikTok person show up right here in Charleston, someone full of glossy teen sincerity, appealing to their vanity and heroism, saying they should speak up about the condition they were living with, how more people needed to know about it. Amber wasn’t in town for that one, but she saw the videos afterward. Mr. TikTok examined the wounds on their arms and legs where they’d been digging around with tweezers, asked them about the fibers they’d pulled out, how people could identify them as legit Tomesians. Why did they keep the strands in matchboxes? He’d heard it was the red phosphorus, and Lonny, beaming, explained that yes, the chemical in the strip on the side of matchboxes made Tomesians inert, but it was hard to get it in any kind of meaningful quantities.

  Then the little prick and his camera crew asked if they could help him identify some things he’d extracted from his own skin. He hauled out his own matchbox to show them, but instead of fibers, he had red licorice twists and a dead cockroach. “They were under my skin, bro, crawling. I could see them moving,” he said, jiggling the matchbox so the contents twitched around. “Look, they’re moving now!” Then he threw the contents in Marta’s face and ran off giggling, shouting, “Freaks!” and more insults: “Tomesians doesn’t exist, you fucking pathetic weirdos!”

  It does exist. Amber knows. But not in this little crowd of regulars. Knox is a human misery sponge who comes to all the groups, whether it’s Alcoholics Anonymous or the parents-of-dead-kids meeting, mumbling behind the thin scruff of facial hair that doesn’t quite disguise the ravages of meth and alcoholism and who knows what else. Perhaps he does qualify for all those other groups.

  Marta Herrara is the part-time flamenco instructor who has lost a series of boyfriends to her Tomesians piety; a good student, but not a true sufferer. Lonny Vermeulen is a former autoworker drunk on alcohol and his own simmering impotence, just like those vicious boys on the internet. Tomesians gives him somewhere to be, someone to be, and as the de facto leader of the group, he hogs the spotlight, which is good for her.

  Amber was suspicious about Philippa Rathgood, who joined seven or eight months ago, but after she followed her home to her shitty apartment, where everything was wrapped in plastic, including her cutlery and her plates, she had to concede that she was only schizophrenic and desperately alone, not one of the ones Amber was looking for. She was not a Nest.

  Amber is ready to call it a day; the newcomer who has been saying such interesting things on the forums is a no-show, and she’s wasting her time. But then she feels it, a deep twist inside. Mr. Floof II does too—he jumps up, barking his fluffy little head off at the scrawny white boy with floppy dark hair who has appeared at the door.

  “Oh no, my boy. Oh no, oh no.” She has to hold him, because he’s turned into a spitball of fury. “What’s up with you, Mr. Grumpy Face?” Trying to calm him down but also cover the sudden attack she’s having. Because something has stirred inside her. More than stirred. “You’re upset that Lonny’s family won’t listen to him? Yes, that’s terrible, isn’t it, my baby. Yes, it is. Yes, it is!”

  “It’s shameful is what it is,” Lonny says, raising his voice over the yapping. He gestures at the newcomer, impatient: “Come in, come in, don’t be lurking out there.”

  The boy—man, really, late twenties, early thirties, with a long nose and wide-set eyes and a stupid little mustache—hesitates. She recognizes his profile picture from the forum. Shiny-shiny. He gives an uncertain smile. “Uh, Tomesians?”

  “Yes, yes, come in! You’re in the right place,” Lonny bellows and glares at the one-dog cacophony.

  “I’m so sorry, he needs his medicine.” She reaches into her bag, rubs a little calming paste on Mr. Floof II’s teeth. He gets like this when she has particularly bad days, reacting to the stirring inside her. “Stop it, you silly thing,” she scolds Mr. Floof II, although who can blame him. It’s been so long—and now one waltzes through the door.

  He pulls out a chair, the metal legs scraping against the linoleum, raises a hand, self-deprecating. Expensive jeans, Amber notes, fancy sneakers. His hair looks scruffy, but it’s deliberately cut that way.

  “Hi, I’m, uh, Aiden. I’m a musician but not in a band or anything. Mostly TV and commercials.”

  “Big industry.” Lonny nods, showing off. He knows a little about a lot. And nothing, truly, about this.

  “You’re among friends,” Marta says. “Would you like a cookie?” They’re all watching this Aiden intently to see if he will go for anything on the table, which is set with polystyrene cups and instant coffee, powdered creamer, a Brita jug of water, and a plateful of Oreos that are a trap (one of many) that the “real” sufferers know to avoid, lest the processed sugar exacerbate their condition.

  “No, thank you.” Aiden holds up a steel flask. “I brought my own water. Filtered.” There’s a ripple of approval through the group. This means he’s done his research, isn’t a know-nothing newbie or a tourist or a “content producer.”

  “So what brings you to our circle, Mr. Aiden?” Lonny says. “You got something you want to show us?”

  Aiden falters, then reaches into his denim jacket. “Yes. I, uh, flew from LA for this. I brought the matchbox. I read that was something you should do.”

  “Oh, yes, show us,” Marta says, eager for affirmation.

  Aiden clears his throat, self-conscious, and slides open the matchbox. He looks so hopeful, so desperate.

  Everyone leans in to see. “Not too close,” Knox warns. “You don’t want it to burrow into your retina. That can happen.”

  But the contents of the box are disappointing. Marta curls her lip, leaning back in her chair, her long dancer’s legs stretched out like she is trying to get as far away as possible from this charlatan. Knox wilts, and Philippa looks to the rest of them to calculate her own reaction.

  “Eh. That’s not Tomesians, my friend.” Lonny chucks him on the back. “Sorry to be the bad-news bear.”

  Amber keeps perfectly still. Contains herself. The pull of it, like the ticks she would burn off her ankles as a child. And what exactly are we going to do about this?

  “But they came out from under my skin. Right here.” Aiden runs his long pianist fingers along the inside of his wrist. This is accurate, both for fake Tomesians and the real McCoy.

  “Let’s review the qualities of Tomesians, shall we?” Lonny says. “Number one: Thin red fibers; some people think they are worms, but they’re alien technology that’s been implanted.”

  “Not alien,” Philippa corrects darkly. “It’s the Chinese government.”

  “Some of us disagree on the provenance,” Lonny says. “But they’re fiber-optic cables wired into your nervous system to control you.”

  “Control your thoughts, make you feel good if there’s something they want you to feel good about—like a certain political candidate, for example,” Knox says. “Or make you feel bad, fuck up your whole immune system to keep you down, make sure you don’t interfere. It’s a war. We’re in a war here.”

  “Thank you, Knox. Mr. Aiden, do these look like red fibers to you?”

  “No,” Aiden says, peering down at the pale yellow threads. “They’re not red, but they came out of me, and something else—”

  “Have you had any of the following symptoms?” Lonny ticks them off on his fingers. “Migraines, skin rashes, a feeling of heaviness in your body, brain fog, sinus issues, gastric problems?”

  “Yes, some of those, but—”

  “All of them,” Marta says. “I get all of them every day. Try running a dance studio when you’re riddled with Tomesians. Some days I can’t bear to listen to music, can’t bring myself to raise my feet. It burrows right in here”—she taps her head—“makes it all worse.”

  “Yes, I feel that,” Aiden says, “the pressure inside my head. It’s like being in a wind tunnel or lying under a train. Roaring, whooshing wind.”

  “No.” Marta shakes her head, but not unkindly. “No, no, no, not like that. It’s a drill, whining, right into your temple.”

  “Yes,” Lonny says, toeing the company line. They are all the best students of their fictional disease. “It’s a sharp pain, needles behind your eyes.”

  But Aiden is desperate to continue, despite the eye rolls, their casual dismissal. “There’s something else. It’s not on any of the discussion boards. But I had an out-of-body experience. The realest dream I’ve ever had.”

  Lonny harrumphs. “Sounds like someone’s been smoking the wacky baccy. Just because it’s legal in California…”

  Marta pats Aiden’s hand. “You should probably see a doctor, dear. Or maybe a psychologist. Oh!” She beams. “I believe there are sleep studies if you’re having bad dreams.”

  “It’s all right.” Knox gently closes the matchbox for him. “Not everyone is infected. You can still come to the meetings if you want.”

  “Hi there, remember me?” Amber leans out the window of her anonymous white van. It’s even more invisible than a postmenopausal lady in a cutesy dog sweater, especially if she puts the decals on the side. She switches them up when she needs to: one for Amazon and two for nonexistent companies, one for delivering food, one for courier services. She also has a film over the plates that reflects the light and hides them from the prying lenses of security cameras. There are none on this corner, she knows, because she pays the same kind of shitty boys on the internet who love to mock her videos for maps of security cameras, the same way she pays for medical records and for others to comb through data for her.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Aiden says. He looks haggard, disconsolate. “With the dog.”

  “Do you need a ride?”

  “No. I was going to go for a beer, get an Uber back to my hotel. Maybe change my flight to first thing tomorrow. This all seems to have been a huge waste of time. But the doctors don’t believe me, and my girlfriend—well, I don’t know if she’s my girlfriend anymore…”

  “Oh, yes, where was it you came from?”

  “Los Angeles.” He looks tired. “I was hoping for…” He flicks his hand. “More than this.”

  “Why don’t you come have an iced tea at my place, and we can talk more. Those people in there, they don’t know what you’re going through. But I do.” She really does. “You fell through a door into someone else.”

  He sharpens, a wire jerked through his spine. “That’s exactly it. How do you—”

  “Get in.” She leans over and opens the passenger door, an invitation, that most irresistible lure—someone who understands. “We’ll talk.”

  What are we going to do? Take care of it.

  BRIDGE

  Great Pretenders

  The Willamette River is a sullen gray slash between the trees as they crawl up through the traffic on 99 east and then the view opens up to reveal the skyline above the water, the crosshatched girders of the Ross Island Bridge.

  There are three Stasher4U locations in the greater Portland area. She’d phoned the 800 number to find out which location would match this particular key, but the customer service agent cheerfully informed her he couldn’t disclose that information without a letter of authorization from the original customer. Or a warrant. Which says something about their clientele. So now they are trying all three locations, in order of proximity.

  Dom is driving and singing along to their greatest divas playlist, Britney segueing into Lady Misfit into Beyoncé, and Bridge is navigating, or trying to, because getting through downtown is a morass of one-ways and she was never any good at reading maps, and the speaker on her phone is crap, and Dom doesn’t have data.

  There’s a double layer of civilization happening along the wide boulevards lined with office buildings and chain coffee shops, because there are also tents all along the sidewalk. They are blue and red and yellow, like banners fallen from the trees, some fresh and new, others spattered by rain and city grime. Some have been built out with plywood and cardboard.

  “It reminds me of the blanket forts I used to make with my mom,” Bridge says. See, not all bad memories. Followed by instant guilt and a reminder why they’re doing this: Because Jo left so many questions behind. And, holy shit, alternate realities! “Not like this is the same thing at all.”

  “Okay, so this,” Dom says, “is actually really interesting. It’s obviously a huge system failure of capitalism: economic downturn, lack of social care, community and mental-health facilities being shut down and shoving patients out on the street. But there are also young activists trying to live their ideals, resist, overturn the system, getting involved in protests, trying to build a different way of being. And there are also some trust-fund kids cosplaying poverty. I am coining the term blanketforters, thank you for that. And maybe some of these rich kids were trying to teach their parents a lesson or they thought they could live by their ideals, but they miss central heating and flushing toilets and being able to walk downstairs and get a cold brewski out of the refrigerator, so they give up and head home.”

  “Of course you researched this.”

  “How do you know me? I can also tell you why Blue Moon doughnuts are superior to the world-famous Arcana doughnuts.”

  Bridge glances into an unzipped faded blue tent and makes accidental eye contact with a man in his fifties, denim shorts, pigeon-chested, brushing his long hair, black and threaded with gray. He holds her look, challenging and unabashed. She smiles and he gives her a thumbs-up, an ironic one, she thinks, a little fuck-you, and he turns away, back to his life, his home.

  The light changes and the Grand Am surges forward, poor dumb car, so overpowered and enthusiastic and oblivious of the heavy traffic.

  “Did I ever tell you about Bad Bridge?” she says, still gazing out the window.

  “Oh, I think I’ve met that bitch. Comes out after too many shots?”

  “This was when I was a kid. I used to blame things on her. It was after everything that happened with my mom, you know, with the dreamworm…” She sees how Dom flinches at the word and hurries on: “She got divorced in the middle of her second bout with cancer and we had to go live with my grandparents in Cincinnati for a year, in this big old house they couldn’t maintain properly. Creaky floorboards, mildew coming up the walls. It was horrible. And my mom didn’t seem like my mom. She was so frail.” Like a skeleton, Bridge had thought, a skeleton with a bald head and a red snake of a scar across her skull where they’d cut into her, and all her eyelashes and her eyebrows had fallen out, and she was so ugly Bridge didn’t want to hug her or watch TV with her, and Bridge didn’t even have any of her own toys or books, and Grandma was always fussing, and the house smelled of butternut soup. “It was really difficult, and I was so angry with her because my dad said she was the one who wanted the divorce.”

  “Wow. What a cabrón.”

  “And my dog had died. I told you, right?”

  “Bear? Yeah, from a stroke.”

  “It was in the middle of all this. I was angry and I was sad and I was scared out of my mind that maybe my mom would die. So I started acting out.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “I broke my grandma’s heirloom casserole dish. On purpose. I remember standing among the blue ceramic fragments, feeling so shocked and powerful. And then my granddad grabbed my arm and he was so mad because it was a wedding present from my great-grandma, and I knew how special it was, how precious, and it couldn’t have just fallen. And then he stopped. Started apologizing—it was just a pot, it didn’t matter.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Except I knew, even then—I must have been around seven, eight—that it was because he felt sorry for me. Everyone was always tiptoeing around me. Poor Bridge.”

  “Bad Bridge was easier.”

  “Except it wasn’t real. I was pretending. It was Bad Bridge who called Keri Becker the B-word at school and shoved her down the stairs. I was lucky she only twisted her ankle. My dad got called in and the principal said it was understandable, considering the circumstances and everything our family was going through. More pity. My dad sent me for a million tests in case the cancer was hereditary, even though they already knew it wasn’t. My mom was capital-S Sick and I was merely troubled.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  Bridge shrugs. “The cancer went into remission, and she made a plan to move back to Seattle, joint-custody nightmare. My dad said she was unstable after the whole kidnapping thing, would only let me see her weekends, but then he got a girlfriend who was unthrilled about a young kid hanging around, so he relented.”

  It was uglier than that. Bridge had had to talk to a mediator about who she wanted to be with, and she’d said both because she’d thought that meant they would get back together, not that she would be caught between them, schedules changing, moving between the houses. Jo kept downsizing to smaller and smaller apartments, each one farther away from Bridge’s school. Her mom was always busy with a parade of basic jobs to pay her tuition and working on her studies when she should have been spending time with her kid, especially when she had her only every other week.

  In hindsight, Bridge gets it. Jo didn’t have money, she was trying her best, but it felt like her mom was always abandoning her, always leaving her behind. And now, the ultimate abandonment.

  “What happened to Bad Bridge?”

  “She didn’t exist. I’d made her up. Monica helped me understand that. It was me the whole time. Acting out.”

  Dom glances at her, wary, hopeful. As if she’s going to confess that she made up everything else too, that the bathroom incident was a bad dream, that she was briefly out of her mind with grief.

  “I knew I was pretending, of course. It wasn’t like when I took the dreamworm. Because I was still there. I wasn’t somewhere else or someone else, and they weren’t me. There wasn’t a swap. And you can’t do it out of nowhere—you need the dreamworm and the music and the visuals.”