It was fully dark as he turned onto Amoroso. He scanned for their old house but couldn’t find it.

  At the end of the block he made a U-turn.

  Had he missed it? Was it possible he’d been gone so long, he’d forgotten what it looked like? Leopold had avoided the neighborhood completely since the last terrible afternoon he’d spent sitting on the sidewalk, waiting for a key to Sunder that never arrived. Still, it seemed strange that he’d forget.

  On his next pass he drove more slowly, taking inventory. The homes of old neighbors glowed invitingly, windows lit from within. There was what everyone had called the Pink House, occupied by a coterie of friendly Hare Krishnas. Then the house covered in glued-on shells and colorful broken tiles. Next door to that, a green one with porthole windows that used to be a church. It had belonged to their next-door neighbor, a watchful widow named Helen Morse, who’d lived on Amoroso since the beginning of time. And then—

  Then nothing.

  Then an empty lot.

  Leopold screeched to a halt and stared out his shattered window in disbelief. He hadn’t missed it; their house was gone. All that was left was a broken foundation and weedy hummocks of dirt. An architectural firm’s sign was planted near the sidewalk. R+H Partners, Coming Soon.

  In a daze he got out of his car and wandered into the rubble, the spectral image of their old bungalow rising up before him. He followed the gravel walk to what had been the front steps, then picked his way through chunks of broken concrete into the footprint of the house. His bedroom had been here. The living room there. Without walls it all seemed impossibly small. He hadn’t realized until that moment how much he’d depended on the house’s continued existence. He’d reconciled himself to the idea of it being bought and sold, but he’d never imagined anyone profaning the place with a wrecking ball. Now it was just a tract of scarred ground.

  He walked into the ghost of the backyard, scabbed with unwatered grass, to the place where the shed had once stood. All that remained was a lone sycamore tree, one whose branches hadn’t been able to hold his weight, gifting him his first broken bone.

  Leopold’s throat tightened.

  He stood there, grieving as he stared at the dirt, when suddenly a light flashed over him. He turned sharply, raising his arm against the dazzling beam. It shone from the yard next door, over the top of a thorny bougainvillea hedge.

  “What are you doing there?” came an old woman’s shout. “No trespassing!”

  “I didn’t mean to trespass,” he called back, squinting. “I just—I used to live here.”

  There was a jangle of bracelets as the light played up and down. A lengthy pause. Then—

  “Leopold?”

  “Mrs. Morse?”

  She lowered the flashlight. He could see her now, gray hair in a messy bun, peering cautiously at him through huge, round glasses. She’d seemed old when he was a kid. Now she was practically a relic, her eyes rheumy and searching, a wobble trilling her thinned voice.

  “Come over here and let me get a look at you!”

  Leopold moved toward her, careful not to trip in the uneven dirt. Upon closer inspection, he saw that she wore an oversized T-shirt that read NO NUKES.

  A warm feeling came over him.

  Mrs. Morse was an old sixties radical who grew her own vegetables and marched in every protest. Her lime-green cottage had once been charming. Now it had the sagging, tired look of a place that would show up on Zillow in a few years billed as An Investor’s Dream! Her living room smelled like lentils and incense, which he remembered because she’d babysat him occasionally when his mom had to work late. His mom would return the favor by inviting her over for tea, and Mrs. Morse would regale them with stories about running into Jim Morrison or Ken Kesey back in the days when the hippies ruled Venice.

  “How are you, Mrs. Morse?” he said over the bougainvillea. “Your hips still bothering you?”

  “They tore it down,” she replied, never one for formalities. “Crying shame. It was a fine little house. 1920s. No one gives a rat’s warty ass for history anymore. They’re going to put up some modern monstrosity. It makes me want to puke.” Her gaze circled him before landing on his face again. “My hips are made of titanium now. Knees, too.”

  Leopold smiled. “Nice.”

  “Heard your mom passed on.”

  “A long time ago.”

  “I was real sorry to hear it. She was a good lady, and no surprise there. Both your parents were great people.”

  Leopold stifled a laugh. “Uh, yeah. I mean, yeah, my mom was. Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I hope I didn’t scare you. I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d say goodbye to the old house.”

  Her chin rose. “Oh?”

  “I might be leaving town for a while.”

  She didn’t ask where. Instead she said, “Have you checked under the sycamore?”

  Leopold froze. “What?”

  “You show up here under the cover of dark without a word, and for no good reason. Odds are you’re here to find something. And I’m pretty sure what you’re looking for is under the sycamore.”

  “How do you”—he blinked—“how did you—”

  “I saw your mom out there one day, burying a box.”

  “My mom?”

  Mrs. Morse nodded. “This was just before she got sick.” She raised the flashlight, aiming its beam at the only thing in the yard that hadn’t been flattened—the massive, weak-limbed tree.

  “You can borrow my shovel.”

  Forty-Four

  Leopold sat in his car, the streets dark, the glaring lights of an In-N-Out his only real source of illumination. He hadn’t opened the envelope yet.

  “A lead-lined envelope,” Mrs. Morse had called it.

  It’d been tucked away inside a rusted tackle box. He’d unearthed it after a little digging under the sycamore tree, then looked over his shoulder to find Mrs. Morse standing there, staring. She’d clicked on her flashlight and nearly blinded him.

  “Jesus,” he’d gasped, rearing back.

  “My late husband was a photographer,” she’d said, nodding at the heavy black envelope in his hands. “He used those fancy sleeves to protect his film when he went through airports. They’re rainproof, fireproof, X-ray proof—probably nuke-proof.” She’d canted her head, eyes narrowing slightly. “Your mom must’ve wanted to make sure you had until the end of time to find it.”

  She’d waited then, expectant, for him to open the package.

  Instead, Leopold had mumbled a half-assed apology and nearly twisted an ankle bolting out of the yard. He’d jumped in his car and driven himself here, to this half-empty parking lot redolent of cheeseburgers. His reasons were two:

  First, he hadn’t eaten anything all day.

  Second, he’d needed to get away from the prying eyes of Mrs. Morse.

  His stomach chose that moment to grumble cantankerously, and Leopold promised himself he’d hit the drive-through just as soon as he dealt with the massive, super-important, potentially life-changing thing in his hands.

  He took a deep breath. No pressure.

  Finally, he unclasped the envelope. Inside were two pieces of paper, nothing more. The first was a note written on lined stationery. He lifted it with halting reverence, his fingers tracing the words as his eyes moved across the page.

  Dearest Leopold,

  You’re nearly there now. Sorry for all the steps, but I had to make sure no one but you would get this far. You’ll know what to do next. I wish I could say more, sweetheart, but we have to be careful.

  There’s something I need you to find.

  Love, love, love,

  Mom

  Leopold read it again. Then twice more. His pulse seemed to slow.

  The message was written in the same blue ballpoint as the other scribbles he’d found, and judging by his mother’s shaky scrawl it had been composed in a state of either infirmity or extreme anxiety.

  He didn’t understand. What was it they had to be careful of? Why such paranoia? Had her mind really started to go in the end, as his father had implied?

  Just before she got sick.

  He took a breath, setting all that aside for the moment, and picked up the second piece of paper, which turned out to be a page torn from the Thomas Guide.

  At the top it read Key to Map Sections.

  In the corner was a legend, various symbols denoting highways, streets, railroads, and city boundaries. The page contained no further clues; nothing was circled, no arrows had been drawn. Just a few stray marks in the left margin: two curls of blue pen and a line, interrupted by the torn edge.

  What was he missing?

  He grabbed the Guide from the seat beside him and opened it, scanning its pages for secrets.

  For the first time, he noticed a faint blue mark on the inside cover. He glanced at the legend page again, then at the marks along its tattered edge. He held one page beside the other and the marks lined up, merging to form a face. A little man with a big nose peering over a wall.

  Two halves of a Kilroy.

  The book felt suddenly warm to the touch. He was wondering if he’d imagined it when a faint pulse of energy crackled inside the car, and he could’ve sworn the In-N-Out sign flickered for an instant. Then, as his breath caught in his throat, the legend page bound itself back into the book.

  The Kilroy, unsevered now, almost seemed to wink at him. The box at the top right, Key to Map Sections, was larger than it had been a minute ago.

  New symbols had appeared inside it.

  The first was a field of faint blue dots, beside which was written Boundary of Incorporated Sunderhoods. The symbol below that was an e inside a red circle: Entrance. Beneath the circled e was a directional arrow interrupted by exclamation points:

  —!—!—!—>

  The final symbol in the legend box was a blue star: You are here.

  Goosebumps rose across his arms, his neck, the entirety of his scalp.

  “What the hell is this?” he said out loud.

  As if in reply, the Guide’s pages began to turn by themselves, fanning the air until they settled on a map of Venice. And there he was on page forty-nine, his position marked by a blue star pulsing faintly near the end of Washington Boulevard.

  A sibilant string of profanity escaped his lips.

  He stared at the map for a long time, struggling to process what he was seeing. The Guide was obviously enchanted; it was a magical artifact gifted to him by his mother. That meant she’d known about Sunder—had been involved, somehow, with magic—

  Suddenly, a path glowed to life beside his little star, the —!—!—!—> extending across the map. The symbol pointed east on Washington, stretching from his current position all the way to the edge of the page. It shone and faded, shone and faded, insisting.

  Guiding him.

  He turned the page. The glowing blue arrow tracked east until it reached the end of that map, too—and the one after that. He followed the symbol, turning pages until the marked path came to an end downtown, terminating at a large field of pink dots with a red, circled e at the edge of it. Entrance.

  An entrance to Sunder Hill.

  Leopold slumped in his seat, his eyes unfocusing as he gazed out the windshield. A streak of neon blazed in his peripheral vision, the glare of a motel sign in the distance. There was so much he hadn’t known about his mother, so much she hadn’t told him. He felt strange: terrified but excited, betrayed but hopeful. He had a thousand questions. His confidence was shattered. He felt infinitely alone. He didn’t want to go back to Sunder. He wished Sunder had never existed.

  There’s something I need you to find.

  “Okay, Mom,” he whispered.

  Forty-Five

  He crossed the night-shadowed city with the Guide open on his lap, alternately stuffing his mouth with french fries and taking bites of a double-double cheeseburger. He was driving with his knee, looking down now and then to check his progress. Like a GPS, the star moved with him across the map, the —!—!—!—> symbol always leading the way.

  Washington to La Cienega; La Cienega to Olympic; Olympic through the glitzy neon carnival of Koreatown to the ragged edge of Pico-Union. A smog-yellow moon rose through a wispy veil of clouds. He shoved more fries into his mouth. In classic LA fashion, traffic thickened for no apparent reason, and to avoid the worst of it he cut down a side street. Immediately the map shook and fluttered in his lap, and the arrow symbol, marking the path from which he’d strayed, began to glow an angry red.

  “All right, calm down,” he muttered, finishing his double-double as he hooked a quick U-turn back onto Olympic.

  The instant he returned to the path, the Guide settled down. The arrow symbol returned to its previous calm shade of blue.

  Leopold drove the rest of the way without deviating from the recommended route, taking every turn demanded of him. The farther he drove, the more the streets narrowed, downtown’s high-rises looming ever closer. He wound a snaking path up to Union, then crossed under the 110 freeway and entered the Second Street tunnel, the long, concrete sarcophagus that cut beneath Bunker Hill. Greenish lights blurred overhead like Morse code. A pair of motorcycles roared past, filling the tunnel with fumes and thunder. Leopold looked down at the Guide to confirm he was nearing the e symbol, then got a shock.

  Earlier, he’d been so intent on the journey that he’d only glanced at the destination. He’d assumed the entrance to Sunder Hill would be near Angels Flight—on the other side of the tunnel. But the e was smack in the middle.

  Peering more closely at the map, he saw that the entrance was actually down a short spur of tunnel that veered off to the left, not far ahead of him. There was only one problem with this: He’d driven through the Second Street tunnel a hundred times, and he knew for a fact there was no left turn. No turn in either direction. It was straight as an arrow, walls all the way.

  His head snapped up at the resonant blare of a horn. Leopold jerked the wheel straight, moving so quickly he nearly knocked over his soda. Putting himself to rights, he pretended not to notice the middle finger offered in his honor, averting his eyes as the offended car sailed past, still leaning on its horn.

  More cautious now, he scanned the tunnel ahead.

  He was rapidly approaching the theoretical entrance, but the walls were solid as far as he could see. No Stopping Anytime was painted in huge letters along the left side. His eyes darted again to the Guide. Now a few words had appeared above his glowing arrow.

  Exit boldly, 500 feet.

  There, ahead of him on the left, the wall now shimmered, slightly translucent. Through what looked like a sheen of heat waves, he could just make out another spur of tunnel. And then he was upon it, and there was no time to second-guess anything.

  He floored the gas, yanked the wheel left, and exited boldly.

  To an operatic chorus of horns he cut across oncoming traffic, steeled himself for sudden impact, then sailed through the half-transparent concrete. A snap of static electricity crackled as a flash of blue light danced across his windshield, and then he was through, stomach lurching as the tunnel ramped upward precipitously. He rounded a sharp curve before leveling off.

  Only then, as brake lights came into view, did he think to let his foot off the gas.

  Leopold came to a skidding stop at the end of a short line of cars, his heart thudding, french fries littering the dashboard. It was the second time that day he’d channeled The Fast and the Furious, and he hadn’t even seen those movies. If there was much more of this in store for him, he was starting to think maybe he should. He remembered to breathe, straightened his spine, and scanned the scene out his windshield. In front of him was a weathered pickup truck with a bumper sticker that read STUDENT DRIVER—one of many vintage cars, he noticed, idling in the queue. At the front of the line was a booth, a guard, and a gate. Beyond that seethed a wall of gray mist.

  Leopold had arrived at some kind of checkpoint.

  The gate arm rose and an old Volkswagen van puttered through. The mist split open to receive it, then churned shut again after the van had passed. As the line of cars inched forward, Leopold felt a twinge of doubt. How, exactly, was he supposed to get in? What would he tell the guard? What if the guard knew he’d been banished from Sunder?

  He looked down at the Guide. It offered no advice.

  Channeling Richter, Leopold pulled up to the booth wearing his most accommodating smile—which faltered as soon as the guard swiveled in her chair to face him.

  It was Rochelle. The winged old lady from the underground parking garage.

  He still owed her a nickel.

  “You.” She glared. “I know you from someplace.”

  Leopold briefly squeezed his eyes shut. Of all the people she must’ve seen in that parking garage on a daily basis, he couldn’t believe she remembered him. “Yeah, listen, I’m sorry about that. I can pay you now, if you’ve got change—”

  “You an actor?” A pair of glasses hung from a beaded chain around her neck. She put them on and peered at him skeptically. “Where’ve I seen your face?”

  “I’m not an actor.” Leopold frowned. “We met yesterday. In the parking garage.”

  A car honked impatiently.

  “Nah,” said Rochelle. She was tapping her chin when, suddenly, her face lit up. She reared back on her stool, cackling loudly. “Holy hell, you’re the whoopsie kid!”

  Leopold felt the blood drain from his face. “What?”

  “I saw you on TV! You’re that shit-for-brains who thought he was a channeler!”

  “I, uh, don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leopold said, suddenly feeling sick, “but if you could just let me through—”