Billy told us we had to go on foot because his dad would panic if he heard a car pull up to the house, and we told Billy to wait on the staircase while we made up our minds. And he did. He did. That was almost as incredible as his presence in the first place. Billy Rascoe listening to us, obeying us, when he had never once obeyed a teacher in his entire school career . . . that was more than strange. That was downright terrifying.

Nip said, "We should call the cops."

"If we call the cops," Ash said, "your mom'll find out you're not home." Her voice was all high, quivery notes. She had forgotten about the initial exchange between Nip and Billy, at least for the time being. Her hands were wrapped around the heart of her obsession, and she could feel its pulse, nothing else. The missing miner within her reach? And waiting, as Billy made it sound, for her and her alone? God. A winning lottery ticket wouldn't have given her half the thrill.

"Yeah," said Nip, "and if she finds out I tried to keep this a secret, I'll be worse than dead."

"All right," said Ash. "We walk over and see if his old man is even there, and if he is, then we call the cops."

"I don't know . . ."

Their heads turned to me. The swing vote.

"Somebody get Bitchmaster," I said. "I'm not crawling the whole way."

♫

Gravel isn't made for Bitchmaster-ing either. My front two wheels continued to bury themselves in the rocks, so Ash spun me backwards and pulled me down the driveway behind her the way someone would lead an extra heavy wheelbarrow. When we reached the bottom, Nip prodded Billy, "How'd you know Ash'd be home?"

Billy started down the lane heading away from the Road. An ugly toenail had cut through the canvas of his left sneaker. "Where else would she be?"

"School?"

"There's no school on Saturdays."

"It's Friday."

"Oh." Billy paused, started, paused again. "Then why was she home?"

"She," Ash said, "is suspended. Along with her sidekicks."

I would have kicked her side for that, if I had been able to.

"Suspended? You lot?"

Ash gave a casual sniff. "That's right."

"Huh."

"So." She ran a hand over her buzzed head. The sound was silk and sandpaper. "Your dad. Did he, you know . . . blow it up? Like Leonard Higgins. Did he really?"

Billy didn't answer.

The lane thinned and the trees thickened. Their shadows made dusk of the morning. We moved in almost silence, slow footfalls and soft wheel-clicks and shortened breaths. A twig snapped far off in the woods. A raven haw-haw-hawed on a withered branch. Deep in the green my eyes snagged on a cluster of gray figures, skinny and still. People. Shrouded people. I looked closer, my heart skipping like a rock across a lake, and saw that they were pine trees. Five or six of them, mummified, their needles as dry as matchsticks. It struck me that the sun was thousands and thousands of miles away from Honaw. Black, airless miles.

We hadn't passed a driveway since Ash's house, not a single one.

"You really live out here?" Nip said.

Billy said nothing. Billy was gone. Only his body remained with us, hunched and shuffling. Flies hitchhiked on his hood and shoulders.

"Do you smell him?" Ash whispered to me.

"Yeah."

"It's—God. What is it?"

It was the boy's locker room. It was sweat layered on benches and piss browning in urinals and something else . . . something that reminded me of the hospital. Not bleach or alcohol, but the smell under those, the smell the disinfectants were there to cover up.

Billy walked abruptly off the road into the woods, and we all stopped, none of us seeing what was right in front of us until he laid his hands on it. The gate was wooden and mold spotted, and it blended right into the background. A crude street number had been carved into one of the posts, perhaps by a switchblade. He dragged it open, revealing a dim path blanketed in leaves that were crumbling to mulch, and my thoughts flashed to the back fence of school, the ivy-hidden gate, the path to the old football field.

"Coming?"

Nip's posture said, No thank you. Ash strolled off the road, light on her feet. Now Nip's posture said, If I have to. I followed them over the embankment, the ground pillowy soft beneath Bitchmaster's wheels. Here and there I could make out tire tracks impressed into the decay.

"They stopped coming about a month ago," Billy said as he dragged the gate shut behind us. "A little after . . ."

His dark eyes flicked briefly my way.

Ash missed the glance. "Who stopped?"

"Suits. The sheriff. Everyone. They all came around for a few days after the explosion. Said they were checking in on me, but really they were snooping up the place. Making sure he hadn't gotten out."

"But he did."

Billy nodded.

Nip looked up at the knobby branches interlacing over our heads. "And when did he . . ."

"When did he come back?" I finished.

"Two weeks." A long swallow tugged on Billy's throat. "He's been back for two weeks."

As we moved along the path, the timeline laid itself out in my head: a bomb blows deep in the mine, Billy's dad goes missing and stays missing for half a month, then he comes back. He comes back without anybody but Billy knowing.

How?

"He was living in the woods," Billy said, like he'd read my mind. His voice was distant, hoarse. "He was out there, out here, the whole time."

A leaf caught in the spokes of my left wheel. It rattled dryly as I pushed.

"Hiding?"

Billy shook his head, and the way he shook it was horrible, like someone had hold of his neck from the inside and was twisting it back and forth. "No. Lost. He doesn't—my dad—he doesn't remember his name. He doesn't remember . . ."

"What?" Nip pushed gently.

"He doesn't remember he's human." Around the lane the woods shifted and sighed. "He came home the way a dog comes home." The switchblade flashed in Billy's hand, snick. Ash and Nip stepped back, but Billy didn't realize he was doing it. He pushed the knife back in and then popped it out again, licking his lips. "I found him under the porch one night. I heard him whispering down there. There was blood on his face. Animal blood."

"What happened to him?" Ash breathed.

Billy was coming back to himself—I could see it happening, could see his gaze pulling in, like a length of rope hauled slowly out of a well. "Ask him yourself, Ghost Girl."

The path dipped down into a low, shadowed clearing. There in the weeds hunkered Billy's house, mud brown and mole-ish, its windows as dark as its walls. Where the sun touched the roof, the tarpaper drank the light and gave nothing in return. A tire swing hung from a frayed rope, attached to an oak whose bark was melting off like black candle wax. Underneath the tree sat a red pickup truck with a busted taillight. Two more vehicles rusted by the shed, their wheel wells sprouting thorny flowers. Around the house the woods sagged, leaves clinging to sick boughs.

I thought back to an hour ago, my aunt's cottage, the bright morning, and I felt myself slipping over an edge. I felt the wheels of reality losing traction and gaining velocity, carrying me downhill toward something . . . something . . . something.

Run, my brain told my legs, run.

With a push, I started down the slope after the others.

____ ____

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading! If you're enjoying Poor Things, please consider hitting the vote button—it will help other readers find the story. Comments are always appreciated, too. Seriously, I love them.

Coming up, Act One draws to a close . . .

. . . and the kids discover there's no turning back.