The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl: A Novel

Skull Cracker

Marzi leaned on the counter and watched, with dread twisting in her belly like a knot of rattlesnakes, as Beej trudged up the stairs. The worst of the morning rush was over and Hendrix was in the back watching his thirteen-inch portable TV, so Marzi would have to wait on Beej herself. He was talking to himself in a dreamily pleasant tone, which was somehow worse than mere ranting, and Marzi heard her own name several times in his otherwise incomprehensible monologue. Beej had always been a slob, but his hygiene and dress sense had deteriorated completely over the past few weeks. His carrot orange hair hung in greasy clumps around his face, and his ever-present black leather jacket—which must have been stifling in this heat—was smeared with mud and bits of grass. Marzi wondered if he’d lost his apartment or something; if he was sleeping outside.

Beej still came into the café every day, and Lindsay said he was still attending art classes, but clearly something had come catastrophically loose in his life. Marzi had seen heroin addiction in action, and it looked something like this, but she didn’t think drugs were Beej’s problem. Something in his eyes, the way they seemed to roll around loose lately, made her think he was having problems inside his head.

Beej clumped up to the counter, grinning at her, showing teeth that had gone too long without cleaning. He dropped a handful of coins, a few bottle caps, a beer can pull tab, and several pieces of a shredded photograph onto the counter.

Lemon tea, Beej? she said lightly.

No. A mocha. He gripped the edge of the counter, his hands visibly shaking. I found the shrine of the earthquake, he said. I followed the path that leads to waste and hardpan. The god of the earthquake has accepted my devotions.

Uh-huh, Marzi said, turning to the espresso machine to start his drink. How have you been sleeping? You don’t look so good. He didn’t smell good, either; like mud, and ashes, and old carpets.

I don’t need to sleep anymore, he said. My god gives me strength. But Marzi . . . He frowned, then shook his head.

What? she asked, wondering why he’d been saying her name on the steps, if she should be worried. He often flirted with her, awkwardly, and she had a fondness for him despite his social deficiencies—he was always polite, and a talented collage artist and photographer—but she questioned if he was becoming obsessed.

Nothing, he said, not meeting her eyes, taking his drink and heading for the Cloud Room. Beej liked that room the best. He said the castles in the mist—certainly the most soothing of the several room-spanning murals in the café—made him feel peaceful.

Marzi was about to drop his coins into the register when she noticed there was an Indian head penny and a buffalo nickel in the mix, in addition to a Sacagawea dollar coin. She pocketed those, making up the difference with cash from her own pockets. She didn’t collect coins, but that mix of change had a distinctly Old West feel. She’d never thought much before about the way icons of the West appeared on currency. Maybe there was a story in that—something about counterfeiting, or magically transforming natural resources into cold cash. It seemed like more of an Aaron Burr story than an Outlaw one, but that could be good—she hadn’t done much with Burr in the past few issues of her comic.

A scream, raw with shock and pain, erupted from the Cloud Room. Marzi came around the counter fast, holding a knife she didn’t even remember picking up, and ran toward the sound, her heart pounding. She raced through the front room, bumping a little table with her hip and almost toppling it, and reached the Cloud Room just in time to see someone dash into the Teatime Room. She only caught a glimpse of him, but he was a striking figure: eagle feathers woven into his black hair, flesh the color of pale sand, the skin on his shirtless back oddly tattooed to resemble cracked earth. She didn’t go after him—there was no other door out of the Teatime Room anyway, and Beej was lying on the floor beside an overturned chair, in need of more immediate attention.

Marzi knelt by Beej, keeping one eye on the empty doorway to the Teatime Room. Are you okay? she asked. Did that guy hurt you?

Beej opened his eyes and looked up at her dreamily. Then he giggled. Marzi flinched. If he’d wept, or whimpered, that would have been all right, something she could deal with, but the giggle was strange and terrible. He wanted to see my brain, Beej said. To compare the wrinkles in my head to a map of the canyons and gullies, to see if my mental terrain matches the texture of his territories. To touch me more deeply, to write his name with a knife in the folds of my mind . . . He trailed off, then sat up, rubbing his fingers across his hairline, frowning. Something . . . He mumbled words she couldn’t understand.

How could you tell if someone had just had a seizure? Maybe Beej was just having a fit of some kind, and the tattooed guy didn’t have anything to do with it. Beej— she began.

The room shook—more, the world shook, and Marzi fell against a table. Earthquake, she thought, and almost as soon as she thought it, the quake was over. It was a fairly strong quake, nothing like the Loma Prieta disaster of 1989, but no tiny trembler, either. Marzi’s stomach kept lurching even after the quake stopped, some part of her backbrain still insisting the ground beneath her was unsafe. Beej tried to stand up, and Marzi turned her attention to him, grateful to have something to set her attention on after the chaos of the last few moments. Hold on, she said. There might be aftershocks.

No aftershocks, he said, rising. "That was a foreshock. Just a hint of things to come. I knew the earthquake was coming. The god gives me wisdom."

Marzi frowned and, after a moment, rose to her feet. Beej seemed fine—physically, anyway—so she stepped toward the Teatime Room, still holding her knife. She ducked her head inside, and there was no one there, just empty tables watched over by the painted gods on the walls. The man must have slipped out while she was distracted by the quake. That man, with the tattoos—

No tattoos, Beej said. His flesh is broken stone.

What— she began, but then the day manager, Hendrix, called her from the other room.

Marzi! Get in here! That quake knocked three bottles of syrup off the shelf! It’s going to smell like Irish Cream in here for years!

You’re sure you’re okay? she asked.

Never better, Beej said, picking up his overturned chair. I’m going now. Things to do, people to be. See you later. He waved cheerfully before leaving.

He should get some help, Marzi thought, but that was as far as it went. Beej wasn’t her responsibility, after all, but cleaning up the mess in the other room was.

Later, when the quake clutter was cleared away and things had slowed to the usual late-afternoon lull, Marzi sat staring for a while out the big bay window onto Ash Street, watching bicycles and cars pass by. In Santa Cruz there were only two seasons—rainy winter and sunny summer—and winter was a long way off. The café was nearly deserted, and it looked a little shabby with so few inhabitants: a thread-bare couch, scrounged chairs, mismatched tables, worn and scratched wooden floors. Only Garamond Ray’s enormous murals set Genius Loci apart from all the other cafés in town, and up here in front the only painting was a space-scape, all cold white stars and shadow-occulted planets, not the loveliest of the murals. Still, the air smelled of coffee, there was a good Two Dollar Pistols disc on the stereo, and the morning madness was behind her.

She spotted Denis, the most regular of the café’s regulars, looking dour as always on the couch, leafing through a book about modern art. His muddy boots were propped on the battle-scarred coffee table, making a mess, but Marzi didn’t have the energy to tell him to put his feet down. An older woman Marzi didn’t know sat drinking orange spice tea in the Ocean Room, tapping her pen rhythmically against the table, looking down at a spiral-bound notebook. A few tourists were talking loudly out on the deck, the usual background noise to Marzi’s workdays. Hendrix, pale and improbably dreadlocked, sat on a stool in the kitchen, watching his tiny black-and-white television. He was the only person who’d been working at Genius Loci longer than Marzi had, and the only employee who’d been personally hired by the mysterious owners.

Marzi was on the verge of striking up a conversation with Denis, in the vague hope that his condescension and affected world-weariness would annoy her enough to keep her awake, when Lindsay came through the door like a glittering whirlwind. Marzipan! she said. To what do we owe this honor? Shouldn’t you be sleeping, or hunched over the drawing board?

Marzi grinned. Tina called in sick, so Hendrix asked me to cover her shift. I’ve got to work during the day tomorrow, too, but then I’ll be back to my usual nocturnal ways. Marzi was normally the night manager—which was good, since that way she almost never had to see Hendrix, who managed during the day.

Lindsay leaned on the counter, looked around, and whispered conspiratorially: Have you met the new boy yet? The one who moved into the Pigeonhole?

What’s it to you? Marzi said, taking down a pint glass to draw Lindsay her usual Guinness. I thought you’d sworn off boys.

"Not for me, she said, rolling her eyes. I’m interested for you. So you haven’t met him?"

Nope. He’s still a man of mystery.

"Well, I’ve met him, Lindsay said. Yesterday."

Oh? What’s the verdict?

Yummy. Speaking from a strictly consulting position, of course, since I’ve sworn off boys.

What’s he like?

Sort of an art-house Kafka-reader type, non-smoker but if he smoked they’d be black Czech cigarettes, makes jeans and a black shirt look like a black trenchcoat and dark glasses, butter-wouldn’t-melt kind of cool. You know?

It was actually a fairly succinct and comprehensible description, for Lindsay. At least she hadn’t compared the new boy to some long-dead German artist, or worse yet, a figure from an obscure painting.

He have a name? Marzi asked, not sure if she was interested, or even interested in being interested.

Jonathan. He’s getting his master’s in art history from some school in North Carolina. He’s out here for the summer doing research.

Another academic artsy type. Ah, well. He’d come to the right place, with Lindsay, Beej, and Denis already in more or less continuous residence. What’s he here to study?

Lindsay spread her arms wide. This.

Marzi frowned. This what?

The murals. The last works of Garamond Ray.

Ahhh, Marzi said. That explains why he agreed to live in the Pigeonhole.

"It’s about the only thing that would explain it, Lindsay agreed. I’m sure he’ll be around. He lives right upstairs. Where else would he go for coffee?"

I’ll wait with bated breath, Marzi said.

Speaking of you and the men who love you, Lindsay said, I hear Beej flipped out this morning.

Marzi nodded, though the details were fuzzy in her memory—the little quake loomed larger in her mind than anything else. He was acting really weird when he came in, she said.

How could you tell? Denis interrupted from his place on the couch. "Beej is always weird."

Yeah, so what’s his deal? Lindsay said. He still comes to classes, but it’s like having a wild animal in the studio, he’s always wandering around and knocking stuff over, talking to himself. Is he okay?

How should I know? Denis said. I’m not his keeper. Beej and Denis had a strange relationship—like Pigpen meets the Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing His Hands, Marzi sometimes thought. They argued about art and metaphysics, conversations that Marzi could barely follow, and which usually ended with Denis storming off and Beej looking sheepish. What if Beej was having a nervous breakdown or something? But what could Marzi do? She wasn’t his keeper, either—just the barista who served him coffee, the woman he had a crush on, maybe. He wasn’t her responsibility.

Anyway, Marzi said. "He seemed kind of out of it, and a few minutes after he sat down, he started screaming. I ran in to see if he was okay, and he was on the floor babbling, basically, about gods and stuff. Then the earthquake hit, and he left shortly after. He did say he could sense the earthquake coming, though." She didn’t bother to mention the tattooed man. He probably didn’t have anything to do with it anyway. Still, thinking about him made her weirdly anxious.

Wonderful, Denis said. Beej thinks he’s a Richter scale, now. As if he weren’t delusional enough.

Lindsay turned and made a great show of looking Denis up and down. Apparently you’re under the delusion that you’re part of this conversation. Lindsay was normally sweetness and light, but she seldom bothered to be civil to Denis; it was wasted effort, as he took kindness and scorn with equal disinterest.

I’m crushed by your rejection, Denis said. He packed up his things and walked out, leaving muddy bootprints on the floor.

See, it’s guys like him that made me swear off boys, Lindsay said.

Marzi laughed. He does give the gender a bad name.

Lindsay leaned over and kissed her cheek. I’ve got to go study, Marzipan. Say bye-bye when you leave—I’m in for the long haul tonight. If you’re working tomorrow, I’ll see you then. And if the new boy is around, I’ll introduce you.

My heart goes pitter-pat. But I’m not sure I want to date anyone right now, you know?

You just say that because your years in the service industry have made you misanthropic, Lindsay said. They’re not all like Denis.

If they were all like Denis, there’d be no trouble with overpopulation in the world, Marzi said.

Stop being witty, Lindsay said, picking up her beer. I’ve got work to do. She winked and went toward the Ocean Room.

Faced with further hours of relative boredom, Marzi went to the little shelf of secondhand books they kept for customers and picked up a copy of Louis L’Amour’s Hondo. She’d read it before—she’d read all L’Amour’s Westerns—but not for years. L’Amour—Love. Maybe she could have L’Amour, or a thinly disguised version of him, appear as a character in the next issue of The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl. Maybe he could be Rangergirl’s love interest. She’d never done a love story before.

Scratching Gravel

The next day, Marzi met Jonathan.

She was busing tables in the Circus Room, whistling along to Daboo Dabay by Lutch Crawford and His Gone Geese, from a good old jazz disc she’d been playing during a lot of her shifts lately. Marzi carried her bus tray past a pale, dark-haired young man sitting at a small table under Harlequin’s gaze. He whistled Daboo Dabay too, and for a moment their whistles synched perfectly. A sketchbook lay on the table before him, and he held a pen in his hand. He nodded to her and said, Great music. He was cute, in a too-thin kind of way, but Marzi wasn’t in a flirting mood. She’d had nightmares about a sand-colored Indian in a feathered headdress the night before, and the lingering aftereffects had bothered her all day.

Sure is, Marzi said, glancing at his sketchbook as she passed. The page was covered with harsh cross-hatching, as if he’d scratched out every drawing he’d begun, and she wondered what he was trying to create. She went to the kitchen with the bus tray, took her disc out of the stereo, and said good night to Bobby-O. It was two o’clock, and she was done for the day, having come in at five a.m. to open. She had the night off—a rarity—and since she didn’t have to work tomorrow, it was practically a vacation, given her usual work schedule. The guy with the sketchbook was bent over his work, drawing furiously, and she paused, thinking of talking to him—she suspected he might be interesting. But no. If he turned out to be a regular, she could be friendly later. Right now she just wanted to get to her drafting table and sketch the sandstone savage, get him out of her head and into the pages of her comic. He could be a minor villain in the next issue, or maybe a mysterious figure with an undisclosed agenda of his own—her comic was full of such shadowy characters, some of them with intentions so ambiguous even Marzi could not have said with certainty whether they were villains, heroes, or something else entirely. Marzi walked out the front door.

Lindsay was coming up the stairs as Marzi went down. No, no, don’t go, she said. I have to tell you what happened in class today.

Oh, joy. Tales from the ivory tower of academia.

Lindsay stuck out her tongue. I get just as much paint on my clothes as you do, working girl. You’ll want to hear this, believe me. Save me a seat, she said, pointing to the mostly full patio.

Marzi thought longingly of her pencils, her paper, and her drafting table, but she nodded. She and Lindsay had trouble synching their schedules and getting together during the school year; Lindsay was still on academic time, while Marzi had been a civilian for two years and had a somewhat erratic work schedule to boot. Marzi expected to be at home alone all evening anyway, so she could be social now. Her sandstone savage would wait.

Lindsay returned a few minutes later with a pint of Guinness and a cup of tea, and set the latter ceremoniously before Marzi. So you met Jonathan, she said.

Who?

Lindsay rolled her eyes. "The new boy. The one who’s getting Pigeonholed. I wouldn’t mind if he pigeonholed me. But boys just lead to trouble."

Oh! You mean the guy in the Circus Room? With the black hair and the sorta sunken eyes?

Sunken? They’re dark and mysterious and haunted, hinting at a dangerous past, Marzipan.

Marzi sipped her tea. Duly noted. So I met him. Glad we got past that awkward first step. So what’s the story you have to tell? The sordid tale of a pop quiz gone wrong?

Lindsay shook her head. "I was in class this afternoon, the class I have with Beej? We were all working, painting with oils—I hate oils—and Beej just flipped out. He fell off his stool and put his arms over his head and started yelling ‘Earthquake!’ And we all stopped, you know, Dr. Payne, too, and sorta paid attention to the world around us for a few seconds, and there was no earthquake, but Beej kept yelling. Dr. Payne threw him out of class, and Beej went stumbling out of the room like he was drunk or something, like the ground really was shaking under him. She shook her head. Creepy. And he smells weird lately, too—weirder than usual—like ashes and old garbage and stuff. You saw him yesterday, you know how he is, right? I worry about his mental health. Maybe he should drop out of school for a while, get some help— She stopped talking and winced. Sorry, Marzi. I wasn’t thinking."

It’s cool, Marzi said, dredging up a smile. It was a long time ago. Taking the withdrawal was good for me. I needed to do it.

I kinda wish you’d come back to school afterward, Lindsay said, looking down into her beer.

Marzi just nodded. They’d had this conversation before, and it never went anywhere new. For Lindsay, school was important: She needed the structure, and enjoyed the instruction. But Marzi tended to think that the only reason to get an art degree was to get a job teaching art—welcome to the closed loop of the humanities. Lindsay, obviously, disagreed.

Anyway, Marzi said. That thing with Beej yesterday.

Lindsay nodded. Yeah, you said he was screaming? But there really was an earthquake, that time.

"Only after he was screaming, by coincidence. Marzi sighed. Maybe next time I see Beej, I’ll suggest he see a counselor at school or something."

Me, too, Lindsay said. We’ll be concerned members of the community. He’s a talented guy—I hate to see him fall apart. She sipped her Guinness. So anyway. I told Jonathan to come out and join us once he finished drawing. She grinned, impish.

"Matchmaker, matchmaker. Why don’t you hit on the new boy? And don’t tell me you’ve sworn off boys—I saw you making out with Michael Baker just two weeks ago."

A drunken fling, Lindsay said with a wave of her hand. "Too much red wine and too little discernment. No more than a grope in a corner. It only served to confirm my all-girl resolve. Besides, I don’t need romance in my life. I’ve got someone."

Oh?

Alice Belle, Lindsay said.

Marzi widened her eyes. Alice? Alice was a semiregular at Genius Loci, one of the bikers who frequented the place, mostly on weekends. She wore leather and kept her hair cropped short, and she had a tattoo of one of Edward Gorey’s Gashlycrumb Tinies on her forearm.

I am being fully initiated into the mysteries of Sapphic love, Lindsay said, deadpan, and Marzi burst out laughing. "I’ve never been all that experienced with girls, Lindsay went on. Just a little making out here and there. But Alice . . . Wow. Just, wow. She’s a fire-dancer, did you know? She practiced in her backyard last night, and I watched. It was amazing; she’s so graceful, so all-in-control—and not just when she’s dancing. I had so much fun with her, I thought about you, and how much fun you’re not having. When was the last time you did more than sleep in bed?"

A lady has her secrets, Marzi said. It had been a long time, actually, and the last time hadn’t been very good, a romp with an old lover who was better in her memory than he was in her bed. But I can sleep with Hendrix any time I want.

Lindsay giggled.

Jonathan appeared in the doorway, carrying a black messenger bag over his shoulder and a coffee cup in his hand. So much for working, she thought, but the conversation was pretty effectively purging her mind of bad dreams, so it was okay.

Jonathan came down the stairs to their table, putting down his cup and pulling up a chair. Lindsay put her elbows on the table and set her chin in her hands, blinking at Jonathan prettily.

I bet she’ll flirt with the doctor on her deathbed, Marzi thought, with something like admiration.

Jonathan held out his hand to Marzi, and in the process knocked over Lindsay’s half-full pint glass. Guinness splattered everywhere, and Lindsay leapt back to keep from being soaked. Jonathan grimaced, said, Shit, I’m sorry, and wiped at the spill with a napkin. Marzi caught Lindsay’s eye and silently mouthed Cool, huh? Lindsay shrugged expressively. She could shrug like no one else; her shrugs had nuances. This shrug meant, roughly, Sure, but what do I know?

Jonathan sopped up the rest of the spill. Shit. I’m a klutz. I’ll buy you another one.

Deal, Lindsay said. But don’t expect me to put out afterward.

Jonathan just laughed. So he was at least that cool. If Lindsay had said something like that to Beej or Denis, they would have blushed at the least, and possibly run away. Jonathan went back into the café.

So now you’ve met him twice, Lindsay said. Not much of a first impression, I guess, and an even worse second impression, but they say the third time’s the charm.

Don’t hold your breath, Lindsay love.

He’s just nervous because he’s into you, she said. You know how guys get around pretty girls. You make him all fumble-fingered.

Then why doesn’t he knock stuff over when he talks to you alone? Or is that a facet of your relationship you haven’t told me about?

"No, he’s cool around me, but I’m not pretty."

Lindsay—

"I’m not being down on myself. It’s true. I’m not pretty. I’m cute. I have round cheeks. I’d look good in gingham. I could do television commercials, hold puppies and tell people to buy things, but I’m not pretty, just cute. I’m the best-friend-girl, the one guys talk to about the women they’re in love with. She shrugged with an air of gracious resignation. I’m used to it. Though it’s been a while since any guys have come mooning to me about you. Maybe I miss the secondhand attention, did you ever think of that? Even if I have sworn off boys. She grinned, then glanced at the stairs. Where’s my beer? I tell you, the service in this place . . ."

Whoa, what’s that? Marzi said, pointing toward the street. A car had just pulled into one of the metered parallel spaces in front of the café. It was a hatchback, but Marzi couldn’t determine the make, model, or even color, as the car was covered entirely in thick mud, except for a rough oval of mostly clear glass on the windshield. Did they drive through a monsoon or something to get here?

A monsoon would’ve been cleaner, Lindsay said. It looks more like they drove through the middle of a mudslide.

The car door opened, and the driver climbed out, just as mud-spattered as the car. Marzi couldn’t even tell if she was wearing clothes; only the shape of hips and breasts identified her as a woman.

Maybe she’s some kind of performance artist, Marzi said. The woman was disturbingly familiar—she reminded Marzi of a minor character from her comic. In that story line, the rainmaker Charles Hatfield nearly destroyed San Diego with a rainstorm—something that had actually happened, historically, though Marzi had her doubts that Hatfield was really responsible for the storm. One of the women who died in the flood became a ghost, and in her desperate wish for flesh and substance she fashioned a body for herself out of mud. Bits of the mud-ghost kept sloughing off, or drying up and flaking away, and she was eventually dissolved in the Colorado River, where she remained, becoming a sardonic, disembodied oracle of sorts—as well as one of Rangergirl’s only friends.

But that was a comic book, and this was real life. This was no ghost, but an actual woman, walking around covered in mud. Her face was daubed with white clay, making her resemble a figure from some African tribal ceremony—she had the face of a skull.

That’s Jane, Lindsay said. Holy shit.

Of course. Lindsay knew everybody. Who?

"Jane Canarray. She was the TA in my psych class last semester. She’s brilliant."

Does she often cover herself in mud?

Marzi, I’ve never even seen this woman with split ends or ragged fingernails. This . . . I can’t believe it. She used to go out with Denis, I heard. Do you think Mr. Clean Freak would go out with somebody who covers herself in mud? Lindsay spoke quietly, watching Jane. For her part, Jane seemed content to stand by her open car door and gaze down the length of the street.

Maybe she’s performing a psychological experiment.

Maybe, Lindsay said doubtfully. I know there’s an Abnormal Psych teacher who makes his students do publicly deviant things to, like, teach them about cultural prejudices. But the students usually just talk really loud in elevators or stand on corners yelling about flying saucers. This is above and beyond.

Jonathan appeared, beer in hand. Huh, he said, looking at the mud-covered woman. That’s unusual.

Welcome to Santa Cruz, Lindsay said, and then the mud-covered woman started yelling.

HERE! she shouted, flinging out her arm to point at the café. This is the seat of her power! This is the place of her imprisonment! She must be released! Jane’s eyes scanned the deck; everyone was staring at her now. Her gaze locked on Lindsay, Marzi, and Jonathan.

Hey, Jane, Lindsay said. Are you protesting something?

Imprisonment, Jane spat, mud flying from her lips. She stalked around the front of her car, dropping off bits of mud as she came. My goddess is here, trapped.

This isn’t about boycotting Brazilian coffee, is it? Lindsay said. Because Genius Loci complied with that, like, ages ago.

You, Jane said, pointing at Marzi. You stand before the door to her prison. You prevent the goddess from bestowing her blessings upon the world. Jane came up the steps, still pointing unerringly at Marzi. Why, sister? Why don’t you embrace the dark goddess of the earth?

I’m an atheist, sorry, Marzi said, backing away. Jane’s hands were curled into muddy claws. I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You’re tracking mud all over the deck, and I’m the one who has to clean it up.

It will all be mud, soon. Buried in mud. Jane swung her head balefully, her gaze resting at last on Jonathan. She smiled, and there was mud on her teeth. Mud in your heart, boy. You’ll piss mud, shit mud, and spurt mud when you come. She flicked her fingers at him, getting a spatter of mud on his shirt. He looked down at the smudge, then back up at Jane, meeting her eyes, and Marzi felt a nasty crackle of tension between them, sort of the opposite of good chemistry, and she wondered if Jonathan was going to do something violent.

Instead, he picked up a napkin and dabbed slowly at his shirt, never taking his eyes from Jane’s, not flinching when she took a step closer and thrust her face close to his. The way he stared at her, Jane might have been an insect—one with a stinger, perhaps, but nothing to worry much about. Marzi was impressed; her own heart was beating in 6/8 time. Jane began to hiss like a teakettle just hitting its boil.

That’s enough! Marzi said. "I’m not asking, Jane. I’m telling you. Leave. She hesitated. The next thing she wanted to say wasn’t strictly within her authority, but Hendrix would back her up. You’re banned from Genius Loci. For life."

Jane pulled back from Jonathan and looked at Marzi. For my life, or your life? Because your life . . . She laughed, a rich, liquid sound. That’s nearly over now. Jane lunged at her, fingers hooked and clawlike.

Marzi crouched and brought up her hands defensively. Jane crashed into Marzi’s arms and reached for her throat, trying to strangle her. Marzi knocked Jane’s arms aside, then put both of her own hands flat on Jane’s chest to shove her away.

Marzi’s hands sank into mud up to the wrists, deeper than should have been possible, and she didn’t feel flesh underneath. She tried to pull away, but her hands wouldn’t come loose—if anything, she felt as if her hands were being pulled in, absorbed by Jane’s body. Lindsay and Jonathan grabbed Jane’s shoulders and tried to pull her away, but all they got for their trouble were hands full of mud. Jonathan frowned, as if doing a tricky bit of math in his head, and threw a short, vicious punch at Jane’s shoulder. Bits of mud flew off on impact, but Jane didn’t seem to notice at all, grinning into Marzi’s face, her teeth like tiny white tombstones. She reached for Marzi’s throat again.

Fuck, Marzi thought, and threw herself backward, away from Jane. Her hands still didn’t come free, so she pulled Jane with her, twisting Jane against her hip and smashing her into the table. Jane hit the tabletop and shouted—it sounded more like surprise than pain. Marzi wrenched her hands out of Jane’s chest, then pushed the table over, thankful Hendrix had settled for chaining the tables to the railing rather than bolting them down. The table fell against the railing and Jane rolled off the surface, over the rail, and fell a few