Nameless

She and Tommy exchanged a glance, hesitant, almost conspiratorial.

"You had good weather going north, huh?" I asked, and Tommy looked relieved.

"Told you then, did he?" he said. I realized, with a pang of jealousy and guilt, that they'd known. He'd told them, or they'd figured it out. And they'd believed him. No shouting, no dismissal. The Friendly had known what craziness Lucas was up to and they'd believed him, long before I ever had.

"He did a little more than tell me," I answered. "Did you know he succeeded?"

"No!" Gwen looked pleased. "But I'm glad he did."

Tommy didn't look quite so joyful. "How's he find it?"

"You'd have to ask him that."

"Didja know he can make it rain?" Gwen said. "Come on, Saint! Fetch me some books and I'll pay you. We made a little pile up north with those masks."

After they left, I turned over this new information in my mind all afternoon, trying to decide what I thought of it. In the end, it seemed like a small thing, compared to the rest. I hoped that night Nameless would get some choice scraps from the Friendly cooking fires.

I didn't see Lucas the next day, but I figured he was probably visiting with the Friendly before they left – I pla

As it turned out, I saw him before he came to town.

Around four o'clock that day, the boy came ru

"He isn't here, is he?" he demanded.

"Who, Lucas? No," I said. "What's the matter?"

"He's missed tutoring again and he's not answering his phone, and I think you'd better go see what's wrong."

"I'm sure it's just temporary," I replied. "Maybe his phone died. Might be some mud on the road. The Friendly are back, did you – "

"You should go. Now."

I looked up at him sharply. No child in the village had ever spoken to me that way, but his stare was direct and he looked so much older than he was that I automatically moved to obey. I was putting on my coat before I realized what I was doing.

"I'll come with you," he offered, when I paused again. "But you have to go see what's wrong with him."

I looked outside. It had been su

"Fuck," I said under my breath, and flipped the sign to Closed. "Come on."

The rain got harder even as we stepped outside – the most miserable kind of rain, intense and merciless. It fell straight down with no wind to soften it and had wet the pavement within minutes, washing dirt out of gardens and piling it in gutters for i

I didn't think we'd be able to run the entire way there, but as long as the boy was ru

By the time we reached the rutted dirt road we were both wet to the skin. Rain ran down the back of my neck and soaked my coat, flattened my hair, dripped off my eyebrows onto my cheeks. The boy didn't complain even once, though the fields we were ru

I couldn't even see The Pines through the curtain of rain around us, and I tried not to think about what Lucas might have done to cause this. Instead I thought of anything else. My life in the city, full of trains and small apartments, street markets in the summer, the spires of the downtown buildings and the sharp wind that blew between them. I thought of my shop, warm and brightly lit. I thought of the titles on the literature shelf, the chaos of the children's' books. I thought about the comic books and the magazines.

The hill loomed up suddenly before us, so abruptly in the storm that I skidded to a stop in the muddy tracks left by the Friendly, already gone again. I couldn't quite keep my balance and I fell, scrambling to get up again in the mud. The boy thrust his shoulder under my arm to help, and together we staggered up the slick path to the kitchen door.

"It's locked," I said, leaning against the door for what meager shelter the wall provided from the rain.

"Try it again," he urged.

"Did you hear me? It's locked – " But even as I said the words, I jiggled the knob and the door opened.

I staggered inside and was met with an odd silence. The rain had been pelting my body for so long that to be free of it was almost like silence in itself, though it still drummed on the roof.

"Lucas?" I called, dripping mud on the floor. "Lucas? "

The boy ran under my arm, into the kitchen and through the door that led to the living room. I followed cautiously.

The living room had changed drastically. No light or heat danced in the fireplace. Most of the furniture had been pushed back into its proper place. The worktables were gone, the masks piled haphazardly into boxes in a corner. Even the little planter-box on the window-sill was empty.