Page 1 of Night Songs

PROLOGUE

Thank god for the Amtrak Quiet Car.

The moment I passed through its doorway, a calm descended. The circulated air was sweeter here, and each passenger kept to their own mind. I lurched my way down the aisle as the train swayed, finally stopping at a seat in the far corner, out of view of the security cameras.

Once settled, I absently reached into my pocket for the thin body of my phone, but instead my hand closed around the thick wedge of the burner.6:03glowed from the screen.

My husband wouldn’t be up for another two hours. It might be fifteen or twenty more minutes before he checked my room. Then another twenty of him searching the house with his phone up to his ear, listening to my number forward to voicemail. First, he would try the most obvious places like the bathroom and the kitchen, before moving on to the strange ones—the spare room we never used, the attic with no floor, the dark hollows of the hibiscus bushes in the backyard.

Would he call my friends first, or would he go straight to the police? Months ago I would have said the former, but my sense of him has lost its dexterity.

I imagined him speaking to a detective in our living room with his hands on his hips. I used to love watching him talk to other people. I sawhis self-assured posture, his thoughtful words, his calm pauses that people sometimes rushed to fill with half points and broken sentences.

Pain bled through the image, and my stomach lurched, bile crawling up my throat. I pushed it down, shifted focus. There was no vomiting allowed in the quiet car.

Regardless of what he did, it would be hours before the word spread. I had time before I needed to look over my shoulder.

I reached up and slid a lock of smooth blonde hair between my fingers. The wig looked more real than my own hair, like I’d been rendered in a higher definition.

I’d considered adding glasses, but that seemed unnecessary. I had the kind of face that people thought they’d seen before. Strangers were always narrowing their eyes in confusion, attempting to place me in their memory. The chatty ones would ask if we’d met, and I’d tell them that it happened all the time. My greatest distinction being that I lacked any distinction at all.

The conductor arrived at my seat, and I handed him the ticket I’d bought at the station with cash, my hand shaking and the wig weighing heavily on my skull. But he punched it without a look and moved on.

I loved trains. No security checks. No identification required. You were entirely anonymous in your seat, each person inhabiting their own quiet landscape.

I watched the land stream by, and I knew at any moment I could escape to its solid ground and go anywhere I wanted.

Another thing about a train was how the mind moved with it.Train thoughts.Different from airplane thoughts. Those were manic and giddy with altitude. Train thoughts were grounded, contemplative, moody in the best way. Something about speeding through different terrain, the constant shifting of scenery out the window—it rerouted the mind down tracks it hadn’t explored in years, or perhaps ever.

That was what I needed now, more than avoiding a cramped, airless airplane or traveling under a fake name. I needed to remember where thisall started, and what I had forgotten over the years, way back before I ever learned about the curse.

Not the moment everything changed, but right before, when I was still an anonymous entity, miserably unaware of where I came from.

Just a little demon child, desperate for love.

1rhea

1995

Shelli and I sat at the edge of a rocky cliff with our legs dangling over a vast unknown. She passed me the bottle of grape Mad Dog we stole from the 7-Eleven, and I took a sip. It tasted like poisoned Halloween candy, its red glowing radioactive in the falling light.

I handed it back, and she poured some out into the still, dark waters of the quarry below. “I offer this wine to the gods, in celebration of Rhea’s birth.” She smiled and took another swig. “Happy Birthday.” She pressed play on the boom box, and “Fade into You” by Mazzy Star wafted into the air.

I wouldn’t turn eighteen until the next day, but I never celebrated on my birthday. Always the night before, and usually alone or with a friend like Shelli. I didn’t want a cake or presents or to be the center of a hot, whirring celebration.

All I wanted was one moment where I would look out and feel a connection to the world that was soft and hopeful. I would know it by a sound in my throat, like a cross between a grunt and a sigh. It hadn’t happened yet, but I was sure it would come. I could feel its potential in the air like downy oxygen.

The trees rustled behind us, and two boys from our high schoolemerged carrying a twelve-pack of Icehouse like they’d slain a bear. I had seen them before, watching from the shadows at parties as I hooked up with their more confident friends.

I grabbed the bottle from Shelli and took a large gulp.

They watched us now as they set down the beer and each took a can. One of them, Rick, had a trace of dark hair on his upper lip, and he approached first, with doughy Steve trailing behind him.

“What’s up?” Rick asked, putting a bit of asshole into his voice.

I held up the bottle in explanation, and we turned wordlessly back to our celebration.

“Lesbos,” Steve murmured behind us. It was the only way he could explain why we hadn’t been waiting for them. Why we were content to be here alone with no one watching us.