Once again, X stood staring at the green house with the red metal roof.
Rufus’s house.
Zoe had gone in to talk to her mother.
It was afternoon. Already dark. The lawn was more grass than snow, but sopping wet. The portal that X had smashed into the street for himself and Ripper had been filled. X could see where it used to be because the pavement there was blacker than the road. The sight of it seemed to confirm that he would never return to the Lowlands. The way was lost—and thank god.
He’d been waiting perhaps 20 minutes. From the house, he had heard crying, shouting. But at least some of the crying had sounded loving. Conciliatory. That gave him hope. He didn’t want to be the cause of even more unhappiness in Zoe’s family. He’d leave if he had to, though he had no idea where he would sleep. Where did people go if they had nowhere to go?
X wore only a torn shirt, mud-streaked pants, decimated boots. He’d left his overcoat behind in the Lowlands, he couldn’t remember where. But it was all right. At least he had the silver packet with everything but the piece of porcelain, which his mother asked to keep after using it to wound Dervish: the shard held two memories for her now, one layered over the other. X also had the letter that Zoe had written him once. He reached into one pocket and crinkled the foil to reassure himself, then reached into the other to feel the plastic bag that held the letter. They made him feel rooted.
In the end, it’d been his mother who freed him from the Lowlands, and Regent who freed Zoe. Sylvie had pressed her palm beneath X’s eyes, as was the custom whenever a lord sent a soul to the world. Her hand was cooler than Regent’s had ever been, and the pain that hummed under his skin was nothing compared to the pain of saying good-bye.
X had peered at his mother in the final seconds, desiring to say a hundred things but powerless to untangle them. After knowing her for an hour, he was losing her. What was it that Zoe said when he told her that loss seemed to be the way of the world? Then I don’t like the way of the world. I’d like to speak to a manager, please. Someday, he’d ask her to explain the thing about the manager.
X had actually wanted to stay longer in the Lowlands—just long enough to talk to his mother, to hear more of his father’s story. Sylvie had known what he was thinking. She could hear his thoughts, just as he and Zoe could hear each other’s sometimes. She shook her head no. She wanted her son to live, and wouldn’t risk waiting. She told X that she loved him very, very much. And then she gave the world to him—and him to the world. X didn’t ask if she would be able to visit him sometimes, if she’d one day walk with him in the mountains. Sylvie said nothing about it either. Neither pretended to know the future.
Rufus’s front door creaked open. Jonah rushed down the steps, and ran across the lawn. He hugged X hard around the waist.
He was crying.
“You’re staying,” he said.
“Am I?” said X, his hopes rising.
“Yes, because I said so.”
“Ah. Thank you, Jonah. Yet we must respect your mother’s decision, whatever it is. Promise me.”
“Okay. I mostly promise.”
“Only mostly?”
“Yes, but that’s a lot. I was gonna say sorta.”
Jonah released X from the hug, and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his navy fleece, which was covered with dog fur. A bit of fur stuck to his face. X thought with a pang of Uhura, and wondered if she had survived. He couldn’t bring himself to ask.
“If my mom won’t let you stay here, you and me can get our own house,” Jonah said. “You can be in charge of cooking, and I can be in charge of answering the door. Those are the only big things.”
X smiled, and tousled the boy’s hair.
“Why is everybody always mussing my hair?” said Jonah. “My hair is already mussed.”
X shook his own mane.
“Mine, too,” he said. “It’s even more beleaguered than yours, I fear.”
“That’s okay,” said Jonah. “Our house isn’t going to be a hair-combing house.” He paused. “Zoe says you don’t have magic anymore.”
“That’s true,” said X. “I am entirely … I confess to not knowing the word. Magic-less? Un-magic?”
“I think it’s just regular,” said Jonah.
“Yes,” said X. “I am just regular now.”
“Are you sad about it?” said Jonah.
“No, I like it,” said X. “I feel like my body, my blood, everything, is finally my own. I don’t know if that makes sense?”
“No, it’s weird.”
Jonah wiped his eyes on the spot where he’d wiped his nose. Something seemed to occur to him.
“Hey, guess who did a really big magic trick, actually,” he said. “Wait, you don’t have to guess—it was me.”
“Indeed?” said X. “Tell me.”
Jonah flashed a giant grin.
“I’ll show you,” he said.
He dashed back up the steps, opened the door, and shouted inside: “Come here. Come on. Here we go. You can do it, girl.”
Uhura came waddling out.
She was still underweight and lethargic, but clearly healthier. She recognized X and trudged heroically toward him. He met the dog halfway, and picked her up. Her fur was shining again. She felt … substantial. She licked his neck.
“Her tongue feels sandy, right?” said Jonah.
“It does,” said X.
“I made her better,” said Jonah. “Boom! And guess who’s so happy now?”
X knew but pretended not to.
Jonah raced back to the door. Even before he’d opened it all the way, Spock bolted out, and ran circles on the lawn.
Zoe and her mother stepped outside a few minutes later. The afternoon was transitioning from blue to black. X could see the mountains in the distance, their silhouettes shaggy with trees. Zoe still had a cut on her cheek, as well as light bruises on her cheekbones from when Regent had sent her out of the Lowlands—they were a faint copy of the ones that X had had since he was 16. Zoe walked behind her mom with her eyes cast down. Her mother looked exhausted and frazzled, and like she was trying to suppress her fury.
“Uh-oh,” said Jonah.
X held Uhura tighter.
“Remember our promise,” he told Jonah.
“Our mostly promise,” said Jonah.
Zoe’s mother looked X up and down. Her eyes landed on the fresh cuts in his forehead, the scars on the back of his hands. Her anger seemed to dissipate infinitesimally.
“Zoe has told me some things,” she said. “I don’t think she’s told me everything. But I’ve decided to trust her. Just tell me no one is coming after you ever again. Say it so I believe it.”
“I’m free,” said X. “I hardly believe it myself, yet it is true.”
“They don’t want him anymore,” said Jonah, “’cause he’s just regular now. Look …” He stamped on X’s foot, causing X to cry out. “See!”
“Literally, what is wrong with you, Jonah?” said Zoe.
“What?” said Jonah. “I’m helping!”
“Okay, listen,” said Zoe’s mother. “I’m going to have to tell Rufus who you really are. I can’t imagine how that’s going to go. If he doesn’t flip out—”
“He’s not gonna flip out,” said Zoe. “He’d do anything for you. Plus, my god, he’s the emperor of mellow.”
“If Rufus doesn’t flip out,” her mother continued, “you can stay in the shed, and he’ll sleep in the living room with Jonah. For two weeks. That’s it. Then Zoe and Jonah and I are moving to the Wallaces’ old place, and you’re gone, I don’t care where.”
“Thank you,” said X. “I hardly know how to—”
“Stop,” said Zoe’s mother. “I’m not doing this because I like you. As far as you know right now, I only like you a tiny, tiny bit. Do you understand? I’m doing this because I love my daughter.”
X nodded. Uhura licked his neck again.
“Mom’s not really mad,” said Jonah. “That’s only her pretend-mad voice.”
“No, it isn’t,” his mother said. “This is my for real mad voice.”
“Nope,” said Jonah.
“Yeah, it’s at least twenty percent pretend,” said Zoe.
Her mother rolled her eyes, then pulled Zoe and Jonah close and hugged them hard.
She spoke kindly to X for the first time.
“Zoe says you met your mom,” she said.
“I did,” said X.
“I’m glad,” she said. “Can I ask what it was like? Uhura, stop licking him.”
“It’s all right, I’ve missed Uhura’s company,” said X. “Meeting my mother …” What could he say? “Meeting my mother made me feel something I have only ever felt with Zoe: a little bit whole.”
Zoe’s mom gave him an appraising look.
“Okay, I like that,” she said.
She seemed to notice for the first time how filthy X’s clothes were. He looked self-consciously at his feet.
“I know you’re used to washing in rivers,” she said. “But it’s time to try a shower.”
X followed Zoe to Rufus’s small, wood-paneled bathroom, and watched as she turned on the water. There was a piece of transparent plastic hanging in the chipped pink tub. It was covered with irregular splotches of color and words that X couldn’t read.
“I don’t even want to know how long Rufus has had this shower curtain,” said Zoe. She turned back to X. She must have seen how intently he was staring at it. “It’s a map of the world,” she said. “Have you never seen one?”
Embarrassed, X said only, “Where are we?”
“Here,” Zoe said, pointing. “And this is Massachusetts, where we borrowed the orange boat. It’s on the Atlantic Ocean. See?”
“Show me more,” said X.
“This is Texas, where you captured Stan in the hair salon,” she said. “This is British Columbia, where we found my father. This is Portugal, where Regent’s dad made wine. This is Ukraine. What else? This is London, where Ripper lived when she—when she actually lived.” She paused. “That’s enough for now. How hot do you like the water?”
“I’m not sure,” said X.
“Right,” said Zoe. “Well, tell me if this is too hot or too cold?”
X reached into the shower.
“It is neither too hot nor too cold,” he said. “It is just right.”
“You sound like Goldilocks,” said Zoe. “Goldilocks is—”
“I know who Goldilocks is,” said X.
Zoe kissed him.
“Well, okay, then.”
She sprayed something into the mist.
“Eucalyptus,” she said. “My mom’s into it.”
Zoe identified the bottles that stood like soldiers along the edge of the tub, and suggested that X use her mother’s soap (which was pear green and flecked with flower petals) instead of Rufus’s (which was actually several small wedges of soap stuck together).
“Thank you for the tour,” said X. “I believe I have all the information I need.”
“Okay,” said Zoe. “Just be careful in the tub—it’s slippery. It’d be messed up if you survived the Lowlands just to bust your head in Rufus’s bathroom.”
“I will not bust my head,” said X. “You have my word.”
“I’m serious,” said Zoe. “You’re not a superhero anymore.”
X closed the door behind her, but she pushed her way back in.
“Do you want music?” she said. “I can get you music, but if you dance you might fall.”
“I don’t think I require music,” said X. “Or dancing.”
“Okay,” she said. “Just checking. You be you.”
When he was sure Zoe had run out of questions, X sloughed off his clothes and stepped—carefully—into the tub. The water stung as it found the bruises on his chest and back, but slowly his muscles relaxed. Everything loosened, everything calmed. He soaped himself until he felt like he was covered in sea foam—he’d overdone it, probably—then watched dirt from the Lowlands run down his legs, and into the drain, away from him forever. He lifted his face to the water. He let it pound his eyelids and cheeks. He washed his hair, but he must have overdone this, too, because he found he could make clumps of it stick straight out from his head, like sunshine in a drawing of the sun. When he was clean, X found he wasn’t ready to leave the comfort of the shower.
He thought about how improbably, how profoundly, how absurdly lucky he was to be free.
He turned to the shower curtain, rubbed the condensation off with his hand, and tried to memorize a little bit of the world.
X found clean clothes of Rufus’s folded in a pile outside the bathroom door, and the Bissell family around the kitchen table, waiting for him. When he asked how long he’d been in the shower, everyone laughed, but in a warm, rather than mean-spirited, way.
“An hour and a half,” said Zoe.
Her mother had tended to Zoe’s cuts and abrasions in the interim. She told X to take off his shirt and sit, so she could do the same for him. When he hesitated, she said, “It’s okay. I went to medical school for three semesters.”
X removed his shirt. He saw Zoe’s mother look at the sleeves of tattoos that ran up his arms and at the damage that had been done to his body during 20 years in the Lowlands. He worried that it would be too much for her. He worried that she’d turn him out after all.
Instead, the sorry state of X’s skin seemed to deepen her sympathy. She opened a metal box on the table, took out a tube of ointment, and squeezed some into her palm.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s fix you.”
Later, X lay in the plastic lounge chair in the shed in the backyard, with Zoe curled on top of him.
The shed was decrepit, and leaned so far left that it seemed to be in the midst of falling. Tools hung on the wall above the workbench. Zoe had told X their names, but he’d already forgotten them all. He was thrilled to be among the living, but daunted by the ten million things he didn’t know. Zoe had once said she couldn’t comprehend how big the Lowlands were. X couldn’t comprehend how big freedom was. He thought of the little orange boat in the vast black sea.
“I want to be of use somehow,” he said.
Zoe stroked the muscle that ran along the back of his arm.
“Oh, I’m definitely gonna use you,” she said.
“I am in earnest, Zoe,” he said. “I want to be more than some tree stump you must drag behind you. Else one day you will wake, and wonder why on earth you saved me.”
Zoe sighed.
“I shall ne’er wonder that, goodly sir,” she said. “I shall ne’er ere wonder it.”
“ ‘Ere’ means before, not ever,” said X. “And therein lies another problem. I must alter the way I speak, the way I dress—the way I move, for all I know.”
“Please don’t change the way you move,” said Zoe. “Look, I’ll show you some YouTube videos, and you’ll start picking stuff up. That’s what would happen in a movie. You’d watch YouTube while I was at school, and after two days you’d be playing Mario Kart.” She kissed him. “Please don’t worry. I’ll explain everything to you bit by bit, and it’ll be like I’m seeing it for the first time, too. It’s like that with Jonah, and I love it. That kid is still amazed by yogurt.”
“What is yogurt?” said X.
“See!” said Zoe. “This is gonna be awesome. There are so many good yogurts.”
They fell asleep without intending to, and woke when Rufus knocked on the door. The shed was dark except for the heaters, which gave off an orange light. It took X a few seconds to remember where he was.
Zoe sat up groggily in his lap.
“Come in,” she said.
“Cool if I shed some light on the … shed?” said Rufus.
“Sure,” said Zoe.
Rufus pulled a string. A bare bulb came to life, and swung back and forth. X squinted up at Rufus, who held a bottle of water, a new toothbrush, and a pair of moccasin-style slippers.
“A couple offerings,” he said. “Nothing epic. I wasn’t sure what you needed.”
X remembered Rufus’s bright eyes and his dense red beard, which seemed to be waging a military campaign to take over his face. But he was surprised by how tentative he seemed now. Rufus set the things on the workbench, and went to leave. Only then did the obvious occur to X: Rufus might not love the idea of a bounty hunter from hell sleeping in his shed. The fact that X was actually a former bounty hunter from hell … Who knew if that made it any easier?
X stood to shake his hand. He hated the idea that he’d made Rufus uncomfortable in his own home.
“Thank you for sheltering me,” said X. “And thank you for these clothes I wear. I’m embarrassed by how needy I am. I have nothing but my name, and even that Zoe had to give me.”
“It’s all good, man,” said Rufus, almost, but not quite, looking at him. “None of us really own anything anyway, you know? How long’d you wear that ratty shirt and stuff?”
“Years,” said X.
“Ooof,” said Zoe.
“Yes, now that I hear it aloud, it does sound unappealing,” said X.
“No judgment,” said Rufus. “I’ve still got socks from high school. Well, one sock.”
Rufus tried again to leave, but X stopped him.
“Zoe’s mother has told you my story, I think?” he said.
“Oh, yeah,” said Rufus. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He mimed his head exploding. “My whole thing is going with the flow. But I’ve got to admit, I’m sorta surprised by where the flow is going.”
“But you do believe my story, fantastical as it is?” said X.
“Yes, I believe it,” said Rufus. “I do. I mean—Zoe’ll tell you—I believe some pretty weird shit anyway. I believe trees talk—to each other and to us. I think some Dr. Seuss books are real. I think they’re actually nonfiction. Not all of them, but a couple.”
“What do trees say?” said X.
Rufus laughed.
“I’m still working on that,” he said. He looked straight at X finally, then took the slippers from the workbench.
“Try these on,” he said. “Let’s see if they fit.”
The slippers were lined with fur—and so comfortable that they seemed to warm X’s entire body.
“I will never take them off,” he said.
“Rad,” said Rufus. “They’re yours.”
X could see that Rufus wanted to say more. He wished he was as good at putting people at ease as Zoe was.
“Here’s the deal,” Rufus said finally. “I can’t have Zoe or her family getting hurt. If this whole thing is Horton Hears a Who!—and we’re protecting somebody that nobody else believes in or cares about—that’s great. I am so down for that. But if it turns out to be The Cat in the Hat, and you just trash everybody’s lives …”
“The Cat in the Hat comes back, and fixes everything,” said Zoe.
“I know, I know,” said Rufus. “But that part’s made-up. They had to tack it on at the end because it’s a kids’ book.”
“I’m sorry,” said X. “I’m not following this conversation. The cat has a hat?”
“I just mean I care about this family,” said Rufus. “Zoe, I know you think I have a thing for your mom.”
“I have never, ever said that,” said Zoe. “Okay, now that I think about it, I’ve said it a lot.”
“It’s cool,” said Rufus. “I can see why you’d think it. But I care about you and Jonah, too. I’m like X—I don’t really have a family of my own. So I can’t have any negative stuff happen to you guys. It’d demolish me, man. I’d be roadkill.”
“It’s gonna be okay,” said Zoe.
“It will,” said X. “I know that’s the hardest thing of all to believe, yet it is true. Seeing any of them hurt would break me, too.”
In the silence that followed, one of the heaters went out. Rufus kicked the side of it. The coils went thong, and returned to life.
“I know it would,” Rufus told X. “I can tell you’re a solid dude. Okay, I’m all in. Let’s do this, whatever this is.” He shook X’s hand again. “You guys need anything else?”
X could think of nothing, but Zoe said, “Actually, yeah.”
She handed her phone to Rufus.
“Look at this bear sculpture, and tell me if you made it.”
Rufus scratched at his beard—it was so bushy that his fingertips actually disappeared into it—and inspected the picture.
“Yeah, that’s one of mine,” he said. “That was a good one. I remember the guy who bought it, too. He works with bears in the park, right? Knows a shit-ton. Tim Something?”
“Timothy,” said Zoe. “Ward.”
“He was also a solid dude,” said Rufus. “Real quiet. Little bit awkward. But I dug him for sure.”
X felt something start up in his heart.
“What are you looking at?” he said, though he already knew.
Zoe held the phone out to him. It glowed on her palm.
“A picture of your dad,” she said.