Chapter 25

Happy

We passed a road sign that said “Happy, Texas, 10 miles,” a name that scored very high on the Zed cool-o-meter, TBH.

We’d been on the road for a few hours, with a stop for lunch and ice cream.

The luck of Aloysius had been on my side as I’d successfully predicted that the kid at the counter would call me “girl.”

6–6.

But I was more interested in watching Jo and Sam.

They kept leaning close and whispering to each other. At first, I was worried that they were passing intel about the car—the way my parents always whisper to each other when there’s stuff they don’t want us kids to hear.

But so far, Dolly Rusty Carton Raccoon—or DRCR—had only been making the normal scary noises and whines.

So I think they were whispering sweet nothings.

“Oh. My. Goodness,” I said to Aloysius. “That is so cute!”

Aloysius suggested I share this with Gabe.

I reached over and tapped him on the shoulder. He lifted one of his headphones. Another opera leaked out.

“What?” he asked.

“Have they moved closer to each other in the front seat?”

“What?”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“I’m trying to listen to Carmen.”

“How can you listen to opera when there’s a real-life romantic drama happening right before your very eyes?”

“Easy,” Gabe said. “Like this.” He put the headphones back on.

“You have no sense of romance.”

“What are you talking about back there?” Sam called.

“The trip,” I lied. Well, it was only sort of a lie.

“I was telling Jo about the coordinates,” Sam said. “But I explained that we have no idea where the next stop is supposed to be. I got that right?”

Jo turned around. “Sam says all the other clues were place names?”

“Arcadia. Huzzah. Mantua. But this one isn’t.”

“Zed-splain it,” Sam said.

Well, since they were asking for my expertise, or Zed-spertise, how could I refuse?

“The stanzas in the poem Taylor left behind link to specific chapters,” I began. “Considered together, they’ve pointed to towns and places where clues are hidden. I think they might all have been places where Taylor felt comfortable somehow.” I stopped for a moment, imagining the author sitting and reading in front of Lysander’s grave, or partying with the crowd in Huzzah all those years ago.

“Focus,” Sam called.

I shook my head. “Sorry. But the last stanza and fragment don’t seem to do the same thing.”

“Why not?” Jo asked.

“Well, the stanza is clearly about Yves Lanois. He’s a werewolf, the last of the four great monsters in Taylor’s book. The chapter is also about Yves and Lysander, the vampire, and their first date.”

(Did Jo and Sam exchange another look when I said that? Yes.)

I recited perhaps my favorite bit from the fragments:

They dined together for the first time. But the dinner was so much more than just a meal.

How sad are the humans who see food as fuel, Yves thought. How much life they miss. How much joy.

The clouds obscured the light of the heavens, allowing the vampire and the werewolf the time to enjoy the meal and the company.

The chef delighted and surprised them with dishes designed for their particular tastes. For Lysander, the sanguine perfection of flying things. For Yves, the bounty of the forest, the prizes of the hunt.

Spurred on by the transcendent food, they moved from pleasant chat to deeper conversation as they discussed good and evil and dined on plant and beast.

A perfect synthesis of the delights of the earth and of the mind—and of the soul.

Soon, like the Ipomoea alba that surrounded their table, their love bloomed.

And then . . . they kissed.

Jo instantly endeared herself to me by saying, “That is so beautiful! No wonder you fell in love with this book.”

Gabe had now taken his headphones off. “The Ipomoea is the key here. It blooms only at night.”

“Like a werewolf,” Jo said, increasing her Zed rating exponentially.

“Yes!” Gabe replied. “It’s actually called the moonflower in English, which is in the last stanza of the poem. And the specific one the werewolf mentions is found in only a few places in the world, including the US southwest.”

“But why Texas?” Jo asked. “I thought you were heading for New Mexico?”

“We know we have to end up in New Mexico,” I said, “but right now, the coordinates give us this huge chunk of the state. So we need one more number to pinpoint exactly where we need to go.”

Gabe jumped in. “And the flower doesn’t really bloom west of Texas because it needs moisture, and once you get too far west, it’s all desert.”

“And Gabe discovered one other cool thing about Texas flowers that Taylor might have been hinting at: the state flower is the bluebonnet.”

“In Latin, the Lupinus texensis, or Texas wolf flower.”

“Texas it is!” Jo said.

“Where we are now,” I added.

“Is the moon part significant?” Jo asked.

“We think it’s possible that they’re eating under a full moon, but Yves doesn’t transform because of the cloud cover.”

Gabe nodded. “Why else put that detail in there? It has to be night because vampires can’t be out during the day.”

“And werewolves can’t be caught with a clear full moon,” Jo said.

“Bingo,” I said. “But that’s as far as we got. There’s no Moonlight, Texas, so we’re stumped.”

Jo thought for a bit. “Austin has these things called moonlight towers. They’re like giant lamps.”

“Yeah. We saw those when we were doing research,” I said. “But Austin is in the wrong part of the state.”

“How?”

“Distance,” Sam said. “It’s something I noticed as the driver. Each stop has been about the same number of hours apart. And if we draw a line from where we’ve been to where we’re heading, it cuts across north Texas, not south.”

“It all makes sense,” Jo said. She turned back around, and I saw her check the rear-view mirror.

“Hmm,” she said.

I turned to look out the back window, but I couldn’t see anything weird.

“What did you see?” Sam asked.

“Probably nothing.” But Jo kept staring at the mirror.

Then she stopped, and she and Sam exchanged a glance.

Now they were definitely doing the parental “act cool in front of the kids” thing.

Sam quickly changed the subject.

“All that food talk is making me hungry,” she said.

Jo’s face lit up. “I know the perfect spot. It’s a little off the main road, just past Happy. An old hippie kind of place. A little dated, but it is amazing!”

“Amazing how?”

“You’ll see.”