Waking, there was the question of why he was no longer a bear. Had he used his magic after all? Remade himself? He didn’t think he had, but Susannah was kissing his human mouth, reaching down to grasp his most definitely human dick. The bear’s appetite and anger once again belonged to Daniel and only Daniel, who had not realized they were there at all. He was no longer large enough to contain everything that had come welling up out of him while he was a bear. Susannah would be able to detect the taste of everything he’d been keeping secret from her. She would draw it from his mouth like poison. He pushed her back on the bed, nudged her legs apart. The little pad of fat above the pubic bone, her pubic hair, one of which would inevitably be caught in his teeth, the shine of wetness already on her thighs.
“Just let me,” he said, and went down on her.
They lay there talking about nothing that particularly mattered. There was a reek in the room that was either sex or bear, and Daniel was taking lazy inventory of himself to make sure no trace of bear remained when Mo texted Susannah. It was only when he saw Lissy and Carousel sitting at the breakfast table that he remembered the other thing Mr. Anabin had said.
Someone in his life was not real.
Lissy was real. Carousel was not.
There was a Pop-Tart on the plate in front of Carousel, and as Daniel watched, she took a bite out of it. Presumably she would eat the entire thing and then take another. To be made of magic was to be hungry. Daniel knew that.
The Pop-Tart was real and Carousel was not.
Susannah left. His parents and the rest of his siblings woke up and came into the kitchen. They put a plate of something in front of Daniel and he ate it. They said things to him, and he said things back. Carousel ate a second Pop-Tart.
Here is what Daniel remembered about the real Carousel. First, that she hadn’t been called Carousel. She hadn’t lived long enough to be called anything other than Caroline. Only Pumpkin and Cupcake and Peanut and all the other nicknames nurses gave premature babies. Once at a barbecue a nurse friend of Ruth’s had said in an offhand way that babies came and went and nicknames meant nurses didn’t have to worry about getting names right when everything was going wrong. It helped when a baby died. A baby might die, but Peanut would be back in the same old Isolette in a day or two. Daniel remembered the stricken looks on everyone else’s faces. That nurse hadn’t known.
Laid on top of the memory of Caroline who had died were all of Daniel’s memories of this Carousel, the one who had never been real. Here was everything that had not happened. She had not spent almost four months in the NICU. One day his parents had not brought her home. How small she had not been, how much he had not been afraid of her, her fragility, that he might accidentally hold her too tightly, and everything since. None of these things had ever been real.
This Carousel, telling Davey and Oliver they hadn’t wanted Pop-Tarts anyway, this Carousel did not exist, had never existed. She was a construct made out of magic. And here it was, a ripe, gummy string trailing from Daniel to her. He saw how he could sever it. The magic he didn’t want told him how easy this would be. No one would even know it had been done. Carousel would no longer be Carousel though the Pop-Tarts would still be gone. What if Carousel picked up a knife and stabbed Davey with it? What if Daniel made her go away after that? Would Davey still be dead? But, of course, Carousel wasn’t going to do that. She wasn’t evil. She just wasn’t real.
Magic makes her real, Daniel’s magic said. Magic can do all sorts of things. If you have magic, magic said, you never run out of Pop-Tarts. If you have magic, you can turn all the snow to amethysts and tourmalines for Lissy and Dakota, who had not been content to share the same birthstone. You could stop Davey from sleepwalking, make Susannah happy. You could kick Bogomil’s ass with magic. Well, you could try. You could live. Carousel isn’t real, but you are. The magic that sustains her doesn’t belong to her. It belongs to you.
Shut up, Daniel told his magic, and then realized he’d said it out loud when everyone stopped eating and stared at him.
“Sorry,” he said. “Talking to myself. Who wants cinnamon toast?” You didn’t need infinite Pop-Tarts. You could improvise.
Lissy raised her hand. And Carousel did as well.
When Mo showed up, pounding on the door, and said Laura and Susannah needed him to come over, it was almost a relief.
Once they were outside, Mo said, “What’s wrong with you? Never mind. Come on, come on.” His face was full of worry and something worse.
Daniel said, “Is Susannah okay?”
“She’s fine,” Mo said. “Come on. Hurry. It’s Malo Mogge. She showed up and Bowie was there and she tried to kill him, I think, but Ruth got in the way.”
“Ruth?” Daniel said. “Is she okay?”
“No,” Mo said.
When they came in, Laura looked up as if she had been waiting. Then her expression closed again. She was beside Susannah on the couch, hunched protectively over Ruth.
Daniel went over, full of dread. He looked at Ruth and then had to look away. He said, “What did she do? Malo Mogge.”
“She pointed her finger,” Laura said. “That was it.”
“She doesn’t have a pulse,” Susannah said. “I was doing CPR, but maybe I was doing it wrong. Maybe she had a stroke?”
“I can’t get her to stop being dead,” Laura said. “I tried. There has to be a way to do it, but I don’t know what it is. Mr. Anabin knows. Or Bogomil. We know they know how to do it. We just have to find them and ask.”
Mo said, “They can’t.”
“How do you know?” Laura said.
“I asked Mr. Anabin to bring my grandmother back,” Mo said. “He said it didn’t work like that. They don’t bring people back from the dead.”
Laura said, “Okay, but your grandmother had been dead for a while. She was buried! This is different, she’s right here. She’s just a little bit dead.”
Daniel sat down beside Susannah. “Hey,” he said. “Susannah. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t understand what they’re talking about,” Susannah said. “We have to call 911 again. They have to come.”
“Take her upstairs,” Laura said to Daniel. “She shouldn’t be here.”
“I shouldn’t be here?” Susannah said. “This is my house! You don’t even live here anymore! Ruth and I live here. You’re just here on your break!”
“Please,” Laura said to Daniel. “I can’t. I can’t deal with Susannah on top of all this.”
Susannah said, “Tell me what’s happening. Daniel?”
When he said nothing, Mo, that fucker, said, “What’s going on is that we all died, Susannah. And then we came back. You don’t remember and we all agreed not to tell you, but I think we’re way past that now. There’s a coin, it’s magic and it belongs to Malo Mogge. She thinks we have it or had it and she wants it back. And Thomas keeps trying to kill Bowie, they’re both part of this, and Malo Mogge was going to do it instead, but your mom got in the way. Oh, and Malo Mogge is a goddess and Bowie and Thomas are hundreds of years old and Mr. Anabin is even older and he’s basically a wizard and there’s this other wizard and now Laura and Daniel and I can also do magic but we’re in deep shit. Because we died. I am so, so sorry about your mom.”
Susannah stood up. She picked up an electric guitar Daniel had never seen before (where had that come from?) and swung it at the flat-screen television. There was an explosion of sparks and the flat-screen fell over onto the floor.
“Okay, wow!” Laura said. “Really helping, Susannah, thank you!”
Susannah raised the guitar again. She began to bring it down on Laura’s head.
“Susannah!” Daniel said. “Stop!”
Had he used magic? Again, he didn’t think so, but Susannah stopped. Daniel took the guitar from her. “Come upstairs,” he said. Laura was glaring at them both. “You can ask me anything you want. Okay?”
Susannah looked at Ruth. Then she turned and went up the stairs.
“I’ll go find Mr. Anabin,” Mo was saying as Daniel followed Susannah.
She lay down on her bed without taking off her coat. Daniel sat beside her and began to unlace her boots.
“We have to call the police,” Susannah said. “Laura needs to do that.”
“She will,” Daniel said. He put her boots in the closet and looked around the room. There were dirty clothes at the foot of the bed, clean clothes, folded but not put away, on Susannah’s desk. He put the dirty clothes in the hamper and began to put the folded clothes into drawers.
“Do you want a glass of water?” he said. “Can I get anything for you? Susannah?”
“I’m supposed to work at What Hast Thou Ground?” she said. “I’m supposed to be there at eleven thirty.”
“I’ll call,” Daniel said.
“Billy won’t be there yet,” Susannah said. “He doesn’t come in until after ten.”
“I’ll leave a message,” Daniel said.
Susannah said, “I’m cold.” He sat on the bed again and took her hands in his.
“Get under the covers,” he said. “I’ll get another blanket.”
“No,” she said. “Don’t. Lie down with me.”
Daniel lay down. Susannah said, “Hold me.” So he did.
“Is my mother really dead?” she said.
“Yes,” Daniel said.
“Mo says you were dead, too,” Susannah said. “But you’re not.”
“It’s complicated,” Daniel said. “Do you want me to explain?”
“No,” Susannah said. “Bogomil is real, though, right?”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
“Are you crying, Daniel?” she said.
He had not realized that he was. “Yes,” he said.
Susannah was silent for a while. Then she said, “I have a splinter in my foot. I keep forgetting to take it out.”
“Let me take a look,” Daniel said. “Does it hurt?”
“A little,” Susannah said. “I think I just want to go to sleep. Okay?”
“Okay,” Daniel said.
“Stay with me, okay?” Susannah said.
“Okay,” Daniel said.