I don’t need the lurker sign.
Last year, a Monstrous Sea fan cosplayed one of the characters, Kite Waters, at a con, and posted pictures of it on the forums. When I said—as LadyConstellation, of course—that it was the best Kite Waters cosplay I’d ever seen, she mailed me the costume. Well, she mailed Emmy the costume, and Emmy mailed it to me. It’s Orcian Alliance military dress, a white suit with green trim and gold buttons, devoid of any markings of rank because Kite has none. It even includes Kite’s boots and her black saber (made of some kind of foam or packing material or something).
The good news is, the costume looks so different on me, Wallace will never recognize where it’s from. Everything is too baggy. I slip the belt to its last hole and it’s still not enough. I pull the jacket tight to myself and feel my ribs hard against the material. I guess it’s fine—it wasn’t made for me, anyway.
I stand in front of the mirror and feel only slightly ridiculous dressing up as one of my own characters, even though it doesn’t look half bad. It feels like real clothes and looks like real clothes. The girl (I should call her a genius, really, some kind of sewing savant) who made it and wore it first was an islander—Filipina, I think—like Kite, so it looked right on her, made her actually look like Kite, whereas on me it just looks like a costume.
“YOUR BOYFRIEND IS HERE,” Sully yells from the foot of the stairs, and a minute later Dad’s voice follows, saying, “Eliza, your friend is in the driveway.”
When I told them where I was going, Mom and Dad both lit up like the mini marathon had come early. I told them they were not allowed to ask questions, and somehow, magically, they resisted. I told them I was going with a kid from school. I was very careful not to say “boy from school,” but Sully has single-handedly rendered that a moot point.
I grab the black saber, the pair of crisp twenties I pulled out of the bank earlier, and my phone, and creep out of my room. Mom and Dad are both standing at the door, looking outside and speaking quietly to each other. I make my way down the stairs.
“What are you supposed to be?”
Church stands in the doorway to the living room, munching on a granola bar, looking way too lanky in his basketball shorts and T-shirt. Sully appears behind him a minute later, wearing almost exactly the same thing, just a touch taller.
“Is that something from your comic?” Sully says.
Mom and Dad have turned around. Great, let’s just get the whole Mirk clan in on this Make Fun of Eliza fest. Bereft of my stealth, I stomp down the stairs, past my parents, and yank open the door.
“I’ll be back later,” I grunt. “I have my phone.”
I close the door behind me and hurry down the driveway. Wallace waits at the end in a swamp-green Taurus, but it’s dark and I can’t see his costume. My heart juts out a staccato rhythm in my chest and my stomach sloshes around like the great foaming tides of Orcus. I slide into the passenger seat.
“Hi,” I say as I buckle my seat belt.
“Hi,” he says back.
I stop. His head is turned toward me, but he looks away, at the dashboard, out the windshield. His voice is so much softer than I expected. I imagined he’d be extra loud, maybe to compensate for all the time he spends quiet, but no. It’s deep and soft, like a fat fleece blanket in the middle of winter.
“You only talk sometimes?” I say.
He nods. “Alone in my car is okay. School is . . . too much. With my friends, yeah, and sometimes with strangers. Still not weird?”
“No, not weird.”
He looks me in the eye and smiles the little smile.
“You make an awesome Kite Waters,” he says.
My body heats up a few degrees. I remembered deodorant. “Thanks,” I say, then look him up and down. “I thought you were going as Dallas?”
“I am,” he says. “The wig and the scarf are in the trunk. They’re kind of dangerous to wear while driving.”
“Ah. Good point.”
“You ready?”
“Ready enough.”
“So where did you move from?”
We round the corner and continue down the long road that connects my neighborhood to the rest of Westcliff. Wallace’s headlights blink on in the growing darkness.
“Illinois,” he says. His voice sits comfortably above a whisper.
“Why?”
“Family got new jobs.” He pauses. “And my mom likes it better here. I have a few friends here too, so it’s not so bad.”
“To each their own, I guess.”
“You don’t like it?”
I shrug. “Maybe, maybe not. I’ve never been anywhere else, so I don’t know if I’d like it better somewhere else, but I’m tired of Westcliff. I’m tired of that high school. And small-town nonsense. Everyone knowing everything about everyone. Have you read the Westcliff Star?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s stuff like that. All the stories they run—you know how they’ve had the story about Wellhouse Turn for the past few weeks? That’s all they cover this time of year. So little goes on that they have to focus on the killer road. It’s kind of . . . disturbing.”
“Disturbing?”
“They just get so focused on one or two things. They should leave people alone.”
He glances over at me. Smiles. “Got something to hide?”
“No,” I shoot back. “I’m just saying, I’d rather be somewhere where no one looks twice at you, no matter what you are.”
“I get that.”
We climb a hill, drive through a patch of trees, and start over Wellhouse Bridge. On the far side of Wellhouse Bridge, illuminated by Wallace’s headlights and the fading sun, is Wellhouse Turn: a sharp jackknife in the road where the ground falls away.
The flowers and other decorations from the picture in the Star are still there, some old and wilting, others fresh. There’s a bent and mangled metal barrier that gets put back up every time someone drives through it and goes over the side. The steep incline leads to the river below where, some say, you can find old car parts embedded in the ground.
I wonder if death comes quickly for those who go off the turn, or if the long tumble to the bottom takes years.
Wallace slows nearly to a stop at the turn. Most people slow down here, but never this slow. And never with unblinking rigidity. I get a glimpse of the drop. Even walking down the incline seems like a terrible idea. I bet it would hurt if you slipped, even a little.
Wallace’s face looks pale while we’re in the turn, but then we pull out of it and beneath the next yellow streetlight, and he’s fine again. As if nothing was wrong to begin with.
“Bet you don’t have places like that in Illinois,” I say.
The used bookstore Wallace’s friends told him about is called Murphy’s. I’ve heard of it in passing but never been here; post-Children of Hypnos, I didn’t read much, and after that I bought all my books online. Wallace jokes that the store’s full name is Murphy’s Law. I pray it isn’t, because a lot of things could go wrong tonight, and it would be great if they didn’t.
Murphy’s is a tiny little brick shop sandwiched between two other tiny little brick shops, with a big happy MURPHY’S BOOKS sign in the tall windows and lights on and bodies moving inside. The tiny parking lot is full when we get there, so Wallace squeezes his car into a spot on the street.
Before we go in, he pops his trunk and uses his phone as a flashlight to get out what he needs, because the trunk light doesn’t work anymore. He pulls out a lump of what looks like seaweed and a long blue-and-white striped scarf. He winds the scarf around his neck twice, leaving one end hanging down his chest and the other down his back. Then he pulls the lump of seaweed on over his head and shakes it a little so the strands fall in the right places across his face.
“How does it look?” He holds out his arms. Beneath the scarf he wears a ratty button-down shirt and a pair of pants that have been striped vertically, dark blue and green, with fabric paint. Strictly speaking, he’s not tall or narrow enough to be Dallas, but damn, he makes it look good.
“Wow.”
He spins for me, and the scarf even moves like it should, the ends swishing at his ankles. “Where did you get that?”
“My sister crocheted it for me.”
“Kind of sad you have to wear shoes, though.”
“Yeah, had to ditch Dallas’s bare-feet-as-pacifism metaphor in favor of foot safety.”
“You look awesome.”
“We look awesome.”
I strap the saber around my waist before we enter Murphy’s.
I think if I had to pick a party to come to, it would be this one. The walls are lined with books, and short bookcases separate different sections of the room. A refreshments table is set up beside the checkout counter. “Monster Mash” plays over the store speakers. A flock of Hogwarts students in black robes and house scarves take up most of the middle of the room. A couple of faeries, a vampire, and a witch chill against the back wall. Fixing the pumpkin decorations around the cash register is a girl dressed as a sushi roll.
“I would kill for sushi right now,” I say.
Wallace pulls out his phone. I get a text.
Oh, god, me too. We should get some after this.
Leaving a party for sushi? Yes, please.
Wallace leads me to a dark corner where probably the second-largest group of people has congregated. I almost trip over my feet. They’re all dressed in Monstrous Sea cosplay. Some have Amity’s white hair, or Damien’s silverware necklace. Some have the white lines of Nocturnian constellation tattoos drawn on their faces or arms. A large portion of them wear the high collars and red/gold/black color scheme of the Rishtians.
When they see us, several cries of “Dallas!” and “Kite!” welcome us. Wallace smiles, his ears turning pink, and reaches back for my hand to pull me through the crowd. I let him take it. His palm is rougher than I expected from a writer, but warm. We hold on to each other tentatively, and when we reach the table at the heart of the group, Wallace lets my hand slip out of his.
Seated at the small table is a young woman with a toddler in her lap, and a boy our age, smiling at the screen of a laptop. The woman is dressed up with the wild brown hair—wig—and layered desert clothing of Imi, another of the Angels; and the toddler, a little girl, is dressed in a tiny outfit to make her look like Imi’s daughter. The boy wears an Under Armour shirt with a high collar—no doubt supposed to be the precise, temperature-regulating thermatrol suits the Rishtians wear—and a jacket made to replicate the one worn by Rishtian aeronauts. Food from the refreshments table litters the space between them.
The boy and the woman glance up at the same time and say, “Wallace!”
The boy turns the laptop toward us, where two more girls sit in one video chatroom.
Wallace starts texting again. Another message pops up on my phone; this time a group message with four numbers I don’t recognize.
Hi, guys, Wallace writes. I brought a friend. He steps to the side so I can’t hide behind him. This is Eliza. Eliza, this is my friend Cole and his cousin Megan. He motions to the boy and the young woman. And Leece and Chandra. The girls on the computer. They each say various versions of hello, giving me enough time to swallow past the knot in my throat and say it back.
“Wallace said you’re on the forums,” says Cole. I’m glad he dressed like a Rishtian; he has the sharp, shrewd look many of them wear.
“Um. Yeah. I just don’t talk much.” Only for Dog Days, which I am currently missing. I left a message on my LadyConstellation page saying I was sick and wouldn’t be able to watch, so hopefully no one gets upset. “Are all of you?”
My phone pings.
Oh, right. I forgot to tell you. They’re the other Angels. Sorry—I guess it wouldn’t be obvious that we’re friends in real life too.
I look around at them. These are the Angels on my forums? The next rung down on the popularity ladder from me? And all in one place?
My head feels light. One hand goes for my phone and the other searches at my side for something to hold on to, but there’s only open air.
Wallace goes on. Cole is Fire Served Cold, Megan is Quake, Leece is Tree Chimes, and Chandra is Dark Switch.
It doesn’t mean much until I put the formatting with the names. I see them all the time in different parts of the forums:
Fire_Served_Cold, rainmaker’s friend, who hangs around the live chats.
QUaKE, who supervises the roleplaying boards.
~*treechimes*~, who can be found fangirling over the Monstrous Sea custom merch threads.
And darkSwitch, who draws probably the best fan art I’ve ever seen in my life.
With Wallace as rainmaker, together they make the Angels, the guardian clans of Orcus. In the story, the Angels are the ones who keep the planet in balance. When something—like the corrupted hand of the Alliance—threatens that balance, they intervene. These Angels keep the balance on my forums, as moderators.
I feel like I stepped into Power Rangers. They wait for me to say something.
“Um” is all that comes out.
“You make a great Kite Waters,” says Cole. “Too short, though.”
“Cole,” Megan warns. She bounces the little girl on her lap, who giggles. “You look great, Eliza, don’t listen to him. Now sit down, both of you. Eat something!”
It’s half invitation and half demand. I slide onto the seat next to Wallace. The saber gets stuck in the chair legs.
“Turn me toward, Wallace!” cries the girl on the computer, Chandra. Cole swivels the laptop around until Wallace and I appear in the webcam. I sink down farther, face hot. “Wallace,” Chandra says, “what is this nonsense about the new Auburn Blue chapters not going up soon? Izzy and Ana are the only canon ship I like, you cannot disappoint me with this.”
Sorry. Wallace shrugs. Soon. I have the rest of the story outlined, I just have to find time to write it. School’s been killing me lately. And with the transcription . . .
“Oh, yes, the transcription you won’t let anyone see yet.”
You can see it when more is finished!
“Don’t worry about it, Wally,” says the other girl, Leece. Leece and Chandra sit in two very different rooms; Chandra’s walls are blank and dark brown, while Leece’s are bright and covered in Monstrous Sea posters. A huge stuffed seacreeper rests beside a pillow behind her. “If you have the inspiration to work on the transcription, do that. Besides, Chan doesn’t know what relationships are good for her.”
“Excuse you!” Chandra barks. “Were you there when Izzy and Ana were forced into their arranged marriage? Were you there when they formed a relationship of mutual trust over the inner workings of airship engines? What about all the times they saved each other while fighting the Alliance? They never even knew if they romantically loved each other—they just grew together. And that is perfect and beautiful and no one can take it from me!”
“Excuse me, everyone?” A voice comes over the speakers. The girl dressed as a sushi roll at the cash register holds a microphone. “It’s almost time for the costume contest. If you’d like to be entered, please come fill out an entry card and put it in here.” She holds up a jar shaped like a grinning skull.
“Oh, yes.” Cole pushes himself out of his seat. “Anyone else entering? Wallace and Eliza, don’t answer. I’m putting your names in anyway.”
Before I can say no, Cole is gone.
Wallace’s shoulder bumps mine. He’s always like this, he texts only to me. We won’t do it if you don’t want to.
I dig my fingers into the edge of the seat and stare at the tabletop, deepening my breaths so it doesn’t feel so much like my lungs are being crushed. Stand in front of all these people, in this costume that isn’t even mine, and expect them to, what, applaud? I’ll fall on my face.
“Eliza?”
I look up. Wallace, Megan, Leece, and Chandra all stare at me.
“Um, what? Sorry?”
“Oh, honey, don’t look so worried!” Megan says. “I just asked how long you’ve liked Monstrous Sea.”
“Maybe three years?” I say.
“Wow, so you liked it pre-Masterminds,” Leece says.
I liked it pre-everything.
“Is Kite your favorite character?” Chandra asks.
“Uh, no . . . Izzy is.”
“Mine too!” Chandra jumps in her seat, her squeal loud enough to crackle the computer speakers. “No one understands the greatness that is Izarian Silas! That idiot Cole dresses up like Rory as if he’s the best Silas, but the only reason Rory Silas is any good is because Izzy is his father!”
On the other side of the screen, Leece gasps.
“Take that back, you whore!”
Chandra cackles. Megan belatedly covers the toddler’s ears, but the toddler isn’t paying attention anyway. Wallace shakes his head and smiles.