Standing, I tug down my shirt. The wrinkled white business shirt hits midthigh, thankfully, but I’m aware of his eyes on me as I glance out the window. I see houses that look as if they washed up on shore, jumbled together without streets. Debris is piled between them. I could have sworn this view was empty desert yesterday. “Ready to go home. And that’s not a whine. You want revenge on the Missing Man. What could mess with him more than sending home someone he didn’t want to send home?”

“Stayed up late thinking of that argument, didn’t you?”

“It’s a sound argument.”

“I told you, I’m the Finder. The Finder and the Missing Man, two sides of a coin, not the same. I bring them in, and he sends them on. I can’t send you home. But I can keep you alive.” He holds out his hand. “If you trust me.”

I don’t take his hand. “Did you sleep in my closet last night?”

He keeps his hand extended. “Do you trust me?”

It’s a line from a dozen romantic movies, and if I were the romantic sort, this is where I would swoon, take his hand, and pledge my devotion. I’m not romantic, but I’m also not stupid. So I take his hand and lie. “Yes.”

His face widens into a smile, and it’s like seeing the bright, spring sun after a dark, dismal winter. It washes over me, and I feel myself smiling back, even though I don’t intend to. He’s looking at me as if I’m all he sees in the world. If his smile is the sun, then his eyes make me think of the stars last night, spread like a million jewels across the sky. And then the moment is broken as he turns to Claire and asks, “Think we should have her kill a pig?”

I hope he’s joking. Please, let him be joking. “There’s a reason I live in the city. How about we hunt breakfast food? Like bagels. Or cereal.”

“Bacon?” he suggests.

“She’s not ready for the pigs.” Claire looks at me with her wide, guileless eyes. “If you see one of the pigs, climb. They can’t climb.” She’s serious.

He’s still holding my hand. His hand feels warm and strong—safe. I worm my hand out of his and remind myself that I’m not safe in any way. “Okay, you have feral dogs and feral pigs. What else should I watch out for here?”

Peter shrugs. “Everything. The void likes to deliver surprises.” He mimes a bomb shooting into the air and then exploding violently in front of him. “Of course, the worst is the void itself. Once you enter it, you can’t escape. Stay in it long enough, it will shred you like lettuce. Your very essence will fade to nothingness. Unless I find you first.”

Great. Just...great. I think of how I drove through it and shiver. Guess I’d been lucky.

“Treat it like quicksand,” he suggests. “Or a black hole. Never, ever enter it.”

“Let me shower first before I face black holes and hostile pigs.” I rifle through a dresser drawer. I take a blue shirt with spaghetti straps plus a pair of jeans. The jeans are three sizes too big, but I can roll up the legs and cinch the waist with a belt, if I can find a belt.

“Good idea. Can’t have you frightening away breakfast.” He teases as if he’s known me for years, as if he is someone I can trust. But he isn’t. I don’t know him. Or Claire. And I don’t—can’t—want to stay with them, even if I’m more afraid of facing what will happen at home than facing the mob in town.

Cradling the clothes like they’re fragile, I head to the bathroom, fleeing Peter, Claire, and my thoughts. Towels, neatly folded, dotted with mold, hang on the racks. The walls are mottled with mold as well, especially on the wallpaper nearest to the bathtub. But in the daylight the toilet and sink are okay. I turn on the sink faucet. Brown water rushes out. I wait for it to clear and then I splash water on my face.

I look like a ghost in the murky mirror, and for an instant I wonder: Is this real? Am I real? Taking the least molded towel, I wipe the mirror until I can see myself clearly.

I’m real.

This is real.

I don’t know if that conviction makes me feel better or worse. Double-checking the lock on the bathroom door, I turn on the shower. Miraculously, it works, too. I strip off my clothes and step in. I let the water slide over me and feel as if yesterday is sloughing off me. I think of Mom and her daily shower affirmations as I tell myself, Today is a new day. Today I will find my way home. As Peter “trains” me, I’ll look for exits and loopholes and escape routes.

Out of the shower, I squeeze my hair to wring out the water, and I dress, still wet. The clothes cling to my skin, but at least I’m clean and that makes me feel one thousand percent better. I check the medicine cabinet and the vanity drawers. There’s a toothpaste tube, old medicines, and scattered emory boards, as well as sticky goop under the sink plumbing. I try the toothpaste, but it’s hardened. I wish I had my hair gels and makeup. I’ve always worn makeup. As a teen, I’d apply black eye goop as if it were Egyptian kohl. Now that I’m a professional woman—which makes me sound like an assassin or a whore, either of which have to be more interesting than my actual job—I use “natural” colors, dusting them over my cheekbones and eyelids. Either way, it feels like donning a protective shield. Without my usual bathroom supplies, I feel exposed. But clean. Clean is nice. It’s enough, I tell myself. I look at myself in the mirror again, fogged with steam and streaked from the swipe of the towel. I’ll be okay.

Deep breath.

Stay focused.

Don’t think about failure. The Missing Man can’t be the only way out. There has to be another way, and I will find it.

Rah-rah-rah. Go, me. Or whatever.

I leave a trail of water behind me, dripping from my wet hair, as I follow the sound of voices to the dining room. The table has been pushed against the china cabinet, and the lunch boxes have been tossed in a pile in the corner. In daylight, the stash of kids’ lunches looks like trash, and I wonder again about the kids they belonged to.

In the center of the room, Peter stands in front of Claire. He positions her arm to block her chest. She’s holding her knife. He adjusts her grip and then releases her and steps back. She strikes fast at a chair leg. Her blade bites into the wood.

I can’t think of a word to say. “Good morning” seems banal in the face of a six-year-old on the offensive against a vicious inanimate object. Her face and Peter’s are starkly serious.

Claire hops to the side as if evading a counterstrike. She then darts forward again and slices into the back of the chair. She’s fast. I don’t think the chair stands a chance.

As if snapping on a lightbulb, Peter grins at me. “Want to learn?”

“Um...I’ll just... Breakfast.” I kneel next to the lunch boxes. Pawing through them, I watch Claire. She jabs and lunges and twists and twirls. Only half concentrating on the food, I sort out what’s edible and what’s not. Rotten bananas, no. Expired juice, no. Packet of Goldfish crackers, yes. Molding peaches, no. Fruit chew snacks, yes. Ham sandwich, no. Claire swirls and slices through the dining room as I sort. When I finish, I rock back on my heels and examine the edible stack. It’s pathetically small. It won’t last long, less than a day between the three of us.

I look up at Peter and see he’s grinning at me. Again, or still. I don’t know why he finds me so funny. I wish I could pretend he were laughing near me, not at me, but I have the sense that the latter is more accurate. He holds out his hand to me. “Can’t scavenge in your own dining room. Where’s the sport in that? Come on, newbie. Let’s go.”

“But the mob... It’s not safe...”

Claire tucks her knife into a sheath and then shoves it through a loop in the ribbon on her princess dress. She skips toward me, smile beaming, and takes my hand. “I’ll take care of you.” She pulls me through the dining room door and then out the front door.

Clearly amused, Peter says softly behind us, “The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”