Will located the address Mr. Miller gave him in a battery of brick townhouses. After a spell of complex unlocking issued from behind the door, it was opened by an enormous shirtless man with the same handsome gauntness and precise athleticism as Jonah, though he was stouter, with thick crow-black hair to his shoulders and the voice of a giant, as if his chest doubled as a furnace. A tattoo of two black, red, and yellow eagle feathers strung with barbed wire curled around his thickly muscled ribs. He rumbled that his name was Gideon and showed Will Inside.

Will watched the big man relock the sheet metal–reinforced door, further bolstered by three deadbolts and an iron crossbar. Inside, the house was nearly empty, all linoleum floors with no carpet and minimal furniture, scant artwork on the walls other than a large photograph of a black bear standing on the hood of a car at a dump. Perhaps because no mother lived there to decorate, Gideon’s tattoos and some beaded moccasins lying abandoned by the door, yellowed and stiff as stale bread, were the only ornamental things around. They must’ve lost everything in the fire, Will thought, but even so, it seemed so temporary, as though they could pack up and leave at any moment—a stark contrast to how his mother crammed their place with books and furniture and wallpapered it with Will’s boring paintings so that they could never leave, even if they tried.

“The Doc’s in his office,” Gideon said, directing Will down the back stairs into a barren unfinished basement. At its center hung four pieces of fabric from the ceiling, establishing a tent-like rectangle.

“Why weren’t you in school? I was worried about you,” Will said, drawing back the fabric to find Jonah reclined on a neatly made mattress, reading. Will tossed some paper-clipped sheets onto Jonah’s bed. “Here, I brought your homework.”

Jonah looked up from a large hardback book and smiled, black bangs cast over one eye. “I was worried about you, too, Will. I mean more than usual,” he said. “I got my brother Enoch to call the school this morning so I could sleep in. Last time it was the house fire, this time I have scoliosis.”

“You never had a fire?”

“No. I just wanted to stay home for a while to study and draw. I learn twice as fast when I’m not in that classroom. But I was, like, ‘Enoch, you could’ve just said I had mono, dumbass.’ ”

“Sorry about leaving you. I was supposed to have your back,” said Will, before launching into an account of his puzzling and frightful encounter with the Wheezing Man, playing up the adventurous drama of his escape, omitting the pant wetting.

Jonah said that after Will left they were waiting in the cabin when there was a knock at the door. “Marcus thought it was the hose guy, but then there was some growling outside, and he freaked and kicked a hole in the opposite wall and told us to scatter into the trees. I was running with him for a while until we hit the creek and he yelled for me to run through the water to put off the wolves and he’d lead them the other way,” Jonah said, lowering his eyes. “That was the last I saw of him.”

Will slowly unzipped his backpack and handed Jonah his drawings. “The important one is missing, isn’t it?” Will said, his throat tightening. “I took them from your desk for Angela. But now that she’s in Toronto,” he added, “there’s no way we can get Marcus’s paper back.”

“So that’s how you saw my masterpieces,” Jonah said, shaking his head. “I’m not mad. I never should’ve held Marcus’s stuff for him. I always told him that Thunder Bay was just itching for a reason to see us dead or in jail. But he couldn’t stand school. Said being inside for that long made his legs shake and his head hurt. Anyway, it was his mistake for crossing the Butler like that. Now he’s on his own.”

“But why does the Butler want it so much? It was only a grid with some Xs on it.”

“Marcus was going to use it to make money,” Jonah said, shrugging. “Enough for him to leave Thunder Bay forever, which he always talked about.”

“You said you heard growling before everyone ran. Do you think the Butler and his wolves got him?”

Jonah lowered his head. “I don’t know. It was dark … Marcus is quick. He knows how to disappear. He probably got away …” Then Jonah’s eyes defocused.

Will sat on the bed. “Except what, Jonah? It’s important.”

“Yeah,” Jonah said softly, “well, I heard him call out.”

Will waited.

“But he yells things all the time,” Jonah said. “He’s always faking dead and crying wolf for a joke. And I was still splashing through the creek—but sure, he said something, something I thought I’d never hear him say.” Jonah took a breath. “It was help.”

“We need to find Marcus,” Will said, fighting a sudden storm of tears.

Jonah scoffed. “And how are we going to do that?”

“Ask questions. Search the Outside. Investigate.”

“I don’t know, dude,” sighed Jonah, slumping back on his mattress. “Indian kids go missing all the time. Especially orphans. Nobody in Thunder Bay even blinks.”

Will took a moment to examine the train of burgundy-spined medical books—exactly like the one Jonah had been reading—arranged on a shelf of cinder blocks and boards, the only furniture in his apartment other than his bed. Will recognized them because his mother often consulted theirs whenever the Black Lagoon made her think she had a terminal disease. “You’re not sick, are you?” Will said.

“No, I’m just interested in how people work,” Jonah said. “I’m on the second last one. My brother Hosea stole them from a house he broke into because he did some yard work for a doctor who refused to pay him. Hosea thought there’d be one of those money stashes cut into them. Lucky for me there wasn’t.”

Will was astonished Jonah had somehow mustered the energy to read all those books himself, with no mother to do it for him. Then he leaned close. “Doctors are supposed to save people, right?” Will said. “And Marcus helped you that night. Now he needs us.”

Jonah picked up a green urethane skateboard wheel, pinched its bearings, and swiped it into a blurry spin, watching it for a while. “How about this?” he said when the wheel slowed. “Since Marcus quit, I’ve been skateboarding alone. And after witnessing your ice-sliding skills, I’ve been meaning to tell you to get a board.”

Will recalled again the sheer divinity of Jonah’s skateboarding. He’d known desiring a board immediately would speak poorly of him, would degrade the seriousness of the endeavor. But now here was Jonah offering the green light and Will nearly buckled with excitement.

“So before we do anything,” Jonah continued, “you’re learning to skate. Because I’m not rolling around with some White kid speed-walking behind me all summer. And after you become a skateboarder, I’ll become a detective.”

“It will be the perfect cover for our investigation!” Will exclaimed.

Jonah’s face pinched. “How come you’re always so excited about everything? It’s like you’ve never done anything before.”

“Sorry,” Will said, fighting to camouflage his joy.

Jonah laughed and swept his bangs from his eyes. “Deal?” he said, lifting his hand and aiming his fist at Will with his wrist cocked.

“Deal,” said Will, his eyes welling again with gratitude and excitement, resisting a profound urge to tackle and cuddle his friend. After a second Will realized Jonah was waiting on him to do something. Will lifted the same right fist in exact imitation and nodded his head knowingly.

“That’ll work,” said Jonah, dropping his hand.

To his mother’s relief and delight, the next morning Will claimed a fever and stayed home from school. When he heard footsteps on the front porch he ripped open the door. “I want you to stop bringing these, okay?” he said to the teenage carrier about to tuck a bagged newspaper between the doors, as they’d arranged long ago.