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on, I read the liner notes and looked at the pictures: the Rathburn Band lined up against a brick wall, all looking surly, and the man himself on a city street, hands deep in his pockets, posed before a security-grated storefront. At first, I wasn’t impressed with the music, much less transformed by it. I’d never liked rock music much; the vocals often struck me as abrasive, more yelling than singing, and more about attitude than talent. The first album was made up of simple three-chord pop songs, with an occasional romantic ballad thrown in. The second was more musically and lyrically complex. I remembered from my research that a critic had called the second album “Dylanesque in its wild inventiveness,” but to my ear the lyrics were undisciplined, full of free association and cryptic personal statements.
    It took me a few days to make it to Nico Rathburn’s third album, the one that had catapulted him to fame. Before I pushed Play, I studied the cover: the upper half of Nico Rathburn’s famous face, a lock of hair falling across his forehead, his dark gaze daring the viewer to look away. Though I’d heard Lucia praise Nico’s generosity and decency, this photograph broadcast arrogance. Still, I expected to like this album better than the first two because I’d heard it wafting from my brother’s bedroom so many times. But when the first track began, I felt the muscles in my face tense. I didn’t have to read the lyrics; it turned out that I knew them by heart.
    Mark had loved this album, had played one song in particular — the megahit “Wrong Way Down a One-Way Street” — over and over. Our rooms were side by side; some nights I hadn’t been able to sleep because his music was so loud. If I had knocked on his door and asked him to turn it down, he would have ignored me, or worse. I was the youngest; Mark had been six when I was born, and Jenna five. They knew how to pick at me until I fell apart, crying till I was as limp as a rag doll. Even worse, when Mark was in one of his terrible moods, he would hit me. He didn’t need a reason. And if I ran to my mother to ask for protection, she would say, “I’ve never known such a crybaby.” My father could be counted on to protect me, but he worked long hours and Saturdays; it felt like he was almost never home.
    One time, when Mark had teased me to tears, I’d made the mistake of telling my dad about it when he got home from work. That night, my father took a belt to Mark. I was seven; Mark was thirteen and not much shorter than Dad. I could hear him yelping from his bedroom. He emerged from his spanking red-faced and surly, looking more embarrassed than hurt. He’d waited a day and a half until both Mom and Dad were out of the house to take his revenge. I was in my room, minding my own business, when he knocked on the door.
    “Janey-Pain, I’ve got something to show you. A secret passage.”
    I should have known better than to go with him. But I was happy that he wanted to show me something special, that he had thought of me at all. I followed him up to the attic. It had been a while since anyone had gone up there, and a thick layer of dustcoated the cardboard boxes that held our old toys and family photo albums. Behind the rocking horse, Mark dropped to his knees.
    “Look.” He pointed to a door that came to my waist. “What do you think is in there?” He unlatched the door and pulled it open.
    “What is it?” I crouched down beside him. “Is that a closet?”
    “Something even better. It’s a tunnel. There’s a door on the other side.”
    “Where does the other door open?” I asked. “Mom and Dad’s room?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. Or some other room we’ve never even seen.” He stuck his head through the door, then popped back out into the attic with me. “Go ahead. Check it out.”
    I liked the kindly tone of his voice and wanted to do as he said, but I was scared of the dark and afraid of spiders. “You go