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the sharp mouths of beer cans, others in tall glass jars decorated with the Virgin Mary’s face on the label. A boy with his hair braided thickly back from his face sat near a hibachi grill in the back corner of the station. One of his eyes was clouded over, whitish and strange, and steel piercings puckered his dark skin. His ears were bright with rings, some thick as worms, and a bar stuck out from either cheek, as though to highlight his cheekbones. His nose was pierced through one nostril and a hoop threaded his lower lip. As he stood, Val saw that he wore a puffy black jacket over baggy and ripped jeans. Sketchy Dave started up a makeshift ladder of wood planking.
    Val turned all the way around. One of the walls was decorated with spray paint that read “for never and ever.”
    “She’s impressed,” Lolli said. Her voice echoed in the tunnel.
    Dave snorted and walked over to the fire. He took out flattened cigarette butts from his messenger bag and dropped them into one of the chipped mugs, then stacked cans of peaches and coffee.
    The boy with the piercings lit up one of the butts and took a deep drag. “Who the fuck is that?”
    “Val,” Val said before Lolli could answer. Val shifted her weight, uncomfortably aware that she didn’t know the way back.
    “She’s my new friend,” Lollipop said, settling down in a nest of blankets.
    The pierced boy scowled. “What’s with her hair? She some kind of cancer patient?”
    “I cut it,” Val said. For some reason that made both the pierced boy and Sketchy Dave laugh. Lolli looked pleased with her.
    “If you didn’t guess, this is Luis,” Lolli said.
    “Don’t enough people find their own way down here without you two playing tour guide?” Luis demanded, but no one answered him, so perhaps his question was merely talking.
    Exhaustion was starting to creep over Val. She settled down on a mattress and pulled a blanket over her head. Lolli was saying something, but the combination of brandy, ebbing fear, and exhaustion was overwhelming. She could always go home later, tomorrow, in a few days. Whenever. As long as it wasn’t now.
    As she dozed off, Lolli’s cat climbed over her, jumping at shadows. She reached out her hand to it, sinking her fingers into the short, soft fur. It was a tiny thing, really, but already crazy.

Chapter 3
    I have found the warm caves in the woods,
    filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
    closets, silks, innumerable goods;
    fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves.
    A NNE S EXTON , “H ER K IND ”
    Muscles clenching, Val vaulted out of sleep into being fully awake, her heart beating hard against her chest. She nearly cried out before she remembered where she was. She guessed it was afternoon, although it was still dark in the tunnels; the only light came from the guttering candles. On the other mattress, Lollipop was curled up with her back against Luis. He had one arm thrown over her. Sketchy Dave was on her other side, swaddled up in a dirty blanket, head bent toward Lolli the way the branch of a tree grows toward the sun.
    Val buried her head deeper in the comforter, even though it smelled vaguely of cat piss. She felt groggy but better rested.
    Lying there, she remembered looking through college catalogues a couple of weeks earlier with Tom. He’d been talking about Kansas, which had a good writing program and wasn’t crazy expensive. “And look,” he’d said, “they have a girls’ lacrosse team,” as if maybe they’d be together after high school. She’d smiled and kissed him while she was still smiling. She’d liked kissing him; he always seemed to know just how to kiss back. Thinking about it made her feel aching and dumb and betrayed.
    She wanted to go back to sleep but she couldn’t, so she just stayed still until she had to pee badly enough to go and squat, wide-legged, over the stinking bucket she found in one corner. She tugged down her jeans and underwear, trying to balance on the balls of her