There was no answer. She tried the doorknob. To her surprise, it turned. She cracked the door and peered inside, calling out again. Still no answer, and no sign of Max.

She stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She knew this was risky—if Max found her, he’d knock her across the room. But since finding the dead girl yesterday, she felt at once more wary and more reckless. She’d seen the worst that could happen to a girl, not once but twice: first her sister, now that dead kid in Hell Gate. But Pin herself was safe. Still, she tiptoed to the shelf where she’d left the French postcards the day before, picked them up, and shuffled through them.

None of the girls were as pretty as Glory. They all looked like they belonged in Armstrong’s Freak Show. She set the postcards aside, turned to glance at Max’s makeup table, the pots of cold cream and rouge, brushes and bottles of spirit gum arrayed haphazardly alongside the mirror, ashtrays and empty Helmar cigarette packets. A twist of brown hair lay beside a comb: a mustache, waxed and ready to be snipped in two to adorn half of the She-Male’s face. She picked it up, pressed it against her upper lip, and stooped so she could see herself in the mirror.

“Ugh,” she said aloud. With a grimace she replaced the mustache. Being a boy meant freedom; being a man meant joining an army of monsters and dingbats. She crossed quickly back to the door and left.

She walked toward the knoll where she’d seen Henry the day before. He might be a dingbat, but he was the only person who’d believed what she said about the girl in the tunnel. Didn’t just believe it: like her, he’d seen it.

The thought made her feel odd. The two of them were strangers, but they shared a secret. She had never shared a secret with anyone, except for her mother.

But that was a secret about herself, inside herself. This was a secret outside herself: it made her feel bigger, not smaller.

She walked to the top of the knoll, yanked off her cap. Up here the air didn’t torment her with the smells of sausages and frying potatoes and hot taffy. It smelled of sweet grass and leaves, dirt and clouds. She took off her socks and boots, luxuriating in the slippery feel of the long grass against her bare feet, then raised her arms, and for a moment it was as if she were flying.