“Wait.” From inside his coat he took out a long yellow box. Peeled a strip of aluminum foil, folded it into a neat triangle, pinched. Tapped his thumb along the edges and twisted corners. “Keep this on your head,” he said. “Dot insists. Keep good thoughts in and bad thoughts out.”

“Tell her I will. I won’t take it off.”

Carl lowered his head. “She can hear you just fine, Magic Boy.”

I nodded slowly. The foil crinkled around my ears.

“I’m going to miss you. Urh. But Stan doesn’t trust you. He, he says you’re a Worker who lost your pair. He doesn’t care about the laws. Urh. Won’t follow them. It’s tangential and arbitrary. He wants to kill you, Magic Boy, but I can’t do it that way. No, not that way. Just the same as I did with my mother.” He touched his temple. “You need to go now. Before Stan comes back. If he comes back, I can’t make him leave.”

He hugged me. I was scared and dizzy and sick to my stomach, but I hugged him back. My face pressed into his coat and beard. He smelled like mildew and cloves. I felt his body hiccuping. Tears crept up to the edge of my lids. Even though he’d hit me in the head, I knew there was something good and kind and honest that shone inside him.

“Bye, Carl.”

—

Most of the eeriness had left the dark woods. I was tired and strangely numb, but I wasn’t afraid. One foot kept drifting in front of the other. After a long time the creek started to narrow, its banks less crowded with brush and tall grass.

Then came the curve in the water. I was getting closer to the bridge, to my and Carl’s old camp. I turned the flashlight off, making steady steps on the sand and pebbles. I had to hurry. Inside my head I could feel a weird pressure growing. Were the pills wearing off already? If the pain came back full force, there was no way I’d make it.

A branch snapped behind me. I flinched when the noise echoed inside my skull. Then I heard a splash as though a flat stone had fallen into the creek. Animals, I told myself. A baby bird falling out of its nest. I refused to be scared.