Friday, November 6, 2020

On the Friday one day before she stepped into her own, Wilhelmina woke from a dream about albatrosses. They were floating above a green, grassy shore, letting the wind fill their unbelievable wings, wings you would never imagine they possessed if you saw them first on land, big-bodied and bulbous and clumsy at walking. They would waddle, laboring to the edge of the rise, their chests massive and their beaks smiling, their wings looking like little stubs pressed against their bodies. Then they would unfold those wings on a series of hinges, and Wilhelmina couldn't believe how long the wings were. Or how quickly the wind caught them, hoisting the birds into the air.

In the dream, it was egg-laying time. A father and mother were building a nest. Once the mother laid the egg, the father and mother would take turns sitting on the egg and bringing food to the sitter. The father was frightened. The egg might break. The nest might become infested with flies. He or the mother might be drowned at sea in a storm while trying to hunt for the other. Sometimes it is hard to feel hope, he said.

The mother pooh-poohed this. Hope can be a feeling you sit around waiting for, she said, or it can be the nest you build and the hunting you do.

Hope is the nest you built, Wilhelmina,said the father. And the hunting you do. The dream had changed. The mother had climbed into the nest, ready for the work of laying her egg, and the father stood on the rise, unfolding his wings, letting the wind lift him out to sea.

Wilhelmina was kneeling in the grass before the mother, who spoke to her in albatross, with screeches and clicks that Wilhelmina understood.

I won't be able to talk with you like this always, Wil-helm-ina,said the albatross mother. I won't always be near your door.

Grief swept through Wilhelmina, as harsh as the wind that was trying to knock her over. I miss you, she said.

I'm in your heart,said the albatross mother. Help the people who helped me.

Who helped you?said Wilhelmina, then felt the wind lifting her, Wilhelmina, pulling her away.

You know,said the albatross.

I don't want to leave!cried Wilhelmina, trying to close her fingers around the grass, a tree, anything, but grasping only air.

I'm in your heart,the albatross said again, as Wilhelmina swirled away.

"Wilhelmina?" said a voice. "Wilhelmina? Wilhelmina! Geez! You sleep like you're dead!"

"What?" said Wilhelmina, groggily coming awake. Her mouth felt like she'd eaten a Muppet. "What time is it?"

"Early!" said Delia.

Wilhelmina hated talking to people while she was still wearing her nightguard. "Then why are you waking me up?"

"Because I just felt it!" said Delia.

"Felt what?"

"Biden and Harris taking the lead by four votes in Pennsylvania!"

Three hours later, the news reports caught up with Delia's feeling.

"Biden and Harris take the lead in Pennsylvania," the headline said. And they'd taken the lead in Georgia too, which hadn't even been on Wilhelmina's radar. "The sitting president won't have a path to 270 if he loses Pennsylvania and Georgia," said another headline.

Next came the news that he had no plans to concede.

It was still morning when Wilhelmina parked inside the cemetery, early for her meeting with James. It was another warm day.

I'll listen to the birdsong,she thought, opening her window. I'll look for crows. I won't look at my phone. I won't look at my phone! Reaching for her phone, she reread Julie's texts from yesterday. As she was doing so, Bee texted. Hey, he said. How ru? How r we? Could we talk today?

James tapped a finger on the side of her car.

"Hey," she said, clambering out, disoriented by the sun, by the interruption. James was wearing another T-shirt, this one gray with a barn owl in the middle of his chest. It was a close-fitting T-shirt, and he looked the way he always did, increasingly attractive with each passing moment. "Nice T-shirt."

"Thanks," he said. "You look great."

Wilhelmina, who was always confused by unseasonable weather, had decided to wear a blue dress that had a short, swinging skirt and a rainbow belt and collar, plus her boots—then pack the car with leggings, a hoodie, a coat, a scarf, arm warmers, sandals, a sun hat, and an extra mask, just in case. She was also wearing her elephant necklace—also just in case—and Frankie's owl. "Thanks," she said shyly. "You do too."

"I like your elephant and your owl," he said.

"Thanks."

"Where do you think we should go first?"

"I don't know," she said, still feeling like she was elsewhere, worried, on her phone. "Should we re-create our route from that first time we met?"

"Makes as much sense as anything," he said, shrugging. "I parked here that day and walked."

"I drove farther in and met Mrs. Mardrosian before I saw you. My neighbor," she added, when James looked puzzled. "She used to be my dad's boss. She needed help with a flat tire."

"Got it," said James. "Do you remember where that happened?"

"I think I could figure it out."

"I'm not sure I could re-create my route, so maybe we should focus on yours?"

"Okay," said Wilhelmina. "Let's walk."

The cemetery had a masking rule, so they pulled theirs on. Stone steps nearby led up through an expanse of low monuments to the road Wilhelmina remembered driving along that day, under tree branches heavy with snow. Today, the branches overhead seemed light and easy, rustling with leaves, blazing with color. Wilhelmina felt her feet connecting with the ground.

"How are you?" asked James.

"All right, I guess," she said. "I dreamed about albatrosses."

"I checked the live cam and their Twitter this morning," he said. "No egg yet."

"Something weird happened yesterday evening," said Wilhelmina. "I got it into my head to look in this desk in our living room. Like, it was calling to me. And I found a card from one of my aunts, Frankie, written when I was four. She'd written my name with dashes."

"Wait, what?" said James, stopping beside a gravestone topped by an angel. Wilhelmina could see the angel towering behind him, unfurling her wings. "Like in the messages you've been getting?"

"Yes," said Wilhelmina. The card had upset her. She'd brought it to Theo, demanding an explanation he'd been unable to give. "She wrote it that way sometimes, honey," he'd said, plainly puzzled, and worried, by her agitation. "Maybe she liked the ‘helm' in the middle?"

"That's the aunt who knew my nonna, right?" said James. "Frankie?"

Wilhelmina hesitated. "Yes."

"So," said James, "whoever's been sending us messages calls me Ray, like my nonna did, and spells your name with dashes, like Frankie did."

Wilhelmina wasn't ready for whatever she would be confirming if she confirmed this. She studied her own boots for a moment, then raised her eyes to James, squinting into the sunlight. The angel's wings were spread out behind him, as if they were his own wings. Trust Ray, she thought. "Listen, James," she said. "I know we need to talk about that. And I will, I promise. But I don't have the space for it yet, like, in my heart. Is that okay?"

"Of course it's okay," he said.

"Frankie is gone," Wilhelmina said. "If I risk thinking about her any other way…" She stopped, wiping furiously at a tear.

"Hey," said James, his voice gentle. "Let's focus on the what, okay? What we're here for, what we're supposed to do. We can talk about the why another time."

"Okay," said Wilhelmina. "Thanks."

"Should we walk?"

"Yeah, let's walk."

She led him away from the angel statue, then up the hill she remembered driving. They moved in silence, Wilhelmina glancing at him frequently. His attractiveness was becoming frustrating. Even the way he walked was attractive, his arms swinging attractively at his sides and his legs bending attractively at his knees, which was ridiculous. What could be more unremarkable than legs bending at knees? She tried to refocus, tried to surrender to the act of waiting for something weird to happen. Something that would lead them one step closer—to what? To helping the doughnut shop? A cardinal flitted by, brighter even than the brightest maples. Far above, a tiny, soaring shape was a hawk; they watched it drop into a dive. As the road curved, they came upon a group—a rafter?—of turkeys pecking at the ground.

"Seeing anything yet?" said James.

"No. You?"

"Nope."

"Here, let's turn here," she said, leading them onto a narrow road that climbed toward a giant maple stretching out above them, like fire thrown against the sky. They stopped on its carpet of leaves, admiring the colors. Wilhelmina swished her boots through them, loving the papery sound, the earthy smell.

"Check it out," said James. "This family's name is Drown."

"I love the names in this cemetery," said Wilhelmina.

"Here's a Chang. You don't see a lot of Chinese names here."

"That's true. Let's turn onto this one," said Wilhelmina, who saw a familiar willow down a road on the right. The last time she'd seen this willow, it had been heavy with snow, and Mrs. Mardrosian had been standing beside it. Now, as they approached it, its limbs swung with pale green leaves.

"This is where I met Mrs. Mardrosian," Wilhelmina said. "She was looking for her keys in the snow."

"Anything weird about it?" said James. "Was she glowing?"

Wilhelmina scrunched her face. "That's a really good question. This was at the beginning of the weirdness, so I wasn't finely tuned to the glowing yet, but actually, I think she might've been glowing."

"Okay," said James. "Should we, like, re-create your interaction? You be you and I'll be Mrs. Mardrosian. Tell me what to do."

"You wander around the graves near the willow, digging in the snow with your ice scraper, wailing about your husband."

"Okay. What's his name?"

"Levon."

"Got it," said James, then found a stick and began poking at the grass around a gravestone topped by yet another angel. "Oh, Levon!" he said. "How could you leave me while I'm pregnant with twins?"

"She's old," said Wilhelmina, snorting. "He left her by dying."

"Oh, Levon!" said James, moving to another gravestone. "How could you leave me alone in a cold, dark world?"

"That's more like it. Now I'm driving by," said Wilhelmina, holding her hands up in a steering-wheel position and gliding past him along the road. "I see you have a flat, so I pull over. I get out of my car and ask you what's wrong. You tell me you've lost your keys."

"Hello! I've lost my keys, beautiful Wilhelmina Hart from school," he said, moving to a gravestone topped by a howling dog. "Will you rescue me?"

"I didn't know you felt that way about me, Mrs. Mardrosian," said Wilhelmina, "but I'm not going to leave an old lady alone in a snowstorm."

"My rheumatism!" said James, jabbing the grass with his stick. "My corns! Hey. Wilhelmina?" he said, his voice changing suddenly. "Look."

"What?"

James was digging around in the grass near the grave with the howling dog. He held something up, a glinty thing covered with mud. As he wiped it clean with his bare hands, it jingled.

Wilhelmina was speechless. She stared with her mouth ajar.

"Mercedes," said James, flipping through the keys. "A bunch of house-ish keys. Also a bathtub Mary," he said, indicating one of those charms of the Virgin Mary that showed her standing in an oblong blue enclosure. "Is she Catholic?"

"I don't know," said Wilhelmina. "Her name sounds Armenian, but I guess that's her husband's name, right? I don't know much about her, except as a boss."

"Right," said James, still trying to wipe the keys clean.

"Well, I guess she'll be glad to get her keys back," said Wilhelmina. "But is this what we're here for? To find her keys?"

"I don't know," he said. "You'd think they'd have the courtesy to glow or something." Then he narrowed his eyes at the gravestone with the howling dog. "Wilhelmina," he said, bending down, peering at it more closely. He held his hand out, so obviously meaning for Wilhelmina to come to him and take it that she waited, quietly, for him to realize what he was doing.

He glanced at her, then looked down at his extended arm. He sighed. "Right," he said, then moved back so she could move forward. When she did, she saw that the animal atop the gravestone was not, in fact, a dog; it was a wolf. No dog had teeth that big. And the name on the grave was Lupa.

"Wait, what?" said Wilhelmina, turning to look at James. "Lupa, like your building? What does that mean? Was Mrs. Mardrosian visiting the grave of the people who own your building?"

"Maybe?" said James.

"I thought you talked about a management company. Not, like, a family."

"A management company is just a company that manages properties," said James. "On behalf of someone else who owns them."

"And who owns the Lupa Building?"

"I don't know," said James, pulling out his phone. "I'll ask my parents."

But while James was texting his parents, Wilhelmina found herself staring at a nearby grave, a plain one with no angels or wolves. The family name was Mardrosian. Under the name, on the left, it said, Levon 1952–2020. On the right, it said, Graziana Lupa 1955–

"Graziana Lupa Mardrosian," said Wilhelmina, pointing at the grave. "That's Grace Mardrosian."

"What?" said James, looking up from his phone.

It was hard for Wilhelmina to imagine a neighbor of hers owning an office building. How could any one person own an entire office building? But the clues fit. James's family owed money to the Lupa Building, Wilhelmina was supposed to help them, and now they'd found Mrs. Mardrosian's keys and her future grave. Graziana Lupa Mardrosian.

"I think Graziana Mardrosian owns the Lupa Building," she said.

"You're right," James said grimly a few minutes later, his face bent to his phone. "My mom says the owner is named Mardrosian. She says they used to be able to communicate with a Levon Mardrosian, who was, like, a human, with a conscience. But then he died, and since then, everything has to go through the management company."

Because when Levon Mardrosian died, thought Wilhelmina, his wife needed help managing the office building she now owned all by herself. "She owns other things too," said Wilhelmina. "She let Frankie stay in an apartment once that she owned, in Boston. But now she's demanding your back rent?"

"Right," said James. "So I guess we were supposed to find these keys? Like, in the cosmic course of events. But for what? To hold them hostage, until she agrees to forgive tens of thousands of dollars in back rent? Cuz I don't think that's going to happen."

Okay, that was a massive amount of money. Far more than Wilhelmina had realized, or could even comprehend. She stopped herself from exclaiming, because James already looked depressed enough.

"What do you think?" he said, staring at the ring of keys in his palm. "I mean, I think we're supposed to return her keys, right? And what? Talk to her?"

Wilhelmina tried to imagine that conversation. Hello, Mrs. Mardrosian, remember how I changed your tire in the snow? Don't you think you owe me tens of thousands of dollars? "She's not…the nicest person," said Wilhelmina reluctantly. "She was a pretty terrible boss."

James's shoulders sank. He was rubbing the back of his head, and she wished now, as she'd wished many times before, that she could see his face, even if it was only to confirm what she already knew: that he looked worried, discouraged, and sad.

"She's my neighbor," said Wilhelmina. "Why don't you let me talk to her?"

"Alone?" said James, clearly horrified. "Of course not!"

"She's not going to hurt me," said Wilhelmina. "She's my neighbor."

"Everyone who hurts people has neighbors! Anyway, it's my family's thing!"

"Okay," said Wilhelmina. "We'll go together."

"Okay," said James, shoving the keys into one pocket and his phone into another, then sighing. "I need to get back to the shop soon. Want to go tomorrow?"

"Okay," said Wilhelmina, but her heart was snagging on his obvious unhappiness. "I wish I could give you a hug."

"I need a hug from you," he said forlornly. Then he pulled his mask down over his chin, and gave her a sad little smile. "The vaccine's coming, right?"

Sure, but when?thought Wilhelmina. "You told Delia you were always covered in sugar."

The tips of his ears turned pink. "Yuh-huh. I can prove it." Then he sighed again. "Want to walk a little more? Not for clues, just to walk?"

"Yes, please," said Wilhelmina.

After their walk, Wilhelmina climbed into her car, then sat quietly, watching James drive away. A bumper sticker on his car said, Birds Aren't Real. If It Flies, It Spies. It made her snort a laugh, which felt good.

She was thinking about rule breaking. About sneaking around and lying to her family, to be with James. To touch his skin, test him for sugar. Kiss his face, kiss his mouth, do whatever they wanted. She could imagine it. No one would have to know. She liked what she was imagining.

And then she imagined James passing her the virus, which she passed to her aunts and her asthmatic dad. She imagined passing James the virus, which he brought home to his sick father.

Nothing was worth those consequences.

She remembered then those early weeks last spring, as she, Bee, and Julie had begun to comprehend what was happening, and what being in the same room together could mean. She remembered the three of them piled together on Julie's bed playing Starcom: Nexus. Julie was the hands and fingers and the source of occasional advice, while Wilhelmina made the decisions. Bee provided running commentary; then, at some point, Wilhelmina noticed that he had a runny nose. When she went down to her own apartment later, she snapped at Theo.

"Bee was sniffling," she said, holding a hand up to ward him off. He stopped. Comprehension touched his face.

"Doesn't Bee get some allergies in the spring?" he said gently.

"Just stay away from me," she said, then spent the next few days anxiously monitoring her own breathing, agonizing every time she coughed or needed to blow her nose. Wilhelmina had been terrified of killing her father. She still was. It wasn't a feeling you got used to.

She picked up her phone and touched Bee's text thread. How r we? he'd written. Could we talk today? Tears were running down her face again. What was with all this stupid crying?

I'm in Mount Auburn Cemetery right now,she wrote. Want to go for a walk?

As she hit send, she realized that of course Friday morning was not a good time for Bee to take a walk. Bee had school.

There in 10,he wrote back.

Bee wasn't a morning person, nor was he a virtual school person. When he climbed out of his car, he was in pink sweatpants and a plain gray T-shirt Wilhelmina was pretty confident he'd slept in, and his hair was all piled up on one side of his head. But he was wearing his elephant necklace.

"I forgot about school when I texted," she said, stepping out of her own car awkwardly, not sure what to say to him. "Sorry."

"Fuck school," said Bee. "This is more important."

"Okay," said Wilhelmina uncertainly. "Well. How are you?"

"Um, I've been better?" he said. "You're sad? Julie's sad? I'm sad? The world's on fire and this is the most stressful week I've had in, like, years, and I'm scared I'm losing my best friend?"

"You're not losing me, Bee."

"Well, it doesn't exactly feel like things are going well, does it?" he cried, throwing his hands in the air. Bee was crying. And there were people parking nearby, climbing out of their cars and staring at them, which probably should've embarrassed Wilhelmina. Instead, she found herself comforted by how emotional Bee was being, by the feeling of him being demonstrative in person. He felt exactly like her Bee.

"I'm really sorry, Bee," she said. "I know I'm the one who created this situation. Let's walk, okay?"

"I contributed to it," he said. "But okay."

"We're supposed to wear masks."

"Oh, fuck masks!"

"I need you to wear a mask, Bee," she said. "My dad and my aunts."

"Yeah," he said, digging a mask out of his pocket, then inhaling once slowly to pull himself together. "I'm a mess here. Sorry." He put his mask on. It had a picture of an anthropomorphized avocado eating avocado toast.

Wilhelmina directed Bee up the same stone steps she'd taken with James, then nudged him in a different direction, because this was a different conversation. Bee was still dabbing his sleeve to his face and sniffling behind his mask. Bee had always given her his feelings like a gift. She was never left guessing who he was, or what he needed. Wilhelmina wondered if she'd been taking this for granted for too long.

"I've realized there's something I need to tell you," said Bee.

"Okay," she said, stepping off the road onto a grassy path that led to golden trees. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure I can make it clear," he said. "It's going to sound like a criticism of you, but it's really about something I struggle with."

"Okay," said Wilhelmina, wary now. Wasn't this one of the classic frameworks for breaking up with someone? It's not you, it's me. Which the person never truly meant?

"It's hard for me when someone puts up a barrier," said Bee. "Like, a wall, to protect themselves. Like, when someone decides to stop thinking about something or talking about something, because it's too painful. And then it starts to feel like they're pretending that thing doesn't even exist."

"Okay," said Wilhelmina, who was a little lost. "Are you saying I do that?"

"It gives me this feeling like I get from my mom," said Bee. "Like I used to get from my dad. Like there's something in front of our faces that's so screamingly obvious, but they're going to pretend it's not there, because that hurts them less than admitting the truth. But the problem is that their denial hurts me. They're choosing to let it hurt me, so it won't hurt them. You know?"

"Yes," said Wilhelmina, because she did know. She'd watched this dynamic play out in Bee's life always, starting way back, when he—and she—had both been too little to understand it, but not too little to feel the force of it. His dad was dead now, but his mom was still closed up behind that barrier. She never acknowledged to Bee what the truth of his life had been. The silence still hurt him.

"Bee," said Wilhelmina. "Are you saying I do that? That I'm hurting you the way your mom does?"

"No!" said Bee. "I'm trying to explain why I struggle sometimes to be the friend you need." He veered them off the path onto a carpet of yellow leaves, ginkgos. "You've put up a barrier, and I know it's not about me," he said. "It's different from my mom. I get why you put it up. When Frankie died, your heart, like, exploded. I know. But you did put me on the other side of the barrier, or at least, that's how it feels sometimes. I think it hurts a little extra for me, because of how barriers like that have operated for me in the past. I get panicky. It's not your fault. I'm just trying to admit to you that sometimes I struggle with it. I was struggling with it before the pandemic ever even happened, and maybe that's part of the reason I didn't stop to realize how hard the last few months have been for you. Which I'm sorry about. I think we should change our routines. We all need to, like, go on a long walk together every day, and everyone else can just deal with it."

Wilhelmina had wandered with Bee into the ginkgo leaves, but she hardly knew where she was. "I put you behind a barrier?" she said, her voice cracking, because she was picturing Bee, young and small and sad, trapped behind a wall she'd built.

"Wil, sweetie," he said, in a very gentle voice. "I mean, it's a metaphor. But yeah, you kind of put everyone behind the barrier. Everyone and everything. Hey," he said, when Wilhelmina sank to her knees. He came closer, then stopped himself with a frustrated noise. "Wil. Your heart broke. You needed to, like, build reinforcements. This metaphor is starting to get really annoying, but it was a normal thing to do. I mean, look at the world."

"You don't build barriers."

"I don't know how to build barriers," he said. "I'm always just out in the wind, crying, and giving my friends the job of taking care of me. I'm not sure that's any better."

"You don't put your friends behind barriers."

"Wil," he said, "you need to give yourself a break here. Your heart broke. I know. I saw it happen. And the world was already on fire when it happened, and everything's only gotten worse. You think I can't stand behind your barrier for however long while you get your shit together? After all the times you've been there for me? Fuck!" he suddenly said. "It's killing me that I can't give you a hug!"

"It's killing me too," said Wilhelmina, who was crying.

"It's going to be group hugs all the time when this is over," said Bee.

"Is Julie going to want to hug me when this is over?" said Wilhelmina.

"I mean, on the one hand, that's obviously a question for Julie," said Bee. "On the other hand…"

"Yeah?" said Wilhelmina.

"Wil," he said. "When are you going to start having more faith in your elephants?"

"What?" she said. "I have so much faith in you guys!"

He took a step closer, then stopped, clearly frustrated again. So he knelt in the ginkgo leaves, six feet away from her but at her level. He spoke earnestly.

"When my dad died," he said, "he left a lot of shit behind, you know? But he also took a lot of the bad shit with him. A few of my problems just went away, Wil, you know?"

"You suffered a lot," she said.

"Yeah, I suffered," he said. "But my dad wasn't my light. He wasn't my magic. When Frankie died, you didn't gain anything. It was all loss. And it hurt too much. I remember; I was there. You turned out the lights, Wil—you just turned it all off. You had to. But you need to come back sometime. I know the world isn't exactly"—he waved a hand—"hospitable right now. But you know you have Frankie's magic in you, right? You have it, whether she's here or not. I miss you, Wil. When are you going to come back?"

At home, Wilhelmina smelled bread baking, then found Esther in the kitchen, grating ginger. Esther smiled at her brightly. "Hola, Wilhelmineleh."

"Hola," said Wilhelmina. "You seem cheerful. Did something happen?"

"Oh, just Biden and Harris's lead growing in Pennsylvania," she said. "Once they win Pennsylvania, that's the election. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," said Wilhelmina. "Are you making challah?"

"Your eyes do not deceive you. Now, tell me, noodles or matzoh balls in the soup?"

"Matzoh balls," said Wilhelmina. "Are you taking a vote?"

"No, you get to choose," said Esther. "I'm letting everyone under the age of nineteen choose one part of dinner."

"Phew," said Wilhelmina. "I made it in under the wire."

"You did," said Esther, who was studying Wilhelmina curiously, as if she didn't quite believe in her great-niece's airy banter. Because she knows about my barrier, thought Wilhelmina.

"Oh, honey," said Theo, hurrying into the kitchen from one of the bedrooms, looking harassed. "You're home. Hi. By any chance, are you free to supervise math with Delia? She has a test, so it should be quiet, and your mother has clients, and something's come up at work—"

"I can do it, Theo," said Esther.

"Esther! I know you and Aunt Margaret have been wanting to walk," said Theo. "It's seventy-five degrees out!"

"I don't mind."

"I can do it," said Wilhelmina.

"Oh, thank you, hon," said Theo. "I'll send her out. Your options are…" He paused. "Your own bedroom. Sorry, I thought for a second you had more options."

"It's okay," said Wilhelmina, moving toward her bedroom.

"Are you all right, Wilhelmina?" Esther called after her.

Wilhelmina was trying to reflect people's moods back at them. Competence and gravity for her father; cheerfulness for Esther. She was trying to be what people needed, but she knew it wasn't working, because of the big, hurtful barrier she was dragging around that probably everyone besides her could see and feel.

"I'm fine," she said.

"Are you still upset about that card you found?" said Theo, following her, stopping in her doorway. Clearly still a little perplexed about that. Delia pushed in behind Theo, wearing her backpack and carrying her school laptop. She stopped to glare at Wilhelmina, then trudged to the desk and began to set up.

"No," said Wilhelmina. "Don't worry about that, Dad."

"Well," said Theo. "Okay. I'll let you get to it. Good luck on your test, honey."

"Thanks," said Delia in tragic tones, then, when Theo closed the door, sighed dramatically.

"Are you anxious about your test?" said Wilhelmina. Delia was good at math—she was good at all her subjects—but Wilhelmina wasn't sure which test this was.

"Nah," she said, "I just hate moving around the apartment for school. It makes me feel so disorganized. Like, the only place I'm ever organized is inside my own head."

It surprised Wilhelmina that Delia was organized anywhere, but she kept this to herself. "That makes sense."

Delia shot her a skeptical glance. "Why are you being so friendly?"

"Because I don't think I've been very nice to you lately," said Wilhelmina.

"You mean like yesterday?" said Delia. "When you tried to kill me with your driving?"

Wilhelmina remembered shouting at Delia, and Delia's crumpled face. "Yes."

"Humph," said Delia. "What's up with you and Bee and Julie anyway? You're not fighting, are you?" The eyes she turned to Wilhelmina were big and unhappy, and her voice sounded very young. It pulled at Wilhelmina, brought her forward to the edge of her bed.

"Delia," she said. "Are you so worried about me and Bee and Julie?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" said Delia. "Geez! Be quiet! I have a test!"

Wilhelmina wondered if a barrier might make her selfish, if when she barricaded other people off, her own focus had nowhere else to go, so it turned toward itself, endlessly spiraling inward. How many things was she missing? She didn't want to be missing other people's feelings, their needs. That had never been part of her plan. But what could she do? She couldn't just snap her fingers and make it disappear. She remembered the summer the builders had renovated the aunts' carriage house. They'd had to take the old walls and the ceiling down carefully, piece by piece, so that the whole thing wouldn't collapse all at once and hurt someone.

"Would you like to learn how to build a shield, Wilhelmina dear?" Aunt Margaret had said to her one morning, the summer Bee's father had died. Wilhelmina and the aunts had been in the living room together, waiting for Theo, who was on his way to pick Wilhelmina up and bring her home.

"A shield?" said Wilhelmina. "What do you mean?"

"To protect yourself from energy that might destabilize you," said Aunt Margaret.

"I don't—feel like energy is destabilizing me, Aunt Margaret," said Wilhelmina.

"But it might be useful to you someday," said Aunt Margaret. "For instance, if any of Bee's family members have destructive energy and you're stuck interacting with them."

"Bee needs to learn how to build a shield," said Esther grimly.

"You could learn so that you could teach Bee," said Aunt Margaret.

"All right," said Wilhelmina, capitulating, because it wasn't like she had anything better to do while they waited for Theo.

Aunt Margaret had taught her to locate the steadiest part of her own body, then reach down into the earth from that steady place. To thank the earth for the strength she gave. Then to draw the earth's sweet, powerful, protective energy up into her body and use it to begin to build a shield around herself.

"Let the image come to you of whatever your shield is made of, Wilhelmina," said Aunt Margaret, sitting on the couch with her eyes closed and a serene expression on her face. "Mine is a kind of flexible, knitted cord."

"Mine is candles," said Esther. "All aflame."

"Mine is vines and flowers," said Frankie. "I wear a helm of lilies."

Wilhelmina's shield material hadn't been anything, because she'd thought this was rather silly. But she'd kept her opinions to herself and pretended to build herself a shield. "When your shield covers you completely," said Aunt Margaret, "the world's harmful energy won't be able to get through."

"But what about the world's good energy?" Wilhelmina had asked.

"You must think about that as you're building," said Aunt Margaret. "You must think about how to make some parts of your shield permeable, so that the things you want to get through—only the things you want—will be able to enter. To be sure, that can include pain. We're not trying to block out anything important or true. But false things often bear blocking. It's like a selective kind of armor. It's not meant to close you off from the realities of the world; it's only meant to keep you steady when harmful things clamor around you."

How convenient,Wilhelmina had thought dryly, that armor should have the ability to be so selective. Now teach me how to build a sword that will stab only assholes.

On her bed, Wilhelmina was crying again, trying to do so quietly. She was thinking of Frankie in one of her gardens, surrounded by flowers and vines. Frankie's shield. She was remembering Esther, speaking at Frankie's memorial service. "The day after the 2016 election," Esther had said, "Frankie got into the car and went to the nursery. Then she came home and planted spring flowering bulbs. Poet narcissus and fringed tulips. That was how Frankie always confronted darkness: with light."

"Wilhelmina?" said Delia. "Wilhelmina?"

Wilhelmina came to herself with a start. Delia was patting her arm, her face scrunched up with worry. "Wilhelmina!" she said. "What's wrong?"

"Oh," said Wilhelmina, dabbing at her cheeks with a sleeve. "I'm sorry. I was just—I was thinking about Frankie. I miss her."

"I do too," said Delia.

It was another thing Wilhelmina should've known, but didn't. "I've been really self-absorbed," she said.

"Teenagers are supposed to be self-absorbed," said Delia. "Your frontal lobe isn't fully formed yet."

Wilhelmina snorted through her tears. "Who told you that?"

"I read it online."

She noticed Delia's earbuds, lying on the desk beside her laptop. "Aren't you in the middle of a test? Won't you get in trouble for going offscreen?"

"You were crying!"

"You're really generous, Delia," said Wilhelmina. "I'm sorry. Let me know if you need me to talk to your teacher. Are you, like, too big for a hug?"

Delia threw herself into Wilhelmina's arms. I am hugging the heart of a lion, Wilhelmina thought nonsensically, squeezing Delia with her heavy, aching arms. When Delia went back to her test, Wilhelmina found the foam roller and lay on it, closing her eyes, stretching her shoulders. Trying to breathe her tears away.

On the floor of her room, she experimented with letting the world soak into her consciousness. Outside, a bird sang a soft, chirpy tune. One of the crows cut through the sound with a screech, and a group of faraway crows answered. Now and then, Delia tapped on her keyboard or scratched her pencil on paper. Theo was in his bedroom on the phone, Cleo in the aunts' room on a video call. Wilhelmina could sense these things somehow, from the nature of the sound or the weight of the air, just as she knew that Philip was napping in his tiny bed beside Theo and the aunts had left the apartment entirely. And Julie—Julie was upstairs, in her bedroom, with her apartment to herself, one floor above and two rooms over.

With the awareness of Julie, heartache consumed Wilhelmina. She didn't want to start crying again.

But she thought about her barrier, which she needed. She wasn't ready to knock the barrier down. But—what about a very small door? Owl-sized. Sparrow-sized. Tarot card-sized.

Wilhelmina pushed herself up. She crossed to her dresser and pulled the shirt off the mirror. The angel in the Temperance card poured water from cup to cup, his wings unfurled behind him, like James in the cemetery that morning. Temperance, the card said. The balance between what was real and what you wished for. "Remembering the mundane makes us smart," Frankie had told her once. "Remembering the magic makes us brave."

Wilhelmina had never really understood what that meant. She didn't understand it now. This mundane reality made her frightened and sick, and magic wasn't real.

But she returned to the bed and grabbed her phone. I'm starting to see the ways I've cut myself off, she wrote to Julie. You called it my disappearing act

A minute later, Julie wrote back. I've missed you, Wil

Wilhelmina thought about that. I think I've been pretty lonely, she said.

That makes me really sad for you,wrote Julie.

Wilhelmina thought about that too. Will you wait for me, she said, while I try to come back?