Everyone was quiet. Cora eyed Lucky carefully, from the way he habitually popped his knuckles like they ached him, to the small scar on his chin. What had happened to him, to make his mind go to such a dark place?
“Don’t think like that,” she said. “At least not yet. Come on.”
The group filed back outside.
Cora shaded her eyes, looking down the row of buildings. “All the rest of the shops—”
“Hang on.” Nok cocked her head, pink streak of hair falling in her face. “Do you hear that?”
At first Cora heard nothing, but then faint notes reached her ears. A song. It sounded like recorded music, old-fashioned, that made her think of crooners dressed in tuxedos. Then the lyrics began.
A stranger in my own life . . .
It was coming from one of the shops. The diner. Lucky started toward it, but Cora clamped her hand onto his.
“Wait,” she whispered.
A ghost behind my smile . . .
A coldness started somewhere at the base of her skull and spread. The memory returned of riding in Charlie’s car, wanting so badly to reach that resort where their parents waited for them, her crumpled notebook in her lap, making up lyrics. Those lyrics. The same ones playing now. She whirled toward the source of the music with a feeling like the world was spinning just a little too fast.
Not at home in paradise . . .
Not at home in hell . . .
A sign flashed above the diner: THE GREASY FORK. It flashed again and again, beckoning them.
“Hey, you okay?” Lucky asked.
“This song.” Her voice came out hoarse. “These lyrics. They’re . . . mine.”
8
Cora
VERTIGO HIT CORA AS if the past and present were intertwining.
“You mean . . . you know this song?” Lucky asked.
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I wrote these lyrics. It was the last thing I was doing before I woke up here. Someone must have stolen my notebook, hired a singer, and recorded the song. That’s so elaborate. Why would anyone do that?”
Everyone was silent.
She reached for her necklace, and felt only emptiness.
Leon tugged off his tie and let it fall to the grass. “They’re twisted shits, that’s why.” He climbed the diner stairs with a look like he’d kill whoever was in there. After a minute, he stuck his head back out.
“There’s no one here.” He sounded disappointed.
Cora started up the steps. Inside, old-fashioned lamps cast a smoky glow over the red-and-white checkered tablecloths. There was a long counter, and three tables with two chairs each. A black window hummed from the wall, murky shadows floating behind it like ghosts.
“There’s the source of your music.” Lucky pointed to a jukebox against the back wall. “It must be programmed to play automatically at certain times.”
A stranger in my own life . . .
A ghost behind my smile . . .
Cora closed her eyes. This song was supposed to be private, meant to live only in the pages of a notebook. It was about the night of the accident, when her mother had first threatened to file for divorce. No one wanted a scandal, so Cora had attended her father’s political fund-raiser at the last minute in her mother’s place. A Mason smiles, even if her heart is breaking. She’d worn a green silk dress with lace down the back. On the car ride home, while her father drove, she’d rested her head against the cool glass and listened to the smooth voices on NPR, watched the stars overhead, and made a wish that a smile really could solve everything.
When she opened her eyes, Lucky was looking at her strangely, like he had when they’d first met on the beach. She touched her cheek self-consciously, wondering if her face looked as sunken and heavy as she felt.
“Hey.” Leon slammed his fist on the jukebox. “Are they just going to play this song on repeat? What gives?” His head dipped as he searched for buttons. The controls slid around, but nothing happened, almost as if they weren’t controls at all.
“Perhaps it is another puzzle,” Rolf said quietly.
Cora leaned against the counter, still feeling dazed. The army. The helicopters. The police. They should have been there by now.
Leon stabbed a finger in Rolf’s direction. “If it’s a puzzle, solve it, genius.”
Rolf trudged over to the jukebox. His fingers flew over the blocks, but nothing he tried worked. Lucky took a try too, but he didn’t make any more progress.
The song continued.
Outside, the sunlight faded to the golden color of late afternoon, not suddenly but all at once, like someone had flipped a switch. Cora whirled toward the doorway.
“Did you guys see the light change?” Nok pointed outside. “That’s impossible, yeah?”
A clicking noise came from the countertop, and a trapdoor opened, revealing six trays of food. Curry over rice, looking so normal and innocent that it was terrifying. No one made a move.
Rolf’s eyes were wide. “I think it’s safe to assume we’re in a heavily controlled environment. It appears our food arrives not according to solving a puzzle but in correspondence to the light changing. Perhaps because food is a resource we require, whether we can solve puzzles or not. I would imagine this is supposed to be dinner.”
Leon grabbed one of the trays. “Dinner. Breakfast. Whatever, as long as it goes down and stays down.”
“Don’t eat it.” Lucky pointed to the sixth tray, which was empty. “One of us is already gone, remember? The girl Cora and I found. It could be poisoned.”