Zip (20 page)

A bad taste rose in Lyssa’s mouth—like damp, unwashed socks—and tears welled in the back of her throat. She
choked them back down as Calypso dragged her around one last twist in the maze. The cornfield opened up and they were right back where they started, near the park and Helios’s ice cream truck and a tiny white sports car that Lyssa realized must belong to Calypso. Lyssa looked around for Circe. Her truck was still in the parking lot, but it was empty of both Circe
and
her pigs.

Lyssa fought a rising tide of panic. She had to act—and quickly

When they reached the sports car, Calypso reached into her pocket to grab her keys. Lyssa shoved a hand into her pocket, finding the Red Hots she’d saved from her ice cream cone. She squeezed her fist around the candy, grinding it in her pocket until a fiery, sticky paste was left clinging to her fingers

“Hey, Calypso,” Lyssa said

Calypso glanced down at her

“What’s up, sugar?”

“You have something in your eye,” Lyssa said, and shoved her hand into Calypso’s face, grinding the burning powder-paste into Calypso’s eyes. Calypso screamed and threw both hands over her face, releasing her grip on Lyssa’s arm.

Lyssa ran

As she passed Circe’s truck, she reached into the truck bed and grabbed Zip

“Looks like it’s just me and you again,” she panted. With Calypso yelling and screaming behind her, she hopped onto her scooter and pushed off. Zip gave little squeals of excitement as they tore down the street

Hot wind stung Lyssa’s face. She pulled on her left braid and stuck the end in her mouth. She pushed off, wanting to go faster and put more distance between herself and Calypso, Helios, and Circe. She wanted to ride until every muscle in her body burned and she was so tired that she wouldn’t have to think about what her friend had done. Maybe then, when she could barely keep her eyes open, Circe’s betrayal wouldn’t hurt as badly as it hurt now

Her mom always said that holding on to anger was like trying to keep a tiger in your backyard—that it would destroy everything you loved if you didn’t set it free. But, for the first time that she could ever remember, Lyssa wasn’t sure she agreed with what her mom said. It felt like there was a tiger in her
chest
, shredding her to pieces. If Lyssa could figure out how to get it to leave, then maybe she
would
set it free—just like her mom said. But it wasn’t like unlocking the gate in a backyard. It was harder, and Lyssa didn’t know the trick.

She felt a sudden, painful longing for her mom—she missed her more than she’d missed her since she had first died. Ana Lee would know what to do—Ana Lee would
know just what to say to make the anger go away. But her mom wasn’t here

So Lyssa pulled Zip toward the highway. If she rode fast enough, the wind’s roar would fill her ears, so loud that she wouldn’t be able to think about anything else

L
yssa didn’t stop even after she’d left the small town behind and reached the highway. She rolled along the edge of the road, and in just a few hours, her jeans and hair were stiff with dirt.

Zip wasn’t doing so well either. Its hand brake was now held in place with some dental floss and gum, which Lyssa found in the bottom of her backpack when her shoelace snapped, and she’d had to replace one of the handlebars with an empty Coke bottle. She patted Zip’s handle. It was her only friend now, and she wasn’t treating it very well

“You just wait till we get to Austin,” she whispered. “I’ll find someone to fix you up like new.”

The scooter groaned, as though it didn’t believe her. Lyssa sighed. What they both needed was a place to sit and rest

But the idea of stopping worried Lyssa. If she stopped, she’d have to think about Circe and her betrayal, or Michael, and how she was starting to miss him. She’d have to think about the fact that her mom hadn’t sent her a single sign, not since the séance, and that the magic she’d been finding was more dangerous and unpredictable than she had thought.

When Lyssa was on Zip, she needed to concentrate on staying far away from traffic, dodging roadkill, and keeping her front wheel out of potholes. She just didn’t have
time
to think about all that other stuff. So she rode on.

The highway twisted through a field and narrowed, becoming an old, beat-up dirt road, which Lyssa followed to the edge of a lake. Red sand and spiky bushes surrounded Lyssa on all sides, and hot gusts of wind blew tiny dead flies that got caught in the laces of her sneakers. She finally coasted to a stop, too tired to go on. She didn’t think she had enough energy to start a letter to Penn, but, if she did, she knew just what she’d write:

She pushed her scooter up to the shoreline, wrinkling her nose at the strange smell that seemed to be coming from the lake itself. Her eyes settled on something in the center of the lake, and she gasped

Coiling out into the water was a long, twisting path that looked like a giant sleeping snake. It was made up of packed mud and clay, its edges lined with chalky-gray rocks that lit up like Christmas lights whenever the sun bounced over them. Algae crept up over the sides, turning the dirt green

It was like remembering a dream. Suddenly, Lyssa knew exactly where she was. She’d heard so many stories, seen so many pictures of the strange path twisting into the middle of the water, that she recognized it immediately. This was the Spiral Jetty, where Ana had taken Lyssa for her very first birthday

The fact that Lyssa had wound up here, when everything was about to fall apart, felt almost like a miracle

Maybe the magic
was
on her side. Maybe it was a sign from her mother.

“Mom?” she whispered

A faint breeze ruffled the surface of the water

Lyssa took a step closer. Ana had called this place the Dead Lake, which made Lyssa think of bones and bodies hiding below the surface, of ghosts floating over the still
waters after dark. Lyssa knelt down and ran her hands over the rocks. Wedged in between them were pieces of glass and salt crystal. That’s why the jetty lit up in the sun

She closed her eyes and the earth buzzed below her. This place was magical—she could feel it all the way to her toes. It was where she and her mom had celebrated Lyssa’s first year of life. If her mom could talk to her anywhere, it would be here

She pushed her scooter forward and started walking. She hadn’t been able to tell from the shore, but the path stretched far out into the middle of the lake. The packed dirt was exactly level with the lake itself, making Lyssa feel like she was walking on water. When she reached the middle of the coil, she dropped to the ground and rolled onto her back. It even sounded a little magical out here, with the buzzing flies and lapping water forming a strange kind of music

“Mom?” she called

White clouds moved slowly across the sky, and wind whistled as it blew over the lake. But no one answered. Even the buzzing flies near the shore seemed distant and quiet.

“Mom!” Lyssa shouted again

Only her voice echoed back to her. Come on, Mom, she thought. Please be here. “It’s important,” she said, ignoring the fact that her voice cracked—just a little. “Mom,
I need your help. I have questions. You should be here. I need you
here
!”

Lyssa squeezed her eyes shut and waited. The sun warmed her face, and water lapped soothingly against the path. Lyssa opened her mouth to call out again—and yawned instead. She was so tired…

Her eyes fluttered, then closed, and she was drifting, drifting into sleep

When Lyssa opened her eyes again, the sky above her was dark and roiling with steel-gray clouds. Lyssa groaned and pushed herself off the ground. She must have fallen asleep. Water dotted her cheeks and wind roared around her head, blowing her hair over her face. A sliver of lightning appeared on the horizon, spiderweb thin and so far away that she could barely hear the rumble of thunder. The shock of light illuminated the jetty and the rocks appeared to move, like an animal shifting in the darkness.

“Time to go, Zip.” A storm was coming

She yanked up her scooter and started walking, then running. Water crashed over the rocks and flooded the path, soaking her mud-encrusted sneakers. Another bolt of lightning shattered the surface of the lake

In the growing darkness, Lyssa could swear the path shifted and stretched, like an animal uncoiling. Fear rose
in her chest. She told herself she was imagining things. Rocks didn’t move on their own. Sculptures didn’t turn into monsters

Bits of rock and mica glinted every time lightning crashed above her. Lyssa could almost hear her mom’s voice, telling of a creature that waited for tired travelers

“The Ugly One,” Lyssa said aloud. That was the monster’s name. It lived in the Dead Lake, waiting for someone to fall asleep on its shores…

No. It was just a story. She was remembering a story and making herself afraid

Then the path beneath Lyssa rumbled again and she lost her balance, dropping to her knees in the dirt. The skin along the back of her neck tingled like someone—something—was watching her

“It’s just a story, it’s just a story, it’s just a story,” she said out loud. This couldn’t be real—she and Penn would laugh about how silly she was being later

Swallowing, Lyssa turned and looked over her shoulder

The path itself shuddered, then lifted from the lake, water streaming off the jagged rocks and shards of glass that lined what looked like a long neck. Two rocks set in the middle of the path gave the impression of eyes. It reminded Lyssa of the komodo dragons at the Austin Zoo, but a thousand times bigger.

As the path lifted higher out of the lake, the ground beneath Lyssa grew steep and she almost fell over. Instead of green scales, the path monster was covered in bleached-gray dirt, salt water, and algae-encrusted rocks

Lyssa opened her mouth and screamed

The Ugly One stretched its long neck and opened a mouth filled with razor-sharp shards of glass and rock, releasing a growl that sounded almost like thunder. Flecks of spit landed on Lyssa’s face and hair

She leapt onto her scooter. The creature swiveled its long neck toward her and snapped at her heels as she pushed off and flew down its back, her blond braids streaming behind her. The Ugly One’s rocky, muddy back grew steeper every time the creature lifted farther out of the water, so that Lyssa and Zip rolled faster and faster down its back

Lyssa clung to her scooter’s handlebars. She was going faster than she’d ever gone on her scooter before—but she couldn’t slow down. She didn’t know whether she was riding or falling

Somehow, she managed to stay on her scooter as she wove around shards of glass that looked more and more like giant scales while the Ugly One twisted and lunged at her heels. She yanked the scooter to the left, barely avoiding a rock

She could feel the creature’s hot breath on her ankles. The shore was just ahead

Lightning crashed into the Ugly One’s back, only a few feet from where Lyssa rode, and the wheels of her scooter skidded out beneath her. She fell, half rolling, half falling down the monster’s back, over rocks and scales and glass

When she looked up, the creature’s face was directly above her. Its rocky eyes flashed; its teeth glinted in the darkness Lyssa screamed again and the creature lunged right for her.

She rolled to the side and its mouth closed around her scooter, crushing Zip between sharp, rocky teeth

“No!” Lyssa yelled. Various metal parts, handlebars, and a pom-pom fell from the Ugly One’s mouth like crumbs. But Lyssa couldn’t stop to mourn her loss. She pushed herself up and leapt to the shore

Wet sand crumbled beneath her sneakers and she dropped to her knees. Her heart felt heavy and cold inside her chest, like a last little bit of muddy snow that wouldn’t melt. But she was safe. She knew, even before looking back over her shoulder, that the monster wouldn’t be able to follow her onto shore

Sure enough, the Ugly One hovered behind her, water still pouring from the rocks lining its back. It growled, low and deep, and somewhere in the distance lightning struck again. The storm was passing

Lyssa stood up, gasping for breath. Her broken scooter was crushed to pieces a few feet away. But at least she was alive

She watched the Ugly One settle, disgruntled, back into the water, then grow still, until it was nothing more than the twisting Spiral Jetty once again. Beneath the howling of the wind, Lyssa heard something familiar. It was a voice coming from the air and the sky and all around her:

“That’s my girl.”

“Mom?” Lyssa spoke into the wind-whipped air, her heart beating fast inside her chest. “Is that you?” She didn’t wait for an answer; she couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of her mouth. “Mom, I’ve been looking for you. I’ve been waiting for a sign, but I don’t know how to find you, and I don’t understand how to use your magic. Mom?”

The wind roared, blowing all traces of her mom’s faint voice away. Lyssa took a step forward and something crunched beneath her. She looked down—it was one of Zip’s pom-poms, shredded on the sand

Tears pricked the corners of Lyssa’s eyes. This time, she didn’t try to stop them from rolling down her cheeks

She felt like someone had taken an ice cream scooper and hollowed out her chest. Everything was wrong. Zip, her best friend, had been destroyed. Her mom was supposed to be watching over her, but Lyssa couldn’t find her
anywhere. The magic she’d been putting so much faith in was turning out to be powerful and strange and even frightening. She was cold

She was alone

The tears came quickly now, smearing the dirt on Lyssa’s face and clogging her throat. She hiccupped, then sank to her knees. She no longer cared about being strong. She cried because she was scared and hungry and because Circe had betrayed her. She cried for every day she’d had to live without her mom, and every day that she would still have to. She cried because it felt like she would never be able to go home again.