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“This is Ms. Tiresias,” Circe said, slipping the lipstick into her pocket

“Ms.?” Lyssa repeated. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a large man wearing such a purple dress, but, somehow, it didn’t seem strange. Tiresias was more beautiful than anyone Lyssa had ever seen before. He seemed to glow—like there were tiny lightbulbs just underneath his skin. He had high, sharp cheekbones and full red lips; his
skin was the creamy color of the hot chocolate Michael sometimes made for her on cold and rainy days

Circe elbowed Lyssa—she was staring. Lyssa stammered: “Nice—nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine.” Tiresias held his hand out to Lyssa and, as she leaned over to shake it, she noticed his cloudy, sightless gray eyes

“The gods struck me blind for revealing their secrets,” Tiresias singsonged, as though he could read Lyssa’s mind

“I didn’t mean to—” Lyssa started, but Tiresias waved a large, ring-covered hand, stopping her

“Don’t you worry about it, darling,” he said. “Ms. Tiresias is used to people staring. Just because I don’t see it don’t mean I don’t know it happens. Now take a seat.”

Lyssa nervously looked back over at Circe. “Um…I don’t think we’re staying.”

“Nonsense,” Tiresias said. “You need something—you need to
reconnect
with someone. Isn’t that right, baby girl?”

Lyssa inhaled, sharply. It was like Tiresias could see through her skin, all the way down to her deepest wish. How did he do that?

“My mom,” she whispered. Then, clearing her throat, she said, “I mean, you think I need to talk to my mom?”

“That’s right,” Tiresias said. “Now sit.”

There was an old bucket and an overturned apple crate
sitting next to the table. Lyssa sat on the apple crate, winding her braid around one finger. Circe plopped down next to her like this was a normal part of her day

“Perfect,” Tiresias said, clapping. “Dead people are my specialty.”

“Wait,” Lyssa started, shocked. “I never said…”

Tiresias just waved her words away

“You tell me everything I need to know without saying a word,” he explained. “You’re easier to read than a picture book.”

Lyssa frowned. She didn’t really know what that meant, but if Tiresias knew what happened to her mom without her saying a word, then maybe he was the person she should be talking to

Tiresias put both hands on the table, his palms facing the sky. He closed his eyes and started to chant under his breath, his voice low and steady like a drum

Lyssa didn’t know what she was supposed to do. She used to meditate with her mom, but they always did it sitting cross-legged in the middle of the living room. There had been no chanting or cherries involved

Lyssa glanced over at Circe, but her eyes were closed too. Sighing, Lyssa closed her eyes. She pulled her legs onto the apple crate so she could sit cross-legged—but she nearly tumbled off. She unwound her legs, putting them
back on the ground as she breathed in slowly—counting to ten like her mom had taught her—and then pushing all the air out of her lungs

For several minutes Tiresias continued chanting, but nothing happened. She opened one eye to look around

A gust of wind tickled the back of her neck. The cherries started to tremble

One by one, the cherries rose out of the white-and-blue bowl and hovered in the air. The edges of the tablecloth fluttered, and the hair on Circe’s wig stood up, making her look like she’d been electrocuted. Then the wig twitched and lifted straight off her head, revealing two staticky red pigtails underneath.

“That’s my girl,” said a voice that was melodic, filled with laughter. Lyssa recognized that voice…“Now empty your mind…”

Every muscle in Lyssa’s body froze and her chest seized up, like she’d forgotten how to breathe. Circe’s eyes were still closed and Tiresias kept chanting and neither one of them appeared to have heard anything at all

“As above, so below,” the voice said. Lyssa had to squeeze her eyes shut to keep tears from rolling down her cheeks

“Mom?” she whispered. The sound of her voice made Lyssa shake. She sounded so close. So real

“It’s like we always talked about,” her mom said. “You’re going on an adventure.”

A cracking, sparking noise sounded in the stand behind them and a firework shot out through the roof, splintering the wood and spitting blue and red and green sparks. As Tiresias continued chanting, a dozen more fireworks shot off, sending glowing stars and hearts and flowers into the twilit sky.

Lyssa lifted her face as multicolored sparks of light rained down on her. She could almost smell the lavender and honey soap her mom always used. She could feel her mom’s breath on her neck. For so long she’d been alone, but now, it was like her mom was right next to her

“Stay,” she whispered to her mom. “Please.”

Before the words were even out of her mouth, the fireworks faded and the cherries dropped back onto the table. A few rolled onto Lyssa’s lap, feeling heavy and awkward as they settled into the folds of her dress

Circe’s eyes popped open

“Jeez, Tiresias. I thought you knew how to do this,” she said, fixing her wig. “I didn’t hear any dead people talking.”

Tiresias straightened one of his scarves

“Thought I’d gotten the whole summoning the dead thing down. I guess not. Sorry, baby girl. Now that’ll be five dollars. Mama don’t work for free.”

Lyssa pulled $5 out of her backpack. Now she was down to $8, but she hardly even thought about it. Her mom’s words glowed inside Lyssa’s chest, like the fireflies she used to catch in mason jars every summer

Lyssa was quiet as Circe drove the truck out of Boise. It wasn’t dark yet, but more and more stars became visible the farther they got from the city. Lyssa kept her eyes on the sky, but for the first time she didn’t really notice the stars. All she could think about was fireworks and floating cherries and her mom’s voice
Now empty your mind…

She leaned back against her seat, lost in thought. She felt uneasy. Her mother’s magic was fleeting, and it never seemed to do what Lyssa expected it to. What would happen when she got to Texas? Would the magic be sufficient to help her save her home?

Would her mother speak to her again?

Lyssa sighed. If only Circe and Tiresias had heard her mom too; then maybe they could’ve helped Lyssa sort out what all this meant. But neither of them had said anything about the strange voice, and it made Lyssa feel hollow. Could she have imagined the whole thing?

“Something wrong?” Circe asked, shifting her eyes over to Lyssa

“Low blood sugar,” Lyssa lied

“You want a peach?” Circe asked

Lyssa nodded, but she found she had no appetite. She placed the peach on her lap

After another ten minutes of driving in silence, Circe pulled the truck over to the side of the road and killed the engine

“Better than any hotel, right?” she said, throwing open her door. They were parked next to an empty field covered in tall grass and scraggly trees. Circe walked around to the back of the truck and pulled two scratchy brown blankets out of the trunk. She tossed one to Lyssa. It was warm and smelled like freshly washed pig and buttermilk and hay. Lyssa lifted it to her face and breathed it in. It reminded her of Sunday mornings when Michael made pancakes and facon for breakfast. Michael was a vegetarian, and facon didn’t have any animal products in it, but the smell of pig still made Lyssa feel homey and safe

They crossed to the middle of the field and spread their blankets out on the ground. The sun was setting in the distance, turning the sky honey gold and orange. Circe pulled off her wig and tossed it to the side. Her red hair was squashed flat to her forehead, and her pigtails stuck out at odd angles. She plopped down on the blanket. Far in the distance, a tiny red plane was flying low over the fields. Lyssa watched, curious, as it got closer and closer, then curved into the air and circled back around

“It’s called a crop duster,” Circe said. She too was watching the tiny plane circle through the air

“What’s it doing?” Lyssa asked

“During the day it covers the crops with pesticides and junk, but when the pilot is done with his jobs, he takes the plane out and practices writing things in the sky. Sometimes when festivals or carnivals come to town, they hire him to advertise for it.”

Lyssa and Circe watched as the plane darted in and out of the clouds, writing a message in puffy, white smoke

I AM HERE,
the message read.

“That’s a strange thing to write,” Lyssa said. Circe shrugged

“It’s just for practice.”

For a few minutes there was nothing but silence and the far-off sound of crickets chirping in the grass. Then Circe’s low, even snores began to fill the night

Lyssa didn’t sleep. She thought about Michael. Was he worrying about her? Did he still think she had been kidnapped, or had he finally found her note? Lyssa closed her eyes, picturing Michael wandering along abandoned dirt roads, calling out her name

No. That was silly. Michael wasn’t looking for her himself—he’d called the police. And even if he
was
searching for her, he’d probably drive his car.

Still, the image stuck with her, making her feel so guilty that she forced her eyes back open. Surely Michael would find her note soon—if he hadn’t found it already—and everything would be fine. To distract herself, Lyssa pulled the journal out of her backpack and grabbed her pencil

Lyssa closed her journal and looked back up in the sky, watching the message fade into the night, slowly replaced by twinkling stars. She wondered if her mom had seen the words
I AM HERE
and if she knew that Lyssa was down here waiting for her.

As above, so below,
her mom had said. Lyssa didn’t exactly know what she’d meant by that, but she hoped it meant that she was on the right path and that her mom was watching her from the sky, helping her figure out what to do next. She was on an adventure—that was true. She just hoped she’d end up in the right place.

Lyssa stared up at the stars until her eyes grew heavy and she could no longer keep them open. She thought about
the crop duster’s message:
I AM HERE
. As Lyssa drifted off to sleep, those words stayed painted on the insides of her eyelids.

She dreamed that she was the crop duster, that she was flying the plane across the sky writing loopy letters out of puffy white smoke. As she navigated the plane through the clouds, she kept expecting to find her mom, waiting for her. Then, maybe, they could go home together

T
hey started out early the next morning, piling into the truck just as the sun was casting dusty strips of light across the grass. Lyssa cast one last look at the field before climbing into the truck after Circe, thinking about all the questions she’d written into her journal the night before. She’d hoped that, by the light of morning, the questions would be easier to answer. But like the words written in the sky the night before, the answers to Lyssa’s questions seemed very far away. She slid into her seat and pulled the truck door closed.

Circe navigated the truck over the highway and into the sprawling farmlands of Idaho. She shoved her wig and
stilts under her seat, explaining that it was so empty out on the back roads that she didn’t really need to worry about staying in disguise

The land outside Lyssa’s window looked like a patchwork quilt. Bright orange and red hills surrounded them on all sides. They drove past towns called Wendell, Jerome, and Rupert. Lyssa couldn’t help laughing out loud. She pulled out her journal and made a list of all the town names for Penn.

“See that tree?” Circe said, pointing. “That tree split in two during our last big thunderstorm. And that bale of hay was the one that got lit on fire…”

On a distant hill a red farmhouse appeared, sunshine bouncing off the shingles of its roof. Lyssa shifted in her seat, starting to feel nervous. Circe had said that Lyssa would be able to catch a bus once they got to Idaho, but as far as Lyssa could tell, there were no bus stations close by and she still hadn’t figured out how to get the money for a ticket. Once Circe got home, Lyssa would be alone in the world—no friends, no money, no way to get to Austin. She stuck her braid in her mouth, deciding it didn’t matter if Circe saw her chewing her own hair. Soon, Circe would be gone

Circe slowed her truck as they got closer to the farmhouse. Dread clogged up Lyssa’s throat. She opened her
mouth to tell Circe she didn’t have enough money for a bus ticket, but before she could get a word out, Circe let out a low sigh

“Holy hogs,” Circe muttered. “
Him
again.”

Lyssa sat back up, following Circe’s gaze to a figure standing in front of the farmhouse door. He wore thick Coke-bottle glasses and a brown tweed suit. His button-down shirt was pulled tight over his round belly and sunlight glinted off his leather briefcase

“Who is he?” Lyssa asked

“IRS goon.”

“IRS?” Lyssa repeated, confused

“A guy who collects taxes—I’ll explain later,” Circe said as she slammed on her brakes and put the truck in reverse. The dirt road was narrow and lined on either side by a rickety wooden fence, but Circe backed her truck right into it. The wood splintered and the pigs in the back squealed. Circe’s tires screeched as she hit the gas pedal and shot forward, making Lyssa’s entire body rattle around on her seat. Next to her, Circe had both hands on the steering wheel and one foot propped against the dashboard

“Hey!” someone shouted. Lyssa looked out her window and saw the IRS goon racing toward them, waving the leather briefcase above his head like a flag

“I think he needs to talk to you,” Lyssa said. The man
climbed into his own car, forgetting his briefcase on the hood as he peeled away. Circe snorted, sounding exactly like one of her pigs. She shook her head and her pigtails came loose, forming a halo of red curls around her head