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  This book is dedicated to Marcia Markland, my first editor (without her early encouragement, even the first book in this series would not have been written), and to Rebecca Oliver, my first agent (without her efforts, the series would not have been financially possible). I am deeply grateful to them both.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks to Nettie Finn, for an extremely helpful and insightful edit, and to the staff at Minotaur: jacket designer David Baldeosingh Rotstein; marketer Martin Quinn; production manager Eva Diaz; production editor Elizabeth Curione; publicist Kayla Janas; and copy editor Carol Edwards.

  Prologue

  TWENTY YEARS AGO

  Laura Penobscott was too tall. Not just taller than all the fourteen-year-old boys at the Bodfyn boarding school dance, which might have been regarded as quite temporary and soon to be adjusted in the natural biological timing of things, but taller than all the other fourteen-year-old girls, as well. Even as tall as Mrs. Hatfield.

  And she was not athletically tall, which would have made it all right perhaps. She wasn’t good at volleyball. She was just plain gangly.

  Scarecrow. The gangliness and the red hair, and the mix of freckles and acne, and the uncorrected gap in the front teeth—in the process of being corrected right now, in fact, with the necessary shiny hardware—accounted for that nickname.

  She wasn’t sure whether the boys had started that nickname or the girls. It wasn’t the first, or worst, nickname that anyone had ever thrown at her—after all, her surname was Penobscott and she had been in the third grade once—but none of those had stuck. Someone had thought up “Scarecrow” for her earlier this year, though, just prior to Halloween, and that one did take hold. “Laura, go as a scarecrow,” everyone had said, with giggles.

  And so she had. But not just a scarecrow—the scarecrow. With straw stuffed in her sleeves, a floppy hat, and the flopping arms—which somehow she had been able to mimic perfectly the very first time she saw it on the telly—she had gone as the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.

  And every chance she got at that Halloween party, she had flapped her straw arms, opened her eyes wide, gazed directly at whoever had unwittingly supplied the conversational opportunity, put an index finger to her temple, and said, “Oh if I only had a brain!”

  And everyone got the joke. Because everyone knew Laura Penobscott had a brain. She was even smarter than she was tall. And at the Halloween party, they learned she also had the ability to mimic not having one when she chose to. She could mimic anything, at the drop of a floppy hat.

  But brains don’t count for much at dance parties, and neither does mimicry, unless you’re making cruel fun of someone, which Laura declined to do. Laura and her two best female friends were now at the Winter Holiday Dance. They were standing just a few feet away from the punch bowl, but not right at the punch bowl, because they knew enough not to put themselves in a position where other fourteen-year-old girls could later say that Laura, Lisa, and Lilly, the three Ls, never got asked to dance, but just stood all night at the punch bowl. If they didn’t stand right there, no one could take a picture to prove it.

  Most of the boys were just standing around, as well, in groups of three or four along the opposite wall, talking to one another with great animation, and laughing gratuitously, very much self-aware. It was all a show, Laura knew. Or at least suspected. Occasionally, one of them would throw side glances at the girls on the other side, and in the meantime they would stare at the girls the other boys had already decided were pretty enough to take onto the dance floor.

  The dance party had proper chaperones. A female teacher, Mrs. Hatfield, of the music and theater department, stood at the front, trying to look current, but with an eye out for inappropriate skirt lengths and other things that adults thought might inspire trouble.

  A male teacher, Mr. Turner, of the social sciences department, stood guard at the back exit, in case any juvenile might try to sneak out for a cig or some other activity resembling juvenile mischief. He pushed his unruly brown hair back, and kept a wary eye on one particular boy—the alpha, clearly—in the popular group, who was talking and gesturing with more athletic authority than the rest.

  Laura Penobscott looked in the direction of that boy herself (though only for an instant, she was sure), and she sighed. She already knew. He wasn’t going to come over. He had glanced in her direction more than once since entering the room, but he wasn’t going to come over. He was only going to go for one of the girls deemed eligible enough to be on the dance floor already. Of course that’s how it was. After all, he was a boy.

  It was a disappointed sigh, because Laura already understood that’s how things worked, but it wasn’t a worried sigh. Perhaps it was because someone had told her that her long legs, which seemed like stilts now, were going to get a much better reaction from the boys a bit further on.

  Or perhaps she simply knew that she would get along just fine either way.

  “You will be a star, young lady,” Mrs. Hatfield had told her in drama class. “In life, where it counts. Because of what’s inside you. All the rest is just by the way.”

  In any case, Laura sighed only slightly at the athletic boy’s indifference, and now one of her girlfriends nudged her.

  Another boy—not from one of the groups along the wall, but one who had been standing by himself over by the door—was now in motion. He was coming in the direction of the three Ls. And his laser-focused gaze—whenever he looked up from his own feet as he nervously made sure he put one of them in front of the other—was on Laura.

  It was “Haughty Bobby.” Or “Potty Bobby,” said one of Laura’s girlfriends. He had been known by both names, but it was the second one that stuck.

  Laura didn’t know what his surname was. None of the students did. For most of them, it had been much more fun to call him by invented names—he was just much too easy a target. On the very first day of school, before anyone’s names were known, a couple of his peers had tried “Pizza Face” on him, because of both his size and complexion. But that hadn’t stuck, because it was already taken. One or two “Pizza Face” students had already been established in the previous term, and they were still around.

  So then they moved on to calling him Haughty, because he didn’t socialize much (no one much cared why) and wasn’t good at any sport except cannonball splashing in the pool.

  But then came the name that stayed. Potty Bobby was for a public episode or two of flatulence.

  Now, Potty Bobby lost his nerve at the last moment, stumbling over his own Doc Martens at the dance. Laura’s friends giggled. Bobby, red-faced and humiliated, tried to pretend that he was, in fact, just heading to the punch bowl. He flailed for it like a drowning man grasping for the side of a boat.

  Laura’s girlfriends giggled some more, quite openly.

  That’s enough of that, thought Laura. She shot a look that said so to her friends, and
then she walked over to the punch bowl.

  “Would you pour a cup for me, too, please?” she said.

  Potty Bobby turned to look—saw with amazement who had spoken to him—and broke out in an instant sweat.

  “I … I … yes,” he stammered.

  “I’m always so clumsy at these things,” said Laura as the boy handed her a paper cup filled, rather inexactly, with oversweetened red punch. “It’s nice to find someone who can fill a cup without spilling much.”

  The boy nodded, not quite able to speak.

  “My name’s Laura,” she said.

  “B-B-B-Bobby!”

  The way he said his name was like a rock song Laura had heard on the radio—“Bad to the Bone.” B-b-b-b-baaa-aad. Baaa-aad-to-the-bone Bobby was what occurred to her, which was quite funny, but she managed to keep it to herself and not even let the thought of it show in her eyes. She just smiled, and waited patiently as Bobby struggled for something to say next.

  His eyes were wide like a deer’s as he looked at her, and the sweat was literally pouring from his face. He desperately grabbed a handful of cocktail napkins.

  And now the music was starting up again. A slow dance.

  Dear God.

  Potty Bobby stared at her in wide-eyed alarm.

  Without even turning, Laura knew that her friends were starting to giggle again.

  That’s just too bad, thought Laura.

  She held out her hand. An astonished and terrified Bobby took that cool hand palm-down in his own damp one and stumbled with Laura onto the dance floor.

  Along the wall, the athletic boy who couldn’t make up his mind whether his social status could withstand asking Laura to dance glanced in their direction with a puzzled look, but Laura took no notice. She hadn’t done it to make him jealous.

  The song was a slow lament about teenage years from Janis Ian. Not a cheerier one from Echosmith that Laura would like many years later as an adult.

  Blue, pink, and yellow crepe-paper streamers cast shadows from the slightly dimmed gymnasium ceiling lamps; an overhead sequined attempt at a disco ball rotated in fits and starts. Potty Bobby’s shoes made squeaky sounds when he tried to shuffle his feet on the floor. Laura’s girlfriends on the sidelines continued to giggle. The gentle, sad music seemed to go on forever.

  And then, just as it reached the last refrain, Potty Bobby suddenly lurched in close to Laura.

  With his sweaty cheek against hers, he whispered, “I’m going to be a spy.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve given it quite a lot of thought. I have all the skills.”

  “Oh?” said Laura. She managed not to laugh. Or to take a napkin to the transferred sweat on her cheek.

  She’d had plenty of guidance, and much discussion with her friends beforehand, on how to talk to boys at a party. This topic had not come up. She went with her own very clear sense of logic, and said simply, “Why do you want to do that?”

  “Because of what they do.”

  “Do you know what spies do?” she asked.

  “Of course. They dress well and play baccarat, and they know all about wines, and they have guns, and fast cars, and fast—”

  He stopped and blushed.

  “Women,” said Laura, finishing the sentence for him, and this time she couldn’t help but laugh.

  “But you’re talking about MI6 and James Bond, I think,” she added quickly. “I thought you meant the other kind of spy.”

  “There’s another kind?”

  “The people who become spies because they grow up mad at the culture they live in, and so they think betrayal would be heroic. Or because they meet someone from the other side who they think is sexy. Or because someone offers them a lot of money. Or someone blackmails them. Those kinds of spies—well, I don’t think they have a lot of fun, and anyway, it’s no way to impress girls.”

  Now Potty Bobby stared at Laura with an expression of great disappointment. He seemed so totally at a loss that she wondered if perhaps she should have said nothing at all.

  But then he said, “I’ll be a zombie killer, then.”

  “A what?”

  “A zombie killer. I mean, a killer of zombies. Not … a zombie who kills. A zombie killer like in the video games.”

  “There are no zombies,” said Laura. “And what kind of ambition is it to be a killer of anything?”

  “Oh,” said Potty Bobby, and then he went quiet for a long moment.

  “You know what someone told me?” she said before the silence could become any more awkward.

  “No,” said Bobby. Then, quite sincerely, he added, “I don’t eavesdrop.”

  “Someone told me,” said Laura, “that I am very young—and that means you are, too, of course—and that it is impossible to know in this moment how young we are, and that every trouble we have, no matter how great and terrifying and hopeless it seems now, is purely temporary and that we will overcome it and find a future that we could not even have imagined.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Potty Bobby thought about that.

  “Perhaps I won’t be a zombie killer.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ll be a magnet.”

  “What?”

  “A magnet.”

  “Oh,” said Laura after a moment of pondering. “You’ll be a magnate! A person who through hard work and perseverance and perhaps a little luck becomes very rich and powerful in some particular industry!”

  Laura had to remind herself now not to sound like a dictionary when explaining something. But it was perhaps excusable, she thought, given how seldom the word had come up in conversation.

  “Yes,” said Bobby. “I’ll be a magnate.”

  “Brilliant!” said Laura.

  But now Bobby went silent again, and Laura was afraid that she might have pushed him beyond either his emotional or conversational limits—until she realized that he had stopped because he was staring at something over her shoulder.

  She turned to look.

  Behind her was—well, nothing unusual, as far she could tell. Nothing that should have caused this adolescent with a huge crush on her to look away suddenly. Look down at his own feet in shyness perhaps, but not ignore her and look away.

  Perhaps it was the chaperones? Laura looked around to see.

  Mrs. Hatfield was still at the entrance door, checking someone’s hem length, but Mr. Turner, at the exit, did seem to have an eye in their direction.

  Laura had an impulse to cuddle up a bit to her shy dance partner just to annoy the chaperones, but she didn’t. There was no telling what that might do to Bobby.

  And then, quite unexpectedly, it was Bobby himself who leaned in.

  Laura braced herself. His right cheek was pressed against her right cheek. His mouth was nearing her ear!

  “Thank you,” he said.

  And then there was a sudden and blinding flash of light. When the green and yellow and red spots finally stopped flashing in Laura’s eyes, she knew what had happened: Laura Penobscott had been caught by the yearbook photographer, slow-dancing cheek-to-cheek with the most embarrassing boy in the school!

  1

  TWENTY YEARS LATER

  A young woman ran across Bodfyn Moor just after dusk, with the sun gone and the quarter moon not yet risen. The white-gray rocks, embedded everywhere in the thawing mud and unseen until she struck them, punished her feet painfully, but she did not slow until she reached the top of a small rise.

  She had to stop, just for a moment, because her lungs were heaving and burning. She looked behind her for her pursuers. She could not see them in the pitch-dark, nor could she hear them clearly, with the wind howling and whipping the heather about. But she was sure they were there.

  The young woman had crow’s-feet and shadows around her eyes, but they were not real. They were due to an especially heavy application of Ben Nye eye makeup for the stage. Her face was lined, but the wrinkles were drawn in with a pencil. She had ruby red lips,
but they were not her preferred color. And she had blood on her hands—which was advertised as tasting like peppermint, and resistant to melting under the sweat of stage lights, but easily removable with warm soap and water, unlike the blood on the hands of the character she had been cast to play.

  What was real about the young woman was her jet black hair, her startling blue-violet eyes, and her very sincere desire to be an actress—and now, her very real fear of what was pursuing her.

  Her parents had once told her that she could be the next Elizabeth Taylor. And after she had Googled Elizabeth Taylor, she knew that was a compliment. But, of course, she wanted to be like Scarlett Johansson. Or like Katie Holmes. Or like the tall, famously freckled Laura Rankin. Being like any of them would do.

  She was young and healthy and forward-looking, and she did not believe in curses, despite what the others back at the theater rehearsal had said. A brisk walk on the moor, with the wind blowing and Wagner playing loudly in her headphones, would clear her mind, help her ignore all the nonsense, and also help put her many lines into a context all her own.

  The walk had begun pleasantly enough. With headphones on, she couldn’t hear the gusting wind, but she could see it—whipping the pink heather, stirring the early-spring grass. She saw patches of tall yellow gorse bushes moving in the wind, as well, and she picked her way around them; one had to avoid their thorns.

  The wind stirred no dust—it was the moor, after all, not a desert, and except for the white-gray rocks, everything there was either living or had been.

  She had hiked to the top of the nearest hill on Bodfyn Moor and paused, leaning against a granite tor that had withstood eons of weather, and hoping to see a couple of the wild ponies known to frequent the region. But no—not this time. In the waning light, she had seen only a large patch of head-high yellow gorse, the yellow flowers shifting and shimmering in the last ray of sun, and the branches still moving in the wind.

  Which was odd. Because everywhere else the wind had stopped. The heather nearby didn’t seem to be moving at all.