Chapter 1
“There is a motorcycle dealership near the edge of Klamath National Forest,” Nova said. “If the dead have not picked it clean, there may still be something worth taking.”
Joan glanced toward the long road ahead, where the trees gathered darkly beneath a washed-out sky.
“How could you possibly know that?”
Nova adjusted the strap of her pack.
“Before the internet died, when we first talked about going north to Canada, I downloaded everything I could find about the route.”
Stacy gave a faint smirk.
“Everything? Including motorcycle dealerships?”
“I downloaded everything,” Nova said. Then she looked at Joan. “You can ride, can’t you?”
Joan hesitated.
“Yes. I used to, anyway. Jack taught me. He had a CRF125.”
“That is a dirt bike,” Nova replied. “But the principle is close enough. You will ride. Stacy can sit behind you.”
So they turned toward Klamath.
For a while, they walked in silence beneath the great black teeth of the forest. Stacy’s bare feet made almost no sound on the road, but Joan noticed the way she favored one foot, then the other. Each step must have hurt.
At last, Stacy spoke.
“Joan. Can I ask you something personal?”
Joan sighed.
Every instinct in her urged her to say no.
“Yes,” she said cautiously. “Ask.”
Stacy looked at her.
“What is your last name?”
Joan blinked.
“That’s your personal question?”
“If we die in a fiery crash on some abandoned forest road,” Stacy said, “I would feel strange not knowing it.”
“It’s Strega,” Joan answered. “What’s yours?”
Stacy’s expression changed. The joke left her face.
“My false name is Kranz. Sometimes I spell it Krans, with an s.”
“And your real name?”
“Halpern.”
Joan waited.
Stacy looked down at the road.
“Frank and I are married. He did not have a last name when we married, so afterward he used Stein. Gloria Stein was the name of his creator.”
Joan stared at her.
“That is… a lot to unpack.” She frowned. “Are you a wanted criminal or something? Why do you have three last names?”
Nova shook her head slightly.
She knew.
Stacy ignored the question.
“Is Strega German?”
“No,” Joan said. “Italian. My parents are from Italy.”
“Halpern is a German form of a Yiddish surname,” Stacy said quietly. “I do not speak German. Or Yiddish.”
“I can speak Italian,” Joan said. “But I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a rebel.” Joan kicked a loose stone from the road. “I didn’t get along with my parents before I left.”
Stacy turned to her.
“That’s sad. I was always close to mine.”
Joan rolled her eyes.
“Then why don’t you use their last name?”
Stacy smiled, though there was no joy in it.
“Because seventy-five years ago, I was taken.”
The road seemed to grow quieter around them.
“I was kidnapped and carried to another plane of existence. A demon held me there. It used me in a war against the spirits of Jen Monroe and Kristen Hale.”
Joan said nothing.
“Linda Kyle freed me,” Stacy continued. “I returned to Earth. But time had changed me. I age slowly now. It is as if I am being given back the years that were stolen from me—fivefold.”
Joan looked at her more carefully.
“Fivefold? Are you from Middle-earth?”
“Sorry. Five years for every one year. Near immortality ages you. You sound like an idiot when you try to explain it.”
Stacy smiled.
The forest breathed on either side of the road.
“That must be awful,” she said at last. “I would hate being trapped on Earth forever. And I would hate Hell for any amount of time.”
Stacy nodded.
“I agreed.”
Her gaze drifted ahead, toward the road vanishing into the dark green distance.
“Then I met Frank.”
For the first time, her expression softened.
“And after that, I wanted to stay here forever.”
