Backwards. Part 8

"Sometimes," I said. "But there could be places where a small change at exactly the right moment causes big changes down the line - the way pulling a lever can switch a train to a whole new track."

TR raised his eyebrows. "Dude, has the zombie been playing with a train set or something?"

"All I'm saying is that if I can find the right thing to change for Cat - the right lever to pull - then maybe things will be different for her."

"Maybe," conceded TR. He paused outside Cat's apartment complex. Tricia and Spooner were in the courtyard, sharing a cigarette. TR watched them for a moment, then looked at me. "So what's this lever?"

"That's what I need to figure out." I tried to hear what Tricia and Spooner were discussing.

" . . . wish my dad was a bartender," muttered Spooner as I approached. "I had to stuff my bed with pillows and climb out my window to get here."

"Boo-hoo," said Tricia. She glanced at an apartment on the second floor. "It would take my mom a week to sober up enough to notice that I'm gone."

Cat came out of her apartment a few minutes later carrying a large backpack. She asked Spooner if he had the goods. He shook his backpack, causing several cans to clank together. The three of them left the courtyard, still pa.s.sing the cigarette.

"You coming?" I called to TR. He'd been ducking his head into different apartments, probably searching for naked women.

"There's a guy talking to his fish in there." He hitched his thumb at the apartment he'd just left.

I trailed behind Cat, listening to her and her friends as they headed away from town. TR goofed around, adding "in bed" to things they said, but he didn't complain or try to convince me to do something else.

After a few minutes, I figured out where they were going. Cat turned onto the road that led to the abandoned farmhouse - the one Dan would burn down. It was strange seeing it again, with its lopsided porch and crooked roof silhouetted against the moonlit sky, as if it had risen from the ashes in all its dilapidated glory.

Tricia shoved open the side door. Then she flicked her lighter and lit a couple candles on the kitchen counters. Clearly, she'd been here before. She pa.s.sed one candle to Cat and kept the other.

"What if someone sees the light?" asked Spooner.

"Who?" Tricia replied. "No one comes here but us."

I studied the layout of the rooms where Dan and Finn had fought, pausing to inspect the couch that had burned. In my memory it was all destroyed, but now things looked like they'd been gathering dust here forever. And that wasn't all - something else felt different about the living room that I couldn't put my finger on.

"This is the house the zombie torched," I told TR.

"Cool," he said. "So we're like detectives at a crime scene, only the crime hasn't happened yet."

"And I know who did it," I added.

"Yeah, but do you know why he did it?"

"It was an accident," I said, yet that didn't feel entirely true. Dan hadn't accidentally followed Cat into the house. And his getting jealous and fighting with Finn hadn't been an accident, either.

TR drifted around the room. "This place looks haunted. You think there are ghosts here?"

"Like us?" I joked.

TR glowered. He hated being called a ghost. Still, he played along, moaning like a deranged banshee at Tricia. She didn't even blink.

"How many other people know about this place?" asked Spooner.

"Not many," said Tricia. "It's a secret. You're the only boy we've brought here."

Cat held up her candle and studied one of the walls in the living room. "We'll start here," she said.

I suddenly realized what looked different. The walls I remembered had bright, flowing scenes of rivers, mushrooms, flowers, and strange figures painted on them. So much had happened the last time I'd been here that I hadn't fully comprehended the images, but now I knew exactly what Cat was going to do.

She shrugged off her backpack and pulled out brushes, paints, and a plastic milk jug full of liquid, while Tricia lit several candles to give them light.

"This place is creepy," said Spooner. He wiped cobwebs off a stuffed animal he'd found on the floor.

"No, it isn't," said Cat. "It's sad, but we can change that."

"In bed," added TR.

I shushed him, not wanting to miss anything.

TR shook his head and wandered off.

"I didn't know what type of paints you wanted, so I grabbed a bunch," said Spooner, setting out the cans he'd brought.

"That's perfect." Cat handed Spooner a brush and another to Tricia. "Everyone gets one."

Tricia knotted her brow. "I'm terrible at painting."

"Good," said Cat. "I love terrible paintings."

"I'm serious. I can't even do stick figures."

"I can do the outlines if you want to color things in," Cat offered.

"Deal," replied Tricia.

"That sounds good to me, too," said Spooner.

Cat took a can of black paint and stared at the wall for several seconds while Tricia brought some candles over to give her more light. Without a word, Cat started to paint, using quick, fluid strokes.

"A mushroom," said Spooner, identifying the cartoonish outline she made. "Trippy."

"It's for the blue caterpillar," answered Cat.

"Huh?"

"Haven't you ever read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?"

"I saw the movie," he replied. "Why do you like all that Alice stuff, anyway?"

Cat kept painting, moving from one image to another without hesitation. She swiftly outlined a plump, pompous caterpillar. "My mom used to read it to me."

"I thought you hated your mom."

"I hated that she left," said Cat. "When she was around, she could be fun."

TR stuck his head down through the ceiling. "Beware the floating skull of terror!" he moaned. Then he bobbed around like a balloon b.u.mping against the ceiling.

"Anyhow," continued Cat, oblivious to TR's antics, "my mom would read it to me before bed, and I'd imagine that I was Alice. I could relate to her."

"Why? Did you fall down a hole?" asked Spooner.

Cat pointed to the flower she'd just painted. "That needs color," she said. "And you can add gra.s.s to the bottom."

Spooner cracked open a paint can and colored the flower red while Tricia added gra.s.s. Cat moved on to outline other stuff - trees and vines and leaves. Gradually, the walls began to resemble the ones in my memory.

"In the book, Alice is always growing and shrinking," said Cat. "She literally never fits in. She's a misfit, like me."

Tricia snorted. "You're not a misfit."

"Aren't I?" asked Cat.

Tricia stopped painting and propped her hands on her hips. "Do you know why Kendra and the others hate you? It's because they're afraid of you. They can't control you like everyone else. You're bigger than they are, and they know it."

"See what I mean? Bigger. Smaller. Growing. Shrinking - just like Alice."

"I don't mean physically bigger," said Tricia. "I mean you're beyond them."

Cat scoffed.

"It's true," chimed Spooner.

"Well, 'We're all mad here,'" said Cat.

Spooner looked confused.

"It's a quote - from Alice," Cat explained. "Anyhow, I don't want to fit in. Not anymore."

"So, what do you want?" asked Spooner.

"'A grin without a cat.'"

"A what?"

"It's another quote," said Tricia. She gestured with her brush to the crescent-shaped grin above a tree branch that Cat had just painted. "That's the Cheshire Cat, right?"

Cat nodded.

"So what's that?" asked Spooner, pointing to an oval beneath the tree branch.

"That's the Mock Turtle," she said. "He cries but has no sorrow. And this," she added, indicating the blank wall, "this is going to be the pool of tears. Alice made it when she was a giant, then she shrank and nearly drowned in it, so she wished she hadn't cried so much." Cat stepped back and studied the wall. "That's what I need to do. No more drowning in a pool of tears."

"In bed," added TR.

"Hey! You hear that?" whispered Spooner. "It sounded like footsteps."

"Maybe it's a ghost," teased Tricia.

TR and I looked at each other. "d.a.m.n straight," he said.

A floorboard creaked. Spooner and Tricia tensed.

"'Curiouser and curiouser,'" whispered Cat.

"Boo!"

Tricia cursed, but no one seemed all that surprised by Teagan's arrival. I was more stunned than any of them.

"What's up?" asked TR, noticing my reaction.

"That's the zombie's sister."

"She's cute, if you're into girls who dress like vampires."

"She's a good person," I said. Then I drifted closer to listen to their conversation.

"Didn't think you'd make it," said Tricia.

"My mom wouldn't go to sleep," answered Teagan. "And I didn't know if you'd still be here. Or if you'd want me to come."

"Did your brother see you leave?" asked Tricia.

"No. He's clueless. He barely leaves his room anymore."

TR glanced at me, arching an eyebrow.

"Don't tell him about this place," said Tricia.

"I won't," answered Teagan. "Not ever."

Cat continued to outline mushrooms by the pool of tears. She hadn't said anything to Teagan. An uncomfortable silence descended.

"If you want me to go, I will," Teagan finally said to Cat.

Cat finished the mushroom she was working on and set down her paintbrush. Then she dug through her backpack and pulled out another brush. "Who would paint the mushrooms, then?"

Teagan hesitated. "You sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure. I told Tricia to invite you."

Teagan took the paintbrush and smiled. "Thank you," she said. It surprised me how polite she acted. Around her friends, she seemed a completely different person from who she was at home. "What color should I paint them?"

"Good question." Cat studied the mushrooms on the wall. "Do you think mushrooms are happy or sad?"