A List of Cages(28)

“You gonna jump or just lie on that thing?” I ask, climbing up and hopping a couple times. He starts laughing in a way that tells me he’s drunk. “Hey, I thought I told you—” He looks up at me with giant worried mouse eyes. “Forget it.”

Emerald steps outside, wrapped in a thick gray blanket. She climbs up to sit next to us, and I mouth the word drunk. She laughs.

“Julian.” I nudge him. “Time to go.”

He starts to hum, but other than that he ignores me.

“I can walk you home,” Emerald says.

“Walk us home?”

“It’s a nice night.”

“It’s snowing.”

“I don’t want my birthday to be over yet.” A few strands of her hair have come undone and are falling into her eyes. I want to touch them, push them back into place.

“Okay.” I hop to the ground and give her my hand. “Walk us home.”

I jostle Julian’s shoe. “Julian,” I say. He blinks up at me. “Let’s go.”

For once he doesn’t flinch away when I come too close, doesn’t seem to mind that Emerald and I loop our arms with his to keep him upright. Soon the three of us are sliding down the snowy sidewalk together.

“You should just carry him,” Emerald suggests when he stumbles for the third time.

“No,” he mumbles. “Wanna walk.”

“You heard him,” I say.

He trips again, makes me lose my balance, and my feet slide wide apart—like Bambi on ice. I manage to pull them back together while Emerald laughs, a sound that echoes likes a bell. Linked and tripping over moonlit ice, I feel a rush of happiness so strong my legs fill up with energy and I just want to run.

“Do you see?” Julian whispers.

“See what?” I ask.

“My breath.” He exhales heavily. A small cloud fills the air. “Do you see it?”

“I see it.”

“I’m real.”

“Yes,” I agree. “You’re real.”

We tiptoe into my dark house, and at this point we’re practically dragging Julian to my bed. He topples over onto his back and starts humming again while I tug off his cracked sneakers. Emerald looks down at him with amused affection. She and Julian both have snow-flushed cheeks and wet hair.

“Wait,” Julian says, his eyes just foggy slits as I throw a blanket on top of him. “You didn’t ask.”

“Ask what?” I say.

“How many. You didn’t ask how many.”

“Okay, how many?”

He smiles and closes his eyes. “Ten…thousand…stars.”





I WAKE WITH a start, still dressed in Adam’s clothes. My head aches and feels a little bit cloudy, but I try to shake it away. Russell. If he came home last night…

And if he knows I didn’t…

I find my sneakers on the floor, tug them on as fast as I can, and rush into the hall.

I hear the shower running. It’s probably Adam, but there isn’t time to wait. I have to go now.

I hop on my bike, a sick wintry feeling in my stomach as I pedal. I skid through a patch of ice, and the bike begins to wobble. I lurch to one side, but somehow manage to right myself and pedal even faster. My lungs begin to burn as I suck in too much freezing air.

When I get to the house, I’m sweating despite the cold. Russell’s car isn’t in the driveway. I feel a flash of relief, but then the fear amps up again. That doesn’t mean he never came home. He might still know. And if he does…

Think good thoughts.

I park my bike in the garage and go to my room, the silence ricocheting off all the walls, the cold air from the fast ride still in my lungs. I change into a clean shirt and sweatpants, but I’m too nervous to do much else besides sit in the center of my bed. Then slowly, slowly, my muscles loosen, and I let myself lie on my back until the light begins to change.

The thought of sunset brings a fresh wave of nerves. I don’t remember much of what happened last night after Camila poured vodka into my cup, but I remember sleeping deeply.

I wish Adam could sleep over.

Or that I could sleep at his house again.

But I know neither thing can happen.

I climb out of bed, calm enough now to open my trunk and fish out an Elian Mariner book. The glossy cover is smudged and cracked from so much handling. There’s a white line right through the center of the lilac people—the aliens with lilac skin and feathery manes, all tall and slim and androgynous like lilies. The ones who could escape their frozen planet if only the shadow man—the towering monster with insect wings and mouths full of sharp teeth at the tips of all his fingers—would let them go.

I sit on my bed and turn to the first page. It begins the way every Elian Mariner book does, with his mom and dad tucking him in, then shutting off the light. In the dark you can still make out his bed and his toys and the ship in a bottle on his dresser.

Turn the page and the bottle starts to shake.

Turn again and the glass disappears.

Soon the ship starts to grow, so big the room has to expand to fit it. Somehow Elian’s parents never discover what’s happening, but he’s not dreaming—it’s magic.

Elian climbs aboard, and the ship floats like a ghost through the ceiling, into outer space. He sees the stars and a tiny earth and it’s so beautiful until—