Playlist for the Dead(30)

“I know you don’t really want that pizza, am I right?” she asked.

I looked down at it. The cheese was an abnormal yellow, as if someone had drawn it with a Magic Marker. “Not really,” I admitted. “But it was the lesser of several evils.”

“You haven’t considered everything,” she said. “Come on, you look like you need to get out of here.”

She was right, but I’d never skipped school before. Kids in the college-prep classes I was taking never skipped school. And for all my online bravado I’d never done anything anyone would really consider bad, or at least I didn’t think I had. But things were different now. Missing a few classes wouldn’t kill me. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“I’ve got a plan. We just need to very, very casually wander out back.” She pointed to the doors that led straight out to the soccer field. There was usually a teacher stationed in front of them, but I didn’t see one now. “Mr. Cartwright’s out and they didn’t get a sub. He’s the lunch monitor today. There’ll never be an easier time for us to ditch. Let’s go!”

“As long as you’ve got a plan,” I said, but really, I didn’t care. I’d have followed her anywhere, plan or not. I stayed right behind her as she walked—no, strolled—right out the back doors of the cafeteria, like it was no thing, even though she was carrying the enormous overstuffed bronze backpack she’d had at the party.

Astrid started laughing as soon as we made it outside. “You were perfect!” she said. “Didn’t look back once. I was worried you’d go all Orpheus on me and turn around.”

“Orpheus?”

“It’s a Greek myth, where this guy’s wife ended up in Hell and he could only have her back if he didn’t look behind him as they left the underworld.”

“I never read that one. But it sounds like the story of Lot’s wife.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“It’s from the Bible,” I said. “I learned about it in Hebrew school. God let Lot and his family leave Sodom and Gomorrah before he destroyed them, as long as they didn’t look back. But his wife turned around and got turned into a pillar of salt. Sounds almost like the same thing.”

“It’s funny how much overlap there is between all the different kinds of myths and religions,” she said. “I love all of it. I was obsessed with Clash of the Titans as a kid. I watched it whenever it came on cable. It really got me into Greek mythology.”

“I love that movie!” I said. “The original, not the remake. I tried to get Hayden to watch it—I thought since we were both so into fantasy that he’d love it too. But he thought the Claymation was cheesy.”

“It was,” she said. “That’s what made it so great!”

“I know,” I said, though I felt guilty, almost as if I was choosing Astrid over Hayden. Though I reminded myself that I didn’t really have a choice, not anymore.

The sky was bright blue and full of puffy clouds, not the kind that made me worry about rain but the pretty ones, the ones that seemed like they really could be made out of cotton. The brightness of the sun made it easy to see the path we were following, but occasionally there were low branches and weeds blocking us; Astrid would kick them out of the way so they didn’t trip me up. She seemed to know where she was going, which was great, because I was completely lost. And I was starting to get hungry—I almost wished I’d eaten that radioactive-looking pizza. “Are we almost there?”

“Almost.”

After we’d walked through the woods for about five more minutes I could see a field in front of us. It was a vast open space, with nothing but fields of corn and soybean as far ahead as I could see. In the middle of the field was a strange building that looked kind of like a barn. But not any barn I’d seen before—it wasn’t round, exactly, but it wasn’t square, either. Its wood was gray and faded; it didn’t look like it had ever been painted before. “Is that it?” I asked.

She nodded.

“What is it?”

“An octagonal barn,” she said. “It’s one of the few left in Iowa. It’s really old, and very cool.”

Okay, that explained the shape. “What’s so cool about it?”

“I’ll show you.” She grabbed my hand; her grip was firm, though her fingers felt almost delicate intertwined with mine. I hoped my palms weren’t all gross and damp. We started running together, across the field toward the barn. I could barely keep up with her, giant backpack and all; I was excited that we were holding hands, so it took me a minute to realize that if I didn’t speed up I was going to wipe out, and that would be totally embarrassing. I wondered what Eric would think if he saw us and then put the idea out of my head.

We stopped running just before the barn. It was warm for October; I was a little sweaty, and the air smelled faintly of cinnamon, a smell I normally associated with spring—I think Mom had said it was from some native plant. The doors to the barn were enormous slabs of wood, with X-shaped planks across them. A latch held them together but Astrid just walked up and opened it; it wasn’t even locked. She slid the doors apart and I could see the sunlight shining on the knotted wood floor. The barn was basically one big room that smelled like sawdust, with a rickety-looking staircase leading to a loft perched just under a very high ceiling. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Astrid asked, then led me upstairs.