The Last Days

Pearl just shrugged. "Sometimes people choke when you press the red button. So I just keep my hard disk spinning. Here, listen."

She fiddled with her mouse, popping in and out of the last two hours, little snatches of us, like we'd already been turned into cell-phone ringtones. In a few seconds, she pinned down the one-minute stretch where the New Big Riff had somehow flipped inside out and become perfect.

We all sat there, listening. Moz's and my mouths were open.

We'd finally nailed it. After six years...

"Still needs a B section," Pearl said. "And drums. We should get a drummer."

"And a bass player," I said.

She looked at me. "Maybe."

"Maybe?" Moz said. "What kind of band doesn't have a bass?"

She shrugged. "What kind of band has only two guitarists? One thing at a time. You guys know any drummers?"

Moz shrugged.

"Yeah, they're hard to find," Pearl said, shaking her head. "The System had a couple of percussionists but no real drummer. That's part of why we sucked. But I know a few from school." She shrugged.

"I know this girl," I said. "She's great."

Moz looked at me, all buzzy again. "You do? You never told me about any drummer."

"You never told me we were looking for one." I shrugged. "Besides, I don't really know her, just seen her play. She's fawesome."

"Probably not available, then," Pearl said, shaking her head. "There's never enough drummers to go around."

"Um, I think she might be available," I said. What I didn't mention was that she didn't exactly have real drums and that I'd never seen her playing with a band, only in Times Square, asking for spare change. Or that she might also be sort of homeless, as far as I could tell. Unless she really liked playing in Times Square and wearing the same army jacket and pair of jeans every day.

Totally fool drummer, though.

"Talk to her," Pearl said. She shot a mean look at the egg-carton-covered door to her room. "Listen, I think my mom's home, so maybe we should quit. But next time, we'll write a B section for the Big Riff. Maybe some words. Either of you guys sing?"

We looked at each other. Moz can sing, but he wouldn't admit to it out loud. And he's too genius a guitarist to waste in front of a mike.

"Well," Pearl said. "I know this really lateral singer who's free right now, sort of. And in the meantime, you can talk to your drummer."

I smiled, nodding. I liked how in a hurry this girl was, how she was motivating us. And she looked pretty hot doing it, all focused and in charge. Six years of jamming, and all of a sudden it felt like a real band was falling into place. I was looking at the posters on Pearl's wall, already thinking of album covers.

"Drums? In here?" Moz said.

My gaze swept across all the amps, cables, and synths. There was about enough room for us, all this crap, and maybe someone playing bongos. No way could a whole drum kit fit in here, even if they weren't exactly drums. And with egg cartons jammed into the windows, the place was already reeking of rehearsal sweat. I could imagine what a hardworking drummer would do to that equation.

That was another reason I'd never bothered to mention her to Moz before. Drummers are way too big and loud for bedrooms.

"I know a place where we can practice," Pearl said. "It's pretty cheap."

Moz and I looked at each other. We'd never paid to rehearse before. But Pearl didn't notice. I guessed she'd shelled out money to rehearse in lots of places. I just hoped she was paying for this one too. I had some money from my dog-walking gig, but Moz was the tightest guy I'd ever met.

"The other thing is, before we start adding a bunch more people, we need to figure out a name for the band," Pearl said. "And it has to be the right name. Otherwise, it'll keep changing every time someone new jams with us." She shook her head. "And we'll never figure out who we are."

"Maybe we should call ourselves the B-Sections," I said. "That would be fawesome."

Pearl looked at me, kind of squinting. "Fawesome? Do you keep saying fawesome?"

"Yeah." I grinned at Moz. He rolled his eyes.

She thought about it for a minute, then smiled and said, "Fexcellent."

I laughed out loud. This chick was totally fool.

5. GARBAGE

-  PEARL-

"One of those boys was rather fetching."

"Yeah, I noticed that, Mom. Thanks for pointing it out, though, in case I missed it."

"A bit scruffy, though. And that dirge you were playing was making the china rattle all afternoon."

"It wasn't all afternoon." I sighed, staring out the window of the limo. "Maybe two hours."

Getting a ride with Mom was nine kinds of annoying. But deepest Brooklyn was such a pain by subway, and I had to see Minerva right away. Her esoterica kept saying that hearing good news helped the healing process. And my news was better than good.

"Besides, Mom, 'that dirge' is totally fexcellent."

"It's feculent?" She made a quiet scoffing sound. "Don't you know that feculent means foul?"

I giggled, reminding myself to tell Zahler that one. Maybe we could call ourselves the Feculents. But that sounded sort of British, and we didn't.

We sounded like the kind of band that rattled the china. The Rattlers? Too country and western. China Rattlers? Too lateral, even for me. The Good China? Nah. People would think we were from Taiwan.

"Will they be coming over again?" my mother asked in a small voice.

"Yes. They will." I played with my window buttons, filling the limo's backseat with little bursts of summer heat.

She sighed. "I'd hoped that we were past all this band practice."

I let out a groan. "Band practice is what marching bands do, Mom. But don't worry. We'll be moving our gear to Sixteenth Street in a week or so. Your china will soon be safe."

"Oh. That place."

I peered at her, pushing my glasses up my nose. "Yes, full of musicians. How awful."

"They look more like drug addicts." She shivered a little, which made her icicles tinkle. Mom was all blinged out for some fund-raiser at the Brooklyn Museum, wearing cocktail black and too much makeup. Her being dressed up like that always creeps me out, like we're headed to a funeral.

Of course, I was creeped out anyway - we were in Minerva's neighborhood now. Big brooding brownstones slid past outside, all tricked out like haunted houses, turrets and iron railings and tiny windows way up high. My stomach started to flutter, and I suddenly wished it was both of us going to some dress-up party, everyone drinking champagne and being clueless, and next year's budget for the Egyptian Wing the big topic of consternation. Or, at worst, talking about the sanitation crisis, instead of staring out the window at it.

Mom detected my flutters - which she's pretty good at - and took my hand. "How's Minerva doing, poor thing?"

I shrugged, glad now that I'd scrounged a ride. Mom's minor annoyances had distracted me almost the whole way. Waiting for the subway, staring down at the rats on the tracks, would've totally reminded me of where I was going.

"Better. She says."

"What do the doctors say?"

I didn't even shrug. I wasn't allowed to tell Mom that there were no doctors anymore, just an esoterica. We stayed silent until the limo pulled up outside Minerva's house. Night was falling by then, lights going on. The brownstone's darkened windows made the block look like it was missing a tooth.

The street looked different, as if the last two months had sapped something from it. Garbage was piled high on the streets, the sanitation crisis much more obvious out here in Brooklyn, but I didn't see any rats scuttling around. There seemed to be a lot of stray cats, though.

"This used to be such a nice neighborhood," Mom said. "Do you need Elvis to collect you?"

"No. That's okay."

"Well, call him if you change your mind," Mom said as the door opened. "And don't take the train too late."

I slipped out past Elvis, annoyance rising in me again. Mom knew I hated the subway late at night, and that Minerva's company didn't exactly make me want to dally.

Elvis and I traded our funny little salute, which we've been doing since I was nine, and we both smiled. But then he glanced up at the house, lines creasing his forehead. Something skittered in the garbage bags by our feet - stray cats or not, rats were in residence.

"Are you sure you won't be wanting a ride home, Pearl?" he rumbled softly.

"Positive. Thanks, though."

Mom likes all conversations to include her, so she scooted closer across the limo's backseat. "What time did you get in last night anyway?"

"Right after eleven."

She pursed her lips the slightest discernible amount, showing she knew I was lying, and I gave her the tiniest possible eye-roll to show I didn't care.

"Well, see you at eleven tonight, then."

I snorted a little for Elvis. The only way Mom was coming home before midnight was if they ran out of champagne at the museum, or if the mummies all got loose.

I imagined old-movie mummies in tattered bandages. Nice and nonscary.

Then her voice softened. "Give my love to Minerva."

"Okay," I said, waving and turning away, flinching as the door boomed shut behind me. "I'll try."

Luz de la Sueño opened the door and waved me in quick, like she was worried about flies zipping in behind. Or maybe she didn't want the neighbors to see her new decorations, seeing as how Halloween was more than two months away.

My nostrils wrinkled at the smell of garlic tea brewing, not to mention the other scents coming from the kitchen, overpowering and unidentifiable. These days, New York seemed to disappear behind me when I came through Minerva's door, as if the brownstone had one foot in some other city, somewhere ancient and crumbling, overgrown.

"She is much better," Luz said, ushering me toward the stairs. "And excited you are visiting."

"That's great," I said, but I hesitated for a moment in the foyer. Luz's take on Minerva's illness had always been a bit too mystical for me, but after what I'd witnessed the night before, I figured the esoterica was at least a little noncrazy.

"Luz, can I ask you a question? About something I saw?"

"You saw something? Outside?" Her eyes widened, drifting to the shaded windows.

"No, back in Manhattan."

"S¨ª?" Luz said. The intensity of her gaze was freaking me out as usual.

I usually understand where people fit, organizing them in my head, like arranging Mom's good china in its case. But I was totally clueless about Luz - where she came from, how old she was, whether she'd grown up rich or poor. Her English wasn't fluent, but her accent was careful, her grammar exact. Her unlined face looked young, but she wore these old-lady dresses, sometimes hats with veils. Her hands were calloused and full of wiry strength, and three fat skull rings grinned at me from her big-knuckled fingers.

Luz was all about skulls, but they didn't seem to mean to her what they meant to me and my friends. She was more gospel than goth.

"There was this woman," I said. "Around the corner from us. She went crazy, throwing all this stuff out the window."

"S¨ª." Luz nodded. "That is the sickness. It is spreading now. You are still careful, yes?"

"Yep. No boys for me." I put my hands up. Luz believed everything was because of too much sex - part of her religious thing. "But it looked like her own stuff. Not like when Minerva broke up with Mark, hating everything he'd given her."

"Yes, but it is the same. The sickness, it makes the infected not want to be what they were before. They must throw away everything to make the change." She crossed herself - the change was what she was trying to prevent in Minerva.

"But Min didn't trash all her stuff, did she?"

"Not so much." Luz fingered the cross around her neck. "She is very spiritual, not joined to things. But to people, and to la musica."

"Oh." That made a kind of sense. When Minerva had cracked up, she'd thrown away Mark and the rest of Nervous System first. And then her classes and all our friends, one by one. I'd stuck with her the longest, until everyone hated me for staying friends with her, and then she'd finally tossed me too.

That meant Moz had been right: the crazy woman had been getting rid of her own stuff, throwing her whole life out the window. I wondered how he'd known.

I thought about the mirrors upstairs, all covered with velvet. Min didn't want to see her own face, to hear her own name - suddenly it all made sense.

Luz touched my shoulder. "That is why it is good you are here. I think maybe now, Pearl, you can do more than I."

I felt the music player in my pocket, loaded up with Big Riff. I couldn't do anything myself - I wasn't some kind of skull-wielding esoterica - but maybe this fexcellent music...

Luz started up the stairs, waving for me to follow.

"One more thing: I think I saw angels."

She stopped and turned, crossing herself again. "Angeles de la lucha? They were fast? On the rooftops?"

I nodded. "Like you told me to watch for around here." "And they took this woman?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I got the hell out of there."

"Good." She reached out and stroked my face, her fingers rough and smelling of herbs. "It is not for you, the struggle that is coming."

"So where do the angels take you?" I whispered.

Luz closed her eyes. "To somewhere far away."

"What, like heaven?"

She shook her head. "No. On an airplane. To a place where they make the change firm in you. So you can fight for them in the struggle." She took my hand. "But that is not for you - not for Minerva. Come."

The rest of the way up, there were lots of new decorations to check out. The stairway walls were covered with wooden crosses, a thousand little stamped-metal figures nailed into each one. The figures were nonweird shapes - shoes, dresses, trees, dogs, musical instruments - but the wild jumble of them made me wonder if someone had put normality into a blender, then set it on disintegrate.

And of course there were the skulls. Their painted black eyes stared down at us from the shadows, every floor a little darker as we climbed. The windows up here were blacked out, the mirrors draped with red velvet. Street noises faded as we climbed, the air growing as still as a sunken ship.

Outside Minerva's room, Luz bent to pick up a towel from the floor, sighing apologetically. "It is only me tonight. The family are more tired every day."

"Anything I can do to help?" I whispered.

Luz smiled. "You are here. That is help."

She pulled a few leaves from her pocket, crushing them together in her hands. They smelled like fresh-cut grass, or mint. She knelt and rubbed her palms on my sneakers and the legs of my jeans.

I'd always kind of rolled my eyes at her spells before, but tonight I felt in need of protection.

"Maybe you will sing to her."

I swallowed, wondering if Luz had somehow divined what I'd been planning. "Sing? But you always said - "

"S¨ª." Her eyes sparked in the darkness. "But she is better now. However, to keep you safe..."

She pressed a familiar little doll into my hands, stroking its tattered red yarn hair into place. It stared up at me, smiling maniacally, one button eye dangling from two black threads, setting my stomach fluttering again.

The doll was the creepiest of Luz's rituals of protection. But suddenly it made sense. It had always been Min's favorite back when we were little, the only object she'd ever really been attached to, besides the ring she'd thrown at Mark in front of the whole System. I was glad to have the doll tonight, even if Minerva hadn't been violent since her family had given up on drugs and doctors and had switched to Luz.

I wondered how they'd found her. Were esotericas listed in the phone book? Was Esoterica a cool band name, or too lateral? Was the Big Riff in my pocket really a kind of magic -

"Don't be afraid," Luz whispered. Then she opened the door with one strong hand, the other pushing me into the darkness. "Go and sing."

6. MADNESS

-  MINERVA-

Pearl was glowing. Her face shimmered as the door swung closed, setting the candle flickering jaggedly.

"You're shiny," I murmured, squinting.

She swallowed, licking her upper lip. I could smell her nervous saltiness.

"It's hot out."

"It's summer, right?"

"Yeah, middle of August." Pearl frowned, even though I'd been right.

I closed my eyes, remembering April, May... all the way up to graduation. Pearl was jealous because she had to go back to Juilliard next year, though everyone else in the Nerv -