“We should go there.” Meg points to the sign that says MALLORY SQUARE. “Everyone comes here because it’s the best place to watch the sunset. Maybe you’ll find your redhead.”
I nod, even though I suspect Meg just wants to watch the sunset. Girls love stuff like that. Still, Meg’s right. It’s crowded. There’s a good chance our Ohio tourists are here.
Mallory. That was the last swan.
The square is mobbed. A man with nipple rings eats fire on a small stage, and another man does flips on stilts. Vendors sell your-name-on-a-grain-of-rice necklaces. There are at least ten redheads in sight. I start toward one.
“Let me.” Meg approaches the girl. “Tessa?”
She turns, and I feel a sudden leap of hope. But then, I see she’s at least thirty.
“Sorry,” Meg says. “Thought you were someone else.”
Over and over, Meg repeats this process, and each time, it’s the wrong girl. I say, “We should leave.”
“No.” Meg’s voice is patient, but her eyes are steely. “I’ve camped with you, gone without food, unwrapped slimy turkeys, watched giants wrestle, pulled you out when you got bitten by a scorpion, and spent several hours I’ll never get back listening to you talk about Princess Perfect. But sometimes, Johnny, you have to stop and watch the sunset. If you really think those fifteen minutes are going to make a big difference, go on without me. Here. Take the ring.” She hands it to me. “If you need me, you have it. Otherwise, see you later.”
And then, she turns toward the sun-reddened ocean, and I know she’s not going to move.
For about a second, I think about leaving, but I know she’s right. It won’t matter. We’ve been to thirty hotels. We can go to more later, and hopefully, the Stephen family will stay more than one night. I say, “Sure. Let’s watch the sunset.”
I’ve seen many sunsets on South Beach, and they’re beautiful. But the one at Mallory Square is different. Maybe it’s the latitude or something about the atmosphere. Or maybe, like Jimmy Buffett says, it’s the attitude, taking the time out to watch it, but the sun seems redder here. It streaks the sky not just orange and pink, but purple and gold too. Meg reaches for my hand, and I take it. The crowd around has grown silent. There’s little movement except the triangles of sailboats bobbing up and down against the blue. Light streams off the water, turning the world into a painting instead of a corny vacation postcard.
“Here’s a story I heard once,” Meg says. “Madame Pompadour, she was this lady in the court of Louis the Fifteenth.”
“Everyone knows that.” Even though I didn’t.
“Anyway, she loved fashion, and one day, a shoemaker delivered the most gorgeous pair of silk shoes. Of course, she was delighted. But on the first day, she took only a few steps, and they fell to pieces. Furious, she sent for the shoemaker. When he saw the wreck of his beautiful shoes, he spread out his hands and said, ‘But Madame, you must have walked in them.’”
“Ha! That’s a good one. What made you think of it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Seems like a lot of people want shoes they can’t walk in.”
I know she’s not talking about real shoes. She’s talking about me and Victoriana. But when I look at her, she won’t meet my eyes. Behind us, a guy with a guitar begins singing “Brown-Eyed Girl.” I think of the Empire State Building yesterday, when I almost kissed Meg. She’s been my best friend my whole life. We do homework together. She models my shoes and listens when I ramble about my dreams. Isn’t that love? The sky is a strange shade of lavender, and I lean toward Meg.
And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see her. Sieglinde. She’s pretty again, like she was when she was Norina, but a little different. Still, I know it’s her, and she’s scanning the crowds, looking for something. Does she know about the redhead? No. Her eyes are downcast, like she’s looking for the frog. She knows he’s here. If she sees me, it will be a disaster. She might take me hostage again, so she can pump me for information. She might take Meg. I won’t let her take Meg.
I tug on the cloak in my backpack, then wrap it around us.
Meg looks startled. “What are you . . . ?”
I don’t have time to explain. I whisper the first place I can think of. “I wish I was in the Key West cemetery.”
An instant later, I’m sitting on a crypt that says:
I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK
B. P. ROBERTS
MAY 17, 1929–JUNE 18, 1979
Meg looks at it and laughs. “Always an adventure.” She squeezes my hand under the cloak. “Why are we here, exactly?”
“I saw her.”
“Tessa. I thought you wanted—”
“Not Tessa. Her. Sieglinde. I saw her at Mallory Square. She knows the frog is here. I had to get us away.”
Meg glances around. The cemetery is almost empty, probably because everyone’s at Mallory Square. Crumbling tombstones, some more than a hundred years old, surround us. In one corner are mausoleums, those sort of big, aboveground houses for the dead. It reminds me of the Haunted Mansion at Disney World. “But why here?” Meg asks.
“First place I thought of. Mom and I were here once. We took a ghost tour.”
Meg doesn’t look so sure. She glances around again, and despite the summer heat, I feel her shiver under the cloak. So I’m not surprised when she says, “It creeps me out. Why don’t we go see if there are any hotels around here?”
“Okay.” I ball the cloak up in my backpack, but I leave the zipper open. I start toward the main entrance. Even though Meg’s icked out by the place—or maybe because she is—I say, “Did you know there was a grave robbery here once?”
Meg tries to ignore me, but I repeat it. “Did you know—?”
“Yuck. Don’t tell me.”
“This old guy, he was a count or something, was in love with this girl who died. She was in one of the mausoleums, so one night—”
“Not listening! Not listening!”
“. . . he broke in and stole her body. He dressed her in a wedding dress and kept her.”
“Stop! Didn’t she smell?”
I shrug. “I guess. He replaced a lot of her skin with wax.”
“I hate you.” Meg’s step quickens, but she can’t run away because there are lots of tiny headstones, the kind you see a lot in old cemeteries, the kind for babies.
“Come on,” I say, “it’s a love story. In fact . . .” I stop.
“What?” Meg stops right next to a mausoleum. The sun is almost down now. I walk faster to catch up, pointing at the mausoleum.
“In fact what?” Meg says.
“In fact, she was buried right . . . here!” I grab Meg’s arm, hard. She shrieks and pulls away, then runs as fast as she can, out of the dusky graveyard. Some other tourists turn to tsk at us for spoiling the solemn mood. I laugh and run after her.
When we reach the gate, I see something that makes me gasp and stop.
It’s a house, a bed-and-breakfast, actually. The name on the sign is CAROLINE’S. It’s an old, tin-roofed building in a shade of purple so garish I can see it even in the near dark. None of that is really what I notice. What I notice is the sign, a banner hanging from a tree. It says: