She awoke to the sound of whispering once again, but this was a voice she recognized—that of her grandmother. The words were clear too: “Black feathers for luck. Black feathers to guide you.”

“Gran?” Ari called. She walked into her grandmother’s room and found her window open, curtains dancing gently in the wind. The moon, high in the sky above the tall trees that surrounded their cabin, cut a clear path through the window, across the empty bed to the altar that Gran kept: an assortment of pine cones, sea glass, dried flowers, and old mementos that sat atop the foot locker Grandpa had used in the war. Gran’s pine incense burned, but the space in front of the altar where Gran usually sat in a circle of salt was as empty as her pale blue sheets.

“Black feathers for strength. Black feathers to help you find her.”

“Gran?” Ari cried out again, this time desperate. She glanced at the jar on the altar where Gran kept the black feathers that Ari and Dee used to find in the woods and present to her like gifts. The feathers, like Gran, were missing.

“Black feathers for luck. Black feathers to guide you,” Gran’s disembodied voice repeated. It seemed to be coming from the living room, so Ari followed it. There was no sign of Gran, but the door was wide open, a trail of black feathers leading outside. It ended in the yard, in front of a large man clad in black on a motorcycle.

Ari froze momentarily, thinking of the roar of engines from last night, but the man nodded and held out a single feather to her.

Black feathers for strength,” Gran’s voice said in Ari’s head.

She accepted the feather and held it close to her chest.

Black feathers to help you find her.

Ari nodded back to the man and he pointed to the motorcycle he was parked beside—the one Ari’s grandfather had left to her, the one she’d learned to ride before it was legal, before Grandpa died. There were two more feathers on the ground in front of it. Ari picked them up and tucked all of the feathers into the pocket of the leather jacket she just realized she was wearing. She had her boots on, too—apparently she’d been so tired that she’d fallen asleep fully clothed.

She took a deep breath and got on her bike, following the big man down the dirt road to the paved road, which unfurled in front of them like a silky black ribbon. The trees—tall, majestic firs—towered over them, blotting out the moon in most places. Eventually the trees thinned, replaced by gas stations, houses, and strip malls. Ari followed the bike in front of her onto the freeway and then off, back onto streets where buildings were packed together even tighter than trees.

They arrived at a building with fierce guitar noise blaring from it. It looked more like an old house than the fancy nightclubs that Dee had daydreamed about, but sometimes what was on the outside did not reflect the inside. Ari took another deep breath as she removed her helmet and followed her guide inside. Music screamed around her. A wall of sound constantly built up and smashed into pieces. The guitars were jackhammers. Ari liked this sort of music. Dee did, too. Dee had to be here. Ari was so sure of it that she wanted to run into the room the music was coming from, but a girl with a face full of metal studs and rings and hair so white it was colorless stopped her and asked for ID.

“I, uh…” Ari fumbled in her pockets. She remembered now that Dee’s new friends had gotten Dee a fake. Surely Ari’s real ID would get her kicked right out.

The girl leaned forward and purred, “ID plus a gift works, too.”

Ari clutched one of the feathers in her hand wishing that it was something the girl would want. As she withdrew it, doubtful that the girl would accept her offering, the girl’s pierced lips pulled into a smile. Instead of the feather, the skull ring that had belonged to her grandfather was in Ari’s hand; it must have been at the bottom of her pocket.

“That’s fucking awesome,” the white-haired girl told her. “If you give me that, I’ll let you in any night I’m working.”

Ari hesitated for a moment, hating to give up something of Grandpa’s, but she reminded herself that she still had his bike, and that she would give anything to find Dee. She watched the tiny rubies in the skull’s eye sockets twinkle as the girl drew an “X” on her hand and motioned Ari through the door.