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“Please?”
    â€œWe’ll see.” She flashed one last ironic grin and then shut the door in his face.
    Jake descended the steps and looked down the awakening street. His worst fears had now been confirmed—Gaia was still gone. Still off frolicking with the King of Face Creams. And he was still left with no leads. His cosmic bargaining didn’t seem to be working out.
    He took a deep breath of muggy morning air and slowly massaged his temples. His stomach churned with a frothy brew of emotions, made even more bitter by lack of sleep. Could he have brought this on himself? Maybe this was punishment for something terrible he’d done. If only he could remember what it was.
    If he ever saw Gaia again . . . No, when he saw Gaia again, he would hold her close and promise to listen to her—even her paranoid delusions about Oliver turning evil. He would be the most attentive, least argumentative, best boyfriend on the planet.
    That or he’d kick her ass.
    Snakelike Tentacles
    POST-RAIN NEW YORK WAS SMELLIER than usual, but it wasn’t without its charms. The foliage looked fresh and dewy. The sidewalks gleamed as if freshly waxed. And the buildings seemed stripped of a layer of grime, their graffiti shining bright and colorful.
    No rainbows today, though. On a whim Gaia had glanced into a nearby puddle, but all she saw was mud.
    She was walking briskly down the street, towardthe corner where she was pretty sure she’d seen a bakery, when all of a sudden she felt something grab at her ankle. Gaia hopped sideways and shook her leg. Glancing down, she realized it was only her shoelaces flapping about her leg.
    Jeez, what a spaz, she thought, stepping to the far side of the sidewalk to retie her sneaker. Will I ever stop freaking at every little thing?
    As she crouched over the slick cement, something white caught her eye. Looking closer, she saw it was a dead baby bird lying in a small pool of rainwater, the fragments of its tawny shell all around it. Gaia felt her despair returning, its cold, snakelike tentacles coiling around her organs, darkening her thoughts.
    Poor thing, she thought, staring at the lifeless bird. It was such a tiny, exquisite corpse. She was struck by the detail on each downy feather, the twisted pink twig of a leg.
    The storm must have knocked it out of the nearby tree. Little guy hadn’t had a chance. For weeks he had been snug and safe in its perfect oval sanctum and then bam! All he had gotten to know of the world outside was pain and death.
    She understood such suffering. She herself had recently burst out of her fearless cocoon into the real live world. And so far, most of what she’d come to know was agony.
    Gaia wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. Shecouldn’t leave the bird like this, dumped unceremoniously onto a grimy sidewalk. In a way, she felt like this could be her own demise she was glimpsing. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine herself lying dead in a ditch, with clueless pedestrians flinging cigarette butts and hocking loogeys on her as they passed, too busy to notice or care.
    As tenderly as she could, she scooped the frail figure into her hand. He looked so cold and wet and alone. Gaia pulled a wad of Kleenex out of her jacket pocket and carefully wrapped him in it. Then she folded the ends until he was completely shrouded.
    Now what? She peered down a nearby alley and saw just what she was looking for. Midway down, next to a large gray Dumpster, lay a spot of fresh earth between broken bits of asphalt. She walked over and dug her fingers into the damp dirt until she’d hollowed out a small grave. Then she laid him inside and covered him up.
    Should I say something? she wondered as she pressed the dirt level with the street. After all, it was a funeral—impromptu and slightly ridiculous, but still a funeral.
    She rummaged through her mind for something appropriate to say, something philosophical and