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PART ONE

All the Secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your risk. —Lemony Snicket

CHAPTER ONE

ARRESTED DECAY

California • October

Arizona cradles the figure -eight pendant between her thumb and finger and counts the days since her dad died —seventeen, the same as her age, and a prime number. A cold wave rolls from the pendant through her fingertips, up her arm, past her heart. Her chest rises and the wave breaks, coming out as a gasp, a breath cut short by pain. At once she's in a memory, sea-kayaking with her father. The swell is so deep that she glimpses him only when they are both on crests of the giant waves. All she sees are walls of water, as if the ocean has swallowed her dad along with the rest of the world.

Back in the present, her throat feels thick, her mouth gummy, so she turns from feelings to thoughts. To the soothing power of facts. Waves break when the ratio of wave height to water depth is approximately 3:4, so a six-foot wave breaks in about eight feet of water. How high is this wave? Will it ever break? Is she even getting closer to shore? Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. She looks out the window of the truck, but there is no red in the sky at all. Just gray.

Mom drives the black F 150 while Arizona's boxer, Mojo, sleeps on his dog blanket in back. They turn off Highway 395 and head east, past a sign that reads Bodie 13 miles. Dad had loved ghost towns, especially Bodie.

"What's on your mind, honey?" Mom says to cut through the fog of silence that fills the truck.

"Waves," Arizona says, then to avoid an explanation adds, "but before that I was thinking about the gathering last week."

"The celebration of life? What about it?"

"It's such a stupid name. Who wants to celebrate after someone dies?"

"It wasn't about death. It was about celebrating the time we had with him. And sharing the burden of pain."

"Sharing pain doesn't make sense. It doesn't add up, literally. When you get ten people together who are in pain, it's just ten times the pain. It's basic math."

"Feelings don't always work like math. Shared joy can be greater than the sum of its parts. And when pain is shared, the result is actually less pain. Trust me on this."

Arizona scoffs. Trust is a stone that slips midstream. She trusted her teachers, but they didn't stop the bullying. She trusted Dad when he promised to always be there for her.

"I think he'd be happy that we're back on the road, spreading his ashes in places he loved." Mom hesitates. "It's been nice so far, don't you think?"

Arizona wants to say yes but doesn't like to lie, so she nods instead— somehow, nonverbal lies don't count. At home, the rambling house and property afforded them space to process the loss in their own ways. But now traveling in the Airstream trailer, it feels like the shiny silver walls are pressing in.

She turns away from her mom and retreats into nature, a world that never lets her down. She watches the landscape change as they climb the winding canyon road, past black cottonwoods thriving in arroyos, through stands of stunted piñon pines, until they emerge into a landscape of barren scrub -flecked hills. In the distance, wooden buildings rise and grow, their weathered sides barely distinguishable from the gray earth and sky. She breathes it all into her lungs— not the scent or the air but the trees themselves, the hills, the very earth— and holds it there close to her heart.

They pass another sign— Bodie State Historic Park, Elevation 8,379 Feet— and pull into the dirt parking lot. Arizona puts Mojo on leash and grabs her daypack from the bed of the pickup.

"Can we explore together?" Mom says while she pulls her hair back through a scrunchie.

"You said you wanted to take the tour of the stamp mill. They don't allow dogs on that."

"I know, but there's plenty of time before it starts."