Daria woke up and slunk off to the pub. She selected her plaid jacket, the one that reminded her of Jane so much. She wandered through the chilly morning, the tint of rain clammy at her face. There was a man in a large cardboard robot costume in front of the pub doors, stepping out into the street jerkily.

A dog ran out in front of Daria and swept around her legs. It was a mutt, its fur brown and coarse, tinged with streaks of grey. She bent down to pet it, then thought better of it and didn't.

A car nearly clipped the man in the robot suit. It rattled down the steep hill and vanished into the distance. Watching it go, Daria caught sight of the ocean, just beyond the squat brick buildings that made up the pier. The ocean wind swept up the road and caught her hair and all of a sudden tears were springing to her eyes, tears were springing to her eyes, and she had to get inside and away.

The man in the robot costume continued his dance out into the street, selected a spot in the center, and jerkily twisted around. He put one foot against the road, then slid backwards, keeping his torso straight as a board, like a cloud was yanking on his head. The moonwalk. "Robot!" he shouted to the city.

Into the pub, the gloom fell over Daria's head, and she selected a small table next to the window. Jon, the bartender, told her it was two in the afternoon, and she told she didn't really care, told him his mom was two in the afternoon, told him we were all two in the afternoon, in our own way, just bring over a pint.

Later, she was on the rails, riding the underground, feeling the train rattle around, remembering her mother, remembering her father, remembering Quinn, remembering Jane Lane.

Then, in the haze of rememberance, she had her vision: she knew where Jane was. Through a haze of electric guitar, she could see an apartment far in another city, where Jane stood like an unprotected lamb, among hungry wolves that slithered around her. "Jane!" Daria screamed, falling forwards.

An old woman nearby shifted away from her, staring.

Daria got off at the next stop and ran up out into the streets, out into the glare of the squat brick buildings that seemed to close in too much around her. She had a sense of time working against her, that some horrible winged creature was waiting in the sky, ready to snag her if she didn't move fast enough.

Quinn was where Daria had left her, in a waitressing job in a scudgy restaurant beneath a nightclub. Daria leaned against the wall for a moment, trying to catch her breath, trying to peer through the dark room at the slender waitress, speaking to two men whose faces were obscured by shadow.

"Qui-in-in-" Daria said, then stopped herself, decided not to speak unless she could catch her breath.

When Quinn came over, her face disappeared into shadow, then reappeared, then disappeared again. Standing in front of Daria, she was a simple outline of her sister, a fragment of the past. "Daria," she said. "I told you not come here? Remember?"

"Jane," Daria said, turning, trying to breath in the stuffiness of the restaurant. The air seemed to be thick, hard to move through. "Jane's alive."

"Oh, Daria," Quinn said, disappointed.

A fan turned on somewhere, a loud staticy noise, and a car drove by the restaurant, casting a little more light through the tiny windows. In that moment, Daria could hear voices, the voices of her mother, her father, her old psychiatrists-- You had so much potential, Daria -- always so calm -- don't throw your life away into grief --

Daria felt like falling backwards, twisting out, wrenching herself away from the voices, but the moment passed, and she was back standing in the little restaurant.

"Well, I'm not going to help you in any harebrained scheme, Daria," Quinn said. "I've got my own problems."

"Quinn," Daria said, her voice coming out flat. "I only wanted to ask-- you're the only one I know here."

"So you can't make friends," Quinn said. "Maybe if you got less crazy--"

"All right," Daria said, turning and stumbling back towards the door. "I can make it on my own." She turned back and looked at Quinn. I can, you know, she wanted to say, but she didn't.

Quinn was making her way back over to the two gentlemen whose faces were in shadow.

Daria was less frantic now, walking through the streets. A idea formed like a bubble and swept up around her: what if she had imagined it? Maybe she had finally dropped off the edge? How was it that the experience of loss was so crippling. Losing someone you love--it deformed everything. Maybe she was deformed finally, and wholly.

XXX

Someone had set up a Japanese garden next to the graveyard. Daria walked through it, beneath the cool leaves and through the green light. Red paper lanterns hung from bamboo weavings, and the world turned scarlet as she wandered beneath them.

There was a small pool through an opening, and a bridge led over it into the graveyard. A small Japanese woman sat next to the pool, plucking at an instrument.

A small marble table sat on the grass in front of her. She reached forward and took a cup of tea from the table, sipped it, set it down, and continued plucking at the instrument.

Daria passed over the bridge like in a dream. Moving into the graveyard, a flock of fireflies coiled around her and lifted up into the trees, pretending to be spirits leaving the world. Here, the graveyard was soothing and calming. Daria hadn't minded wandering through cemetaries before, thought it a pretty good diversion.

But here, as she headed towards Jane's grave, there was a change. The grass turned brown, and then grey, and here the trees had no leaves, and the sky was simply a jagged hole in the world. The wind that struck across these hills was bittlerly cold, and Daria doubled over, trying to keep going.

When she saw Jane's grave, she started to scream, and then roar, and then howl.

The grave was empty.

XXX

She must have passed out. Daria had the sensation of being carried through cool blues and greens. When she let her hand drop, she felt lush grasses brush her finger.

Finally, she woke fully, and found herself seated in a large forest. It took her a moment, blinking, to realize she was in the park, in the thickest part of the park, where rainforest and city seem to meet. She could hear frogs croaking somewhere in the distance.

Who had carried her there? She leaned forwards, trying to peer into the dark. She could see waving fronds, and rocks, and roots, and tree trunks. She could see a figure perched on one of the larger trunks, peering at her. Daria tried to raise her usual acid, ready to retaliate verbally to anything this creep might try to say.

"You've seen the grave," the figure said.

"Mack?" Daria said, with growing wonderment. "Yeah, I saw the grave. Apparently, Jane decided to check out early."

Mack leapt into view, grinning. His eyes flashed with excitement. "Or she was taken," he said.

"Exhumed," Daria muttered. She touched her face. "Oh Christ, Janie."

"Maybe." Mack stretched to his full height and paced ahead. "Maybe not."

"Mack--" Daria said. "You're not supposed to be here. You graduated from Vance, I thought--"

"Yeah, you'd think." Mack leapt up onto another tree trunk and stroked his chin. "What we need to consider is who would have taken Jane-- or even if she was even dead to begin with."

"I saw her body."

"You saw a body."

"Why would-- that's insane, why would-- you're suggesting Jane faked her death?"

"I came here to pay my respects and found an open grave. What else would I think?"

"You came here? To this shithole of a city?"

"Business opportunities."

"Business opportunities--"

"Yeah. Listen, we need to find out what happened to Jane, and I think I know who to speak to first."

"The Oracle at Delphi?"

"Even better." He winked. "Trent."