Delirium
LAUREN OLIVER
Includes author Q & A and
sneak peek at the sequel,
Pandemonium
Dedication
For all the people who have infected me with
amor deliria nervosa in the past—
you know who you are.
For the people who will infect me in the future—
I can’t wait to see who you’ll be.
And in both cases:
Thank you.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Acknowledgments
Bonus Material
An Exclusive Q & A with Lauren Oliver
Pandemonium
Now
Then
Back Ad
About the Author
Also by Lauren Oliver
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher

I
Chapter One
The most dangerous sicknesses are those that
make us believe we are well.
—Proverb 42, The Book of Shhh
t has been sixty-four years since the president and the
Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three
since the scientists perfected a cure. Everyone else in my
family has had the procedure already. My older sister,
Rachel, has been disease free for nine years now. She’s
been safe from love for so long, she says she can’t even
remember its symptoms. I’m scheduled to have my
procedure in exactly ninety-five days, on September 3. My
birthday.
Many people are afraid of the procedure. Some people
even resist. But I’m not afraid. I can’t wait. I would have it
done tomorrow, if I could, but you have to be at least
eighteen, sometimes a little older, before the scientists will
cure you. Otherwise the procedure won’t work correctly:
People end up with brain damage, partial paralysis,
blindness, or worse.
I don’t like to think that I’m still walking around with the
disease running through my blood. Sometimes I swear I
can feel it writhing in my veins like something spoiled, like
sour milk. It makes me feel dirty. It reminds me of children
throwing tantrums. It reminds me of resistance, of diseased
girls dragging their nails on the pavement, tearing out their
hair, their mouths dripping spit.
And of course it reminds me of my mother.
After the procedure I will be happy and safe forever.
That’s what everybody says, the scientists and my sister
and Aunt Carol. I will have the procedure and then I’ll be
paired with a boy the evaluators choose for me. In a few
years, we’ll get married. Recently I’ve started having
dreams about my wedding. In them I’m standing under a
white canopy with flowers in my hair. I’m holding hands with
someone, but whenever I turn to look at him his face blurs,
like a camera losing focus, and I can’t make out any
features. But his hands are cool and dry, and my heart is
beating steadily in my chest—and in my dream I know it will
always beat out that same rhythm, not skip or jump or swirl
or go faster, just womp, womp, womp, until I’m dead.
Safe, and free from pain.
Things weren’t always as good as they are now. In
school we learned that in the old days, the dark days,
people didn’t realize how deadly a disease love was. For a
long time they even viewed it as a good thing, something to
be celebrated and pursued. Of course that’s one of the
reasons it’s so dangerous: It affects your mind so that you
cannot think clearly, or make rational decisions about
your own well-being. (That’s symptom number twelve, listed
in the amor deliria nervosa section of the twelfth edition of
The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook, or The
Book of Shhh, as we call it.) Instead people back then
named other diseases—stress, heart disease, anxiety,
depression, hypertension, insomnia, bipolar disorder—
never realizing that these were, in fact, only symptoms that
in the majority of cases could be traced back to the effects
of amor deliria nervosa.
Of course we aren’t yet totally free from the deliria in the
United States. Until the procedure has been perfected, until
it has been made safe for the under-eighteens, we will
never be totally protected. It still moves around us with
invisible, sweeping tentacles, choking us. I’ve seen
countless uncureds dragged to their procedures, so racked
and ravaged by love that they would rather tear their eyes
out, or try to impale themselves on the barbed-wire fences
outside of the laboratories, than be without it.
Several years ago on the day of her procedure, one girl
managed to slip from her restraints and find her way to the
laboratory roof. She dropped quickly, without screaming.
For days afterward, they broadcast the image of the dead
girl’s face on television to remind us of the dangers of the
deliria. Her eyes were open and her neck was twisted at an
unnatural angle, but from the way her cheek was resting
against the pavement you might otherwise think she had
lain down to take a nap. Surprisingly, there was very little
blood—just a small dark trickle at the corners of her mouth.
Ninety-five days, and then I’ll be safe. I’m nervous, of
course. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to
get it over with. It’s hard to be patient. It’s hard not to be
afraid while I’m still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn’t
touched me yet.
Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove
people to madness. That’s bad enough. The Book of Shhh
also tells stories of those who died because of love lost or
never found, which is what terrifies me the most.
The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when
you have it and when you don’t.

T
Chapter Two
We must be constantly on guard against the
Disease;
the health of our nation, our people, our families,
and our minds depends on constant vigilance.
—“Basic Health Measures,” The Safety, Health,
and Happiness Handbook, 12th edition
he smell of oranges has always reminded me of
funerals. On the morning of my evaluation it is the smell
that wakes me up. I look at the clock on the bedside
table. It’s six o’clock.
The light is gray, the sunlight just strengthening along the
walls of the bedroom I share with both of my cousin
Marcia’s children. Grace, the younger one, is crouched on
her twin bed, already dressed, watching me. She has a
whole orange in one hand. She is trying to gnaw on it, like
an apple, with her little-kid teeth. My stomach twists, and I
have to close my eyes again to keep from remembering the
hot, scratchy dress I was forced to wear when my mother
died; to keep from remembering the murmur of voices, a
large, rough hand passing me orange after orange to suck
on, so I would stay quiet. At the funeral I ate four oranges,
section by section, and when I was left with only a pile of
peelings heaped on my lap I began to suck on those, the
bitter taste of the pith helping to keep the tears away.
I open my eyes and Grace leans forward, the orange
cupped in her outstretched palm.
“No, Gracie.” I push off my covers and stand up. My
stomach is clenching and unclenching like a fist. “And
you’re not supposed to eat the peel, you know.”
She continues blinking up at me with her big gray eyes,
not saying anything. I sigh and sit down next to her. “Here,” I
say, and show her how to peel the orange using her nail,
unwinding bright orange curls and dropping them in her lap,
the whole time trying to hold my breath against the smell.
She watches me in silence. When I’m finished she holds
the orange, now unpeeled, in both hands, as though it’s a
glass ball and she’s worried about breaking it.
I nudge her. “Go ahead. Eat now.” She just stares at it
and I sigh and begin separating the sections for her, one by
one. As I do I whisper, as gently as possible, “You know, the
others would be nicer to you if you would speak once in a
while.”
She doesn’t respond. Not that I really expect her to. My
aunt Carol hasn’t heard her say a word in the whole six
years and three months of Grace’s life—not a single
syllable. Carol thinks there’s something wrong with her
brain, but so far the doctors haven’t found it. “She’s as
dumb as a rock,” Carol said matter-of-factly just the other
day, watching Grace turn a bright-colored block over and
over in her hands, as though it was beautiful and
miraculous, as though she expected it to turn suddenly into
something else.
I stand up and go toward the window, moving away from
Grace and her big, staring eyes and thin, quick fingers. I
feel sorry for her.
Marcia, Grace’s mother, is dead now. She always said
she never wanted children in the first place. That’s one of
the downsides of the procedure; in the absence of deliria
nervosa, some people find parenting distasteful. Thankfully,
cases of full-blown detachment—where a mother or father
is unable to bond normally, dutifully, and responsibly with
his or her children, and winds up drowning them or sitting
on their windpipes or beating them to death when they cry
—are few.
But two was the number of children the evaluators
decided on for Marcia. At the time it seemed like a good
choice. Her family had earned high stabilization marks in
the annual review. Her husband, a scientist, was well
respected. They lived in an enormous house on Winter
Street. Marcia cooked every meal from scratch, and taught
piano lessons in her spare time, to keep busy.
But, of course, when Marcia’s husband was suspected of
being a sympathizer, everything changed. Marcia and her
children, Jenny and Grace, had to move back with Marcia’s
mother, my aunt Carol, and people whispered and pointed
at them everywhere they went. Grace wouldn’t remember
that, of course; I’d be surprised if she has any memories of
her parents at all.
her parents at all.
Marcia’s husband disappeared before his trial could
begin. It’s probably a good thing he did. The trials are
mostly for show. Sympathizers are almost always executed.
If not, they’re locked away in the Crypts to serve three life
sentences, back-to-back. Marcia knew that, of course. Aunt
Carol thinks that’s the reason her heart gave out only a few
months after her husband’s disappearance, when she was
indicted in his place. A day after she got served the papers
she was walking down the street and—bam! Heart attack.
Hearts are fragile things. That’s why you have to be so
careful.
It will be hot today, I can tell. It’s already hot in the
bedroom, and when I crack the window to sweep out the
smell of orange, the air outside feels as thick and heavy as
a tongue. I suck in deeply, inhaling the clean smell of
seaweed and damp wood, listening to the distant cries of
the seagulls as they circle endlessly, somewhere beyond
the low, gray, sloping buildings, over the bay. Outside, a car
engine guns to life. The sound startles me, and I jump.
“Nervous about your evaluation?”
I turn around. My aunt Carol is standing in the doorway,
her hands folded.
“No,” I say, though this is a lie.
She smiles, just barely, a brief, flitting thing. “Don’t worry.
You’ll be fine. Take your shower and then I’ll help you with
your hair. We can review your answers on the way.”
“Okay.” My aunt continues to stare at me. I squirm,
digging my nails into the windowsill behind me. I’ve always
hated being looked at. Of course, I’ll have to get used to it.
During the exam there will be four evaluators staring at me
for close to two hours. I’ll be wearing a flimsy plastic gown,
semitranslucent, like the kind you get in hospitals, so that
they can see my body.
“A seven or an eight, I would say,” my aunt says,
puckering her lips. It’s a decent score and I’d be happy with
it. “Though you won’t get more than a six if you don’t get
cleaned up.”
Senior year is almost over, and the evaluation is the final
test I will take. For the past four months I’ve had all my
various board exams—math, science, oral and written
proficiency, sociology and psychology and photography (a
specialty
elective)—and I should be getting my scores sometime in
the next few weeks. I’m pretty sure I did well enough to get
assigned to a college. I’ve always been a decent student.
The academic assessors will analyze my strengths and
weaknesses, and then assign me to a school and a major.
The evaluation is the last step, so I can get paired. In the
coming months the evaluators will send me a list of four or
five approved matches. One of them will become my
husband after I graduate college (assuming I pass all my
boards. Girls who don’t pass get paired and married right
out of high school). The evaluators will do their best to
match me with people who received a similar score in the
evaluations. As much as possible they try to avoid any huge
disparities in intelligence, temperament, social
background, and age. Of course you do hear occasional
horror stories: cases where a poor eighteen-year-old girl is
given to a wealthy eighty-year-old man.
The stairs let out their awful moaning, and Grace’s sister,
Jenny, appears. She is nine and tall for her age, but very
thin: all angles and elbows, her chest caving in like a
warped sheet pan. It’s terrible to say, but I don’t like her very
much. She has the same pinched look as her mother did.
She joins my aunt in the doorway and stares at me. I am
only five-two and Jenny is, amazingly, just a few inches
shorter than I am now. It’s silly to feel self-conscious in front
of my aunt and cousins, but a hot, crawling itch begins to
work its way up my arms. I know they’re all worried about
my performance at the evaluation. It’s critical that I get
paired with someone good. Jenny and Grace are years
away from their procedures. If I marry well, in a few years it
will mean extra money for the family. It might also make the
whispers go away, singsong snatches that four years after
the scandal still seem to follow us wherever we go, like the
sound of rustling leaves carried on the wind: Sympathizer.
Sympathizer. Sympathizer.
It’s only slightly better than the other word that followed
me for years after my mom’s death, a snakelike hiss,
undulating, leaving its trail of poison: Suicide. A sideways
word, a word that people whisper and mutter and cough: a
word that must be squeezed out behind cupped palms or
murmured behind closed doors. It was only in my dreams
that I heard the word shouted, screamed.
I take a deep breath, then duck down to pull the plastic
bin from under my bed so that my aunt won’t see I’m
bin from under my bed so that my aunt won’t see I’m
shaking.
“Is Lena getting married today?” Jenny asks my aunt. Her
voice has always reminded me of bees droning flatly in the
heat.
“Don’t be stupid,” my aunt says, but without irritation.
“You know she can’t marry until she’s cured.”
I take my towel from the bin and straighten up. That word
—marry—makes my mouth go dry. Everyone marries as
soon as they are done with their education. It’s the way
things are. “Marriage is Order and Stability, the mark of a
Healthy
society.” (See The Book of Shhh, “Fundamentals of
Society,” p. 114). But the thought of it still makes my heart
flutter frantically, like an insect behind glass. I’ve never
touched a boy, of course—physical contact between
uncureds of opposite sex is forbidden. Honestly, I’ve never
even talked to a boy for longer than five minutes, unless you
count my cousins and uncle and Andrew Marcus, who helps
my uncle at the Stop-N-Save and is always picking his
nose and wiping his snot on the underside of the canned
vegetables.
And if I don’t pass my boards—please God, please
God, let me pass them—I’ll have my wedding as soon as
I’m cured, in less than three months. Which means I’ll have
my wedding night.
The smell of oranges is still strong, and my stomach
does another swoop. I bury my face in my towel and inhale,
willing myself not to be sick.
From downstairs there is the clatter of dishes. My aunt
sighs and checks her watch.
“We have to leave in less than an hour,” she says. “You’d
better get moving.”

M
Chapter Three
Lord, help us root our feet to the earth
And our eyes to the road
And always remember the fallen angels
Who, attempting to soar,
Were seared instead by the sun and, wings melting,
Came crashing back to the sea.
Lord, help root my eyes to the earth
And stay my eyes to the road
So I may never stumble.
—Psalm 24
(From “Prayer and Study,” The Book of Shhh)
y aunt insists on walking me down to the laboratories,
which, like all the government offices, are lumped
together along the wharves: a string of bright white
buildings, glistening like teeth over the slurping mouth of the
ocean. When I was little and had just moved in with her, she
used to walk me to school every day. My mother, sister, and
I had lived closer to the border, and I was amazed and
terrified by all the winding, darkened streets, which smelled
like garbage and old fish. I always wished for my aunt to
hold my hand, but she never did, and I had balled my hands
into fists and followed the hypnotic swish of her corduroy
pants, dreading the moment that St. Anne’s Academy for
Girls would rise up over the crest of the final hill, the dark
stone building lined with fissures and cracks like the
weather-beaten face of one of the industrial fishermen who
work along the docks.
It’s amazing how things change. I’d been terrified of the
streets of Portland then, and reluctant to leave my aunt’s
side. Now I know them so well I could follow their dips and
curves with my eyes closed, and today I want nothing more
than to be alone. I can smell the ocean, though it’s
concealed from view by the twisting undulations of the
streets, and it relaxes me. The salt blowing off the sea
makes the air feel textured and heavy.
“Remember,” she is saying for the thousandth time, “they
want to know about your personality, yes, but the more
generalized your answers the better chance you have of
being considered for a variety of positions.” My aunt has
always talked about marriage with words straight out of
The Book of Shhh, words like duty, responsibility, and
perseverance.
“Got it,” I say. A bus barrels past us. The crest for St.
Anne’s Academy is stenciled along its side and I duck my
head quickly, imagining Cara McNamara or Hillary Packer
staring out the dirt-encrusted windows, giggling and
pointing at me. Everyone knows I am having my evaluation
today. Only four are offered throughout the year, and slots
are determined well in advance.
The makeup Aunt Carol insisted I wear makes my skin
feel coated and slick. In the bathroom mirror at home, I
thought I looked like a fish, especially with my hair all
pinned with metal bobby pins and clips: a fish with a bunch
of metal hooks sticking in my head.
I don’t like makeup, have never been interested in
clothes or lip gloss. My best friend, Hana, thinks I’m crazy,
but of course she would. She’s absolutely gorgeous—even
when she just twists her blond hair into a messy knot on the
top of her head, she looks as though she’s just had it styled.
I’m not ugly, but I’m not pretty, either. Everything is inbetween.
I have eyes that aren’t green or brown, but a
muddle. I’m not thin, but I’m not fat, either. The only thing you
could definitely say about me is this: I’m short.
“If they ask you, God forbid, about your cousins,
remember to say that you didn’t know them well… .”
“Uh-huh.” I’m only half listening. It’s hot, too hot for June,
and sweat is pricking up already on my lower back and in
my armpits, even though I slathered on deodorant this
morning. To our right is Casco Bay, which is hemmed in by
Peaks Island and Great Diamond Island, where the lookout
towers are. Beyond that is open ocean—and beyond that,
all the crumbling countries and cities ruined by the disease.
“Lena? Are you even listening to me?” Carol puts a hand
on my arm and spins me in her direction.
“Blue,” I parrot back at her. “Blue is my favorite color. Or
green.” Black is too morbid; red will set them on edge; pink
is too juvenile; orange is freakish.
“And the things you like to do in your free time?”
I gently slip away from her grasp. “We’ve gone over this
already.”
“This is important, Lena. Possibly the most important day
of your whole life.”
I sigh. Ahead of me the gates that bar the government
labs swing open slowly with a mechanized whine. There is
already a double line forming: on one side, the girls, and
fifty feet away, at a second entrance, the boys. I squint
against the sun, trying to locate people I know, but the
ocean has dazzled me and my vision is clouded by floating
black spots.
“Lena?” my aunt prompts me.
I take a deep breath and launch into the spiel we’ve
rehearsed a billion times. “I like to work on the school
paper. I’m interested in photography because I like the way
it captures and preserves a single moment of time. I enjoy
hanging out with my friends and attending concerts at
Deering Oaks Park. I like to run and was a co-captain of
the cross-country team for two years. I hold the school
record in the 5K event. I often babysit the younger members
of my family, and I really like children.”
“You’re making a face,” my aunt says.
“I love children,” I repeat, plastering a smile on my face.
The truth is, I don’t like very many children except for
Gracie. They’re so bumpy and loud all the time, and they’re
always grabbing things and dribbling and wetting
themselves. But I know I’ll have to have children of my own
someday.
“Better,” Carol says. “Go on.”
I finish, “My favorite subjects are math and history,” and
she nods, satisfied.
“Lena!”
I turn around. Hana is just climbing out of her parents’
car, her blond hair flying in wisps and waves around her
face, her semi-sheer tunic slipping off one tan shoulder. All
the girls and boys lining up to enter the labs have turned to
watch her. Hana has that kind of power over people.
“Lena! Wait!” Hana continues barreling down the street,
waving at me frantically. Behind her, the car begins a slow
revolution: back and forth, back and forth, in the narrow
drive until it is facing the opposite direction. Hana’s
parents’ car is as sleek and dark as a panther. The few
times we’ve driven around in it together I’ve felt like a
princess. Hardly anyone has cars anymore, and even fewer
have cars that actually drive. Oil is is strictly rationed and
extremely expensive. Some
middle-class people keep cars mounted in front of their
houses like statues, frigid and unused, the tires spotless
and unworn.
“Hi, Carol,” Hana says breathlessly, catching up to us. A
magazine pops out of her half-open bag, and she stoops to
retrieve it. It’s one of the government publications, Home
and Family, and in response to my raised eyebrows she
makes a face. “Mom made me bring it. She said I should
read it while I’m waiting for my evaluation. She said it will
give the right impression.” Hana sticks her finger down her
throat and mimes gagging.
“Hana,” my aunt whispers fiercely. The anxiety in her
voice makes my heart skip. Carol hardly ever loses her
temper, even for a minute. She whips her head in both
directions, as though expecting to find regulators or
evaluators lurking in the bright morning street.
“Don’t worry. They’re not spying on us.” Hana turns her
back to my aunt and mouths to me, Yet. Then she grins.
In front of us, the double line of girls and boys is growing
longer, extending into the street, even as the glass-fronted
doors of the labs swoosh open and several nurses appear,
carrying clipboards, and begin to usher people into the
waiting rooms. My aunt rests one hand on my elbow lightly,
quick as a bird.
“You’d better get on line,” she says. Her voice is back to
normal. I wish some of her calmness would rub off on me.
“And Lena?”
“Yeah?” I don’t feel very well. The labs look far away, so
white I can hardly stand to look at them, the pavement
shimmering hot in front of us. The words most important
day of your life keep repeating in my head. The sun feels
like a giant spotlight.
“Good luck.” My aunt does her one-millisecond smile.
“Thanks.” I kind of wish Carol would say something else
—something like, I’m sure you’ll do great, or Try not to
worry—but she just stands there, blinking, her face
composed and unreadable as always.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Tiddle.” Hana winks at me. “I’ll make
sure she doesn’t screw up too badly. Promise.”
All my nervousness dissipates. Hana is so relaxed about
the whole thing, so nonchalant and normal.
Hana and I go down toward the labs together. Hana is
almost five-nine. When I walk next to her I have to do a half
skip every other step to keep up with her, and I wind up
feeling like a duck bobbing up and down in the water.
Today I don’t mind, though. I’m glad she’s with me. I’d be a
complete wreck otherwise.
“God,” she says, as we get close to the lines. “Your aunt
takes this whole thing pretty seriously, huh?”
“Well, it is serious.” We join the back of the line. I see a
few people I recognize: some girls I know vaguely from
school; some guys I’ve seen playing soccer behind
Spencer Prep, one of the boys’ schools. A boy looks my
way and sees me staring. He raises his eyebrows and I
drop my eyes quickly, my face going hot all at once and a
nervous itch working in my stomach. You’ll be paired in
less than three months, I tell myself, but the words don’t
mean anything and seem ridiculous, like one of the Mad
Libs games we played as children that always resulted in
nonsensical statements: I want banana for speedboat.
Give my wet shoe to your blistering cupcake.
“Yeah, I know. Trust me, I’ve read The Book of Shhh as
much as anyone.” Hana pushes her sunglasses up onto her
forehead and bats her eyelashes at me, making her voice
supersweet: “‘Evaluation Day is the exciting rite of passage
that prepares you for a future of happiness, stability, and
partnership.’” She drops her sunglasses back down on her
nose and makes a face.
“You don’t believe it?” I lower my voice to a whisper.
Hana has been strange recently. She was always
different from other people—more outspoken, more
independent, more fearless. It’s one of the reasons I first
wanted to be her friend. I’ve always been shy, and afraid
that I’ll say or do the wrong thing. Hana is the opposite.
But lately it’s been more than that. She’s stopped caring
about school, for one thing, and has been called to the
principal’s office several times for talking back to the
teachers. And sometimes in the middle of talking she’ll
stop, just shut her mouth as though she’s run up against a
barrier. Other times I’ll catch her staring out at the ocean as
though she’s thinking of swimming away.
Looking at her now, at her clear gray eyes and her mouth
as thin and taut as a bowstring, I feel a tug of fear. I think of
my mother floundering for a second in the air before
dropping like a stone into the ocean; I think about the face
of the girl who dropped from the laboratory roof all those
years ago, her cheek turned against the pavement. I will
away thoughts of the illness. Hana isn’t sick. She can’t be. I
would know.
“If they really want us to be happy, they’d let us pick
ourselves,” Hana grumbles.
“Hana,” I say sharply. Criticizing the system is the worst
offense there is. “Take it back.”
She holds up her hands. “All right, all right. I take it back.”
“You know it doesn’t work. Look how it was in the old
days. Chaos all the time, fighting, and war. People were
miserable.”
“I said, I take it back.” She smiles at me, but I’m still mad
and I look away.
“Besides,” I go on, “they do give us a choice.”
Usually the evaluators generate a list of four or five
approved matches, and you are allowed to pick among
them. This way, everyone is happy. In all the years that the
procedure has been administered and the marriages
arranged, there have been fewer than a dozen divorces in
Maine, less than a thousand in the entire United States—
and in almost all those cases, either the husband or wife
was suspected of being a sympathizer and divorce was
necessary and approved by the state.
“A limited choice,” she corrects me. “We get to choose
from the people who have been chosen for us.”
“Every choice is limited,” I snap. “That’s life.”
She opens her mouth as though she’s going to respond,
but instead she just starts to laugh. Then she reaches down
and squeezes my hand, two quick pumps and then two long
ones. It’s our old sign, a habit we developed in the second
grade when one of us was scared or upset, a way of
saying, I’m here, don’t worry.
“Okay, okay. Don’t get defensive. I love the evaluations,
okay? Long live Evaluation Day.”
“That’s better,” I say, but I’m still feeling anxious and
annoyed. The line shuffles slowly forward. We pass the iron
gates, with their complicated crown of barbed wire, and
enter the long driveway that leads to the various lab
enter the long driveway that leads to the various lab
complexes. We are headed for Building 6-C. The boys go
to 6-B, and the lines begin to curve away from each other.
As we move closer to the front of the line, we get a blast
of air-conditioning every time the glass doors slide open
and then hum shut. It feels amazing, like being momentarily
dipped head to toe in a thin sheet of ice, popsicle-style,
and I turn around and lift my ponytail away from my neck,
wishing it weren’t so damn hot. We don’t have airconditioning
at home, just tall, gawky fans that are always
sputtering out in the middle of the night. And most of the
time Carol won’t even let us use those; they suck up too
much electricity, she says, and we don’t have any to spare.
At last there are only a few people in front of us. A nurse
comes out of the building, carrying a stack of clipboards
and a handful of pens, and begins distributing them along
the line.
“Please make sure to fill out all required information,” she
says, “including your medical and family history.”
My heart begins to work its way up into my throat. The
neatly numbered boxes on the page—Last Name, First
Name, Middle Initial, Current Address, Age—collapse
together. I’m glad Hana is in front of me. She begins filling
out the forms quickly, resting the clipboard on her forearm,
her pen skating over the paper.
“Next.”
The doors whoosh open again, and a second nurse
appears and gestures for Hana to come inside. In the dark
coolness beyond her, I can see a bright white waiting room
with a green carpet.
with a green carpet.
“Good luck,” I say to Hana.
She turns and gives me a quick smile. But I can tell she
is nervous, finally. There is a fine crease between her
eyebrows, and she is chewing on the corner of her lip.
She starts to enter the lab and then turns abruptly and
walks back to me, her face wild and unfamiliar-looking,
grabbing me with both shoulders, putting her mouth directly
to my ear. I’m so startled I drop my clipboard.
“You know you can’t be happy unless you’re unhappy
sometimes, right?” she whispers, and her voice is hoarse,
as though she’s just been crying.
“What?” Her nails are digging into my shoulders, and at
that moment I’m terrified of her.
“You can’t be really happy unless you’re unhappy
sometimes. You know that, right?”
Before I can respond she releases me, and as she pulls
away, her face is as serene and beautiful and composed
as ever. She bends down to scoop up my clipboard, which
she passes to me, smiling. Then she turns around and is
gone behind the glass doors, which open and close behind
her as smoothly as the surface of water, sucking closed
over something that is sinking.

B
Chapter Four
The devil stole into the Garden of Eden.
He carried with him the disease—amor deliria
nervosa—
in the form of a seed. It grew and flowered into a
magnificent apple tree, which bore apples as
bright as blood.
—From Genesis: A Complete History of the
World
and the Known Universe, by Steven Horace,
PhD,
Harvard University
y the time the nurse admits me into the waiting room,
Hana is gone—vanished down one of the antiseptic
white hallways and whisked behind one of the dozens of
identical white doors—although there are about a halfdozen
other girls milling around, waiting. One girl is sitting
in a chair, hunched over her clipboard, scribbling and
crossing out her answers, and then rescribbling. Another
girl is frantically asking a nurse about the difference
between “chronic medical conditions” and “pre-existing
medical conditions.” She looks like she’s on the verge of
having some kind of fit—a vein is standing out on her
forehead and her voice is rising hysterically—and I wonder
whether she’s going to list a tendency toward excessive
anxiety on her sheet.
It’s not funny, but I feel like laughing. I bring my hand to my
face, snorting into my palm. I tend to get giggly when I’m
extremely nervous. During tests at school I’m always getting
in trouble for laughing. I wonder if I should have marked that
down.
A nurse takes my clipboard from me and flips through the
pages, checking to see that I haven’t left any answers
blank.
“Lena Haloway?” she says in the bright, clipped voice
that all nurses seem to share, like it’s part of their medical
training.
“Uh-huh,” I say, and then quickly correct myself. My aunt
has told me that the evaluators will expect a certain degree
of formality. “Yes. That’s me.” It’s still strange to hear my
real name, Haloway, and a dull feeling settles at the bottom
of my stomach. For the past decade I’ve gone by my aunt’s
name, Tiddle. Even though it’s a pretty stupid last name—
Hana once said it reminded her of a little-kid word for
peeing—at least it isn’t associated with my mother and
father. At least the Tiddles are a real family. The Haloways
are nothing but a memory. But for official purposes I have to
use my birth name.
“Follow me.” The nurse gestures down one of the
hallways, and I follow the neat tick-tock of her heels down
the linoleum. The halls are blindingly bright. The butterflies
are working their way up from my stomach into my head,
making me feel dizzy, and I try to calm myself by imagining
the ocean outside, its ragged breathing, the seagulls
turning pinwheels in the sky.
It will be over soon, I tell myself. It will be over soon and
then you’ll go home, and you’ll never have to think about
the evaluation again.
The hallway seems to go on forever. Up ahead a door
opens and shuts, and a moment later, as we turn a corner,
a girl brushes past us. Her face is red and she’s obviously
been crying. She must be done with her evaluation already.
I recognize her, vaguely, as one of the first girls admitted.
I can’t help but feel sorry for her. Evaluations typically last
anywhere from half an hour to two hours, but it’s common
wisdom that the longer the evaluators keep you, the better
you’re doing. Of course, that isn’t always true. Two years
ago Marcy Davies was famously in and out of the lab in
forty-five
minutes, and she scored a perfect ten. And last year Corey
Winde scored an all-time record for longest evaluation—
three and a half hours—and still received only a three.
There’s a system behind the evaluations, obviously, but
there’s always a degree of randomness to them too.
Sometimes it seems the whole process is designed to be
as intimidating and confusing as possible.
I have a sudden fantasy of running through these clean,
sterile hallways, kicking in all the doors. Then, immediately,
I feel guilty. This is the worst of all possible times to be
having doubts about the evaluations, and I mentally curse
Hana. This is her fault, for saying those things to me
outside. You can’t be happy unless you’re unhappy
sometimes. A limited choice. We get to choose from the
people who have been chosen for us.
I’m glad the choice is made for us. I’m glad I don’t have
to choose—but more than that, I’m glad I don’t have to
make someone else choose me. It would be okay for Hana,
of course, if things were still the way they were in the old
days. Hana, with her golden, halo hair, and bright gray
eyes, and perfect straight teeth, and her laugh that makes
everyone in a two-mile radius whip around and look at her
and laugh too. Even clumsiness looks good on Hana; it
makes you want to reach out a hand to help her or scoop
up her books. When I trip on my own feet or spill coffee
down the front of my shirt, people look away. You can
almost see them thinking, What a mess. And whenever I’m
around strangers my mind goes fuzzy and damp and gray,
like streets starting to thaw after a hard snow—unlike Hana,
who always knows just what to say.
No guy in his right mind would ever choose me when
there are people like Hana in the world: It would be like
settling for a stale cookie when what you really want is a big
bowl of ice cream, whipped cream and cherries and
chocolate sprinkles included. So I’ll be happy to receive my
neat, printed sheet of “Approved Matches.” At least it
means I’ll end up with somebody. It won’t matter if nobody
ever thinks I’m pretty (although sometimes I wish, just for a
second, that somebody would). It wouldn’t matter if I had
one eye.
“In here.” The nurse stops, finally, outside a door that
looks identical to all the others. “You can leave your clothing
and things in the antechamber. Please put on the gown that
is provided for you, with the opening to the back. Feel free
to take a moment, have some water, do some meditation.”
I imagine hundreds and hundreds of girls sitting crosslegged
on the floor, hands cupped on their knees, chanting
om, and have to stifle another wild urge to laugh.
“Please be aware, however, that the longer you take to
prepare, the less time your evaluators will have to get to
know you.”
She smiles tightly. Everything about her is tight: her skin,
her eyes, her lab coat. She is looking straight at me, but I
have the impression that she isn’t really focusing, that in her
mind she’s already tick-tocking her way back to the waiting
room, ready to bring yet another girl down yet another
hallway, and give her this same spiel. I feel very lonely,
surrounded by these thick walls that muffle all sounds,
insulated from the sun and the wind and the heat, all of it
perfect and unnatural.
“When you’re ready, go on through the blue door. The
evaluators will be waiting for you in the lab.”
After the nurse clicks away I go into the antechamber,
which is small and just as bright as the hallway. It looks like
a regular doctor’s examination room. There’s an enormous
piece of medical equipment squatting in the corner,
emitting a series of periodic beeps, a tissue-papercovered
examination table, a stinging, antiseptic smell. I
take off my clothes, shivering as the air-conditioning makes
goose bumps pop up all over my skin, the fuzz on my arms
standing up a little straighter. Great. Now the evaluators will
think I’m a hairy beast.
I fold my clothes, including my bra, in a neat pile and slip
on the gown. It’s made of super-sheer plastic, and as I wrap
it around my body, securing it at the waist with a knot, I’m
fully aware that you can still see pretty much everything—
including the outline of my underwear—through its fabric.
Over. Soon it will be over.
I take a deep breath and step through the blue door.
It’s even brighter in the lab—dazzlingly bright, so the
evaluators’ first impression of me must be of someone
squinting, stepping backward, bringing her hand to her
face. Four shadows float in a canoe in front of me. Then my
eyes adjust and the vision resolves into the four evaluators,
all sitting behind a long, low table. This room is very large,
and totally empty except for the evaluators and, in the
corner, a steel surgical table that’s been shoved up against
one wall. Dual rows of overhead lights beat down on me,
and I notice how high the ceiling is: at least thirty feet. I have
a desperate urge to cross my arms over my chest, to cover
myself up somehow. My mouth goes dry and my mind goes
as hot and blank and white as the lights. I can’t remember
what I’m supposed to do, what I’m supposed to say.
Fortunately, one of the evaluators, a woman, speaks first.
Fortunately, one of the evaluators, a woman, speaks first.
“Do you have your forms?” Her voice sounds friendly, but it
doesn’t help the fist that has closed deep in my stomach,
squeezing my intestines.
Oh, God, I think. I’m going to pee. I’m going to pee right
here. I try to imagine what Hana will say after this is over,
when we’re walking through the afternoon sunshine, with the
smell of salt and sun-warmed pavement heavy on the air
around us. “God,” she’ll say. “That was a waste of time. All
of them just sitting there staring like four frogs on a log.”
“Um—yes.” I step closer, feeling like the air has turned
solid, resisting me. When I’m a few feet away from the
table, I reach out and pass the evaluators my clipboard.
There are three men and one woman, but I find I can’t focus
on their features for too long. I scan them quickly and then
shuffle backward again, getting only an impression of some
noses, a few dark eyes, the winking of a pair of glasses.
My clipboard bobs its way down the line of evaluators. I
squeeze my arms to my sides and try to appear relaxed.
Behind me, an observation deck runs along the back
wall, elevated about twenty feet off the ground. It is
accessed through a small red door high up beyond the
tiered rows of white seats that are obviously meant to hold
students, doctors, interns, and junior scientists. Not only do
the lab scientists perform the procedure, they do checkups
afterward and often treat difficult cases of other diseases.
It occurs to me that the scientists must perform the cure
here, in this very room. That must be what the surgical table
is for. The fist of anxiety starts closing in my stomach again.
For some reason, though I’ve often thought about what it
would be like to be cured, I’ve never really thought about the
procedure itself: the hard metal table, the lights winking
above me, the tubes and the wires and the pain.
“Lena Haloway?”
“Yes. That’s me.”
“Okay. Why don’t you start by telling us a little about
yourself?” The evaluator with the glasses leans forward,
spreading his hands, and smiles. He has big, square white
teeth that remind me of bathroom tiles. The reflection in his
glasses makes it impossible to see his eyes, and I wish he
would take them off. “Talk to us about the things you like to
do. Your interests, hobbies, favorite subjects.”
I launch into the speech I’ve prepared, about
photography and running and spending time with my
friends, but I’m not focusing. I see the evaluators nodding in
front of me, and smiles beginning to loosen their faces as
they take notes, so I know I’m doing fine, but I can’t even
hear the words that are coming out of my mouth. I’m fixated
on the metal surgical table and keep sneaking looks at it
from the corner of my eye, watching it blink and shimmer in
the light like the edge of a blade.
And suddenly I’m thinking of my mother. My mother had
remained uncured despite three separate procedures, and
the disease had claimed her, nipped at her insides and
turned her eyes hollow and her cheeks pale, had taken
control of her feet and led her, inch by inch, to the edge of a
sandy cliff and into the bright, thin air of the plunge beyond.
Or so they tell me. I was six at the time. I remember only
the hot pressure of her fingers on my face in the nighttime
and her last whispered words to me. I love you.
Remember. They cannot take it.
I close my eyes quickly, overwhelmed by the thought of
my mother, writhing, and a dozen scientists in lab coats
watching, scribbling impassively on notepads. Three
separate times she was strapped to a metal table; three
separate times a crowd of observers watched her from the
deck, took note of her responses as the needles, and then
the lasers, pierced her skin. Normally patients are
anesthetized during the procedure and don’t feel a thing,
but my aunt had once let slip that during my mother’s third
procedure they had refused to sedate her, thinking that the
anesthesia might be interfering with her brain’s response to
the cure.
“Would you like some water?” Evaluator One, the
woman, gestures to a bottle of water and a glass set up on
the table. She has noticed my momentary flinch, but it’s
okay. My personal statement is done, and I can tell by the
way the evaluators are looking at me—pleased, proud, like
I’m a little kid who has managed to fit all the right pegs in all
the right holes—that I’ve done a good job.
I pour myself a glass of water and take a few sips,
grateful for the pause. I can feel sweat pricking up under my
arms, on my scalp, and at the base of my neck, and I pray
to God they can’t see it. I try to keep my eyes locked on the
evaluators, but there it is in my peripheral vision, grinning at
me: that damn table.
“Okay now, Lena. We’re going to ask you some
questions. We want you to answer honestly. Remember,
we’re trying to get to know you as a person.”
As opposed to what? The question pops into my mind
before I can stop it. As an animal?
I take a deep breath, force myself to nod and smile.
“Great.”
“What are some of your favorite books?”
“Love, War, and Interference, by Christopher Malley,” I
answer automatically. “Border, by Philippa Harolde.” It’s no
use trying to keep the images away: They are rising now, a
flood. That one word keeps scripting itself on my brain, as
though it is being seared there. Pain. They wanted to make
my mother submit to a fourth procedure. They were coming
for her on the night she died, coming to bring her to the
labs. But instead she had fled into the dark, winged her way
into the air. Instead she had woken me with those words—I
love you. Remember. They cannot take it.—which the
wind seemed to carry back to me long after she had
vanished, repeated on the dry trees, on the leaves
coughing and whispering in the cold gray dawn. “And
Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare.”
The evaluators nod, make notes. Romeo and Juliet is
required reading in every freshman-year health class.
“And why is that?” Evaluator Three asks.
It’s frightening: That’s what I’m supposed to say. It’s a
cautionary tale, a warning about the dangers of the old
world, before the cure. But my throat seems to have grown
swollen and tender. There is no room to squeeze the words
out; they are stuck there like the burrs that cling to our
clothing when we jog through the farms. And in that moment
it’s like I can hear the low growl of the ocean, can hear its
distant, insistent murmur, can imagine its weight closing
around my mother, water as heavy as stone. And what
comes out is: “It’s beautiful.”
Instantly all four faces jerk up to look at me, like puppets
connected to the same string.
“Beautiful?” Evaluator One wrinkles her nose. There’s a
zinging, frigid tension in the air, and I realize I’ve made a
big, big mistake.
The evaluator with the glasses leans forward. “That’s an
interesting word to use. Very interesting.” This time when
he shows his teeth they remind me of the curved white
canines of a dog. “Perhaps you find suffering beautiful?
Perhaps you enjoy violence?”
“No. No, that’s not it.” I’m trying to think straight, but my
head is full of the ocean’s wordless roaring. It is growing
louder and louder by the second. And now, faintly, it’s as
though I can hear screaming as well—like my mother’s
scream is reaching me from across the span of a decade.
“I just mean … there’s something so sad about it… .” I’m
struggling, floundering, feeling like I’m drowning now, in the
white light and the roaring. Sacrifice. I want to say
something about sacrifice, but the word doesn’t come.
“Let’s move on.” Evaluator One, who sounded so sweet
when she offered me the water, has lost all pretense of
friendliness. She is all business now. “Tell us something
simple. Like your favorite color, for example.”
Part of my brain—the rational, educated part, the logical
me part—screams, Blue! Say blue! But this other, older
thing inside of me is riding across the waves of sound,
surging up with the rising noise. “Gray,” I blurt out.
“Gray?” Evaluator Four splutters back.
My heart is spiraling down to my stomach. I know I’ve
done it, I’m tanking, can practically see my numbers flipping
backward. But it’s too late. I’m finished—it’s the roaring in
my ears, growing louder and louder, a stampede that
makes thinking impossible. I quickly stammer out an
explanation. “Not gray, exactly. Right before the sun rises
there’s a moment when the whole sky goes this pale
nothing color—not really gray but sort of, or sort of white,
and I’ve always really liked it because it reminds me of
waiting for something good to happen.”
But they’ve stopped listening. All of them are staring
beyond me, heads cocked, expressions confused, as
though trying to make out familiar words in a foreign
language. And then suddenly the roaring and the screaming
surge and I realize I haven’t been imagining them all this
time. People really are screaming, and there’s a tumbling,
rolling, drumming sound, like a thousand feet moving
together. There’s a third sound too, running under both of
those: a wordless bellowing that doesn’t sound human.
In my confusion everything seems disconnected, the way
it does in dreams. Evaluator One half rises from her chair,
saying, “What the hell … ?”
At the same time, Glasses says, “Sit down, Helen. I’ll go
see what’s wrong.”
But at that second the blue door bursts open and a
streaming blur of cows—actual, real, live, sweating, mooing
cows—come thundering into the lab.
Definitely a stampede, I think, and for one weird,
detached second feel proud of myself for correctly
identifying the noise.
Then I realize I’m being charged by a bunch of very
heavy, very frightened herd animals, and am about two
seconds from getting stomped into the ground.
Instantly I launch myself into the corner and wedge myself
behind the surgical table, where I’m completely protected
from the panicked mass of animals. I poke my head out just
a little so I can still see what’s going on. The evaluators are
hopping up onto the table now, as walls of brown and
speckled cow flanks fold around them. Evaluator One is
screaming at the top of her lungs, and Glasses is yelling,
“Calm down, calm down!” even though he’s grabbing onto
her like she’s a life raft and he’s in danger of sinking.
Some of the cows have wigs hanging crazily from their
heads, and others are half-swaddled in gowns identical to
the one I’m wearing. For a second I’m sure I’m dreaming.
Maybe this whole day has been a dream, and I’ll wake up to
discover that I’m still at home, in bed, on the morning of my
evaluation. But then I notice the writing on the cows’ flanks:
NOT CURE. DEATH. The words are written in sloppy ink, just
above the neatly branded numbers that identify these cows
as destined for the slaughterhouse.
A little chill dances up my spine, and everything starts
clicking into place. Every couple of years the Invalids—the
clicking into place. Every couple of years the Invalids—the
people who live in the Wilds, the unregulated land that
exists between recognized cities and towns—sneak into
Portland and stage some kind of protest. One year they
came in at night and painted red death skulls on every
single one of the known scientists’ houses. Another year
they managed to break into the central police station, which
coordinates all the patrols and guard shifts for Portland,
and move all the furniture onto the roof, even the coffee
machines. That was pretty funny,
actually—and pretty amazing, since you’d think Central
would be the most secure building in Portland. People in
the Wilds don’t see love as a disease, and they don’t
believe in the cure. They think it’s a kind of cruelty. Thus the
slogan.
Now I get it: The cows are dressed up as us, the people
being evaluated. Like we’re all a bunch of herd animals.
The cows are calming down somewhat. They’re not
charging anymore, and have begun to shuffle back and
forth in the lab. Evaluator One has a clipboard in her hand,
and she’s swooping and swatting as the cows butt up
against the table, mooing and nipping at the papers
scattered across its surface—the evaluators’ notes, I
realize, as a cow snaps up a sheet of paper and begins to
rip at it with its teeth. Thank God. Maybe the cows will eat
up all the notes, and the evaluators will lose track of the fact
that I was completely tanking. Half-concealed behind the
table—and safe, now, from those sharp, stamping hooves
—I have to admit the whole thing is kind of hilarious.
That’s when I hear it. Somehow, above the snorting and
stomping and yelling, I hear the laugh above me—low and
short and musical, like someone sounding out a few notes
on a piano.
The observation deck. A boy is standing on the
observation deck, watching the chaos below. And he’s
laughing.
As soon as I look up, his eyes click onto my face. The
breath whooshes out of my body and everything freezes for
a second, as though I’m looking at him through my camera
lens, zoomed in all the way, the world pausing for that tiny
span of time between the opening and closing of the
shutter.
His hair is golden brown, like leaves in autumn just as
they’re turning, and he has bright amber eyes. The moment
I see him I know that he’s one of the people responsible for
this. I know that he must live in the Wilds; I know he’s an
Invalid. Fear clamps down on my stomach, and I open my
mouth to shout something—I’m not sure what, exactly—but
at precisely that second he gives a minute shake of his
head, and suddenly I can’t make a sound. Then he does the
absolutely, positively unthinkable.
He winks at me.
At last the alarm goes off. It’s so loud I have to cover my
ears with my hands. I look down to see whether the
evaluators have seen him, but they’re still doing their little
tabletop dance, and when I look up again, he’s gone.

T
Chapter Five
Step on a crack, you’ll break your mama’s back.
Step on a stone, you’ll end up all alone.
Step on a stick, you’re bound to get the Sick.
Watch where you tread, you’ll bring out all the dead.
—A common children’s playground chant,
usually accompanied by jumping rope or clapping
hat night, I have the dream again.
I’m at the edge of a big white cliff made out of sand.
The ground is unsteady. The ledge I’m standing on is
starting to crumble, to flake away and tumble down, down,
down—thousands of feet below me, into the ocean, which
is whipping and snapping so hard it looks like one gigantic,
frothing stew, all whitecaps and surging water. I’m terrified
I’m going to fall, but for some reason I can’t move or back
away from the edge of the cliff, even as I feel the ground
sifting away from underneath me, millions of molecules
rearranging themselves into space, into wind: Any second
I’m going to fall.
And just before I know that there’s nothing underneath
me but air—that at any split second I’m going to feel the
wind shrieking around me as I drop down into the water—
the waves lashing underneath me open up for a moment
and I see my mother’s face, pale and bloated and
splotched with blue, floating just below the surface. Her
eyes are open, her mouth is split apart as though she is
screaming, her arms are extended on either side of her,
bobbing in the current, as though she is waiting to embrace
me. That’s when I wake up. That’s when I always wake up.
My pillow is damp, and I’ve got a scratchy feeling in my
throat. I’ve been crying in my sleep. Gracie is folded next to
me, one cheek squashed flat against the sheets, her mouth
making endless, noiseless repetitions. She always gets
into bed with me when I’m having the dream. She can
sense it, somehow.
I brush her hair away from her face and pull the sweatsoaked
sheets away from her shoulders. I’ll be sorry to
leave Grace when I move out. Our secrets have made us
close, bonded us together. She is the only one who knows
of the Coldness: a feeling that comes sometimes when I’m
lying in bed, a black, empty feeling that knocks my breath
away and leaves me gasping as though I’ve just been
thrown in icy water. On nights like that—although it is wrong
and illegal—I think of those strange and terrible words, I
love you, and wonder what they would taste like in my
mouth, try to recall their lilting rhythm on my mother’s
tongue.
And of course I keep her secret safe. I’m the only one
who knows that Grace isn’t stupid, or slow: There’s nothing
wrong with her at all. I’m the only one who has ever heard
her speak. One night after she’d come to sleep in my bed I
woke up in the very early morning, the nighttime shadows
ebbing off our walls. She was sobbing quietly into the pillow
next to me, pronouncing the same word over and over,
stuffing her mouth with blankets so I could barely hear her:
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.” As though she was trying to
chew her way around it; as though it was choking her in her
sleep. I’d put my arms around her and squeezed, and after
what felt like hours she exhausted herself on the word and
fell back to sleep, the tension in her body slowly relaxing,
her face hot and bloated from the tears.
That’s the real reason she doesn’t speak. All the rest of
her words are crowded out by that single, looming one, a
word still echoing in the dark corners of her memory.
Mommy.
I know. I remember.
I sit up and watch the light strengthen on the walls, listen
for the sounds of the seagulls outside, take a drink from the
glass of water next to my bed. Today is June 2. Ninety-four
days.
I wish, for Grace, the cure could come sooner. I comfort
myself by thinking that someday she will have the
procedure too. Someday she will be saved, and the past
and all its pain will be rendered as smoothly palatable as
the food we spoon to our babies.
Someday we will all be saved.
By the time I drag myself down to breakfast—feeling as
though someone is grinding sand into both of my eyes—the
official story about the incident at the labs has been
released. Carol keeps our small TV on low while she
makes breakfast, and the murmur of the newscasters’
voices almost puts me back to sleep. “Yesterday a truck
full of cattle intended for the slaughterhouse was mixed up
with a shipment of pharmaceuticals, resulting in the
hilarious and unprecedented chaos you see on your
screen.” Cue: nurses squealing, swatting at lowing cows
with clipboards.
This doesn’t make any sense, but as long as no one
mentions the Invalids, everyone’s happy. We’re not
supposed to know about them. They’re not even supposed
to exist; supposedly, all the people who live in the Wilds
were destroyed over fifty years ago, during the blitz.
Fifty years ago the government closed the borders of the
United States. The border is guarded constantly by military
personnel. No one can get in. No one goes out. Every
sanctioned and approved community must also be
contained within a border—that’s the law—and all travel
between
communities requires official written consent of the
municipal government, to be obtained six months in
advance. This is for our own protection. Safety, Sanctity,
Community: That is our country’s motto.
For the most part, the government has been successful.
We haven’t seen a war since the border was closed, and
there is hardly any crime, except for the occasional incident
of vandalism or petty theft. There is no more hatred in the
United States, at least among the cured. Only sporadic
cases of detachment—but every medical procedure carries
a certain risk.
But so far, the government has failed to rid the country of
the Invalids, and it is the single blemish on the
administration, and the system in general. So we don’t talk
about them. We pretend that the Wilds—and the people
who live there—don’t even exist. It’s rare to hear the word
even spoken, except when a suspected sympathizer
disappears, or when a young diseased couple is found to
have vanished together before a cure can be administered.
One piece of really good news is this: All of yesterday’s
evaluations have been invalidated. All of us will receive a
new evaluation date, which means I get a second chance.
This time I swear I’m not going to screw it up. I feel
completely idiotic about my meltdown at the labs. Sitting at
the breakfast table, with everything looking so clean and
bright and normal—the chipped blue mugs full of coffee, the
erratic beeping of the microwave (one of the few electronic
devices, besides the lights, Carol actually allows us to use)
—makes yesterday seem like a long, strange dream. It’s a
miracle, actually, that a bunch of fanatical Invalids decided
to let loose a stampede at the exact moment I was failing
the most important test of my life. I don’t know what came
over me. I think about Glasses showing his teeth, and the
moment I heard my mouth say, “Gray,” and I wince. Stupid,
stupid.
Suddenly I’m aware that Jenny has been talking to me.
Suddenly I’m aware that Jenny has been talking to me.
“What?” I blink at Jenny as she swims into focus. I watch
her hands as she cuts her toast precisely into quarters.
“I said, what’s wrong with you?” Back and forth, back and
forth. The knife dings against the edge of the plate. “You
look like you’re about to puke or something.”
“Jenny,” Carol scolds. She is at the sink, washing dishes.
“Not while your uncle is eating breakfast.”
“I’m fine.” I rip off a piece of toast, slide it across the stick
of butter that’s getting melty in the middle of the table, and
force myself to eat. The last thing I need is a good old
family-style interrogation. “Just tired.”
Carol turns to look at me. Her face has always reminded
me of a doll’s. Even when she’s talking, even when she’s
irritated or happy or confused, her expression stays weirdly
immobile. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“I slept,” I say. “I just had a bad dream, that’s all.”
At the end of the table, my uncle William starts up from
his newspaper. “Oh, God. You know what? You just
reminded me. I had a dream last night too.”
Carol raises her eyebrows, and even Jenny looks
interested. It’s extremely unusual for people to dream once
they’ve been cured. Carol once told me that on the rare
occasions she still dreams, her dreams are full of dishes,
stacks and stacks of them climbing toward the sky, and
sometimes she climbs them, lip to lip, hauling herself up
into the clouds, trying to reach the top of the stack. But it
never ends; it stretches on into infinity. As far as I know, my
sister Rachel never dreams anymore.
William smiles. “I was caulking the window in the
William smiles. “I was caulking the window in the
bathroom. Carol, you remember I said there was a draft the
other day? Anyway, I was piping in the caulk, but every time
I finished, it would just flake away—almost like it was snow
—and the wind would come in and I’d have to start all over.
On and on and on—for hours, it felt like.”
“How strange,” my aunt says, smiling, coming to the table
with a plate of fried eggs. My uncle likes them super runny,
and they sit on the plate, their yolks jiggling and quivering
like hula-hoop dancers, spotted with oil. My stomach twists.
William says, “No wonder I’m so tired this morning. I was
doing housework all night.”
Everyone laughs but me. I choke down another bit of
toast, wondering whether I’ll dream once I’ve been cured.
I hope not.
This year is the first year since sixth grade that I don’t have
a single class with Hana, so I don’t see her until after
school, when we meet up in the locker room to go running,
even though cross-country season ended a couple of
weeks ago. (When the team went to Regionals it was only
the third time I’d ever been out of Portland, and even though
we went just forty miles along the gray, bleak municipal
highway, I could still hardly swallow, the butterflies in my
throat were so frantic.) Still, Hana and I try to run together as
much as we can, even during school vacations.
I started running when I was six years old, after my mom
committed suicide. The first day I ever ran a whole mile was
the day of her funeral. I’d been told to stay upstairs with my
cousins while my aunt prepared the house for the memorial
service and laid out all the food. Marcia and Rachel were
supposed to get me ready, but in the middle of helping me
dress they’d started arguing about something and had
stopped paying me any attention at all. So I had wandered
downstairs, my dress zipped halfway up my back, to ask
my aunt for help. Mrs. Eisner, my aunt’s neighbor at the
time, was there. As I came into the kitchen she was saying,
“It’s horrible, of course. But there was no hope for her
anyway. It’s much better this way. It’s better for Lena, too.
Who wants a mother like that?”
I wasn’t supposed to have heard. Mrs. Eisner gave a
startled little gasp when she saw me, and her mouth shut
quickly, like a cork popping back into a bottle. My aunt just
stood there, and in that second it was as though the world
and the future collapsed down into a single point, and I
understood that this—the kitchen, the spotless cream
linoleum floors, the glaring lights, and the vivid green mass
of Jell-O on the
counter—was all that was left now that my mother was
gone.
Suddenly I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t stand the sight of
my aunt’s kitchen, which I now understood would be my
kitchen. I couldn’t stand the Jell-O. My mother hated Jell-O.
An itchy feeling began to work its way through my body, as
though a thousand mosquitoes were circulating through my
blood, biting me from the inside, making me want to
scream, jump, squirm.
I ran.
Hana, one foot on a bench, is lacing up her shoes when I
come in. My awful secret is that I like to run with Hana partly
because it’s the single, sole, solitary shred of a thing that I
can do better than she can, but I would never admit that out
loud in a million years.
I haven’t even had a chance to put my bag down before
she’s leaning forward and grabbing my arm.
“Can you believe it?” She’s fighting a smile, and her eyes
are a pinwheel of color—blue, green, gold—flashing like
they always do when she’s excited about something. “It was
definitely the Invalids. That’s what everybody’s saying,
anyway.”
We’re the only people in the locker room—all the sports
teams have finished their seasons—but I instinctively whip
my head around when she says the word. “Keep your voice
down.”
She pulls back a little, tossing her hair over one shoulder.
“Relax. I did recon. Even checked the toilet stalls. We’re in
the clear.”
I open up the gym locker I’ve had for all my ten years at
St. Anne’s. At its bottom is a film of gum wrappers and
shredded notes and lost paper clips, and on top of that, my
small limp pile of running clothes, two pairs of shoes, my
cross-country team jersey, a dozen half-used bottles of
deodorant, conditioner, and perfume. In less than two
weeks I’ll graduate and never see the inside of this locker
again, and for a second I get sad. It’s gross, but I’ve actually
always loved the smell of gyms: the industrial cleaning fluid
and the deodorant and soccer balls and even the lingering
smell of sweat. It’s comforting to me. It’s so strange how life
works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel
like it’s taking forever to come. Then it happens and it’s
over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment
before things changed.
“Who’s everybody, anyway? The news is saying it was
just a mistake, a shipping error or something.” I feel the
need to repeat the official story, even though I know just as
well as Hana that it’s BS.
She straddles the bench, watching me. As usual, she’s
oblivious to the fact that I hate it when other people see me
change. “Don’t be an idiot. If it was on the news, it definitely
isn’t true. Besides, who mixes up a cow and a box of
prescription meds? It’s not like it’s hard to tell the
difference.”
I shrug. She’s right, obviously. She’s still looking at me,
so I angle slightly away. I’ve never been comfortable with
my body like Hana and some of the other girls at St.
Anne’s, never gotten over the awkward feeling that I’ve
been fitted together just a little wrong in some very key
places. Like I’ve been sketched by an amateur artist: If you
don’t look too closely, it’s all right, but start focusing and all
the smudges and mistakes become really obvious.
Hana kicks one leg out and begins stretching, refusing to
let the issue drop. Hana’s more fascinated with the Wilds
than anyone I’ve ever met. “If you think about it, it’s pretty
amazing. The planning and all that. It would have taken at
least four or five people—maybe more—to coordinate
everything.”
I think briefly of the boy I saw on the observation deck, of
his flashing, autumn-leaf-colored hair, and the way he
tipped his head back when he laughed so I could see the
vaulted black arch of his mouth. I told no one about him, not
even Hana, and now I feel I should have.
Hana goes on, “Someone must have had security codes.
Maybe a sympathizer—”
A door bangs loudly at the front of the locker room, and
Hana and I both jump, staring at each other with wide eyes.
Footsteps click quickly across the linoleum. After a few
seconds
of hesitation, Hana launches smoothly into a safe topic: the
color of the graduation gowns, which are orange this year.
Just then Mrs. Johanson, the athletic director, comes
around the bank of lockers, swinging her whistle around
one finger.
“At least they’re not brown, like at Fielston Prep,” I say,
though I’m barely listening to Hana. My heart is pounding
and I’m still thinking about the boy, and wondering whether
Johanson heard us say the word sympathizer. She doesn’t
do anything but nod as she passes us, so it seems unlikely.
I’ve learned to get really good at this—say one thing
when I’m thinking about something else, act like I’m
listening when I’m not, pretend to be calm and happy when
really I’m freaking out. It’s one of the skills you perfect as
you get older. You have to learn that people are always
listening. The first time I ever used the cell phone that my
aunt and uncle share, I was surprised by the patchy
interference that kept breaking up my conversation with
Hana at random intervals, until my aunt explained that it was
just the government’s listening devices, which arbitrarily cut
into cell phone calls, recording them, monitoring
conversations for target words like love, or Invalids, or
sympathizer. No one in particular is targeted; it’s all done
randomly, to be fair. But it’s almost worse that way. I pretty
much always feel as though a giant, revolving gaze is
bound to sweep over me at any second, lighting up my bad
thoughts like an animal lit still and white in the ever-turning
beam of a lighthouse.
Sometimes I feel as though there are two me’s, one
coasting directly on top of the other: the superficial me, who
nods when she’s supposed to nod and says what she’s
supposed to say, and some other, deeper part, the part that
worries and dreams and says “Gray.” Most of the time they
move along in sync and I hardly notice the split, but
sometimes it feels as though I’m two whole different people
and I could rip apart at any second. Once I confessed this
to Rachel. She just smiled and told me it would all be better
after the procedure. After the procedure, she said, it would
be all coasting, all glide, every day as easy as one, two,
three.
“Ready,” I say, spinning my locker closed. We can still
hear Mrs. Johanson shuffling around in the bathroom,
whistling. A toilet flushes. A faucet goes on.
“My turn to pick the route,” Hana says, eyes sparkling,
and before I can open my mouth to protest, she lunges
forward and smacks me on the shoulder. “Tag. You’re it,”
she says, and just as easily spins off the bench and sprints
for the door, laughing, so I have to run to catch up.
Earlier in the day it rained, and the storm cooled everything
off. Water evaporates from puddles in the streets, leaving a
shimmering layer of mist over Portland. Above us the sky is
now a vivid blue. The bay is flat and silver, the coast like a
giant belt cinched around it, keeping it in place.
I don’t ask Hana where she’s going, but it doesn’t
surprise me when she starts winding us toward Old Port,
toward the old footpath that runs along Commercial Street
and up to the labs. We try to keep on the smaller, less
trafficked streets, but it’s pretty much a losing game. It’s
three thirty. All the schools have been released, and the
streets surge with students walking home. A few buses
rumble past, and one or two cars squeeze by. Cars are
considered good luck. As they pass, people reach out their
hands and brush along the shiny hoods, the clean, bright
windows, which will soon be smudged with fingerprints.
Hana and I run next to each other, reviewing all the day’s
gossip. We don’t talk about the botched evaluations
yesterday, or the rumors of the Invalids. There are too many
people around. Instead she tells me about her ethics exam,
and I tell her about Cora Dervish’s fight with Minna
Wilkinson. We talk about Willow Marks, too, who has been
absent from school since the previous Wednesday. Rumor
is that Willow was found by regulators last week in Deering
Oaks Park after curfew—with a boy.
We’ve been hearing rumors like that about Willow for
years. She’s just the kind of person people talk about. She
has blond hair, but she’s always coloring different streaks
into it with markers, and I remember once on a freshman
class trip to a museum, we passed a group of Spencer
Prep boys and she said, so loud one of our chaperones
could have easily heard, “I’d like to kiss one of them straight
on the lips.” Supposedly she was caught hanging out with a
boy in tenth grade and got off with a warning because she
showed no signs of the deliria. Every so often people make
mistakes; it’s biological, a result of the same kind of
chemical and hormonal imbalances that occasionally lead
to Unnaturalism, to boys being attracted to boys and girls to
girls. These impulses, too, will be resolved by the cure.
But this time it is serious, apparently, and Hana drops
the bomb just as we turn onto Center: Mr. and Mrs. Marks
have agreed to move the date of Willow’s procedure up by
a full six months. She’ll be missing graduation day to get
cured.
“Six months?” I repeat. We’ve been running hard for
twenty minutes, so I’m not sure if the heavy thumping in my
chest is a result of the exercise or the news. I’m feeling
more out of breath than I should be, like someone’s sitting
on my chest. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Hana tips her head to the right, gesturing the way to a
shortcut through an alley. “It’s been done before.”
“Yeah, but not successfully. What about all the side
effects? Mental problems? Blindness?” There are a few
reasons why the scientists won’t let anyone under the age
of eighteen have the procedure, but the biggest one is that
it just doesn’t seem to work as well for people younger than
that, and in the worst cases it’s been known to cause all
kind of crazy problems. Scientists speculate that the brain
and its neuro-pathways are still too plastic before then, still
in the middle of forming themselves. Actually, the older you
are when you have the
procedure, the better, but most people are scheduled for
the procedure as close as possible to their eighteenth
birthday.
“I guess they think it’s worth the risk,” Hana says. “Better
than the alternative, you know? Amor deliria nervosa. The
deadliest of all deadly things.” This is the catchphrase that’s
written on every mental health pamphlet ever written about
the deliria; Hana’s voice is flat as she repeats it, and it
makes my stomach dip. All of yesterday’s craziness has
made me forget Hana’s comment to me before the
evaluations. But now I remember, and remember how
strange she looked too, eyes cloudy and unreadable.
“Come on.” I feel a straining in my lungs and my left thigh
is starting to cramp. The only way to push through it is to run
harder and faster. “Let’s pick it up, Slug.”
“Bring it.” Hana’s face splits into a grin, and both of us
start pumping faster. The pain in my lungs swells up and
blossoms until it feels like it’s everywhere, tearing through
all my cells and muscles at once. The cramp in my leg
makes me wince every time my heel hits the pavement. It’s
always like this on miles two and three, like all the stress
and anxiety and irritation and fear get transformed into little
needling points of physical pain, and you can’t breathe or
imagine going farther or think anything but: I can’t. I can’t. I
can’t.
And then, just as suddenly, it’s gone. All the pain lifts
away, the cramp vanishes, the fist eases off my chest, and I
can breathe easily. Instantly a feeling of total happiness
bubbles up inside of me: the solid feeling of the ground
underneath me, the simplicity of the movement, rocketing
off my heels, pushing forward in time and space, total
freedom and release. I glance over at Hana. I can tell from
her expression that she’s feeling it too. She has made it
through the wall. She senses me looking and whips around,
her blond ponytail a bright arc, to give me the thumbs-up.
It’s strange. When we run I feel closer to Hana than at any
other time. Even when we’re not talking, it’s like there’s an
invisible cord tethering us together, matching our rhythms,
our arms and our legs, as though we’re both responding to
the same drumbeat. More and more it has been occurring
to me that this, too, will change after our procedures. She’ll
retreat to the West End and make friends with her
neighbors, with people richer and more sophisticated than I
am. I’ll stay in some crappy apartment on Cumberland, and
I won’t miss her, or remember what it felt like to run side by
side. They’ve warned me that after my procedure I may not
even like running anymore, period. Another side effect of
the cure: People often change their habits afterward, lose
interest in their former hobbies and things that had given
them pleasure.
“The cured, incapable of strong desire, are thus rid of
both remembered and future pain” (“After the Procedure,”
The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook, p. 132).
The world is spinning by, people and streets a long,
unfurling ribbon of color and sound. We run past St.
Vincent’s, the biggest all-boys school in Portland. A halfdozen
boys are outside playing basketball, lazily dribbling
the ball around, calling to one another. Their words are a
blur, an indistinct series of shouts and barks and short
bursts of laughter, the way that boys always sound
whenever they’re together in groups, whenever you only
hear them from around corners or across streets or down
the beach. It’s like they have a language all their own, and
for about the thousandth time I think how glad I am that
segregation policies keep us separate most of the time.
As we run by I think I sense a momentary pause, a
fraction of a second when all their eyes lift and turn in our
direction. I’m too embarrassed to look. My whole body
goes white-hot, like someone’s just stuck me headfirst into
an oven. But a second later I feel their eyes sweeping past
me, a wind, latching on to Hana. Her blond hair flashes next
to me, a coin in the sun.
The pain is creeping back into my legs, a leaden feeling,
but I force myself to keep going as we round the corner of
Commercial Street and leave St. Vincent’s behind. I feel
Hana straining to keep up next to me. I turn my head, barely
managing to gasp out, “Race you.” But as Hana pulls up,
arms pumping, and nearly passes me, I put my head down
and lunge forward, cycling my legs as fast as I can, trying to
suck air into my lungs, which feel like they’ve shrunk to the
size of a pea, fighting the screaming in my muscles.
size of a pea, fighting the screaming in my muscles.
Blackness eats the
edges of my vision, and all I can see is the chain-link fence
that rises up in front of us suddenly, blocking our path, and
then I’m reaching out and thwacking it so hard it begins to
shake, turning around to yell, “I won!” as Hana pulls up a
second behind me, gasping for breath. Both of us are
laughing now, hiccuping and taking huge gulping breaths of
air as we pace around in circles, trying to walk it off.
When she can finally breathe again, Hana straightens up,
laughing. “I let you win,” she says, an old joke of ours.
I toe some gravel in her direction. She ducks away,
shrieking. “Keep telling yourself that.”
My hair has come out of its ponytail and I wrestle it out of
its elastic, flipping my head down so I get the wind on my
neck. Sweat drips down into my eyes, stinging.
“Nice look.” Hana pushes me lightly and I stumble
sideways, whipping my head up to swipe back at her.
She sidesteps me. There’s a gap in the chain-link fence
that marks the beginning of a narrow service road. This is
blocked with a low metal gate. Hana hops it and gestures
for me to follow. I haven’t really been paying attention to
where we are: The service drive threads down through a
parking lot, a forest of industrial Dumpsters and cargo
storage sheds. Beyond those is the familiar string of white
square buildings, like giant teeth. This must be one of the
side entrances of the lab complex. I see now that the chainlink
fence is looped on top with barbed wire and marked at
twenty-foot intervals with signs that all read: PRIVATE
PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL
ONLY.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to—” I start to say, but Hana
cuts me off.
“Come on,” she calls out. “Live a little.”
I do a quick scan of the parking lot beyond the gate and
the road behind us: no one. The small guard hut just past
the gate is also empty. I lean over and peek inside. There’s
a half-eaten sandwich sitting on wax paper, and a stack of
books piled messily on a small desk next to an oldfashioned
radio, which is spitting static and patchy bits of
music into the silence. I don’t see any surveillance
cameras, either, though there must be some. All the
government buildings are wired. I hesitate for a second
longer, then swing myself over the gate and catch up to
Hana. Her eyes are lit up with excitement, and I can tell that
this was her plan, and her destination, all along.
“This must be how the Invalids got in,” she says in a
breathless rush, as though we’ve been talking about
yesterday’s drama at the labs all this time. “Don’t you
think?”
“Doesn’t seem like it would have been hard.” I’m trying to
sound casual but the whole thing—the empty service road
and the enormous parking lot, shimmering in the sun, the
blue Dumpsters and the electrical wires zigzagging across
the sky, the sparkling white slope of the lab roofs—makes
me uneasy. Everything is silent and very still—frozen,
almost, the way things are in a dream, or just before a
major thunderstorm. I don’t want to say it to Hana, but I’d
give pretty much anything to head back to Old Port, to the
complex nest of familiar streets and stores.
Even though there’s no one around, I have the
impression of being watched. It’s worse than the normal
feeling of being observed in school and on the street and
even at home, having to be cautious about what you do and
say, the close, blocked-in feeling that everyone gets used
to eventually.
“Yeah.” Hana kicks at the packed dirt road. A plume of
dust puffs up, resettles slowly. “Pretty crappy security for a
major medical facility.”
“Pretty crappy security for a petting zoo,” I say.
“I resent that.” The voice comes from behind us, and both
Hana and I jump.
I spin around. The world seems to freeze for an instant.
A boy is standing behind us, arms crossed, head cocked
to the side. A boy with caramel-colored skin and hair that’s
a golden-brown color, like autumn leaves getting ready to
fall.
It’s him. The boy from yesterday, from the observation
deck. The Invalid.
Except he isn’t an Invalid, obviously. He’s wearing a
short-sleeved blue guard’s uniform over jeans, and he’s got
a laminated government ID clipped to his collar.
“I leave for two seconds to get a refill”—he gestures to
the bottle of water he’s holding—”and I come back to find a
full-fledged break-in.”
I’m so confused I can’t move or speak or do anything.
Hana must think I’m scared, because she jumps in quickly,
“We weren’t breaking in. We weren’t doing anything. We
were just running and we … um, we got lost.”
The boy crosses his arms in front of his chest, rocking
back on his heels. “Didn’t see any of the signs outside,
huh? ‘No Trespassing’? ‘Authorized Personnel Only’?”
Hana looks away. She’s nervous too. I can feel it. Hana’s
a thousand times more confident than I am, but neither of us
is used to standing in the open and talking to a boy,
especially not a boy-guard, and it must have occurred to
Hana that he already has plenty of grounds to arrest us.
“Must have missed them,” she mumbles.
“Uh-huh.” He raises his eyebrows. It’s obvious he doesn’t
believe us, but at least he doesn’t look angry. “They’re
pretty subtle. Only a few dozen of them. I can see how you
might not have noticed.”
He looks away for a second, squinting, and I get the
feeling he’s trying to stop himself from laughing. He’s not
like any guard I’ve ever seen—at least, not the typical
guards you see at the border and all around Portland, fat
and scowly and old. I think about how sure I was yesterday
that he came from the Wilds, the solid certainty deep inside
of me.
I was wrong, obviously. As he turns his head I see the
unmistakable sign of someone who is cured: the mark of
the procedure, a three-pointed scar just behind the left ear,
where the scientists insert a special three-pronged needle
used exclusively for immobilizing the patient so that the
cure can be administered. People show off their scars like
badges of honor; you hardly see any cureds with long hair,
and the women who haven’t lopped off their hair entirely are
careful to wear it pulled back.
My fear recedes. Talking to a cured isn’t illegal. The rules
of segregation don’t apply.
I’m not sure if he has recognized me or not. If so, he
hasn’t given any sign of it. Finally I can’t take it anymore and
I burst out, “You. I saw you—” At the last second I can’t finish
the sentence. I saw you yesterday.
You winked at me.
Hana looks startled. “You two know each other?” She
shoots a look at me. Hana knows I’ve hardly ever
exchanged two words with a boy before, unless it’s “Excuse
me” in the street or “Sorry for stepping on your toes” when I
trip on somebody. We’re not supposed to have more than
minimal contact with uncured boys outside of our own
families. Even after they’ve been cured, there’s hardly a
need or excuse for it, unless we’re dealing with a doctor or
teacher or someone like that.
He turns to look at me. His face is completely
professional and composed, but I swear I see something
flickering in his eyes, a look of amusement or pleasure.
“No,” he says smoothly. “We’ve never met. I’m sure I would
remember.” The flash in his eyes is back—is he laughing at
me?
“I’m Hana,” Hana says. “And this is Lena.” She jabs me
with an elbow. I know I must look like a fish, standing there
with my mouth gaping open, but I’m too outraged to speak.
He’s lying. I know he’s the one I saw yesterday, would bet
my life on it.
“Alex. Nice to meet you.” Alex keeps his eyes on me as
he and Hana shake hands. Then he extends a hand to me.
“Lena,” he says thoughtfully. “I’ve never heard that name
before.”
I hesitate. Shaking hands makes me feel awkward, like
I’m playing dress-up in an adult’s too-big clothing. Besides,
I’ve never actually touched skin-to-skin with a stranger. But
he’s just standing there with his hand out, so after a second
I reach out and shake. The moment we touch, a tiny
electrical shock buzzes through me, and I pull away quickly.
“It’s short for Magdalena,” I say.
“Magdalena.” Alex tips his head back, watching me from
narrowed eyes. “Pretty.”
I’m momentarily distracted by the way he says my name.
In his mouth it sounds musical, not clunky and angular, the
way my teachers have always made it sound. His eyes are
a warm amber color, and as I look at him I have a sudden,
flashing memory of my mother pouring syrup over a stack of
pancakes. I look away, feeling ashamed, as though he has
somehow been responsible for dredging the memory up,
has reached in with his hand and wrenched it from me.
Embarrassment makes me feel angry, and I press on, “I do
know you. I saw you yesterday in the labs. You were on the
observation deck, watching—watching everything.” Again,
my courage fails me at the last second and I don’t say,
Watching me.
I can feel Hana glaring at me, but I ignore her. She must
be furious I haven’t told her any of this.
Alex’s face doesn’t change. He doesn’t blink or drop his
smile for even a fraction of a second. “Case of mistaken
identity, I guess. Guards aren’t allowed in the labs during
evaluations. Especially not part-time guards.”
For a second longer we stand there, staring at each
other. Now I know he’s lying, and the easy, lazy grin on his
face makes me want to reach out and slap him. I ball my
fists and suck in a deep breath, willing myself to stay calm.
I’m not the violent type. I don’t know why I’m feeling so
aggravated.
Hana jumps in, breaking the tension. “So this is it? A
part-time security guard and some ‘Keep Out’ signs?”
Alex keeps his eyes on me a half second longer. Then he
turns to look at Hana as though noticing her for the first
time. “What do you mean?”
“I would have thought the labs would be better protected,
that’s all. It doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to break
into this place.”
Alex raises his eyebrows. “Thinking about making the
attempt?”
Hana freezes, and my blood goes to ice. She has gone
too far. If Alex reports us as potential sympathizers, or
troublemakers, or anything, we’re in for months and months
of surveillance and investigation—and we can kiss our
chances of passing the evaluations with decent scores
good-bye. I picture a lifetime of watching Andrew Marcus
fish snot out of his nose with a thumbnail and feel queasy.
Alex must sense our fear, because he raises both hands.
“Relax. I was kidding. You don’t exactly seem like
terrorists.” It occurs to me how ridiculous we must look in
our running shorts and sweaty tank tops and neon
sneakers. Or at least, I must look ridiculous. Hana looks like
a model for athletic wear. Again, I feel a fit of blushing
coming on, followed by a surge of irritation. No wonder the
regulators decided on the segregation of boys and girls:
Otherwise, it would have been a nightmare, this feeling
angry and self-conscious and confused and annoyed all the
time.
“This is just the loading area, anyway, for freight and
stuff.” Alex gestures beyond the line of cargo sheds. “Real
security starts closer to the facilities. Full-time guards,
cameras, electrified fence, the whole shebang.”
Hana doesn’t look at me, but when she speaks I can
hear the excitement creeping into her voice. “The loading
area? Like, where the deliveries come?”
In my head I start praying, Don’t say anything dumb.
Don’t say anything dumb. Do not mention the Invalids.
“You got it.”
Hana dances on her feet, shifting her weight back and
forth. I try to shoot her a warning look, but she avoids my
eyes.
“So this is where the trucks come? With medical
equipment and … and other stuff?”
“Exactly.” Again I have the impression of something
flickering behind Alex’s eyes, even as the rest of his face
stays totally neutral. I don’t trust him, I realize, and again
wonder why he is lying about being in the labs yesterday.
Maybe only because it’s forbidden, like he said. Maybe
because he was laughing instead of trying to help out.
And maybe, after all, he really doesn’t recognize me. We
made eye contact for only a few seconds, and I’m sure to
him I was only a blurry, in-between face, easy to forget. Not
pretty. Not ugly, either. Just plain, like a thousand other
faces you would see on the street.
He, on the other hand, is most definitely not in-between.
There’s something insane to me about standing in the open
talking to a strange boy, even if he is cured, and though my
head is whirling, it’s like my vision gets razor sharp, making
everything look ultra-detailed. I notice the way a piece of his
hair curls around his scar, like a frame; I notice his large
brown hands and the whiteness of his teeth and the perfect
symmetry of his face. His jeans are faded and belted low
on his hips, and the laces in his sneakers are the weirdest
ink-color blue, like he has colored them in with a pen.
I wonder how old he is. He looks my age, but he must be
slightly older, maybe nineteen. I wonder, too—a brief, flitting
thought—whether he’s already been paired. But of course
he has; he must have been.
I’ve been staring at him accidentally and he turns
suddenly to look at me. I drop my eyes, feeling a quick and
irrational terror that he has managed to read my thoughts.
“I’d love to look around,” Hana hints not-so-subtly. I reach
out and pinch her when Alex isn’t looking and she shrinks
away, giving me a guilty look. At least she doesn’t start
grilling him about what happened yesterday, and get us
thrown in jail or dragged through an interrogation.
Alex tosses his water bottle in the air, catches it in one
hand. “Trust me, there’s nothing to see. Unless you’re a fan
of industrial waste. There’s plenty of that around here.” He
tips his head toward the Dumpsters. “Oh—and the best
view of the bay in Portland. We’ve got that going for us too.”
“Really?” Hana wrinkles her nose, momentarily distracted
from her detective mission.
Alex nods, tosses the bottle again, catches it. As it arcs
through the air the sun winks through the water like light
from a jewel. “That I can show you,” he says. “Come on.”
All I want is to get out of here, but Hana says, “Sure,” so I
trudge along after her, silently cursing her curiosity and
fixation with all things Invalid-related and vowing never to let
her pick our running route again. She and Alex walk in front,
and I pick up scattered bits of their conversation: I hear him
say he takes classes at one of the colleges but miss what
he says he studies; Hana tells him we’re about to graduate.
He tells her he’s nineteen; she says that we’re both turning
eighteen in several months. Thankfully, they avoid talking
about the botched evaluations yesterday.
The service road connects with another, smaller drive,
which runs parallel to Fore Street, slanting steeply uphill
toward the Eastern Promenade. Here there are rows of
long, metal storage sheds. The sun is flat and high and
unrelenting. I’m incredibly thirsty, but when Alex turns
around and offers me a sip from his water bottle, I say,
“No,” quickly and too loud. The thought of putting my mouth
where his mouth has been makes me feel anxious all over
again.
As we come up to the top of the hill—all three of us
panting a little from the climb—the bay unfolds to our right
like a gigantic map, a sparkling, shimmering world of blues
and greens. Hana gasps a little. It really is a beautiful view:
unobstructed and perfect. The sky is full of poufy white
clouds that make me think of feather pillows, and seagulls
turn lazy arcs over the water, patterns of birds forming and
dissolving in the sky.
Hana walks forward a few feet. “It’s amazing. Gorgeous,
isn’t it? No matter how long I live here I never get used to it.”
She turns and looks at me. “I think this is my favorite way to
see the ocean. Middle of the afternoon, sunny and bright.
It’s just like a photograph. Don’t you think, Lena?”
I’m feeling so relaxed—enjoying the wind at the top of the
hill, which sweeps over my arms and legs and makes me
feel cool and delicious, enjoying the view of the bay and the
high, blinking eye of the sun—I’ve almost forgotten that Alex
is with us. He’s been hanging back, standing a few feet
behind us, and ever since we came up the hill he hasn’t
said a word.
Which is why I nearly jump out of my skin when he leans
forward and directs a single word into my ear: “Gray.”
“What?” I whirl around, my heart pounding. Hana has
turned back to the water and is going on about wishing she
had her camera and how you never seem to have anything
you really need. Alex is bent close to me—so close I can
see his individual eyelashes, like perfect brushstrokes on a
canvas portrait—and now his eyes are literally dancing with
light, burning as though on fire.
“What did you say?” I repeat. My voice comes out a
croaky whisper.
He leans another inch closer, and it’s like the flames
seep out of his eyes and light my whole body on fire. I’ve
never been this close to a boy before. I feel like fainting and
running all at the same time. But I can’t move.
“I said, I prefer the ocean when it’s gray. Or not really
gray. A pale, in-between color. It reminds me of waiting for
something good to happen.”
He does remember. He was there. The ground seems to
be dissolving under my feet the way it does in the dream
about my mother. All I can see are his eyes, the shifting
pattern of shadow and light turning there.
“You lied,” I manage to croak out. “Why did you lie?”
He doesn’t answer me. He pulls away a few inches and
says, “Of course it’s even prettier at sunset. Around eight
thirty the sky looks like it’s on fire, especially at Back Cove.
You should really see it.” He pauses, and though his voice
is low and casual I get the feeling he’s trying to tell me
something important. “Tonight it will probably be amazing.”
My brain grinds into action, slowly processing his words,
the way he’s emphasizing certain details. Then it clicks: He
has given me a time and a place. He’s telling me to meet
him. “Are you asking me to—?” I start to say, but just then
Hana runs back up to me, grabbing my arm.
“God,” she says, laughing. “Can you believe it’s after five
already? We’ve got to go.” She’s dragging me backward
before I can respond or protest, and by the time I think to
look over my shoulder to see if Alex is watching or giving
me any kind of sign, he has disappeared from view.

T
Chapter Six
Mama, Mama, help me get home
I’m out in the woods, I am out on my own.
I found me a werewolf, a nasty old mutt
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my gut.
Mama, Mama, help me get home
I’m out in the woods, I am out on my own.
I was stopped by a vampire, a rotting old wreck
It showed me its teeth, and went straight for my neck.
Mama, Mama, put me to bed
I won’t make it home, I’m already half-dead.
I met an Invalid, and fell for his art
He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.
—From “A Child’s Walk Home,” Nursery Rhymes
and Folk Tales, edited by Cory Levinson
hat evening I can’t concentrate. When I’m setting the
table for dinner, I accidentally pour wine in Gracie’s juice
cup and orange juice in my uncle’s wineglass, and while
I’m grating cheese I catch my knuckles so many times in the
teeth of the grater my aunt finally sends me out of the
kitchen, saying she’d prefer not to have a topping of skin for
her ravioli. I can’t stop thinking about the last thing Alex said
to me, the endlessly shifting pattern of his eyes, the strange
expression on his face—like he was inviting me. Around
eight thirty the sky looks like it’s on fire, especially at Back
Cove. You should really see it… .
Is it even remotely, conceivably possible he was sending
me a message? Is it possible he was asking me to meet
him?
The idea makes me dizzy.
I keep thinking, too, about the single word, directed low
and quietly straight into my ear: Gray. He was there; he saw
me; he remembered me. So many questions crowd my
brain at once, it’s like one of the famous Portland fogs has
swept up from the ocean and settled there, making it
impossible to think normal, functional thoughts.
My aunt finally notices something’s wrong. Just before
dinner I’m helping Jenny with her homework, as always,
testing her on her multiplication tables. We’re sitting on the
floor of the living room, which is squashed up right next to
the “dining room” (an alcove that barely holds a table and
six chairs), and I’m holding her workbook on my knees,
reciting the problems to her, but my mind is on autopilot
and my thoughts are a million miles away. Or rather, they’re
exactly 3.4 miles away, down at the marshy edge of Back
Cove. I know the distance exactly because it’s a nice run
from my house. Now I’m calculating how quickly I could get
down there on my bike, and then beating myself up for even
considering the idea.
“Seven times eight?”
Jenny pinches her lips together. “Fifty-six.”
“Nine times six?”
“Fifty-two.”
On the other hand, there’s no law that says you can’t
speak to a cured. Cureds are safe. They can be mentors or
guides to the uncureds. Even though Alex is only a year
older than I am, we’re separated, irreparably and totally, by
the procedure. He might as well be my grandfather.
“Seven times eleven?”
“Seventy-seven.”
“Lena.” My aunt has squeezed out of the kitchen, past the
dining room table, and is standing behind Jenny. I blink
twice, trying to focus. Carol’s face is tight with concern. “Is
something the matter?”
“No.” I drop my eyes quickly. I hate it when my aunt looks
at me like that, like she’s reading all the bad parts from my
soul. I feel guilty just for thinking about a boy, even a cured
one. If she knew, she would say, Oh, Lena. Careful.
Remember what happened to your mother. She would
say, These diseases tend to run in the blood. “Why?”
I keep my eyes trained on the worn carpet underneath
me. Carol bends forward, swoops up Jenny’s workbook
from my knees, and says loudly in her clear, high voice,
“Nine times six is fifty-four.” She snaps the workbook
closed. “Not fifty-two, Lena. I assume you know your
multiplication tables?”
Jenny sticks her tongue out at me.
My cheeks start heating up as I realize my mistake.
“Sorry. I guess I’m just kind of … distracted.”
There’s a momentary pause. Carol’s eyes never leave
the back of my neck. I can sense them burning there. I feel
like I’ll scream, or cry, or confess, if she keeps staring at
me.Finally she sighs. “You’re still thinking about the
evaluations, aren’t you?”
I blow the air out of my cheeks, feel a weight of anxiety
ease off my chest. “Yeah. I guess so.” I venture a glance up
at her, and she smiles her little skittering smile.
“I know you’re disappointed you have to go through the
process again. But think about it this way—this time you’ll
be even more prepared.”
I bob my head and try to look enthusiastic, even though a
little, pinching feeling of guilt starts nipping at me. I haven’t
even thought about the evaluations since this morning, not
since I found out the results would be discounted. “Yeah,
you’re right.”
“Come on, now. Dinnertime.” My aunt reaches out and
passes a finger over my forehead. Her finger is cool and
reassuring, and gone as quickly as the lightest stirring of
wind. It makes the guilt flare up full force, and in that
moment I can’t believe I was even considering going to
Back Cove. It’s the absolute, 100 percent wrong thing to
do, and I stand up for dinner feeling clean and weightless
and happy, like the first time you feel healthy after a long
fever.
But at dinner my curiosity—and with it, my doubts—
return. I can barely follow the conversation. All I can think is:
Go? Don’t go? Go? Don’t go? At one point my uncle is
telling a story about one of his customers, and I notice
everyone is laughing so I laugh too, but a little too loud and
long. Everyone turns to look at me, even Gracie, who
puckers her nose and tilts her head like a dog sniffing at
something new.
“Are you okay, Lena?” my uncle asks, adjusting his
glasses as though hoping to bring me into clearer focus.
“You seem a little strange.”
“I’m fine.” I push around some ravioli on my plate.
Normally I can put away half a box myself, especially after a
long run (and still have room for dessert), but I’ve barely
managed to choke down a few bites. “Just stressed.”
“Leave her alone,” my aunt says. “She’s upset about the
evaluations. They didn’t exactly turn out as planned.”
She lifts her eyes to my uncle, and they exchange a quick
glance. I feel a rush of excitement. It’s rare for my aunt and
uncle to look at each other like that, a wordless glance, full
of meaning. Most of the time their interactions are limited to
the usual thing—my uncle tells stories about work, my aunt
tells stories about the neighbors. What’s for dinner?
There’s a leak in the roof. Blah blah blah. I think that for
once they’re going to mention the Wilds, and the Invalids.
But then my uncle gives a minute shake of his head.
“These kinds of mix-ups happen all the time,” he says,
staking a ravioli with his fork. “Just the other day, I asked
Andrew to reorder three cases of Vik’s orange juice. But he
goes and gets the codes wrong and guess what shows up?
Three cases of baby formula. I said to him, I said, ‘Andrew
…’”
I tune the conversation out again, grateful that my uncle is
a talker, and happy that my aunt has taken my side. The
one good thing about being kind of shy is that nobody bugs
you when you want to be left alone. I lean forward and
sneak a glance at the clock in the kitchen. Seven thirty, and
we haven’t even finished eating. And afterward I’ll have to
help clear and wash the dishes, which always takes forever;
the dishwasher uses up too much electricity, so we have to
do them by hand.
Outside, the sun is streaked with filaments of gold and
pink. It looks like the candy that gets spun at the Sugar
Shack downtown, all gloss and stretch and color. It will be a
beautiful sunset tonight. In that moment the urge to go is so
strong, I have to squeeze the sides of my chair to keep from
suddenly springing up and running out the door.
Finally I decide to stop stressing and leave it to luck, or
fate, or whatever you want to call it. If we finish eating and
I’m done cleaning up the dishes in time to make it to Back
Cove, I’ll go. If not, I’ll stay. I feel a million times better once
I’ve made the decision, and even manage to shovel down a
few more bites of ravioli before Jenny (miracle of miracles)
has a sudden late burst of speed and cleans her plate, and
my aunt announces I can clear the dishes whenever I’m
ready.
I stand up and start stacking everyone’s plates. It’s
almost eight o’clock. Even if I can wash all the dishes in
fifteen
minutes—and that’s a stretch—it will still be difficult to get
to the beach by eight thirty. And forget about making it back
by nine o’clock, when the city has a mandated curfew for
uncureds.
And if I got caught on the streets after curfew …
The truth is, I don’t know what would happen. I’ve never
broken curfew.
Just as I’ve finally accepted that there’s no way to get to
Back Cove and back in time, my aunt does the unthinkable.
As I’m reaching forward to take her plate, she stops me.
“You don’t have to clean the dishes tonight, Lena. I’ll do
them.”
As she’s speaking, she reaches out and puts a hand on
my arm. Just like earlier, the touch is as fleeting and cool as
wind.
And before I can think about what this means, I’m blurting
out, “Actually, I have to run to Hana’s house really quick.”
“Now?” A look of alarm—or suspicion?—flickers across
my aunt’s face. “It’s nearly eight o’clock.”
“I know. We—she—she has a study guide she was
supposed to give me. I just remembered.”
Now the look of suspicion—it is suspicion, definitely—
makes itself comfortable, drawing Carol’s eyebrows
together, cinching her lips. “You don’t have any of the same
classes. And your boards are over. How important can it
classes. And your boards are over. How important can it
be?”
“It’s not for class.” I roll my eyes, trying to conjure up
Hana’s nonchalance, even though my palms are sweating
and my heart is jerking around in my chest. “It’s like a guide
full of pointers. For the evaluations. She knows I need to
prep more, since I almost choked yesterday.”
Again, my aunt directs a small glance at my uncle.
“Curfew’s in an hour,” she says to me. “If you get caught out
after
curfew …”
Nervousness makes my temper flare. “I know about
curfew,” I snap. “I’ve only been hearing about it for my whole
life.”
I feel guilty the second that the words are out of my
mouth, and I drop my eyes to avoid looking at Carol. I’ve
never spoken back to her, have always tried to be as
patient and obedient and good as possible—have always
tried to be as invisible as possible, a nice girl who helps
with the dishes and the little kids and does her homework
and listens and keeps her head down. I know that I owe
Carol for taking Rachel and me in after my mother died. If it
wasn’t for her, I’d probably be wasting away in one of the
orphanages, uneducated, unnoticed, destined for a job at a
slaughterhouse, probably, cleaning up sheep guts or cow
crap or something like that. Maybe—maybe!—if I was
lucky, I’d get to work for a cleaning service.
No foster parent will adopt a child whose past has been
tainted by the disease.
I wish I could read her mind. I have no idea what she’s
thinking, but she seems to be analyzing me, attempting to
read my face. I think, I’m not doing anything wrong, it’s
harmless, I’m fine, over and over, and wipe my palms on
the back of my jeans, positive I’m leaving a sweat mark.
“Be quick,” she says finally, and as soon as the words
are out of her mouth I’m off, jetting upstairs and switching
my sandals for sneakers. Then I bang back down the stairs
and fly out the door. My aunt has barely had time to take the
dishes into the kitchen. She calls something to me as I blur
past her, but I’m already pushing out the front door and
don’t catch what she says. The ancient grandfather clock in
the living room starts booming out just as the screen door
swings shut behind me. Eight o’clock.
I unlock my bike and pedal it down the front path and out
into the street. The pedals creak and moan and shudder.
This bike was owned by my cousin Marcia before me and
must be at least fifteen years old, and leaving it outside all
year isn’t doing anything to preserve it.
I start cruising in the direction of Back Cove, which is
downhill, fortunately. The streets are always pretty empty at
this time of night. For the most part, the cureds are inside,
sitting at dinner, or cleaning up, or preparing for bed and
another night of dreamless sleep, and all the uncureds are
home or on their way there, nervously watching the minutes
swirl away toward nine o’clock curfew.
My legs are still aching from my run earlier today. If I
make it to Back Cove on time and Alex is there, I’m going
to be a complete mess, sweaty and disgusting. But I keep
going anyway. Now that I’m out of the house I push all my
doubts and questions out of my mind and focus on hauling
ass as fast as my cramping legs will allow me, spinning
down through the vacant streets toward the cove, taking
every shortcut I can think of, watching the sun descend
steadily toward the blazing gold line of the horizon, as
though the sky—a brilliant, electric blue at this point—is
water, and the light is just sinking through it.
I’ve only been out at this hour a few times on my own, and
the feeling is strange—frightening and exhilarating at the
same time, like talking to Alex out in the open earlier this
afternoon: as though the revolving eye that I know is always
watching has been blinded just for a fraction of a second,
as though the hand you’ve been holding your whole life
suddenly disappears and leaves you free to move in any
direction you want.
Lights sputter in windows around me, candles and
lanterns, mostly; this is a poor area, and everything is
rationed, especially gas and electricity. At a certain point I
lose sight of the sun’s position beyond the four- and fivestory
buildings, which grow more densely packed after I turn
onto Preble: tall, skinny, dark buildings, pressed up against
one another as though already preparing for winter and
huddling for warmth. I haven’t really thought about what I’ll
say to Alex, and the idea of standing alone with him
suddenly makes my stomach bottom out. I have to pull my
bike up abruptly, stop and catch my breath. My heart is
pounding frantically. After a minute’s rest I keep pedaling,
slower now. I’m still about a mile away but the cove is
visible, flashing off to my right. The sun is just teetering over
the dark mass of trees on the horizon. I have ten, fifteen
minutes tops until total darkness.
Then another thought nearly stops me, hitting me straight
like a fist: He won’t be there. I’ll be too late and he’ll leave.
Or this will turn out to be a big joke, or a trick.
I wrap one arm around my stomach, willing the ravioli to
stay put, and pick up speed again.
I’m so busy circling one foot after the other—left, right,
left, right—and doing a mental tug-of-war with my digestive
tract, that I don’t hear the regulators coming.
I’m about to speed through the long-defunct traffic light at
Baxter when I am suddenly dazzled by a wall of zipping,
bouncing light: the beams of a dozen flashlights directed
into my eyes, so I have to skid abruptly to a halt, lifting a
hand to my face and nearly flipping over the handlebars—
which would be a real disaster, since in my rush to get out
of the house I forgot to bring my helmet.
“Stop,” the voice of one of the regulators barks out—the
leader in charge of the patrol, I guess. “Identity check.”
Groups of regulators—both volunteer citizens and the
actual regulators employed by the government—patrol the
streets every night, looking for uncureds breaking curfew,
checking the streets and (if the curtains are open) houses
for unapproved activity, like two uncureds touching each
other, or walking together after dark—or even two cureds
engaging in “activity that might signal the re-emergence of
the deliria after the procedure,” like too much hugging and
kissing. This rarely happens, but it does happen.
Regulators report directly to the government and work
closely with the scientists at the labs. Regulators were
responsible for sending my mother off for her third
procedure; a passing patrol saw her crying over a
photograph one night right after her second failed
treatment. She was looking at a picture of my father, and
she’d forgotten to close the curtains all the way. Within
days, she was back at the labs.
Normally it’s easy to avoid the regulators. You can
practically hear them from a mile away. They carry walkietalkies
to coordinate with other patrolling groups, and the
static interference of the radios going on and off makes it
sound like a giant buzzing den of hornets is heading your
way. I just wasn’t paying attention. Mentally cursing myself
for being so stupid, I fish my wallet out of my back pocket.
At least I remembered to grab that. It’s illegal to go without
ID in Portland. The last thing anybody wants is to spend the
night in jail while the powers that be try to verify your validity.
“Magdalena Ella Haloway,” I say, trying to keep my voice
steady, as I pass my ID to the regulator in charge. I can
hardly make him out behind his flashlight, which he keeps
trained on my face, forcing me to squint. He’s big; that’s all I
know. Tall, thin, angular.
“Magdalena Ella Haloway,” he repeats. He flips my ID
over between his long fingers and looks at my identity
code, a number assigned to every citizen of the USA. The
first three digits identify your state, the next three your city,
the next three your family group, the next four your identity.
“And what are you doing, Magdalena? Curfew’s in less than
forty minutes.”
Less than forty minutes. That must mean it’s almost eight
thirty. I shift on my feet, trying hard not to betray impatience.
A lot of the regulators—especially the volunteer ones—are
poorly paid city techs: window washers or gas-meter
readers or security guards.
I take a deep breath and say as innocently as possible, “I
wanted to take a quick ride down to Back Cove.” I do my
best to smile and look kind of stupid. “I was feeling bloaty
after dinner.” No point in lying any more than that. I’ll just get
myself in trouble.
The lead regulator continues to examine me, the
flashlight directed glaringly at my face, my ID card in his
hand. For a second he seems to waver, and I’m sure he’s
going to let me go, but then he passes my ID to another
regulator. “Run it through with SVS, will you? Make sure it’s
valid.”
My heart plummets. SVS is the Secure Validation
System, a computer network where all the valid
citizenships, for every single person in the entire country,
are stored. It can take twenty to thirty minutes for the
computer system to match codes, depending on how many
other people are calling into the system. He can’t really
think I’ve forged an identity card, but he’s going to waste my
time while someone checks.
And then, miraculously, a voice pipes up from the back of
the group. “She’s valid, Gerry. I recognize her. She comes
into the store. Lives at 172 Cumberland.”
Gerry swings around, lowering his flashlight in the
process. I blink away the floating dots in my vision. I
recognize a few faces vaguely—a woman who works in the
local dry cleaners and spends her afternoons leaning in the
doorway, chewing gum and occasionally spitting out into
the street; the traffic officer who works downtown near
Franklin Arterial, one of the few areas of Portland that has
enough car traffic to justify one; one of the guys who collects
our garbage—and there, in the back, Dev Howard, who
owns the Quikmart down the street from my house.
Normally my uncle brings home most of our groceries—
canned goods and pasta and sliced meats, for the most
part—from his combo deli and convenience store, Stop-NSave,
all the way over on Munjoy Hill, but occasionally, if
we’re desperate for toilet paper or milk, I’ll run out to the
Quikmart. Mr. Howard has always creeped me out. He’s
super-skinny and has hooded black eyes that remind me of
a rat’s. But tonight I feel like I could hug him. I didn’t even
think he knew my name. He’s never said a word to me
except, “Will that be all today?” after he has rung up my
purchases, glowering at me from underneath the heavy
shade of his eyelids. I make a mental note to thank him the
next time I see him.
Gerry hesitates for a fraction of a second longer, but I
can see that the other regulators are starting to get restless,
shifting from foot to foot, eager to continue the patrol and
find someone to bust.
Gerry must sense it too, because he jerks his head
abruptly in my direction. “Let her have the ID.”
Relief makes me feel like laughing, and I have to struggle
to look serious as I take my ID and tuck it into place. My
hands are shaking ever so slightly. It’s strange how being
around the regulators will do that to you. Even when they’re
being relatively nice, you can’t help but think of all the bad
stories you’ve heard—the raids and the beatings and the
ambushes.
“Just be careful, Magdalena,” Gerry says, as I straighten
up. “Make sure you’re home before curfew.” He tilts his
flashlight into my eyes again. I lift my arm to my eyes,
squinting against the dazzle. “You wouldn’t want to get into
any trouble.”
He says it lightly, but for a moment I think I hear
something hard running under his words, a current of anger
or aggression. But then I tell myself I’m just being paranoid.
No matter what the regulators do, they exist for our
protection, for our own good.
The regulators sweep away in a group around me, so for
a few seconds I’m caught up in a tide of rough shoulders
and cotton jackets, unfamiliar cologne and sweat-smells.
Walkie-talkies sputter to life and fade away again around
me. I catch snippets of words and broadcasts: Market
Street, a girl and a boy, possibly infected, unapproved
music on St. Lawrence, someone appears to be dancing
… I get bumped side to side against arms and chests and
elbows, until finally the group passes and I’m spit out again,
left alone on the street as the regulators’ footsteps grow
more distant behind me. I wait until I can no longer hear the
fuzz of their radio chatter or their boots hitting the
pavement.
Then I take off, feeling again a lifting sensation in my
chest, that same sense of happiness and freedom. I can’t
believe how easy it was to get out of the house. I never
knew I could lie to my aunt—I never knew I could lie, period
—and when I think about how narrowly I escaped getting
grilled by the regulators for hours, it makes me want to jump
up and down and pump my fist in the air. Tonight the whole
world is on my side. And I’m only a few minutes from Back
Cove. My heart picks up its rhythm as I think about skidding
down the sloping hill of grass, seeing Alex framed against
the last, dazzling rays of sun—as I think about that single
word breathed into my ear. Gray.
I tear down Baxter, which loops around the last mile
down to Back Cove. And then I stop short. The buildings
have fallen away behind me, giving way to ramshackle
sheds, sparsely situated on either side of the cracked and
run-down road. Beyond that, a short strip of tall, weedy
grass slants down toward the cove. The water is an
enormous mirror, tipped with pink and gold from the sky. In
that single, blazing moment as I come around the bend, the
sun—curved over the dip of the horizon like a solid gold
archway—lets out its final winking rays of light, shattering
the darkness of the water, turning everything white for a
fraction of a second, and then falls away, sinking, dragging
the pink and the red and the purple out of the sky with it, all
the color bleeding away instantly and leaving only dark.
Alex was right. It was gorgeous—one of the best I’ve
ever seen.
For a moment I can’t move or do anything but stand
there, breathing hard, staring. Then a numbness creeps
over me. I’m too late. The regulators must have been wrong
about the time. It must be after eight thirty now. Even if Alex
decides to wait for me somewhere along the long loop of
the cove, I don’t have a prayer of finding him and making it
home before curfew.
My eyes sting and the world in front of me goes watery,
colors and shapes sloshing together. For a second I think I
must be crying, and I’m so startled I forget everything—
forget about my disappointment and frustration, forget
about Alex standing on the beach, the thought of his hair
catching the dying rays of sun, flashing copper. I can’t
remember the last time I cried. It’s been years. I wipe my
eyes with the back of my hand, and my vision sharpens
again. It’s just sweat, I realize, relieved; I’m sweating, it’s
getting in my eyes. Still, the sick, leaden feeling won’t work
its way out of my stomach.
I stay there for a few minutes, straddling my bike,
squeezing the handlebars hard until I’m a little bit calmer.
Part of me wants to say, screw it, to shove off, both legs
extended, and go flying down the hill toward the water with
the wind whipping up my hair—screw curfew, screw the
regulators, screw everyone. But I can’t; I couldn’t; I could
never. I have no choice. I have to get home.
I maneuver my bike around in a clumsy circle and start
back up the street. Now that the adrenaline and excitement
have faded, my legs feel like they’re made out of iron, and
I’m panting before I’ve gone a quarter of a mile. This time
I’m careful to stay alert for regulators and police and
patrols.
On the way home I tell myself that it’s probably for the
best. I must be crazy, zooming around in the half dark just to
meet up with some guy on the beach. Besides, everything
has been explained: He works at the labs, probably just
snuck in on evaluation day for some completely innocent
reason—to use the bathroom, or refill his water bottle.
And I remind myself that I probably imagined the whole
thing—the message, the meeting up. He’s probably sitting
in his apartment somewhere, doing course work for his
classes. He’s probably already forgotten about the two girls
he met at the lab complex today. He was probably just
being nice earlier, making casual conversation.
It’s for the best. But no matter how many times I repeat it,
the strange, hollow feeling in my stomach doesn’t go away.
And ridiculous as it is, I can’t shake the persistent, needling
feeling that I’ve forgotten something, or missed something,
or lost something forever.

I
Chapter Seven
Of all the systems of the body—neurological,
cognitive, special, sensory—the cardiological
system is the most sensitive and easily disturbed.
The role of society must be to shelter these systems
from infection and decay, or else the future of the
human race is at stake. Like a summer fruit that is
protected from insect invasion, bruising, and rot by
the whole mechanism of modern farming; so must
we protect the heart.
—”The Role and Purpose of Society,”
The Book of Shhh, p. 353
was named after Mary Magdalene, who was nearly killed
from love: “So infected with deliria and in violation of the
pacts of society, she fell in love with men who would not
have her or could not keep her.” (Book of Lamentations,
Mary 13:1).
We learned all about it in Biblical Science. First there
was John, then Matthew, then Jeremiah and Peter and
Judas, and many other nameless men in-between.
Her last love, they say, was the greatest: a man named
Her last love, they say, was the greatest: a man named
Joseph, a bachelor all his life, who found her on the street,
bruised and broken and half-crazy from deliria. There’s
some debate about what kind of man Joseph was—
whether he was righteous or not, whether he ever
succumbed to the disease—but in any case, he took good
care of her. He nursed her to health and tried to bring her
peace.
By this time, however, it was too late. She was tormented
by her past, haunted by the loves lost and damaged and
ruined, by the evils she had inflicted on others and that
others had inflicted on her. She could hardly eat; she wept
all day; she clung to Joseph and begged him never to leave
her, but couldn’t find comfort in his goodness.
And then one morning, she woke and Joseph was gone
—without a word or an explanation. This final abandonment
broke her at last and she fell to the ground, begging God to
put her out of her misery.
He heard her prayers, and in his infinite compassion he
instead removed from her the curse of deliria, with which all
humans had been burdened as punishment for the original
sin of Eve and Adam. In a sense, Mary Magdalene was the
very first cured.
“And so after years of tribulation and pain, she walked in
righteousness and peace until the end of her days” (Book
of Lamentations, Mary 13:1).
I always thought it was strange that my mother named me
Magdalena. She didn’t even believe in the cure. That was
her whole problem. And the Book of Lamentations is all
about the dangers of deliria. I’ve done a lot of thinking
about it, and in the end I guess I’ve figured out that despite
everything, my mother knew that she was wrong: that the
cure, and the procedure, were for the best. I think even then
she knew what she was going to do—she knew what would
happen. I guess my name was her final gift to me, in a way.
It was a message.
I think she was trying to say, Forgive me. I think she was
trying to say, Someday, even this pain will be taken away.
You see? No matter what everyone says, and despite
everything, I know she wasn’t all bad.
The next two weeks are the busiest of my life. Summer
explodes into Portland. In early June the heat was there but
not the color—the greens were still pale and tentative, the
mornings had a biting coolness—but by the last week of
school everything is Technicolor and splash, outrageous
blue skies and purple thunderstorms and ink-black night
skies and red flowers as bright as spots of blood. Every
day after school there’s an assembly, or ceremony, or
graduation party to go to. Hana gets invited to all of them; I
get invited to most, which surprises me.
Harlowe Davis—who lives with Hana in the West End,
and whose father does something for the government—
invites me to come over for a “casual good-bye thing.” I
didn’t even think she knew my name—whenever she’s
talking to Hana her eyes have always skated past me, like
I’m not worth focusing on. I go anyway. I’ve always been
curious about her house, and it turns out to be as
spectacular as I imagined. Her family has a car, too, and
electric appliances everywhere that obviously get used
every day, washers and dryers and huge chandeliers filled
with dozens and dozens of lightbulbs. Harlowe has invited
most of the graduating class—there are sixty-seven of us in
total and probably fifty at the party—which makes me feel
less special, but it’s still fun. We sit in the backyard while
the housekeeper runs in and out of the house with plates
and plates of food—coleslaw and potato salad and other
barbecue stuff—and her father turns out spare ribs and
hamburgers on the enormous smoking grill. I eat until I feel
like I’m about to burst and have to roll backward onto the
blanket I’m sharing with Hana. We stay there until almost
curfew, when the stars are peeking through a curtain of
dark blue and the mosquitoes rise up all at once and we all
go shrieking and laughing back into the house, slapping
them away. Afterward I think it’s one of the nicest days I’ve
had in a long time.
Even girls I don’t really like—like Shelly Pierson, who has
hated me since sixth grade, when I won the science fair and
she took second place—start being nice. I guess it’s
because we all know the end is close. Most of us won’t see
one another after graduation, and even if we do it will be
different. We’ll be different. We’ll be adults—cured, tagged
and labeled and paired and identified and placed neatly on
our life path, perfectly round marbles set to roll down even,
well-defined slopes.
Theresa Grass turns eighteen before school ends and
gets cured; so does Morgan Dell. They’re absent for a few
days and come back to school just before graduation. The
change is amazing. They seem peaceful now, mature and
somehow remote, like they’re encased in a thin layer of ice.
Only two weeks ago Theresa’s nickname was Theresa
Gross, and everyone made fun of her for slouching and
chewing on the ends of her hair and generally being a
mess, but now she walks straight and tall with her eyes
fixed straight in front of her, her lips barely curled in a smile,
and everyone shifts a little in the halls so she can pass
easily. Same thing goes for Morgan. It’s like all their anxiety
and self-consciousness has been removed along with the
disease. Even Morgan’s legs have stopped trembling.
Whenever she used to have to speak in class, the trembling
would get so bad it would rock the desk. But after the
procedure, just like that—whoosh! The shaking stops. Of
course they’re not the first girls in our class to get cured—
Eleanor Rana and Annie Hahn were both cured way back
in the fall, and half a dozen other girls have had the
procedure this past semester—but in them the difference is
somehow more pronounced.
I keep going with my countdown. Eighty-one days, then
eighty, then seventy-nine.
Willow Marks never comes back to school. Rumors filter
back to us—that she had her procedure and it turned out
fine; that she had her procedure and now her brain is going
haywire, and they’re talking about committing her to the
Crypts, Portland’s combo prison-and-mental-ward; that she
ran away to the Wilds. Only one thing is for sure: The whole
Marks family is under constant surveillance now. The
regulators are blaming Mr. and Mrs. Marks—and the whole
extended
family—for not instilling in her a proper education, and only
a few days after she was supposedly found in Deering
Oaks Park, I overhear my aunt and uncle whispering that
both of Willow’s parents have been fired from their jobs. A
week later we hear that they’ve had to move in with a
distant relative. Apparently people kept throwing rocks at
their windows, and a whole side of their house was written
over with a single word: SYMPATHIZERS. It makes no sense,
because Mr. and Mrs. Marks were on record insisting that
their daughter have the procedure early, despite the risks,
but as my aunt says, people get like that when they’re
scared. Everyone is terrified that the deliria will somehow
find its way into Portland on a large scale. Everyone wants
to prevent an epidemic.
I feel bad for the Marks family, of course, but that’s the
way things are. It’s like the regulators: You may not like the
patrols and the identity checks, but since you know it’s all
done for your protection, it’s impossible not to cooperate.
And it may sound awful, but I don’t think about Willow’s
family for long. There’s just too much end-of-high-school
paperwork to file, and nervous energy, and lockers to clean
out and final exams to take and people to say good-bye to.
Hana and I can barely find time to run together. When we
do, we stick to our old routes by silent agreement. She
never mentions the afternoon at the labs again, to my
surprise. But Hana’s mind has a tendency to skip around,
and her new obsession is a collapse at the northern end of
the border that people are saying might have been caused
by Invalids. I don’t even consider going down to the labs
again, not for one single solitary second. I focus on
everything and anything besides my lingering questions
about Alex—which isn’t too hard, considering that I now
can’t believe I spent an evening biking up and down the
streets of Portland, lying to Carol and the regulators, just to
meet up with him. The very next day it felt like a dream, or a
delusion. I tell myself I must have gone temporarily insane:
brain scramble, from running in the heat.
On graduation day Hana sits three rows ahead of me at
the commencement ceremony. As she files past me to take
her seat she reaches out for my hand—two long pumps,
two short ones—and when she sits down she tilts her head
back so I can see that she has taken a marker and
scrawled on the top of her graduation cap: THANK GOD! I
stifle a laugh, and she turns around and makes a pretendstern
face at me. All of us are giddy, and I’ve never felt
closer to the St. Anne’s girls than that day—all of us
sweating under the sun, which beams down on us like an
exaggerated smile, fanning ourselves with the
commencement brochures, trying not to yawn or roll our
eyes while Principal McIntosh drones on about “adulthood”
and “our entrance into the community order,” nudging one
another and tugging on the collars of our scratchy
graduation gowns to try to let some air down our necks.
Family members sit in white plastic folding chairs, under
a cream white tarp fluttering with flags: the school flag, the
city flag, the state flag, the American flag. They applaud
politely as each graduate goes up to receive her diploma.
When it’s my turn I scan the audience, looking for my aunt
and my sister, but I’m so nervous about tripping and falling
as I take my place on the stage and reach for the diploma
in Principal McIntosh’s hand, I can’t see anything but color
—green, blue, white, a mess of pink and brown faces—or
make out any individual sounds beyond the shush of
clapping hands. Only Hana’s voice, loud and clear as a bell:
“Hallelujah, Halena!” That’s our special pump-you-up chant
that we used to do before track meets and tests, a
combination of both of our names.
Afterward we line up to take individual portraits with our
diplomas. An official photographer has been hired, and a
royal blue backdrop set up in the middle of the soccer field,
where we all stand and pose. We’re too excited to take the
pictures seriously, though. People keep doubling over
laughing in their pictures, so all you can see is the crown of
their heads.
When it’s my turn for a picture, at the very last second
Hana jumps in and throws one arm around my shoulders,
and the photographer is so startled he presses down on the
shutter anyway. Click! There we are: I’m turning to Hana,
mouth open, surprised, about to laugh. She’s a full head
taller than me, has her eyes shut and her mouth open. I
really do think there was something special about that day,
something golden and maybe even magic, because even
though my face was all red and my hair looked sticky on my
forehead, it’s like Hana rubbed off on me a little bit—
because despite everything, and just in that one picture, I
look pretty. More than pretty. Beautiful, even.
The school band keeps playing, mostly in tune, and the
music floats across the field and is echoed by the birds
wheeling in the sky. It’s like something lifts in that moment,
some huge pressure or divide, and before I know what’s
happening all my classmates are crushing together in a
huge hug, jumping up and down and screaming, “We did it!
We did it! We did it!” And none of the parents or teachers
try to separate us. As we start to break away I see them
encircling us, watching with patient expressions, hands
folded. I catch my aunt’s gaze and my stomach does a
weird twist and I know that she, like everyone else, is giving
us this moment—our last moment together, before things
change for good and forever.
And things will change—are changing, even at that
second. As the group dissolves into clumps of students,
and the clumps dissolve into individuals, I notice Theresa
Grass and Morgan Dell already starting across the lawn
toward the street. They are each walking with their families,
heads down, without once
looking back. They haven’t been celebrating with us, I
realize, and it occurs to me I haven’t seen Eleanor Rana or
Annie Hahn or the other cureds either. They must have
already gone home. A curious ache throbs in the back of
my throat, even though of course this is how things are:
Everything ends, people move on, they don’t look back. It’s
how they should be.
I catch sight of Rachel through the crowd and go running
up to her, suddenly eager to be next to her, wishing she
would reach down and ruffle my hair like she used to when I
was very little, and say, “Good job, Loony,” her old
nickname for me.
“Rachel!” I’m breathless for no reason, and I have trouble
squeezing the words out. I’m so happy to see her I feel like I
could burst into tears. I don’t though, obviously. “You came.”
“Of course I came.” She smiles at me. “You’re my only
sister, remember?” She passes me a bouquet of daisies
she has brought with her, loosely wrapped in brown paper.
“Congratulations, Lena.”
I stick my face in the flowers and inhale, trying to fight
down the urge to reach out and hug her. For a second we
just stand there, blinking at each other, and then she
reaches out to me. I’m sure she’s going to put her arms
around me for old times’ sake, or at the very least give me
a one-armed squeeze.
Instead she just flicks a bang off my forehead. “Gross,”
she says, still smiling. “You’re all sweaty.”
It’s stupid and immature to feel disappointed, but I do.
“It’s the gown,” I say, and realize that yes, that must be the
problem: The gown is what’s choking me, stifling me,
making it hard to breathe.
“Come on,” she says. “Aunt Carol will want to
congratulate you.”
Aunt Carol is standing at the field’s periphery with my
uncle, Grace, and Jenny, talking to Mrs. Springer, my
history teacher. I fall into step beside Rachel. She is only a
few inches taller than I am and we walk together, in sync,
but separated by three feet of space. She is quiet. I can tell
she’s already wondering when she can go home and get on
with her life.
I let myself look back once. I can’t help it. I watch the girls
circulating in their orange gowns like flames. Everything
seems to zoom back, recede away at once. All the voices
intermingle and become indistinguishable from one another
—like the constant white noise of the ocean running
underneath the rhythm of the Portland streets, so constant
you hardly notice it. Everything looks stark and vivid and
frozen, as though drawn precisely and outlined in ink—
parents’ smiles frozen, camera flashes blinding, mouths
open and white teeth glistening, dark glossy hair and deep
blue sky and unrelenting light, everyone drowning in light—
everything so clear and perfect I’m sure it must already be a
memory, or a dream.

D
Chapter Eight
H is for hydrogen, a weight of one;
When fission’s split, as brightly lit
As hot as any sun.
He is for helium, a weight of two;
The noble gas, the ghostly pass
That lifts the world anew.
Li is for lithium, a weight of three;
A funeral pyre, when touched with fire—
And deadly sleep for me.
Be is for beryllium, a weight of four …
—From the Elemental Prayers
(“Prayer and Study,” The Book of Shhh)
uring the summers I have to help my uncle at the Stop-NSave
on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, mostly
stocking shelves and working behind the deli counter
and occasionally helping with filing and accounting in the
little office behind the cereal and dry goods aisle.
Thankfully, in late June, Andrew Marcus gets cured and
reassigned to a permanent position at another grocery
store.
On the Fourth of July I head to Hana’s house in the
morning. Every year we go to see the fireworks at the
Eastern Promenade. A band is always playing and vendors
set up their carts, selling fried meat on skewers and corn on
the cob and apple pie floating in a puddle of ice cream,
served in little paper boats. The Fourth of July—the day of
our independence, the day we commemorate the closing of
our nation’s border
forever—is one of my favorite holidays. I love the music that
pipes through the streets, love the way the steam rising
thick from the grills makes the streets look cloudy, the
people shadowy and unclear. I especially love the
temporary extension of curfew: Instead of being home at
nine o’clock, all uncureds are allowed to stay out until
eleven. In recent years Hana and I have made it a kind of
game to stay out until the last possible second, cutting it
closer and closer every year. Last year I stepped into the
house at 10:58 exactly, heart hammering in my chest,
shaking with exhaustion—I’d had to sprint home. But as I
lay in bed I couldn’t stop grinning. I felt like I’d gotten away
with something.
I type in Hana’s four-digit gate code—she gave it to me
in eighth grade, saying it was “a sign of trust” and also that
she’d slit me “from the top of the head to the heels” if I
shared it with anyone else —and slip in through the front
door. I never bother knocking. Her parents are hardly ever
home, and Hana never answers the door. I’m pretty much
the only person who comes over to see her. It’s weird. Hana
was always really popular in school—people looked up to
her and wanted to be like her—but even though she was
really friendly with everybody, she never really got close
close with anyone besides me.
Sometimes I wonder whether she wishes she’d been
assigned a different desk partner in Mrs. Jablonski’s
second-grade class, which is how we first became friends.
Hana’s last name is Tate, and we were linked up by
alphabetical order (by then I was already going by my
aunt’s last name, Tiddle). I wonder whether she wishes
she’d been placed with Rebecca Tralawny, or Katie Scarp,
or even Melissa Portofino. Sometimes I feel like she
deserves a best friend who is just a little more special.
Once Hana told me that she likes me because I’m for real
—because I really feel things. But that’s the whole problem:
how much I feel things.
“Hello?” I call out, as soon as I’m inside Hana’s house.
The front hall is dark and cool as always. Goose bumps
prick up over my arms. No matter how many times I come
to Hana’s house I’m always shocked by the power of the
air-conditioning, which hums somewhere deep inside the
walls. For a moment I just stand there, inhaling the clean
smells of furniture polish and Windex and fresh-cut flowers.
Music is pulsing from Hana’s room upstairs. I try to identify
the song but can’t make out any words, just bass throbbing
through the floorboards.
At the top of the stairs I pause. Hana’s bedroom door is
closed. I definitely don’t recognize the song she’s playing—
or blasting, really, so loud I have to remind myself that
Hana’s house is shielded on four sides by trees and lawn,
and no one will sic the regulators on her. It’s not like any
music I’ve ever heard. It’s a shrieky, shrill, fierce kind of
music: I can’t even tell whether the singer is male or female.
Little fingers of electricity creep up my spine, a feeling I
used to have when I was a tiny child, when I would creep
into the kitchen and try to sneak an extra cookie from the
pantry—the feeling right before the creak and squeak of my
mom’s footsteps in the kitchen behind me, when I would
whirl around, my hands and face coated in crumbs, guilty.
I shake off the feeling and push open Hana’s door. She’s
sitting at her computer, feet propped up on her desk,
bobbing her head and tapping out a rhythm on her thighs.
As soon as she sees me she swings forward and hits a key
on her keyboard. The music cuts off instantly. Strangely, the
silence that follows seems just as loud.
She flips her hair over one shoulder and scoots away
from the desk. Something flickers over her face, an
expression that passes too quickly for me to identify it. “Hi,”
she chirrups, a little too cheerfully. “Didn’t hear you come
in.”
“I doubt you would have heard me break in.” I go over to
her bed and collapse on top of it. Hana has a queen-size
bed, with three down pillows. It’s like heaven. “What was
that?”
“What was what?” She lifts her knees to her chest and
swivels a full circle in her chair. I sit up on my elbows and
swivels a full circle in her chair. I sit up on my elbows and
watch her. Hana only acts this dumb when she’s hiding
something.
“The music.” She still stares at me blankly. “The song you
were blasting when I came in. The one that almost burst my
eardrums.”
“Oh—that.” Hana blows her bangs out of her face. This is
another one of her tells. Whenever she’s bluffing in poker
she won’t stop fussing with her bangs. “Just some new
band I found online.”
“On LAMM?” I press. Hana’s music-obsessed and used
to spend hours surfing LAMM, the Library of Authorized
Music and Movies, when we were in middle school.
Hana looks away. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?” The intranet, like
everything else in the United States, is controlled and
monitored for our protection. All the websites, all the
content, is written by government agencies, including the
List of Authorized Entertainment, which gets updated
biannually. Digital books go into the LAB, the Library of
Approved Books, movies and music go into LAMM, and for
a small fee you can download them to your computer. If you
have one, that is. I don’t.
Hana sighs, keeping her eyes averted. Finally she looks
at me. “Can you keep a secret?”
Now I sit up all the way, scooting to the edge of the bed. I
don’t like the way she’s looking at me. I don’t trust it. “What
is this about, Hana?”
“Can you keep a secret?” she repeats.
I think of standing with her in front of the labs on
Evaluation Day, the sun beating down on us, the way she
forced her mouth close to my ear to whisper about
happiness, and unhappiness. I’m suddenly afraid for her, of
her. But I nod and say, “Yeah, of course.”
“Okay.” She looks down, fiddles with the hem of her
shorts for a second, takes a deep breath. “So last week I
met this guy—”
“What?” I nearly fall off the bed.
“Relax.” She holds up a hand. “He’s cured, okay? He
works for the city. He’s a censor, actually.”
My heartbeat slows and I settle back against her pillows
again. “Okay. So?”
“So,” Hana says, drawing the word out, “he was waiting
at the doctor’s with me. When I went to have my PT, you
know?” Hana sprained her ankle in the fall and still has to
do physical therapy once a week, to keep it strong. “And
we started talking.”
She pauses. I don’t really see where the story is going, or
how it relates to the music she was playing, so I just wait for
her to go on.
Finally she does. “Anyway, I was telling him about
boards, and how I really want to go to USM, and he was
telling me about his job—what he does, you know, day to
day. He codes the online access restrictions, so people
can’t just write whatever, or post things themselves, or write
up false information or ‘inflammatory opinions’”—she puts
this in quotes, rolling her eyes—”and other stuff like that.
He’s, like, an intranet security guard.”
He’s, like, an intranet security guard.”
“Okay,” I say again. I want to tell Hana to get to the point
—I know all about online security restrictions, everybody
does—but that would just make her clam up.
She sucks in a deep breath. “But he doesn’t just code
the security. He checks for lapses—like, break-ins.
Hackers, basically, who jump through all the security hoops
and manage to post their own stuff. The government calls
them floaters—
websites that might be up for an hour, or a day, or two days
before they’re discovered, websites full of unauthorized
stuff—opinions and message boards and video clips and
music.”
“And you found one.” A sick feeling has settled in my
stomach. Words keep flashing in my brain, like a neon sign
going in and out: illegal, interrogation, surveillance. Hana.
She doesn’t seem to notice that I’ve gone totally still. Her
face is suddenly animated, as alive and energetic as I’ve
ever seen it, and she leans forward on her knees, talking in
a rush. “Not just one. Dozens. There are tons of them out
there, if you know how to look. If you know where to look. It’s
incredible, Lena. All these people—they must be all over
the country—sneaking in through the loops and the holes.
You should see some of the things people write. About—
about the cure. It’s not just the Invalids who don’t believe in
it. There are people here, all over the place, who don’t think
…” I’m staring at her so hard she drops her eyes and
switches topics. “And you should hear the music.
Incredible, amazing music, like nothing you’ve ever heard,
music that almost takes your head off, you know? That
makes you want to scream and jump up and down and
break stuff and cry… .”
Hana’s room is big—almost twice as big as my room at
home—but I feel as though the walls are pressing down
around me. If the air-conditioning’s still working, I can no
longer feel it. The air feels hot and heavy, like a wet breath,
and I stand up and move to the window. Hana breaks off,
finally. I try to shove open her window, but it won’t budge. I
push and strain against the windowsill.
“Lena,” Hana says timidly, after a minute.
“It won’t open.” All I can think is: I need air. The rest of my
thoughts are a blur of radio static and fluorescent lights and
lab coats and steel tables and surgical knives—an image
of Willow Marks getting dragged off to the labs, screaming,
her house defaced with marker and paint.
“Lena,” Hana says, louder now. “Come on.”
“It’s stuck. Wood must be warped from the heat. If it
would just open.” I heave and the window flies upward,
finally. There’s a popping sound, and the latch that’s been
keeping it in place snaps off and skitters to the middle of
the floor. For a second Hana and I both stand there, staring
at it. The air coming in the open window doesn’t make me
feel better. It’s even hotter outside.
“Sorry,” I mumble. I can’t look at her. “I didn’t mean to—I
didn’t know it was locked. The windows at my house don’t
lock.”
“Don’t worry about the window. I don’t care about the
stupid window.”
“One time Grace got out of her crib when she was little,
almost made it onto the roof. Just slid the window right
open and started climbing.”
“Lena.” Hana reaches out and grabs my shoulders. I
don’t know if I have a fever or what, going hot and cold
every five seconds, but her touch makes a chill go through
me and I pull away quickly. “You’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad. I’m worried about you.” But that’s only halftrue.
I am mad—furious, in fact. All this time I’ve been
blindly coasting along, the idiot sidekick, thinking about our
last real summer together, stressing about the matches I’ll
get and evaluations and boards and normal stuff and she’s
been nodding and smiling and saying, “Uh-huh, yeah, me
too,” and “I’m sure things will be fine,” and meanwhile,
behind
my back, she’s been turning into someone I don’t know—
someone with secrets and weird habits and opinions about
things we’re not even supposed to think about. Now I know
why I was so startled on Evaluation Day, when she turned
back to whisper to me, eyes huge and glowing. It was like
she had dropped away for a second—my best friend, my
only real friend—and in her place was a stranger.
That’s what’s been happening all this time: Hana has
been morphing into a stranger.
I turn back to the window.
A sharp blade of sadness goes through me, deep and
quick. I guess it was bound to happen eventually. I’ve
always known it would. Everyone you trust, everyone you
think you can count on, will eventually disappoint you. When
think you can count on, will eventually disappoint you. When
left to their own devices, people lie and keep secrets and
change and disappear, some behind a different face or
personality, some behind a dense early morning fog,
beyond a cliff. That’s why the cure is so important. That’s
why we need it.
“Listen, I’m not going to get arrested just for looking at
some websites. Or listening to music, or whatever.”
“You could. People have been arrested for less.” She
knows this too. She knows, and doesn’t care.
“Yeah, well, I’m sick of it.” Hana’s voice trembles a little,
which throws me. I’ve never heard her sound less than
certain.
“We shouldn’t even be talking about this. Someone could
be—”
“Someone could be listening?” She cuts me off, finishes
my sentence for me. “God, Lena. I’m sick of that, too. Aren’t
you? Sick of always checking your back, looking behind
you, watching what you say, think, do. I can’t—I can’t
breathe, I can’t sleep, I can’t move. I feel like there are walls
everywhere. Everywhere I go—bam! There’s a wall.
Everything I want—bam! Another wall.”
She rakes a hand through her hair. For once, she doesn’t
look pretty and in control. She looks pale and unhappy, and
her expression reminds me of something, but I can’t place it
right away.
“It’s for our own protection,” I say, wishing I sounded
more confident. I’ve never been good in a fight. “Everything
will get better once we’re—”
Again, she jumps in. “Once we’re cured?” She laughs, a
short barking sound with no humor in it, but at least she
doesn’t contradict me directly. “Right. That’s what
everybody says.”
All of a sudden it hits me: She reminds me of the animals
we saw once on a class trip to the slaughterhouse. All the
cows were lined up, packed in their stalls, staring at us
mutely as we walked by, with that same look in their eyes,
fear and resignation and something else. Desperation. I’m
really scared, then, truly terrified for her.
But when she speaks again, she sounds a little bit
calmer. “Maybe it will. Get better, I mean, once we’re cured.
But until then … This is our last chance, Lena. Our last
chance to do anything. Our last chance to choose.”
There’s the word from Evaluation Day again—choose—
but I nod because I don’t want to set her off again. “So what
are you going to do?”
She looks away, biting her lip, and I can tell she’s
debating whether or not to trust me. “There’s this party
tonight …”
“What?” Zoom. The fear floods back in.
She rushes on. “It’s something I found on one of the
floaters—it’s a music thing, a few bands playing out by
the border in Stroudwater, on one of the farms.”
“You can’t be serious. You’re not—you’re not actually
going, right? You’re not even thinking about it.”
“It’s safe, okay? I promise. These websites … it’s really
amazing, Lena, I swear you’d be into it if you looked.
They’re hidden. Links, usually, embedded on normal
pages, approved government stuff, but I don’t know,
somehow you can tell they don’t feel right, you know? They
don’t belong.”
I grasp at a single word. “Safe? How can it be safe? That
guy you met—the censor—his whole job is to track down
people who are stupid enough to post these things—”
“They’re not stupid, they’re incredibly smart, actually—”
“Not to mention the regulators and patrols and the youth
guard and curfew and segregation and just about
everything else that makes this one of the worst ideas—”
“Fine.” Hana raises her arms and brings them slapping
down against her thighs. The noise is so loud it makes me
jump. “Fine. So it’s a bad idea. So it’s risky. You know
what? I don’t care.”
For a second there’s silence. We’re glaring at each
other, and the air between us feels charged and
dangerous, a thin electrical coil, ready to explode.
“What about me?” I say finally, struggling to keep my
voice from shaking.
“You’re welcome to come. Ten thirty, Roaring Brook
Farms, Stroudwater. Music. Dancing. You know— fun. The
stuff we’re supposed to be having, before they cut out half
of our brain.”
I ignore the last part of her comment. “I don’t think so,
Hana. In case you’ve forgotten, we have other plans for
tonight. Have had plans for tonight for, oh, the past fifteen
years.”
“Yeah, well, things change.” She turns her back to me,
“Yeah, well, things change.” She turns her back to me,
but I feel like she’s reached out and punched me in the
stomach.
“Fine.” My throat is squeezing up. This time I know it’s the
real deal, and I’m on the verge of crying. I go over to her
bed and start gathering up my stuff. Of course my bag has
spilled over on its side, and now her comforter is covered
with little scraps of paper and gum wrappers and coins and
pens. I start stuffing these back into my bag, fighting back
the tears. “Go ahead. Do whatever you want tonight. I don’t
care.”
Maybe Hana feels bad, because her voice softens a little
bit. “Seriously, Lena. You should think about coming. We
won’t get in any trouble, I promise.”
“You can’t promise that.” I take a deep breath, wishing
my voice would stop quivering. “You don’t know that. You
can’t be positive. “
“And you can’t go on being so scared all the time.”
That’s it: That does it. I whirl around, furious, something
deep and black and old rising inside of me. “Of course I’m
scared. And I’m right to be scared. And if you’re not scared
it’s just because you have the perfect little life, and the
perfect little family, and for you everything is perfect,
perfect, perfect. You don’t see. You don’t know.”
“Perfect? That’s what you think? You think my life is
perfect?” Her voice is quiet but full of anger.
I’m tempted to move away from her but force myself to
stay put. “Yeah. I do.”
Again she lets out a barking laugh, a quick explosion.
“So you think this is it, huh? As good as it gets?” She turns
a full circle, arms extended, like she’s embracing the room,
the house, everything.
Her question startles me. “What else is there?”
“Everything, Lena.” She shakes her head. “Listen, I’m
not going to apologize. I know you have your reasons for
being scared. What happened to your mom was terrible—”
“Don’t bring my mom into this.” My body goes tight,
electric.
“But you can’t go on blaming her for everything. She died
more than ten years ago.”
Anger swallows me, a thick fog. My mind careens wildly
like wheels over ice, bumping up against random words:
Fear. Blame. Don’t forget. Mom. I love you. And now I see
that Hana is a snake—has been waiting a long time to say
this to me, has been waiting to squirm her way in, as deep
and painful as she can go, and bite.
“Fuck you.” In the end, these are the two words that
come.
She holds up both hands. “Listen, Lena, I’m just saying
you have to let it go. You’re nothing like her. And you’re not
going to end up like her. You don’t have it in you.”
“Fuck you.” She’s trying to be nice, but my mind is closed
up and the words come out on their own, cascading over
one another, and I wish every single one was a punch so
that I could hit her in the face, bambambambam. “You don’t
know a single thing about her. And you don’t know me. You
don’t know anything.”
“Lena.” She reaches for me.
“Don’t touch me.” I’m stumbling backward, grabbing my
bag, bumping against her desk as I move toward the door.
My vision is cloudy. I can barely make out the banisters. I’m
tripping, half falling down the stairs, finding the front door by
touch. I think Hana might be calling to me, but everything is
lost to a roaring, rushing in my ears, inside my head.
Sunshine, brilliant, brilliant white light—cool biting iron
under my fingers, the gate—ocean smells, gasoline.
Wailing, growing louder. A punctuated shriek: beep, beep,
beep.
My head clears all at once and I jump out of the middle of
the street just before I’m squashed by a police car, which
barrels past me, horn still blaring, siren whirling, leaving me
coughing up dirt and dust. The ache in my throat gets so
bad it feels like I’m gagging, and when I finally let the tears
come it’s a huge relief, like dropping something heavy after
you’ve been carrying it for a long time. Once I start crying I
can’t stop, and all the way home I have to keep mashing my
palm into my eyes every few seconds, smearing away the
tears just so I can see where I’m going. I comfort myself by
thinking that in less than two months this will seem like
nothing to me. All of it will fall away and I’ll rise up new and
free, like a bird winging up into the air.
That’s what Hana doesn’t understand, has never
understood. For some of us, it’s about more than the
deliria. Some of us, the lucky ones, will get the chance to
be reborn: newer, fresher, better. Healed and whole and
perfect again, like a misshapen slab of iron that comes out
perfect again, like a misshapen slab of iron that comes out
of the fire glowing, glittering, razor sharp.
That is all I want—all I have ever wanted. That is the
promise of the cure.

T
Chapter Nine
Lord
Keep our hearts fixed;
As you fixed the planets in their orbits
And cooled the chaos of emerging—
As the gravity of your will keeps star and star from
collapsing
Keeps ocean from turning to dust and dust from turning to
water
Keeps planets from colliding
And suns from exploding—
So, Lord, keep our hearts fixed
In steady orbit
And help them stay the path.
—Psalm 21
(From “Prayer and Study,” The Book of Shhh)
hat night, even after I’m in bed, Hana’s words replay
themselves endlessly in my head. You won’t end up like
her. You don’t have it in you. She only said it to comfort
me, I know—it should be reassuring—but for some reason
it isn’t. For some reason it makes me upset; there’s a deep
aching in my chest, as though something large and cold
and sharp is lodged there.
Here’s another thing Hana doesn’t understand: Thinking
about the disease, and worrying about it, and stressing
about whether I’ve inherited some predisposition for it—
that’s all I have of my mom. The disease is what I know
about her. It is the link.
Otherwise, I have nothing.
It’s not that I don’t have memories of her. I do—lots of
them, considering how young I was when she died. I
remember that when there was fresh snow she would send
me outside to pack pans with handfuls of it. Once inside we
would drizzle maple syrup into the snow-filled pans,
watching it harden into amber candy almost instantly, all
loops and fragile, sugared filigree, like edible lace. I
remember how much she loved to sing to us as she
bounced me in the water at the beach off Eastern Prom. I
didn’t know how strange this was at the time. Other mothers
teach their children
to swim. Other mothers bounce their babies in the water,
and apply sunscreen to make sure their babies don’t burn,
and do all the things that a mother is supposed to do, as
outlined in the Parenting section of The Book of Shhh.
But they don’t sing.
I remember that she brought me trays of buttered toast
when I was sick and kissed my bruises when I fell, and I
remember once when she lifted me to my feet after I fell off
my bike and began to rock me in her arms, a woman
gasped and said to her, “You should be ashamed of
yourself,” and I didn’t understand why, which made me cry
harder. After that she comforted me only in private. In public
she would just frown and say, “You’re okay, Lena. Get up.”
We used to have dance parties too. My mother called
them “sock jams,” because we would roll up the carpets in
the living room and put on our thickest socks, and slip and
slide along the wooden hallways. Even Rachel joined in,
though she always claimed to be too old for baby games.
My mom would draw the curtains and wedge pillows under
the front and back doors and turn up the music. We laughed
so hard I always went to bed with a stomachache.
Eventually, I understood that on our sock-jam nights
she’d closed the curtains to prevent us from being seen by
passing patrols, that she’d stopped up the doors with
pillows so that the neighbors would not report us for playing
music and laughing too much, both potential warning signs
of the deliria. I understood that she used to tuck my father’s
military pin—a silver dagger he had inherited from his own
father, which she wore every day on a chain around her
neck—beneath the collar of her shirt whenever we left the
house, so no one would see it and become suspicious. I
understood that all the happiest moments of my childhood
were a lie. They were wrong and unsafe and illegal. They
were freakish. My mother was freakish, and I’d probably
inherited the freakishness from her.
For the first time, really, I wonder what she must have
been feeling, thinking, the night she walked out to the cliffs
and kept walking, feet pedaling the air. I wonder whether
and kept walking, feet pedaling the air. I wonder whether
she was scared. I wonder whether she thought of me or
Rachel. I wonder whether she was sorry for leaving us
behind.
I start thinking about my father, too. I don’t remember him
at all, though I have some dim, ancient impression of two
warm, rough hands and a large looming face floating above
mine, but I think that’s just because my mother kept a
framed portrait in her bedroom of my father and me. I was
only a few months old and he was holding me, smiling,
looking at the camera. But there’s no way I’m remembering
for real real. I wasn’t even a year old when he died. Cancer.
The heat is horrible, thick, clotting on the walls. Jenny is
rolled over on her back, arms and legs flung open on top of
her comforter, breathing silently with her mouth gaping
open. Even Grace is fast asleep, murmuring soundlessly
into her pillow. The whole room smells like a wet exhalation,
skin and tongues and warm milk.
I ease out of bed, already dressed in black jeans and a
T-shirt. I didn’t even bother to change into my pajamas. I
knew I would never be able to sleep tonight. And earlier in
the evening, I’d come to a decision. I was sitting at the
dinner table with Carol and Uncle William and Jenny and
Grace, while everyone chewed and swallowed in silence,
staring blankly at one another, feeling as though the air was
weighing down on me, constricting my breath, like two fists
squeezing tighter and tighter around a water balloon, when I
realized something.
Hana said I didn’t have it in me, but she was wrong.
My heart is beating so loudly I can hear it, and I’m
positive that everyone else will too—that it will make my
aunt sit bolt upright in her bed, ready to catch me and
accuse me of trying to sneak out. Which is, of course,
exactly what I am trying to do. I didn’t even know a heart
could beat so loudly, and it reminds me of an Edgar Allan
Poe story we had to read in one of our social studies
classes, about this guy who kills this other guy and then
gives himself up to the police because he’s convinced he
can hear the dead guy’s heart beating up from beneath his
floorboards. It’s supposed to be a story about guilt and the
dangers of civil disobedience, but when I first read it I
thought it seemed kind of lame and melodramatic. Now I
get it, though. Poe must have snuck out a lot when he was
young.
I ease open the bedroom door, holding my breath,
praying it doesn’t squeak. At one point Jenny lets out a
shout and my heart freezes. But then she rolls over, flinging
one arm across her pillow, and I exhale slowly, realizing
she’s just fussing
in her sleep.
The hall is totally dark. The room my aunt and uncle share
is dark too, and the only sound comes from the whispering
of the trees outside and the low ticks and groans from the
walls, the usual old-house arthritic noises. I finally work up
the courage to slip out into the hall and slide the bedroom
door shut behind me. I go so slowly that it almost feels like
I’m not moving at all, feeling my way by the bumps and
ripples in the wallpaper over to the stairs, then sliding my
hand inch by inch over the banister, walking on my very
tiptoes. Even so, it seems like the house is fighting me, like
it’s just screaming for me to be caught. Every step seems
to creak, or shriek, or moan. Every single floorboard
quivers and shudders under my feet, and I start mentally
bargaining with the house: If I make it to the front door
without waking up Aunt Carol, I swear to God I’ll never
slam another door. I’ll never call you “an old piece of turd”
again, not even in my head, and I’ll never curse the
basement when it floods, and I will never, ever, ever kick
the bedroom wall when I’m annoyed at Jenny.
Maybe the house hears me, because, miraculously, I do
make it to the front door. I pause for a second longer,
listening for the sounds of footsteps upstairs, whispered
voices,
anything—but other than my heart, which is still going strong
and loud, it’s silent. Even the house seems to hesitate and
take a breath, because the front door swings open with
barely a whisper, and in the last second before I slip out
into the night the rooms behind me are as dark and still as
a grave.
Outside, I hesitate on the front stoop. The fireworks
stopped an hour ago—I heard the last stuttering explosions,
like distant gunfire, just as I was getting ready for bed—and
now the streets are strangely silent, and totally empty. It’s a
little after eleven o’clock. Some cureds must be lingering at
the Eastern Prom. Everyone else is home by now. Not a
single light is burning on the street. All the streetlamps were
disabled years ago, except in the richest parts of Portland,
and they look to me like blinded eyes. Thank God the moon
is so bright.
I strain to detect the sounds of passing patrols or groups
of regulators—I almost hope I do, because then I’ll have to
go back inside, to my bed, to safety, and already the panic
is starting to drill through me again. But everything is
perfectly still and quiet, almost like it’s frozen. Everything
rational, right, and good is screaming for me to turn around
and go upstairs, but some stubborn inner center keeps me
moving forward.
I go down the walk and unchain my bike from the gate.
My bike rattles a little bit, particularly when you first start
pedaling, so I walk it a ways down the street. The wheels
tick reassuringly over the pavement. I’ve never been out this
late on my own in my life. I’ve never broken curfew. But
alongside the fear—which is always there, of course, that
constant crushing weight—is a small, flickering feeling of
excitement that works its way up and underneath the fear,
pushing it back some. Like, It’s okay, I’m all right, I can do
this. I’m just a girl—an in-between girl, five-two, nothing
special—but I can do this, and all the curfews and the
patrols in the world aren’t stopping me. It’s amazing how
much comfort this thought gives me. It’s amazing how it
breaks up the fear, like a tiny candle lit in the middle of the
night, lighting up the shapes of things, burning away the
dark.
When I reach the end of my street I hop up on my bike,
feeling the gears shudder into place. The breeze feels
feeling the gears shudder into place. The breeze feels
good as I start pedaling, careful not to go too quickly,
staying alert in case there are regulators nearby.
Fortunately, Stroudwater, and Roaring Brook Farms, are in
the exact opposite direction from the Fourth of July
celebrations at Eastern Prom. Once I get to the broad
swath of farmland that surrounds Portland like a belt, I
should be okay. The farms and slaughterhouses rarely get
patrolled. But first I have to make it through the West End,
where rich people like Hana live, through Libbytown, and
over the Fore River at the Congress Street Bridge.
Thankfully, each street I turn down is empty.
Stroudwater is a good thirty minutes away, even if I’m
biking quickly. As I get off-peninsula—moving away from
the buildings and businesses of downtown Portland and
onto the more suburban mainland—the houses get smaller
and farther apart, set back on weedy, patchy yards. This
isn’t rural Portland yet, but there are signs of the
countryside creeping in: plants poking up through halfrotted
porches, an owl hooting mournfully in the dark, a
black scythe of bats cutting suddenly across the sky.
Almost all these houses have cars in front of them—just like
the richer houses in West End—but these have obviously
been salvaged from the junkyards. They’re mounted on
cinder blocks and covered in rust. I pass one that has a tree
growing straight through its sunroof, like the car has just
dropped out of the sky and been impaled there, and
another one, hood open, missing its engine. As I go past, a
cat startles up out of its black cavity, meowing, blinking at
me.
me.After I cross the Fore River the houses fall away
altogether, and it’s just field after field and farm after farm,
with names like MeadowLane and Sheepsbay and Willow
Creek, which make them sound all homey and nice: places
where someone might be baking muffins and skimming
fresh cream for butter. But most of the farms are owned by
big corporations, packed with livestock and often staffed by
orphans.
I’ve always liked it out here, but it’s kind of freaky in the
dark, open and totally empty, and I can’t help but think that if
I did come across a patrol there would be no place to hide,
no alley to turn down. Across the fields I see the low, dark
silhouettes of barns and silos, some of them brand-new,
some of them barely standing, clinging to the earth like
teeth digging into something. The air smells slightly sweet,
like growing things and manure.
Roaring Brook Farms is right next to the southwestern
border. It’s been abandoned for years, since half the main
building and both grain silos were destroyed in a fire. About
five minutes before I get there, I think I can make out a
rhythm drumming almost imperceptibly under the throaty
song of the crickets, but for a while I’m not sure if I’m just
imagining it or only hearing my heart, which has started
pounding again. Farther on, though, and I’m sure. Even
before I reach the little dirt road that leads down to the barn
—or at least, the portion of the barn that’s still standing—
strains of music spring up, crystallizing in the night air like
rain turning suddenly to snow, drifting to earth.
Now I’m scared again. All I can think is: wrong, wrong,
wrong, a word that drums in my head. Aunt Carol would kill
me if she knew what I was doing. Kill me, or have me
thrown into the Crypts or taken to the labs for an early
procedure, Willow Marks-style.
I hop off my bike when I see the turnoff to Roaring Brook,
and the big metal sign staked in the ground that reads
PROPERTY OF PORTLAND, NO TRESPASSING. I wheel my bike
a little ways into the woods at the side of the road. The
actual farmhouse and the old barn are still five or six
hundred feet down the road, but I don’t want to bring my
bike any farther. I don’t lock it up, though. I don’t even want
to think about what would happen if there was a raid, but if
there is, I’m not going to want to be fumbling with a lock in
the half dark. I’ll need speed.
I step around the NO TRESPASSING sign. I’m getting to be
quite the expert at ignoring them, I realize, remembering
how Hana and I hopped the gate at the labs. It’s the first
time I’ve thought about that afternoon in a while, and right
then a vision of Alex rises up in front of me, a memory of
seeing him on the observation deck, head tilted back and
laughing.
I have to focus on the land around me, the brightness of
the moon, the wildflowers on the road. It helps me beat
back the feeling that I’m going to be sick at any second. I
don’t really know what compelled me out of the house, why I
felt like I had to prove Hana wrong about something, and
I’m trying to ignore the idea—way more disturbing than
anything else—that my argument with Hana was just an
anything else—that my argument with Hana was just an
excuse.
That maybe, deep down, I was just curious.
I’m not feeling curious now. I’m feeling scared. And very,
very stupid.
The farmhouse and the old barn are positioned in a dip
of land between two hills, a mini valley, like the buildings
are sitting right in the middle of somebody’s pursed lips.
Because of the way the land slopes I can’t see the
farmhouse yet, but as I get closer to the top of the hill the
music gets clearer, louder. It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard
before. It’s definitely not like the authorized music you can
download off LAMM, prim and harmonious and structured,
the kind of music that gets played in the band shell in
Deering Oaks Park during official summer concerts.
Someone is singing: a beautiful voice as thick and heavy
as warm honey, spilling up and down a scale so quickly I
feel dizzy just listening. The music that’s playing underneath
the voice is strange and clashing and wild—but nothing like
the wailing and scratching that I heard Hana playing on her
computer earlier today, though I recognize certain
similarities, certain patterns of melody and rhythm. That
music was metallic and awful, fuzzy through the speakers.
This music ebbs and flows, irregular, sad. It reminds me,
weirdly, of watching the ocean during a bad storm, the
lashing, crashing waves and the spray of sea foam against
the docks; the way it takes your breath away, the power and
the hugeness of it.
That’s exactly what happens as I listen to the music, as I
come up over the final crest of hill, and the half-ruined barn
come up over the final crest of hill, and the half-ruined barn
and collapsing farmhouse fan out in front of me, just as the
music swells, a wave about to break: The breath leaves my
body all at once, and I’m struck dumb by the beauty of it.
For a second it seems to me like I really am looking down
at the ocean—a sea of people, writhing and dancing in the
light spilling down from the barn like shadows twisting up
around a flame.
The barn is completely gutted: split open and blackened
by the fire, exposed to the elements. Only half of it is left
standing—fragments of three walls, a portion of the roof,
part of an elevated platform that must once have been used
to store hay. That’s where the band is playing. Thin, stalky
trees have begun pushing up in the fields. Older trees,
seared completely white from the fire and totally bald of
branches and leaves, point like ghostly fingers to the sky.
Fifty feet beyond the barn, I see the low fringe of
blackness where the unregulated land begins. The Wilds. I
can’t make out the border fence from this distance, but I
imagine I can feel it, can sense the electricity buzzing
through the air. I’ve only been close to the border fence a
few times. Once with my mother years ago, when she made
me listen to the zipping of the electricity—a current so
strong the air seems to hum with it; you can get a shock just
from standing four feet away—and promise never, ever,
ever to touch it. She told me that when the cure was first
made mandatory, some people tried to escape over the
border. They never put more than a hand on the fence
before being fried like bacon—I remember that’s exactly
what she said, like bacon. Since then I’ve run alongside it
what she said, like bacon. Since then I’ve run alongside it
with Hana a few times, always careful to stay a good ten
feet away.
In the barn, someone has set up speakers and amps and
even two enormous, industrial-sized lamps, which make
everyone close to the stage look starkly white and hyperreal,
and everyone else dark and indistinct, blurry. A song
ends and the crowd roars together, an ocean sound. I think,
They must be mooching power from a grid on one of the
other farms. I think, This is stupid, I’ll never find Hana,
there are too many people—and then a new song starts,
this one just as wild and beautiful, and it’s like the music
reaches across all that black space and pulls at something
at the very heart and root of me, plucking me like a string. I
head down the hill toward the barn. The weird thing is I don’t
choose to do it. My feet just go on their own, as though
they’ve happened on some invisible track and it’s all just
slide, slide, slide.
For a moment I forget that I’m supposed to be looking for
Hana. I feel as though I’m in a dream, where strange things
are happening but they don’t feel strange. Everything is
cloudy—everything is wrapped in a fog—and I’m filled from
head to toe with the single, burning desire to get closer to
the music, to hear the music better, for the music to go on
and on and on.
“Lena! Oh my God, Lena!”
Hearing my name snaps me out of my daze, and I’m
suddenly aware that I’m standing in a huge crush of people.
No. Not just people. Boys. And girls. Uncureds, all of
them, without a hint of a blemish on their necks—at least
the ones standing close enough for me to scope out. Boys
and girls talking. Boys and girls laughing. Boys and girls
sharing sips from the same cup. All of a sudden, I think I
might faint.
Hana is barreling toward me, elbowing people out of the
way, and before I can even open my mouth she’s jumping
on top of me like she did at graduation, squeezing me in a
hug. I’m so startled I stumble backward, nearly falling over.
“You’re here.” She pulls away and stares at me, keeping
her hands on my shoulders. “You’re actually here.”
Another song ends and the lead singer—a tiny girl with
long black hair—calls out something about a break. As my
brain slowly reboots, I have the dumbest thought: She’s
even shorter than I am, and she’s singing in front of five
hundred people.
Then I think, Five hundred people, five hundred people,
what am I doing here with five hundred people?
“I can’t stay,” I say quickly. The moment the words are out
of my mouth I feel relieved. Whatever I came here to prove
has been proven; now I can go. I need to get out of this
crowd, the babble of voices, a shifting wall of chests and
shoulders all around me. I was too wrapped up in the music
earlier to look around, but now I have the sensation of
colors and perfumes and hands twisting and turning around
us.
Hana opens her mouth—maybe to object—but at that
second we’re interrupted. A boy with dirty blond hair falling
into his eyes pushes his way over to us, carrying two big
plastic cups.
The dirty-blond-hair boy passes a cup to Hana. She
takes it, thanks him, and then turns back to me.
“Lena,” she says, “this is my friend Drew.” I think she
looks guilty for just a second, but then the smile is back on
her face, as wide as ever, like we’re standing in the middle
of St. Anne’s talking about a bio quiz.
I open my mouth but no words come out, which is
probably a good thing, considering that there’s a giant fire
alarm going off in my head. It may sound stupid and naive,
but not once when I was heading to the farms did I even
consider that the party would be coed. It didn’t even occur
to me.
Breaking curfew is one thing; listening to unapproved
music is even worse. But breaking segregation laws is one
of the worst offenses there is. Thus Willow Marks’s early
procedure, and the graffiti scrawled on her house; thus the
fact that Chelsea Bronson was kicked out of school after
allegedly being found breaking curfew with a boy from
Spencer, and her parents were mysteriously fired, and her
whole family was forced to vacate their house. And—at
least in Chelsea Bronson’s case—there wasn’t even any
proof. Just a rumor going around.
Drew gives me a half wave. “Hey, Lena.”
My mouth opens and closes. Still no sound. For a
second we stand there in awkward silence. Then he
extends a cup to me, a sudden, jerky gesture. “Whiskey?”
“Whiskey?” I squeak back. I’ve only had alcohol a few
times. At Christmas, when Aunt Carol pours me a quarter
glass of wine, and once at Hana’s house, when we stole
some blackberry liqueur from her parents’ liquor cabinet
and drank until the ceiling started spinning overhead. Hana
was laughing and giggling, but I didn’t like it, didn’t like the
sweet sick taste in my mouth or the way my thoughts
seemed to break apart like a mist in the sun. Out of control
—that’s what it was, that’s what I hated.
Drew shrugs. “It’s all they had. Vodka always goes first at
these things.” At these things—as in, these things happen,
as in, more than once.
“No.” I try to shove the cup back at him. “Take it.”
He waves me away, obviously misunderstanding. “It’s
cool. I’ll just get another.”
Drew smiles quickly at Hana before disappearing into
the crowd. I like his smile, the way it rises crookedly toward
his left ear—but as I realize I’m thinking about liking his
smile, I feel the panic winging its way through me, beating
through my blood, a lifetime of whispers and accusations.
Control. It’s all about control.
“I have to go,” I manage to say to Hana. Progress.
“Go?” She wrinkles her forehead. “You walk all the way
out here—”
“I biked.”
“Whatever. You bike all the way out here and then you’re
just going to go?” Hana reaches for my hand, but I cross my
arms quickly to avoid her. She looks momentarily hurt. I
pretend to shiver so she doesn’t feel bad, wondering why it
feels so awkward to talk to her. This is my best friend, the
girl I’ve known since second grade, the girl who used to
split her cookies with me at lunch, and once put her fist in
Jillian Dawson’s face after Jillian said my family was
diseased.
“I’m tired,” I say. “And I shouldn’t be here.” I want to say,
You shouldn’t be here either, but I stop myself.
“Did you hear the band? They’re amazing, aren’t they?”
Hana’s being way too nice, totally un-Hana, and I feel a
deep, sharp pain under my ribs. She’s trying to be polite.
She’s acting like we’re strangers. She feels the
awkwardness too.
“I—I wasn’t listening.” For some reason I don’t want Hana
to know that yes, I heard, and yes, I thought they were
amazing, better than amazing. It’s too private—
embarrassing even, something to be ashamed of, and
despite the fact that I came all the way to Roaring Brook
Farms and broke curfew and everything, just to see her and
apologize, the feeling I had earlier today returns to me: I
don’t know Hana anymore, and she doesn’t really know me.
I’m used to a feeling of doubleness, of thinking one thing
and having to do another, a constant tug-of-war. But
somehow Hana has fallen cleanly away into the double half,
the other world, the world of unmentionable thoughts and
things and people.
Is it possible that all this time I’ve been living my life,
studying for tests, taking long runs with Hana—and this
other world has just existed, running alongside and
underneath mine, alive, ready to sneak out of the shadows
and the alleyways as soon as the sun goes down? Illegal
parties, unapproved music, people touching one another
with no fear of the disease, with no fear for themselves.
A world without fear. Impossible.
And even though I’m standing in the middle of the
biggest crowd I’ve ever seen in my life, I suddenly feel very
alone.
“Stay,” Hana says quietly. Even though it’s a command,
there’s a hesitation in her voice, like she’s asking a
question. “You can catch the second set.”
I shake my head. I wish I hadn’t come. I wish I hadn’t seen
this. I wish I didn’t know what I know now, could wake up
tomorrow and ride over to Hana’s house, could lie out at
Eastern Prom with her and complain about how boring
summers are, like we always do. Could believe that nothing
had changed. “I’m going to go,” I say, wishing my voice
didn’t come out shaky. “It’s all right, though. You can stay.”
The second I say it, I realize she never offered to come
back with me. She’s looking at me with the weirdest
mixture of regret and pity.
“I can come back with you if you want,” she says, but I
can tell she’s only offering now to make me feel better.
“No, no. I’ll be fine.” My cheeks are burning and I take
a step back, desperate to get out of there. I bump against
someone—a boy—who turns and smiles at me. I step
quickly away from him.
“Lena, wait.” Hana goes to grab me again. Even though
she already has a drink, I shove my cup in her free hand so
she has to pause, momentarily frowning as she tries to
juggle both drinks into the crook of an elbow, and in that
second I dance backward out of her reach.
“I’ll be fine, I promise. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Then I’m
slipping through a narrow space between two people—
that’s the only benefit of being five-two, you have a good
vantage point on all the in-between spaces—and before I
know it, Hana has dropped behind me, swallowed up by the
crowd. I weave a path away from the barn, keeping my
eyes down, hoping my cheeks cool off fast.
Images swirl by, a blur, making me feel like I’m dreaming
again. Boy. Girl. Boy. Girl. Laughing, shoving each other,
touching each other’s hair. I’ve never, not once in my whole
life, felt so different and out of place. There’s a high,
mechanized shriek, and then the band starts playing again,
but this time the music does nothing for me. I don’t even
pause. I just keep walking, heading for the hill, imagining
the cool silence of the starlit fields, the familiar dark streets
of Portland, the regular rhythm of the patrols, marching
quietly in sync, the feedback from the regulators’ walkietalkies—
regular, normal, familiar, mine.
Finally the crowd starts thinning. It was hot, pressed up
against so many people, and the breeze stings my skin,
cools my cheeks. I’ve started to calm down a little, and at
the edge of the crowd I allow myself one look back at the
stage. The barn, open to the sky and the night and glowing
white with light, reminds me of a palm cupping a small bit of
fire.
“Lena!”
It’s strange how I instantly recognize the voice even
though I’ve heard it only once before, for ten minutes, fifteen
tops—it’s the laughter that runs underneath it, like someone
leaning in to let you in on a really good secret in the middle
of a really boring class. Everything freezes. The blood stops
flowing in my veins. My breath stops coming. For a second
even the music falls away and all I hear is something steady
and quiet and pretty, like the distant beat of a drum, and I
thi nk , I’m hearing my heart, except I know that’s
impossible, because my heart has stopped too. My vision
does its camera-zoom focus again and all I see is Alex,
shouldering his way out of the crowd toward me.
“Lena! Wait.”
A brief flash of terror zips through me—for a wild second
I think he must be here as part of a patrol, as a raiding
group or something—but then I see he’s dressed normally,
in jeans and his scuffed-up sneakers with the ink-blue laces
and a faded T-shirt.
“What are you doing here?” I stammer out as he catches
up to me.
He grins. “Nice to see you too.”
He has left a few feet of distance between us, and I’m
glad. In the half-light I can’t make out the color of his eyes
and I don’t need to be distracted right now, don’t need to
feel the way I did at the labs when he leaned in to whisper
to me—the total awareness of the bare inch that separated
his mouth from my ear, terror and guilt and excitement all at
once.
“I’m serious.” I do my best to scowl at him.
His smile falters, though it doesn’t disappear entirely. He
blows air out of his lips. “I came to hear the music,” he says.
“Like everybody else.”
“But you can’t—” I’m struggling to find words, not quite
sure how to say what I want to say. “But this is—”
“Illegal?” He shrugs. One strand of hair curls down over
his left eye, and when he turns to scan the party it catches
the light from the stage and winks that crazy golden-brown
color. “It’s okay,” he says, quieter, so that I have to lean
forward to hear him over the music. “Nobody’s hurting
anybody.”
You don’t know that, I start to say, but the way his words
are just edged with sadness stops me. Alex runs a hand
through his hair and I make out the small, dark, threepronged
scar behind his left ear, perfectly symmetrical.
Maybe he’s only regretful for the things he lost after the
cure. Music doesn’t move people the same way, for
example, and while he should have been cured of feelings
of regret, too, the procedure works differently for everybody,
and it isn’t always perfect. That’s why my aunt and uncle
sometimes still dream. That’s why my cousin Marcia used
to find herself crying hysterically, with no warning or
apparent cause.
“So what about you?” He turns back to me and the smile
is on again, and the teasing, winking quality of his voice.
“What’s your excuse?”
“I didn’t want to come,” I say quickly. “I had to—” I break
off, realizing I’m not sure why I had to come. “I had to give
something to someone,” I say finally.
He raises his eyebrows, clearly unimpressed. I rush on,
“To Hana. My friend. You met her the other day.”
“I remember,” he says. I’ve never seen anyone maintain a
smile for so long. It’s like his face is naturally molded that
way. “You haven’t said you’re sorry yet, by the way.”
“For what?” The crowd has continued to press closer to
the stage, so Alex and I are no longer surrounded by
people. Occasionally someone walks by, swinging a bottle
of something or singing along, slightly off-key, but for the
most part we’re alone.
“For standing me up.” One corner of his mouth hitches
higher, and again I have the feeling that he’s sharing some
delicious secret with me, that he’s trying to tell me
something. “You were a no-show at Back Cove that day.”
I feel a burst of triumph—he was waiting for me at Back
Cove! He did want me to meet him! At the same time the
anxiety blooms inside of me. He wants something from me.
I’m not sure what it is, but I can sense it, and it makes me
afraid.
“So?” He folds his arms and rocks back on his heels, still
smiling. “Are you going to apologize, or what?”
His easiness and self-assurance aggravate me, just like
they did at the labs. It’s so unfair, so different from how I
feel, like I’m about to have a heart attack, or melt into a
puddle.
“I don’t apologize to liars,” I say, surprised by how steady
my voice sounds.
He winces. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on.” I roll my eyes, feeling more and more
confident by the second. “You lied about seeing me at
evaluations. You lied about recognizing me.” I’m ticking his
lies off on my fingers. “You lied about even being inside the
labs on Evaluation Day.”
“Okay, okay.” He holds up both hands. “I’m sorry, okay?
Look, I’m the one who should apologize.” He stares at me
for a second and then sighs. “I told you, security isn’t
allowed in the labs during evaluations. To keep the process
‘pure’ or something, I don’t know. But I really needed a cup
of coffee, and there’s this machine on the second floor of
the C complex that has the good kind, with real milk and
everything, so I used my code to get in. That’s it. End of
story. And afterward I had to lie about it. I could lose my job.
And I only work at the stupid labs to subsidize my school
…” He trails off. For once he doesn’t look confident. He
looks worried, like he’s scared I might actually tell on him.
“So why were you on the observation deck?” I press on.
“Why were you watching me?”
“I didn’t even make it to the second floor,” he says. He is
staring at me closely, as though judging my reaction. “I
came inside and—and I just heard this crazy noise. That
rushing, roaring sound. And something else, too.
Screaming or something.”
I close my eyes briefly, recalling the feeling of the burning
white lights, my impression of hearing the ocean pounding
outside the labs, of hearing my mother scream across the
distance of a decade. When I open them again, Alex is still
watching me.
“Anyway, I had no idea what was going on. I thought—I
don’t know, it’s stupid—but I thought maybe the labs were
under attack or something. And then as I’m standing there,
all of a sudden there’s, like, a hundred cows charging me…
.” He shrugs. “There was a staircase to my left. I freaked out
and booked it. Figured cows don’t climb stairs.” A smile
appears again, this time fleeting, tentative. “I ended up on
the observation deck.”
A perfectly normal, reasonable explanation. I feel
relieved, and less frightened of him now. At the same time
there’s something working under my chest, a dull feeling, a
disappointment. And some stubbornness, a part of me that
still doubts him. I remember the way he looked on the
observation deck, head tilted back, laughing; the way he
winked at me. The way he looked—amused, confident,
happy. Totally unafraid.
A world without fear …
“So you don’t know anything about how … how it
happened?” I can’t believe I’m being so bold. I ball up my
fists and squeeze, hoping he doesn’t notice the sudden
strangled sound of my voice.
“The mix-up in the deliveries, you mean?” He says it
smoothly, without a pause or a break in his voice, and the
last of my doubts vanish. Just like any cured, he doesn’t
question the official story. “I wasn’t in charge of signing for
deliveries that day. The guy who was—Sal—was fired.
You’re supposed to check the cargo. I guess he skipped
that step.” He cocks his head to one side, spreads his
hands.
“Satisfied now?”
“Satisfied,” I say. But the pressure in my chest is still
there. Even though earlier I was desperate to be out of the
house, now I just wish I could blink and be home, sit up in
bed, pushing the covers off of my legs, realizing that
everything—the party, seeing Alex—was a dream.
“So … ?” He tilts his head back toward the barn. The
band is playing something loud and fast paced. I don’t
know why the music appealed to me before. It just seems
like noise now—rushing noise. “Think we can get closer
without getting trampled?”
I ignore the fact that he has just said “we,” a word that for
some reason sounds amazingly appealing when
pronounced with his lilting, laughing accent. “Actually, I was
just heading home.” I realize I’m angry at him without
knowing why—for not being what I thought he was, I guess,
even though I should be grateful that he’s normal, and
cured, and safe.
“Heading home?” he repeats disbelievingly. “You can’t
go home.”
I’ve always been careful not to let myself give in to
feelings of anger or irritation. I can’t afford to at Carol’s
house. I owe her too much—and besides, after the few
tantrums I threw as a child, I hated the way she looked at
me sideways for days, as though analyzing me, measuring
me. I knew she was thinking, Just like her mother. But now I
give in, let the anger surge. I’m sick of people acting like
this world, this other world, is the normal one, while I’m the
freak. It’s not fair: like all
the rules have suddenly been changed and somebody
forgot to tell me.
“I can, and I am.” I turn around and start heading up the
hill, figuring he’ll leave me alone. To my surprise, he
doesn’t.
“Wait!” He comes bounding up the hill after me.
“What are you doing?” I whirl around to face him—again,
surprised by how confident I sound, considering that my
heart is rushing, tumbling. Maybe this is the secret to talking
to boys—maybe you just have to be angry all the time.
“What do you mean?” We’re both slightly out of breath
from hoofing it up the hill, but he still manages a smile. “I just
want to talk to you.”
“You’re following me.” I cross my arms, which helps me
feel as though I’m closing off the space between us. “You’re
following me again.”
There it is. He starts backward, and I get a momentary,
sick twinge of pleasure that I’ve surprised him. “Again?” he
repeats. I’m glad that for once I’m not the one stuttering, or
struggling to find words.
The words fly out: “I think it’s a little bit strange that I go
pretty much my whole life without seeing you, and then all of
a sudden I start seeing you everywhere.” I hadn’t planned
on saying this—it actually hadn’t struck me as strange—but
the second the words are out of my mouth I realize they’re
true.
I think he’s going to be angry, but to my surprise he tips
his head back and laughs, long and loud, moonlight turning
the curve of his cheeks and chin and nose silver. I’m so
surprised by his reaction I just stand there, staring at him.
Finally he looks at me. Even though I still can’t make out his
eyes—the moon draws everything starkly, highlighting it in
bright, crystalline silver or leaving it in blackness—I have
the impression of heat, and light, the same impression I
had that day at the labs.
“Maybe you just haven’t been paying attention,” he says
quietly, rocking forward slightly on his heels.
I take an unconscious, half-shuffling step backward. I find
myself frightened by his closeness; by the fact that even
though our bodies are separated by several inches I feel as
though we’re touching.
“What—what do you mean?”
“I mean that you’re wrong.” He pauses, watching me, and
I struggle to keep my face composed, even though I can
feel my left eye straining and fluttering. Hopefully in the
darkness he can’t tell. “We’ve seen each other plenty.”
“I would remember if we’d met before.”
“I didn’t say that we’d met.” He doesn’t try to close the
new distance between us and I’m grateful, at least, for that.
He chews on the corner of a lip—a gesture that makes him
look younger. “Let me ask you a question,” he goes on.
“How come you don’t run past the Governor anymore?”
Without meaning to I gasp a little. “How do you know
about the Governor?”
“I take classes at UP,” he says. University of Portland—I
remember now, the afternoon we walked up to see the
ocean from the back of the lab complex, hearing bits of his
conversation floating back to me on the wind. He did say he
was a student. “I worked at the Grind last semester, in
Monument Square. I used to see you all the time.”
My mouth opens and shuts. No words come out; my
brain goes on lockdown whenever I need it the most. Of
course I know the Grind; Hana and I used to run past it two,
maybe three times a week, watching the college students
float in and out like drifting snowflakes, blowing the steam
from the top of their cups. The Grind looks out onto a small
square, all cobblestone, called Monument Square: It
marked the halfway point of one of the six-mile routes I
used to do all the time.
In its center is a statue of a man, half-eroded from snow
and weather and scrawled over with a few looping curls of
graffiti. He is striding forward, one hand holding his hat on
his head so that it looks like he is walking through a horrible
storm, or a headwind. His other fist is extended in front of
him. It’s obvious that he was, in the distant past, holding
something—probably a torch—but at some point that
portion of the statue was broken or stolen. So now the
Governor strides forward with an empty fist, a circular hole
cut in his hand, a perfect hiding place for notes and secret
stuff. Hana and I used to check his fist sometimes, to see if
there was anything good inside. But there wasn’t—just a
few pieces of wadded-up chewing gum and some coins.
I don’t actually know when Hana and I started calling him
the Governor, or why. The wind and rain has rubbed the
plaque at the base of the statue indecipherable. No one
else calls him that. Everyone else just says, “The statue at
Monument Square.” Alex must have overheard us talking
about the Governor one day.
Alex is still looking at me, waiting, and I realize I never
answered his question. “I have to switch my routes up,” I
say. I probably haven’t run past the Governor since March
or April. “It gets boring.” And then, because I can’t help it, I
squeak out, “You remember me?”
He laughs. “You were pretty hard to miss. You used to run
around the statue and do this jumping, whooping thing.”
Heat creeps up my neck and cheeks. I must be going a
deep red again, and I thank God for the fact that we’ve
moved away from the stage lights. I completely forgot; I
used to jump up and try to high-five the Governor as Hana
and I ran past, a way of psyching myself up for the run back
to school. Sometimes we would even scream out, “Halena!”
We must have looked completely crazy.
“I don’t …” I lick my lips, fumbling for an explanation that
won’t sound ridiculous. “When you run you sometimes do
weird things. Because of the endorphins and stuff. It’s kind
of like a drug, you know? Messes with your brain.”
“I liked it,” he says. “You looked …” He trails off for a
moment. His face contracts slightly, a tiny shift I can barely
make out in the dark, but in that second he looks so still and
sad it almost takes my breath away, like he’s a statue, or a
different person. I’m afraid he won’t finish his sentence, but
then he says, “You looked happy.”
For a second we just stand there in silence. Then,
suddenly, Alex is back, easy and smiling again. “I left a note
for you one time. In the Governor’s fist, you know?”
I left a note for you one time. It’s impossible, too crazy to
think about, and I hear myself repeating, “You left a note for
me?”
“I’m pretty sure it said something stupid. Just hi, and a
smiley face, and my name. But then you stopped coming.”
He shrugs. “It’s probably still there. The note, I mean.
Probably just a bit of paper pulp by now.”
He left me a note. He left me a note. For me. The idea—
the fact of it, the fact that he even noticed and thought about
me for more than one second—is huge and overwhelming,
makes my legs go tingly and my hands feel numb.
And then I’m frightened. This is how it starts. Even if he is
cured, even if he is safe—the fact is, I’m not safe, and this
is how it starts. Phase One: preoccupation; difficulty
focusing; dry mouth; perspiration, sweaty palms; dizziness
and disorientation. I feel a rushing blend of sickness and
relief, a feeling like finding out that everyone actually knows
your worst secret, has known all along. All this time Aunt
Carol was right, my teachers were right, my cousins were
right. I’m just like my mother, after all. And the thing, the
disease, is inside of me, ready at any moment to start
working on my insides, to start poisoning me.
“I have to go.” I start up the hill again, nearly sprinting
now, but again he comes after me.
“Hey. Not so fast.” At the top of the hill he reaches out
and puts a hand on my wrist to stop me. His touch burns,
and I jerk away quickly. “Lena. Hold on a second.”
Even though I know I shouldn’t, I stop. It’s the way he says
my name: like music.
“You don’t have to be worried, okay? You don’t have to
be scared.” His voice is twinkling again. “I’m not flirting with
you.”
Embarrassment sweeps through me. Flirting. A dirty
word. He thinks I think he’s flirting. “I’m not—I don’t think you
were—I would never think that you—” The words collide in
my mouth, and now I know there’s no amount of darkness
that can cover the rush of red to my face.
He cocks his head to the side. “Are you flirting with me,
then?”
“What? No,” I splutter. My mind is spinning blindly in a
panic, and I realize I don’t even know what flirting is. I just
know about it from textbooks; I just know that it’s bad. Is it
possible to flirt without knowing you’re flirting? Is he flirting?
My left eye goes full flutter.
“Relax,” he says, holding up both hands, a gesture like,
Don’t be mad at me. “I was kidding.” He turns just slightly to
the left, watching me the whole time. The moon lights up his
three-pronged scar vividly: a perfect white triangle, a scar
that makes you think of order and regularity. “I’m safe,
remember? I can’t hurt you.”
He says it quietly, evenly, and I believe him. And yet my
heart won’t stop its frantic winging in my chest, spinning
higher and higher, until I’m sure it’s going to carry me off. I
feel the way I do whenever I get to the top of the Hill and can
see back down Congress Street, with the whole of Portland
lying behind me, the streets a shimmer of greens and grays
—from a distance, both beautiful and unfamiliar—just
before I spread my arms and let go, trip and skip and run
down the hill, wind whipping in my face, not even trying to
move, just letting gravity pull me.
Breathless; excited; waiting for the drop.
I suddenly realize how quiet it is. The band has stopped
playing, and the crowd has gone silent too. The only sound
is the wind shushing over the grass. From where we are,
fifty feet past the crest of the hill, the barn and the party are
invisible. I have a brief fantasy that we’re the only two
people out in the darkness—that we are the only two
people awake and alive in the city, in the world.
Then soft strands of music begin to weave themselves
up in the air, gentle, sighing, so quiet at first I confuse the
sounds for the wind. This music is totally different from the
music that was playing earlier—soft, and fragile, as though
each note is spun glass, or silken thread, looping up and
back into the night air. Once again I’m struck by how
absolutely beautiful it is, like nothing I’ve ever heard, and
out of nowhere I’m overwhelmed by the dual desire to laugh
and cry.
“This song is my favorite.” A cloud skitters across the
moon, and shadows dance over Alex’s face. He’s still
staring at me, and I wish I knew what he was thinking. “Have
you ever danced?”
“No,” I say, a little too forcefully.
He laughs softly. “It’s okay. I won’t tell.”
Images of my mother: the softness of her hands as she
spun me down the long polished wood floors of our house,
as though we were ice-skaters; the fluted quality of her
voice as she sang along to the songs piping from the
speakers, laughing. “My mother used to dance,” I say. The
words slip out, and I regret them almost instantly.
But Alex doesn’t question me or laugh. He keeps
watching me steadily. For a moment he seems on the
verge of saying something. But then he just holds out his
hand to me across the space, across the dark.
“Would you like to?” he says. His voice is hardly audible
above the wind—so low it’s barely a whisper.
“Would I like to what?” My heart is roaring, rushing in my
ears, and though there are still several inches between his
hand and mine, there’s a zipping, humming energy that
connects us, and from the heat flooding my body you would
think we were pressed together, palm to palm, face to face.
“Dance,” he says, at the same time closing those last few
inches and finding my hand and pulling me closer, and at
that second the song hits a high note and I confuse the two
impressions, of his hand and the soaring, the lifting of the
music.
We dance.
Most things, even the greatest movements on earth, have
their beginnings in something small. An earthquake that
shatters a city might begin with a tremor, a tremble, a
breath. Music begins with a vibration. The flood that rushed
into Portland twenty years ago after nearly two months of
straight rain, that hurtled up beyond the labs and damaged
more than a thousand houses, swept up tires and trash
bags and old, smelly shoes and floated them through the
streets like prizes, that left a thin film of green mold behind,
a stench of rotting and decay that didn’t go away for
months, began with a trickle of water, no wider than a
finger, lapping up onto the docks.
And God created the whole universe from an atom no
bigger than a thought.
Grace’s life fell apart because of a single word:
sympathizer. My world exploded because of a different
word: suicide.
Correction: That was the first time my world exploded.
The second time my world exploded, it was also
because of a word. A word that worked its way out of my
throat and danced onto and out of my lips before I could
think about it, or stop it.
The question was: Will you meet me tomorrow?
And the word was: Yes.

Chapter Ten
Symptoms of Amor Deliria Nervosa
PHASE ONE
preoccupation; difficulty focusing
dry mouth
perspiration, sweaty palms
fits of dizziness and disorientation
reduced mental awareness; racing thoughts;
impaired reasoning skills
PHASE TWO
periods of euphoria; hysterical laughter and
heightened energy
periods of despair; lethargy
changes in appetite; rapid weight loss or weight
gain
fixation; loss of other interests
compromised reasoning skills; distortion of reality
disruption of sleep patterns; insomnia or constant
fatigue
obsessive thoughts and actions
paranoia; insecurity
PHASE THREE (CRITICAL)
difficulty breathing
pain in the chest, throat, or stomach
I
difficulty swallowing; refusal to eat
complete breakdown of rational faculties; erratic
behavior; violent
thoughts and fantasies; hallucinations and
delusions
PHASE FOUR (FATAL)
emotional or physical paralysis (partial or total)
death
If you fear that you or someone you know may have
contracted deliria, please
call the emergency line toll-free at 1-800-
PREVENT to discuss immediate
intake and treatment.
‘d never understood how Hana could lie so often and so
easily. But just like anything else, lying becomes easier
the more you do it.
Which is why, when I get home from work the next day
and Carol asks me whether I don’t mind having hot dogs for
the fourth straight night in a row (the result of a shipment
surplus at the Stop-N-Save; we once went a whole two
weeks having baked beans every day), I say that actually,
Sophia Hennerson from St. Anne’s invited me and some
other girls over for dinner. I don’t even have to think about it.
The lie just comes. And even though I still feel sweat
pricking up under my palms, my voice stays calm, and I’m
pretty sure my face keeps its normal color, because Carol
just gives me one of her flitting smiles and says that that
sounds nice.
At six thirty I get on my bike and head to East End
Beach, where Alex and I agreed to meet.
There are plenty of beaches in Portland. East End Beach
is probably one of the least popular—which of course made
it one of my mother’s favorites. The current is stronger there
than it is at Willard Beach or Sunset Park. I’m not exactly
sure why. I don’t mind. I’ve always been a strong swimmer.
After that first time—when my mother released her arms
from around my waist and I felt both the surging panic and
the thrill, the excitement—I learned pretty quickly, and by
four I was paddling out by myself all the way past the
breaks.
There are other reasons why most people avoid East
End Beach, even though it’s only a short walk down the hill
from Eastern Prom, one of the most popular parks. The
beach is nothing more than a short strip of rocky, gravelflecked
sand. It backs up against the far side of the lab
complex, where the storage and waste sheds are, which
doesn’t make for particularly pretty scenery. And when you
swim out at East End Beach you get a clear view of
Tukey’s Bridge and the wedge of unregulated land between
Portland and Yarmouth. A lot of people don’t like being so
close to the Wilds. It makes them nervous.
It makes me nervous too, except that there’s a part of me
—a tiny, little flick of a part—that likes it. For a while after
my mom died I used to have these fantasies that she wasn’t
dead, really, and that my father wasn’t dead either—that
they had escaped to the Wilds to be together. He had gone
five years before her, to prepare everything, to build a little
house with a woodstove and furniture hewed from tree
branches. At some point, I imagined, they would come
back and get me. I even imagined my room down to the
smallest detail: a dark red carpet, a little red and green
patchwork quilt, a red chair.
I had the fantasy only a few times before I realized how
wrong it was. If my parents had escaped to the Wilds it
would make them sympathizers, resisters. It was better that
they were dead. Besides, I learned pretty quickly that my
fantasies about the Wilds were just that—make-believe,
little kiddie stuff. The Invalids have nothing, no way of
trading or getting red patchwork quilts or chairs, or anything
else for that matter. Rachel once told me that they must live
like animals, filthy, hungry, desperate. She says that’s why
the government doesn’t bother doing anything about them,
doesn’t even acknowledge their existence. They’ll die out
soon enough, all of them, freeze or starve or just let the
disease run its course, turn them against each other, have
them raging and fighting and clawing one another’s eyes
out.She said as far as we know that’s already happened—
she said the Wilds might be empty now, dark and dead, full
of only the rustle and whispers of animals.
She’s probably right about the other stuff—about the
Invalids living like animals—but she’s obviously wrong
about that. They’re alive, and out there, and they don’t want
us to forget it. That’s why they stage the demonstrations.
That’s why they let the cows loose in the labs.
I’m not nervous until I get to East End Beach. Even
though the sun is sinking behind me, it lights the water white
and makes everything shimmer. I shield my eyes against
the glare and spot Alex down by the water, a long black
brushstroke against all that blue. I flash back to last night, to
the fingers of one of his hands just pressed against my
lower back, so lightly it was like I was only dreaming them—
the other hand cupping mine, dry and reassuring as a piece
of wood warmed by the sun. We really danced, too, the kind
of dancing that people do at their wedding after the pairing
has been formalized, but better somehow, looser and less
unnatural.
He has his back toward me, facing the ocean, and I’m
glad. I feel self-conscious as I plod down the rickety, saltwarped
stairs that lead from the parking lot to the beach,
pausing to unlace and kick off my sneakers, which I carry in
one hand. The sand is warm on my bare feet as I set off
toward him.
An old man is coming up from the water, carrying a
fishing pole. He shoots me a suspicious glance, then turns
to stare at Alex, then looks at me again and frowns. I open
my mouth to say, “He’s cured,” but the man just grunts at me
as he walks past, and I can’t imagine he’d bother to call the
regulators, so I don’t say anything. Not that we’d get in
trouble trouble if we were caught—that’s what Alex meant
when he said, “I’m safe”—but I don’t want to answer a lot of
questions and have my ID number run through SVS and all
of that. Besides, if the regulators did haul ass all the way
out to East End Beach to check out “suspicious behavior,”
only to discover it was some cured taking pity on a
seventeen-year-old nobody, they’d definitely be annoyed—
and guaranteed to take it out on someone.
Taking pity. I push the words out of my mind quickly,
surprised by how difficult it is to even think them. All day I
tried not to worry about why on earth Alex would be so nice
to me. I even imagined—for one brief, stupid second—that
maybe after my evaluation I’d get matched with him. I’d had
to shunt that thought aside too. Alex has already received
his printed sheet, his recommended matches—he would
have gotten it even before his cure, directly after the
evaluations. He’s not married yet because he’s still in
school, end of story. But he will be, as soon as he finishes.
Of course, then I started wondering about the kind of girl
he’s been matched with—someone like Hana, I decided,
with bright blond hair and an irritating ability to make even
pulling her hair into a ponytail look graceful, like a
choreographed dance.
There are four other people on the beach: a mother and
a child, one hundred feet away, the mother sitting in a faded
fabric folding chair, staring blankly toward the horizon, while
the child—who is probably no more than three—toddles in
the waves, gets knocked over, lets out a shriek (of pain?
pleasure?) and struggles back to her feet. Beyond them a
couple is walking, a man and a woman, not touching. They
must be married. Both have their hands clasped in front of
them, and both look straight ahead, not talking—and not
smiling, either, but calm, as though they are each
surrounded by an invisible protective bubble.
Then I’m coming up behind Alex and he turns and sees
me, smiles. The sun catches his hair, turns it momentarily
white. Then it smolders back to its normal golden-brown
color.
“Hi,” he says. “I’m glad you came.”
I feel shy again, stupid holding my ratty shoes in one
hand. I can feel my cheeks getting hot, so I look down, drop
my shoes, turn them over once in the sand with my toe. “I
said I would, didn’t I?” I don’t mean for the words to come
out so harshly and I wince, mentally cursing myself. It’s like
there’s a filter set up in my brain, except instead of making
things better, it twists everything around so what comes out
of my mouth is totally wrong, totally different from what I was
thinking.
Thankfully, Alex laughs. “I just meant that you stood me up
last time,” he says. He nods toward the sand. “Sit?”
“Sure,” I say, relieved. I feel much less awkward once
we’re both settled in the sand. There’s less chance of falling
over or doing something dumb. I draw my legs up to my
chest, resting my chin on my knees. Alex leaves a good two
or three feet of space between us.
We sit in silence for a few minutes. At first I’m searching
frantically for something to say. Every beat of silence
seems to stretch into an infinity, and I’m pretty sure Alex
must think I’m a mute. But then he flicks a half-buried
seashell out of the sand and hurls it into the ocean, and I
realize he’s not uncomfortable at all. After that I relax. I’m
even glad for the silence.
Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still
and let the world exist in front of you—sometimes I swear
that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in
its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way
to live in that second, then you would live forever.
“Tide’s going out,” Alex says. He chucks another
seashell in a high arc, and it just hits the break.
“I know.” The ocean is leaving a litter of pulpy green
seaweed, twigs, and scrabbling hermit crabs in its wake,
and the air smells tangy with salt and fish. A seagull pecks
its way across the beach, blinking, leaving tiny thatched
claw prints. “My mom used to bring me here when I was
little. We’d walk out a little bit at low tide—as far as you can
go, anyway. Crazy stuff gets stranded on the sand—
horseshoe crabs and giant clams and sea anemone. Just
gets left behind when the water goes out. She taught me to
swim here too.” I’m not sure why the words bubble out of
me then, why I have the sudden urge to talk. “My sister used
to stay on the shore and build sand castles, and we would
pretend that they were real cities, like we’d swum all the
way to the other side of the world, to the uncured places.
Except in our games they weren’t diseased at all, or
destroyed, or horrible. They were beautiful and peaceful,
and built of glass and light and things.”
Alex stays silent, tracing shapes in the sand with a finger.
But I can tell he’s listening.
The words tumble on: “I remember my mom would
bounce me in the water on her hip. And then one time she
just let me go. I mean, not for real real. I had those little
inflatable thing-ies on my arms. But I was so scared I
started bawling my head off. I was only a few years old but I
remember it, I swear I do. I was so relieved when she
scooped me back up. But—but disappointed, too. Like I’d
lost the chance at something great, you know?”
“So what happened?” Alex tips his head to look at me.
“You don’t come here anymore? Your mom lose her taste
for the ocean?”
I look away, toward the horizon. The bay is relatively calm
today. Flat, all shades of blue and purple as it draws away
from the beach with a low sucking sound. Harmless. “She
died,” I say, surprised by how difficult it is to say. Alex is
quiet next to me and I rush on, “She killed herself. When I
was six.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, so low and quiet I almost miss it.
“My dad died when I was eight months old. I don’t
remember him at all. I think—I think it kind of broke her, you
know? My mom, I mean. She wasn’t cured. It didn’t work. I
don’t know why. She had the procedure three separate
times, but it didn’t … it didn’t fix her.” I pause, sucking in a
breath, afraid to look at Alex, who is as still and silent next
to me as a statue, as a carved piece of shadow. Still, I can’t
stop speaking. I realize, strangely, that I’ve never told the
story of my mother before. I’ve never had to. Everyone
around me, everyone in school, all my neighbors and my
aunts’ friends—they all knew about my family already, and
aunts’ friends—they all knew about my family already, and
my family’s shameful secrets. That’s why they always
looked at me pityingly, from the corner of their eyes. That’s
why for years I rode a wave of whispering into every room,
was slapped with sudden silence when I entered—silence
and guilty, startled faces. Even Hana knew before she and I
were desk partners in second grade. I remember because
she found me in the bathroom stall, crying into a piece of
paper towel, stuffing my mouth with it so no one would hear,
and she kicked the door right open with a foot and stood
there staring. Is it because of your mom? she said, the first
words she ever spoke to me.
“I didn’t know there was something wrong with her. I
didn’t know she was sick. I was too young to understand.” I
keep my eyes focused on the horizon, a solid thin line, taut
as a tightrope. The bay edges farther from us, and as
always I have the same fantasy I did as a child: that maybe
it won’t come back, maybe the whole ocean will disappear
forever, drawn back across the surface of the earth like lips
retracting over teeth, revealing the cool, white hardness
underneath, the bleached bone. “If I had known, maybe I
could have …”
At the last second my voice falters and I can’t say any
more, can’t finish the sentence. Maybe I could have
stopped it. It’s a sentence I’ve never spoken before, never
even allowed myself to think. But the idea is there, looming
up solid and unavoidable, a sheer rock face: I could have
stopped it. I should have stopped it.
We sit in silence. At some point during my story the
mother and child must have packed up and gone home;
Alex and I are all alone on the beach. Now that the words
aren’t bubbling, rushing out of me, I can’t believe how much
I’ve shared with a next-to-perfect stranger—and a boy, no
less. I’m suddenly, itchingly, squirmingly embarrassed. I’m
desperate for something else to say—something harmless,
about the tide or the weather—but as usual my mind goes
totally blank now that I actually need it to function. I’m afraid
to look at Alex. When I finally work up the courage to shoot
him a tiny sidelong glance, he’s sitting, staring out at the
bay. His face is completely unreadable except for a tiny
muscle, which flutters in and out at the base of his jaw. My
heart sinks. Just like I feared—he’s ashamed of me now,
disgusted by my family’s history, by the disease that runs in
my blood. At any second he’ll stand up and tell me it’s
better if he doesn’t speak to me anymore. It’s weird. I don’t
even really know Alex, and there’s an impassable divide
between us, but the idea upsets me
anyway.
I’m two seconds away from jumping up and running
away, just so I won’t have to nod and pretend to understand
when he turns to me and says, Listen, Lena. I’m sorry, but
… and gives me that all-too-familiar look. (Last year there
was a rabid dog loose on the Hill, biting and snapping at
everyone, frothing at the mouth. It was half-starved, mangy,
flea-riddled, and missing one leg, but still it took two cops
to shoot it down. A crowd gathered to watch, and I was
there. I stopped on the way back from my run. For the first
time in my life I understood the look that people had been
giving me forever, the same curl of the lip whenever they
hear the name Haloway. Pity, yes—but disgust, also, and
fear of contamination. It was the same way they were
looking at the dog while he circled and snapped and spit;
and then a mass exhalation of relief when the third bullet
finally took him down and he stopped twitching.)
Just when I think I can’t take it anymore, Alex reaches
over and barely skims my elbow with one finger. “I’ll race
you,” he says, standing up and beating the sand off his
shorts. He reaches a hand out to me and helps me up, a
smile flickering back on his face. I’m endlessly grateful to
him in that second. He’s not going to hold my family’s past
against me. He doesn’t think I’m dirty or damaged. He pulls
me to my feet, and I think he squeezes my hand once I’m
standing, a quick pulse, and I’m startled and happy, thinking
of my secret sign with Hana.
“Only if you’ve got a thing for total humiliation,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows. “So you think you can beat me?”
“I don’t think. I know.”
“We’ll see about that.” He cocks his head to the side.
“First one to the buoys, then?”
That throws me. The tide doesn’t go out too far in the
bay; the buoys are still floating on at least four feet of water.
“You want to race into the bay?”
“Scared?” he asks, grinning.
“I’m not scared, I’m just—”
“Good.” He reaches out and brushes my shoulder with
two fingers. “Then how about a little less conversation, and
a little more—Go!”
He screams out the last word and takes off at full speed.
It takes me two whole seconds to launch myself after him,
and I’m calling out, “No fair! I wasn’t ready!” and both of us
are laughing as we splash through the shallows in our
clothes, the little ripples and dips of the ocean floor now
exposed by the tide’s retreat. Shells crunch under my feet. I
get my toe caught in a tangle of red and purple seaweed
and nearly do a face-plant. I push myself off the wet sand
with a palm and get my balance again, have almost caught
up to Alex, when he ducks down and scoops up a handful of
wet sand, whirling around to peg me with it. I shriek and
duck out of the way, but a bit of it still catches me on the
cheek, dribbling down my neck.
“You are such a cheater!” I manage to gasp, out of breath
from running and laughing.
“You can’t cheat if there are no rules,” Alex shoots back
over his shoulder.
“No rules, huh?” We’re splashing shin deep now and I
start palming water at him, making a splatter pattern over
his back and shoulders. He turns around, sweeping his arm
across the surface of the water, a glittering arc. I twist to
avoid it and end up slipping and falling elbow deep,
soaking my shorts and the bottom half of my T-shirt, the
sudden cold making me gasp. He’s still slogging forward,
his head craned back, his smile dazzling, his laugh rolling
off and away so loud I imagine it dipping past Great
Diamond Island and over the horizon, reaching all the way
to other parts of the world. I scramble up and haul after him.
The buoys are bobbing twenty feet ahead of us and the
water is at my knees, and then my thighs, and then all the
way to my waist, until both of us are half running and half
swimming, frantically paddling forward with our arms. I can’t
breathe or think or do anything but laugh and splash and
focus on the bright red bobbing buoys, focus on winning,
winning, I have to win, and when we’re only a few feet away
and he’s still in the lead and my shoes are leaden and filled
with water, my clothes dragging me down like my pockets
have been weighted with stones, without thinking I leap
forward and tackle him, wrestling down into the water,
feeling my foot connect with his thigh as I rocket off of him
and reach out to slap the nearest buoy, the plastic shooting
away from my hand when I hit it. We must be a quarter mile
off the beach, but the tide’s still going out so I can stand, the
water hitting me at my chest. I raise my arms triumphantly
as Alex comes up spluttering water, shaking his head so
water pinwheels from his hair.
“I won,” I pant out.
“You cheated,” he says, pushing forward a few more
steps and collapsing with both arms behind him, looped
over the rope stringing along the buoys. He arches his back
so his face is tilted up toward the sky. His T-shirt is
completely soaked, and water beads off his eyelashes,
trickles down his cheeks.
“No rules,” I say, “so no cheating.”
He turns to me, grinning. “I let you win, then.”
“Yeah, right.” I splash him a little and he holds up his
hands, surrendering. “You’re just a sore loser.”
“I don’t have much practice at it.” There’s that confidence
again, that semi-infuriating easiness of his, the tilt of his
head and the smile. But today it’s not infuriating. Today I
like it, feel like it’s somehow rubbing off on me, like if I was
around him enough I would never feel awkward or
frightened or insecure.
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes and hook one arm over the
buoys next to him, enjoying the feel of the currents swishing
around my chest, enjoying the strangeness of being in the
bay with my clothes on, the stickiness of my T-shirt and the
sucking of my shoes on my feet. Soon the tide will turn and
the water will come in again. Then it will be a slow,
exhausting swim back to the beach.
But I don’t care. I don’t care about anything—I’m not
worried about how in a million years I’ll explain to Carol why
I’ve come home soaking wet, with seaweed clinging to my
back and the smell of salt in my hair, not worried about how
long I have until curfew or why Alex is even being nice to
me. I’m just happy, a pure, bubbly feeling. Beyond the
buoys the bay is dark purple, the waves brushed over with
whitecaps. It is illegal to go beyond the buoys—beyond the
buoys are the islands and the lookout points, and beyond
them is open ocean, ocean that leads to unregulated
places, places of disease and fear—but for that moment I
fantasize about ducking underneath the rope and
swimming out.
To our left we can see the bright white silhouette of the
lab complex and beyond it, distantly, Old Port, all the docks
like gigantic wooden centipedes. To our right is Tukey’s
Bridge, and the long string of guard huts that runs its length
and continues up along the border. Alex catches me
looking.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” he says.
The bridge is mottled gray-green, all coated in
backsplash and algae, and it looks like it’s keening slightly
into the wind. I wrinkle my nose. “It looks kind of like it’s
rotting, doesn’t it? My sister always said that someday it
would fall into the ocean, just topple right over.”
Alex laughs. “I wasn’t talking about the bridge.” He tilts
his chin just slightly, gesturing. “I meant past the bridge.” He
pauses for just a fraction of a second. “I meant the Wilds.”
Beyond Tukey’s Bridge is the northern border, located
along the far side of Back Cove. As we’re standing there
the lights in the guard huts click on, one after another,
shining out against the deepening blue sky—a sign that it’s
getting late and I should be going home soon. Still, I can’t
force myself to leave, even as I feel the water around my
chest start to bubble and eddy, the tide turning. Beyond the
bridge the lush greens of the Wilds move together in the
wind like an endlessly re-arranging wall, a thick wedge of
green cutting down toward the bay and separating Portland
from Yarmouth. From here we can just make out the barest
section of it, an empty place marked with no lights, no
boats, no buildings: impenetrable and strange and black.
But I know that the Wilds extend back, go on for miles and
miles and miles all through the mainland, all across the
country, like a monster reaching its tentacles around the
civilized parts of the world.
Maybe it was the race, or beating him to the buoys, or
the fact that he didn’t criticize me or my family when I told
him about my mother, but in that moment the giddiness and
happiness is still flowing strong and I feel like I could tell
Alex anything, ask him anything. So I say, “Can I tell you a
secret?” I don’t wait for him to answer; I don’t have to, and
knowing that makes me feel dizzy and careless. “I used to
think about it a lot. The Wilds, I mean, and what they were
like … and the Invalids, whether they really existed.” Out of
the corner of my eye I think I see him flinch slightly, so I
press on, “I used to sometimes think … I used to pretend
that maybe my mom didn’t die, you know? That maybe
she’d only run away to the Wilds. Not that that would be any
better. I guess I just didn’t want her to be gone for good. It
was better to imagine her out there somewhere, singing…
.” I break off, shaking my head, amazed that I feel so
comfortable talking to Alex. Amazed, and grateful. “What
about you?” I say.
“What about me what?” Alex is watching me with an
expression I can’t read. Like I’ve hurt him, almost, but that
doesn’t make any sense.
“Did you used to think about going to the Wilds when you
were little? Just for fun, I mean, like a game.”
Alex squints, looks away from me, and grimaces. “Yeah,
sure. A lot.” He reaches out and slaps the buoys. “None of
these. No walls to run into. No eyes. Freedom and space,
places to stretch out. I still think about the Wilds.”
I stare at him. Nobody uses words like that anymore:
freedom, space. Old words. “Still? Even after this?”
Without meaning to or thinking about it I reach out and
brush my fingers, once, against the three-pronged scar on
his neck.
He jerks away from my touch as though I’ve scalded him,
and I drop my hand, embarrassed.
“Lena … ,” he says, in the strangest voice: like my name
is a sour thing, a word that tastes bad in his mouth.
I know I shouldn’t have touched him like that. I’ve
overstepped my boundaries, and he’s going to remind me
of it, of what it means to be uncured. I think I will die of
humiliation if he starts to lecture me, so to cover my
discomfort I start babbling. “Most cureds don’t think about
that kind of stuff. Carol—that’s my aunt—she always said it
was a waste of time. She always said there was nothing out
there but animals and land and bugs, that all the talk of
Invalids was make-believe stuff, kid stuff. She said
believing in Invalids is the same thing as believing in
werewolves or vampires. Remember how
people used to say there were vampires in the Wilds?”
Alex smiles, but it’s more like a wince. “Lena, I have to
tell you something.” His voice is a little stronger now, but
something about his tone makes me afraid to let him
speak.
Now I can’t stop talking. “Did it hurt? The procedure, I
mean. My sister said it was no big deal, not with all the
painkillers they give you, but my cousin Marcia used to say
it was worse than anything, worse than having a baby, even
though her second kid took, like, fifteen hours to deliver—” I
break off, blushing, mentally cursing myself for the
ridiculous conversational turn. I wish I could rewind back to
last night’s party, when my brain was coming up empty; it’s
like I’ve been saving up for a case of verbal vomit. “I’m not
scared, though,” I nearly scream, as Alex again opens his
mouth to speak. I’m desperate to salvage the situation
somehow. “My procedure’s coming up. Sixty days. It’s
dorky, huh? That I count. But I can’t wait.”
“Lena.” Alex’s voice is stronger, more forceful now, and it
finally stops me. He turns so that we’re face-to-face. At that
moment my shoes skim off the sand bottom, and I realize
that the water is lapping up to my neck. The tide is coming
in fast. “Listen to me. I’m not who—I’m not who you think I
am.”
I have to fight to stand. All of a sudden the currents tug
and pull at me. It’s always seemed this way. The tide goes
out a slow drain, comes back in a rush. “What do you
mean?”
His eyes—shifting gold, amber, an animal’s eyes—
search my face, and without knowing why, I’m scared
again. “I was never cured,” he says. For a moment I close
my eyes and imagine I’ve misheard him, imagine I’ve only
confused the shushing of the waves for his voice. But when I
open my eyes he’s still standing there, staring at me,
looking guilty and something else—sad, maybe?—and I
know I heard correctly. He says, “I never had the
procedure.”
“You mean it didn’t work?” I say. My body is tingling,
going numb, and I realize then how cold it is. “You had the
procedure and it didn’t work? Like what happened to my
mom?”
“No, Lena. I—” He looks away, squinting, says under his
breath, “I don’t know how to explain.”
Everything from the tips of my fingers through the roots of
my hair now feels as if it’s encased in ice. Disconnected
images run through my head, a skipping movie reel: Alex
standing on the observation deck, his hair like a crown of
leaves; turning his head, showing the neat three-pronged
scar just beneath his left ear; reaching out to me and
saying, I’m safe. I won’t hurt you. The words start rattling out
of me again but I don’t feel them, hardly feel anything. “It
didn’t work and you’ve been lying about it. Lying so you
could still go to school, still get a job, still get paired and
matched and everything. But really you’re not—you’re still—
you might still be—” I can’t bring myself to say the word.
Diseased. Uncured. Sick. I feel like I’ll be sick.
“No.” Alex’s voice is so loud it startles me. I take a step
back, sneakers slipping on the slick and uneven bottom of
the ocean floor, and nearly go under, but when Alex makes
a move to touch me I jerk backward, out of his reach.
Something hardens in his face, like he’s made a decision.
“I’m telling you I was never cured. Never paired or matched
or anything. I was never even evaluated.”
“Impossible.” The word barely squeezes itself out, a
whisper. The sky is whirling above me, all blues and pinks
and reds swirling together until it looks like parts of the sky
are bleeding. “Impossible. You have the scars.”
“Scars,” he corrects me, a little more gently. “Just scars.
“Scars,” he corrects me, a little more gently. “Just scars.
Not the scars.” He looks away then, giving me a view of his
neck. “Three tiny scars, an inverted triangle. Easy to
replicate. With a scalpel, a penknife, anything.”
I close my eyes again. The waves swell around me and
the motion, the lift and the drop, convinces me I really will
throw up, right here in the water. I choke down the feeling,
trying to hold back the realization that is battering at the
back of my mind, threatening to overwhelm me—fighting
back the feeling of drowning. I open my eyes and croak out,
“How … ?”
“You have to understand. Lena, I’m trusting you. Do you
see that?” He’s staring at me so intently I can feel his eyes
like a touch, and I keep my eyes averted. “I didn’t mean to
—I didn’t want to lie to you.”
“How?” I repeat, louder now. Somehow my brain gets
stuck on the word lie and makes an endless loop: No way
to avoid evaluations unless you lie. No way to avoid
procedure unless you lie. You must lie.
For a moment Alex is silent, and I think he’s going to
chicken out, refuse to tell me anything more. I almost wish
he would. I’m desperate to rewind time, go back to the
moment before he said my name in that strange tone of
voice, go back to the
triumphant, surging feeling of beating him to the buoys.
We’ll race back to the beach. We’ll meet up tomorrow, try to
wheedle some fresh crabs from the fishermen at the dock.
But then he speaks. “I’m not from here,” he says. “I mean,
I wasn’t born in Portland. Not exactly.” He’s speaking in the
tone of voice that everyone uses when they’re about to
break you apart. Gentle—kind, even—like they can make
the news sound better just by speaking in a lullaby voice.
I’m sorry, Lena, but your mother was a troubled woman.
Like you won’t somehow hear the violence underneath.
“Where are you from?” I don’t have to ask. I know
already. The realization has broken, spilled, overrun me.
But a little part of me believes that as long as he doesn’t
say it, it’s not true.
His eyes are steady on mine, but he tilts his head back—
back toward the border, beyond the bridge, to that
endlessly moving arrangement of branches and leaves and
vines and tangled, growing things. “There,” he says, or
maybe I just think he says it. His lips barely move. But the
meaning is clear.
He comes from the Wilds.
“An Invalid,” I say. The word feels like it’s grating against
my throat. “You’re an Invalid.” I’m giving him a final chance
to deny it.
But he doesn’t. He just winces slightly and says, “I’ve
always hated that word.”
Standing there, I realize something else: that it wasn’t a
coincidence whenever Carol made fun of me for still
believing in the Invalids, whenever she would shake her
head without bothering to look up from her knitting needles
—tic, tic, tic, they went together, flashing metal—and say, “I
suppose you believe in vampires and werewolves, too?”
Vampires and werewolves and Invalids: things that will
rip into you, tear you to shreds. Deadly things.
I’m suddenly so frightened a desperate pressure starts
pushing down in the bottom of my stomach and between
my legs, and for one wild and ridiculous second I’m positive
that I’m about to pee. The lighthouse on Little Diamond
Island clicks on, cuts a wide swath across the water, an
enormous, accusatory finger: I’m terrified I’ll get caught up
in its beam, terrified it will point in my direction and then I’ll
hear the whirling of the state helicopters and the
megaphone voices of the regulators shouting, “Illegal
activity! Illegal activity!” The beach looks hopelessly and
impossibly remote. I can’t imagine how we got out so far.
My arms feel heavy and useless, and I think of my mother,
and her jacket filling slowly with water.
I take deep breaths, trying to keep my mind from
spinning, trying to focus. There’s no way for anyone to know
that Alex is an Invalid. I didn’t know. He looks normal, has
the scar in the right place. There’s no way anyone could
have heard us talking.
A wave lifts and breaks against my back. I stumble
forward. Alex reaches out and grabs my arm to steady me,
but I twist away from him just as a second round of waves
surges over us. I get a mouthful of seawater, feel the salt
stinging my eyes and am momentarily blinded.
“Don’t,” I stutter. “Don’t you dare touch me.”
“Lena, I swear. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t want to
lie to you.”
“Why are you doing this?” I can’t think straight, can hardly
even breathe. “What do you want from me?”
“Want … ?” Alex shakes his head. He looks genuinely
confused—and hurt, too, as though I’m the one who did
something wrong. For a second I feel a flash of sympathy
for him. Maybe he sees it on my face, that fraction of a
second when I let my guard down, because in that moment
his expression softens and his eyes go bright as flame and
even though I barely see him move, suddenly he has closed
the space between us and he’s wrapping his warm hands
over my shoulders—fingers so warm and strong I almost
cry out—and saying, “Lena. I like you, okay? That’s it.
That’s all. I like you.” His voice is so low and hypnotic it
reminds me of a song. I think of predators dropping silently
from trees: I think of enormous cats with glowing amber
eyes, just like his.
And then I’m stumbling backward, paddling away from
him, my shirt and shoes heavy with water, my heart
hammering painfully against my chest and my breath
rasping in my throat. I’m kicking off the ground and
sweeping forward with my arms, half running, half
swimming, as the tide lifts and drags at me so I feel like I
can only creep forward an inch at a time, so I feel like I’m
moving through molasses. Alex calls my name, but I’m too
afraid to turn my head and see if he’s coming after me. It’s
like one of those nightmares where something’s chasing
you but you’re too afraid to look and see what it is. All you
hear is its breath, getting closer and closer. You feel its
shadow looming up behind you but you’re paralyzed: You
know that any second you’ll feel its icy fingers closing on
your neck.
I’ll never make it, I think. I’ll never make it back.
Something scrapes across my shin and I begin to imagine
that the bay around me is full of horrible underwater things,
sharks and jellyfish and poisonous eels, and even though I
know I’m panicking I feel like falling backward and giving
up. The beach is still so far, and my arms and legs feel so
heavy.
Alex’s voice gets whipped away by the wind, sounding
fainter and fainter, and when I finally work up the courage to
look over my shoulder I see him bobbing up and down by
the buoys. I realize I’ve gone farther than I thought, and at
the very least Alex isn’t following me. My fear eases up, and
the knot in my chest loosens. The next wave is so strong it
helps skim me over a steep underwater ridge, drops me to
my knees into soft sand. When I struggle to my feet the
water hits me just at the waist, and I slosh the rest of the
way to shore, shivering, grateful, exhausted.
My thighs are shaking. I collapse onto the beach,
gasping and coughing. From the flames of color licking
across the sky over Back Cove—orange, reds, pinks—I’m
guessing it’s close to sunset, probably around eight
o’clock. Part of me wants to just lie down, spread my arms
and stretch out and sleep all through the night. I feel like I’ve
swallowed half my weight in salt water. My skin stings and
there’s sand everywhere, in my bra and underwear and
between my toes and under my fingernails. Whatever
scraped my shin in the water left its mark: a long trickle of
blood snakes around my calf.
I look up, and for one panicked second I can’t find Alex
by the buoys. My heart stops. Then I see him, a dark spot
cutting quickly through the water. His arms pinwheel
gracefully as he swims. He’s fast. I haul myself to my feet,
grab my shoes, and limp up to my bike. My legs are so
weak it takes me a minute to find my balance, and at first I
weave crazily up and down the road like a toddler just
learning to ride.
I don’t look back, not once, until I’m at my gate. By then
the streets are empty and quiet, night about to fall, curfew
about to come down like a giant warm embrace, keeping
us all in our places, keeping us all safe.

Chapter Eleven
Think of it this way: When it’s cold outside and your
teeth are chattering, you bundle up in a winter coat,
and scarves, and mittens, to keep from catching the
flu. Well, the borders are like hats and scarves and
winter coats for the whole country! They keep the
very worst disease away, so we can all stay healthy!
After the borders went up, the president and the
Consortium had one last thing to take care of before
we could all be safe and happy. The Great
Sanitation* (sometimes called “the blitz”) lasted less
than a month, but afterward all the wild spaces were
cleared of the disease. We went in there with some
old-fashioned elbow grease and scrubbed the
problem spots away, just like when your mom wipes
the kitchen counters down with a sponge, easy as
one, two, three… .
*Sanitation
1. The application of sanitary measures for the sake
of cleanliness or
protecting health
2. The disposal of sewage and waste
H
—Excerpt from Dr. Richard’s History
Primer for Children, Chapter One
ere is a secret about my family: My sister contracted the
deliria several months before her scheduled procedure.
She fell in love with a boy named Thomas, who was also
uncured. During the day, she and Thomas spent all their
time lying in a field of wildflowers, shielding their eyes
against the sun, whispering promises to each other that
could never be kept. She cried all the time, and once she
confessed to me that Thomas liked to kiss away her tears.
Still, now, when I think of those days—I was only eight at the
time—I think of the taste of salt.
The disease slowly worked its way deeper and deeper
inside of her, an animal chewing her from within. My sister
couldn’t eat. What little we could convince her to swallow
came up just as quickly, and I was afraid for her life.
Thomas broke her heart, of course, to nobody’s surprise.
The Book of Shhh says: “Amor deliria nervosa produces
shifts in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which result in
fantasies and delusions that, once revealed, lead in turn to
psychic devastation” (See “Effects,” p. 36). Then my sister
did nothing but lie in bed and watch the shadows shift
slowly across the walls, her ribs rising up under her pale
skin like wood rising through water.
Even then she refused the procedure and the comfort it
would give her, and on the day the cure was to be
administered it took four scientists and several needles full
of tranquilizer before she would submit, before she would
stop scratching with her long, sharp nails, which had gone
uncut for weeks, and screaming and cursing and calling for
Thomas. I watched them come for her, to bring her to the
labs; I sat in a corner, terrified, while she spit and hissed
and kicked, and I thought of my mom and dad.
That afternoon, though I was still more then a decade
away from safety, I began to count the months until my
procedure.
In the end my sister was cured. She came back to me
gentle and content, her nails spotless and round, her hair
pulled back in a long, thick braid. Several months later she
was pledged to an IT tech, roughly her age, and several
weeks after she graduated from college they married, their
hands linked loosely under the canopy, both of them staring
straight ahead as though at a future of days unmarred by
worry or discontent or disagreement, a future of identical
days, like a series of neatly blown bubbles.
Thomas was cured too. He was married to Ella, once my
sister’s best friend, and now everybody is happy. Rachel
told me a few months ago that the two couples often see
each other at picnics and neighborhood events, since they
live fairly close to each other in the East End. The four of
them sit, making polite and quiet conversation, with not a
sole flicker of the past to disturb the stillness and
completeness of the present.
That’s the beauty of the cure. No one mentions those
lost, hot days in the field, when Thomas kissed Rachel’s
tears away and invented worlds just so he could promise
them to her, when she tore the skin off her own arms at the
thought of living without him. I’m sure she’s embarrassed by
those days, if she remembers them at all. True, I don’t see
her that often now—just once every couple of months, when
she remembers she is supposed to stop by—and in that
way I guess you could say that even with the procedure I lost
a little bit of her. But that’s not the point. The point is that
she’s protected. The point is that she’s safe.
I’ll tell you another secret, this one for your own good. You
may think the past has something to tell you. You may think
that you should listen, should strain to make out its
whispers, should bend over backward, stoop down low to
hear its voice breathed up from the ground, from the dead
places. You may think there’s something in it for you,
something to understand or make sense of.
But I know the truth: I know from the nights of Coldness. I
know the past will drag you backward and down, have you
snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees
rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to
piece together what was broken. It’s hopeless. The past is
nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like a stone.
Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel
it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine,
the best thing to do—the only thing—is run.
In the days that follow Alex’s confession, I check constantly
for symptoms of the disease. When I’m manning the
register at my uncle’s store I lean forward on my elbow,
keep my hand resting on my cheek so I can crook my
fingers back toward my neck and count my pulse, make
sure it’s normal. In the mornings I take long, slow breaths,
listening for rasping or hitches in my lungs. I wash my hands
constantly. I know the deliria isn’t like a cold—you can’t get
it from being sneezed on—but still, it’s contagious, and
when I woke up the day after our meeting at East End with
my limbs still heavy and my head as light as a bubble and
an ache in my throat that refused to go away, my first
thought was that I’d been infected.
After a few days I feel better. The only weird thing is the
way my senses seem to have dulled. Everything looks
washed out, like a bad color copy. I have to load my food
with salt before I can taste it, and every time my aunt
speaks to me it seems like her voice has been muted a few
degrees. But I read through The Book of Shhh, and all the
recognized symptoms of deliria, and don’t see anything
that matches up, so in the end I figure I’m safe.
Still, I take precautions, determined not to make one
false step, determined to prove to myself that I’m not like
my mother—that the thing with Alex was a fluke, a mistake,
a horrible, horrible accident. I can’t ignore how close I was
to danger. I don’t even want to think about what would
happen if anyone found out what Alex was, if anyone knew
that we had stood together shivering in the water, that we
had talked, laughed, touched. It makes me feel sick. I have
to keep repeating to myself that my procedure is less than
two months away now. All I have to do is keep my head
down and make it through the next seven weeks and I’ll be
fine.
I come home every evening a full two hours before
curfew. I volunteer to spend extra days at the store, and I
don’t even ask for my usual eight-dollar-an-hour wage.
Hana doesn’t call me. I don’t call her, either. I help my aunt
cook dinner, and I clear and wash the dishes unprompted.
Gracie is in summer school—she’s only in first grade and
they’re already talking about holding her back—and every
night I pull her onto my lap and help her sludge through her
work, whispering in her ear, begging her to speak, to focus,
to listen, cajoling her, finally, into writing at least half of the
answers down in her workbook. After a week my aunt stops
looking at me suspiciously whenever I walk into the house,
stops demanding to know where I’ve been, and another
weight eases off me: She trusts me again. It wasn’t easy to
explain why on earth Sophia Hennerson and I would decide
on an impromptu swim in the ocean—in our clothes, no less
—just after a big family dinner, even harder to explain why I
came home pale and shaking, and I could tell my aunt didn’t
buy it. But after a while she relaxes around me again, stops
looking at me distrustfully, like I’m some caged-up animal
she’s worried will go feral.
Days pass, time ticks away, seconds click forward like
dominoes toppling in a line. Every day the heat gets worse
and worse. It creeps through the streets of Portland, festers
in the Dumpsters, makes the city smell like a giant armpit.
The walls sweat and the trolleys cough and shudder, and
every day people gather in front of the municipal buildings,
praying for a brief blast of cold air whenever the
mechanized doors swoosh open because a regulator or
politician or guard has to go in and out.
I have to give up my runs. The last time I do a full loop
outside I find that my feet carry me down to Monument
Square, past the Governor. The sun is a high white haze, all
the buildings cut sharply against the sky like a series of
metal teeth. By the time I make it to the statue I’m panting,
exhausted, and my head is spinning. When I grab the
Governor’s arm and swing myself up onto the statue’s
base, the metal burns underneath my hand and the world
seesaws crazily, light zigzagging everywhere. I’m dimly
aware that I should go inside, out of the heat, but my brain
is all foggy and so there I go, poking my fingers around the
hole in the Governor’s cupped fist. I don’t know what I’m
looking for. Alex already told me that the note he’d left for
me months ago must have turned to pulp by now. My
fingers come out sticky, pieces of melting gum stringing
between my thumb and forefinger, but still I root around.
And then I feel it slide between my fingers, cool and crisp,
folded in a square: a note.
I’m half-delirious as I open it, but still I don’t really expect
it to be from him. My hands begin to shake as I read:
Lena,
I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.
Alex
I don’t remember the run home, and my aunt finds me later
half passed out in the hallway, murmuring to myself. She
has to put me in a bathtub full of ice to get my temperature
down. When I finally come to I can’t find the note anywhere. I
realize I must have dropped it, and feel half-relieved and
half-disappointed. That evening we read that the Time and
Temperature Building registered 102 degrees: the hottest
day on record for the summer so far.
My aunt forbids me to run outside for the rest of the
summer. I don’t put up a fight. I don’t trust myself, can’t be
sure my feet won’t lead me back down to the Governor, to
East End Beach, to the labs.
I receive a new date for the evaluations and spend my
evenings in front of the mirror rehearsing my answers. My
aunt insists on accompanying me to the labs again, but this
time I don’t see Hana. I don’t see anyone I recognize. Even
the four evaluators are different: floating oval faces,
different shades of brown and pink, two-dimensional, like
shaded drawings. I am not afraid this time. I don’t feel
anything.
I answer all the questions exactly as I should. When I am
asked to give my favorite color, for just the briefest, tiniest
of seconds my mind flashes on a sky the color of polished
silver, and I think I hear a word—gray—whispered quietly
into my ear.
I say, “Blue,” and everyone smiles.
I say, “I’d like to study psychology and social regulation.” I
say, “I like to listen to music, but not too loudly.” I say, “The
definition of happiness is security.” Smiles, smiles, smiles
all around, a room full of teeth.
After I’m done, as I am leaving, I think I see a shifting
shadow, a flicker in my peripheral vision. I glance up quickly
at the observation deck. Of course, it’s empty.
Two days later we receive the results of my boards—all
passes—and my final score: Eight. My aunt hugs me, the
first time she has hugged me in years. My uncle pats me on
the shoulder awkwardly and gives me the largest piece of
chicken at dinner. Even Jenny looks impressed. Gracie
rams the top of her head into my leg, one, two, three times,
and I step away from her, tell her to stop fussing. I know
she’s upset that I’ll be leaving her.
But that’s life, and the sooner she gets used to it, the
better.
I receive my “Approved Matches” too, a list of four names
and statistics—age, scores, interests, recommended
career path, salary projections—printed neatly on a white
sheet of
paper with the Portland city crest at its top. At least Andrew
Marcus isn’t on it. I recognize only one name: Chris
McDonnell. He has bright red hair and teeth that stick out
like a rabbit’s. I only know him because once when I was
playing outside last year with Gracie, he started chanting,
“There goes the retard and the orphan,” and without really
thinking about what I was doing, I scooped up a rock from
the ground and turned around and hurled it in his direction.
It caught him on the temple. For a second his eyes crossed
and uncrossed. He lifted his fingers to his head, and when
he pulled them away they were dark with blood. For days
afterward I was terrified to go out, terrified I’d be arrested
and thrown in the Crypts. Mr. McDonnell owned a tech
services firm, and was a volunteer regulator besides. I was
convinced he would come after me for what I’d done to his
son.
Chris McDonnell. Phinneas Jonston. Edward Wung.
Brian Scharff. I stare at the names for so long that the
letters rearrange themselves into nonsense words, into
baby babble. Gone Crap, Just Fine, Won’t Spill, Pick
Chris, Sharp Things.
In mid-July, when my procedure is only seven weeks
away, it’s time to make my decision. I rank my choices
arbitrarily, inserting numbers next to names: Phinneas
Jonston (1), Chris McDonnell (2), Brian Scharff (3), Edward
Wung (4). The boys will be submitting their rankings too; the
evaluators will do their best to match preferences.
Two days later I receive the official notification: I’ll be
spending the rest of my life with Brian Scharff, whose
hobbies are “watching the news” and “fantasy baseball,”
and who plans to work “in the electricians’ guild,” and who
can “someday expect to make $45,000,” a salary that
“should support two to three kids.” I’ll be pledged to him
before I begin Regional College of Portland in the fall.
When I graduate we’ll be married.
At night I sleep dreamlessly. In the mornings I wake to
fog.

Chapter Twelve
In the decades before the development of the cure,
the disease had become so
virulent and widespread it was extraordinarily rare for
a person to reach adulthood without having
contracted a significant case of amor deliria nervosa
(please see “Statistics, Pre-Border Era”)… . Many
historians have argued that
pre-cure society was itself a reflection of the
disease, characterized by fracture,
chaos, and instability… . Almost half of all
marriages ended in dissolution
… . Incidence of drug use skyrocketed, as did
alcohol-related deaths.
People were so desperate for relief and protection
from the disease they began widespread
experimentation with makeshift folk remedies that
were in themselves deadly, consuming concoctions
of drugs assembled from common cold medications
and synthesized into an extremely addictive and
often fatal compound (please see “Folk Cures
Through the Ages”)… .
The discovery of the procedure to cure deliria is
typically credited to Cormac T. Holmes, a
neuroscientist who was a member of the initial
O
Consortium of New Scientists and one of the first
disciples of the New Religion, which teaches the
Holy Trinity of God, Science, and Order. Holmes
was canonized several years after his death, and his
body was preserved and displayed in the All-Saints’
Monument in Washington, DC (see photographs on
pp. 210-212).
—From “Before the Border,” A Brief
History of the United States of
America, by E. D. Thompson, p. 121
ne hot evening toward the end of July I’m walking home
from the Stop-N-Save when I hear someone call my
name. I turn around and see Hana jogging up the hill
toward me.
“So what?” she says as she gets closer, panting a little.
“You’re just going to walk by me now?”
The obvious hurt in her voice surprises me. “I didn’t see
you,” I say, which is the truth. I’m tired. Today we did
inventory at the store, unshelving and reshelving packages
of diapers, canned goods, rolls of paper towels, counting
and recounting everything. My arms are aching, and
whenever I close my eyes I see bar codes. I’m so tired I’m
not even embarrassed to be out in public wearing my paintspotted
Stop-N-Save T-shirt, which is about ten sizes too
big for me.
Hana looks away, biting her lip. I haven’t spoken to her
since that night at the party and I’m searching desperately
for something to say, something casual and normal. It
suddenly seems incredible to me that this was my best
friend, that we could hang out for days and never run out of
things to talk about, that I would come home from her house
with my throat sore from laughing. It’s like there’s a glass
wall between us now, invisible but impenetrable.
I finally come up with, “I got my matches,” at the same
time that Hana blurts out, “Why didn’t you call me back?”
Both of us pause, startled, and then again start up at the
same time. I say, “You called?” and Hana says, “Did you
accept yet?”
“You first,” I say.
Hana actually seems uncomfortable. She looks at the
sky, at a small child standing across the street in a baggy
swimsuit, at the two men loading buckets of something into
a truck down the street—everywhere but at me. “I left you,
like, three messages.”
“I never got any messages,” I say quickly, my heart
speeding up. For weeks I’ve been pissed that Hana didn’t
try to reach out to me after the party—pissed, and hurt. But I
told myself it was better this way. I told myself Hana had
changed, and she probably wouldn’t have much to say to
me anymore.
Hana is looking at me like she’s trying to judge whether
I’m telling the truth. “Carol didn’t tell you that I called?”
“No, I swear.” I’m so relieved I laugh. In that second, it hits
me just how much I’ve missed Hana. Even when she’s mad
at me, she’s the only person who’s ever really looked out for
me by choice, not because of family obligation and duty
and responsibility and all the other stuff that The Book of
Shhh says is so important. Everyone else in my life—Carol
and all my cousins, the other girls at St. Anne’s, even
Rachel—have only spent time with me because they had to.
“I had no idea.”
Hana doesn’t laugh, though. She frowns. “No worries. It’s
no big deal.”
“Listen, Hana—”
She cuts me off. “Like I said, it’s no big deal.” She
crosses her arms and shrugs. I don’t know whether she
believes me or not but it’s clear that, after all, things are
different. This isn’t going to be some big, happy reunion.
“So you got matched?”
Her voice is polite now, and slightly formal, so I take on
the same tone. “Brian Scharff. I accepted. You?”
She nods. A muscle flexes at the corner of her mouth,
almost imperceptible. “Fred Hargrove.”
“Hargrove? Like the mayor?”
“His son.” Hana nods, looks away again.
“Wow. Congratulations.” I can’t help sounding
impressed. Hana must have killed at the evaluations. Not
that that’s any surprise, really.
“Yeah. Lucky me.” Hana’s voice is completely toneless. I
can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic. But she is lucky, whether
she knows it or not.
And there it is: Even though we’re standing in the same
patch of sun-drenched pavement, we might as well be a
hundred thousand miles apart.
You came from different starts and you’ll come to
different ends: That’s an old saying, something Carol used
to repeat a lot. I never really understood how true it was until
now.
This must be why Carol didn’t tell me Hana called. Three
phone calls is a lot of phone calls to forget, and Carol’s
pretty careful about stuff like that. Maybe she was trying to
hurry up the inevitable, skip us both to the ending, the part
where Hana and I aren’t friends anymore. She knows that
after the
procedure—once the past and all our shared history has
loosened its grip on us, once we don’t feel our memories
so much—we won’t have anything in common. Carol was
probably trying to protect me, in her own way.
There’s no point in confronting her about it. She won’t try
and deny it. She’ll just give me one of her blank looks and
rattle off a proverb from The Book of Shhh. Feelings aren’t
forever. Time waits for no man, but progress waits for man
to enact it.
“You walking home?” Hana is still looking at me like I’m a
stranger.
“Yeah,” I say. I gesture to my T-shirt. “I figured I should
probably get inside before I blind someone with this.”
A smile flits over Hana’s face. “I’ll walk with you,” she
says, which surprises me.
For a while we walk in silence. We’re not that far from my
house, and I’m worried we’ll go the whole way back without
speaking at all. I’ve never seen Hana so quiet, and it’s
making me nervous.
“Where are you coming from?” I say, just to say
something.
Hana starts next to me, as though I’ve woken her from a
dream. “East End,” she says. “I’m on a strict tanning
schedule.”
She presses her arm next to mine. It’s at least seven
shades darker than mine, which is still pale, maybe a little
more freckled than it is in the winter. “Not you, huh?” This
time she smiles for real.
“Um, no. Haven’t gotten down to the beach very much.” I
will away a blush.
Thankfully, Hana doesn’t notice, or if she does she
doesn’t say anything. “I know. I was looking for you.”
“You were?” I shoot her a look from the corner of my eye.
She rolls her eyes. I’m glad to see her attitude is coming
back online. “I mean, not actively. But I’ve been down there
a few times, yeah. Haven’t seen you.”
“I’ve been working a lot,” I say. I don’t add, to avoid East
End, actually.
“You still running?”
“No. Too hot.”
“Yeah, me too. Figured I’d give it a rest until fall.” We
walk a few more paces in silence and then Hana squints at
me, tilting her head. “So what else?”
Her question catches me off guard. “What do you mean,
what else?”
“That is what I mean. I mean, what else? Come on, Lena.
It’s the last summer, remember? The last summer of no
responsibilities and all that good stuff. So what have you
been doing? Where have you been?”
“I—nothing. I haven’t done anything.” This was the whole
point—to stay out of trouble, to do as little as possible—but
saying the words makes me feel kind of sad. The summer
seems to be narrowing rapidly, shrinking down to a fine
point before I’ve even had a chance to enjoy it. It’s already
almost August. We’ll have another five weeks of this
weather before the wind starts cutting in at night and the
leaves get trimmed with edges of gold. “What about you?” I
say. “Good summer so far?”
“The usual.” Hana shrugs. “I’ve been going to the beach a
lot, like I said. Been babysitting for the Farrels some.”
“Really?” I wrinkle my nose. Hana’s always had a thing
against children. She’s always staying they’re too sticky
and clingy, like Jolly Ranchers that have been left too long
in a hot pocket.
She makes a face. “Yeah, unfortunately. My parents
decided I needed to ‘practice managing a household,’ or
some crap like that. You know they’re actually making me
work out a budget? Like figuring out how to spend sixty
dollars a week is going to teach me about paying bills, or
responsibility or something.”
“Why? It’s not like you’ll even have a budget.” I don’t
mean to sound bitter but there it is, the difference in our
futures cutting between us again.
We go silent after that. Hana looks away, squinting
slightly against the sunlight. Maybe I’m just feeling
depressed about how quickly the summer is cycling by, but
memories start coming thick and fast, like a deck of cards
being reshuffled in my head: Hana swinging open the
bathroom door that first day in second grade, folding her
arms as she blurted out, Is it because of your mom?;
staying up past midnight one of the few times we were ever
allowed to have a sleepover, giggling and imagining
amazing and impossible people for our matches some day,
like the president of the United States or the stars of our
favorite movies; running side by side, legs beating in
tandem on the pavement, like the rhythm of a single
heartbeat; bodysurfing at the beach and buying triple cones
of ice cream on the way home, arguing about whether
vanilla or chocolate was better.
Best friends for more than ten years and in the end it all
comes down to the edge of a scalpel, to the motion of a
laser beam through the brain and a flashing surgical knife.
All that history and its importance gets detached, floats
away like a severed balloon. In two years—in two
months—Hana and I will pass each other on the streets
with nothing more than a nod—different people, different
worlds, two stars revolving silently, separated by thousands
of miles of dark space.
Segregation has it all wrong. We should be protected
from the people who will leave us in the end, from all the
people who will disappear or forget us.
Maybe Hana’s feeling nostalgic too, because she
suddenly comes out with, “Remember all our plans for this
summer? All the things we said we’d finally do?”
I don’t even skip a beat. “Break into the Spencer Prep
pool—”
“—and go swimming in our underwear,” Hana finishes.
I crack a smile. “Hop the fence at Cherryhill Farms—”
“—and eat the maple syrup straight out of the barrels.”
“Run all the way from the Hill to the old airport.”
“Ride our bikes down Suicide Point.”
“Try and find that rope swing Sarah Miller told us about.
The one above Fore River.”
“Sneak into the movie theater and see four movies back
to back.”
“Finish off the Hobgoblin Sundae at Mae’s.” I’m fully
smiling now and Hana is too. I start quoting, “‘A gargantuan
sundae for enormous appetites only, featuring thirteen
scoops, whipped cream, hot fudge—’”
Hana jumps in, “‘And all the toppings your little monsters
can handle!’”
Both of us laugh. We’ve probably read that sign a
thousand times. We’ve been debating making a second
attack on the Hobgoblin since fourth grade: That’s when we
tried the first time. Hana insisted on going there for her
birthday and took me along. Both of us spent the rest of the
night rolling around on the floor of her bathroom, and we’d
only made it through seven of the thirteen scoops.
We’ve reached my street. A few kids are playing in the
We’ve reached my street. A few kids are playing in the
middle of the road. It’s a makeshift game of soccer: They’re
kicking a can around and shouting, bodies brown and shiny
with sweat. I see Jenny among them. As I’m watching, a girl
tries to elbow her out of the way, and Jenny turns around
and pushes her to the ground. The younger girl starts to
wail. No one comes out of any of the houses, even as the
girl’s voice crescendos to a high-pitched scream, like a
siren going off. A curtain or a dish towel flutters in a
window: Other than that, the street is silent, motionless.
I’m desperate to keep riding the wave of good feeling, to
fix things between Hana and me, even if it’s only for a
month. “Listen, Hana”—I feel like I’m working the words
past an enormous lump in my throat; I’m almost as nervous
as I was before the evaluations—”they’re playing The
Defective Detective in the park tonight. Double feature,
Michael Wynn. We could go if you want.” The Defective
Detective is this film franchise Hana and I used to love
when we were little, about a famous detective who’s
actually incompetent, and his dog sidekick: The dog always
ends up solving the crimes. A lot of actors have played the
lead role, but our favorite was Michael Wynn. When we
were kids, we used to pray to get matched with him.
“Tonight?” Hana’s smile falters, and my stomach sinks.
Stupid, stupid, I think. It doesn’t matter anyway.
“It’s okay if you can’t. No worries. Just an idea,” I say
quickly, looking away so she won’t see how disappointed
I am.
“No—I mean, I want to, but—” Hana sucks in a breath. I
hate this, hate how awkward we both are. “I kind of have
this party”—she corrects herself quickly—”this thing I’m
supposed to go to with Angelica Marston.”
My stomach gets that hollowed-out feeling. It’s amazing
how words can do that, just shred your insides apart. Sticks
and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt
me—such bullshit. “Since when do you hang out with
Angelica Marston?”
Again, I’m not trying to sound bitter, but I realize I sound
like someone’s whiny little sister, complaining about being
left out of a game. I bite my lip and turn away, furious with
myself.
“She’s actually not that bad,” Hana says mildly. I can hear
it in her voice; she feels sorry for me. This is worse than
anything. I almost wish we were screaming at each other
again, like we did the day at her house—even that would be
better than her careful tone of voice, the way we’re dancing
around each other’s feelings. “She’s not really stuck-up.
Just shy, I guess.”
Angelica Marston was a junior last year. Hana made fun
of her for the way she wore her uniform. It was always
perfectly pressed and spotless, the collar of her buttondown
turned down exactly, her skirt hitting exactly at the
knee. Hana said Angelica Marston had a stick up her butt
because her father was a big scientist at the labs. And she
did kind of walk that way, all constipated and careful.
“You used to hate her,” I squeak out. My words don’t
seem to be asking my brain for permission before popping
out of my mouth.
out of my mouth.
“I didn’t hate her,” Hana says, like she’s trying to explain
algebra to a two-year-old. “I didn’t know her. I always
thought she was a bitch, you know? Because of her clothes
and stuff. But that’s all her parents. They’re super strict,
really protective and stuff.” Hana shakes her head. “She’s
not like that at all. She’s … different.”
That word seems to vibrate in the air for a second:
different. For a second I have an image of Hana and
Angelica, arms linked, trying not to laugh, sneaking through
the streets after curfew: Angelica fearless and beautiful and
fun, just like Hana. I push the image out of my head. Down
the street one of the kids kicks the can, hard. It skitters
between two dented silver garbage cans that have been
set out in the road, a makeshift goal. Half of the kids start
jumping up and down, pumping their fists; the others, Jenny
included, gesticulate and yell something about offsides. It
occurs to me for the first time how ugly my street must look
to Hana, all the houses squished together, half of them
missing windowpanes, porches sagging in the middle like
old beaten-down mattresses. It’s so different from the
clean, quiet streets in West End, from the silent, gleaming
cars and the gates and the green hedges.
“You could come tonight,” Hana says quietly.
A rush of hatred overwhelms me. Hatred for my life, for
its narrowness and cramped spaces; hatred for Angelica
Marston, with her secretive smile and rich parents; hatred
for Hana, for being so stupid and careless and stubborn,
first and foremost, and for leaving me behind before I was
ready to be left; and underneath all those layers something
else, too, some white-hot blade of unhappiness flashing in
the very deepest part of me. I can’t name it, or even focus
on it clearly, but somehow I understand that this—this other
thing—makes me the angriest of all.
“Thanks for the invitation,” I say, not even bothering to
keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Sounds like a blast. Will
there be boys there too?”
Either Hana doesn’t notice the tone of my voice—which
is doubtful—or she chooses to ignore it. “That’s kind of the
whole point,” she says, deadpan. “Well, and the music.”
“Music?” I say. I can’t help but sound interested. “Like the
last time?”
Hana’s face lights up. “Yeah. I mean, no. Different band.
But these guys are supposed to be amazing—even better
than last time.” She pauses, then repeats quietly, “You
could come with us.”
Despite everything, this gives me pause. In the days after
the party at Roaring Brook Farms, snatches of music
seemed to follow me everywhere: I heard it winging in and
out of the wind, I heard it singing off the ocean and moaning
through the walls of the house. Sometimes I woke up in the
middle of the night, drenched in sweat, my heart pounding,
with the notes sounding in my ears. But every time I was
awake and trying to remember the melodies consciously,
hum a few notes or recall any of the chords, I couldn’t.
Hana’s staring at me hopefully, waiting for my response.
For a second I actually feel bad for her. I want to make her
happy, like I always did, want to see her give a whoop and
put her fist in the air and flash me one of her famous smiles.
But then I remember she has Angelica Marston now, and
something hardens in my throat, and knowing that I’m going
to disappoint her gives me a kind of dull satisfaction.
“I think I’ll pass,” I say. “But thanks anyway.”
Hana shrugs, and I can tell she’s fighting to look like it’s
no big deal. “If you change your mind …” She tries to smile
but can’t keep it up for longer than a second. “Tanglewild
Lane. Deering Highlands. You know where to find me.”
Deering Highlands. Of course. The Highlands is an
abandoned subdivision off-peninsula. A decade ago the
government discovered sympathizers—and, if the rumors
are true, even some Invalids—living together in one of the
big mansions out there. It was a huge scandal, and the bust
the result of a yearlong sting operation. When all was said
and done, forty-two people had been executed and another
hundred thrown in the Crypts. Since then Deering
Highlands has been a ghost town: avoided, forgotten,
condemned.
“Yeah, well. You know where to find me.” I gesture lamely
down the street.
“Yeah.” Hana looks down at her feet, hops from one to
the other. There’s nothing else to say, but I can’t stand to
turn around and just walk away. I have a terrible feeling this
is the last time I’ll see Hana before we’re cured. Fear
seizes me all at once, and I wish I could backpedal through
our conversation, take back all the sarcastic or mean things
that I said, tell her I miss her and I want to be best friends
again.
But just when I’m about to blurt this out, she gives me a
quick wave and says, “Okay, then. See you around,” and
the moment collapses in on itself and with it, my chance to
speak.
“Okay. See you.”
Hana starts off down the road. I’m tempted to watch her
go. I get the urge to memorize her walk—to imprint her in
my brain somehow, just as she is—but as I’m watching her
waver in and out of the fierce sunlight, her silhouette gets
confused with another one in my head, a shadow weaving
in and out of darkness, about to walk off the cliff, and I don’t
know who I’m looking at anymore. Suddenly the edges of
the world are blurring and there’s a sharp pain in my throat,
so I turn around and walk quickly toward the house.
“Lena!” she calls out to me, just before I reach the gate.
I spin around, heart leaping, thinking maybe she’ll be the
one to say it. I miss you. Let’s go back.
Even from a distance of fifty feet, I can see Hana
hesitating. Then she makes this fluttering gesture with her
hand and calls out, “Never mind.” This time when she turns
around she doesn’t waver. She walks straight and quickly,
turns a corner, and is gone.
But what did I expect?
That’s the whole point, after all: There’s no going back.

Chapter Thirteen
In the years before the cure was perfected, it was
offered on a trial basis only. The risks attached to it
were great. At the time one out of every hundred
patients suffered a fatal loss of brain function after
the procedure.
Nonetheless, people swarmed the hospitals in
record number, demanding to be cured; they
camped outside the laboratories for days at a time,
hoping to secure a procedural slot.
These years are also known as the Miracle Years
because of the quantity of lives that were healed and
made whole, and the number of souls brought out of
sickness.
And if there were people who died on the operating
table, they died for a good cause, and no one can
lament them… .
—From “The Miracle Years: The Early
Science of the Cure,” A Brief History
of the United States of America, by E.
D. Thompson, p. 87
When I get into the house it’s even hotter than usual: a
wet, suffocating wall of heat. Carol must be cooking.
The house smells like browned meat and spices—
mixed with the normal summer smells of sweat and mildew,
it’s kind of nauseating. For the past few weeks we’ve been
eating dinner out on the porch: runny macaroni salads, cold
cuts, and sandwiches from my uncle’s deli counter.
Carol pokes her head out of the kitchen as I go by. Her
face is red and she’s sweating big-time. Dark swaths of
sweat have left pit stains on her pale blue blouse, navy
crescents.
“Better get changed,” she says. “Rachel and David will
be here any second.”
I’d completely forgotten my sister and her husband were
coming over for dinner. Normally I see Rachel four or five
times a year, tops. When I was younger, especially after
Rachel had first moved out of Carol’s house, I used to count
the days until she would come and see me. I don’t think I
fully understood then about the procedure and what it meant
for her—for me—for us. I knew that she’d been saved from
Thomas, and from the disease, but that was it. I think I
thought that otherwise things would be exactly the same. I
thought that as soon as she came to see me it would be
like old times again, that we would bust out our socks to
have a dance party, or she would pull me onto her lap and
start braiding my hair, launch into one of her stories—of
distant places and witches who could change into animals.
But she only skimmed a hand over my head as she
came through the door, and applauded politely when Carol
made me recite my multiplication and division tables.
“She’s grown up now,” Carol told me, when I asked her
why Rachel didn’t like to play anymore. “Someday you’ll
see.”
After that I stopped paying attention to the notation that
appeared every few months on the kitchen wall calendar: R
to visit.
At dinner the big topics of conversation are Brian Scharff
—Rachel’s husband, David, works with Brian’s cousin’s
friend, so David feels like he’s an expert on the family—and
Regional College of Portland, where I’ll be starting in the
fall. It’s the first time in my life I’ll be in class with members
of the opposite sex, but Rachel tells me not to worry.
“You won’t even notice,” she says. “You’ll be so busy with
work and studying.”
“There are safeguards,” says Aunt Carol. “All the
students are vetted.” Code for: All the students are cured.
I think of Alex and almost say, Not all of them.
Dinner drags on well past curfew. By the time my aunt
helps me clear the plates it’s almost eleven o’clock, and still
Rachel and her husband make no sign to leave. That’s
another thing I’m excited about: In thirty-six days, I won’t
have to worry about curfew anymore.
After dinner my uncle and David go out onto the porch.
David has brought two cigars—cheap ones, but still—and
the smell of the smoke, sweet and spicy and just a little bit
oily—floats in through the windows, intermingles with the
sound of their voices, fills the house with blue haze. Rachel
sound of their voices, fills the house with blue haze. Rachel
and Aunt Carol stay in the dining room, drinking cups of
watered-down boiled coffee, the dirty pale color of old
dishwater. From upstairs I hear the sound of scampering
feet. Jenny will tease Grace until she’s bored, until she
climbs into bed, sour and dissatisfied, letting the dullness
and sameness of another day lull her to sleep.
I wash the dishes—many more of them than usual, since
Carol insisted on having a soup (hot carrot, which we all
choked down, sweating) and a pot roast slathered in garlic
and limp asparagus, probably rescued from the very
bottom of the vegetable bin, and some stale cookies. I’m
full, and the warmth of the dishwater on my wrists and
elbows—plus the familiar rhythms of conversation, the
pitter-patter of feet upstairs, the heavy blue smoke—make
me feel very sleepy. Carol has finally remembered to ask
about Rachel’s children; Rachel goes over their
accomplishments as though reciting a list she has only
memorized recently, and with difficulty—Sara is reading
already; Andrew said his first word at only thirteen months.
“Raid, raid. This is a raid. Please do as you are
commanded and do not try and resist… .”
The voice booming from outside makes me jump.
Rachel and Carol have paused momentarily in their
conversation, are listening to the commotion in the street. I
can’t hear David and Uncle William, either. Even Jenny and
Grace have stopped fooling around upstairs.
Patchy interference from the street; the sounds of
hundreds and hundreds of boots, clicking away in time; and
that awful voice, amplified through a bullhorn: “This is a
raid. Attention, this is a raid. Please be ready with your
identification papers… .”
A raid night. Instantly I think of Hana and the party. The
room starts spinning. I reach out, grabbing on to the
counter.
“Seems pretty early for a raid,” Carol says mildly from the
dining room. “We had one just a few months ago, I think.”
“February eighteenth,” Rachel says. “I remember. David
and I had to come out with the kids. There was some
problem with SVS that night. We stood in the snow for half
an hour before we could be verified. Afterward Andrew had
pneumonia for two weeks.” She relates this story as though
she’s talking about some minor inconvenience at the
Laundromat, like she’s misplaced a sock.
“Has it been that long?” Carol shrugs, takes a sip of her
coffee.
The voices, the feet, the static—it’s all coming closer.
The raiding parties move as one, from house to house—
sometimes hitting every house on a street, sometimes
skipping whole blocks, sometimes going every other. It’s
random. Or at least, it’s supposed to be random. Certain
houses always get targeted more than others.
But even if you’re not on a watch list you can end up
standing in the snow, like Rachel and her husband, while
the regulators and police try to prove your validity. Or—even
worse—while the raiders come inside your house, tear the
walls down, and look for signs of suspicious activity. Private
property laws are suspended on raid nights. Pretty much
property laws are suspended on raid nights. Pretty much
every law is suspended on raid nights.
We’ve all heard horror stories: pregnant women stripped
down and probed in front of everybody, people thrown in jail
for two or three years just for looking at a policeman the
wrong way, or for trying to prevent a regulator from entering
a certain room.
“This is a raid. If you are asked to step out of the house,
please make sure you have all your identification papers
in hand, including the papers of any children over the age
of six months… . Anyone who resists will be detained and
questioned… . Anyone who delays will be charged with
obstruction… .”
At the end of the street. Then a few houses away… .
Then two houses away… . No. Next door. I hear the
Richardsons’ dog start barking furiously. Then Mrs.
Richardson, apologizing. More barking—then someone (a
regulator?) mutters something, and I hear a few heavy thuds
and a whimper, then someone else saying, “You don’t have
to kill the damn thing,” and someone else saying, “Why not?
Probably has fleas,
anyway.”
Then for a while there’s quiet: just the occasional cackle
of walkie-talkies, someone reciting identification numbers
into a phone, the shuffling of papers.
Then: “All right, then. You’re in the clear.” And the boots
start up again.
For all their nonchalance, even Rachel and Carol tense
up as the boots clomp by our house. I can see Carol
gripping her coffee cup tightly, knuckles white. My heart is
jumping and skipping, a grasshopper in my chest.
But the boots pass us by. Rachel heaves out an audible
sigh of relief as we hear the regulators pound on a door
farther down the street. “Open up… . This is a raid.”
Carol’s teacup clatters in its saucer, making me jump.
“Silly, isn’t it?” she says, forcing a laugh. “Even when you
haven’t done anything wrong, it still makes you jumpy.”
I feel a dull pain in my hand and realize I’m still holding on
to the counter as though it’s going to save my life. I can’t
relax, can’t calm down, even as the sounds of the footsteps
grow fainter, the bullhorn voice more and more distorted,
until it is completely unintelligible. All I can picture are the
raiding
parties—sometimes as many as fifty in a single night—
swirling around Portland, swarming it, surrounding it like
water cascading around a whirlpool, sweeping up anyone
and everyone they can find and accuse of misbehavior or
disobedience, and even people they can’t.
Somewhere out there Hana is dancing, spinning, blond
hair fanning out behind her, smiling—while around her boys
are pressing close and unapproved music pumps through
the speakers. I fight a feeling of incredible nausea. I don’t
even want to think about what will happen to her—to all of
them—if they’re caught.
All I can do is hope she hasn’t made it to the party yet.
Maybe she took too long to get ready—it seems possible,
Hana’s always late—and was still at home when the raids
started. Even Hana would never venture outside during
raids. It’s suicide.
But Angelica Marston and everyone else … Every single
person there … Everyone who just wanted to hear some
music …
I think about what Alex said the night I ran into him at
Roaring Brook Farms: I came to hear the music, like
everybody else.
I will the image out of my mind and tell myself it’s not my
problem. I should be happy if the party is raided and
everyone there is busted. What they’re doing is dangerous,
not just for them but for all of us: That’s how the disease
gets in.
But the underneath part of me, the stubborn part that said
gray at my first evaluation, keeps pressing and nagging at
me. So what? it says. So they wanted to hear some music.
Some real music—not the dinky little songs that get tooted
out at the Portland Concert Series, all boring rhythms and
bright, chipper notes. They’re not doing anything that bad.
Then I remember the other thing Alex said: Nobody’s
hurting anybody.
Besides, there’s always the possibility that Hana didn’t
run late tonight, and she’s out there, oblivious, as the raids
circle closer and closer. I have to squeeze my eyes shut
against the thought, and against the thought of dozens of
glittering blades descending on her. If she’s not thrown in
jail she’ll be carted directly to the labs—she’ll be cured
before dawn, regardless of the dangers or risks.
Somehow, despite my racing thoughts and the fact that
the room continues its frantic spinning, I’ve managed to
clean all the dishes. I’ve also come to a decision.
I have to go. I have to warn her.
I have to warn all of them.
By the time Rachel and David leave and everyone is settled
in bed it’s midnight. Every second that passes feels like
agony. I can only hope the door-to-door on peninsula is
taking longer than usual, and it will be a while before the
raiders make it to Deering Highlands. Maybe they’ve
decided to skip the Highlands altogether. Given the fact
that the majority of the houses up there are vacant, it’s
always a possibility. Still, since Deering Highlands used to
be the hotbed of resistance in Portland, it seems doubtful.
I slip out of bed, not bothering to change out of my sleep
pants and T-shirt, both of which are black. Then I put on
black flats, and, even though it’s about a thousand degrees,
pull a black ski hat out of the closet. Can’t be too careful
tonight.
Just as I’m about to crack open the bedroom door I hear
a small noise behind me, like the mewing of a cat. I whip
around. Grace is sitting up in bed, watching me.
For a second we just stare at each other. If Grace makes
a noise, or gets out of bed, or does anything, she’s bound
to wake Jenny, and then I’m done, finished, kaput. I’m trying
to think of what I can say to reassure her, trying to fabricate
a lie, but then, miracle of miracles, she just lies back down
in bed and closes her eyes. And even though it’s very dark,
I would swear that there’s the smallest smile on her face.
I feel a quick rush of relief. One good thing about the fact
that Gracie refuses to speak? I know she won’t tell on me.
I slip out into the street without any other problems, even
remembering to skip the third-to-last stair, which last time
let out such an awful squeak I thought for sure Carol would
wake up.
After the noise and the commotion of the raids, the street
is freakily still and quiet. Every single window is dark, all the
blinds drawn, like the houses are trying to turn away from
the street, or put up their shoulders against prying eyes. A
stray piece of red paper sweeps by me, turning on the wind
like the tumbleweed you see in old cowboy movies. I
recognize it as a raider’s notice, a proclamation filled with
impossible-to-pronounce words explaining the legality of
suspending everyone’s rights for the evening. Other than
that, it could be any other night—any other quiet, dead,
ordinary night.
Except that on the wind, just faintly, you can hear the
distant murmur of footsteps, and a high wail as if someone
is crying. The sounds are so quiet you might almost
mistake them for ocean and wind sounds. Almost.
The raiders have moved on.
I start off quickly in the direction of Deering Highlands.
I’m too afraid to take my bike. I’m worried the little reflective
patch on the wheels will attract too much attention. I can’t
think about what I’m doing, can’t think about the
consequences if I’m caught. I don’t know where I even got
this rush of resolution. I never would have thought I’d have
the courage to leave the house on a raid night, not in a
million years.
I guess Hana was wrong about me. I guess I’m not
scared all the time.
I’m passing a black trash bag heaped on the sidewalk
when a low whimper stops me short. I spin around, my
whole body on high alert in an instant. Nothing. The sound
is repeated: an eerie, crooning sound that makes the hair
on my arms stand up. Then the garbage bag by my feet
shakes itself.
No. Not a garbage bag. It’s Riley, the Richardsons’ black
mutt.
I take a few shaky steps toward him. I need only one
glance to know that he’s dying. He’s completely coated with
a sticky, shiny, black substance—blood, I realize as I get
closer. That’s the reason I mistook his fur, in the dark, for
the slick black surface of a plastic bag. One of his eyes is
pressed to the pavement; the other is open. His head has
been clubbed in. Blood is flowing freely from his nose,
black and viscous.
I think of the voice I heard—Probably has fleas, anyway,
the regulator said—and the swift thudding sound that
followed.
Riley is staring at me with a look so mournful and
accusatory I swear for a second it’s like he’s a human and
he’s trying to tell me something—trying to say, You did this
to me. A wave of nausea overtakes me and I’m tempted to
get down on my knees and scoop him up in my arms, or
strip off my clothes and start soaking the blood off him. But
at the same time I feel paralyzed. I can’t move.
As I’m standing there, frozen, he gives a long,
shuddering jerk, from the tip of his tail to his nose. Then he
goes still.
Instantly my arms and legs unfreeze. I stumble backward,
bile pushing itself up into my mouth. I careen in a full circle,
feeling like I did the day I got drunk with Hana, totally out of
control of my own body. Anger and disgust are shredding
through me, making me want to scream.
I find a flattened cardboard box sitting behind a
Dumpster and drag it over to Riley’s body, covering him
completely. I try not to think of the insects that will tear into
him by morning. I’m surprised to feel tears prick at my eyes.
I wipe them away with the back of my arm. But as I start off
toward Deering all I can think is, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m
sorry, like a mantra, or a prayer.
One good thing about raids: They’re loud. All I have to do is
pause in the shadows and listen for the footsteps, the
static, the bullhorn voices. I switch directions, choose the
side streets, the ones that have been skipped over or
raided already. Evidence of the raids is everywhere:
overturned garbage cans and Dumpsters, trash picked
through and spilled out onto the street, mountains of old
receipts and shredded letters and rotting vegetables and
foul-smelling goop I don’t even want to identify, red notices
coating everything like a dust. My shoes get slick from
clomping over it, and in the worst places I have to keep my
arms out like a tightrope walker just to stay on my feet. I
pass a few houses marked with a big X, black paint
splashed across their walls and windows like a black gash,
and my stomach sinks. The people who live in these
houses have been identified as troublemakers or resisters.
The hot wind whistling through the streets carries sounds of
yelling and crying, dogs barking. I do my best not to think
about Riley.
I stick to the shadows, slipping in and out of alleys and
darting from one Dumpster to the next. Sweat is pooling at
the base of my neck and under my arms, and it’s not just
from the heat. Everything looks strange and grotesque and
distorted, certain streets glittering with glass from smashed
windows, the smell of burning in the air.
At one point, I come around a corner onto Forest Avenue
just as a group of regulators turns onto it from the other end.
I whip back around, pressing flat against the wall of a
hardware store and inching back in the direction I’ve come.
The chances any of the regulators saw me are slim—I was
a block away and it’s pitch-black—but still, my heart never
goes back to its normal pace. I feel like I’m playing some
giant video game, or trying to solve a really complicated
math equation. One girl is trying to avoid forty raiding
parties of between fifteen to twenty people each, spread
out across a radius of seven miles. If she has to make it
2.7 miles through the center, what is the probability she
will wake up tomorrow morning in a jail cell? Please feel
free to round pi to 3.14.
Before the shakedown, Deering Highlands was a nicer
part of Portland. The houses were big and new—at least for
Maine, which means they were built within the past hundred
years—and set back behind gates and hedges, on streets
with names like Lilac Way and Timber Road. There are a
few families still clinging on in some of the houses, dirt-poor
ones who can’t afford to move anywhere else, or haven’t
gotten permission for a new residence, but for the most
part it’s totally empty. Nobody wanted to stay on; nobody
wanted to be associated with the resistance.
The weirdest thing about Deering Highlands is how
quickly it was abandoned. There are still rusting toys
scattered among the grass and cars parked in some of the
driveways, though most of them have been picked apart,
cleaned of metal and plastic like corpses scavenged by
enormous buzzards. The whole area has the forlorn look of
an abandoned animal: houses drooping slowly into the
overgrown lawns.
Normally I get freaked out just being in the vicinity of the
Highlands. A lot of people say it’s bad luck, like passing a
graveyard without holding your breath. But tonight, when I
finally make it there, I feel like I could dance a jig on the
sidewalk. Everything is dark and quiet and undisturbed, not
a single raider’s notice to be seen, not a whisper of
conversation or the brush of a heel on a sidewalk. The
raiders haven’t come yet. Maybe they won’t come at all.
I speed quickly through the streets, picking up the pace
now that I don’t have to worry so much about sticking to the
shadows and moving soundlessly. Deering Highlands is
pretty big, a maze of winding streets that all look weirdly
similar, houses looming out of the darkness like ships run
aground. The lawns have all gone wild over the years, trees
stretching their gnarled branches to the sky and casting
crazy zigzag shadows on the moonlit pavement. I get lost
on Lilac Way—somehow I manage to make a complete
circle and wind up hitting the same intersection twice—but
when I turn onto Tanglewild Lane I see a dull light burning
dimly in the distance, behind a knotted mass of trees, and I
know I’ve found the place.
An old mailbox is staked crookedly in the ground next to
the driveway. A black X is still faintly visible on one of its
sides. 42 Tanglewild Lane.
I can see why they’ve chosen this house for the party. It’s
set back pretty far from the road, and surrounded on all
sides by trees so dense I can’t help but think of the dark
and whispering woods on the far side of the border.
Walking up the driveway is creepy. I keep my eyes focused
on the fuzzy pale light of the house, which expands and
brightens slowly as I get closer, eventually resolving into two
lit windows. The windows have been covered with some
kind of fabric, maybe to hide the fact that there are people
inside. It isn’t working. I can see shadow-people moving
back and forth inside the house. The music is very quiet. It’s
not until I make it onto the porch that I hear it at all—faint,
muffled strains that seem to vibrate up from the floorboards.
There must be a basement.
I’ve been rushing to arrive, but I hesitate with my hand on
the front door, my palm slick with sweat. I haven’t given
much thought to how I’ll get everyone out. If I just start
screaming about a raid it will cause a panic. Everyone will
stream into the streets at once, and then the chances of
getting home undetected go to zero. Someone will hear
something; the raiders will catch on, and then we’ll all be
screwed.
I do a mental correction. They’ll be screwed. I am not like
these people on the other side of the door. I’m not them.
But then I think of Riley shuddering, going limp. I am not
those people either, the ones who did that, the ones who
watched. Even the Richardsons didn’t bother trying to save
him, their own dog. They didn’t even cover him up as he
was dying.
I would never do that. Never ever ever. Not even if I had
a million procedures. He was alive. He had a heartbeat
and blood and breath, and they left him there like trash.
They. Me. Us. Them. The words ricochet in my head. I
palm my hands on the back of my pants and open the door.
Hana said this party would be smaller, but to me it
seems even more crowded than the last one, maybe
because the rooms are tiny and totally packed. They are
filled with a choking curtain of cigarette smoke, which
shimmers over everything and makes it look as though
everyone is swimming underwater. It’s deathly hot in here,
at least ten degrees hotter than it was outside—people
move slowly and have rolled up their short sleeves above
the shoulders, tugged their jeans to their knees, and
wherever there is skin, there is a glistening sheen on it. For
a moment I can only stand there and watch. I think, I wish I
had a camera. If I ignore the fact that there are hands
touching hands and bodies bumping together and a
thousand things that are terrible and wrong, I can see that
it’s kind of beautiful.
Then I realize I’m wasting time.
There’s a girl standing directly in front of me, blocking my
way. She has her back to me. I reach out and put a hand on
her arm. Her skin is so hot it burns. She turns to me, face
red and flushed, craning her head backward to hear.
“It’s a raid night,” I say to her, surprised that my voice
comes out so steady.
The music is soft but insistent—it’s definitely coming up
from a basement of some kind—not as crazy as the last
time but just as strange and just as gorgeous. It reminds me
of warm, dripping things, honey and sunlight and red leaves
swirling down on the wind. But the layers of conversation,
the creakings of footsteps and floorboards, make it difficult
to hear.
“What?” She sweeps her hair away from her ear.
I open my mouth to say raid but instead of my voice it’s
someone else’s that comes out: an enormous, mechanical
voice bellowing from outside, a voice that seems to shake
and rattle from all sides at once, a voice that cuts through
the warmth and the music like a cold razor edge through
skin. At the same time the room starts spinning, a swirling
mass of red and white lights revolving over terrified,
stunned faces.
“Attention. This is a raid. Do not try to run. Do not try to
resist. This is a raid.”
A few seconds later, the door explodes inward and a
spotlight as bright as the sun turns everything white and
motionless, turns everything to dust and statue.
Then they let the dogs loose.

I
Chapter Fourteen
Human beings, in their natural state, are
unpredictable,
erratic, and unhappy. It is only once their animal
instincts are
controlled that they can be responsible,
dependable, and content.
—The Book of Shhh, p. 31
once saw a news report about a brown bear that had
accidentally been punctured by its trainer at the Portland
circus during routine training. I was really young, but I’ll
never forget the way the bear looked, an enormous dark
blob, tearing around its circle with a ridiculous red paper
hat still flopping crazily from its head, ripping into whatever
it could get its jaws around: paper streamers, folding
chairs, balloons. Its trainer, too: The bear mauled him,
turned his face into hamburger meat.
The worst part—the part I’ve never forgotten—was its
panicked roaring: a horrible, continuous, enraged bellow
that sounded somehow human.
That’s what I remember as the raiders start flooding the
house, pouring in through the shattered door, battering on
the windows. That’s what I think of as the music cuts off
suddenly and instead the air is full of barking and
screaming and shattering glass, as hot hands push me
from the front and from the side and I catch an elbow under
my chin and another one in my ribs. I remember the bear.
Somehow I’ve surged forward in the panicked crowd that
is flowing and scrabbling toward the back of the house.
Behind me I hear dogs snapping their jaws and regulators
swinging heavy clubs. People are screaming—so many
people it sounds like a single voice. A girl falls behind me,
stumbling forward and reaching for me as one of the
regulator’s batons catches her on the back of the head with
a sickening crack. I feel her fingers tighten momentarily on
the cotton of my shirt, and I shake her off and keep running,
pushing, squeezing forward. I have no time to be sorry, and
no time to be scared. I have no time to do anything but
move, push, go, can’t think of anything but escape, escape,
escape.
The strange thing is that for a minute in the middle of all
that noise and confusion, I see things super clearly, in slow
motion, like I’m watching a film from a distance: I see a
guard dog make a leap for a guy to my left; I see his knees
buckle as he topples forward with the barest, tiniest noise,
like a breath or a sigh, a crescent of blood spattering up
from his neck, where the dog’s teeth tear into him. A girl
with flashing blond hair goes down under the raiders’ clubs,
and as I see the arc of her hair, for a second my heart goes
totally still and I think I’ve died; I think it’s all over. Then she
twists her head my way, shouting, as the regulators get her
with pepper spray, and I see that she isn’t Hana, and relief
rushes through me, a wave.
More snapshots. A movie—only a movie. Not happening,
could never really happen. A boy and a girl, fighting to
make it into one of the side rooms, maybe thinking there’s
an exit that way. The door is too small for both of them to
enter at once. He is wearing a blue shirt that reads
PORTLAND NAVAL CONSERVATORY , and she has long red
hair, bright as a flame. Only five minutes ago they were
talking and laughing together, standing so close that if one
of them had even tipped forward accidentally they might
have kissed. Now they wrestle, but she is too small. She
locks her teeth on his arm like a dog, like a wild thing; he
roars, rages, grabs her by the shoulders, and slams her
back against the wall, out of the way. She stumbles, falls,
slipping, trying to stand up; one of the raiders, an enormous
man with the reddest face I’ve ever seen, reaches down,
knots his fingers around her ponytail, and hauls her to her
feet. Naval Conservatory doesn’t get away either. Two
raiders follow him, and as I run by I hear the thud of their
clubs, the mangled sound of screaming.
Animals, I think. We’re animals.
People are shoving, pulling, using one another as shields
as the raiders keep gaining, surging forward, swinging at
us, dogs at our heels, batons whirling so close to my head I
can feel the air whooshing on my neck as the wood twirls,
twirls near the back of my skull. I think of searing pain, I
think of red. The crowd is thinning around me as the raiders
think of red. The crowd is thinning around me as the raiders
advance. One by one people are screaming next to me
—crack!—and dropping, getting wrestled to the ground by
three, four, five dogs. Screaming, screaming. Everyone
screaming.
Somehow I’ve managed to avoid being caught, and I’m
still rocketing through the narrow, creaking hallways,
passing a blur of rooms, a blur of people and raiders, more
lights, more shattered windows, the sound of engines.
They’ve got the place surrounded. And then the open back
door rises up in front of me—and beyond it dark trees, the
cool and whispering woods behind the house. If I can make
it outside … if I can hide from the lights for long enough …
I hear a dog barking behind me, and behind that, a
raider’s
pounding footsteps, gaining, gaining, a sharp voice yelling,
“Stop!” and I suddenly realize I’m alone in the hallway.
Fifteen more steps … then ten. If I can make it into the
darkness …
Five feet from the door and sudden, shooting pain rips
through my leg. The dog has got its jaws around my calf,
and I turn and that’s when I see him, the regulator with the
massive red face, eyes glittering, smiling—oh, God, he’s
smiling, he actually enjoys this—club raised, ready to
swing. I close my eyes, think of pain as big as the ocean,
think of a blood-red sea. Think of my mother.
Then I’m being jerked to the side, and I hear a crack and
a yelp, the regulator saying, “Shit.” The fire in my leg stops
and the weight of the dog falls off, and there’s an arm
around my waist and a voice in my ear—a voice so familiar
in that moment it’s like I’ve been waiting for it all along, like
I’ve been hearing it forever in my dreams—breathing out:
“This way.”
Alex keeps one arm around my waist, half carrying me.
We’re in a different hallway now, this one smaller and totally
empty. Every time I put weight on my right leg the pain
flares up again, searing all the way into my head. The raider
is still behind us and pissed—Alex must have pulled me to
safety at just the right second, so the raider cracked down
on his dog instead of my skull—and I know I must be
slowing Alex down, but he doesn’t let me go, not for a
second.
“In here,” he says, and then we’re ducking into another
room. We must be in a part of the house that wasn’t being
used for the party. This room is pitch-black, although Alex
doesn’t slow down at all, just keeps going through the dark.
I let the pressure of his fingertips guide me—left, right, left,
right. It smells like mold in here, and something else—fresh
paint, almost, and something smoky, like someone’s been
cooking here. But that’s impossible. These houses have
been empty for years.
Behind us the raider is struggling in the dark. He bumps
up against something and curses. A second later
something crashes to the ground; glass shatters; more
cursing. From the sound of his voice I can tell that he’s
falling behind.
“Up,” Alex whispers, so quiet and so close it’s like I’ve
only imagined it, and just like that he is lifting me and I
realize I’m going out a window, feel the rough wood of the
windowsill grate against my back, land on my good foot on
the soft, damp grass outside.
A second later Alex follows soundlessly, materializing
beside me in the dark. Though the air is hot, a breeze has
picked up, and as it sweeps across my skin I could cry from
gratitude and relief.
But we’re not safe yet—far from it. The darkness is
mobile, twisting, alive with paths of light: Flashlights cut
through the woods to our right and left, and in their glare I
see fleeing figures, lit up like ghosts, frozen for a moment in
the beams. The screams continue, some only a few feet
away, some so distant and forlorn you could mistake them
for something else—for owls, maybe, hooting peacefully in
their trees. Then Alex has taken my hand and we’re running
again. Every step on my right foot is a fire, a blade. I bite
the inside of my cheeks to keep from crying out, and taste
blood.
Chaos. Scenes from hell: floodlights from the road,
shadows falling, bone cracking, voices shattering apart,
dissolving into silence.
“In here.”
I do what he says without hesitating. A tiny wooden shed
has appeared miraculously in the dark. It’s falling apart, and
so overgrown with moss and climbing vines that even from
a distance of only a few feet it appeared to be a tangle of
bushes and trees. I have to stoop to get inside, and when I
do the smell of animal urine and wet dog is so strong I
almost gag. Alex comes in behind me and shuts the door. I
hear a rustling and see him kneeling, stuffing a blanket in
the gap between the door and the ground. The blanket must
be the source of the smell. It absolutely reeks.
“God,” I whisper, the first thing I’ve said to him, cupping
my hand over my mouth and nose.
“This way the dogs won’t pick up our scent,” he whispers
back matter-of-factly.
I’ve never met someone so calm in my life. I think
fleetingly that maybe the stories I heard when I was little
were true—maybe Invalids really are monsters, freaks.
Then I feel ashamed. He just saved my life.
H e saved my life—from the raiders. From the people
who are supposed to protect us and keep us safe. From
the people who are supposed to keep us safe from the
people like Alex.
Nothing makes sense anymore. My head is spinning,
and I feel dizzy. I stumble, bumping against the wall behind
me, and Alex reaches up to steady me.
“Sit down,” he says, in that same commanding voice he
has been using all along. It’s comforting to listen to his low,
forceful directives, to let myself go. I lower myself to the
ground. The floor is damp and rough underneath me. The
moon must have broken through the clouds; gaps in the
walls and roof let in little spots of silvery light. I can just
make out some shelves beyond Alex’s head, a set of cans
—paint, maybe?—piled in one corner. Now that Alex and I
are both sitting there’s hardly any room left to maneuver—
the whole structure is only a few feet wide.
“I’m going to take a look at your leg now, okay?” He’s still
whispering. I nod okay. Even when I’m sitting down, the
dizziness doesn’t subside.
He sits up on his knees and draws my leg into his lap. It’s
not until he begins rolling up my pant leg that I feel how wet
the fabric is against my skin. I must be bleeding. I bite my
lip and press my back up hard against the wall, expecting it
to hurt, but the feeling of his hands against my skin—cool
and strong—somehow dampens everything, sliding across
the pain like an eclipse blotting the moon dark.
Once he has my pants rolled up to the knee he tilts me
gently, so he can see the back of my calf. I lean one elbow
on the floor, feeling the room sway. I must be bleeding a lot.
He exhales sharply, a quick sound between his teeth.
“Is it bad?” I say, too afraid to look.
“Hold still,” he says. And I know that it is bad, but he won’t
tell me so, and in that moment I’m so flooded with gratitude
for him and hatred for the people outside—hunters,
primitives, with their sharp teeth and heavy sticks—the air
goes out of me and I have to struggle to breathe.
Alex reaches into a corner of the shed without removing
my leg from his lap. He fiddles with a box of some kind and
metal latches creak open. A second later he’s hovering
over my leg with a bottle.
“This is going to burn for a second,” he says. Liquid
splatters my skin, and the astringent smell of alcohol makes
my nostrils flare. Flames lick up my leg and I nearly scream.
Alex reaches out a hand, and without thinking I take it and
squeeze.
“What is that?” I force out through gritted teeth.
“Rubbing alcohol,” he says. “Prevents infection.”
“How did you know it was here?” I ask, but he doesn’t
answer.
He draws his hand away from mine and I realize I’ve
been grabbing on to him, hard. But I don’t have the energy
to be embarrassed or afraid: The room seems to be
pulsing, the half darkness growing fuzzier.
“Shit,” Alex mutters. “You’re really bleeding.”
“It doesn’t hurt that much,” I whisper, which is a lie. But
he’s so calm, so together, it makes me want to act brave
too.Everything has taken on a strange, distant quality—the
sounds of running and shouting outside get warped and
weird like they’re being filtered through water, and Alex
looks miles away. I start to think I might be dreaming, or
about to pass out.
And then I decide I’m definitely dreaming, because as
I’m watching, Alex starts peeling his shirt off over his head.
What are you doing? I almost scream. Alex finishes
shaking loose the shirt and begins tearing the fabric into
long strips, shooting a nervous glance at the door and
pausing to listen every time the cloth goes rippp.
I’ve never in my whole life seen a guy without a shirt on,
except for really little kids or from a distance on the beach,
when I’ve been too afraid to look for fear of getting in
trouble.
Now I can’t stop staring. The moonlight just touches his
shoulder blades so they glow slightly, like wing tips, like
pictures of angels I’ve seen in textbooks. He’s thin but
muscular, too: When he moves I can make out the lines of
his arms and chest, so strangely, incredibly, beautifully
different from a girl’s, a body that makes me think of
running and being outside, of warmth and sweating. Heat
starts beating through me, a thrumming feeling like a
thousand tiny birds have been released in my chest. I’m not
sure if it’s from the bleeding, but the room feels like it’s
spinning so fast we’re in danger of flying out of it, both of us,
getting thrown out into the night. Before, Alex seemed far
away. Now the room is full of him: He is so close I can’t
breathe, can’t move or speak or think. Every time he
brushes me with his fingers, time seems to
teeter for a second, like it is in danger of dissolving. The
whole world is dissolving, I decide, except for us. Us.
“Hey.” He reaches out and touches my shoulder, just for a
second, but in that second my body shrinks down to that
single point of pressure under his hand, and glows with
warmth. I’ve never felt like this, so calm and peaceful.
Maybe I’m dying. The idea doesn’t really upset me, for
some reason. In fact, it seems kind of funny. “You okay?”
“Fine.” I start to giggle softly. “You’re naked.”
“What?” Even in the dark I can tell he’s squinting at me.
“I’ve never seen a boy like—like that. With no shirt on.
Not up close.”
He begins wrapping the shredded T-shirt around my leg
carefully, tying it tight. “The dog got you good,” he says. “But
this should stop the bleeding.”
The phrase stop the bleeding sounds so clinical and
scary it snaps me awake and helps me to focus. Alex
finishes tying off the makeshift bandage. Now the searing
pain in my leg has been replaced by a dull, throbbing
pressure.
Alex lifts my leg carefully out of his lap and rests it on the
ground. “Okay?” he says, and I nod. Then he scoots around
next to me, leaning back against the wall like I am so we’re
sitting side by side, arms just touching at the elbows. I can
feel the heat coming off his bare skin, and it makes me feel
hot. I close my eyes and try not to think about how close we
are, or what it would feel like to run my hands over his
shoulders and chest.
Outside, the sounds of the raid grow more and more
distant, the screams fewer, the voices fainter. The raiders
must be passing on. I say a silent prayer that Hana
managed to escape; the possibility that she didn’t is too
terrible to contemplate.
Still, Alex and I don’t move. I’m so tired I feel like I could
sleep forever. Home seems impossibly, incomprehensibly
far away, and I don’t see how I’ll ever make it back.
Alex starts speaking all at once, his voice a low, urgent
rush: “Listen, Lena. What happened at the beach—I’m
really sorry. I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t want
to frighten you away.”
“You don’t have to explain,” I say.
“But I want to explain. I want you to know that I didn’t
mean to—”
“Listen,” I cut him off. “I’m not going to tell anyone, okay?
I’m not going to get you in trouble or anything.”
He pauses. I feel him turn to look at me, but I keep my
eyes fixed on the darkness in front of us.
“I don’t care about that,” he says, lower. Another pause,
and then: “I just don’t want you to hate me.”
Again the room seems to be shrinking, closing in around
us. I can feel his eyes on me like the hot pressure of touch,
but I’m too afraid to look at him. I’m afraid that if I do I’ll lose
myself in his eyes, forget all the things I’m supposed to say.
Outside, the woods have fallen silent. The raiders must
have left. After a second the crickets begin singing all at
once, warbling throatily, a great swelling of sound.
“Why do you care?” I say, barely a whisper.
“I told you,” he whispers back. I can feel his breath just
tickling the space behind my ear, making the hair prick up
on my neck. “I like you.”
“You don’t know me,” I say quickly.
“I want to, though.”
The room is spinning more and more quickly. I press up
more firmly against the wall, trying to steady myself against
the feeling of dizzying movement. It’s impossible: He has an
answer for everything. It’s too quick. It must be a trick. I
press my palms against the damp floor, taking comfort in
the solidity of the rough wood.
“Why me?” I don’t mean to ask it, but the words slide out.
“I’m nobody… .” I want to say, I’m nobody special, but the
words dry up in my mouth. This is what I imagine it feels like
to climb to the top of a mountain, where the air is so thin
you can inhale and inhale and inhale and still feel like you
can’t take a breath.
Alex doesn’t answer and I realize he doesn’t have an
answer, just like I suspected—there’s no reason for it at all.
He’s picked me at random, as a joke, or because he knew
I’d be too scared to tell on him.
But then he starts speaking. His story is so rapid and
fluid you can tell he has thought about it a lot, the kind of
story you tell over and over to yourself until the edges get all
smoothed over. “I was born in the Wilds. My mother died
right afterward; my father’s dead. He never knew he had a
son. I lived there for the first part of my life, just kind of
bouncing around. All the other”— he hesitates slightly, and I
can hear the grimace in his voice—”Invalids took care of
me together. Like a community thing.”
Outside, the crickets pause temporarily in their song. For
a second it’s like nothing bad has happened, like nothing
has happened tonight out of the ordinary at all—just another
hot and lazy summer night, waiting for morning to peel it
back. Pain knifes through me in that moment, but it has
nothing to do with my leg. It strikes me how small everything
is, our whole world, everything with meaning—our stores
and our raids and our jobs and our lives, even. Meanwhile
the world just goes on the same as always, night cycling
into day and back into night, an endless circle; seasons
shifting and reforming like a monster shaking off its skin
and growing it again.
Alex keeps talking. “I came into Portland when I was ten,
to join up with the resistance here. I won’t tell you how. It
was complicated. I got an ID number; I got a new last name,
a new home address. There are more of us than you think
—Invalids, and sympathizers, too—more of us than
anybody knows. We have people in the police force, and all
the municipal departments. We have people in the labs,
even.”
Goose bumps pop up all over my arms when he says
this.
“My point is that it’s possible to get in and out. Difficult,
but possible. I moved in with two strangers—sympathizers,
both of them—and was told to call them my aunt and uncle.”
He shrugs ever so slightly next to me. “I didn’t care. I’d
never known my real parents, and I’d been raised by
dozens of different aunts and uncles. It didn’t make a
difference to me.”
His voice has gotten super quiet, and he seems almost
to have forgotten that I’m there. I’m not exactly sure where
his story is going but I hold my breath, afraid that if I even so
much as exhale he’ll stop speaking entirely.
“I hated it here. I hated it here so much you can’t even
imagine. All the buildings and the people looking so dazed
and the smells and the closeness of everything and the
rules—rules everywhere you turned, rules and walls, rules
and walls. I wasn’t used to it. I felt like I was in a cage. We
are in a cage: a bordered cage.”
A little shock pulses through me. In all the seventeen
years and eleven months of my life I have never, not once,
thought of it that way. I’ve been so used to thinking of what
the borders are keeping out that I haven’t considered that
they’re also penning us in. Now I see it through Alex’s eyes,
see what it must have been like for him.
“At first I was angry. I used to light things on fire. Paper,
handbooks, school primers. It made me feel better
somehow.” He laughs softly. “I even burned my copy of The
Book of Shhh.”
Another shock pulses through me: Defacing or
destroying The Book of Shhh is sacrilege.
“I used to walk along the borders for hours every day.
Sometimes I cried.” He squirms next to me, and I can tell
he’s embarrassed. It’s the first sign he has given in a while
that he knows I’m still there, that he’s talking to me, and the
urge to reach out and grab his hand, to squeeze him or give
him some kind of reassurance, is almost overwhelming. But
I keep my hands glued to the floor. “After a while, though, I
would just walk. I liked to watch the birds. They would lift off
from our side and soar over into the Wilds, as easily as
anything. Back and forth, back and forth, lifting and curling
through the air. I could watch them for hours at a time. Free:
They were totally free. I’d thought that nothing and nobody
was free in Portland, but I was wrong. There were always
the birds.”
He falls silent for a while, and I think maybe he’s done
with his story. I wonder if he’s forgotten about my original
question—why me?—but I’m too embarrassed to remind
him, so I just sit there and imagine him standing at the
border, motionless, watching the birds swoop above his
head. It calms me down.
After what seems like forever he starts talking again, this
time in a voice so quiet I have to shift nearer to him just to
hear. “The first time I saw you, at the Governor, I hadn’t
been to watch the birds at the border in years. But that’s
what you reminded me of. You were jumping up, and you
were yelling something, and your hair was coming loose
from your ponytail, and you were so fast… .” He shakes his
head. “Just a flash, and then you were gone. Exactly like a
bird.”
I don’t know how—I hadn’t intended to move and hadn’t
noticed moving—but somehow we’ve ended up face-toface
in the dark, only inches apart.
“Everyone is asleep. They’ve been asleep for years. You
seemed … awake.” Alex is whispering now. He closes his
eyes, opens them again. “I’m tired of sleeping.”
My insides are lifting and fluttering like they’ve done what
he said and been transformed into swooping, soaring
birds: The rest of my body seems to be floating away on
massive currents of warmth, as though a hot wind is
pushing through me, breaking me apart, turning me to air.
This is wrong, a voice says inside of me, but it isn’t my
voice. It’s someone else’s—some composite of my aunt,
and Rachel, and all my teachers, and the pinchy evaluator
who asked most of the questions the second time around.
Out loud I squeak, “No,” even though another word is
rising and lifting inside of me, bubbling up like fresh water
sprung from the earth. Yes, yes, yes.
“Why?” He’s barely whispering. His hands find my face,
his fingertips barely skim my forehead, the top of my ears,
the hollows of my cheeks. Everywhere he touches is fire.
the hollows of my cheeks. Everywhere he touches is fire.
My whole body is burning up, the two of us becoming twin
points of the same bright white flame. “What are you afraid
of?”
“You have to understand. I just want to be happy.” I can
barely get the words out. My mind is a haze, full of smoke—
nothing exists but his fingers dancing and skating over my
skin, through my hair. I wish it would stop. I want it to go on
forever. “I just want to be normal, like everybody else.”
“Are you sure that being like everybody else will make
you happy?” The barest whisper; his breath on my ear and
neck, his mouth grazing my skin. And I think then I might
really have died. Maybe the dog bit me and I got clubbed
on the head and this is all just a dream—the rest of the
world has dissolved. Only him. Only me. Only us.
“I don’t know any other way.” I can’t feel my mouth open,
don’t feel the words come, but there they are, floating on the
dark.
He says, “Let me show you.”
And then we’re kissing. Or at least, I think we’re kissing
—I’ve only seen it done a couple of times, quick closedmouth
pecks at weddings or on formal occasions. But this
isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen, or imagined, or even
dreamed: This is like music or dancing but better than both.
His mouth is slightly open so I open mine, too. His lips are
soft, the same soft pressure as the quietly insistent voice in
my head that keeps saying yes.
The warmth is only growing inside of me, waves of light
swelling and breaking and making me feel like I’m floating.
His fingers lace my hair, cup my neck and the back of my
head, skim over my shoulders, and without thinking about it
or meaning to, my hands find his chest, move over the heat
of his skin, the bones of his shoulder blades like wing tips,
the curve of his jaw, just stubbled with hair—all of it strange
and unfamiliar and gloriously, deliciously new. My heart is
drumming in my chest so hard it aches, but it’s the good
kind of ache, like the feeling you get on the first day of real
autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are all flaring at
the edges and the wind smells just vaguely of smoke—like
the end and the beginning of something all at once. Under
my hand I swear I can feel his heart beating out a response,
an immediate echo of mine, as though our bodies are
speaking to each other.
And suddenly it’s all so ridiculously and stupidly clear I
feel like laughing. This is what I want. This is the only thing
I’ve ever wanted. Everything else—every single second of
every single day that has come before this very moment,
this kiss—has meant nothing.
When he finally pulls away it’s like a blanket has come
down over my brain, quieting all my buzzing thoughts and
questions, filling me with a calm and happiness as deep
and cool as snow. The only word left there is yes. Yes to
everything.
I really like you, Lena. Do you believe me now?
Yes.
Can I walk you home?
Yes.
Can I see you tomorrow?
Yes, yes, yes.
The streets are empty by now. The whole city is silent
and still. The whole city might have wound down into
nothing, burned away while we were in the shed, and I
wouldn’t have noticed or cared. The walk home is fuzzy, a
dream. He holds my hand the whole way and we stop to
kiss twice again in the longest, deepest shadows we can
find. Both times I wish the shadows were solid, had weight,
and they would fold down around us and bury us there so
we could stay like that forever, chest to chest, lip to lip. Both
times I feel my chest seize up when he pulls away and
takes my hand and we have to start walking again, not
kissing, like suddenly I can only breathe correctly when we
are.Somehow—too soon—I’m home, and whispering goodbye
to him and feeling his lips brush mine one last time, as
light as wind.
Then I’m sneaking into the house and up the stairs and
into the bedroom, and it’s not until I’ve been lying in bed for
a long time, shivering, aching, missing him already, that I
realize my aunt and my teachers and the scientists are right
about the deliria. As I lie there with the hurt driving through
my chest and the sick, anxious feeling churning through me
and the desire for Alex so strong inside of me it’s like a
razor blade edging its way through my organs, shredding
me, all I can think is: It will kill me, it will kill me, it will kill
me. And I don’t care.

T
Chapter Fifteen
Last God created Adam and Eve, to live together
happily as husband and wife: eternal partners. They
lived peacefully for years in a beautiful garden full of
tall, straight plants that grew in neat rows, and wellbehaved
animals to serve as pets. Their minds were
as clear and untroubled as the pale and cloudless
blue sky, which hung like a canopy over their heads.
They were untouched by illness, pain, or desire.
They did not dream. They did not ask questions.
Each morning they woke as refreshed as newborns.
Everything was always the same, but it always felt
new and good.
—From Genesis: A Complete History
of the World and the Known
Universe, by Steven Horace, PhD,
Harvard University
he next day, a Saturday, I wake up thinking of Alex. Then
I try to stand up, and pain shoots through my leg. Hitching
up my pajamas, I see a small spot of blood has seeped
through the T-shirt Alex wrapped around my calf. I know I
should wash it or change the bandage or do something, but
I’m too scared to see how bad the damage is. The details
from the party—of screaming and shoving and dogs and
batons whirling through the air, deadly—come flooding
back, and for a moment I’m sure I’m going to be sick. Then
the dizziness subsides and I think of Hana.
Our phone is in the kitchen. My aunt is at the sink,
washing dishes, and gives me a small look of surprise
when I come downstairs. I catch a glimpse of myself in the
hallway mirror. I look terrible—hair sticking up all over my
head, big bags under my eyes—and it strikes me as
unbelievable that anyone could ever find me pretty.
But someone does. Thinking of Alex makes a golden
glow spread through me.
“Better hurry,” Carol says. “You’ll be late for work. I was
just about to wake you.”
“I just have to call Hana,” I say. I snake the cord as far as
it will go and back up into the pantry, so at least I’ll have
some privacy.
I try Hana’s house first. One, two, three, four, five rings.
Then the answering machine clicks on. “You’ve reached
the Tate residence. Please leave a message of no more
than two
minutes… .”
I hang up quickly. My fingers have begun to tremble, and I
have trouble punching in Hana’s cell phone number.
Straight to voice mail.
Her greeting is exactly the same as it’s always been
(“Hey, sorry I couldn’t get to the phone. Or maybe I’m not
sorry I couldn’t get to the phone—it depends on who’s
calling.”), her voice coming in fuzzy, bubbling with
suppressed laughter. Hearing it—the normalcy of it—after
last night gives me a jolt, like suddenly dreaming yourself
back into a place you haven’t thought about for a while. I
remember the day she recorded it. It was after school and
we were in her room, and she went through about a million
greetings before she settled on that one. I was bored and
kept whacking her with a pillow whenever she wanted to try
just one more.
“Hana, you need to call me,” I say into the phone,
keeping my voice as low as possible. I’m far too aware that
my aunt is listening. “I’m working today. You can reach me
at the store.”
I hang up, feeling dissatisfied and guilty. While I was in
the shed last night with Alex, she could have been hurt or in
trouble; I should have done more to find her.
“Lena.” My aunt calls me sharply back into the kitchen
just as I’m headed upstairs to get ready.
“Yes?”
She comes forward a few steps. Something in her
expression makes me anxious.
“Are you limping?”she asks. I’ve been trying as hard as
possible to walk normally.
I look away. It’s easier to lie when I’m not staring in her
eyes. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t lie to me.” Her voice turns cold. “You think I don’t
know what this is about, but I do.” For one terrified second I
think she’s going to ask me to roll up my pajama pants, or
tell me she knows about the party. But then she says,
“You’ve been running again, haven’t you? Even though I told
you not to.”
“Only once,” I blurt out, relieved. “I think I may have
twisted my ankle.”
Carol shakes her head and looks disappointed.
“Honestly, Lena. I don’t know when you started disobeying
me. I thought that you of all people—” She breaks off. “Oh,
well. Only five weeks to go, right? Then all of this will be
worked out.”
“Right.” I force myself to smile.
All morning, I oscillate between worrying about Hana and
thinking of Alex. I ring up the wrong charge for customers
twice and have to call for Jed, my uncle’s general manager,
to come override it. Then I knock down a whole shelf of
frozen pasta dinners, and mislabel a dozen cartons of
cottage cheese. Thank God my uncle’s not in the store
today; he’s out doing deliveries, so it’s just Jed and me.
And Jed hardly looks at me or speaks to me except in
grunts, so I’m pretty sure he’s not going to notice that I’ve
suddenly turned into a clumsy, incompetent mess.
I know part of the problem, of course. The disorientation,
the distraction, the difficulty focusing—all classic Phase
One signs of deliria. But I don’t care. If pneumonia felt this
good I’d stand out in the snow in the winter with bare feet
and no coat on, or march into the hospital and kiss
pneumonia patients.
I’ve told Alex about my work schedule and we’ve agreed
to meet up at Back Cove directly after my shift, at six
o’clock. The minutes crawl toward noon. I swear I’ve never
seen time go more slowly. It’s like every second needs
encouragement just to click forward into the next. I keep
willing the clock to go faster, but it seems to be resisting
me deliberately. I see a customer picking her nose in the
tiny aisle of (kind of) fresh produce; I look at the clock; look
back at the customer; look back at the clock—and the
second hand still hasn’t moved. I have this terrible fear that
time will stop completely, while this woman has her pinkie
finger buried up her right nostril, right in front of the tray of
wilted lettuce.
At noon I get a fifteen-minute break, and I go outside and
sit on the sidewalk and choke down a few bites of a
sandwich, even though I’m not hungry. The anticipation of
seeing Alex again is messing with my appetite big-time.
Another sign of the deliria.
Bring it.
At one o’clock Jed starts restocking the shelves, and I’m
still stuck behind the counter. It’s wickedly hot, and there’s a
fly trapped in the store that keeps buzzing around and
bumping up against the overhanging shelf above my head,
where we keep a few packs of cigarettes and bottles of
Mylanta and things like that. The droning of the fly and the
tiny fan whirring behind my back and the heat all make me
want to sleep. If I could, I would rest my head on the counter
and dream, and dream, and dream. I would dream I was
back in the shed with Alex. I would dream of the firmness of
his chest pressed against mine and the strength of his
hands and his voice saying, “Let me show you.”
The bell above the door chimes once and I snap out of
my reverie.
And there he is, walking through the door with his hands
stuffed in the pockets of a pair of raggedy board shorts,
and his hair sticking up all crazy around his head like it
really is made out of leaves and twigs. Alex.
I nearly topple off my stool.
He shoots me a quick sideways grin and then starts
walking the aisles lazily, picking up really random things—
like a bag of pork skin cracklings and a can of really gross
cauliflower soup—and making exaggerated noises of
interest, like “This looks delicious,” so it’s all I can do to
keep from cracking up laughing. He has to squeeze by Jed
at one point—the aisles at the store are pretty narrow, and
Jed’s not exactly a
lightweight—and when Jed barely glances at him, a thrill
shoots through me. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know that
I can still taste Alex’s lips against mine, can still feel his
hand sliding over my shoulders.
For the first time in my life I’ve done something for me
and by choice and not because somebody told me it was
good or bad. As Alex walks through the store, I think that
there’s an invisible thread tethering us together, and
somehow it makes me feel more powerful than ever before.
Finally Alex comes up to the counter with a pack of gum,
a bag of chips, and a root beer.
“Will that be all?” I say, careful to keep my voice steady.
But I can feel the color rising to my cheeks. His eyes are
amazing today, almost pure gold.
He nods. “That’s all.”
I ring him up, my hands shaking, desperate to say
something more to him but worried that Jed will hear. At
that moment another customer comes in, an older man who
has the look of a regulator. So I count out Alex’s change as
slowly and carefully as I can, trying to keep him standing in
front of me for as long as possible.
But there are only so many ways you can count change
for a five-dollar bill. Eventually I pass him his change. Our
hands connect as I place the bills in his palm, and a shock
of electricity goes through me. I want to grab him, pull him
toward me, kiss him right there.
“Have a great day.” My voice sounds high-pitched,
strangled. I’m surprised I can even get the words out.
“Oh, I will.” He shoots me his amazing, crooked smile as
he backs up toward the door. “I’m going to the Cove.”
And then he’s gone, pivoting out into the street. I try to
watch him go, but the sun blinds me as soon as he’s out the
door and he turns into a winking, blurry shadow, wavering
and disappearing.
I can’t stand it. I hate thinking of him weaving through the
streets, getting farther and farther away. And I have five
more hours to get through before I’m supposed to meet
him. I’ll never make it. Before I can think about what I’m
doing, I duck around the counter, peeling off the apron I’ve
been wearing since dealing with a leak in one of the freezer
cases.
“Jed, grab the register for a second, okay?” I call.
He blinks at me confusedly. “Where are you going?”
“Customer,” I say. “I gave him the wrong change.”
“But—,” Jed starts to say. I don’t stop to hear his
objections. I can imagine what they’ll be, anyway. But you
counted his change for five minutes. Oh well. So Jed will
think I’m stupid. I can live with it.
Down the street Alex is paused on the corner, waiting for
a city truck to grumble past.
“Hey!” I shout out, and he turns. A woman pushing a
stroller on the other side of the street stops, raises her hand
to shield her eyes, and follows my progress down the
street. I’m going as fast as I can, but the pain in my leg
makes it difficult to do more than hobble along. I can feel
the woman’s gaze pricking up and down my body like a
series of needles.
“I gave you the wrong change,” I call out again, even
though I’m close enough to him now to speak normally.
Hopefully it will get the woman off my back. But she keeps
watching us.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I whisper, when I catch up to
him. I pretend to press something into his hand. “I told you
I’d meet you later.”
He moves his hand easily to his pocket, picking up
seamlessly on our little charade, and whispers back, “I
couldn’t wait.”
Alex waggles his hand in my face and looks stern, like
Alex waggles his hand in my face and looks stern, like
he’s scolding me for being careless. But his voice is soft
and sweet. Again I have the sensation that nothing else is
real—not the sun, or the buildings, or the woman across the
street, still staring at us.
“There’s a blue door around the corner, in the alley,” I say
quietly as I back away, raising my hands like I’m
apologizing. “Meet me there in five. Knock four times.”
Then, more loudly, I say, “Listen, I’m really sorry. Like I said,
it was an honest mistake.”
Then I turn and limp back to the store. I can’t believe what
I’ve just done. I can’t believe the risks I’m taking. But I need
to see him. I need to kiss him. I need it as much as I’ve ever
needed anything. I have that same pressing feeling in my
chest like when I’m at the very end of one of my sprints and
I’m just dying, screaming to stop, to catch my breath.
“Thanks,” I say to Jed, taking my spot behind the counter.
He mumbles something unintelligible to me and shuffles
back toward his clipboard and pen, which he has left lying
on the floor in aisle three: CANDY, SODA, CHIPS.
The guy I made for a regulator has his nose buried in one
of the freezer compartments. I’m not sure whether he’s
looking for a frozen dinner or just taking advantage of the
free cold air. Either way, as I look at him I have a flashback
to last night, to the whistling of the air as the clubs came
down like scythes, and I feel a rush of hatred for him—for all
of them. I fantasize about pushing the old guy inside the
freezers and bolting the door over his head.
Thinking about the raids makes me anxious about Hana
again. News of the raids is in all the papers. Apparently
hundreds of people all over Portland were taken last night
to be interrogated, or summarily shipped off to the Crypts,
though I didn’t hear anyone reference the party in the
Highlands specifically.
I tell myself if Hana hasn’t called me back by this evening,
I’ll go to her house. I tell myself that in the meantime there’s
n o point in worrying, but all the same the guilty feeling
keeps worming around in my stomach.
The old guy is still hovering over the freezer
compartments and paying me absolutely no attention.
Good. I slip on the apron again, and then, after checking to
see that Jed isn’t watching, reach up and grab all the
bottles of ibuprofen—about a dozen of them—and slide
them into the apron pocket.
Then I sigh loudly. “Jed, I need you to cover for me
again.”
He looks up with those watery blue eyes. Blink, blink. “I’m
reshelving.”
“Well, we’re totally out of painkillers back here. Didn’t you
notice?”
He stares at me for several long seconds. I keep my
hands clasped tightly behind my back. Otherwise I’m sure
their trembling would give me away. Finally he shakes his
head.
“I’m going to see if I can dig some up in the supply room.
Grab the register, okay?” I slip out from behind the counter
slowly, so I don’t rattle, keeping my body angled slightly
away from him. Hopefully he won’t notice the bulge in my
apron. This is one symptom of the deliria no one ever tells
you about: Apparently the disease turns you into a worldclass
liar.
I slip around a teetering pile of sagging cardboard boxes
stacked at the back of the store and shoulder my way into
the supply room, shutting the door behind me. Unfortunately
it doesn’t lock, so I drag a crate of applesauce in front of
the door, just in case Jed decides to come investigate
when my search for the ibuprofen takes longer than usual.
A moment later there’s a quiet tap on the door that leads
out into the alley. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
The door feels heavier than usual. It takes all my strength
just to yank it open.
“I said to knock four times—” I’m saying, as the sun cuts
into the room, temporarily dazzling me. And then the words
dry up in my throat and I nearly choke.
“Hey,” Hana says. She’s standing in the alley, shifting
from foot to foot, looking pale and worried. “I was hoping
you’d be here.”
For a second I can’t even answer her. I’m overwhelmed
with relief—Hana is here, intact, whole, fine—and at the
same time anxiety starts drumming through me. I scan the
alley quickly: no sign of Alex. Maybe he saw Hana and got
scared off.
“Um.” Hana wrinkles her forehead. “Are you going to let
me in, or what?”
“Oh, sorry. Yeah, come in.” She scoots past me, and I
shoot one last look up and down the alley before closing the
door behind me. I’m happy to see Hana but nervous, too. If
Alex shows up while she’s here …
But he won’t, I tell myself. He must have seen her. He
must know it’s not safe to come now. Not that I’m worried
that Hana would tell on me, but still. After all the lectures I
gave her about safety and being reckless, I wouldn’t blame
her for wanting to bust me.
“Hot in here,” Hana says, lifting her shirt away from her
back. She’s wearing a white billowy shirt and loose-fitting
jeans with a thin gold belt that picks up the color of her hair.
But she looks worried, and tired, and thin. As she turns a
circle, checking out the storeroom, I notice tiny scratches
crisscrossing the backs of her arms. “Remember when I
used to come and hang out with you here? I’d bring
magazines and that stupid old radio I used to have? And
you’d steal—”
“Chips and soda from the cooler,” I finish. “Yeah, I
remember.” That was how we got through summers in
middle school, when I first started logging time at the store.
I used to fabricate reasons to come back here all the time,
and Hana would show up at some point in the early
afternoon and knock on the door five times, really soft. Five
times. I should have known.
“I got your message this morning,” Hana says, turning
toward me. Her eyes look even bigger than usual. Maybe
it’s that the rest of her face looks smaller, drawn inward
somehow. “I walked by and didn’t see you at the register,
so I figured I’d come around this way. I wasn’t in the mood
to deal with your uncle.”
to deal with your uncle.”
“He’s not here today.” I’m beginning to relax. Alex would
have been here already if he was planning on coming. “It’s
just me and Jed.”
I’m not sure if Hana hears me. She’s chewing on her
thumbnail—a nervous habit I thought she’d kicked years
ago—and staring down at the floor like it’s the most
fascinating bit of linoleum she’s ever seen.
“Hana?” I say. “Are you okay?”
An enormous shudder goes through her all at once, and
her shoulders cave forward and she starts to sob. I’ve seen
Hana cry only twice in my life—once when someone
pegged her directly in the stomach during dodgeball in
second grade, and once last year, after we saw a diseased
girl getting wrestled to the street by police in front of the
labs, and they accidentally cracked her head so hard
against the pavement we heard it all the way up where we
were standing, two hundred feet away—and for a moment
I’m totally frozen and unsure of what to do. She doesn’t
bring her hands to her face or try to wipe her tears or
anything. She just stands there, shaking so hard I’m worried
she’ll fall over, her hands clenched at her sides.
I reach out and skim her shoulder with one hand. “Shhh,
Hana. It’s okay.”
She jerks away from me. “It’s not okay.” She draws a
long, shaky breath and starts speaking in a rush: “You were
right, Lena. You were right about everything. Last night—it
was horrible. There was a raid… . The party got broken up.
Oh God. There were people screaming, and dogs—Lena,
there was blood. They were beating people, just cracking
there was blood. They were beating people, just cracking
them over the head with their nightsticks like nothing.
People were dropping right and left and it was—oh, Lena. It
was so awful, so awful.” Hana wraps her arms around her
stomach and doubles forward like she’s about to be sick.
She starts to say something else, but the rest of her
words get lost: Huge, shuddering sobs run through her
whole body. I step forward and wrap her in a hug. For a
second she tenses up—it’s very rare for us to hug, since it
has always been
discouraged—but then she relaxes and presses her face
into my shoulder and lets herself cry. It’s kind of awkward,
since she’s so much taller than I am; she has to hunch over.
It would be funny if it weren’t so awful.
“Shhh,” I say. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay.” But the words
seem stupid even as I say them. I think of holding Grace in
my arms and rocking her to sleep, saying the same thing,
as she screamed silently into my pillow. It’s going to be
okay. Words that mean nothing, really, just sounds intoned
into vastness and darkness, little scrabbling attempts to
latch on to something when we’re falling.
Hana says something else I don’t understand. Her face is
mashed into my shoulder blade and her words are garbled.
And then the knocking begins. Four soft but deliberate
knocks, one right after the other.
Hana and I step away from each other immediately. She
draws an arm across her face, leaving a slick of tears from
wrist to elbow.
“What’s that?” she says. Her voice is trembling.
“What?” My first thought is to pretend I haven’t heard
anything—and pray to God that Alex goes away.
Knock, knock, knock. Pause. Knock. Again.
“That.” Irritation creeps into Hana’s voice. I guess I
should be happy she’s not crying anymore. “The knocking.”
She narrows her eyes, staring at me suspiciously. “I thought
nobody comes in this way.”
“They don’t. I mean—sometimes—I mean, the delivery
guys—” I’m stumbling over my words, praying for Alex to go
away, grasping for a lie that isn’t coming. So much for my
newfound skills.
Then Alex pokes his head in the door and calls out,
“Lena?” He catches sight of Hana first and freezes, half-in
and half-out of the alley.
For a minute nobody speaks. Hana’s mouth literally falls
open. She whips around from Alex to me and then back to
Alex, so quickly it looks like her head is going to fly off her
neck. Alex doesn’t know what to do either. He just stands
completely still, like he can go invisible if he doesn’t move.
And it’s the stupidest thing in the world, but all I can blurt
out is, “You’re late.”
Hana and Alex both speak at once. “You told him to meet
you?” she says, as he says, “I got stopped by patrol. Had to
show my cards.”
Hana gets businesslike all at once. This is why I admire
her: One second she’s sobbing hysterically, the next
second she’s completely in control.
“Come inside,” she says, “and shut the door.”
He does. Then he stands there awkwardly, shuffling his
feet. His hair is sticking up all weirdly, and in that second he
looks so young and cute and nervous I have a crazy urge to
walk right up to him, in front of Hana, and kiss him.
But she quashes that urge really quickly. She turns to me
and folds her arms and gives me a look I swear she stole
from Mrs. McIntosh, the principal of St. Anne’s.
“Lena Ella Haloway Tiddle,” she says. “You have some
explaining to do.”
“Your middle name is Ella?” Alex blurts.
Hana and I both shoot him a death stare, and he takes a
step backward and ducks his head.
“Um.” Words still aren’t coming very easily. “Hana, you
remember Alex.”
She keeps her arms locked in place and narrows her
eyes. “Oh, I remember Alex. What I don’t remember is why
Alex is here.”
“He … well, he was going to drop off …” I’m still
searching for a convincing explanation but, as usual, my
brain picks that second to conveniently die on me. I look at
Alex helplessly.
He gives a minute shrug of his shoulders, and for a
moment we just stare at each other. I’m still not used to
seeing him, to being around him, and again I have the
sensation of falling into his eyes. But this time it’s not
dizzying. It’s the opposite—grounding, like he’s whispering
to me wordlessly, saying he’s there and he’s with me and
we’re fine.
“Tell her,” he says.
Hana leans up against the shelves stocked with toilet
paper and canned beans, relaxing her arms just enough so
I know she isn’t mad, and gives me a look like, You better
tell me.
So I do. I’m not sure how long we have until Jed gets
tired of manning the register by himself, so I try to keep it
short. I
tell her about running into Alex at Roaring Brook Farms;
I tell her about swimming out to the buoys with him at East
End Beach and what he told me when we were there. I
choke a little bit on the word Invalid and Hana’s eyes widen
—just for a second I see a look of alarm flash across her
face—but she keeps it together pretty well. I finish by telling
her about last night, and going to find her to warn her about
the raids, and the dog and how Alex saved me. When I
describe hiding out in the shed I get nervous again—I don’t
tell her about the kissing, but I can’t help but think about it—
but Hana is openmouthed again at that point, and obviously
in shock, so I don’t think she notices.
The only thing she says at the end of my story is: “So you
were there? You were there last night?” Her voice is weird
and trembly, and I’m worried she’s going to start crying
again. At the same time I feel a tremendous rush of relief.
She’s not going to freak out about Alex, or be mad that I
didn’t tell her.
I nod.
She shakes her head, staring at me like she’s never
seen me before. “I can’t believe that. I can’t believe you
snuck out during a raid—for me.”
snuck out during a raid—for me.”
“Yeah, well.” I shift uncomfortably. It feels like I’ve been
talking for ages, and Hana and Alex have both been staring
at me the whole time. My cheeks are flaming hot.
Just then there’s a sharp knock on the door that opens to
the store, and Jed calls out, “Lena? Are you in there?”
I gesture frantically to Alex. Hana shoves him behind the
door just as Jed starts pushing at it from the other side. He
manages to get the door open only a few inches before it
collides with the crate of applesauce.
In those few inches of space, I can see one of Jed’s eyes
blinking at me disapprovingly.
“What are you doing in there?”
Hana pops her head around the door and waves. “Hi,
Jed,” she says cheerfully, once again switching effortlessly
into cheerful public mode. “I just came by to give Lena
something. And we started gossiping.”
“We have customers,” Jed says sullenly.
“I’ll be out in a second,” I say, trying to match Hana’s
tone. The fact that Jed and Alex are separated by only a
few inches of plywood is terrifying.
Jed grunts and retreats, closing the door again. Hana,
Alex, and I look at one another in silence. All three of us
exhale at the same time, a collective sigh of relief.
When Alex speaks again, he keeps his voice to a
whisper. “I brought some things for your leg,” he says. He
takes the backpack off and sets it on the ground, then starts
pulling out peroxide, Bacitracin, bandages, adhesive tape,
cotton balls. He kneels in front of me. “Can I?” he says. I roll
up my jeans, and he starts unwinding the strips of T-shirt. I
up my jeans, and he starts unwinding the strips of T-shirt. I
can’t believe Hana is standing there watching a boy—an
Invalid—touch my skin. I know she would never in a million
years have expected it, and I look away, embarrassed and
proud at the same time.
Hana inhales sharply once the makeshift bandages
come off my leg. Without meaning to I’ve been squeezing
my eyes shut.
“Damn, Lena,” she says. “That dog got you good.”
“She’ll be fine,” Alex says, and the quiet confidence in his
voice makes warmth spread through my whole body. I
crack open an eye and sneak a look at the back of my calf.
My stomach does a flop. It looks like an enormous chunk
has been torn out of my leg. A few square inches of skin
are just plain
missing.
“Maybe you should go to the hospital,” Hana says
doubtfully.
“And tell them what?” Alex uncaps the tube of peroxide
and begins wetting cotton balls. “That she got hurt during a
raid on an underground party?”
Hana doesn’t answer. She knows I can’t actually go to
the doctor. I’d be strapped down in the labs, or thrown in the
Crypts, before I could finish giving my name.
“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” I say, which is a lie. Hana again
gives me that look, like we’ve never met before, and I
realize that she’s actually—and possibly for the first time in
our lives—impressed with me. In awe of me, even.
Alex dabs on a thick coat of antibacterial cream and then
starts wrestling with the gauze and the adhesive tape. I
starts wrestling with the gauze and the adhesive tape. I
don’t have to ask where he got so many supplies. Another
benefit to having security access in the labs, I assume.
Hana drops to her knees. “You’re doing it wrong,” she
says, and it’s a relief to hear her normal, bossy tone. I
almost laugh. “My cousin’s a nurse. Let me.”
She practically elbows him out of the way. Alex shuffles
over and raises his hands in surrender. “Yes, ma’am,” he
says, and then winks at me.
Then I do start laughing. Fits of giggling overtake me,
and I have to clamp my hands over my mouth to keep from
shrieking and gasping and totally blowing our cover. For a
second Hana and Alex just stare at me, amazed, but then
they look at each other and start grinning stupidly.
I know we’re all thinking the same thing.
It’s crazy. It’s stupid. It’s dangerous. But somehow,
standing in the sweltering storeroom surrounded by boxes
of
mac ‘n’ cheese and canned beets and baby powder, the
three
of us have become a team.
It’s us against them, three against countless thousands.
But for some reason, and even though it’s absurd, at that
moment I feel pretty damn good about our odds.

A
Chapter Sixteen
Unhappiness is bondage; therefore, happiness is
freedom.
The way to find happiness is through the cure.
Therefore, it is only through the cure that one finds
freedom.
—FromWill It Hurt? Common Questions and Answers
About the
Procedure, 9th edition, Association of American Scientists,
Official USA Government Agency Pamphlet
fter that I find a way to see Alex almost every day, even
on days I have to work at the store. Sometimes Hana
comes along with us. We spend a lot of time at Back
Cove, mostly in the evenings after everyone has left. Since
Alex is on the books as cured, it’s not technically illegal for
us to spend time together, but if anyone knew how much
time we spent together—or saw us laughing and dunking
and having water fights or racing down by the marshes—
they’d definitely get suspicious. So when we walk through
the city we’re careful to stand apart, Hana and I on one
sidewalk, Alex on the other. Plus, we look for the emptiest
streets, the run-down parks, the abandoned houses—
places where we won’t be seen.
We return to the houses in Deering Highlands. I finally
understand how Alex knew how to find the toolshed during
the raid night, and how he navigated the halls so perfectly in
the pitch-dark. For years he has spent a few nights a month
squatting in the abandoned houses; he likes to take a
break from the noise and the bustle of Portland. He doesn’t
say so, but I know squatting must remind him of the Wilds.
One house in particular becomes our favorite: 37 Brooks
Street, an old colonial that used to be home to a family of
sympathizers. Like many of the other houses in Deering
Highlands, the property has been boarded up and fenced
off ever since the great rout that emptied the area, but Alex
shows us a way to sneak in through a loosened plank
covering one of the first-floor windows. It’s strange: Even
though the place has been looted, some of the bigger
furniture and the books are still there, and if it weren’t for the
smoke stains creeping up the walls and ceilings, you might
expect the owners to come home any moment.
The first time we go, Hana walks ahead of us calling,
“Hello! Hello!” into the darkened rooms. I shiver in the
sudden dark and coolness. After the blinding sunshine
outside, it comes as a shock. Alex pulls me closer to him.
I’m finally getting used to letting him touch me, and I don’t
flinch or whip around to look over my shoulder every time he
leans in for a kiss.
“Want to dance?” he teases.
“Come on.” I slap him away. It feels weird to talk loudly in
such a quiet place. Hana’s voice rolls back to us, sounding
distant, and I wonder how big the house is, how many
rooms there are, all covered in the same thick layer of dust,
all draped in shadow.
“I’m serious,” he says. He spreads his arms. “It’s the
perfect place for it.”
We’re standing in the middle of what must once have
been a beautiful living room. It’s enormous—bigger than the
whole ground floor of Carol and William’s apartment. The
ceiling stretches up into darkness and a gigantic chandelier
hangs above us, winking dully in the limited shafts of light
that sneak through the boarded-up windows. If you listen
hard, you can hear mice moving quietly in the walls. But
somehow it’s not gross or frightening. Somehow it’s kind of
nice, and it makes me think of woods and endless cycles of
growth and death and regrowth—like what we’re really
hearing is the house folding down around us, centimeter by
centimeter.
“There’s no music,” I say.
He shrugs, winks, holds out his hand. “Music is
overrated,” he says.
I let him draw me toward him so we’re standing chest to
chest. He’s so much taller than I am, my head barely
reaches his shoulder, and I can feel his heart drumming
through his chest, and it gives us all the rhythm we need.
The best part of 37 Brooks is the garden in the back. An
enormous overgrown lawn winds between ancient trees, so
thick and gnarled and knotted their arms twist overhead
and form a canopy. The sunlight filters through the trees and
spots the grass a pale white. The whole garden feels as
cool and quiet as the library at school. Alex brings a blanket
and leaves it inside the house. Whenever we come we take
it and shake it out on the grass, and all three of us lie there,
sometimes for hours, talking and laughing about nothing in
particular. Sometimes Hana or Alex buys some food for a
picnic, and one time I manage to swipe three cans of soda
and a whole carton of candy bars from my uncle’s store,
and we get totally crazy on a sugar high and play games
like we did when we were little—hide-and-seek and tag
and leapfrog.
Some of the tree trunks are as wide as four garbage
pails mashed together, and I take a picture of Hana,
laughing, trying to fit her arms around one of them. Alex
says the trees must have been here for hundreds of years,
which makes Hana and me go silent. That means they were
here before—before the borders were shut down, before
the walls were put up, before the disease was driven into
the Wilds. When he says it, something aches in my throat. I
wish I could know what it was like then.
Most of the time, though, Alex and I spend time alone
and Hana covers for us. After weeks and weeks of not
seeing her at all, suddenly I’m going to Hana’s every single
day—and sometimes twice in one day (when I see Alex;
and then when I actually see Hana). Fortunately, my aunt
doesn’t pry. I think she assumes we had a fight and are
making up for lost time now, which is kind of true anyway
and suits me fine. I’m happier than I can ever remember
being. I’m happier than I can ever remember even
dreaming of being, and when I tell Hana I can never in a
million years repay her for covering for me, she just crooks
her mouth into a smile and says, “You’ve already repaid
me.” I’m not sure what she means by that, but I’m just glad
to have her back on my side.
When Alex and I are alone we don’t do much—just sit
and talk—but still time seems to shrivel away, fast as paper
catching on fire. One minute it’s three o’clock in the
afternoon. The next minute, I swear, the light is draining
from the sky and it’s almost curfew.
Alex tells me stories about his life: about his “aunt” and
“uncle,” and some of the work they do, although he’s still
pretty vague about what the sympathizers and the Invalids
are aiming for and how they’re working to achieve it. That’s
okay. I’m not sure I want to know. When he mentions the
need for resistance, there is a tightness to his voice, and
anger coiling underneath his words. At those times, and
only for a few seconds, I’m still afraid of him, still hear the
word Invalid drumming in my ear.
But mostly Alex tells me normal stuff, about his aunt’s
Frito pie and how whenever they get together his uncle gets
a little too tipsy and tells the same stories about the past
over and over. They’re both cured, and when I ask him
whether they aren’t happier now, he shrugs and says, “They
miss the pain, too.”
This seems incredible to me, and he looks at me out of
the corner of his eye and says, “That’s when you really lose
people, you know. When the pain passes.”
Mostly, though, he talks about the Wilds and the people
who live there, and I lay my head on his chest and close my
eyes and dream of it: of a woman everyone calls Crazy
Caitlin,
who makes enormous wind chimes out of scrap metal and
crushed soda cans; of Grandpa Jones, who must be at
least ninety but still hikes through the woods every day,
foraging for berries and wild animals to eat; of campfires
outside and sleeping under the stars and staying up late to
sing and talk and eat, while the night sky goes smudgy with
smoke.
I know that he still goes back there sometimes, and I
know he still considers it his real home. He nearly says as
much when I tell him one time that I’m sorry I can’t go home
with him to check out his studio on Forsyth Street, where he
has lived since starting at the university—if any of his
neighbors saw me going into the building with him, we’d be
finished. But he corrects me really quickly, “That’s not
home.”
He admits that he and the other Invalids have found a
way to get in and out of the Wilds, but when I press him for
details he clams up.
“Someday maybe you’ll see,” is all he says, and I’m
equal parts terrified and thrilled.
I ask him about my uncle, who escaped before he could
stand trial, and Alex frowns and shakes his head.
“Hardly anybody goes by a real name in the Wilds,” he
says, shrugging. “He doesn’t sound familiar, though.” But he
explains that there are thousands and thousands of
settlements all around the country. My uncle could have
gone anywhere—north or south or west. At least we know
he didn’t go east; he would have ended up in the ocean.
Alex tells me that there are at least as many square miles of
wilderness in the USA as there are recognized cities. This
is so incredible to me that for a while I can’t believe it, and
when I tell Hana she can’t believe it either.
Alex is a good listener, too, and can stay silent for hours
while I tell him about growing up in Carol’s house, and how
everybody thinks Grace can’t speak and only I know the
truth. He laughs out loud when I describe Jenny, and her
pinched look and old-lady face and habit of looking down
her nose at me like I’m the nine-year-old.
I feel comfortable talking about my mother with him too,
and how it used to be when she was alive and it was just
the three of us—me, her, and Rachel. I tell him about the
sock hops and the way my mom used to sing us lullabies,
even though I can only remember a few snatches of the
songs. Maybe it’s the way he listens so quietly, and stares
at me steadily with his eyes bright and warm, and never
judges me. One time I even tell him about the last thing my
mom ever said to me, and he just sits and rubs my back
when suddenly I feel like I’m about to cry. The feeling
passes. The warmth of his hands draws it out of me.
And, of course, we kiss. We kiss so much that when
we’re not kissing it feels weird, like I get used to breathing
through his lips and into his mouth.
Slowly, as we get more comfortable, I start to explore
other parts of his body too. The delicate structure of his ribs
under his skin, his chest and shoulders like chiseled stone,
the soft curls of pale hair on his legs, the way his skin
the soft curls of pale hair on his legs, the way his skin
always smells a little bit like the ocean—all beautiful and
strange. Even crazier is that I let him look at me, too. First
I’ll only let him pull my shirt aside and kiss my collarbone
and shoulders. Then I let him draw my whole shirt over my
head and lie me down in the bright sunshine and just stare
at me. The first time I’m shaking. I keep having the urge to
cross my hands over my chest, to cover up my breasts, to
hide. I’m suddenly aware of how pale I look in the sunshine,
and how many moles I have spotting up and down my
chest, and I just know he’s looking at me thinking I’m wrong
or deformed.
But then he breathes, “Beautiful,” and when his eyes
meet mine I know that he really, truly means it.
That night, for the first time in my life, I stand in front of the
bathroom mirror and don’t see an in-between girl. For the
first time, with my hair swept back and my nightgown
slipping off one shoulder and my eyes glowing, I believe
what Alex said. I am beautiful.
But it’s not just me. Everything looks beautiful. The Book
of Shhh says that deliria alters your perception, disables
your ability to reason clearly, impairs you from making
sound judgments. But it does not tell you this: that love will
turn the whole world into something greater than itself. Even
the dump, shimmering in the heat, an enormous mound of
scrap metal and melting plastic and stinking things, seems
strange and miraculous, like some alien world transported
to earth. In the morning light the seagulls perched on the
roof of city hall look like they’ve been coated in thick white
paint; as they light up against the pale blue sky I think I’ve
never seen anything so sharp and clear and pretty in my
life. Rainstorms are incredible: falling shards of glass, the
air full of diamonds. The wind whispers Alex’s name and
the ocean repeats it; the swaying trees make me think of
dancing. Everything I see and touch reminds me of him,
and so everything I see and touch is perfect.
The Book of Shhh also doesn’t mention the way that
time will start to run away from you.
Time jumps. It leaps. It pours away like water through
fingers. Every time I come down to the kitchen and see that
the calendar has flipped forward yet another day I refuse to
believe it. A sick feeling grows in my stomach, a leaden
sensation that gets heavier every day.
Thirty-three days until the procedure.
Thirty-two days.
Thirty days.
And in-between, snapshots, moments, mere seconds;
Alex smearing chocolate ice cream on my nose after I’ve
complained I’m too hot; the heavy drone of bees circling
above us in the garden, a neat line of ants marching quietly
over the remains of our picnic; Alex’s fingers in my hair; the
curve of his elbow under my head; Alex whispering, “I wish
you could stay with me,” while another day bleeds out on
the horizon, red and pink and gold; staring up at the sky,
inventing shapes for the clouds: a turtle wearing a hat, a
mole carrying a
zucchini, a goldfish chasing a rabbit that is running for its
life.
Snapshots, moments, mere seconds: as fragile and
beautiful and hopeless as a single butterfly, flapping on
against a gathering wind.

A
Chapter Seventeen
There has been significant debate in the scientific
community about whether desire is a symptom of a
system infected with amor deliria nervosa, or a
precondition of the disease itself. It is unanimously
agreed, however, that love and desire enjoy a
symbiotic relationship, meaning that one cannot
exist without the other. Desire is enemy to
contentment; desire is illness, a feverish brain. Who
can be considered healthy who wants? The very
word want suggests a lack, an impoverishment, and
that is what desire is: an impoverishment of the
brain, a flaw, a mistake. Fortunately, that can now be
corrected.
—From The Roots and Repercussions
of Amor Deliria Nervosa on Cognitive
Functioning, 4th edition, by Dr. Phillip
Berryman
ugust makes itself comfortable in Portland, breathes its
hot and stinking breath over everything. The streets are
A
unbearable during the day, the sun unrelenting, and
people rush the parks and beaches, desperate for shade
or breeze. It gets harder to see Alex. East End Beach—
normally unpopular—is packed most of the time, even in
the evenings after I get off work. Twice I show up to meet
him and it’s too dangerous for us to talk or make a sign to
each other, except for the quick nod that might pass
between two strangers. Instead we lay out beach towels
fifteen feet apart on the sand. He slips on his headphones
and I pretend to read. Whenever our eyes meet my whole
body lights up like he’s lying right next to me, rubbing his
hand on my back, and even though he keeps a straight
face, I can tell by his eyes that he’s smiling. Nothing has
ever been so painful or delicious as being so close to him
and being unable to do anything about it: like eating ice
cream so fast on a hot day you get a splitting headache. I
start to understand what Alex said about his “aunt” and
“uncle”—about how they even missed the pain after their
procedures. Somehow, the pain only makes it better, more
intense, more worth it.
Since the beaches are out, we stick to 37 Brooks. The
garden is suffering from the heat. It hasn’t rained in more
than a
week, and the sunlight filtering through the trees—which in
July fell softly, like the lightest footstep—now slices
daggerlike through the canopy of trees, turning the grass
brown. Even the bees seem drunk in the heat, circling
slowly, colliding, hitting up against the withering flowers
before thudding to the ground, then starting dazedly back
into the air.
One afternoon Alex and I are lying on the blanket. I’m on
my back; the sky above me seems to break apart into
shifting patterns of blue and green and white. Alex is lying
on his stomach and seems nervous about something. He
keeps lighting matches, watching them flare, and blowing
them out only when they’re almost at his fingertips. I think
about what he told me that time in the shed: his anger about
coming to Portland, the fact that he used to burn things.
There is so much about him I don’t know—so much past
and history buried somewhere inside of him. He has had to
learn to hide it, even more than most of us. Somewhere, I
think, there is a center to him. It glows like a coal being
slowly crushed into diamond, weighed down by layers and
layers of surface.
So much I haven’t asked him, and so much we never talk
about. Yet in other ways I feel like I do know him, and have
always known him, without having to be told anything at all.
“It must be nice to be in the Wilds right now,” I blurt out,
just for something to say. Alex turns to look at me, and I
stammer quickly, “I mean—it must be cooler there.
Because of all the trees and shade.”
“It is.” He props himself up on one elbow. I close my eyes
and see spots of color and light dancing behind my lids.
For a second Alex doesn’t say anything, but I can feel him
watching me. “We could go there,” he says at last.
I think he must be joking, so I start to laugh. He stays
quiet, though, and when I open my eyes I see his face is
totally composed.
“You’re not serious,” I say, but already a deep well of fear
has opened inside of me and I know that he is. Somehow I
know, too, that this is why he’s been acting strange all day:
He misses the Wilds.
“We could go if you want to.” He looks at me for a beat
longer and then rolls onto his back. “We could go tomorrow.
After your shift.”
“But how would we—” I start to say. He cuts me off.
“Leave that to me.” For a moment his eyes look deeper
and darker than I’ve ever seen them, like tunnels. “Do you
want to?”
It feels wrong to talk about it so casually, lying on the
blanket, so I sit up. Crossing the border is a capital offense,
punishable by death. And even though I know that Alex still
does it sometimes, the enormity of the risk hasn’t really hit
me until now. “There’s no way,” I say, almost in a whisper.
“It’s impossible. The fence—and the guards—and the guns
…”
“I told you. Leave that to me.” He sits up too, reaches out
and cups my face quickly, smiling. “Anything’s possible,
Lena,” he says, one of his favorite expressions. The fear
recedes. I feel so safe with him. I can’t believe that anything
bad can happen when we’re together. “A few hours,” he
says. “Just to see.”
I look away. “I don’t know.” My throat feels parched; the
words tear at my throat as they come out.
Alex leans forward, gives me a quick kiss on the
shoulder, and lies down again. “No big deal,” he says,
throwing one arm over his eyes to shield them from the sun.
“I just thought you might be curious, that’s all.”
“I am curious. But …”
“Lena, it’s fine if you don’t want to go. Seriously. It was
just an idea.”
I nod. Even though my legs are sticky with sweat, I hug
them to my chest. I feel incredibly relieved but also
disappointed. I have a sudden memory of the time Rachel
dared me to do a back dive off the pier at Willard Beach
and I stood trembling at its edge, too scared to jump.
Eventually she let me off the hook, bending down to
whisper, “It’s okay, Lena-Loo. You’re not ready.” All I’d
wanted was to get away from the edge of the pier, but as
we walked back onto the beach I felt sick and ashamed.
That’s when I realize: “I do want to go,” I burst out.
Alex removes his arm. “For real?”
I nod, too afraid to say the words again. I’m worried if I
open my mouth I’ll take it back.
Alex sits up slowly. I thought he’d be more excited, but he
doesn’t smile. He just chews on the inside of his lip and
looks away. “It means breaking curfew.”
“It means breaking a lot of rules.”
He looks at me then, and his face is so full of concern it
makes something ache deep inside of me. “Listen, Lena.”
He looks down and rearranges the pile of matches he has
made, placing them neatly side by side. “Maybe it’s not
such a good idea. If we get caught—I mean, if you got
caught—” He sucks in a deep breath. “I mean, if anything
ever happened to you, I could never forgive myself.”
“I trust you,” I say, and mean it 150 percent.
He still won’t look at me. “Yeah, but … the penalty for
crossing over …” He takes another deep breath. “The
penalty for crossing over is …” At the last second he can’t
say death.
“Hey.” I nudge him gently. It’s an incredible thing, how you
can feel so taken care of by someone and yet feel, also,
like you would die or do anything just for the chance to
protect him back. “I know the rules. I’ve been living here
longer than you have.”
He cracks a smile then. He nudges me back. “Hardly.”
“Born and raised. You’re a transplant.” I nudge him again,
a little harder, and he laughs and tries to catch hold of my
arm. I squirm away, giggling, and he stretches out to tickle
my stomach. “Country bumpkin!” I squeal, as he grabs out
and wrestles me back onto the blanket, laughing.
“City slicker,” he says, rolling over on top of me, and then
kisses me. Everything dissolves: heat, explosions of color,
floating.
We agree to meet at Back Cove the next evening, a
Wednesday; since I won’t be working again until Saturday,
it should be relatively easy to get Carol to allow me to sleep
over at Hana’s. Alex walks me through some of the major
points of the plan. Crossing over isn’t impossible, but
hardly anyone risks it. I guess the whole punishable-bydeath
thing isn’t really a big attraction.
I don’t see how we’ll ever make it past the electrified
fence, but Alex explains that only certain portions of it are
actually electrified. Pumping electricity through miles and
miles of fence is too expensive, so relatively few stretches
of the fence are actually “online”: the remainder of the fence
is no more dangerous than the one that encircles the
playground at Deering Oaks Park. But as long as everyone
believes that the whole thing is juiced up with enough
kilowattage to fry a person like an egg in a pan, the fence is
serving its purpose just fine.
“Smoke and mirrors, all of it,” Alex says, waving his hand
vaguely. I assume he means Portland, the laws, maybe all
of the USA. When he gets serious a little crease forms
between his eyebrows, a tiny comma, and it’s the cutest
thing I’ve ever seen. I try to stay focused.
“I still don’t see how you know all this,” I say. “I mean, how
did you guys figure it out? Did you just keep running people
at the fence, to see whether they got fried in certain
places?”
Alex cracks a tiny smile. “Trade secrets. But I can tell you
there were some observational experiments involving wild
animals.” He raises his eyebrows. “Ever eaten fried
beaver?”
“Ew.”
“Or fried skunk?”
“Now you’re just trying to gross me out.”
There are more of us than you think: That’s another one
of Alex’s favorite expressions, his constant refrain.
Sympathizers
everywhere, uncured and cured, positioned as regulators,
police officers, government officials, scientists. That’s how
we’ll get past the guard huts, he tells me. One of the most
active sympathizers in Portland is matched with the guard
who works the night shift at the northern tip of Tukey’s
Bridge, right where we’ll be crossing. She and Alex have
developed a sign. On nights he wants to cross over, he
leaves a certain flyer in her mailbox, the stupid photocopied
kind that takeout delis and dry cleaners give out. This one
advertises for a free eye exam with Dr. Swild (which seems
pretty obvious to me, but Alex says that resisters and
sympathizers live with so much stress they need to be
allowed their little private jokes) and whenever she finds it
she makes sure to put an extra-large dose of Valium in the
coffee she makes for her husband to drink during his shift.
“Poor guy,” Alex says, grinning. “No matter how much
coffee he drinks, he just can’t seem to stay awake.” I can
tell how much the resistance means to him, and how proud
he is of the fact that it is there, healthy, thriving, shooting its
arms through Portland. I try to smile, but my cheeks feel
stiff. It still blows my mind that everything I’ve been taught is
so wrong, and it’s still hard for me to think of the
sympathizers and resisters as allies and not enemies.
But sneaking over the border will make me one of them
beyond a shadow of a doubt. At the same time, I can’t
seriously consider backing out now. I want to go; and if I’m
honest with myself, I became a sympathizer a long time
ago, when Alex asked me whether I wanted to meet him at
Back Cove and I said yes. I seem to have only hazy
memories of the girl I was before then—the girl who always
did what she was told and never lied and counted the days
until her procedure with feelings of excitement, not horror
and dread. The girl who was afraid of everyone and
everything. The girl who was afraid of herself.
When I get home from the store the next day, I make a
big point of asking Carol if I can borrow her cell phone.
Then I text Hana: Sleepover 2nite w A? This has been our
code recently whenever I need her to cover for me. We’ve
told Carol we’ve been spending a lot of time with Allison
Doveney, who recently graduated with us. The Doveneys
are even richer than Hana’s family, and Allison is a stuck-up
bitch. Hana originally protested against using her as the
mysterious “A,” on the grounds that she didn’t even like to
think about pretend hanging out with her, but I convinced
her in the end. Carol would never call the Doveneys to
check up on me. She’d be too intimidated, and probably
embarrassed—my family is impure, tainted by Marcia’s
husband’s defection and, of course, by my mother, and Mr.
Doveney is the president and founder of the Portland
chapter of the DFA, Deliria-Free America. Allison Doveney
could hardly stand to look at me when we were in school
together, and way back in elementary school, after my
mother died, she asked to switch desks to be farther away
from me, telling the teacher that I smelled like something
dying.
Hana’s response comes almost immediately. U got it. C
u tonight.
I wonder what Allison would think if she knew I’d been
using her as cover for my boyfriend. She would freak out for
sure, and the thought makes me smile.
A little before eight o’clock I come downstairs with my
overnight bag slung conspicuously over my shoulder. I’ve
even let a little bit of my pajamas poke out. I’ve packed the
whole bag exactly as I would have if I were really going to
Hana’s. When Carol gives me a flitting smile and tells me to
have a good time, I feel a brief pang of guilt. I lie so often
and so easily now.
But it’s not enough to stop me. Once outside I head
toward the West End, just in case Jenny or Carol is
watching from the windows. Only after I reach Spring Street
do I double back toward Deering Avenue and head for 37
Brooks. The walk is long, and I make it to Deering
Highlands just as the last of the light is swirling out of the
sky. As always, the streets here are deserted. I push
through the rusted metal gate that surrounds the property,
slide aside the loose slats covering one ground-floor
window, and hoist myself into the house.
The darkness surprises me, and for a moment I stand
there, blinking, until my eyes adjust to the low light. The air
feels sticky, and stale, and the house smells like mildew.
Various shapes begin to emerge, and I make my way into
the living room, and to the mold-spotted couch. Its springs
are busted and half of its stuffing has been torn out,
probably by mice, but you can tell that once it must have
been pretty—elegant, even.
I fish my clock out from my bag and set the alarm for
eleven thirty. It’s going to be a long night. Then I stretch out
on the bumpy couch, balling my backpack underneath my
head. It’s not the world’s most comfortable pillow, but it will
do.
I close my eyes and let the sounds of the mice
scrabbling, and the low groans and mysterious tickings of
the walls, lull me to sleep.
I wake up in the darkness from a nightmare about my
mother. I sit up straight, and for one panicked second don’t
know where I am. The faulty springs squeal underneath me
and then I remember: 37 Brooks. I fumble for my alarm
clock and see that it’s already 11:20. I know I should get up
but I still feel groggy from the heat and the dream, and for a
few more moments I just sit there, taking deep breaths. I’m
sweating; the hair is sticking to the back of my neck.
My dream was the one I usually have but this time
reversed: I was floating in the ocean, treading water,
watching my mother perched on a crumbling ledge
hundreds and hundreds of feet above me—so far I couldn’t
make out any of her features, just the blurry lines of her
silhouette, framed against the sun. I was trying to call out a
warning to her, trying to lift my arms and wave at her to go
back, away from the edge, but the more I struggled the
more the water seemed to drag at me and hold me back,
the consistency of glue, suctioning my arms in place and
oozing in my throat to freeze the words there. And all the
time sand was drifting around me like snow, and I knew at
any second she would fall and smash her head on the
jagged rocks, which poked up through the water like
sharpened fingernails.
Then she was falling, flailing, a black spot growing bigger
and bigger against the blazing sun, and I was trying to
scream but I couldn’t, and as the figure grew larger I
realized it wasn’t my mother headed for the rocks.
It was Alex.
That’s when I woke up.
I finally stand, slightly dizzy, trying to ignore a feeling of
dread. I go slowly, gropingly, to the window, and am
relieved once I’m outside, even though I’m in more danger
on the streets. But at least there’s a bit of a breeze. The
atmosphere in the house was stifling.
Alex is already waiting for me when I arrive at Back
Cove, crouching in the shadows cast by a group of trees
that stand near the old parking lot. He is so perfectly
concealed that I almost trip over him. He reaches up and
draws me down into a crouch. In the moonlight his eyes
seem to glow, like a cat’s.
He gestures silently across Back Cove, to the line of
twinkling lights just before the border: the guard huts. From
a distance they look like a line of bright white lanterns
strung up for a nighttime picnic—cheerful, almost. Twenty
feet beyond the security points is the actual fence, and
beyond the fence, the Wilds. They’ve never looked quite so
strange to me as they
do now, dancing and swaying in the wind. I’m glad Alex and
I agreed not to speak until we crossed over. The lump in my
throat is making it difficult to breathe, much less say
anything.
We’ll be crossing over at the tip of Tukey’s Bridge, on the
northeast point of the cove: if we were swimming, a direct
diagonal from our meet-up point. Alex pumps my hand
three times. That’s our signal to move.
I follow him as we skirt the perimeter of the cove, being
careful to avoid the marshland; it looks deceptively like
grass, especially in the dark, but you can get sucked down
almost knee deep before you realize the difference. Alex
darts from shadow to shadow, moving noiselessly on the
grass. In places he seems to vanish completely before my
eyes, to melt into darkness.
As we loop around to the north side of the cove, the
guard stations begin to outline themselves more clearly—
becoming actual buildings, one-room huts made of
concrete and bulletproof glass.
Sweat pricks up on my palms and the lump in my throat
seems to quadruple in size, until I feel like I’m being
strangled. I suddenly see how stupid our plan is. A hundred
—a thousand!—things could go wrong. The guard in
number twenty-one might not have had his coffee yet—or
he might have had it, but not enough to knock him out—or
the Valium might not have kicked in. And even if he is
asleep, Alex could have been wrong about the parts of the
fence that aren’t electrified; or the city might have pumped
on the power, just for the night.
I’m so scared I feel like I might faint. I want to get Alex’s
attention and scream that we have to turn around, call the
whole thing off, but he’s still moving swiftly up ahead of me,
and screaming anything or making any noise at all will bring
the guards down on us for sure. And guards make the
regulators look like little kids playing cops and robbers.
Regulators and raiders have nightsticks and dogs; guards
have rifles and tear gas.
We finally reach the northern arm of the cove. Alex drops
down behind one of the larger trees and waits for me to
catch up. I go into a crouch next to him. This is my last
opportunity to tell him I want to go back. But I can’t speak,
and when I try to shake my head no, nothing happens. I feel
like I’m back in my dream, getting slurped into the dark,
floundering like an insect stuck in a bowl of honey.
Maybe Alex can tell how frightened I am. He leans
forward and fumbles for a moment, trying to find my ear. His
mouth bumps once on my neck and grazes my cheek lightly
—which despite my panic makes me shiver with pleasure
—and then skims my earlobe. “It’s going to be okay,” he
whispers, and I feel slightly better. Nothing bad will happen
when I’m with Alex.
Then we’re up again. We dart forward at intervals,
sprinting silently from one tree to the next and then pausing
while Alex listens and makes sure there has been no
change, no shouts or sounds of approaching footsteps. The
moments of exposure—of dashing from cover to cover—
grow longer as the trees begin to thin out, and the whole
time we’re getting closer and closer to the line where the
fringe of grass and growth disappears altogether and we
will have to move out in the open, completely vulnerable. It
is a distance of only about fifty feet from the last bush to the
fence, but as far as I’m concerned it might as well be a lake
of burning fire.
Beyond the torn-up remains of a road that existed before
Portland was enclosed is the fence itself: looming, silver, in
the moonlight, like some enormous spiderweb. A place
where things stick, get caught, are eaten. Alex has told me
to take my time, to focus; when I pick my way over the
barbed wire at the top, but I can’t help but picture myself
impaled on all of those sharp, spiny barbs.
And then, suddenly, we are out—past the limited
protection offered by the trees, moving quickly over the
loose gravel and shale of the old road. Alex moves ahead
of me, bent nearly double, and I stoop as low as I can, but it
doesn’t make me feel any less exposed. Fear screams,
slams into me from all sides at once; I have never known
anything like it. I’m not sure whether the wind picks up at
that second or whether it’s just the terror cutting through me,
but my whole body feels like ice.
The darkness seems to come alive on all sides of us, full
of darting shadows and malicious, looming shapes, ready
to turn into a guard any second, and I picture the silence
suddenly punctuated by screams, sighs, horns, bullets. I
picture blooming pain, and bright lights. The world seems
to transform into a series of disconnected images: a bright
white circle of light surrounding guard hut twenty-one, which
expands ever outward, as though hungry and ready to
swallow us; inside, a guard slumped backward in his chair,
mouth open, sleeping; Alex turning to me, smiling—is it
possible he’s smiling?—stones dancing underneath my
feet. Everything feels far away, as unreal and insubstantial
as a shadow cast by a flame. Even I don’t feel real, can’t
feel myself breathing or moving, though I must be doing
both.
And then just like that we’re at the fence. Alex springs
into the air, and for a second he pauses there. I want to
scream Stop! Stop! I picture the crack and sizzle as his
body connects with fifty thousand volts of electricity, but then
he lands on the fence and the fence sways silently: dead
and cold, just like he said.
I should be climbing up after him, but I can’t. Not
immediately. A feeling of wonder creeps over me, slowly
pushing out the fear. I’ve been terrified of the border fence
since I was a baby. I’ve never gotten within five feet of the
fence. We’ve been warned not to, had it drilled into us. They
told us we would fry; told us it would make our hearts go
haywire, kill us instantly. Now I reach out and lace my hand
through the chain-link, run my fingers over it. Dead and cold
and harmless, the same kind of fence the city uses for
playgrounds and schoolyards. In that second it really hits
me how deep and complex the lies are, how they run
through Portland like sewers, backing up into everything,
filling the city with stench: the whole city built and
constructed within a perimeter of lies.
Alex is a fast climber; he’s made it halfway up the fence.
He looks over his shoulder and sees that I’m still standing
there like an idiot, not moving. He jerks his head at me like,
What are you doing?
I put my hand out to the fence again and then
immediately jerk it back again: A shock runs through me all
immediately jerk it back again: A shock runs through me all
at once, but it has nothing to do with the voltage that should
be pumping there. Something has just occurred to me.
They’ve lied about everything—about the fence, and the
existence of the Invalids, about a million other things
besides. They told us the raids were carried out for our own
protection. They told us the regulators were only interested
in keeping the peace.
They told us that love was a disease. They told us it
would kill us in the end.
For the very first time I realize that this, too, might be a
lie.
Alex rocks carefully back and forth on the fence so that it
sways a little. I glance up, and he gestures to me again.
We’re not safe. It’s time to move. I reach up and hoist
myself onto the fence and start climbing. Being on the fence
is even worse, in some ways, than being out in the open on
the gravel. At least there we had more control—we could
have seen if a guard was patrolling, could have hurried
back to the cove and hoped to lose him in the darkness
and the trees. A small hope, but hope nonetheless. Here
we have our backs turned to the guard huts, and I feel like
I’m a gigantic moving target with a big sign on my back
saying SHOOT ME.
Alex reaches the top before me, and I watch him pick his
way slowly, painstakingly, around the loops of barbed wire.
He makes it over and lowers himself carefully down the
other side, climbing backward a few feet and pausing to
wait for me. I follow his motions exactly. I’m shaking by this
point, from fear and exertion, but I manage to pass over the
point, from fear and exertion, but I manage to pass over the
top of the fence and then I’m climbing down the other side.
My feet hit the ground. Alex takes my hand and pulls me
quickly into the woods, away from the border.
Into the Wilds.

T
Chapter Eighteen
Mary bring out your umbrella—
The sun shines down on this fine, fine day
But the ashes raining down forever
Are going to turn your hair to gray.
Mary keep your oars a-steady
Sail away on the rising flood
Keep your candle at the ready
Red tides can’t be told from blood.
—”Miss Mary” (a common child’s clapping game,
dating from the time of the blitz), from
Pattycake and Beyond: A History of Play
he lights from the guard hut get suctioned away all at
once like they’ve been sealed back behind a vault. Trees
close in around us, leaves and bushes press on me from
all sides, brushing my face and shins and shoulders like
thousands of dark hands, and from all around me a strange
cacophony starts up, of fluttering things and owls hooting
and animals scrabbling in the underbrush. The air smells so
thickly of flowers and life it feels textured, like a curtain you
could pull apart. It’s pitch-black. I can’t even see Alex in
front of me now, can just feel his hand in mine, pulling.
I think I might be even more frightened now than I was
making the crossing, and I tug on Alex’s hand, willing him to
understand me and stop.
“A little farther,” comes his voice, from the darkness
ahead of me. He tugs me on. We go slowly, though, and I
hear twigs snapping and the rustle of tree branches, and I
know that Alex is feeling his way, trying to clear a path for
us. It seems that we move forward by inches, but it’s
amazing how quickly we’ve lost sight of the border and
everything on the other side of it, as though they’ve never
existed at all. Behind me is blackness. It’s like being
underground.
“Alex—” I start to say. My voice comes out strange and
strangled-sounding.
“Stop,” he says. “Wait.” He lets go of my hand, and I let
out a little shriek without meaning to. Then his hands are
fumbling on my arms, and his mouth bumps against my
nose as he kisses me.
“It’s okay,” he says. He’s speaking almost at a normal
volume now, so I guess we’re safe. “I’m not going
anywhere. I just have to find this damn flashlight, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” I struggle to breathe normally, feeling
stupid. I wonder if Alex regrets bringing me. I haven’t exactly
been Miss Courageous.
As though he can read my mind, Alex gives me a second
small peck, this time near the corner of my lips. I guess his
eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark either. “You’re doing
great,” he says.
Then I hear him rustling in the branches all around us,
muttering little curses under his breath, a monologue I don’t
quite follow. A minute later he lets out a quick, excited yelp,
and a second after that a broad beam of light cuts upward,
illumi-nating the densely packed trees and growth all
around us.
“Found it,” Alex says, grinning, showing off the flashlight
to me. He directs the light down to a rusty toolbox halfburied
in the ground. “We leave it there, for the crossers,”
he explains. “Ready?”
I nod. I feel much better now that we can see where we’re
going. The branches above us form a canopy that reminds
me of the vaulted ceiling of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where I
used to sit in Sunday school to hear lectures about atoms
and probabilities and God’s order. The leaves rustle and
shake all around us, a constantly shifting pattern of greens
and blacks, set dancing as countless unseen things hurry
and skip from branch to branch. Every so often Alex’s
flashlight is reflected for a brief second in a pair of bright
wide blinking eyes, which watch us solemnly from within the
mass of foliage before vanishing once again into the dark.
It’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it—all this life
pushing everywhere, growing, as though at every second
it’s expanding and thrusting upward, and I can’t really
explain it but it makes me feel small and kind of silly, like
I’m trespassing on property owned by someone way older
and more important than myself.
Alex walks more surely now, occasionally sweeping a
branch out of the way so I can pass underneath it, or
swatting at the branches blocking our way, but we’re not
following any path that I can see, and after fifteen minutes I
begin to fear that we’re just turning in circles, or going
deeper and deeper into the woods without any real
destination. I’m about to ask him how he knows where
we’re going when I notice that every so often he hesitates
and sweeps his flashlight over the tree trunks that surround
us like tall, ghostly silhouettes. Some of them, I see, are
marked with a swath of blue paint.
“The paint … ,” I say.
Alex shoots me a look over his shoulder. “Our road map,”
he says, pressing on, and then adds, “you don’t want to get
lost in here, trust me.”
And then, abruptly, the trees just peter out. One second
we’re in the middle of the forest, penned in on all sides, and
the next we’re stepping out onto a paved road, a ribbon of
concrete lit silver by the moonlight like a ribbed tongue.
The road is filled with holes, and cracked and buckled in
places, so we have to step around enormous piles of
concrete rubble. It winds up a long, low hill, and then
disappears over the hill’s crest, where another black fringe
of trees begins.
“Give me your hand,” Alex says. He’s whispering again
and without knowing why, I’m glad of it. For some reason, I
feel as though I’ve just entered a cemetery. On either side
of the road are gigantic clearings, covered in waist-high
grasses that sing and whisper against one another, and
some thin, young trees, which look frail and exposed in the
middle of all of that openness. There seem to be some
beams, too—enormous beams of timber piled on top of
one another, and twists of things that look metallic,
gleaming and glinting in the grass.
“What is this?” I whisper to Alex, but just after I ask the
question a little scream builds in my throat and I see, and I
know.
In the middle of one of the fields of whispering grass is a
large blue truck, perfectly intact, like someone might have
driven up just to have a picnic.
“This was a street,” Alex says. His voice has turned
tense. “Destroyed during the blitz. There are thousands and
thousands of them, all across the country. Bombed out,
totally destroyed.”
I shiver. No wonder I felt like I was walking through a
graveyard. I am, in a way. The blitz was a yearlong
campaign that happened long before my birth, when my
mom was still a baby. It was supposed to have gotten rid of
all the Invalids, and any resisters who didn’t want to leave
their homes and move into an approved community. My
mother once said that her earliest memories were all
clouded by the sound of bombs and the smell of smoke.
She said for years the smell of fire continued to drift over
the city, and every time the wind blew it would bring with it a
covering of ash.
We go on walking. I feel like I could cry. Being here,
seeing this, it’s nothing like what I was taught in my history
classes: smiling pilots giving the thumbs-up, people
cheering at the borders because we were at last safe,
houses incinerated neatly, with no mess, as though they
were just blipped off a computer screen. In the history
books there were no people, really, who lived in these
houses; they were shadows, wraiths, unreal. But as Alex
and I walk hand in hand down the bombed-out road, I
understand that it wasn’t like that at all. There was mess
and stink and blood and the smell of skin burning. There
were people: people standing and eating, talking on the
phone, frying eggs or singing in the shower. I’m
overwhelmed with sadness for everything that was lost, and
filled with anger toward the people who took it away. My
people—or at least, my old people. I don’t know who I am
anymore, or where I belong.
That’s not totally true. Alex. I know I belong with Alex.
A little farther up the hill we come across a trim white
house standing in the middle of a field. Somehow it
escaped the blitz unscathed, and other than a shutter that
has become detached and is now hanging at a crazy angle,
tapping lightly in the wind, it could be any house in Portland.
It looks so strange standing there in the middle of all of that
emptiness, surrounded by the shrapnel of disintegrated
neighbors. It looks tiny all on its own, like a single lamb that
has gotten lost in the wrong pasture.
“Does anyone stay there now?” I ask Alex.
“Sometimes people squat, when it’s rainy or freezing.
Only the roamers, though—the Invalids who always move
around.” Again he pauses for a fraction of a second before
he says Invalids, grimacing like the word tastes bad in his
mouth. “We pretty much stay away from here. People say
the bombers might come back and finish off the job. But
mostly it’s just superstition. People think the house is bad
luck.” He gives me a tight smile. “It’s been totally cleaned
out, though. Beds, blankets, clothes—everything. I got my
dishes there.”
Earlier, Alex told me he had his own special place in the
Wilds, but when I pressed him for details he clammed up
and told me I’d have to wait and see. It’s still weird to think
of people living out here, in the middle of all this vastness,
needing dishes and blankets and normal things like that.
“This way.”
Alex pulls me off the road and draws me toward the
woods again. I’m actually happy to be back in the trees.
There was a heaviness to that strange, open space, with its
single house and rusting truck and splintered buildings, a
gash cut in the surface of the world.
This time we follow a fairly well-worn path. The trees are
still splattered with blue paint at intervals, but it doesn’t
seem as though Alex needs to consult them. We go quickly,
single file. The trees have been shoved away here, and
much of the underbrush has been cleared so the walk is
much easier. Beneath my feet the dirt has been tamped
down over time by the pressure of dozens of feet. My heart
starts thumping heavily against my ribs. I can tell we’re
getting close.
Alex turns around to face me, so abruptly I almost slam
into him. He clicks the flashlight off, and in the sudden
darkness strange shapes seem to rise up, take form, swirl
away.
“Close your eyes,” he says, and I can tell he’s smiling.
“Why bother? I can’t see anything.”
I can practically hear him roll his eyes. “Come on, Lena.”
“Fine.” I close my eyes and he takes my hands in both of
his. Then he pulls me forward another twenty feet,
murmuring things like, “Step up. There’s a rock,” or “A little
to the left.” The whole time a fluttery, nervous feeling builds
inside of me. We stop, finally, and Alex drops my hands.
“We’re here,” he says. I can hear the excitement in his
voice. “Open up.”
I do, and for a moment can’t speak. I open my mouth
several times and have to shut it again after all that
emerges is a high-pitched squeak.
“Well?” Alex fidgets next to me. “What do you think?”
Finally I stutter out, “It’s—it’s real.”
Alex snorts. “Of course it’s real.”
“I mean, it’s amazing.” I take a few steps forward. Now
that I’m here I’m not sure what, exactly, I was imagining the
Wilds would be like—but whatever it was, it wasn’t this. A
long, broad clearing cuts through the woods, although in
places the trees have begun to crowd in again, pushing
slender stalks toward the sky, which stretches above us, a
vast and glittering canopy, the moon sitting bright and huge
and swollen at its center. Wild roses encircle a dented sign,
faded nearly to illegibility. I can just make out the words
CREST VILLAGE MOBILE PARK. The clearing is full of dozens
of trailers, as well as more creative residences: tarps
stretched between trees, with blankets and shower curtains
to serve as front doors; rusting trucks with tents pitched in
to serve as front doors; rusting trucks with tents pitched in
the back of their cabs; old vans with fabric stretched over
their windows for privacy. The clearing is pitted with holes
where campfires have been lit over the course of the day—
now, well past midnight, they are smoldering still, letting up
ribbons of smoke and the smell of charred wood.
“See?” Alex grins and spreads his arms. “The blitz didn’t
get everything.”
“You didn’t tell me.” I start walking forward down the
center of the clearing, stepping around a series of logs that
have been arranged in a circle, like an outdoor living room.
“You didn’t tell me it was like this.”
He shrugs, trotting next to me like a happy dog. “It’s the
kind of thing you need to see for yourself.” He toes a bit of
dirt over a dying campfire. “Looks like we came too late for
the party tonight.”
As we progress through the clearing, Alex points out
every “house” and tells me a little bit about the people who
live there, speaking all the time in a whisper, so we won’t
wake anybody. Some stories I’ve heard before; others are
totally new. I’m not even fully concentrating, but I’m grateful
for the sound of his voice, low and steady and familiar and
reassuring. Even though the settlement isn’t that big—
maybe an eighth of a mile long—I feel as though the world
has suddenly split open, revealing layers and depths I could
never have imagined.
No walls. No walls anywhere. Portland, by comparison,
seems tiny, a blip.
Alex stops in front of a dingy gray trailer. Its windows are
missing and have been replaced by squares of
multicolored fabric, pulled taut.
“And, um, this is me.” Alex gestures awkwardly. It’s the
first time he has seemed nervous all night, which makes me
nervous. I swallow back the sudden and totally
inappropriate urge to laugh hysterically.
“Wow. It’s—it’s—”
“It’s not much, from the outside,” Alex jumps in. He looks
away, chewing on a corner of his lip. “Do you want to, um,
come in?”
I nod, pretty sure that if I tried to speak right now I would
only squeak again. I’ve been alone with him countless
times, but this feels different. Here there are no eyes
waiting to catch us, no voices waiting to shout at us, no
hands ready to tear us apart—just miles and miles of
space. It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time. Anything
could happen here, and when he bends down to kiss me
it’s as though the weight of the velvety darkness around us,
the soft flutters of the trees, the pitter-patter of the unseen
animals, come beating into my chest, making me feel as
though I’m dissolving and expanding into the night. When
he pulls away it takes me a few seconds to catch my
breath.
“Come on,” he says. He leans a shoulder against the
door of the trailer until it pops open.
Inside it’s very dark. I can make out only a few rough
outlines, and when Alex shuts the door behind us even
those vanish, sucked up into black.
“There’s no electricity out here,” Alex says. He’s moving
around, bumping up against things, cursing every so often
under his breath.
“Do you have candles?” I ask. The trailer smells strange,
like autumn leaves that have fallen off their branches. It’s
nice. There are other smells too—the sharp citrus sting of
cleaning fluid, and very faintly, the tang of gasoline.
“Even better.” I hear rustling, and a spray of water
descends on me from above. I let out a small shriek and
Alex says, “Sorry, sorry. I haven’t been here in a while.
Watch out.” More rustling. And then, slowly, the ceiling
above my head trembles and folds back on itself, and all of
a sudden the sky is revealed in its enormity. The moon sits
almost directly above us, streaming light into the trailer and
crowning everything in silver. I see now that the “ceiling” is,
in fact, one enormous plastic tarp, a bigger version of the
kind of thing you’d use to cover a grill. Alex is standing on a
chair, rolling it back, and with every inch more of the sky is
revealed and everything inside only seems to glow brighter.
My breath catches in my throat. “It’s beautiful.”
Alex shoots me a look over his shoulder and grins. He
continues folding back the tarp, pausing every few minutes
to stop, scoot his chair forward, and begin again. “One day
a storm took out half the roof. I wasn’t here, fortunately.” He,
too, is glowing, his arms and shoulders touched with silver.
Just as I did on the night of the raids, I think of the portraits
in church of the angels with their sprouting wings. “I decided
I might as well get rid of the whole thing.” He finishes with
the tarp and jumps lightly off the chair, turning to face me,
smiling. “It’s my own convertible house.”
“It’s incredible,” I say, and really mean it. The sky looks
so close. I feel like I could reach up and slap my fingers on
the moon.
“Now I’ll get the candles.” Alex scoots past me toward the
kitchen area and starts rummaging. I can see the big stuff
now, though details are still lost in darkness. There’s a
small woodstove in one corner. At the opposite end is a
twin bed. My stomach does a tiny flip when I see it, and a
thousand memories flood me at once—Carol sitting on my
bed and telling me, in her measured voice, about the
expectations of husband and wife; Jenny sticking her hand
on her hip and telling me I won’t know what to do when the
time comes; whispered stories of Willow Marks; Hana
wondering out loud in the locker room what sex feels like,
while I hissed at her to be quiet, checking over my shoulder
to make sure no one was listening.
Alex finds a bunch of candles and starts lighting them
one by one, and corners of the room flare into focus as he
sets the candles carefully around the trailer. What strikes
me most are the books: Lumpy shapes that in the half dark
appeared to be a part of the furniture now resolve into
towering stacks of books—more books than I’ve seen
anywhere except for at the library. There are three
bookshelves mashed against one wall. Even the
refrigerator, whose door has come unhinged, is filled with
books.
I take a candle and scan the titles. I don’t recognize any
of them.
“What are these?” Some of the books look so old and
cracked I’m afraid if I touch them they’ll crumble to bits. I
mouth the names I read off the spines, at least the ones I
can make out: Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, William
Wordsworth.
Alex glances at me. “That’s poetry,” he says.
“What’s poetry?” I’ve never heard the word before, but I
like the sound of it. It sounds elegant and easy, somehow,
like a beautiful woman turning in a long dress.
Alex lights the last candle. Now the trailer is filled with
warm, flickering light. He joins me by the bookshelf and
squats, looking for something. He removes a book and
stands, passes it to me for inspection.
Famous Love Poetry. My stomach flips as I see that
word—Love—printed so brazenly on a book cover. Alex is
watching me closely, so to cover up my discomfort I open
the book and scan the list of featured authors, listed on the
first few pages.
“Shakespeare?” This name I do recognize from health
class. “The guy who wrote Romeo and Juliet? The
cautionary tale?”
Alex snorts. “It’s not a cautionary tale,” he says. “It’s a
great love story.”
I think about that first day at the labs: the first time I ever
saw Alex. It seems like a lifetime ago. I remember my mind
churning out the word beautiful. I remember thinking
something about sacrifice.
“They banned poetry years ago, right after they
discovered a cure.” He takes the book back from me and
opens it. “Would you like to hear a poem?”
I nod. He coughs, then clears his throat, then squares his
shoulders and rolls his neck like he’s about to be let into a
soccer game.
“Go on,” I say, laughing. “You’re stalling.”
He clears his throat again and begins to read: “‘Shall I
compare thee to a summer’s day?’”
I close my eyes and listen. The feeling I had before of
being surrounded by warmth swells and crests inside of me
like a wave. Poetry isn’t like any writing I’ve ever heard
before. I don’t understand all of it, just bits of images,
sentences that appear half-finished, all fluttering together
like brightly colored ribbons in the wind. It reminds me, I
realize, of the music that struck me dumb nearly two months
ago at the farmhouse. It has the same effect, and makes
me feel exhilarated and sad at the same time.
Alex finishes reading. When I open my eyes, he’s staring
at me.
“What?” I ask. The intensity of his gaze nearly knocks the
breath out of me—as though he’s staring straight into me.
He doesn’t answer me directly. He flips forward a few
pages in the book, but he doesn’t glance down at it. He
keeps his eyes on me the whole time. “You want to hear a
different one?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer before
beginning to recite, “‘How do I love thee? Let me count the
ways.’”
There’s that word again: love. My heart stops when he
says it, then stutters into a frantic rhythm.
“‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul
can reach… .’”
I know he’s only speaking someone else’s words, but
they seem to come from him anyway. His eyes are dancing
with light; in each of them I see a bright point of candlelight
reflected.
He takes a step forward and kisses my forehead softly.
“‘I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need… .’”
It feels as though the floor is swinging—like I’m falling.
“Alex—” I start to say, but the word gets tangled in my
throat.
He kisses each cheekbone—a delicious, skimming kiss,
barely grazing my skin. “‘I love thee freely… .’”
“Alex,” I say, a little louder. My heart is beating so fast I’m
afraid it will burst from my ribs.
He pulls back and gives me a small, crooked smile.
“Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” he says, then traces a finger
over the bridge of my nose. “You don’t like it?”
The way he says it, so low and serious, still staring into
my eyes, makes me feel as though he’s actually asking
something else.
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, I do, but …” The truth is, I’m not
sure what I mean. I can’t think or speak clearly. A single
word is swirling around inside me—a storm, a hurricane—
and I have to squeeze my lips together to keep it from
swelling up to my tongue and fighting its way out into the
open. Love, love, love, love. A word I’ve never pronounced,
not to anyone, a word I’ve never even really let myself think.
“You don’t have to explain.” Alex takes another step
backward. Again I have the sense, confusedly, that we’re
actually talking about something else. I’ve disappointed him
somehow. Whatever has just passed between us—and
something did, even if I’m not sure what or how or why—
has made him sad. I can see it in his eyes, even though
he’s still smiling, and it makes me want to apologize, or
throw my arms around him and ask him to kiss me. But I’m
still afraid to open my mouth—afraid that the word will come
shooting out, and terrified about what comes afterward.
“Come here.” Alex sets the book down and offers me his
hand. “I want to show you something.”
He leads me over to the bed, and again a wave of
shyness overtakes me. I’m not sure what he expects, and
when he sits down I hang back, feeling self-conscious.
“It’s okay, Lena,” he says. As always, hearing him say my
name relaxes me. He scoots backward on the bed and lies
down on his back and I do the same, so we’re lying side by
side. The bed is narrow. There’s just enough room for the
two of us.
“See?” Alex says, tilting his chin upward.
Above our heads, the stars flare and glitter and flash:
thousands and thousands of them, so many thousands they
look like snowflakes whirling away into the inky dark. I can’t
help it; I gasp. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars in
my life. The sky looks so close—strung so taut above our
heads, beyond the roofless trailer—it feels as though we’re
falling into it, as though we could jump off the bed and the
sky would catch us, hold us, bounce us like a trampoline.
“What do you think?” Alex asks.
“I love it.” The word pops out, and instantly the weight on
my chest dissipates. “I love it,” I say again, testing it. An
easy word to say, once you say it. Short. To the point. Rolls
off the tongue. It’s amazing I’ve never said it before.
I can tell Alex is pleased. The smile in his voice grows
bigger. “The no-plumbing thing is kind of a bummer,” he
says. “But you have to admit the view is killer.”
“I wish we could stay here,” I blurt out, and then quickly
stutter, “I mean, not really. Not for good, but … You know
what I mean.”
Alex moves his arm under my neck, so I inch over and lay
my head in the spot where his shoulder meets his chest,
where it fits perfectly. “I’m glad you got to see it,” he says.
For a while we just lie there in silence. His chest rises
and falls with his breathing, and after a while the motion
starts to lull me to sleep. My limbs feel impossibly heavy,
and the stars seem to be rearranging themselves into
words. I want to keep looking, to read out their meaning, but
my lids are heavy too: impossible, impossible to keep my
eyes open.
“Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me that poem again.” My voice doesn’t sound like
my own; my words seem to come from a distance.
“Which one?” Alex whispers.
“The one you know by heart.” Drifting; I’m drifting.
“I know a lot of them by heart.”
“Any one, then.”
He takes a deep breath and begins: “‘I carry your heart
with me. I carry it in my heart. I am never without it… .’”
He speaks on, words washing over me, the way that
sunlight skips over the surface of water and filters into the
depths below, lighting up the darkness. I keep my eyes
closed. Amazingly, I can still see the stars: whole galaxies
blooming from nothing—pink and purple suns, vast silver
oceans, a thousand white moons.
It seems like I’ve only been asleep five minutes when Alex
is gently shaking me awake. The sky is still inky black, the
moon high and bright, but I can tell by the way the candles
are pooling around us that I must have been out for at least
an hour or so.
“Time to go,” he says, brushing the hair off my forehead.
“What time is it?” My voice is thick with sleep.
“A little before three.” Alex sits up and scoots off the bed,
then reaches out a hand and pulls me to my feet. “We’ve
got to cross before Sleeping Beauty wakes up.”
“Sleeping Beauty?” I shake my head confusedly.
Alex laughs softly. “After poetry,” he says, leaning down
to kiss me, “we move on to fairy tales.”
Then it’s back through the woods; down the broken path
that leads past the bombed-out houses; through the woods
again. The whole time I feel as though I haven’t quite woken
up. I’m not even scared or nervous when we climb the
fence. Getting over the barbed wire is infinitely easier the
second time around, and I feel as though the shadows have
texture, and shield us like a cloak. The guard at hut number
twenty-one is still in the exact same position—head tilted
back, feet on his desk, mouth open—and soon we’re
weaving our way around the cove. Then we’re slipping
silently through the streets toward Deering Highlands, and
it’s then I have the strangest thought, half dread and half
wish: that maybe all of this is a dream, and when I wake up I
will find myself in the Wilds. Maybe I’ll wake up and find I’ve
always been there, and that all of Portland—and the labs,
and the curfew, and the procedure—was some long,
twisted nightmare.
37 Brooks: In through the window, and the heat and the
smell of mildew slams us, a wall. I only spent a few hours
there and I miss the Wilds already—the wind through the
trees that sounds just like the ocean, the incredible smells
of blooming plants, the invisible scurrying things—all that
life, pushing and extending in every direction, on and on
and on… .
No walls… .
Then Alex is leading me to the sofa and shaking out a
blanket over me, kissing me and wishing me good night.
He has the morning shift at the labs, and has just barely
enough time to go home, shower, and make it to work on
time. I hear his footsteps melting away into the darkness.
Then I sleep.
Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or
longer than an edge. That’s what it is: an edge; a razor. It
draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in
two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on
either side.
Before and after—and during, a moment no bigger or
longer than an edge.
longer than an edge.

O
Chapter Nineteen
Live free or die.
—Ancient saying, provenance unknown, listed in
the
Comprehensive Compilation of Dangerous
Words and Ideas,
www.ccdwi.gov.org
ne of the strangest things about life is that it will chug on,
blind and oblivious, even as your private world—your
little carved-out sphere—is twisting and morphing, even
breaking apart. One day you have parents; the next day
you’re an orphan. One day you have a place and a path.
The next day you’re lost in a wilderness.
And still the sun rises and clouds mass and drift and
people shop for groceries and toilets flush and blinds go up
and down. That’s when you realize that most of it—life, the
relentless mechanism of existing—isn’t about you. It
doesn’t include you at all. It will thrust onward even after
you’ve jumped the edge. Even after you’re dead.
When I make my way back into downtown Portland in the
morning, that’s what surprises me the most—how normal
everything looks. I don’t know what I was expecting. I didn’t
really think that buildings would have tumbled down
overnight, that the streets would have melted into rubble,
but it’s still a shock to see a stream of people carrying
briefcases, and shop owners unlocking their front doors,
and a single car trying to push through a crowded street.
It seems absurd that they don’t know, haven’t felt any
change or tremor, even as my life has been completely
turned upside down. As I head home I keep feeling
paranoid, like someone will be able to smell the Wilds on
me, will be able to tell just from seeing my face that I’ve
crossed over. The back of my neck itches as though it’s
being poked with branches, and I keep whipping off my
backpack to make sure there aren’t any leaves or burrs
clinging to it—not that it matters, since it’s not like Portland
is treeless. But no one even glances in my direction. It’s a
little before nine o’clock, and most people are rushing to
get to work on time. An endless blur of normal people doing
normal things, eyes straight ahead of them, paying no
attention to the short, nondescript girl with a lumpy
backpack pushing past them.
The short, nondescript girl with a secret burning inside of
her like a fire.
It’s as though my night in the Wilds has sharpened my
vision around the edges. Even though everything looks
superficially the same, it seems somehow different—flimsy,
almost, as though you could put your hand through the
buildings and sky and even the people. I remember being
very young and watching Rachel build a sand castle at the
beach. She must have worked on it for hours, using
different cups and containers to shape towers and turrets.
When it was done it looked perfect, like it could have been
made out of stone. But when the tide came in, it didn’t take
more than two or three waves to dissolve its shape entirely.
I remember I burst into tears, and my mother bought me an
ice cream cone and made me share it with Rachel.
That’s what Portland looks like this morning: like
something in danger of dissolving.
I keep thinking about what Alex always says: There are
more of us than you think. I sneak a glance at everyone
who goes by, thinking maybe I’ll be able to read some
secret sign on their faces, some mark of resistance, but
everyone looks the same as always: harried, hurried,
annoyed, zoned out.
When I get home, Carol’s in the kitchen washing dishes. I
try to scoot past her, but she calls out to me. I pause with
one foot on the stairs. She comes into the hallway, wiping
her hands on a dish towel.
“How was Hana’s?” she asks. She flicks her eyes all
over my face, searchingly, as though checking for signs of
something. I try to will back another bout of paranoia. She
couldn’t possibly know where I’ve been.
“It was fine,” I say, shrugging, trying to sound casual.
“Didn’t get a lot of sleep, though.”
“Mmm.” Carol keeps looking at me intensely. “What did
you girls do together?”
She never asks about Hana’s house, and hasn’t for
years. Something’s wrong, I think.
“You know, the usual. Watched some TV. Hana gets,
like, seven channels.” I can’t tell if my voice sounds weird
and high-pitched, or if I’m just imagining it.
Carol looks away, twisting her mouth up like she’s
accidentally gotten a mouthful of sour milk. I can tell she’s
trying to work out a way to say something unpleasant; she
gets her sour-milk face whenever she has to give out bad
news. She knows about Alex, she knows, she knows. The
walls press closer and the heat is stifling.
Then, to my surprise, she curls her mouth into a smile,
reaches out, and places a hand on my arm. “You know,
Lena … it won’t be like this for very much longer.”
I’ve successfully avoided thinking about the procedure for
twenty-four hours, but now that awful, looming number pops
back into my head, throwing a shadow over everything.
Seventeen days.
“I know,” I squeeze out. Now my voice definitely sounds
weird.
Carol nods, and keeps the strange half smile plastered
to her face. “I know it’s hard to believe, but you won’t miss
her once it’s over.”
“I know.” Like there’s a dying frog caught in my throat.
Carol keeps nodding at me really vigorously. It looks as
though her head is connected to a yo-yo. I get the feeling
she wants to say something more, something that will
reassure me, but she obviously can’t think of anything
because we just stand there, frozen like that, for almost a
minute.
minute.
Finally I say, “I’m going upstairs. Shower.” It takes all my
willpower just to get out the words. Seventeen days keeps
tearing through my mind, like an alarm.
Carol seems relieved that I’ve broken the silence.
“Okay,” she says. “Okay.”
I start up the stairs two at a time. I can’t wait to lock
myself in the bathroom. Even though it must be more than
eighty degrees in the house, I want to stand under a stream
of beating hot water, melt myself into vapor.
“Oh, Lena.” Carol calls out to me almost as an
afterthought. I turn around and she’s not looking at me.
She’s inspecting the fraying border of one of her dish
towels. “You should put on something nice. A dress—or
those pretty white slacks you got last year. And do your
hair. Don’t just leave it to air-dry.”
“Why?” I don’t like the way she won’t look at me,
especially since her mouth is going all screwy again.
“I invited Brian Scharff to come over today,” she says
casually, as though it’s an everyday, normal thing.
“Brian Scharff?” I repeat dumbly. The name feels strange
in my mouth, and brings with it the taste of metal.
Carol snaps her head up and looks at me. “Not alone,”
she says quickly. “Of course not alone. His mother will be
coming with him. And I’ll be here too, obviously. Besides,
Brian had his procedure last month.” As though that’s
what’s bothering me.
“He’s coming here? Today?” I have to reach out and
place one hand on the wall. Somehow I’ve managed to
completely forget about Brian Scharff, that neat printed
name on a page.
Carol must think I’m nervous about meeting him,
because she smiles at me. “Don’t worry, Lena. You’ll be
fine. We’ll do most of the talking. I just thought you two
should meet, since …” She doesn’t finish her sentence.
She doesn’t have to.
Since we’re paired. Since we’ll be married. Since I’ll
share my bed with him, and wake up every day of my life
next to him, and have to let him put his hands on me, and
have to sit across from him at dinner eating canned
asparagus and listening to him rattle on about plumbing or
carpentry or whatever it is he’s going to get assigned to do.
“No!” I burst out.
Carol looks startled. She’s not used to hearing that word,
certainly not from me. “What do you mean, no?”
I lick my lips. I know refusing her is dangerous, and I
know that it’s wrong. But I can’t meet Brian Scharff. I won’t. I
won’t sit there and pretend to like him, or listen to Carol talk
about where we’ll live in a few years, while Alex is out there
somewhere—waiting for me to meet up with him, or
tapping
his fingers against his desk while he listens to music, or
breathing, or doing anything at all. “I mean …” I struggle for
an excuse. “I mean—I mean, couldn’t we do it some other
time? I don’t really feel good.” This, at least, is true.
Carol frowns at me. “It’s an hour, Lena. If you can
manage to sleep over at Hana’s house, you can manage
that.”
“But—but—” I ball one fist up, squeezing my fingernails
into my palm until pain starts blooming there, which gives
me something to focus on. “But I want it to be a surprise.”
Carol’s voice takes on an edge. “There’s nothing
surprising about this, Lena. This is the order of things. This
is your life. He is your pair. You will meet him, and you will
like him, and that’s that. Now go upstairs and get in the
shower. They’ll be coming at one o’clock.”
One. Alex gets off work at noon today; I was supposed to
meet him. We were going to have a picnic at 37 Brooks,
like we always do whenever he comes off the morning shift,
and enjoy the whole afternoon together. “But—” I start to
protest, not even sure what else I can say.
“No buts.” Carol crosses her arms and glares at me
fiercely. “Upstairs.”
I don’t know how I make it up the stairs; I’m so angry I can
barely see. Jenny’s standing on the landing, chewing gum,
dressed in one of Rachel’s old bathing suits. It’s too big for
her. “What’s wrong with you?” she says, as I push past her.
I don’t answer. I make a beeline for the bathroom and
turn the water on as high as it can go. Carol hates it when
we waste water, and normally I make my showers as quick
as I can, but today I don’t care. I sit on the toilet and stuff my
fingers in my mouth, biting down to keep from screaming.
This is all my fault. I’ve been ignoring the date of the
procedure, and I’ve avoided even thinking Brian Scharff’s
name. And Carol is absolutely right: This is my life, and the
order of things. There’s no changing it. I take a deep breath
and tell myself to stop being such a baby. Everyone has to
and tell myself to stop being such a baby. Everyone has to
grow up sometime; my time is on September 3.
I go to stand up, but an image of Alex last night—
standing
so close to me, speaking those weird, wonderful words, I
love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul
can reach—knocks me down again, and I thud back onto
the toilet.
Alex laughing, breathing, living—separately, unknown to
me. Waves of nausea overtake me, and I double over with
my head between my knees, fighting it.
The disease, I tell myself. The disease is progressing. It
will all be better after the procedure. That’s the point.
But it’s no use. When I finally manage to get into the
shower, I try to lose myself in the rhythm of the water
pounding on the porcelain, but images of Alex flicker
through my mind—kissing me, stroking my hair, dancing his
fingers over my skin—dancing, flashing, like light from a
candle, about to be snuffed out.
The worst is that I can’t even let Alex know I won’t be able to
meet him. It’s too dangerous to call him. My plan was to go
to the labs and tell him in person, but when I come
downstairs, showered and dressed, and head for the door,
Carol stops me.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she says sharply. I
can tell she’s still angry that I was arguing with her earlier—
angry, and probably offended. She no doubt thinks I should
be turning cartwheels because I’ve finally been paired. She
has a right to think it—a few months ago, I would have been
turning cartwheels.
I turn my eyes to the ground, attempting to sound as
sweet and meek as possible. “I just thought I’d take a walk
before Brian comes.” I try to conjure up a blush. “I’m kind of
nervous.”
“You’ve been spending enough time out of the house as
it is,” Carol snaps back. “And you’ll only get sweaty and
dirty again. If you want something to do, you can help me
organize the linen closet.”
There’s no way I can disobey my aunt, so I follow her
back upstairs and sit on the floor as she passes ratty towel
after ratty towel down to me, and I inspect them for holes
and stains and damage, fold and refold, count napkins. I’m
so angry and frustrated I’m shaking. Alex won’t know what
has happened to me. He’ll worry. Or even worse, he’ll think
I’m deliberately avoiding him. Maybe he’ll think going to the
Wilds freaked me out.
It frightens me, how violent I’m feeling—crazy, almost,
and capable of anything. I want to climb up the walls, burn
down the house, something. Several times I have the
fantasy of taking one of Carol’s stupid dish towels and
strangling her with it. This is what all the textbooks and The
Book of Shhh and parents and teachers have always
warned me about. I don’t know whether they’re right or
whether Alex is. I don’t know whether these feelings—this
thing growing inside of me—is something horrible and sick
or the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
Either way, I can’t stop it. I’ve lost control. And the truly
sick thing is that despite everything, I’m glad.
At twelve thirty Carol moves me downstairs to the living
room, which I can tell has been straightened and cleaned.
My uncle’s shipping orders, which are usually scattered
everywhere, have been stacked in a neat pile, and none of
the old schoolbooks and broken toys that usually litter the
floor are visible. She plops me down on a sofa and begins
messing with my hair. I feel like a prize pig, but I know
better than to say anything about it. If I do everything she
tells me—if everything goes smoothly—maybe I’ll still have
time to go to 37 Brooks once Brian leaves.
“There,” Carol says, stepping away and squinting at me
critically. “That’s as good as it’s going to get.”
I bite my lip and turn away. I don’t want her to notice, but
her words have sent a sharp pain through me. Amazingly,
I’d actually forgotten that I’m supposed to be plain. I’m so
used to Alex telling me I’m beautiful. I’m so used to feeling
beautiful around him. A hollow opens up in my chest. This is
what life will be like without him: Everything will become
ordinary again. I’ll become ordinary again.
At a few minutes after one I hear the front gate squeak
open and footsteps on the path. I’ve been so focused on
Alex I haven’t had time to get nervous about Brian Scharff’s
arrival. But now I have the wild urge to make a run for the
back door, or hurtle through the open window. Thinking
about what Carol would do if I went belly flopping through
the screen brings on an uncontrollable fit of giggling.
“Lena,” she hisses at me, just as Brian and his mother
start knocking on the front door. “Control yourself.”
Why? I’m tempted to fire back. It’s not like he can do
anything about it, even if he hates me. He’s stuck with me
and I’m stuck with him. We’re stuck.
That’s what growing up is all about, I guess.
In my imagination Brian Scharff was tall and fat, a hulking
figure. In reality he’s only a few inches taller than I am—
which is impressively short, for a guy—and so thin I’m
worried about breaking his wrist bone when we shake. His
palms are damp with sweat, and he barely squeezes my
hand. It feels like holding on to a damp tissue. Afterward,
when we all take our seats, I surreptitiously wipe my hands
against my pants.
“Thank you for coming,” Carol says, and there’s a long,
awkward pause. In the silence I can hear Brian wheezing
through his nose. It sounds like there’s a dying animal
trapped in his nasal canal.
I must be staring, because Mrs. Scharff explains, “Brian
has asthma.”
“Oh,” I say.
“The allergies make it worse.”
“Um … what is he allergic to?” I ask, because she seems
to be expecting it.
“Dust,” she says emphatically, like she’s been waiting to
break out that word since she sailed through the door. She
looks witheringly around the room—which is not dusty—and
Carol blushes. “And pollen. Cats and dogs, of course, and
peanuts, seafood, wheat, dairy, and garlic.”
“I didn’t know you could be allergic to garlic,” I say. I can’t
help it: It just pops out.
help it: It just pops out.
“His face puffs up like an accordion.” Mrs. Scharff turns a
disdainful eye toward me, as though I’m somehow
responsible for this fact.
“Oh,” I say again, and then another uncomfortable silence
descends on us. Brian doesn’t say anything, but he
wheezes louder than ever.
This time Carol comes to the rescue. “Lena,” she says,
“perhaps Brian and Mrs. Scharff would like some water.”
I’ve never been so grateful for an excuse to leave a room
in my life. I jump out of my seat, nearly taking down a lamp
with my knee by accident. “Of course. I’ll get it.”
“Make sure it’s filtered,” Mrs. Scharff calls after me, as I
tear out of the room. “And not too much ice.”
In the kitchen I take my time filling up the glasses—from
the tap, obviously—and letting the cold air from the freezer
blast my face. From the living room I can hear the low
murmur of conversation, but I can’t make out who is
speaking or what is being said. Maybe Mrs. Scharff
decided to reprise her list of Brian’s allergies.
I know I have to go back into the living room eventually,
but my feet just won’t move toward the hallway. When I
finally force them into action, they feel like they’ve been
transformed into lead; still, they carry me far too quickly
toward the living room. I keep seeing an endless series of
bland days, days the color of pale yellow and white pills,
days that have the same bitter aftertaste as medicine.
Mornings and evenings filled with a quietly whirring
humidifier, with Brian’s steady wheezing breath, with the
drip, drip, drip from a leaking faucet.
There’s no stopping it. The hallway doesn’t last forever,
and I step into the living room just in time to hear Brian say,
“She’s not as pretty as in the pictures.”
Brian and his mom have their backs to me, but Carol’s
mouth falls open when she sees me standing there, and
both of the Scharffs whip around to face me. At least they
have the grace to look embarrassed. He drops his eyes
quickly, and she flushes.
I’ve never felt so ashamed or exposed. This is worse,
even, than standing in the translucent hospital gown at the
evaluations, under the glare of the fluorescent lights. My
hands are trembling so badly the water jumps over the lip of
the glasses.
“Here’s your water.” I don’t know where I find the strength
to come around the sofa and place the glasses down on
the coffee table. “Not too much ice.”
“Lena—” My aunt starts to say something, but I inter-rupt
her.
“I’m sorry.” Miraculously, I even manage a smile. I can
only hold it for a fraction of a second, though. My jaw is
trembling too, and I know that at any moment I might cry.
“I’m not feeling very well. I think I might step outside for a
bit.”
I don’t wait to be given permission. I turn around and rush
the front door. As I push out into the sun I hear Carol
apologizing for me.
“The procedure is still several weeks away,” she’s
saying. “So you’ll have to forgive her for being so sensitive.
I’m sure it will all work out… .”
The tears come hot and fast as soon as I’m outside. The
world begins to melt, colors and shapes bleeding together.
The day is perfectly still. The sun has just inched past the
middle of the sky, a flat white disk, like a circle of heated
metal. A red balloon is caught in a tree. It must have been
there for a while. It is going limp, bobbing listlessly, halfdeflated,
at the end of its string.
I don’t know how I’ll face Brian when I have to go back
inside. I don’t know how I’ll face him ever. A thousand awful
things race through my mind, insults I’d like to hurl at him. At
least I don’t look like a tapeworm, or, Has it ever occurred
to you that you’re allergic to life?
But I know I won’t—can’t—say any of those things.
Besides, the problem isn’t really that he wheezes, or is
allergic to everything. The problem isn’t even that he
doesn’t think I’m pretty.
The problem is that he isn’t Alex.
Behind me the door squeaks open. Brian says, “Lena?”
I mash my palms against my cheeks quickly, wiping
away the tears. The absolute last thing in the world I want is
for Brian to know that his stupid comment has upset me.
“I’m fine,” I call back, without turning, since I’m sure I look
like a mess. “I’ll come inside in a second.”
He must be stupid or stubborn, because he doesn’t
leave me alone. Instead he closes the door behind him and
comes down off the front stoop. I hear him wheezing a few
feet behind me.
“Your mom said it was okay if I came out with you,” he
says.
“She’s not my mom,” I correct him quickly. I don’t know
why it seems so important to say. I used to like it when
people confused Carol for my mom. It meant they didn’t
know the real story. Then again, I used to like a lot of things
that seem ridiculous now.
“Oh, right.” Brian must know something about my real
mom. It’s on the record he would have seen. “Sorry. I
forgot.”
Of course you did, I think, but don’t say anything. At least
the fact that he’s hovering over me has made me too angry
to be sad anymore. The tears have stopped. I cross my
arms and wait for him to take the hint—or get tired of
staring at my back—and go inside. But the steady
wheezing continues.
I’ve known him less than half an hour, and already I could
kill him. Finally I get tired of standing there in silence, so I
turn around and brush past him quickly.
“Feeling much better now,” I say. I don’t look at him as I
start toward the house. “We should go in.”
“Wait, Lena.” He reaches out and grabs my wrist. I guess
grabs isn’t really the right word. More like wipes sweat on.
But I stop anyway, though I still can’t bring myself to meet
his eyes. Instead I keep my eyes locked on the front door,
noticing for the first time that the screen has three large
holes in it, near the upper right corner. No wonder the
house has been full of insects this summer. Grace found a
ladybug in our bedroom the other day. She brought it to me,
cupped in her tiny palm. I helped her carry it downstairs and
release it outside.
I feel an overwhelming rush of sadness, unrelated to Alex
or Brian or any of that. I’m just struck with a sense of time
passing so quickly, rushing forward. One day I’ll wake up
and my whole life will be behind me, and it will seem to
have gone as quickly as a dream.
“I didn’t mean for you to hear what I said before,” he says.
I wonder if his mom made him say this. The words seem to
require a tremendous effort on his part. “It was rude.”
As if I haven’t already been completely humiliated—now
he has to apologize for calling me ugly. My cheeks feel like
they’re going to melt off, they’re so hot.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, trying to extricate my wrist
from his hand. Surprisingly, he won’t let me go—even
though technically he shouldn’t be touching me at all.
“What I meant was—” His mouth works up and down for
a second. He won’t meet my eyes. He keeps scanning the
street behind me, his eyes darting back and forth, like a cat
watching a bird. “What I meant was, you looked happier in
the pictures.”
This is a surprise, and for a second I can’t think of a
response. “I don’t seem happy now?” I splutter out, and then
feel even more embarrassed. It’s so weird to be having this
conversation with a stranger, knowing he won’t be a
stranger for very much longer.
But he doesn’t seem freaked out by the question. He just
shakes his head. “I know you aren’t,” he says. He drops my
wrist, but I don’t feel as desperate to go inside anymore.
wrist, but I don’t feel as desperate to go inside anymore.
He’s still staring off at the street behind me, and I sneak a
closer look at his face. I guess he could be kind of goodlooking.
Not nearly so gorgeous as Alex, obviously—he’s
super pale and slightly feminine-looking, with a full, round
mouth and a small, tapered nose—but his eyes are a clear,
pale blue, like a morning sky, and he has a nice strong
jawline. And now I start to feel guilty. He must know I’m
unhappy because I’ve been paired with him. It’s not his fault
I’ve changed—seen the light or contracted the deliria,
depending on who you ask. Maybe both.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s not you. I’m just—I’m just scared
about the procedure, that’s all.” I think of how many nights I
used to fantasize about stretching out on the operating
table, waiting for the anesthesia to turn the world to fog,
waiting to wake up renewed. Now I’ll be waking up to a
world without Alex: I’ll be waking up into the fog, everything
gray and blurry and unrecognizable.
Brian is looking at me, finally, with an expression I can’t
identify at first. Then I realize: pity. He feels sorry for me. He
starts speaking all in a rush. “Listen, I probably shouldn’t tell
you this, but before my procedure I was like you.” His eyes
click back to the street. The wheezing has stopped. He
speaks clearly, but low, so Carol and his mom can’t hear
through the open window. “I didn’t—I wasn’t ready.” He licks
his lips, drops his voice to a whisper. “There was a girl I
used to see sometimes at the park. She babysat for her
cousins, used to bring them to the playground there. I was
captain of the fencing team in high school—that’s where we
practiced.”
You would be captain of the frigging fencing team, I
think. But I don’t say this out loud; I can tell he’s trying to be
nice.
“Anyway, we used to talk sometimes. Nothing
happened,” he qualifies quickly. “Just a few conversations,
here and there. She had a pretty smile. And I felt …” He
trails off.
Wonder and fear sweep through me. He’s trying to tell
me that we’re alike. He somehow knows about Alex—not
about Alex specifically, but about someone. “Wait a
second.” My mind is churning. “Are you trying to say that
before the procedure you were … you got sick?”
“I’m just saying I understand.” His eyes flick to mine for
barely a fraction of a second, but that’s all I need. I’m
positive now. He knows I’ve been infected. I’m both relieved
and
terrified—if he can see it, other people will see it too.
“My point is only that the cure works.” He places extra
emphasis on the last word. I know, now, that he’s trying to
be kind. “I’m much happier now. You will be too, I promise.”
Something inside of me fractures when he says that, and
I feel like I could cry again. His voice is so reassuring.
There’s nothing I want more in that moment than to believe
him. Safety, happiness, stability: what I’ve wanted my whole
life. And for that moment I think maybe the past few weeks
really have just been some long, strange delirium. Maybe
after the procedure I’ll wake up as from a high fever, with
only a vague recollection of my dreams and a sense of
overwhelming relief.
“Friends?” Brian says, offering me his hand to shake,
and this time I don’t flinch when he touches me. I even let
him hold my hand an extra few seconds.
He’s still facing the street, and as we’re standing there a
frown flickers temporarily across his face. “What does he
want?” he mutters, and then calls out, “It’s okay. She’s my
pair.”
I turn around just in time to see a flash of burnt goldenbrown
hair—the color of leaves in autumn—disappear
around the corner. Alex. I wrench my hand away from
Brian’s, but it’s too late. He’s gone.
“Must have been a regulator,” Brian says. “He was just
standing there, staring.”
The feeling of calm and reassurance I’d had only a
minute earlier vanishes in a rush. Alex saw me—he saw us,
holding hands, heard Brian say I was his pair. And I was
supposed to have met him an hour ago. He doesn’t know
that I couldn’t get out of the house, couldn’t get a message
to him. I can’t imagine what he must be thinking about me
right now. Or actually, I can imagine.
“Are you okay?” Brian’s eyes are so pale they’re almost
gray. A sickly color, not like sky at all—like mold or rot. I
can’t believe I thought he could be attractive for even a
second. “You don’t look too good.”
“I’m fine.” I try to take a step toward the house and
stumble. Brian reaches out to steady me, but I twist away
from him. “I’m fine,” I repeat, even though everything around
me is breaking, fracturing.
me is breaking, fracturing.
“It’s hot out here,” he says. I can’t stand to look at him.
“Let’s go inside.”
He puts a hand on my elbow and propels me up the
stairs, through the door, and into the living room, where
Carol and Mrs. Scharff are waiting for us, smiling.

B
Chapter Twenty
Ex rememdium salus.
“From the cure, salvation.”
—Printed on all American currency
y some miracle, I must make a good enough impression
on Brian and Mrs. Scharff to satisfy Carol, even though I
barely speak during the remainder of their visit (or
maybe because I barely speak). It’s midafternoon by the
time they leave, and although Carol insists I help out with a
few more chores and she makes me stick around for dinner
—every minute that I can’t run to Alex an agony, sixty
seconds of pure, driving torture—she promises me I can go
for a walk when I’m done eating, before curfew. I inhale my
baked beans and frozen fish sticks so fast I almost puke,
and practically sit bouncing in my chair until she releases
me. She even lets me out of dishwashing duty, but I’m too
angry at her for cooping me up in the first place to feel
grateful.
I go to 37 Brooks first. I don’t really think he’ll be there
waiting for me, but I’m hoping for it anyway. But the rooms
are empty, the garden, too. I must be half-delirious by that
point because I check behind the trees and bushes, as
though he might suddenly pop out, like he used to do a few
weeks ago when he and Hana and I would play our epic
games of hide-and-seek. Just thinking about it brings a
sharp pain to my chest. Less than a month ago all of August
still stretched before us—long and golden and reassuring,
like an endless period of delicious sleep.
Well, now I’ve woken up.
I make my way back through the house. Seeing all our
stuff scattered in the living room—blankets, a few
magazines and books, a box of crackers and some cans of
soda, old board games, including a half-completed game
of Scrabble, abandoned when Alex began making up
words like quozz and yregg—makes me overwhelmingly
sad, and reminds me of that single house that survived the
blitz, and that cracked and bombed-out street: a place
where everybody went on stupidly doing everyday things,
right up until the moment of disaster, and afterward
everyone said, “How could they not have known what was
coming?”
Stupid, stupid—to be so careless with our time, to
believe we had so much of it left.
I head into the streets, frantic and desperate now, but
unsure of what to do next. He mentioned to me once that he
lived on Forsyth—a long row of gray slab buildings owned
by the university—so I go that way. But all the buildings look
identical. There must be dozens of them, hundreds of
individual apartments. I’m tempted to tear through each and
every one until I find him, but that would be suicide. After a
couple of students give me suspicious glances—I’m sure I
look like a disaster, red-faced and wild-eyed and close to
hysterical—I duck into a side street. To calm myself I start
reciting the elemental prayers: “H is for hydrogen, a weight
of one; when fission’s split, as brightly lit, as hot as any sun
…”
I’m so distracted walking home that I get lost in the tangle
of streets leading away from the UP campus. I end up on a
narrow one-way street I’ve never seen before and have to
backtrack to Monument Square. The Governor is standing
there as always, his empty palm outstretched, looking sad
and forlorn in the fading evening light, as though he’s a
beggar, forever condemned to ask for alms.
But seeing him gives me an idea. I dig in the bottom of
my bag for a scrap of paper and a pen, and scrawl out, Let
me explain, please. Midnight at the house. 8/17. Then,
after checking to make sure that no one is watching me
from the few remaining lit windows that overlook the
square, I hop up onto the statue’s base and stuff the note
into the little cavity in the Governor’s fist. The chance that
Alex will think to check there is a million to one. But still,
there’s a chance.
That night, as I’m slipping out of the bedroom, I hear
rustling behind me. When I turn around, Gracie’s sitting up
in bed again, blinking at me, her eyes as reflective as an
animal’s. I touch my finger to my lips. She does the same,
an unconscious mimic, and I slip out the door.
When I’m on the street I look up once toward the window.
For a second I think I see Gracie looking down at me, her
For a second I think I see Gracie looking down at me, her
face as pale as a moon. But maybe it’s just a trick of the
shadows skating silently over the side of the house. When I
look again, she’s gone.
The house at 37 Brooks is all dark when I push my way in
through the window, and totally silent. He’s not here, I think.
He didn’t come—but a piece of me refuses to believe it. He
must have come.
I’ve brought a flashlight with me, and I begin a sweep of
the house, my second of the day, refusing for superstitious
reasons to call out for him. Somehow I can’t stand it. If he
doesn’t answer, I’ll be forced, finally, to accept that he never
received my note—or, even worse, did receive it but has
decided not to come.
In the living room I stop short.
All our things—the blankets, the games, the books—are
gone. The warped wooden floor lies bare and exposed
under the beam of my flashlight. The furniture sits cold and
silent, stripped of all our personal touches, the discarded
sweatshirts and half-used bottles of sunscreen. It has been
a long time since I’ve been afraid of the house or frightened
of walking into its rooms at night, but now a sense of the
cavernous empty spaces around me comes back—room
after room of tumbling-down things, rotting things, rodents
blinking at you from dark spaces—and a deep chill runs
through me. Alex must have been here after all, to clean up
our stuff.
The message is as clear to me as any note. He’s done
with me.
For a moment I even forget to breathe. And then the
Coldness comes, a surge of it so strong it hits me in the
chest like a physical force, like walking straight into the
breakers at the beach. My knees buckle and I go into a
crouch, shivering uncontrollably.
He’s gone. A strangled sound works its way out of my
throat and breaks the silence around me all at once.
Suddenly I’m sobbing loudly into the dark, letting the
flashlight fall to the ground and blink out. I fantasize that I’ll
cry so much I’ll fill the house and drown, or be carried away
on a river of tears to some distant place.
Then I feel a warm hand on the back of my neck, working
through a tangle of my hair.
“Lena.”
I turn around and Alex is there, bending over me. I can’t
really make out his expression, but in the limited light it
looks hard to me, hard and immobile, as though it’s made
out of stone. For a second I’m worried that I’m only
dreaming him, but then he touches me again and his hand
is solid and warm and rough.
“Lena,” he says again, but he doesn’t seem to know what
else to say. I scramble to my feet, wiping my face on my
forearm.
“You got my note.” I’m trying to gulp back the tears but
just succeed in hiccuping several times.
“Note?” Alex repeats.
I wish I was still holding the flashlight so I could see his
face more clearly. At the same time, I’m terrified of it, and of
the distance I might find there. “I left you a note at the
Governor,” I said. “I wanted you to meet me here.”
“I didn’t get it,” he says. I think I hear a coldness in his
voice. “I just came to—”
“Stop.” I can’t let him finish. I can’t let him say that he
came to pack up, that he doesn’t want to see me again. It
will kill me. Love, the deadliest of all deadly things.
“Listen,” I say, hiccuping through the words. “Listen, about
today … It wasn’t my idea. Carol said I had to meet him,
and I couldn’t get a message to you. And then we were
standing there and I was thinking about you, and the Wilds,
and how everything is so changed and how there’s no time,
there’s no more time for us, and for a second—a single
second—I wished I could go back to how things were
before.” I’m not really making any sense, and I know it. The
explanation I’d reviewed so many times in my head is
getting all screwed up, words leapfrogging over one
another. The excuses seem irrelevant: As I’m speaking I
realize there’s only a single thing that really matters. Alex
and I are out of time. “But I swear I didn’t really wish it. I
would never have—if I’d never met you I could never have—
I didn’t know what anything meant before you, not really… .”
Alex pulls me toward him and wraps his arms around
me. I bury my face in his chest. I seem to fit so precisely,
just exactly as though our bodies had been built for each
other.
“Shhh,” he whispers into my hair. He’s squeezing me so
tightly it hurts a little, but I don’t mind. It feels good, like if I
wanted to I could lift my feet off the ground and stop trying at
all and he’d still be holding me up. “I’m not mad at you,
Lena.”
I pull back just a fraction. I know that even in the dark I
probably look horrible. My eyes are swelling up and my hair
is sticking to my face. Thankfully, he keeps his arms around
me. “But you—” I swallow hard, take deep breaths in and
out. “You took everything away. All our stuff.”
He looks away for a second. His whole face is
swallowed in shadow. When he speaks his voice is overloud,
as though he can only say the words by forcing them
out. “We always knew this would happen. We knew that we
didn’t have much time.”
“But—but—” I don’t have to say that we’ve been
pretending. We’ve been acting as if things would never
change.
He places a hand on either side of my face, wipes the
tears away with his thumbs. “Don’t cry, okay? No more
crying.” He kisses the tip of my nose lightly, then takes one
of my hands. “I want to show you something.” There’s a
small break in his voice, and I think of things coming
unhinged, falling apart.
He leads me to the staircase. Far above us, the ceiling is
rotted away in patches, so the stairs are outlined in silvery
light. The staircase must have been magnificent at some
point, sweeping upward majestically before splitting in two,
leading to landings on either side.
I haven’t been upstairs since the first time Alex brought
me here with Hana, when we made it a point to explore
every room of the house. I didn’t even think to check the
second floor earlier this afternoon. Here it’s even darker
than downstairs, if possible, and hotter too, a black and
drifting mist.
Alex starts shuffling down the hall, past a row of identical
wooden doors. “This way.”
Above us, a frantic sound of fluttering: bats, disturbed by
the sound of his voice. I let out a little squeak of fear. Mice?
Fine. Flying mice? Not so fine. That’s another reason I’ve
been sticking to the ground floor. During our initial
exploration we came into what must have been the master
bedroom—an enormous room, with the half-collapsed
beams of a four-poster bed still standing in the middle of it
—and looked up into the gloom, and saw dozens and
dozens of dark, silent shapes massed along the wooden
beams, like horrible black buds dangling along a flower
stem, ready to drop. When we moved, several of them
opened their eyes and seemed to wink at me. The floor
was streaked with bat shit; it smelled sickly sweet.
“In here,” he says, and though I can’t be positive, I think
he stops at the door to the master bedroom. I shiver. I have
zero desire to see the inside of the Bat Room again. But
Alex is emphatic, so I let him open the door and I pass
inside in front of him.
As soon as we walk into the room I gasp and stop so
suddenly he bumps into me. The room is incredible; it’s
transformed.
“Well?” There’s a note of anxiety in Alex’s voice. “What
do you think?”
I can’t answer him immediately. Alex has shoved the old
bed out of the way, into one of the corners, and swept the
floor perfectly clean. The windows—or what windows
remain—are flung open, so the air smells like gardenias
and night-blooming jasmine, their scents drifting in on the
wind from outside. He has arranged our blanket and books
in the center of the room and unraveled a sleeping bag
there too, surrounding the whole area with dozens and
dozens of candles stuck in funny makeshift canisters, like
old cups and mugs or discarded Coca-Cola cans, just like
they were at his house in the Wilds.
But the best part is the ceiling: or rather, the lack of
ceiling. He must have broken through the rotted wood to the
roof, and now an enormous patch of sky is once again
stretched above our heads. There are fewer stars visible in
Portland than on the other side of the border, but it’s still
beautiful. Even better, the bats—disturbed from their roost
—have gone. Far above us, outside, I see several dark
shapes looping back and forth across the moon, but as
long as they stay in the open air, they don’t bother me.
All of a sudden it hits me: He did this for me. Even after
what happened today, he came and did this for me.
Gratitude overwhelms me, and another feeling too, bringing
with it a twinge of pain. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve
him. I turn back to him and can’t even speak; his face is lit
up with flame and he seems to be glowing, transforming
into fire. He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
“Alex—” I start to say, but can’t finish. Suddenly I’m
almost frightened of him, terrified of his absolute and utter
perfection.
He leans forward and kisses me. And when he’s
pressed so close to me, with the softness of his T-shirt
brushing my face and the smell of suntan lotion and grass
coming off his skin, he feels less frightening.
“It’s too dangerous to go back to the Wilds.” His voice is
hoarse, as though he’s been yelling for a very long time,
and a muscle is working furiously in his jaw. “So I brought
the Wilds here. I thought you would like it.”
“I do. I—I love it.” I press my hands against my chest,
wishing I could somehow be even closer to him. I hate skin;
I hate bones and bodies. I want to curl up inside of him and
be carried there forever.
“Lena.” Different expressions are passing over his face
so quickly I can barely catch them all, and his jaw keeps
twitching back and forth. “I know we don’t have much time,
like you said. We hardly have any time at all… .”
“No.” I bury my face in his chest, wrap my arms around
him and squeeze. Unimaginable, incomprehensible: a life
lived without him. The idea breaks me—the fact that he’s
almost crying breaks me—the fact that he did this for me,
the fact that he believes I’m worth it—kills me. He is my
world and my world is him and without him there is no
world. “I won’t do it. I won’t go through with it. I can’t. I want
to be with you. I need to be with you.”
Alex grasps my face, bends down to look in my eyes. His
face is blazing now, full of hope.
“You don’t have to go through with it,” he says. His words
come tumbling out. He’s obviously been thinking about this
for a long time and only trying not to say it. “Lena, you don’t
have to do anything. We could run away together. To the
Wilds. Just go and never come back. Only—Lena, we
couldn’t ever come back. You know that, right? They’d kill
us both, or lock us up forever… . But Lena, we could do it.”
Kill us both. Of course, he’s right. A lifetime of running:
that’s what I’ve just said I wanted. I take a quick step
backward, feeling suddenly dizzy. “Wait,” I say. “Just hold
on a second.”
He releases me. The hope dies in his face all at once,
and for a moment we just stand there, looking at each
other. “You weren’t serious,” he says finally. “You didn’t
mean it.”
“No, I did mean it, it’s just—”
“It’s just that you’re scared,” he says. He walks to the
window and stares out at the night, refusing to look at me.
His back is terrifying again: so solid and impenetrable, a
wall.
“I’m not scared. I’m just …” I fight a murky feeling. I don’t
know what I am. I want Alex and I want my old life and I want
peace and happiness and I know that I can’t live without
him, all at the same time.
“It’s okay.” His voice is dull. “You don’t have to explain.”
“My mother,” I burst out. Alex turns then, looking startled.
I’m as surprised as he is. I didn’t even know I was going to
say the words until I said them. “I don’t want to be like her.
Don’t you understand? I saw what it did to her, I saw how
she was… . It killed her, Alex. She left me, left my sister, left
it all. All for this thing, this thing inside of her. I won’t be like
her.” I’ve never really spoken about this, and I’m surprised
by how difficult it is. Now I have to turn away, feeling sick
and ashamed that the tears have started again.
“Because she wasn’t cured?” Alex asks softly.
For a moment I can’t speak, and I just let myself cry,
silently now, hoping he can’t tell. When I have control of my
voice, I say, “It’s not just that.”
Then all of it comes rushing out, the details, things I’ve
never shared with anyone before: “She was so different
from everybody else. I knew that—that she was different,
that we were different—but it wasn’t scary at first. It just felt
like our little, delicious secret. Mine, and hers, and
Rachel’s, too, like we were in a cocoon. It was … It was
amazing. We kept all the curtains drawn so no one could
see in. We used to play this game where she would hide in
the hallway and we would try to run past her and she would
leap out and grab us—playing goblin, she called it. It always
ended in a tickle war. She was always laughing. We were
all always laughing. Then every so often when we got too
loud, she would clap her hands over our mouths and get all
tense for a second, listening. I guess she was listening for
the neighbors, to make sure none of them were alarmed.
But no one ever came.
“Sometimes she would make us blueberry pancakes for
dinner, as a treat. She picked the blueberries herself. And
she was always singing. She had a beautiful voice, just
gorgeous, like honey—”
My voice cracks, but I can’t stop now. The words are
pouring, tumbling out. “She used to dance, too. I told you
that. When I was little I would stand with my feet on top of
hers. She would wrap her arms around me and we would
move slowly around the room while she counted out the
beat, tried to teach me about rhythm. I was terrible at it,
clumsy, but she always told me I was beautiful.” Tears make
the floorboards blur beneath my feet.
“It wasn’t all good, not all the time. Sometimes I would get
up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I’d
hear her crying. She always tried to muffle it by turning into
her pillow, but I knew. It was terrifying when she cried. I’d
never seen a grown-up cry before, you know? And the way
she did it, the wailing … like some kind of animal. And
there were days she didn’t get out of bed at all. She called
those her black days.”
Alex moves closer to me. I’m shaking so badly I can
hardly stand. My whole body feels like it’s trying to expel
something, cough something up from deep in my chest. “I
used to pray that God would cure her of the black days.
That he would keep her—keep her safe for me. I wanted us
to stay together. Sometimes it seemed like the praying
worked. It was good most of the time. It was more than
good.” I can barely bring myself to say these words. I have
to force them out in a low whisper. “Don’t you get it? She
left all that. She gave it up—for, for that thing. Love. Amor
deliria nervosa—whatever you want to call it. She gave me
up.”
“I’m sorry, Lena,” Alex whispers, behind me. This time he
does reach out. He starts drawing long, slow circles on my
back. I lean into him.
But I’m not done yet. I swipe at the tears furiously, take a
But I’m not done yet. I swipe at the tears furiously, take a
big breath. “Everyone thinks she killed herself because she
couldn’t stand to have the procedure again. They were still
trying to cure her, you know. It would have been her fourth
time. After her second procedure they refused to put her
under—they thought the anesthesia was interfering with the
way the cure was taking. They cut into her brain, Alex, and
she was awake.”
I feel his hand stiffen temporarily, and I know he’s just as
angry as I am. Then the circles start up again.
“But I know that’s not really why.” I shake my head. “My
mom was brave. She wasn’t afraid of pain. That was the
whole problem, really. She wasn’t afraid. She didn’t want to
be cured; she didn’t want to stop loving my dad. I
remember she told me that once, just before she died.
‘They’re trying to take him from me,’ she said. She was
smiling so sadly. ‘They’re trying to take him, but they can’t.’
She used to wear one of his pins around her neck, on a
chain. She kept it hidden most of the time, but that night she
had it out and was staring at it. It was this strange, long,
silver dagger-thing, with two bright jewels in the hilt, like
eyes. My dad used to wear it on his sleeve. After he died
she wore it every day, never took it off even to bathe… .”
I suddenly realize that Alex has removed his hand and
taken two steps away from me. I turn around and he’s
staring at me, white faced and shocked, as though he’s just
seen a ghost.
“What?” I wonder if it’s possible I’ve offended him in
some way. Something about the way he’s staring makes
fear start beating at my chest, a frantic flutter. “Did I say
something wrong?”
He shakes his head, an almost imperceptible motion.
The rest of his body stays as straight and tense as a wire
stretched between two posts. “How big was it? The pin, I
mean.” His voice sounds strangely high-pitched.
“The point isn’t the pin, Alex, the point is—”
“How big was it?” Louder now, and forceful.
“I don’t know. Like the size of a thumb, maybe.” I’m
completely baffled by Alex’s behavior. He has the most
pained look on his face, as though he’s trying to swallow a
whole porcupine. “It was originally my grandfather’s—made
just for him, a reward for performing a special service for
the government. Unique. That’s what my dad always said,
anyway.”
Alex doesn’t say anything for a minute. He turns away,
and with the moon shining down on him, and his profile so
hard and straight, he could be built out of stone. I’m glad
he’s not staring at me anymore, though. He was starting to
freak me out.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks finally, slowly,
as though every word is an effort.
It seems like a weird thing to ask in the middle of a
completely unrelated conversation, and I start to get
annoyed. “Were you even listening to me?”
“Lena, please.” There it is: the strangled, choking note
again. “Just answer me. Are you working?”
“Not until Saturday.” I rub my arms. The wind blowing in
has a chilly edge to it. It lifts the hair on my arms, makes
goose bumps prick up on my legs. Autumn is coming.
“Why?”
“You have to meet me. I have—I have something to show
you.” Alex turns back to me again, and his eyes are so wild
and black, his face so unfamiliar-looking, I take a step
backward.
“You’ll have to do better than that.” I try to laugh, but what
comes out is a little gurgling sound. I’m scared, I want to
say. You’re scaring me. “Can you at least give me a hint?”
Alex takes a deep breath, and for a minute I think he
won’t answer me.
But he does.
“Lena,” he says at last. “I think your mother is alive.”

W
Chapter Twenty-One
LIBERTY IN ACCEPTANCE;
PEACE IN ENCLOSURE;
HAPPINESS IN RENUNCIATION
—words carved above the gates
at the entrance to the Crypts
hen I was in fourth grade, I went on a field trip to the
Crypts. It’s mandated that every child visit at least once
in elementary school as part of the government’s
anticrime, antiresistance education. I don’t remember much
about my visit except for a feeling of utter terror, a dim
impression of coldness, of blackened concrete hallways,
slicked with mold and moisture, and heavy electronic
doors. To be honest, I think I’ve successfully blocked out
most of the memory. The whole purpose of the trip was to
traumatize us into staying on the straight-and-narrow, and
they definitely had the traumatize part right.
What I do remember is stepping out afterward into the
bright sunshine of a beautiful spring day with a sense of
overwhelming, overpowering relief—and also confusion, as
I realized that in order to exit the Crypts we actually had to
descend several staircases to the ground floor. The whole
time we’d been inside, even as we climbed, I had the
impression of being buried underground, locked several
stories under the surface of the earth. That’s how dark it
was, how close and bad-smelling: like being encased in a
coffin with rotting bodies. I also remember that as soon as
we got outside Liz Billmun began to cry, just sob right there
while a butterfly flapped around her shoulder, and we were
all in shock because Liz Billmun was super tough, and kind
of a bully, and hadn’t even cried the time she broke her
ankle in gym class.
I had sworn that day that I would never, ever return to the
Crypts for any reason. But the morning after my
conversation with Alex I’m standing outside its gates,
pacing, one arm wrapped around my stomach. I wasn’t
able to force anything down this morning except the thick
black sludge my uncle calls coffee, a decision I am now
regretting. I feel like acid is eating my insides.
Alex is late.
Overhead, the sky is packed tight with enormous black
storm clouds. It’s supposed to thunderstorm later, which
seems fitting. Beyond the gate, at the end of a short, paved
road, the Crypts looms black and imposing. Silhouetted
against the dark sky, it looks like something out of a
nightmare. A dozen or so tiny windows—like the multiple
staring eyes of a spider—are scattered across its stone
facade. A short field surrounds the Crypts on this side,
enclosed within the gates. I remember it from my childhood
as a meadow, but it is actually just a lawn, closely tended
and bare in patches. Still, the vivid green of the grass—
where the grass is actually managing to assert itself
through the dirt—seems out of place. This seems like a
place where nothing should flourish or grow, where the sun
should never shine: a place on the edge, at the limit, a
place completely removed from time and happiness and
life.
I guess, technically, it is on the edge, since the Crypts is
sitting right on the eastern border, flanked on its rear by the
Presumpscot River, and beyond that, the Wilds. The
electrified (or not-so-electrified) fence runs directly into one
side of the Crypts, and begins again on its other side, the
building itself serving as a seamless connective bridge.
“Hey.”
Alex is coming down the sidewalk, his hair whipping up
around his head. The wind is definitely chilly today. I should
have worn a heavier sweatshirt. Alex looks cold too. He’s
keeping his arms folded across his chest. Of course he’s
just wearing a thin linen shirt, the official guard uniform he
wears at the labs. He has his badge swinging around his
neck, too. I haven’t seen him with it since the first day we
spoke. He’s even wearing a pair of nice jeans, crisp dark
ones with cuffs that aren’t totally ragged and stepped on.
This was all part of the plan: to get us both in, he needs to
convince the prison administrators that we’re on official
business. I take comfort in the fact that he’s still wearing his
scuffed-up sneakers with the ink-stained laces, though.
Somehow that little familiar detail makes it possible to be
here, with him, doing this. It gives me something to focus on
and hold on to, a tiny flash of normalcy in a world that has
suddenly become unrecognizable.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says. He stops several feet away from
me. I can see the concern in his eyes, even if he manages
to keep the rest of his face composed. There are guards
circulating the yard and standing just beyond the gate. This
is no place for us to touch or reveal any kind of familiarity
with each other.
“That’s okay.” My voice cracks. I feel like I might have a
fever. Ever since Alex and I spoke last night my head has
been spinning, and my body has been burning one second
and icy the next. I can hardly think. It’s a miracle I was able
to get out of the house today. It’s a miracle I’m even
wearing pants, a double miracle I remembered to wear
shoes.
My mother might be alive. My mother might be alive.
That is the single idea in my mind, the one that has
supplanted the possibility of all other rational thought.
“Are you ready to do this?” He keeps his voice low and
toneless in case the guards will overhear us—but I can
detect the note of worry running underneath it.
“I think so,” I say. I try to manage a smile, but my lips feel
cracked and dry as stone. “It might not even be her, right?
You could be wrong.”
He nods, but I can tell he’s sure he hasn’t made a
mistake. He’s sure that my mom is in here—this place, this
above-ground tomb—has been there all this time. The idea
is overwhelming. I can’t think too much about the possibility
that Alex is right. I need to concentrate, focus all my energy
on just staying on my feet.
on just staying on my feet.
“Come on,” he says. He walks in front of me, like he’s
leading me on official business. I keep my eyes trained on
the ground. I’m almost glad that the presence of the guards
requires Alex to ignore me. I’m not sure I could handle a
conversation right now. A thousand feelings swirl through
me, a thousand questions whip around my mind, a
thousand suppressed hopes and desires, buried long ago
—and yet I can’t hold on to anything, not a single theory or
explanation that makes any kind of sense.
Alex had refused to tell me more after his declaration last
night. “You have to see,” he kept repeating dumbly, as
though it was the only thing he knew how to say. “I don’t
want to get your hopes up for nothing.” And then he’d told
me to meet him at the Crypts. I think I must have been in
shock. The whole time I kept congratulating myself for not
freaking out, for not screaming or crying or demanding an
explanation, but when I got home later I realized I had no
memory of the walk at all and hadn’t been keeping an eye
out for regulators or patrols. I must have just marched stiffly
down the street, blind to everything.
But now I get the point of shock, of numbness. Without
the numbness I probably wouldn’t have been able to get up
and dressed this morning. I wouldn’t have been able to find
my way here, and I wouldn’t be taking careful steps forward
now, pausing a respectful distance behind him as Alex
shows his ID badge to a guard at a gate and begins
gesturing to me.
Alex launches into an explanation he has obviously
rehearsed. “There was an … incident at her evaluation,” he
says, his voice icy. He and the guard are both staring at
me: the guard, suspiciously; Alex with as much detachment
as he can muster. His eyes are steel, all the warmth
drained out of them, and it makes me nervous to know that
he can do that so successfully—become someone else,
someone who doesn’t have any attachment to me. “Nothing
too severe. But her parents and my superiors thought she
might benefit from a little reminder about the dangers of
disobedience.”
The guard flicks his eyes over me. His face is fat and
red, the skin on either side of his eyes protruding and puffy,
like he is a mound of dough in the middle of rising. Soon, I
fantasize, his eyes will be concealed behind flesh
altogether. “What kind of incident?” he says, snapping his
gum. He shifts the enormous automatic rifle he is carrying
to his other shoulder.
Alex leans forward, so that he and the guard are
separated through the gate by only a few inches. He drops
his voice, but I can still hear him. “Her favorite color is the
color of sunrise,” he says.
The guard stares at me for a split second longer and
then waves for us to pass through. “Stand back while I get
the gate,” he says. He disappears into a guard hut, similar
to the one at the labs where Alex is stationed, and after a
few seconds the electronic gates shudder inward. Alex and
I start across the courtyard, toward the building entrance.
With every step, the hulking silhouette of the Crypts looms a
little larger. The wind picks up, whirling bits of dust across
the bleak yard, sending a lone plastic bag tumbling and
skipping across the grass, and the air is filled with the kind
of electricity that always comes before a thunderstorm—the
kind of crazed, vibrating energy that makes it seem like
something huge could happen at any second, like the whole
world could just dissolve into chaos. I would give anything to
have Alex turn around, smile at me, and offer me his hand.
Of course, he can’t. He strides quickly ahead of me, spine
stiff, eyes forward.
I’m not sure how many people are confined in the Crypts.
Alex estimated it to be about three thousand. There’s hardly
any crime at all in Portland—thanks to the cure—but
occasionally people do steal things or vandalize or resist
police procedurals. Then there are the resisters and
sympathizers. If they aren’t executed immediately, some of
them are left to rot in the Crypts.
The Crypts also serves as Portland’s mental institution,
and while there may not be much crime, despite the cure
we have our share of crazies just like anywhere else. Alex
would say because of the cure we have our crazies, and it’s
true that early procedures or procedures gone wrong can
lead to mental difficulties or a kind of mental fracture. Plus,
some people are just never the same after the procedure.
They go catatonic, all staring eyes and drool, and if their
families can’t afford to keep them they get shoved into the
Crypts as well, to molder and die.
Two enormous double doors lead into the Crypts. Tiny
panes of glass, probably bulletproof and webbed with dirt
and the residue of smeared insect parts, give me a blurred
view of the long, dark hallway beyond, and several flickering
electric lights. A typed sign, warped from rain and wind, is
taped to the door. It says ALL VISITORS PROCEED DIRECTLY
TO CHECK-IN AND SECURITY.
Alex pauses for just a fraction of a second. “Ready?” he
says to me, without looking back.
“Yes,” I choke out.
The smell that hits us as we enter nearly jettisons me
backward—out the door, through time, back to fourth
grade. It’s the smell of thousands of unwashed bodies
packed closely together, underneath the stinging, burning
scent of industrial-strength bleach and cleanser. Overlaying
it all is the smell of wet—corridors that aren’t ever truly dry,
leaking pipes, mold growing behind walls and in all the little
twisty places visitors are never allowed to see. Check-in is
to our left, and the woman who is manning the desk behind
another panel of bulletproof glass is wearing a medical
mask. I don’t blame her.
Strangely, as we approach her desk, she looks up and
addresses Alex by name.
“Alex,” she says, nodding curtly. Her eyes flicker to me.
“Who’s that?”
Alex repeats his story about the incident at the
evaluations. He’s obviously on pretty familiar terms with the
guard, because he uses her first name a couple of times,
and I can’t see that she’s wearing any kind of name tag.
She logs our names into the ancient computer on her desk
and waves us through to security. Alex says hello to the
security personnel here too, and I admire him for his
security personnel here too, and I admire him for his
coolness. I’m having a pretty hard time just undoing my belt
before the metal detector, my hands are shaking so badly.
The guards at the Crypts seem to be about 50 percent
larger than normal people, with hands like tennis rackets
and chests as broad as boats. And they’re all carrying
guns. Big guns. I’m doing my best not to seem utterly
terrified, but it’s difficult to stay calm when you have to strip
down practically to your underwear in front of giants
equipped with automatic assault weapons.
Eventually we make it through security. Alex and I dress
again in silence, and I’m surprised—and pleased—when I
actually manage to tie my own shoelaces.
“Wards one through five only,” one of the guards calls
out, as Alex gestures for me to follow him down the hall. The
walls are painted a sickly yellow color. In a home, or a
brightly lit nursery or office, it might be cheerful; but
illuminated only by the patchy fluorescent lights that keep
buzzing on and off, and stained with years and years of
water and handprints and squashed insects and I don’twant-
to-know-what, it seems incredibly depressing—like
getting a big smile from someone with blackened, rotting
teeth.
“You got it,” Alex says. I’m assuming this means that
certain areas are restricted from visitors.
I follow Alex down one narrow corridor, and then another.
The hallways are empty, and so far we haven’t passed any
cells, although as we continue making twists and turns the
sounds of moaning and shrieking begin to float to us, as
well as strange animal sounds, bleating and mooing and
cawing, like a bunch of people are imitating a barnyard. We
must be near the mental ward. We don’t pass any other
people, though, no nurses or guards or patients. Everything
is so still it’s almost frightening: silent, too, except for those
awful sounds, which seem to emanate from the walls.
It seems safe to talk, so I ask Alex, “How does everybody
know you here?”
“I come by a lot,” he says, as though this is a satisfactory
answer. People don’t “come by” the Crypts. It’s not exactly
up there with the beach. It’s not even up there with a public
restroom.
I’m thinking he won’t elaborate further, and I’m about to
press him for a more detailed answer, when he blows air
out of his cheeks and says, “My father’s here. That’s why I
come.”
I really didn’t think that anything could further surprise me
at this point, or penetrate the fog in my brain, but this does.
“I thought you said your father was dead.”
Alex told me a long time ago that his dad had died, but
he’d refused to give any details. “He never knew he had a
son”: That’s the only thing Alex had said, and I figured it
meant that his dad was dead before Alex was born.
Ahead of me, Alex’s shoulders rise and fall: a small sigh.
“He is,” he says, and makes an abrupt right turn down a
short hallway that ends at a heavy iron door. This is marked
with another printed sign. It says LIFERS. Underneath the
word, someone has written in pen, HA HA.
“What are you—” I’m more confused than ever, but I don’t
have time to finish formulating my question. Alex pushes his
way out the door and the smell that greets us—of wind and
grass and fresh things—is so unexpected and welcome
that I stop speaking, taking long, grateful gulps of air.
Without realizing it, I’ve been breathing through my mouth.
We’re in a tiny courtyard, surrounded on all sides by the
stained gray sides of the Crypts. The grass here is
amazingly lush, reaching practically to my knees. A single
tree twists upward to our left, and a bird is twittering in its
branches. It’s surprisingly nice out here, peaceful and pretty
—strange to be standing in the middle of a little garden
while enclosed by the massive stone walls of the prison,
like being at the exact center of a hurricane, and finding
peace and silence in the middle of so much shrieking
damage.
Alex has moved several paces away. He is standing,
head bowed, with his eyes on the ground. He must have a
sense too of the peacefulness here, the stillness that
seems to hang in the air like a veil, covering everything in
softness and rest. The sky above us is darker than it was
when we first entered the Crypts: Against all the grayness
and shadow, the grass stands vivid and electric, as though
it is lit up from inside. It will rain at any second. It has to. I
have the sensation of the world holding its breath before a
giant exhale, balancing, teetering, about to let go.
“Here.” Alex’s voice rings out, surprisingly loud, and it
startles me. “Right here.” He points to a shard of rock
sticking up crookedly from the ground. “That’s where my
father is.”
The grass is broken up by dozens of these rocks, which
at first glance appeared to be naturally, haphazardly
arranged. Then I realize that they’ve been deliberately
tamped down into the earth. Some of them are covered in
fading black markings, mostly illegible, although on one
stone I recognize the word RICHARD and on another DIED.
Tombstones, I realize, as the purpose of the courtyard
dawns on me. We’re standing in the middle of a graveyard.
Alex is staring down at a large chunk of concrete, as flat
as a tablet, pressed down into the earth in front of his feet.
All the writing is visible here, the words neatly printed in
what looks like black marker, their edges slightly blurred as
though someone has been continuously retracing them over
a long period of time. It says WARREN SHEATHES, R.I.P.
“Warren Sheathes,” I say. I want to reach out and slip my
hand into Alex’s, but I don’t think we’re safe. There are a
few windows surrounding the courtyard on the ground floor,
and even though they are thickly coated in grime, someone
could walk by at any moment, look out, and see us. “Your
father?”
Alex nods, then shakes his shoulders, a sudden
movement as though trying to jerk himself away from sleep.
“Yeah.”
“He was here?”
One side of Alex’s mouth quirks up into a smile, but the
rest of his face remains stony. “For fourteen years.” He
draws a slow circle in the dirt with his toe, the first physical
sign of discomfort or distraction he has given since we
arrived. In that moment I am in awe of him: Since I’ve known
him he has done nothing but support me and give me
comfort and listen to me, and all this time he has been
carrying the weight of his own secrets too.
“What happened?” I ask quietly. “I mean, what did he …
?” I trail off. I don’t want to push the issue.
Alex glances at me quickly and looks away. “What did he
do?” he says. The hardness has returned to his voice. “I
don’t know. What all the people who end up in Ward Six do.
He thought for himself. Stood up for what he believed in.
Refused to give in.”
“Ward Six?”
Alex avoids my eyes carefully. “The dead ward,” he says
quietly. “For political prisoners, mostly. They’re kept in
solitary confinement. And no one ever gets released.” He
gestures around him, to the other shards of stone poking up
through the grass, dozens of makeshift graves. “Ever,” he
repeats, and I think of the sign on the door: LIFERS, HA HA.
“I’m so sorry, Alex.” I would give anything to touch him,
but the best I can do is inch closer to him so that our skin is
separated by only a few inches.
He looks at me then, shooting me a sad smile. “He and
my mom were only sixteen when they met. Can you believe
that? She was only eighteen when she had me.” He drops
into a squat and traces his father’s name with his thumb. I
suddenly understand that the reason he comes here so
often is to continue darkening the letters as they fade, to
keep some record of his father. “They wanted to run away
together, but he was caught before they could finalize a
plan. I never knew he’d been taken into custody. I just
thought he was dead. My mom thought it would be better for
me, and nobody in the Wilds knew enough to correct her. I
think for my mom it was easier to believe he had really
died. She didn’t want to think of him rotting in this place.”
He continues looping a finger over the letters, back and
forth. “My aunt and uncle told me the truth when I turned
fifteen. They wanted me to know. I came here to meet him,
but …” I think I see Alex shudder, a sudden stiffening
movement of his shoulders and back. “Anyway, it was too
late. He was dead, had been dead for a few months, and
buried here, where his remains wouldn’t contaminate
anything.”
I feel sick. The walls appear to be pressing closer around
us, growing taller and narrower, too, so the sky feels more
and more remote, an ever-diminishing point. We’ll never
get out, I think, and then take a deep breath, trying to stay
calm.
Alex straightens up. “Ready?” he asks me, for the
second time this morning. I nod, even though I’m not sure
that I am. He allows himself the brief flicker of a smile, and I
see, for a second, a bit of warmth spark up in his eyes.
Then he’s all business again.
I take one last look at the tombstone before we go in. I try
to think of a prayer or something appropriate to say, but
nothing comes to me. The lessons of the scientists aren’t
really clear about what happens when you die: Supposedly
you dissipate into the heavenly matter that is God, and get
absorbed by him, although they also tell us that the cured
go to heaven and live forever in perfect harmony and order.
“Your name.” I spin around to face Alex. He has already
moved past me, headed back for the door. “Alex Warren.”
He gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
“Assigned to me,” he says.
“Your real name is Alex Sheathes,” I say, and he nods.
He has a secret name, just like me. We stand there for one
more moment, looking at each other, and in that instant I
feel our connection so strongly it’s as though it achieves
physical existence, becomes a hand all around us, cupping
us together, protecting us. This is what people are always
talking about when they talk about God: this feeling, of
being held and understood and protected. Feeling this way
seems about as close to saying a prayer as you could get,
so I follow Alex back inside, holding my breath as we again
encounter that awful stink.
I follow Alex down a series of serpentine hallways. The
sensation of stillness and peace I had in the courtyard is
replaced almost immediately by fear so sharp it is like a
blade going straight into the core of me, driving down and
deep, until I can hardly breathe or keep going. At points the
wailing grows louder, almost to a fever pitch, and I have to
cover my ears; then it ebbs away again. Once we pass a
man wearing a long white lab coat, stained with what looks
like blood; he is leading a patient on a leash. Neither one
looks at us as we pass.
We make so many twists and turns I’m beginning to
wonder if Alex is lost, especially as the hallways grow
dirtier, and the lights above us become fewer in number, so
that eventually we are walking through murk and obscurity,
with a single functioning bulb to light up twenty feet of
blackened stone corridor. At intervals various glowing neon
signs appear in the darkness, as though they are rising out
of the air itself: WARD ONE, WARD TWO, WARD THREE, WARD
FOUR. Alex keeps going, though, and when we pass the
hallway that leads to Ward Five I call out to him, convinced
he has gotten confused or lost his way.
“Alex,” I say, but even as I say the word it strangles me,
because just then we come up to a heavy set of double
doors marked with a small sign, barely illuminated, so faint I
can hardly read it. And yet it seems to burn as brightly as a
thousand suns.
Alex turns around, and to my surprise his face isn’t
composed at all. His jaw is working and his eyes are full of
pain, and I can tell he hates himself for being there, for
being the one to say it, for being the one to show me.
“I’m sorry, Lena,” he says. Above him the sign smolders
in the darkness: WARD SIX.

I
Chapter Twenty-Two
Humans, unregulated, are cruel and capricious;
violent and selfish;
miserable and quarrelsome. It is only after their
instincts and basic emotions
have been controlled that they can be happy,
generous, and good.
—The Book of Shhh
have a sudden dread of going any farther. That thing in the
pit of my stomach squeezes up like a fist, making it hard
to breathe. I can’t go on. I don’t want to know.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” I say. “He said—he said we
weren’t allowed.”
Alex reaches out for me like he’s thinking of touching me,
then remembers where we are and forces his arms to his
sides. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I have friends here.”
“It’s probably not even her.” My voice is rising a little, and
I’m worried I might have a meltdown. I lick my lips, trying to
keep it together. “It was probably just a big mistake. We
shouldn’t have come in the first place. I want to go home.” I
know I must sound like a toddler throwing a tantrum, but I
can’t help it. Walking through those double doors seems
absolutely impossible.
“Lena, come on. You have to trust me.” Then he does
reach out, for just a second, skating one finger across my
forearm. “Okay? Trust me.”
“I do trust you, it’s just …” The air, the stench, the
darkness and the sensation of rot all around me: It makes
me want to run. “If she isn’t here … Well, that’s bad. But if
she is … I think—I think it might be even worse.”
Alex watches me closely for a second. “You have to
know, Lena,” he says finally, firmly, and he’s right. I nod. He
gives me the barest flicker of a smile, then reaches forward
and heaves open the doors to Ward Six.
We step into a vestibule that looks exactly like what I
imagine a cell in the Crypts might be like: The walls and
floor are concrete, and whatever color they might once have
been painted has now faded to a dingy, mossy gray. A
single bulb is set high in the ceiling, and barely delivers
enough light to illuminate the tiny space. There is a stool in
the corner, occupied by a guard. This guard is actually
normal-sized—skinny, even, with acne pockmarks and hair
that reminds me of overcooked spaghetti. As soon as Alex
and I step through the door, the guard makes a small,
reflexive adjustment to his gun, drawing it closer toward his
body and swiveling the barrel ever so slightly in our
direction.
Alex stiffens beside me. All of a sudden, I feel very alert.
“Can’t be in here,” the guard says. “Restricted area.”
For the first time since entering the Crypts, Alex appears
uncomfortable. He fiddles nervously with his badge. “I—I
thought Thomas would be here.”
The guard gets to his feet. Amazingly, he’s not much
taller than I am—he’s certainly shorter than Alex—but of all
the guards I’ve seen today, he frightens me the most.
There’s something strange about his eyes, a flatness and
hardness that reminds me of a snake. I’ve never had a gun
pointed at me before, and staring into the long black tunnel
of its barrel makes me feel like I’m going to faint.
“Oh, he’s here, all right. He’s always here, nowadays.”
The guard smiles humorlessly, and his fingers dance
against the trigger. When he speaks his lips curl upward,
revealing a mouth full of crooked yellow teeth. “What do you
know about Thomas?”
The room takes on the stillness and charge of the air
outside, and reminds me of waiting for thunder to crack.
Alex allows himself one small indication of nervousness: He
curls and flexes his fingers against his thighs. I can almost
see him thinking, trying to figure out what to say next. He
must know that mentioning Thomas was a bad decision—
even I heard the contempt and suspicion in the guard’s
voice as he pronounced the name.
After what seems like a terribly long time—but is
probably only a few seconds—the blank, official look
sweeps down over his face again.
“We heard there was some kind of problem, that’s all.”
The statement is sufficiently vague, and a decent
assumption. Alex twirls his security badge idly between two
fingers. The guard flicks his eyes to it, and I can tell he
fingers. The guard flicks his eyes to it, and I can tell he
relaxes. Fortunately, he doesn’t try to look at it more closely.
Alex has only Level One security clearance in the labs,
which means he barely has the right to visit the janitor’s
closet, much less parade around restricted areas, there or
anywhere else in Portland, as though he owns them.
“Took you long enough,” the guard says flatly. “Thomas
has been out for months. All the better for CID, I guess. It’s
not the kind of thing we wanted to publicize.” The CID is the
Controlled Information Department (or, if you’re cynical like
Hana, the Corrupt Idiots Department or the Censorship
Implementation Department), and goose bumps prick up
on my arms. Something went very wrong in Ward Six if the
CID got involved.
“You know how it is,” Alex says. He has recovered from
his temporary slip-up; the confidence and ease return to his
voice. “Impossible to get a straight answer from anyone
over there.” Another vague statement, but the guard just
nods.
“You’re telling me.” Then he jerks his head in my
direction. “Who’s she?”
I can feel him staring at the unmarred skin on my neck,
noticing that I have no procedural mark. Like many people,
he unconsciously recoils—just a few inches, but enough so
that the old feeling of humiliation, the feeling of being
somehow wrong, creeps over me. I turn my eyes to the
ground.
“She’s nobody,” Alex says, and even though I know he
has to say it, it makes my chest ache dully. “I’m supposed
to be showing her the Crypts, that’s all. A re-educational
process, if you know what I mean.”
I hold my breath, certain that at any second he’ll boot us
out, almost wishing he would. And yet … Just beyond the
guard’s stool is a single door made out of a heavy, thick
metal, and protected by an electronic keypad. It reminds
me of the bank vault at Central Savings downtown. Through
it I can just make out distant sounds—human sounds, I
think, though it’s hard to tell.
My mother could be beyond that door. She could be in
there. Alex was right. I do have to know.
For the first time, I begin to understand, fully, what Alex
told me last night: All this time, my mother might have been
alive. While I was breathing; she was breathing too. While I
was sleeping, she was sleeping elsewhere. When I was
awake thinking of her, she might have been thinking of me,
too. It’s overwhelming, both miraculous and fiercely painful.
Alex and the guard eye each other for a minute. Alex
continues spinning his badge around one finger, winding
and unwinding the chain. It seems to put the guard at ease.
“I can’t let you back there,” he says, but this time he
sounds apologetic. He lowers his gun and sits down on the
stool again. I exhale quickly; I’ve been holding my breath
without meaning to.
“You’re just doing your job,” Alex says, keeping his voice
neutral. “So you’re Thomas’s replacement?”
“That’s right.” The guard flicks his eyes to me and again I
can feel his gaze lingering on my unmarked neck. I have to
stop myself from covering my skin with a hand. But he must
decide that we aren’t going to be trouble, because he looks
back to Alex and says, “Frank Dorset. Got reassigned from
Three in February—after the incident.”
Something about the way he says incident sends chills
up my spine.
“Tough breaks, huh?” Alex leans up against a wall, the
picture of casualness. Only I can detect the edge in his
voice. He’s stalling. He doesn’t know what to do from here,
or how to get us inside.
Frank shrugs. “Quieter up here, that’s for sure. Nobody in
or out. At least, almost nobody.” He smiles again, showing
off those awful teeth, but his eyes maintain their strange
flatness, as though there’s a curtain drawn over them. I
wonder if this, for him, was a side effect of the cure, or
whether he was always like that.
He tilts his head back, peering at Alex through narrowed
eyes, and his resemblance to a snake grows even
stronger. “So how’d you hear about Thomas?”
Alex keeps up the unconcerned act, smiling, twirling the
badge. “Rumors floating here and there,” he says,
shrugging. “You know how it is.”
“I know how it is,” Frank says. “But the CID wasn’t too
happy about it. Had us on lock for a few months. What
exactly did you hear, anyway?”
I can tell the question is an important one, some kind of
test. Be careful, I think in Alex’s direction, as though he
might somehow hear me.
Alex hesitates for only a second before saying, “Heard
he might have sympathies on the other side.”
Suddenly, it all makes sense: the fact that Alex said, “I
have friends here,” the fact that he has seemingly had
access to Ward Six in the past. One of the guards must
have been a sympathizer, maybe an active part of the
resistance. Alex’s constant refrain plays in my head: There
are more of us than you think.
Frank relaxes visibly. Apparently that was the right
answer. He seems to decide that Alex is, after all,
trustworthy. He strokes the barrel of his gun—which has
been resting casually between his knees—as though it is a
pet. “That’s right. Came as a total shock to me. ‘Course I
hardly knew him—saw him sometimes in the break room,
once or twice in the shitter, that’s about it. Kept to himself,
mostly. I guess it makes sense. Must have been getting
chatty with the Invalids.”
This is the first time I’ve heard anyone in an official
capacity acknowledge the existence of the people in the
Wilds, and I suck in a sharp breath. I know it must be painful
for Alex to stand there, talking dismissively about a friend
who has been caught for being a sympathizer. The
punishment must have been swift and severe, especially
since he was on the government payroll. Most likely he was
hanged or shot or electrocuted, or thrown into one of the
cells to rot—if the courts were merciful and decided against
a verdict of death by torture. If he even had a trial.
Amazingly, Alex’s voice doesn’t falter. “What was the tipoff?”
Frank keeps massaging his gun, and something about
Frank keeps massaging his gun, and something about
the motion—gentle, almost, like he’s willing it to life—
makes me feel sick. “No tip-off, exactly.” He sweeps his
hair off his face, revealing a splotchy red forehead, shiny
with sweat. It’s much hotter here than it was in the other
wards. The air must get trapped in these walls, rotting and
festering like everything else in this place. “It figures he
must have known something about the escape. He was in
charge of cell inspections. And the tunnel didn’t just sprout
up overnight.”
“The escape?” The words fly out of my mouth before I
can help it. My heart starts jolting painfully in my chest.
Nobody has ever escaped the Crypts, not ever.
For a moment Frank’s hand pauses on the gun, his
fingers once again performing a dance on the trigger.
“Sure,” he says, keeping his eyes on Alex, as though I’m not
even there. “You must have heard about it.”
Alex shrugs. “A little of this, a little of that. Nothing
confirmed.”
Frank laughs. It’s a terrible sound. It reminds me of the
time I saw two seagulls fighting in midair over a scrap of
food, screeching as they tumbled toward the ocean. “Oh,
it’s confirmed,” he says. “Happened back in February. We
got the alarm from Thomas, as a matter of fact. ‘Course if
he was in on it, she might have had a lead time of six,
seven hours.”
When he says the word she the walls seem to collapse
around me. I take a quick step backward, bumping up
against a wall. It could be her, I think, and for one horrible,
guilty second I’m disappointed. Then I remind myself that
she might not be here at all—and in any case, it could have
been anyone who escaped, any female sympathizer or
agitator. Still, the dizziness does not subside. I’m filled with
anxiety and fear and a desperate craving, all at once.
“What’s wrong with her?” Frank asks. His voice sounds
distant.
“Air,” I manage to force out. “It’s the air in here.”
Frank laughs again, that unpleasant cackling sound. “You
think it’s bad out here,” he says. “It’s paradise compared to
the cells.” He seems to take pleasure in this, and it reminds
me of a debate I had a few weeks ago with Alex, when he
was arguing against the usefulness of the cure. I said that
without love, there could also be no hate: without hate, no
violence. Hate isn’t the most dangerous thing, he’d said.
Indifference is.
Alex starts talking. His voice is low and still casual, but
there’s an undertone of force to it: the kind of voice street
peddlers lapse into when they are trying to get you to buy a
carton of bruised berries or a broken toy. It’s okay, I’ll give
you a deal, no problem, trust me. “Listen, just let us in for a
minute. That’s all it will take: a minute. You can tell she’s
already scared out of her mind. I had to come all the way
out here for this, day off and everything, I was going to go to
the pier, maybe try out some fishing. Point is, if I bring her
home and she’s not straightened out … well, you know,
chances are I’ll just have to haul out here again. And I only
have a couple days off, and summer’s almost over… .”
“Why all the trouble?” Frank says, jerking his head in my
direction. “If she’s causing problems, there’s an easy way
to fix her up.”
Alex smiles tightly. “Her father’s Steven Jones,
commissioner at the labs. He doesn’t want to do an early
procedure, no trouble, no violence or mess. Looks bad, you
know.”
It’s a bold lie. Frank could easily ask to see my ID card,
and then Alex and I are screwed. I’m not sure what the
punishment would be for infiltrating the Crypts under false
pretenses, but it can’t be good.
Frank appears interested in me for the first time. He
looks me up and down like I’m a grapefruit he’s evaluating
in the supermarket for ripeness, and for a moment he
doesn’t say anything.
Then, finally, he stands, slipping the gun onto his
shoulder. “Come on,” he says. “Five minutes.”
As he’s fiddling with the keypad, which requires both that
he type a code and scan his hand on some kind of
fingerprint-matching screen, Alex reaches out and takes my
elbow.
“Let’s go,” he says, making his voice gruff, like my little fit
has left him impatient. But his touch is gentle, and his hand
warm and reassuring. I wish he could keep it there, but after
only a second he lets me go again. I can read a plea, loud
and clear, in his eyes: Be strong. We’re almost there. Be
strong for just a little while longer.
The locks on the door release with a click. Frank leans
his shoulder against it, straining, and it slides open just
enough for us to squeeze by into the hallway beyond. Alex
goes first, then me, then Frank. The passage is so narrow
we have to go single file, and it’s even darker than the rest
of the Crypts.
But the smell is what really hits me: a horrible, rotting,
festering stink, like the Dumpsters by the harbor, the place
where all the fish intestines get discarded, on the hottest
day. Even Alex curses and coughs, covering his nose with
his hand.
Behind me, I can imagine Frank grinning. “Ward Six has
its own special perfume,” he says.
As we walk I can hear the barrel of his gun, slapping
against his thigh. I’m worried I might faint, and I want to
reach out and steady myself against the walls, but they are
coated with fungus and moisture. On either side of us,
bolted metal cell doors appear at intervals, each outfitted
with a single grimy window the size of a dinner plate.
Through the walls we can hear low moaning, a constant
vibration. It’s worse, somehow, than the screeches and
screams of earlier: This is the sound people make when
they’ve long ago given up hope that anyone is listening, a
reflexive sound, meant just to fill the time and the space and
the darkness.
I’m going to be sick. If Alex is correct, my mother is here,
behind one of these terrible doors—so close that if I could
rearrange the particles and make the stone melt away, I
might put my hand out and touch her. Closer than I ever
thought I would be to her again.
I am filled with competing thoughts and desires: My
I am filled with competing thoughts and desires: My
mother cannot be here; I would rather she was dead; I want
to see her alive. And filled, too, with that other word,
pressing itself underneath all my other thoughts: escape,
escape, escape. A possibility too fantastic to contemplate.
If my mother had been the one to break out, I would have
known. She would have come for me.
Ward Six consists of just the one long hallway. As far as I
can tell, there are about forty doors, forty separate cells.
“This is it,” Frank says. “The grand tour.” He pounds on
one of the very first doors. “Here’s your boy Thomas, if you
want to say hello.” Then he laughs again, that awful cackling
sound.
I think about what he said when we first entered the
vestibule: He’s always here, nowadays.
Ahead of us, Alex does not respond, but I think I see him
shudder.
Frank nudges me sharply in the back with the barrel of
his gun. “So what do you think?”
“Awful,” I croak out. My throat feels like it has been
encircled with barbed wire. Frank seems pleased.
“Better to listen and do as you’re told,” he says. “No use
ending up like this guy.”
We’ve paused in front of one of the cells. Frank nods
toward the tiny window, and I take a hesitant step forward,
pressing my face up to the glass. It’s so grimy it’s
practically opaque, but if I squint I can just make out a few
shapes in the obscurity of the cell: a single bed with a
flimsy, dirty mattress; a toilet; a bucket that looks like it
might be the human equivalent of a dog’s water bowl. At
first I think there’s a pile of old rags in the corner too, until I
realize that this thing is the “guy” Frank was pointing out: a
filthy, crouching heap of skin and bones and crazy, tangled
hair. He’s motionless, and his skin is so dirty it blends in
with the gray of the stone walls behind him. If it weren’t for
his eyes, rolling continuously back and forth as though he is
checking the air for insects, you would never know he was
alive. You would never even know he was human.
The thought flashes again: I would rather she be dead.
Not in this place. Anywhere but here.
Alex has continued down the hall, and I hear him draw in
his breath sharply. I look up. He is standing perfectly still,
and the expression on his face makes me afraid.
“What?” I say.
For a moment he doesn’t answer. He is staring at
something I cannot see—some door, presumably, farther
down the hall. Then he turns to me abruptly, a quick,
convulsive shake.
“Don’t,” he says, his voice a croak, and the fear surges,
overwhelms me.
“What is it?” I ask again. I start down the hall toward him.
It seems, all of a sudden, that he is very far away, and when
Frank speaks up behind me, his voice too sounds distant.
“That’s where she was,” he is saying. “Number oneeighteen.
Admin hasn’t coughed up the dough to get the
walls patched, yet, so for now we’re just leaving it as is. Not
a lot of money around here for improvements… .”
Alex is watching me. All his control and confidence has
vanished. His eyes are blazing with anger, or maybe pain;
his mouth is twisted into a grimace. My head feels full of
noise.
Alex holds up his hand like he’s thinking of blocking my
progress. Our eyes meet for just a second and something
flashes between us—a warning, or an apology, maybe—
and then I am pushing beyond him into cell 118.
In almost every way it is identical to the cells I’ve
glimpsed through the tiny hallway windows: a rough cement
floor; a rust-stained toilet, and a bucket full of water, in
which several cockroaches are revolving slowly; a tiny iron
bed with a paper-thin mattress, which someone has
dragged into the very center of the room.
But the walls.
The walls are covered—crammed—with writing. No. Not
writing. They are covered with a single four-letter word that
has been inscribed over and over, on every available
surface.
Love.
Looped huge and scratched, just barely, in the corners;
inscribed in graceful script and solid block lettering;
chipped, scratched, picked away, as though the walls are
slowly melting into poetry.
And on the ground, lying curled up against one wall, is a
dull silver chain with a charm still attached to it: a rubyencrusted
dagger whose blade has been worn down to a
small nub. My father’s charm. My mother’s necklace.
My mother.
All this time, during every long second of my life when I
believed her dead, she was here: scratching, burrowing,
chipping away, encased in the stone walls like a longburied
secret.
I feel, suddenly, as though I am back in my dream,
standing on a cliff as the solid ground disintegrates
underneath me, transforms into the sand in an hourglass,
running away under my feet. I feel the way I do in that
moment when I realize that all the ground has vanished, and
I am standing on a bare blade of air, ready to drop.
“It’s terrible, you see? Look at what the disease did to
her. Who knows how many hours she spent scrabbling
along these walls like a rat.”
Frank and Alex are standing behind me. Frank’s words
seem to be muffled by a layer of cloth. I take a step forward
into the cell, suddenly fixated on a shaft of light, extending
like a long golden finger from a space in the wall that has
been chipped clear away. The clouds must have begun to
break apart outside: Through the hole, on the other side of
the stone fortress, I see the flashing blue of the
Presumpscot River, and leaves shifting and tumbling over
one another, an avalanche of green and sun and the
perfume of wild, growing things. The Wilds.
So many hours, so many days, looping those same four
letters over and over: that strange and terrifying word, the
word that confined her here for over ten years.
And, ultimately, the word that helped her escape. In the
lower half of one wall, she has traced the word so many
times in such enormous script—LOVE, each letter the size
of a child—and gouged so deeply into the stone that the O
has formed a tunnel, and she has gotten out.

E
Chapter Twenty-Three
Food for the body, milk for your bones,
ice for the bleeding, a belly of stones.
—A folklore blessing
ven after the iron gates clang shut behind us and the
Crypts recedes in the distance, the feeling of being
penned in on all sides doesn’t go away. There’s still a
terrible, squeezing pressure in my chest, and I have to
struggle to suck in full breaths.
An ancient prison bus with a wheezing motor carries us
away from the border, to Deering. From there Alex and I
walk back toward the center of Portland, staying on
opposite sides of the sidewalk. Every couple of feet he
swivels his head to look at me, opening and closing his
mouth, like he’s pronouncing a series of inaudible words. I
know he’s worried about me, and probably waiting for me
to break down, but I can’t bring myself to meet his eyes or
speak to him. I keep my eyes locked straight ahead of me,
keep my feet cycling forward. Other than the terrible pain in
my chest and stomach, my body feels numb. I can’t feel the
ground underneath me or the wind zipping through the
trees, skating past my face; can’t feel the warmth of the sun,
which has, against all odds, broken through the terrible
black clouds, lighting the world up a strange greenish color,
as though everything is submerged under water.
When I was little and my mother died—when I thought
she’d died—I remember going out for my first-ever run and
getting hopelessly lost at the end of Congress, a street I’d
been playing on my whole life. I turned a corner and found
myself in front of the Bubble and Soap Cleaners and had
been suddenly unable to remember where I was, and
whether home was to the left or to the right. Nothing looked
the same. Everything looked like a painted replica of itself,
fragile and distorted, like I was caught in a fun house hall of
mirrors reflecting my regular world back to me.
That’s how I feel now, again. Lost and found and lost
again, all at once. And now I know somewhere in this world,
in the wildness on the other side of the fence, my mother is
alive and breathing and sweating and moving and thinking.
I wonder if she is thinking about me, and the pain shoots
deeper, makes me lose my breath completely so I have to
stop walking and double up, one hand on my stomach.
We’re still off-peninsula, not far from 37 Brooks, where
the houses are separated by large tracts of torn-up grass
and run-down gardens, full of litter. Still, there are people on
the streets, including a man I take for a regulator right away:
Even now, just before noon, he has a bullhorn swinging
from his neck and a wooden baton strapped to one thigh.
Alex must see him too. He stays a couple of feet away from
me, scanning the street, trying to appear unconcerned, but
he murmurs in my direction, “Can you move?”
I have to fight my way through the pain. It is radiating
through my whole body now, throbbing up into my head. “I
think so,” I gasp out.
“Alley. On your left. Go.”
I straighten up as much as I can—enough, at least, to
hobble into the alley between two larger buildings. Halfway
down the alley there are a few metal Dumpsters, arranged
parallel to one another, buzzing with flies. The smell is
disgusting, like being back in the Crypts, but I sink down
between them anyway, grateful for the concealment and the
chance to sit. As soon as I’m resting, the throbbing in my
head subsides. I tilt my head back against the brick, feel
the world swaying, a ship cut loose from its mooring.
Alex joins me a few moments later, squatting in front of
me, brushing the hair away from my face. It’s the first time
he’s been able to touch me all day.
“I’m sorry, Lena,” he says, and I know he really means it.
“I thought you’d want to know.”
“Twelve years,” I say simply. “I thought she was dead for
twelve years.”
For a while we stay there in silence. Alex rubs circles on
my shoulders, arms, and knees—anywhere he can reach,
really, like he’s desperate to maintain physical contact with
me. I wish I could close my eyes and be blown into dust and
nothingness, feel all my thoughts disperse like dandelion
fluff drifting off on the wind. But his hands keep pulling me
back: into the alley, and Portland, and a world that has
suddenly stopped making sense.
She’s out there somewhere, breathing, thirsty, eating,
walking, swimming. Impossible, now, to contemplate going
on with my life, impossible to imagine sleeping, and lacing
up my shoes for a run, and helping Carol load the dishes,
and even lying in the house with Alex, when I know that she
exists: that she is out there, orbiting as far from me as a
distant constellation.
Why didn’t she come for me? The thought flashes as
quickly and clearly as an electrical surge, bringing the pain
searing back. I squeeze my eyes shut, drop my head
forward, pray for it to pass. But I don’t know who to pray to.
All at once I can’t remember any words, can’t think of
anything but being in church when I was little and watching
the sun blaze up and then fade away beyond the stainedglass
windows, watching all that light die, leaving nothing
but dull panes of colored glass, tinny and insubstantiallooking.
“Hey. Look at me.”
Opening my eyes takes a tremendous effort. Alex looks
hazy, even though he’s crouching no more than a foot away
from me.
“You must be hungry,” he says gently. “Let’s get you
home, okay? Are you okay to walk?” He shuffles back a
little, giving me space to stand.
“No.” It comes out more emphatically than I’d intended,
and Alex looks startled.
“You’re not okay to walk?” A little crease appears
between his eyebrows.
“No.” It’s a struggle to keep my voice at a normal volume.
“No.” It’s a struggle to keep my voice at a normal volume.
“I mean I can’t go home. At all.”
Alex sighs and rubs his forehead. “We could go over to
Brooks for a while, hang out at the house for a bit. And
when you feel better—”
I cut him off. “You don’t get it.” A scream is welling inside
of me, a black insect scrabbling in my throat. All I can think
is: They knew. They all knew—Carol and Uncle William and
maybe even Rachel—and still they let me believe all along
that she was dead. They let me believe she had left me.
They let me believe I wasn’t worth it. I’m filled, suddenly,
with white-hot anger, a blaze: If I see them, if I go home, I
won’t be able to stop myself. I’ll burn the house down, or
tear it apart, plank by plank. “I want to run away with you. To
the Wilds. Like we talked about.”
I think Alex will be happy, but instead he just seems tired.
He looks away, squinting. “Listen, Lena, it’s been a really
long day. You’re exhausted. You’re hungry. You’re not
thinking clearly—”
“I am thinking clearly.” I haul myself to my feet so I don’t
look so helpless. I’m angry at Alex, too, even though I know
this isn’t his fault. But the fury is whipping around inside of
me, undirected, gaining force. “I can’t stay here, Alex. Not
anymore. Not after—not after that.” My throat spasms as I
swallow back the scream again. “They knew, Alex. They
knew and they never told me.”
He climbs to his feet too—slowly, like it hurts him. “You
don’t know that for sure,” he says.
“I do know,” I insist, and it’s true. I do know, deep down. I
think of my mother bent over me, the floating pale
whiteness of her face breaking through my sleep, her voice
—I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.—sung
quietly in my ear, the sad little smile dancing on her lips.
She knew too. She must have known they were coming for
her, and would take her to that terrible place. And only a
week later I sat in a scratchy black dress in front of an
empty coffin with a pile of orange peels to suck on, trying to
keep back tears, while everyone I believed in built around
me a solid, smooth surface of lies (“She was sick”; “This is
what the disease does”; “Suicide”). I was the one who was
really buried that day. “I can’t go home and I won’t. I’ll go
with you. We can make our home in the Wilds. Other
people do it, don’t they? Other people have done it. My
mother—” I want to say, My mother is going to do it, but my
voice breaks on the word.
Alex is watching me carefully. “Lena, if you leave—really
leave—it won’t be like it is for me now. You get that, right?
You won’t be able to go back and forth. You won’t be able
to come back ever. Your number will be invalidated.
Everyone will know you’re a resister. Everyone will be
looking for you. If anyone found you—if you were ever
caught …” Alex doesn’t finish his sentence.
“I don’t care,” I snap back. I’m no longer able to control
my temper. “You were the one who suggested it, weren’t
you? So what? Now that I’m ready to go, you take it back?”
“I’m just trying to—”
I cut Alex off again, rattling on, coasting on the anger, the
desire to shred and hurt and tear apart. “You’re just like
everybody else. You’re as bad as all the rest of them. Talk,
talk, talk—it comes so easily to you. But when it’s time to
do anything, when it’s time to help me—”
“I’m trying to help you,” Alex says sharply. “It’s a big deal.
Do you understand that? It’s a huge choice, and you’re
pissed, and you don’t know what you’re saying.” He’s
getting angry too. The tone of his voice makes something
painful run through me, but I can’t stop speaking. Destroy,
destroy, destroy: I want to break everything—him, me, us,
the whole city, the whole world.
“Don’t treat me like a child,” I say.
“Then stop acting like one,” he fires back. The second
the words are out of his mouth I can tell he regrets them. He
turns partially away, inhales, and then says, in a normal tone
of voice, “Listen, Lena. I’m really sorry. I know you’ve had—I
mean, with everything that happened today—I can’t
imagine how you must be feeling.”
It’s too late. Tears are blurring my vision. I turn away from
him and start chipping at the wall with a fingernail. A
minuscule portion of brick crumbles away. Watching it
tumble to the ground reminds me of my mother, and those
strange and terrifying walls, and the tears come faster.
“If you cared about me, you would take me away,” I say.
“If you cared about me at all you would go right now.”
“I do care about you,” Alex says.
“You don’t.” Now I know I am being childish, but I can’t
help it. “She didn’t either. She didn’t care at all.”
“That’s not true.”
“That’s not true.”
“Why didn’t she come for me, then?” I’m still turned away
from him, pressing a palm against the wall, hard; feeling
like it, too, might collapse at any second. “Where is she
now? Why didn’t she come looking for me?”
“You know why,” he says, more firmly. “You know what
would have happened if she was caught again—if she was
caught with you. It would have meant death for both of you.”
I know he’s right, but that doesn’t make it any better. I
keep going stubbornly, unable to stop myself. “It’s not that.
She doesn’t care, and you don’t care. Nobody cares.” I
draw my forearm across my face, swiping at my nose.
“Lena.” Alex puts a hand on each of my elbows and
guides me around to face him. When I refuse to meet his
eyes, he tilts my chin upward, forcing me to look at him.
“Magdalena,” he repeats, the first time since we met that he
has ever used my full name. “Your mother loved you. Do you
understand that? She loved you. She still loves you. She
wanted you to be safe.”
Heat rushes through me. For the first time in my life I am
not afraid of the word. Something seems to yawn open
inside of me, to stretch out, like a cat trying to soak up the
sun, and I’m desperate for him to say it again.
His voice is endlessly soft. His eyes are warm and
flecked with light, the color of the sun melting like butter
through the trees on a warm autumn evening.
“And I love you too.” His fingers skate the edge of my
jaw, dance briefly over my lips. “You should know that. You
have to know that.”
That’s when it happens.
That’s when it happens.
Standing there in-between two disgusting Dumpsters in
some crappy alley with the whole world crumbling down
around me, and hearing Alex say those words, all the fear I
have carried with me since I learned to sit, stand, breathe—
since I was told that at the very heart of me was something
wrong, something rotten and diseased, something to be
suppressed—since I was told that I was always just a
heartbeat away from being damaged—all of it vanishes at
once. That thing—the heart of hearts of me, the core of my
core—stretches and unfurls even further, soaring like a flag:
making me feel stronger than I ever have before.
I open my mouth and say, “I love you too.”
It’s strange, but after that moment in the alley I suddenly
understand the meaning of my full name, the reason my
mom named me Magdalena in the first place and the
meaning of the old biblical story, of Joseph and his
abandonment of Mary Magdalene. I understand that he
gave her up for a reason. He gave her up so she could be
saved, even though it killed him to let her go.
He gave her up for love.
I think, maybe, my mother had a sense even when I was
born that she would someday have to do the same thing. I
guess that’s just part of loving people: You have to give
things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up.
Alex and I talk about all the things I’ll be leaving behind to
go with him to the Wilds. He wants to be absolutely sure
that I know what we’re getting into. Stopping by Fat Cats
Bakery after closing and buying the day-old bagels and
cheddar buns for a dollar each; sitting out on the piers and
watching the gulls shriek and circle overhead; long runs up
by the farms when the dew glistens off every blade of grass
as though they’re encased in glass; the constant rhythm of
the oceans, beating under Portland like a heartbeat; the
narrow cobblestone streets of the old harbor, shops
crowded with bright, pretty clothes I could never afford.
Hana and Grace are my only regrets. The rest of
Portland can dissolve into nothing, for all I care: its shiny,
spindly false towers and blind storefronts and staring,
obedient people, bowing their heads to receive more lies,
like animals offering themselves up to be slaughtered.
“If we go together, it’s just you and me,” Alex keeps
repeating, as though needing to make sure I understand—
as though needing to be sure that I’m sure. “No going back.
Ever.”
And I say: “That’s all I want. Just you and me. Always.”
I mean it too. I’m not even afraid. Now that I know I’ll have
him—that we have each other—I feel as though I’ll never be
afraid of anything ever again.
We decide to leave Portland in a week, exactly nine days
before my scheduled procedure. I’m nervous about
delaying our departure so long—I’m halfway tempted to
make a straight run for the border fence and try to barge my
way through in broad daylight—but as usual, Alex calms me
down and explains the importance of waiting.
In the past few years he has made the crossing only a
handful of times. It’s too dangerous to go back and forth
more often than that. But in the next week, Alex will cross
twice before we make our final escape—an almost suicidal
risk, but he convinces me it’s necessary. Once he leaves
with me and starts missing work and class, he’ll be
invalidated too—even though, technically, his identity was
never really valid in the first place, since it was created by
the resistance.
And once we’re both invalidated, we’ll be erased from
the system. Gone. Blip! It will be as though we’ve never
existed. At least we can count on the fact that we won’t be
pursued into the Wilds. There won’t be any raiding parties.
No one will come looking for us. If they wanted to hunt us
down, they’d have to admit that we’d made it out of
Portland, that it was possible, that the Invalids exist.
We’ll be nothing more than ghosts, traces, memories—
and soon, as the cureds keep their eyes firmly focused on
the future, and the long procession of days to march
through—we won’t even be that.
Since Alex won’t be able to cross into Portland any
longer, we need to bring over as much food as we can, plus
clothes for the winter and anything else we can’t do without.
Invalids in the settlements are pretty good about sharing
supplies. Still, autumn and winter in the Wilds are always
hard, and after years of living in Portland, Alex isn’t exactly
a master hunter-gatherer.
We agree to meet at the house at midnight to continue
planning. I’ll bring him the first collection of belongings I
want to take with me: my photo album, a sheath of notes
Hana and I passed back and forth sophomore year in math
class, and whatever food I can smuggle from the storeroom
at the Stop-N-Save.
It’s almost three o’clock by the time Alex and I split up
and I head home. The clouds have mostly broken up, and
between them the sky is interwoven, a pale blue, like faded
and tattered silk. The air is warm but the wind is edged with
an autumn smell of cold and smoke. Soon all the lush
greens of the landscape will burn away into fierce reds and
oranges; and then those, too, will burn away, into the stark
black brittleness of winter. And I’ll be gone—out there
somewhere among the skinny, shivering trees, encased in
snow. But Alex will be with me, and we’ll be safe. We’ll walk
together holding hands, and kiss in broad daylight, and love
each other as much as we want to, and no one will ever try
to keep us apart.
Despite everything that happened today, I feel calmer
than I’ve ever been, as though the words Alex and I said to
each other today have wrapped me up in a protective haze.
I haven’t been running regularly for over a month. It has
been too hot, and until recently Carol has forbidden it. But
as soon as I get home I call Hana and ask her to meet me
at the tracks, our regular starting point, and she only laughs.
“I was about to call and ask you the same thing,” she
says.
“Great minds,” I say, her laughter getting lost for a
second in the fuzz that blasts through the receiver, as a
censor somewhere deep in Portland tunes into our
conversation momentarily. The old revolving eye, everturning,
ever-vigilant. Anger worms through me for a
second, but it disappears quickly. Soon I’ll be off the map
completely and forever.
I was hoping to get out of the house without seeing Carol,
but she intersects me on my way out the door. As always,
she’s been in the kitchen, endlessly repeating her cycle of
cooking and cleaning.
“Where have you been all day?” she asks.
“With Hana,” I answer automatically.
“And you’re going out again?”
“Just for a run.” Earlier I thought if I ever saw her again I
would tear at her face, or kill her. But now, looking at her, I
feel completely numb, like she’s a painted billboard or a
stranger passing on a bus.
“Dinner’s at seven thirty,” she says. “I’d like you to be
home to set the table.”
“I’ll be home,” I say. It occurs to me that this numbness,
this feeling of separation, must be what she and every
cured experiences all the time: as though there is a thick,
muffling pane of glass between you and everybody else.
Hardly anything penetrates. Hardly anything matters. They
say the cure is about happiness, but I understand now that it
isn’t, and it never was. It’s about fear: fear of pain, fear of
hurt, fear, fear, fear—a blind animal existence, bumping
between walls, shuffling between ever-narrowing hallways,
terrified and dull and stupid.
For the first time in my life I actually feel sorry for Carol.
I’m only seventeen years old, and I already know something
she doesn’t know: I know that life isn’t life if you just float
through it. I know that the whole point—the only point—is to
find the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for
them, and refuse to let them go.
“Okay.” Carol stands there, kind of awkwardly, like she
always does when she wants to say something meaningful
but can’t quite remember how to do it. “Two weeks until
your cure,” she says finally.
“Sixteen days,” I say, but in my head I’m counting: Seven
days. Seven days until I’m free, and away from all these
people and their sliding, superficial lives, brushing past one
another, gliding, gliding, gliding, from life to death. For
them, there’s hardly a change between the two.
“It’s okay to be nervous,” she says. This is the difficult
thing she has been trying to say, the words of comfort it has
cost her so much effort to remember. Poor Aunt Carol: a
life of dishes and dented cans of green beans and days
that bleed forever into one another. It occurs to me, then,
how old she looks. Her face is deeply lined, and her hair
has patches of gray. It’s only her eyes that have convinced
me she is ageless: those staring, filmy eyes that all cureds
share, as though they’re always looking off into some vast
distance. She must have been pretty when she was young,
before she was cured—
as tall as my mother at least, and probably just as thin—and
a mental image flashes of two teenage girls, both slender
black parentheses separated by a span of silver ocean,
kicking water at each other, laughing. These are the things
you do not give up.
“Oh, I’m not nervous,” I tell her. “Trust me. I can’t wait.”
Only seven more days.

H
Chapter Twenty-Four
What is beauty? Beauty is no more than a trick;
a delusion; the influence of
excited particles and electrons colliding in your
eyes, jostling in your brain
like a bunch of overeager schoolchildren, about
to be released on break. Will
you let yourself be deluded? Will you let yourself
be deceived?
—”On Beauty and Falsehood,”
The New Philosophy, by Ellen Dorpshire
ana’s already there when I arrive, leaning up against the
chain-link fence that encircles the track, head tilted back
and eyes closed against the sun. Her hair is loose and
spilling down her back, nearly white in the sun. I pause
when I’m fifteen feet away from her, wishing I could
memorize her exactly like that, hold that precise image in
my mind forever.
Then she opens her eyes and sees me. “We haven’t
even started to run yet,” she says, pushing off the fence and
making a big show of checking her watch, “and you’re
already coming in second.”
“Is that a challenge?” I say, closing the last ten feet
between us.
“Just a fact,” she says, grinning. Her smile flickers a little
as I get closer. “You look different.”
“I’m tired,” I say. It feels strange to greet each other with
no hug or anything, even though this is how things have
always been between us, how things have always had to
be. It feels strange that I’ve never told her how much she
means to me. “Long day.”
“You want to talk about it?” She squints at me. The
summer has made her tan. The sun-freckles on her nose
bunch up like a constellation of stars collapsing. I really
think she might be the most beautiful girl in Portland, maybe
in the whole world, and I feel a sharp pain behind my ribs,
thinking of how she’ll grow older and forget me. Someday
she’ll hardly think of all the time we spent together—when
she does, it will seem distant and faintly ridiculous, like the
memory of a dream whose details have already started to
ebb away.
“After we run, maybe,” I say, the only thing I can think to
say. You have to go forward: It’s the only way. You have to
go forward no matter what happens. This is the universal
law.
“After you eat dirt, you mean,” she says, bending forward
to stretch out her hamstrings.
“You talk a big game for someone who’s been lying on
her ass all summer.”
“You’re one to talk.” She tilts her head up to wink at me. “I
don’t think what you and Alex have been doing really counts
as exercise.”
“Shhh.”
“Relax, relax. No one’s around. I checked.”
It all seems so normal—so deliciously, wonderfully
normal—that I’m filled from head to toe with a joy that
makes me dizzy. The streets are striped with golden sun
and shadow, and the air smells like salt and the odor of
frying things and, faintly, seaweed washed up onto the
beaches. I want to hold this moment inside of me forever,
keep it safe, like a shadow-heart: my old life, my secret.
“Tag,” I say to Hana, giving her a tap on the shoulder.
“You’re it.”
And then I’m off and she’s yelping and leaping to catch
up, and we’re rounding the track and heading down to the
piers without hesitating or debating our route. My legs feel
strong, steady; the bite I got on the night of the raids has
healed well and completely, leaving just a thin red mark
along the back of my calf, like a smile. The cool air pumps
in and out of my lungs, aching, but it’s the good kind of pain:
the pain that reminds you how amazing it is to breathe, to
ache, to be able to feel at all. Salt stings my eyes and I blink
rapidly, not sure whether I’m sweating or crying.
It’s not the fastest run we’ve ever been on, but I think it
might be one of our best. We keep up the same exact
rhythm, running almost shoulder to shoulder, drawing a loop
from the old harbor all the way out to Eastern Prom.
We’re slower than we were at the start of the summer,
that’s for sure. At about the three-mile mark both of us are
starting to lag, and by silent agreement we both cut down
the sloping lawn onto the beach, flinging ourselves onto the
sand, starting to laugh.
“Two minutes,” Hana says, gasping. “I just need two
minutes.”
“Pathetic,” I say, even though I’m just as grateful for the
pause.
“Right back at you,” she says, lobbing a handful of sand
in my direction. Both of us flop onto our backs, arms and
legs flung apart like we’re about to make snow angels. The
sand is surprisingly cool on my skin, and a little damp. It
must have rained earlier after all, maybe when Alex and I
were in the Crypts. Thinking again of that tiny cell and the
words drilled straight through the wall, sun revolving through
the O as though beamed through a telescope, makes that
thing constrict in my chest again. Even now, this second,
my mother is out there somewhere—moving, breathing,
being.
Well, soon I’ll be out there too.
There are only a few people on the beach, mostly
families walking, and one old man, plodding slowly by the
water, staking his cane into the sand. The sun is sinking
farther beyond the clouds, and the bay is a hard gray, just
barely tinged with green.
“I can’t believe in only a few weeks we won’t have to
worry about curfew anymore,” Hana says, then swivels her
head to look at me. “Less than three weeks, for you.
Sixteen days, right?”
“Yeah.” I don’t like to lie to Hana so I sit up, wrapping my
“Yeah.” I don’t like to lie to Hana so I sit up, wrapping my
arms around my knees.
“I think on my first night cured I’m going to stay out all
night. Just because I can.” Hana props herself up on her
elbows. “We can make a plan to do it together—you and
me.” There’s a pleading note in her voice. I know I should
just say, Yeah, sure, or That sounds great. I know it would
make her feel better—it would make me feel better—to
pretend that life will go on as usual.
But I can’t force the words out. Instead I start blotting bits
of sand from my thighs with a thumb. “Listen, Hana. I have
to tell you something. About the procedure …”
“What about it?” She squints at me. She’s heard some
note of seriousness in my voice, and it has worried her.
“Promise you won’t be mad, okay? I won’t be able to—” I
stop myself before I can say, I won’t be able to leave if
you’re mad at me. I’m getting ahead of myself.
Hana sits up completely, holding up a hand, forcing a
laugh. “Let me guess. You’re jumping ship with Alex,
making a run for it, going all rogue and Invalid on me.” She
says it jokingly but there’s an edge to her voice, an
undercurrent of neediness. She wants me to contradict her.
I don’t say anything, though. For a minute we just stare at
each other, and all the light and energy drains from her face
at once.
“You’re not serious,” she says finally. “You can’t be
serious.”
“I have to, Hana,” I tell her quietly.
“When?” She bites her lip and looks away.
“We decided today. This morning.”
“No. I mean—when. When are you going?”
I hesitate for only a second. After this morning, I feel like I
don’t know very much about the world or anything in it. But I
do know that Hana would never, ever betray me—not now,
at least, not until they stick needles into her brain and pick
her apart, tease her into pieces. I realize now that that’s
what the cure does, after all: It fractures people, cuts them
off from themselves.
But by then—by the time they get to her—it will be too
late. “Friday,” I say. “A week from now.”
She breathes out sharply, the air whistling between her
teeth. “You can’t be serious,” she repeats.
“There’s nothing for me here,” I say.
She looks back at me then. Her eyes are enormous, and
I can tell I’ve hurt her. “I’m here.”
Suddenly the solution comes to me—simple, ridiculously
simple. I almost laugh out loud. “Come with us,” I burst out.
Hana scans the beach anxiously, but everyone has
dispersed: The old man has plodded on, halfway down the
beach by now and out of earshot. “I’m serious, Hana. You
could come with us. You’d love it in the Wilds. It’s
incredible. There
are whole settlements there—”
“You’ve been?” she cuts in sharply.
I blush, realizing I’d never told her about my night with
Alex in the Wilds. I know she’ll see this, too, as a betrayal. I
used to tell her everything. “Just once,” I say. “And only for a
couple of hours. It’s amazing, Hana. It’s not like we
imagined it at all. And the crossing … The fact that you can
cross at all … So much is different from what we’ve been
told. They’ve been lying to us, Hana.”
I stop, temporarily overwhelmed. Hana looks down,
picking at the seam of her running shorts.
“We could do it,” I say, more gently. “The three of us
together.”
For a long time Hana doesn’t say anything. She looks out
at the ocean, squinting. Finally she shakes her head, an
almost imperceptible movement, shooting me a sad smile.
“I’ll miss you, Lena,” she says, and my heart sinks.
“Hana—” I start to say, but she cuts me off.
“Or maybe I won’t miss you.” She heaves herself to her
feet, slapping the sand off her shorts. “That’s one of the
promises of the cure, right? No pain. Not that kind of pain,
anyway.”
“You don’t have to go through with it.” I scramble to my
feet. “Come to the Wilds.”
She lets out a hollow laugh. “And leave all this behind?”
She gestures around her. I can tell she’s half joking, but only
half. In the end, despite all her talk, and the underground
parties and forbidden music, Hana doesn’t want to give up
this life, this place: the only home we’ve ever known. Of
course, she has a life here: family, a future, a good match. I
have nothing.
The corners of Hana’s mouth are trembling and she
drops her head, kicking at the sand. I want to make her feel
better but can’t think of anything to say. There’s a frantic
aching in my chest. It seems like as we stand there I’m
watching my whole life with Hana, our entire friendship, fall
away: sleepover parties with forbidden midnight bowls of
popcorn; all the times we rehearsed for Evaluation Day,
when Hana would steal a pair of her father’s old glasses,
and bang on her desk with a ruler whenever I got an answer
wrong, and we always started choking with laughter halfway
through; the time she put a fist, hard, in Jillian Dawson’s
face because Jillian said my blood was diseased; eating
ice cream on the pier and dreaming of being paired and
living in identical houses, side by side. All of it is being
sucked into nothing, like sand getting swept up by a current.
“You know it’s not about you,” I say. I have to force the
words out, past a lump in my throat. “You and Grace are the
only people who matter to me here. Nothing else—” I break
off. “Everything else is nothing.”
“I know,” she says, but she still won’t look at me.
“They—they took my mother, Hana.” I wasn’t planning to
tell her, initially. I didn’t want to talk about it. But the words
rush out.
She glances up at me sharply. “What are you talking
about?”
I tell her the story of the Crypts then. Amazingly, I keep it
together. I just tell her about everything in detail. Ward Six
and the escape, the cell, the words. Hana listens in frozen
silence. I’ve never seen her so still and serious.
When I’m finished speaking, Hana’s face is white. She
looks exactly like she did when we were little and used to
stay up at night, trying to freak each other out by telling
ghost stories. In a way, I guess my mother’s story is a ghost
story. “I’m sorry, Lena,” she says, her voice barely a
whisper. “I don’t know what else to say. I’m so sorry.”
I nod, staring out at the ocean. I wonder whether what we
learned about the other parts of the world—the uncured
parts—is accurate, whether they’re really as wild and
ravaged and savage and full of pain as everyone has
always said. I’m pretty sure this, too, is a lie. Easier, in
many ways, to imagine a place like Portland—a place with
its own walls and barriers and half-truths, a place where
love still flickers into existence but imperfectly.
“You see why I have to leave,” I say. It’s not really a
question, but she nods.
“Yeah.” Hana gives her shoulders a tiny shake, as though
trying to rouse herself from a dream. Then she turns to me.
Even though her eyes are sad, she manages a smile. “You,
Lena Haloway,” she says, “are a legend.”
“Yeah, right.” I roll my eyes. But I feel better. She has
called me by my mother’s name, so I know she
understands. “A cautionary tale, maybe.”
“I’m serious.” She brushes her hair out of her face,
staring at me intently. “I was wrong, you know. Remember
what I said at the beginning of the summer? I thought you
were afraid. I thought you were too scared to take any
chances.” The sad smile tugs at her lips again. “Turns out
you’re braver than
I am.”
“Hana—”
“That’s okay.” She waves a hand, cutting me off. “You
deserve it. You deserve more.”
I don’t really know what to say to that. I want to hug her,
but instead I wrap my arms around my waist, squeezing.
The wind coming off the water is biting.
“I’ll miss you, Hana,” I say after a minute.
She walks a couple of steps toward the water, kicks
sand in an arc with the toe of her shoe. It seems to hang in
the air for a fraction of a second before scattering. “Well,
you know where I’ll be.”
We stand there for a while, listening to the tide sucking
on the shore, the water heaving and tumbling with bits of
rock: stone whittled to sand over thousands and thousands
of years. Someday maybe this will all be water. Someday
maybe it will all get sucked into dust.
Then Hana spins around and says, “Come on. Race you
back to the track,” and takes off, running, before I can say,
Okay.
“No fair!” I call after her. But I don’t try very hard to catch
up. I let her stay a few feet ahead of me and try to memorize
her exactly as she is: running, laughing, tan and happy and
beautiful and mine; blond hair flashing in the last rays of sun
like a torch, like a beacon of good things to come, and
better days ahead for us both.
Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both
when you have it and when you don’t.
But that isn’t it, exactly.
The condemner and the condemned. The executioner;
the blade; the last-minute reprieve; the gasping breath and
the rolling sky above you and the thank you, thank you,
thank you, God.
Love: It will kill you and save you, both.

I
Chapter Twenty-Five
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
—From the cautionary tale Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare, reprinted in 100 Quotes
to
Know for the Boards, by The Princeton Review
t’s cold when I make my way toward 37 Brooks sometime
after midnight, and I have to zip my nylon windbreaker up
all the way to my chin. The streets are as dark and still as
I’ve ever seen them. There isn’t a whisper of movement
anywhere, no curtains twitching in windows, no shadows
skating across walls and making me jump, no glittering
alley cat eyes or scrabbling rats’ feet or the distant
drumbeat of footsteps on the pavement, as the regulators
make their rounds. It’s as though everyone is already
braced for winter—as though the whole city is in the middle
of a deep freeze. It’s a little freaky, actually. I think again of
the house that somehow survived the blitz and now stands
out there in the Wilds, perfectly preserved but totally
uninhabited, with wildflowers growing through all its rooms.
I’m relieved when I turn the corner and see the rusty iron
fence that marks 37 Brooks’s periphery, feel a tremendous
rush of happiness when I think of Alex squatting in one of
the dark rooms, solemnly packing a backpack with
blankets and canned food. I haven’t realized until now that
at some point over the summer I began to think of 37
Brooks as home. I hitch my own backpack a little higher on
my shoulder and jog to the gate.
But something’s wrong with it: I rattle it a few times but it
doesn’t open. At first I think it’s stuck. Then I notice that
someone has looped a padlock through the gate. It looks
new, too. It glitters sharply in the moonlight when I tug it.
37 Brooks is locked.
I’m so surprised, I can’t even be frightened or suspicious.
My only thought is of Alex, and where he is, and whether
he’s responsible for the lock. Maybe, I think, he locked the
property to protect our stuff. Or maybe I’m early, or maybe
I’m late. I’m just about to try to swing myself over the fence
when Alex materializes from the darkness to my right,
stepping silently out of the shadows.
“Alex!” Though we’ve only been apart for a few hours, I’m
so happy to see him—soon he’ll be mine, openly and totally
—I forget to keep my voice down as I run to him.
“Shhh.” He wraps his arms around me as I practically
leap on top of him, and staggers backward a little. But
when I tilt my head up to look at him, he’s smiling, and I can
tell he’s just as happy as I am. He kisses the tip of my nose.
“We’re not safe yet.”
“Yeah, but soon.” I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him
softly. As always, the pressure of his lips on mine seems to
blot out everything bad in the world. I have to wrench myself
away from him, slapping his arm playfully as I do. “Thanks
for giving me a key, by the way.”
“A key?” Alex squints, confused.
“For the lock.” I try to squeeze him but he steps away
from me, shaking his head, his face suddenly stark white
and
terrified—and in that second I get it, we both do, and Alex
opens his mouth but it seems to take forever, and at the
exact moment I realize why I can suddenly see him so
clearly, framed in light, frozen like a deer caught in the
beams of a truck (the regulators are using floodlights
tonight), a voice booms out through the night: “Freeze! Both
of you! Hands on your head!” At the same time Alex’s voice
finally reaches me, urgent—”Go, Lena, go!” He’s already
backpedaling through the darkness, but it takes my feet
longer to move and by the time I do, running blindly and
without aim down the first street I see, the night has come
alive with mobile shadows—grabbing at me, shouting,
tearing at my hair—hundreds of them, it seems, pouring
down the hill, materializing out of the ground, from trees,
from air.
“Get her! Get her!”
My heart is bursting in my chest and I can’t breathe; I’ve
never been so scared; I’ll die from fright. More and more
shadows turn to people: all of them grabbing, screaming;
holding glittering metal weapons, guns and clubs, cans of
Mace. I duck and spin past rough hands, make a break for
the hill that cuts over to Brandon Road, but it’s no use. A
regulator grabs me roughly from behind. I barely shake off
his grasp before I’m pinballing off someone wearing a
guard’s uniform, feeling another pair of hands snatching at
me. The fear is a shadow now, a blanket: smothering me,
making it impossible to breathe.
A patrol car springs to life beside me, and the revolving
lights illuminate everything starkly but only for a second, and
the world around me pulses black, white, black, white,
moving forward in bursts, in slow motion.
A face contorted into a terrible scream; a dog leaping
from the left, teeth bared; someone shouting, “Take her
down! Take her down!”
Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe.
A high whistling sound, a scream; a club frozen
momentarily in the air.
A club falling; a dog jumping, snarling; searing pain,
straight through me, like heat.
Then blackness.
When I open my eyes the world seems to have broken
apart into a thousand pieces. All I see are tiny shards of
light, fuzzy and swirling like they’ve been shaken up by a
kaleidoscope. I blink several times, and slowly the shards
resolve and rearrange themselves into a bell-shaped light
and a cream-colored ceiling, marred by a large water stain
in the shape of an owl. My room. Home. I’m home.
For a second I feel relieved: My body is prickling, like I’ve
been stuck with needles all over my skin, and all I want to
do is lie back against the softness of my pillows and sink
into the darkness and oblivion of sleep, wait for the sharp
pain in my head to dissipate. Then I remember: the lock,
the attack, the swarming shadows. And Alex.
I don’t know what happened to Alex.
I flail, trying to sit up, but agonizing pain shoots from my
head down to my neck and forces me back against the
pillows, gasping. I close my eyes and hear the door to my
room scrape open: Voices swell suddenly from downstairs.
My aunt is talking to someone in the kitchen, a man whose
voice I don’t recognize. A regulator, probably.
Footsteps cross the room. I keep my eyes squeezed
tight, pretending to sleep, as someone leans across me. I
feel a warm breath tickle the side of my neck.
Then more footsteps coming up the stairs, and Jenny’s
voice, a hiss, at the door: “What are you doing here? Aunt
Carol told you to stay away. Now get downstairs before I
tell.”
The weight eases off the bed, and light footsteps patter
away, back into the hall. I crack my eyes open, the barest
squint, just enough to make out Grace as she ducks around
Jenny, who is standing in the doorway. She must have been
checking on me. I squeeze my eyes shut again as Jenny
takes several tentative steps toward the bed.
Then she pivots abruptly, as though she can’t leave the
room fast enough. I hear her call out, “Still asleep!” The
door scrapes closed again. But not before I hear, from the
kitchen, very clearly: “Who was it? Who infected her?”
This time, I force myself to sit, despite the pain knifing
through my head and neck and the terrible sensation of
swinging that accompanies every movement I make. I try to
stand but find my legs won’t hold me. Instead I sink to the
ground and crawl over to the door. Even on my hands and
knees the effort is exhausting, and I lie down on the ground,
shaking, as the room continues to rock back and forth like
some diabolical seesaw.
Fortunately, keeping my head to the ground makes it
easier to hear downstairs, and I catch my aunt saying, “You
must have at least seen him.” I’ve never heard her sound so
hysterical.
“Don’t worry,” the regulator says. “We’ll find him.”
This, at least, is a relief. Alex must have escaped. If the
regulators had any idea who had been with me on the
street—if they had even a suspicion—they would have him
in custody already. I say a silent prayer of gratitude that
Alex managed, miraculously, to make it to safety.
“We had no idea,” Carol says, still in that trembling,
urgent voice so unlike her regular measured tone. And now
I understand; she’s not just hysterical. She’s terrified. “You
have to believe that we had no idea she’d been infected.
There were no signs. Her appetite was the same. She went
to work on time. No mood swings …”
“She was probably trying her hardest to conceal the
signs,” the regulator cuts in. “The infected often do.” I can
practically hear the disgust in his voice when he
pronounces the word infected, like he’s actually saying
cockroach, or terrorist.
“What do we do now?” Carol’s voice is fainter now. She
and the regulator must be passing into the living room.
and the regulator must be passing into the living room.
“We’re putting in calls as fast as we can,” he replies.
“With any luck, before the end of the week …”
Their voices become indecipherable, a low hum. I rest
my forehead on the door for a minute, focusing on inhaling
and exhaling, breathing past the pain. Then I get to my feet,
carefully. The dizziness is still intense, and I have to brace
myself against the wall as soon as I’m standing, trying to
sort out my options. I have to find out what, exactly,
happened. I need to know how long the regulators had
been watching 37 Brooks, and I have to make absolutely
positive that Alex is safe. I need to talk to Hana. She’ll help
me. She’ll know what to do. I tug on the door handle before
realizing that it has been locked from the outside.
Of course. I’m a prisoner now.
As I’m standing there with my hand on the door handle, it
begins to rattle and turn. I turn as quickly as I am able and
dive back into the bed—even that hurts—just as the door
swings open again and Jenny re-enters.
I don’t shut my eyes fast enough. She calls back into the
hallway, “She’s awake now.” She is carrying a glass of
water but seems reluctant to come farther into the room.
She stays near the doorway, watching me.
I don’t particularly want to talk to Jenny, but I’m absolutely
desperate to drink. My throat feels like I’ve been swallowing
sandpaper.
“Is that for me?” I say, gesturing to the glass. My voice is
a croak.
Jenny nods, her lips stretched into a fine white line. For
once, she has nothing to say. She darts forward suddenly,
places the glass on the little rickety table next to the bed,
then darts away just as quickly. “Aunt Carol said it would
help.”
“Help what?” I take a long, grateful sip, and the burning in
my throat and head seems to ease up.
Jenny shrugs. “The infection, I guess.”
This explains why she’s staying by the door and doesn’t
want to get too close to me. I’m diseased, infected, dirty.
She’s worried she’s going to catch it. “You can’t get sick
just by being around me, you know,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says quickly, defensively, but stays frozen
where she is, watching me warily.
I feel impossibly tired. “What time is it?” I ask Jenny.
“Two thirty,” she says.
This surprises me. Relatively little time has passed since
I went to meet Alex. “How long was I out?”
She shrugs again. “You were unconscious when they
brought you home,” she says matter-of-factly, as though this
is a natural fact of life, or something I did—and not because
a bunch of regulators clubbed me on the back of the head.
That’s the irony of it. She’s looking at me like I’m the crazy
one, the dangerous one. Meanwhile, the guy downstairs
who nearly fractured my skull and bled my brains all over
the pavement is the savior.
I can’t stand to look at her, so I turn toward the wall.
“Where’s Grace?”
“Downstairs,” she says. Some of the normal whine
returns to her voice. “We had to set up sleeping bags in the
living room.”
Of course they’d want to keep Grace away from me:
young, impressionable Grace, safely sheltered from her
crazed, sick cousin. I do feel sick too, with anxiety and
disgust. I think of the fantasy I had earlier, of burning the
whole house down. It’s lucky for Aunt Carol I don’t have any
matches. Otherwise I just might do it.
“So who was it?” Jenny’s voice drops to a sinuous
whisper, like a little snake forking its tongue in my ear.
“Who was it who infected you?”
“Jenny.”
I turn my head, surprised to hear Rachel’s voice. She’s
standing in the doorway, watching us, her expression
completely unreadable.
“Aunt Carol wants you downstairs,” she says to Jenny,
and Jenny scurries eagerly for the door, shooting one last
look over her shoulder at me, her face a mixture of fear and
fascination. I wonder if that’s how I looked all those years
ago when Rachel got the deliria and had to be pinned
down on the floor by four regulators before she could be
dragged to the labs.
Rachel comes over to the bed, still watching me with that
same unreadable expression. “How are you feeling?” she
asks.
“Fabulous,” I say sarcastically, but she just blinks at me.
“Take these.” She lays out two white pills on the table.
“What are those? Tranquilizers?”
Her eyelids flutter. “Advil.” Irritation has crept into her
voice, and I’m glad of it. I don’t like that she’s standing
voice, and I’m glad of it. I don’t like that she’s standing
there, composed and detached, evaluating me like I’m a
taxidermy specimen.
“So … Carol called you?” I’m debating whether to trust
her about the Advil, but decide to risk it. My head is killing
me, and at this point I’m not sure how much more
damaging a tranquilizer would be. It’s not exactly like I can
make a break for the door in this condition, anyway. I
swallow the two pills with a large gulp of water.
“Yes. I came right away.” She sits on the bed. “I was
sleeping, you know.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you. I didn’t exactly ask to get
knocked out and dragged here.” I’ve never spoken to
Rachel this way, and I can see it surprises her. She rubs
her forehead tiredly, and for a second a glimpse of the
Rachel I used to know—my older sister Rachel, the one
who tortured me with tickles and braided my hair and
complained that I always got bigger scoops of ice cream—
flickers through.
Then the blankness is back, like a veil. It’s amazing how
I’ve always just accepted it, the way that most cureds seem
to walk through the world as though wrapped in a thick
cloak of sleep. Maybe it’s because I, too, was sleeping. It
wasn’t until Alex woke me up that I could see things clearly.
For a while Rachel doesn’t say anything else. I have
nothing to say to her, either, so we just sit there. I close my
eyes, waiting for the pain to begin ebbing away, trying to
sort out words from the tangle of voices downstairs and the
sounds of footsteps and muffled exclamations and the
television going in the kitchen, but I can’t make out any
television going in the kitchen, but I can’t make out any
specific conversations.
Finally Rachel says, “What happened tonight, Lena?”
When I open my eyes, I see she’s staring at me again.
“You think I’ll tell you?”
She gives a minute shake of her head. “I’m your sister.”
“As if that means something to you.”
She recoils slightly, just a fraction of an inch. When she
speaks again her voice is flinty. “Who was he? Who
infected you?”
“That’s the question of the evening, isn’t it?” I roll away
from her, facing the wall, feeling cold. “If you came here to
grill me, you’re wasting your time. You might as well go
home again.”
“I came here because I’m worried,” she says.
“About what? About the family? About our reputation?” I
keep staring stubbornly at the wall, pulling the thin summer
blanket all the way to my neck. “Or maybe you’re worried
that everyone will think you knew? Maybe you think you’ll
get labeled a sympathizer?”
“Don’t be difficult.” She sighs. “I’m worried about you. I
care, Lena. I want you to be safe. I want you to be happy.”
I swivel my head to look at her, feeling a rush of anger—
and, deeper than that, hatred. I hate her; I hate her for lying
to me. I hate her for pretending to care, for even using that
word in my presence. “You’re a liar,” I spit out. Then, “You
knew about Mom.”
This time the veil drops. She jerks back. “What are you
talking about?”
“You knew that she didn’t—that she didn’t really kill
herself. You knew that they took her.”
Rachel squints at me. “I really have no idea what you’re
talking about, Lena.”
And I can tell, then, that at least I’m wrong about this.
Rachel doesn’t know. She never knew. I feel a twin flood of
relief and regret.
“Rachel,” I say, more gently. “She was in the Crypts.
She’s been in the Crypts this whole time.”
Rachel stares at me for one long second, her mouth
falling open. Then she stands abruptly, smoothing down the
front of her pants as though brushing away invisible crumbs.
“Listen, Lena … You got bumped on the head pretty badly.”
Again, as though I’ve somehow done it myself. “You’re
tired. You’re confused.”
I don’t correct her. There’s no point. It’s too late for
Rachel, anyway. She will always exist behind the wall. She
will always be asleep.
“You should try to get some sleep,” she says. “I’ll refill
your water.” She takes the glass and then moves toward
the door, switching off the overhead light as she goes. She
pauses in the doorway for a bit with her back turned to me.
The light from the hallway looks fuzzy around her, and
makes her features blur to black so she looks like a
shadow-person, a silhouette.
“You know, Lena,” she says at last, turning back around
to face me, “things are going to get better. I know you feel
angry. I know you think we don’t understand. But I do
understand.” She breaks off, staring down into the empty
glass. “I was just like you. I remember: those feelings, that
anger and passion, the sense that you can’t live without it,
that you’d rather die.” She sighs. “But trust me, Lena. It’s all
part of the disease. It’s a sickness. In a few days you’ll see.
This will all feel like a dream to you. It was like a dream to
me.”
“And you’re happier now? You’re glad you did it?” I ask
her. Maybe she takes my question as a sign that I’m listening
and paying attention. In any case, she smiles. “Much,” she
says.
“Then you’re not just like me,” I whisper fiercely. “You’re
not like me at all.”
Rachel opens her mouth to say something else, but at
that moment Carol comes to the door. Her face is flushed
and red and her hair is sticking up at strange angles, but
when she speaks she sounds calm. “Everything’s all right,”
she says in a low voice to Rachel. “Everything’s been
settled.”
“Thank God,” Rachel says. Then, grimly: “But she won’t
go willingly.”
“Do they ever?” Carol asks drily. Then she disappears
again.
Carol’s tone of voice has frightened me. I try to sit up on
my elbows, but my arms feel like they’ve been turned to
Jell-O. “What’s settled?” I ask, surprised to hear that my
voice sounds slurry.
Rachel looks at me for a second. “I told you, we just want
you to be safe,” she says flatly.
“What did you settle?” Panic is filling me, made even
worse by the simultaneous heaviness that seems to be
creeping over me. I have to struggle to keep my eyes open.
“Your procedure.” That’s Carol. She has just stepped
back into the room. “We managed to get you in early. You’ll
have your cure on Sunday, first thing in the morning. After
that, we hope, you’ll be okay.”
“Impossible.” I’m choking. Sunday morning is less than
forty-eight hours from now. No time to alert Alex—no time to
plan our escape. No time to do anything. “I won’t do it.” My
voice doesn’t even sound like my own now: It’s one long
groan.
“Someday you’ll understand,” Carol says. Both she and
Rachel are advancing toward me, and then I see that they
are holding, stretched between them, coils of nylon cord.
“Someday you’ll thank us.”
I try to thrash out but my body is impossibly heavy and my
vision starts to blur. Clouds roll through my mind; the world
goes to fuzz. I think, So she was lying about the Advil—
and then I think, That hurts, as something sharp digs deep
into my wrists, and then I don’t think anything at all.

W
Chapter Twenty-Six
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
—From “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in,” a poem by
e. e. cummings, banned, listed in the Comprehensive
Compilation
of Dangerous Words and Ideas, www.ccdwi.gov.org
hen I wake up again it’s because someone is
repeating my name. As I struggle into consciousness I
see wisps of blond hair, like a halo, and for a confused
moment think maybe I’ve died. Maybe the scientists were
wrong and heaven isn’t just for the cured.
Then Hana’s features sharpen, and I realize she’s
leaning over me. “Are you awake?” she’s saying. “Can you
hear me?”
I groan and she sits back a little, exhaling. “Thank God,”
she says. She’s keeping her voice to a whisper and she
looks frightened. “You were so still I thought for a minute
that you—that they—” She breaks off. “How do you feel?”
“Shitty,” I croak loudly, and Hana winces and looks over
her shoulder. I notice a shadow flitting just outside the
bedroom door. Of course. Her visit is being monitored.
Either that or someone is on 24/7 guard duty. Probably
both.
My headache is slightly better, at least, although now
there’s a searing pain in both of my shoulders. I’m still pretty
groggy, and I try to adjust my position before remembering
Carol, and Rachel, and the nylon cord, and realizing that
both of my arms are stretched above my head and secured
to the headboard, like a real honest-to-God prisoner. The
anger comes again, waves of it, followed by panic as I
remember what Carol said: My procedure has been moved
to Sunday morning.
I swivel my head to one side. Sunlight is streaming in
through the thin plastic blinds, which have been drawn down
over the windows, lighting up dust motes in the room.
“What time is it?” I struggle to sit up and yelp as the
cords bite farther into my wrists. “What day is it?”
“Shhh.” Hana presses me back against the bed, holding
me there as I squirm underneath her. “It’s Saturday. Three
o’clock.”
“You don’t understand.” Every word grates against my
throat. “They’re taking me to the labs tomorrow. They
moved my procedure—”
“I know. I heard.” Hana is staring at me intently, like she’s
trying to communicate something important. “I came as
soon as I could.”
Even the brief struggle has left me exhausted. I sink back
against the pillows. My left arm has gone totally numb from
being elevated all night and the numbness seeps through
me, turning my insides to ice. Hopeless. The whole thing is
hopeless. I’ve lost Alex forever.
“How did you hear?” I ask Hana.
“Everyone’s talking about it.” She gets up, goes to her
bag, and rummages around before pulling out a water
bottle. Then she comes back and kneels by the bed so
we’re eye-to-eye. “Drink this,” she says. “It will make you
feel better.” She has to hold the bottle to my lips like I’m an
infant. Kind of embarrassing, but I’m long past caring.
The water kills some of the fire in my throat. She’s right; it
does make me feel slightly better. “Do people know … are
they saying … ?” I lick my lips and shoot a glance over
Hana’s shoulder. The shadow is there; as it shifts, I make
out the flicker of a candy-striped apron. I drop my voice to a
whisper. “Are they saying who … ?”
Hana says, overly loud, “Don’t be stubborn, Lena. They’ll
find out who infected you sooner or later. You might as well
just tell us who it was now.” This little speech is for Carol’s
benefit, obviously. As she speaks Hana gives me a little
wink and a minute shake of her head. So Alex is safe.
Maybe there’s hope after all.
I mouth to Hana, Alex. Then I jut my chin at her, hoping
she’ll understand that I want her to go find him, and tell him
what happened.
Her eyes flicker, and the little smile dies from her lips. I
can tell she’s about to give me bad news. Still enunciating
her words loudly and clearly, she says, “It’s not just
stubborn, Lena. It’s selfish. If you tell them, maybe they’ll
realize I had nothing to do with it. I don’t like being babysat
twenty-four seven.” My heart sinks: Of course they’ve put a
tail on Hana. They must suspect her of being involved in
some way, or at least of having information.
Maybe it’s selfish, but at that moment I can’t even feel
sorry for her, or for the trouble I’ve caused. I can only feel
bitterly disappointed. There’s no way for her to get word to
Alex without bringing the whole Portland police force down
on his head. And if they find out he’s been masquerading
as a cured and helping the resistance … well, I doubt they’d
bother with a trial. They’d skip straight to the execution.
Hana must read the despair on my face. “I’m sorry,
Lena,” she says, this time in a whisper. “You know I would
help if I could.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t.” As soon as the words are out of
my mouth, I regret them. Hana looks terrible, almost as bad
as I feel. Her eyes are puffy and her nose is red, like she’s
recently been crying, and it’s obvious she really did rush
here as soon as she heard. She’s wearing her running
shoes, a pleated skirt, and the oversized tank top she
usually sleeps in, as though she got dressed in the first
items of clothing she pulled off her floor.
“I’m sorry,” I say, less sharply. “You know I didn’t mean
that.”
“That’s okay.” She moves off the bed and starts pacing,
like she always does when she’s thinking. For one second
—one tiny fraction of a second—I almost wish I had never
met Alex at all. I wish I could rewind back to the very
beginning of the summer, when everything was so clear
and simple and easy; or rewind even further, to the late fall,
when Hana and I did our loops around the Governor and
studied for calculus exams on the floor of her room and the
days clicked forward toward my procedure like dominoes
falling in a line.
The Governor. Where Alex first saw me; where he left a
note for me.
And then, just like that, I have an idea.
I struggle to keep my voice casual. “So what happened
to Allison Doveney?” I say. “She didn’t want to say goodbye?”
Hana whips around to stare at me. Allison Doveney was
always our code, our name for Alex whenever we needed
to talk about him on the phone or in emails. She draws her
eyebrows together. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with
her,” she says carefully. The look on her face says I
explained this to you already.
I raise my eyebrows at her, like, Trust me. “It would be
nice to see her before the procedure tomorrow.” I hope
Carol is listening, and takes this as a sign that I’ve resigned
myself to the change in plans. “Things will be different after
the cure.”
Hana shrugs, spreads her arms. What do you want me
to do?
I heave a sigh, and seemingly switch topics. “Do you
remember Mr. Raider’s class? In fifth grade? How we used
to pass notes back and forth all day?”
“Yeah,” Hana says warily. She still looks confused. I can
tell she’s beginning to worry that the bump on my head has
affected my ability to think clearly.
I sigh again, exaggeratedly, like just reliving all the good
times we had together is making me nostalgic. “Do you
remember how he caught us and made us sit across the
room from each other? So every time we wanted to say
something to each other we would get up and sharpen our
pencils, and leave a little note in that empty flower pot in the
back of the class.” I force a laugh. “One day I must have
sharpened my pencil seventeen times. And he never
caught on, not once.”
A little light goes on in Hana’s eyes, and she grows very
still and super alert, the way that deer do when they are
listening for predators, right before bolting—even as she
laughs and says, “Yeah, I remember. Poor Mr. Raider. So
clueless.”
Despite her offhanded tone, Hana lowers herself onto
Grace’s bed, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees
and staring at me intently. And now I know she knows what
I’ m really telling her, while I’m rambling about Allison
Doveney and Mr. Raider’s class: She needs to get a note
to Alex.
I switch topics again. “And do you remember the first
time we ever did a long run? Afterward my legs were like
jelly. And the first time we ever ran from West End to the
Governor? And I jumped up and slapped his hand like I was
giving him a high five.”
Hana narrows her eyes at me ever so slightly. “We’ve
been abusing him for years,” she says carefully, and I know
she doesn’t quite get it, not yet.
I make sure to keep all tension and excitement out of my
voice. “You know, someone told me that he used to be
carrying something. The Governor, I mean. A torch or a
scroll or something. Now he just has that little empty space
in his fist.” That’s it: I’ve said it. Hana inhales sharply and I
know now she understands, but just to make sure I say,
“Will you do me a favor? Will you do that run for me today?
One last time?”
“Don’t be melodramatic, Lena. The cure works on your
brain, not your legs. You’ll still be able to run after
tomorrow.” Hana answers flippantly, just the way she
should, but she’s smiling now, and nodding at me. Yes. I’ll
do it. And I’ll hide the note there. Hope pulses through me,
a warm glow, burning off some of the pain.
“Yeah, but it will be different,” I whine. Carol’s face
flashes momentarily at the door, which is open just a crack.
She looks satisfied. It must seem to her like I’ve come to
terms with having the procedure after all. “Besides,
something could go wrong.”
“It won’t go wrong.” Hana stands up and stares at me for
a moment. “I promise,” she says slowly, giving each word
weight, “that everything will go perfectly.”
My heart skips a beat. This time, she was giving me a
message, and I know she wasn’t talking about the
procedure.
“I should get out of here,” she says, moving to the door,
practically skipping now. I realize that if this works—if Hana
does somehow manage to transmit a message to Alex,
and if he somehow manages to break me out of my houseturned-
prison-cell—this really will be the last time I ever see
Hana.
“Wait,” I call out, when she’s almost at the door.
“What?” She whips around. Her eyes are shining; she’s
excited now, ready to go. For a moment, standing in the
fuzzy haze of sunlight still penetrating the blinds, she
appears to be glowing, as though lit up by some internal
flame. And now I know why they invented words for love,
why they had to: It’s the only thing that can come close to
describing what I feel in that moment, the baffling mixture of
pain and pleasure and fear and joy, all running sharply
through me at once.
“What’s wrong?” Hana repeats impatiently, jogging a
little in place. I know she’s eager to get going and put the
plan into action. I love you, I think, but what I say, gasping a
little, is: “Have a good run.”
“Oh, I will,” she says, and then, just like that, she’s gone.

I
Chapter Twenty-Seven
He who leaps for the sky may fall, it’s true.
But he may also fly.
—Ancient saying, provenance unknown, listed in the
Comprehensive Compilation of Dangerous Words and
Ideas,
www.ccdwi.gov.org
‘ve known time to stretch out like rings expanding outward
over water; I’ve also known it to rush by with such force it
leaves me dizzy. But until today I’ve never known it to do
both at the same time. The minutes seem to swell around
me, to stifle me with their sluggishness. I watch the light
move by centimeters over the ceiling. I fight the pain in my
head and my shoulder blades. The numbness radiates from
my left arm to my right. A fly circles the room, buzzing up
against the blinds over and over, trying to fight its way
outside. Eventually it drops from the air, exhausted, hitting
the floor with a tiny pinging sound.
Sorry, buddy. I sympathize.
At the same time, I’m terrified when I see how many
hours have gone by since Hana’s visit. Every hour brings
me closer to the procedure, closer to leaving Alex, and
even as each minute seems to take an hour, each hour
seems to fly by in a minute. I wish I had some way of
knowing whether Hana successfully hid a note at the
Governor. Even if she did, there’s only the barest hope that
Alex will think of looking there for word from me—the
skinniest hope, the edge of an edge.
But still hope.
I haven’t even thought about the other obstacles that
stand in the way of my escape—like the fact that I’m strung
up like a salami, or the fact that either Carol or Uncle
William or Rachel or Jenny is always stationed just outside
the door. Call it denial or stubbornness or craziness, but I
just have to believe that Alex will come and rescue me—
like in one of the fairy tales he told me about on our walk
back from the Wilds, where the prince springs a princess
from a locked tower, slaying dragons and fighting forests of
poisonous thorns just to get to her.
In the late afternoon Rachel comes in with a bowl of
steaming soup. She sits down on my bed wordlessly.
“More Advil?” I ask her sarcastically, as she offers me a
spoonful.
“You feel better now that you’ve slept, don’t you?” she
returns.
“I’d feel better if I weren’t tied up.”
“It’s for your own good,” she says, making another
gesture to my mouth with the spoon.
The last thing I want to do is accept food from Rachel, but
if Alex does come for me (when; when he comes for me; I
have to keep believing), I’ll need to have my strength up.
Besides, maybe if Carol and Rachel really believe that I’ve
given up on the idea of resisting, they’ll loosen up my
restraints or stop standing watch outside the bedroom
door, giving me the opportunity to escape.
So I take a long slurp of soup, force a tight smile, and
say, “Not bad.”
Rachel beams at me. “You can have as much as you
want,” she says. “You need to be in good shape for
tomorrow.”
Amen, sister, I think, and drain the whole bowl before
asking for seconds.
More minutes: a slow drag, like a weight pulling me
under. But then, suddenly, the light in the bedroom turns the
warm color of honey, and then the trembling yellow of fresh
cream, and then begins swirling away from the walls
altogether, like water going down a drain. I haven’t really
expected Alex to show up before night—that would be
suicide—but pain throbs deep in my chest anyway. There’s
almost no time left.
Dinner is more soup, topped with soggy chunks of
bread. This time it’s Carol who brings the meal to me while
Rachel stands outside. Carol unties my hands briefly after I
beg her to let me use the bathroom, but she insists on
accompanying me to the toilet and standing there while I
pee, which is more than humiliating. My legs are unsteady
and the pain in my head worsens when I stand. There are
deep grooves in my wrists—the nylon cord has left its mark
—and my arms are like two dead weights, swinging
—and my arms are like two dead weights, swinging
lifelessly from my shoulders. When Carol goes to restrain
me again I consider resisting—even though she’s taller
than I am, I’m definitely stronger—but think better of it. The
house is full of people, my uncle included, and for all I know
there are still some regulators hanging out downstairs.
They’d have me secured and sedated within minutes, and I
can’t afford to be put under again. I have to be awake and
alert tonight. If Alex doesn’t come I’ll need to generate a
plan of my own.
One thing is certain: I won’t have the procedure
tomorrow. I’d rather die.
Instead I concentrate on tensing my muscles as hard as I
can while Carol ties me up. When I relax again there’s a tiny
bit of wiggle room, just a fraction of an inch. Maybe enough
to give me the chance to work my way out of my makeshift
handcuffs. More good news: As the day has worn on,
everyone has gotten a little more lax about guarding the
bedroom constantly, just as I’d hoped. Rachel abandons
her shift for five minutes to go to the bathroom; Jenny
spends most of the time lecturing Grace about the rules to
some game she has invented; Carol leaves her post for half
an hour when she goes to do the dishes. After dinner, Uncle
William takes over. I’m glad of it. He has a little portable
radio with him. I hope he’ll nod off the way he usually does
after eating.
And then maybe—just maybe—I’ll be able to bust out of
here.
By nine o’clock all the light in the room has swirled away
and I’m left in darkness, shadows draped like fabric over
and I’m left in darkness, shadows draped like fabric over
the walls. The moon is large and bright, coming through the
blinds and barely outlining everything in a hazy silver glow.
Uncle William is still outside, listening to the radio on low,
an indecipherable static. Noises float up through the floor—
water rushing in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom,
voices murmuring downstairs and the scuffling of padded
feet—the final coughs and shakes before the house will fall
silent for the night, like a person in the middle of death
throes. Jenny and Grace still aren’t allowed to sleep in the
room with me. I assume they’re all settling down to sleep in
the living room.
Rachel comes in one last time, carrying a glass of water.
It’s difficult to tell in the darkness, but it looks suspiciously
cloudy, like someone has dissolved something in it.
“I’m not thirsty,” I say.
“Just a few sips.”
“Seriously, Rachel. I’m not thirsty.”
“Don’t be difficult, Lena.” She sits down on the bed and
forces the water to my lips. “You’ve been so good all day.”
I have no choice but to take a few mouthfuls—tasting, as I
do, the acrid sting of medication. Definitely laced with
something—more sleeping pills, no doubt. I hold the water
in my mouth, refusing to swallow, and as soon as she
stands and turns back to the door, I turn my head and let the
water run out onto my pillow, into my hair. It’s kind of gross,
but better than the alternative. Wetness seeps into my
pillow, temporarily cooling the sting of pain in my shoulders.
Rachel hesitates at the door as though she’s trying to
think of something meaningful to say. But all she comes up
with is, “See you in the morning.”
Not if I can help it, I think, but I don’t say anything. Then
she leaves me, closing the door behind her.
And then I’m left in total darkness, with just the passing of
the hours, the minutes ticking forward. And as I lie there
with nothing to do but think—as the house settles and goes
silent around me—the fear returns, a terrible fog. I tell
myself he must come—he has to—but the clock creeps
forward, taunting me, and outside the streets are silent
except for the occasional barking of a dog.
To keep my mind from cycling endlessly around the
same question (Will Alex come, or won’t he?), I try to think
of all the ways to kill myself on the way to the labs. If there’s
any commercial traffic at all on Congress, I throw myself in
front of one of the trucks. Or maybe I can make a break for
the docks. It shouldn’t be too difficult to drown, especially if
my hands are still tied. If worse comes to worst I can try to
fight my way to the roof of the labs, like that girl did all those
years ago, dropping out of the sky like a stone, cleaving the
clouds.
I think of the image that was beamed onto televisions
everywhere that day, the small trickle of blood, the strange
expression of restfulness on her face. Now I understand. It
sounds sick, but generating these plans actually makes me
feel better, beats back the terrible flutterings of anxiety and
fear inside of me. I’d rather die on my own terms than live
on theirs. I’d rather die loving Alex than live without him.
Please, God, make him come for me.
I’ll never ask for anything again.
I’ll give up anything and everything I have.
Just please make him come.
At midnight the fear turns, suddenly, to desperation. If
he’s not coming, I’ll have to get out of here myself.
I work my hands in their restraints, trying to leverage that
extra centimeter of space. The cord cuts deeply into my
skin, and I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out in the
dark. No matter how I pull and tug and twist, the cord
refuses to relax any further, but still I keep trying, until sweat
is dripping down along my hairline and I’m worried that if I
thrash any harder it will attract someone into the room.
Something wet trickles down along my forearm, and when I
crane my head backward I see a thick, dark line of blood
streaking my skin, like an awful black snake: All my
struggling has caused my skin to chafe away.
Outside, the streets are as quiet as they’ve ever been,
and in that moment I know that it’s hopeless: I won’t be able
to escape on my own. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and my aunt
and Rachel and the regulators will escort me downtown,
and the only chance of escape I’ll have will be into the
ocean, or off the roof of the laboratories.
I think of Alex’s molten honey eyes and the softness of
his touch and sleeping under a canopy of stars, stretched
out above our heads like they were placed there just for us.
Now, after so many years, I understand what the Coldness
was and where it came from—this sense that everything is
lost, and worthless, and meaningless. Finally, the cold and
the despair turn merciful, dropping down on my mind like a
the despair turn merciful, dropping down on my mind like a
dark veil, and miracle of miracles, I sleep.
I wake sometime later in ink purple darkness with the
sensation of someone in the room, some loosening of the
restraints on my wrists. For a second my heart soars and I
think, Alex, but then I look up and see Gracie, perched at
the head of my bed, working at the cords binding me to the
headboard. She is pulling and untwisting and bending
forward, occasionally, to chew at the nylon with her teeth,
giving the impression of a quiet and industrious animal
gnawing its way through a fence.
Just like that, the cord snaps and I’m free. The pain in my
shoulders is agonizing; my arms are full of a thousand
pinpricks. But still, in that moment of release, I could shout
and jump for joy. This is how my mother must have felt when
she saw the first shaft of sunlight penetrate the fissure in her
stone prison walls.
I sit up, rubbing my wrists. Gracie crouches against the
headboard, watching me, and I lean forward and wrap her
up in a big hug. She smells like apple soap and a little like
sweat. Her skin is hot, and I can’t think of how nervous she
must have been, sneaking up to my room. I’m surprised by
how thin and fragile she feels, trembling ever so slightly in
my arms.
But she’s not fragile—not by a long shot. Gracie is
strong, I realize, perhaps stronger than any of us. It occurs
to me that for a long time she has been doing her own
version of resisting, and the fact that she is a born resister
makes me smile into her hair. She’ll be okay. She’ll be
more than okay.
I pull away just a little bit so I can whisper in her ear. “Is
Uncle William still out there?”
Gracie nods, then places both hands under the side of
her head, indicating that William is sleeping.
I lean forward again. “Are there regulators in the house?”
Gracie nods again, holding up two fingers, and my
stomach sinks. Not just one regulator—two of them.
I stand up, testing my legs, which are cramping from
being immobilized for almost two full days. I tiptoe to the
window and open the blinds as quietly as possible,
conscious of Uncle William slumbering only ten feet away
from me. The sky outside is a rich, dark purple, the color of
eggplant, and the street is draped with shadows as though
it has been covered over with velvet. Everything is totally
still, totally silent, but at the horizon is just the faintest blush,
a gradual lightening: Dawn isn’t far off.
I ease open the window carefully, feeling a sudden
desire to smell the ocean. There it is: the smell of salt spray
and mist, a smell mixed, in my mind, with the idea of
constant revolution, an eternal tide. I feel overwhelmingly
sad then. I know there’s no way to find Alex in the middle of
this enormous sprawling, sleeping city, and no way for me
to reach the border on my own. My best bet is to try and
make it down to the cliffs, to the ocean, to walk into the
water until it closes over my head. I wonder if it will hurt. I
wonder if Alex will be thinking of me.
Somewhere deeper in the city a motor is running, a
distant, earthy growl, like an animal panting. In a few hours
the bright blush of morning will push through all that
darkness, and shapes will reassert themselves, and people
will wake up and yawn and brew coffee and get ready for
work, everything the same as usual. Life will go on.
Something aches at the very core of me, something ancient
and deep and stronger than words: the filament that joins
each of us to the root of existence, that ancient thing
unfurling and resisting and grappling, desperately, for a
foothold, a way to stay here, breathe, keep going. But I will
it away; I will it to curl up again, to let go.
I’d rather die my way than live yours.
The motor is getting louder now, approaching. And now I
see a solitary motorcycle, a dark black speck, coming up
the street. For a second I pause, fascinated. I’ve only seen
a working motorcycle twice before, and despite everything
it strikes me as beautiful, the way it weaves up the street,
barely glinting, cutting through the dark, like the sleek black
head of an otter through the water. And the rider, too, just a
dark shape massed on the back of the bike like liquid, like
shadow, bent forward, just the crown of the head visible,
drawing ever closer, taking on shape and detail.
The crown of the head: like the color of leaves in autumn,
burning, burning.
Alex.
I can’t help it: I let out a little cry of excitement.
Outside the bedroom door, there’s a thumping sound,
like something banging against the wall. I hear Uncle
William mutter, “Shit.”
Alex pulls into the narrow alley that separates our
property—a strip of grass, really, a single, anemic tree, and
a waist-high chain-link fence—from the next. I wave at him
frantically. He cuts the engine of the motorcycle, turning his
face upward, toward the house. It’s still very dark, so I’m not
sure he can see me.
I risk calling his name softly, into the yard. “Alex!”
He swivels his head toward my voice, a grin splitting his
face, spreading his arms as though to say, You knew I
would come, didn’t you? It reminds me of how he looked
the first time I ever saw him on the balcony in the labs, all
twinkle and flash, like a star winking through the darkness
just for me.
And in that second I’m so filled with love it’s as though my
body transforms into a single blazing beam of light,
shooting up, up, up, beyond the room and walls and city: as
though everything has dropped away behind us, and Alex
and I are alone in the air, and totally free.
Then the door to my bedroom flies open and William
starts yelling.
Suddenly the house is noise and light, footsteps and
shouting. Uncle William is just standing in the doorway,
shouting for Carol, and it’s like in one of those scary movies
when a sleeping beast is woken, except now the house is
the beast. Feet pound up the stairs—the regulators, I think
—and at the end of the hall Carol flies out of her bedroom,
her nightgown flapping behind her like a cape, mouth
twisted open into one long, indecipherable shout.
I shove against the screen as hard as I can, but it’s stuck.
Below me Alex is screaming something too, but I can’t
Below me Alex is screaming something too, but I can’t
make it out over the motorcycle engine, roaring to life
again.
“Stop her!” Carol is yelling, and William comes to life,
unfreezing, lunging into the room. Pain burns my shoulder
as I shove against the screen again, feel it strain outward
for a second and then resist. No time, no time, no time. Any
second now William will grab me and it will all be over.
Then Gracie yells, “Wait!”
Everyone freezes just for a second. It is the first and only
time Gracie has ever spoken aloud to them. William trips
over himself and stares at his granddaughter, slack-jawed.
Carol freezes in the doorway, and behind her, Jenny rubs
her eyes as though convinced she is dreaming. Even the
regulators—both of them—pause at the top of the stairs.
That second is all I need. I give another shove and the
screen shudders and pops outward, clattering onto the
street. And before I can think about what I’m doing, or the
two-story drop to the street below, I’m swinging out of the
window and letting go, the air sweeping me up like an
embrace so for a moment my heart sings again and I think,
I’m flying.
Then I’m hitting the ground with such force that my legs
give way and the air gets knocked out of me in a rush. My
left ankle twists and wrenching pain goes through my whole
body. I skid forward on my hands and knees, rolling against
the fence. Above me the shouting has started up again, and
a moment later the front door of the house bursts open and
two men spill out onto the porch.
“Lena!” That’s Alex’s voice. I look up. He’s leaning over
the chain-link fence, extending his hand. I fling one arm
upward and he grabs me by the elbow, half dragging me
over the fence; a bit of it catches on my tank top, tearing the
fabric, nicking my skin. There’s no time to be scared. On
the porch there is an explosion of static. One regulator is
shouting into his walkie-talkie. The other one is loading a
gun. Strangely, in the middle of all the chaos, I have the
stupidest thought: I didn’t know that regulators were allowed
to carry guns.
“Come on!” Alex yells. I scrabble onto the motorcycle
behind him, wrapping my arms tightly around his waist.
The first bullet ricochets off the fence directly to our right.
The second one pings off the sidewalk.
“Go!” I scream, and Alex guns it just as a third bullet
whips by us, so close I can feel the air vibrating in its wake.
We jet forward to the end of the alley. Alex cuts the
wheel, hard, to the right, so we spin out onto the street,
tipping over so far my hair grazes the pavement. My
stomach does a huge somersault and I think, It’s over, but
miraculously the motorcycle rights itself and then we’re
speeding forward down the dark street, while the sounds of
shouting and the explosions of gunfire recede behind us.
The quiet doesn’t last, though. As we turn onto Congress,
I hear the wail of sirens, growing louder and louder, a
scream. I want to tell Alex to go faster, but my heart is
pounding so hard I can’t speak the words. Besides, my
voice would only be lost in the furious whipping of the wind
around us, and I know he’s going as fast as he can. The
around us, and I know he’s going as fast as he can. The
buildings on either side of us are a blur, gray and
shapeless, like a mass of melted metal. Never has the city
looked so foreign to me, so awful and deformed. The sirens
are so loud that the noise is like a thin blade, vibrating
furiously through me. Lights begin to flicker on in the
buildings around us as people are roused from sleep. The
horizon is touched with red: The sun is rising, a rusty color,
the color of old blood, and I’m so filled with fear it is an
agony, a shredding feeling, worse than any nightmare I’ve
ever had.
Then, out of nowhere, two squad cars materialize at the
end of the street, blocking our progress. Regulators and
police—dozens of them, all heads and arms and
screaming mouths—pour out onto the street. Voices boom,
amplified, distorted through radios and bullhorns.
“Freeze! Freeze! Freeze or we shoot!”
“Hold on!” Alex yells, and I can feel his muscles tensing
underneath me. At the last second he jerks the bars to the
left and we skid sideways into another narrow alley,
clipping the brick wall. I scream as my right leg gets
crushed against the wall. Skin grates off my shin as we
slide for several seconds along the exterior of the building
before Alex once again gets control of the bike and we
shoot forward. As soon as we burst out the other end of the
alley there are two more patrol cars swerving behind us.
We’re going so fast my arms are shaking as I try to hold
on, and right then I have a momentary flash of calm and
clarity and I realize that we’ll never make it. Both of us will
die today, gunned down or smashed up or exploded in
die today, gunned down or smashed up or exploded in
some terrible moment of fire and twisted metal, and when
they go to bury us we’ll be so melted together and entwined
they won’t be able to separate the bodies; pieces of him
will go with me, and pieces of me will go with him. Weirdly,
the thought doesn’t even upset me. I’m almost ready to give
in and give up, ready to draw my last breath while pressed
up to his back, feeling his ribs and lungs and chest move
with mine for the last time.
But Alex obviously isn’t ready to give up. He cuts down
the narrowest alley he can find, and two of the cars
following us come to a skidding halt, smashing each other
as they try to follow and blocking the entrance so the other
cars are forced to stop as well. Horns blare. The sharp stink
of smoke and burning rubber makes my eyes water for a
second, but then we’re out again, bursting forward onto
Franklin Arterial.
More sirens now, from a distance: reinforcements are on
their way.
But the cove appears ahead of us, unfolding—calm and
flat and gray, like glass or metal. The sky smolders at its
edges, a growing fire of pinks and yellows. Alex turns onto
Marginal Way, and my teeth clatter together as we bump
over the old pitted pavement, my stomach yo-yoing every
time we jolt over another pothole. We’re getting close. The
sirens whine louder, like a drove of hornets. If we can just
get to the border before more squad cars arrive … If we
can somehow make it past the guards, if we can scale the
fence …
Then, like an enormous insect taking flight, a helicopter
Then, like an enormous insect taking flight, a helicopter
wings up ahead of us, lights zigzagging along the darkened
road, the whirring of its propeller deafening, beating the air
to waves, to shreds.
A voice cannons out: “I order you, in the name of the
government of the United States of America, to freeze and
surrender!”
Tufts of long, sun-bleached grass appear on our right:
We’ve made it to the cove. Alex yanks the bike off the road
and onto the grass, and we go, half gunning, half sliding,
down into the marshes, cutting a diagonal toward the
border. Mud splatters up into my mouth and eyes, choking
me, and I cough into Alex’s back, feeling him heave against
me. The sun is a half circle now, like an eyelid partially
opened.
Tukey’s Bridge looms to our right, black, skeletal in the
half darkness. Ahead of us, the lights in the guard huts are
still illuminated. Even from this distance they look so
peaceful, just like hanging paper lanterns, like something
fragile and easily dismantled. Beyond them are the fence;
the fringe of trees; safety. So close. If we only had time …
Time …
Something pops; an explosion in the darkness; the mud
jumps upward in an arc. They’re shooting again, from the
helicopter.
“Freeze, dismount, and put your hands on your head!”
The patrol cars have arrived on the road that encircles
the cove. More and more cars screech to a halt, and police
begin to pour down the grass toward the marshland—
hundreds of them, more than I’ve ever seen at one time,
dark and inhuman-looking, like a swarm of cockroaches.
We’re up again now, in the short strip of grass that
separates the water from the old torn-up road and the
guard huts, weaving around a tangle of bushes so quickly,
the branches sting as they slap against my skin.
And then, just like that, Alex stops. I slam up against him,
biting down hard on my tongue, taste blood in my mouth.
Above us the light from the helicopter wavers a little, trying
to locate us, then fixes us in its beam. Alex raises his arms
above his head and climbs off the motorcycle, turning to
face me. In the solid white light his expression is
unreadable, as though he’s been transformed, in that
second, to stone.
“What are you doing?” I scream, over the noise of the
propellers and the shouting and the sirens and beneath it
all, the constant, everlasting groaning of the water as the
tide slurps back into the cove—always there, always
sweeping everything away, wearing everything to dust. “We
can still
make it!”
“Listen to me.” He doesn’t seem to be shouting, but
somehow I can still hear him. It’s like he’s speaking directly
into my ear even though he’s still standing there, arms
raised. “When I tell you to go, you’re going to go. You’ve got
to drive this thing, okay?”
“What? I can’t—”
“Citizen 914-238-619-3216. Dismount and put your
hands above your head. If you do not dismount
immediately, we will be forced to shoot.”
“Lena.” The way he says my name makes me shut up.
“They’ve electrified the fence. It’s powered on.”
“How do you know?”
“Just listen to me.” Desperation and terror creep into
Alex’s voice. “When I say go, you drive. And when I say
jump, you jump. You’ll be able to get over the fence, but
you’ll have thirty seconds before the power comes back
online, a minute, tops. You have to climb as fast as you can.
And then you run, okay?”
My whole body goes ice-cold. “Me? What about you?”
Alex’s expression doesn’t change. “I’ll be right behind
you,” he says.
“We’re giving you ten seconds … nine … eight …”
“Alex—” Icy fingers are reaching up from my stomach.
Alex smiles for just one second—the briefest flicker of a
smile, like we’re already safe, like he’s leaning in to brush
my hair from my eyes or kiss my cheek. “I promise I’ll be
right behind you.” His expression hardens again. “But you
have to swear you won’t look back. Not even for a second.
Okay?”
“Six … five …”
“Alex, I can’t—”
“Swear, Lena.”
“Three … two …”
“Okay,” I say, almost choking on the word. Tears are
blurring my vision. No chance. We have no chance. “I
swear.”
“One.”
At that second explosions start lighting up around us,
At that second explosions start lighting up around us,
bursts of sound and fire. At the same time Alex screams,
“Go!” and I lean forward and twist the throttle like I saw him
do. I feel his arms wrap around me at the last second, so
strong they might have carried me off the bike if I weren’t
gripping the handlebars so tightly.
More gunfire. Alex cries out and releases one arm from
around my chest. I look back and see him cradling his right
arm. We bump up onto the old road, and there is a line of
guards waiting to greet us, rifles pointed. They’re all
screaming, but I can’t even hear them: All I can hear is the
rushing, rushing of the wind and the hum of electricity
coursing through the fence, just like Alex said. All I can see
are the trees in the Wilds, just turning green in the morning
light,
all those broad, flat leaves like hands reaching for us.
The guards are so close now, I can see individual faces,
make out individual expressions: yellow teeth on one, a
large wart on the nose of another. But still I don’t stop. We
plunge through them on our bike and they scatter, fall back
and jump apart so they don’t get mowed down.
The fence looms above us: fifteen feet, ten feet, five feet.
I think, We’re going to die.
Then Alex’s voice, clear and forceful and, incredibly,
calm, so I’m not sure if I hear him or only imagine him
speaking the words into my ear. Jump. Now. With me.
I let go of the handlebars and roll to one side as the bike
skids forward into the fence. Pain goes through every
single part of my body—my bone is being ripped from my
muscle, my muscle is being ripped from my skin—as I
tumble across jagged rocks, spitting up dust, coughing,
struggling to breathe. For a whole second the world goes
black.
Then everything is color and explosion and fire. The bike
hits the fence and a tremendous, rolling boom echoes
through the air. Fire shoots into the air, enormous tongues
licking up toward the ever-lightening sky. For a moment, the
fence gives a high, shrill whine and then goes dead again,
silent. No doubt the surge shorted it momentarily.
This is my chance to climb, just like Alex said.
Somehow I find the strength to drag myself to the fence
on my hands and knees, dry-heaving, vomiting dust. I hear
shouting behind me, but it all sounds distant, like underwater
noise. I limp to the fence and haul myself upward,
inch by inch. I’m going as fast as I can but it feels like I’m
crawling, barely making progress. Alex must be behind me
because I hear him shouting, “Go, Lena! Go!” I focus on his
voice: It’s the only thing that keeps me going up. Somehow
—miraculously—I reach the top of the fence, and then I step
over the loops of barbed wire like Alex taught me, and then
I tip over the other side and let myself drop twenty feet to
the ground, hitting the grass hard, half-unconscious now
and incapable of feeling any more pain. Just a few more
feet and I’ll be sucked into the Wilds; I’ll be beyond its
impenetrable shield of interlocking trees and growth and
shade. I wait for Alex to hit next.
But he doesn’t.
That’s when I do the thing I swore I wouldn’t do. Suddenly
all my strength is back, fueled by panic. I scramble to my
feet as the fence begins to hum again.
And I look back.
Alex is still standing on the other side of the fence,
beyond a flickering wall of smoke and fire. He hasn’t moved
a single inch since we both jumped off the bike, hasn’t tried
to.
Strangely, in that moment I think back to what I answered
all those months ago, at my first evaluation, when I was
asked about Romeo and Juliet and could only think to say
beautiful. I’d wanted to explain; I’d wanted to say something
about sacrifice.
Alex’s T-shirt is red, and for a second I think it’s a trick of
the light, but then I realize he’s drenched, soaked in blood:
blood seeping across his chest, like the stain seeping up
the sky, bringing another day to the world. Behind him is
that insect army of men, all of them running toward him at
once, guns drawn. The guards are coming too, reaching for
him from both sides as though they are going to tear him
apart, straight down the middle. The helicopter has him
fixed in its spotlight. He is standing white and still and
frozen in its beam, and I don’t think I have ever, in my life,
seen anything more beautiful than him.
He is looking at me through the smoke, across the fence.
He never takes his eyes off me. His hair is a crown of
leaves, of thorns, of flames. His eyes are blazing with light,
more light than all the lights in every city in the whole world,
more light than we could ever invent if we had ten thousand
billion years.
And then he opens his mouth and his mouth forms one
last word.
The word is: Run.
After that the insect men fall on him. He is taken up by all
their snapping, ravaging arms and mouths like an animal
being set upon by vultures, enfolded in all their darkness.
I run for I don’t know how long. Hours, maybe, or days.
Alex told me to run. And so I run.
You have to understand. I am no one special. I am just a
single girl. I am five feet two inches tall and I am in-between
in every way.
But I have a secret. You can build walls all the way to the
sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin
me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way
to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you
think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who
refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without
walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope,
and without fear.
I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.

Acknowledgments
To my wonderfully patient and attentive editor, Rosemary
Brosnan, who is part mentor, part taskmaster, part
therapist, and all friend.
To Elyse Marshall, publicist extraordinaire, for the
immensity of her support.
To the best agent in the world, Stephen Barbara, for
putting up with me (I don’t know how you do it).
To everyone at Foundry Literary + Media, in particular
Hannah Gordon and Stephanie Abou.
To Deirdre Fulton, for letting me stay for an entire
summer while researching this book.
To Arabica Coffee House in Portland, Maine, for the
deliciousness of your coffee and toast and the proliferation
of your electrical outlets.
To Allison Jones, for her enthusiasm, advocacy, and
general loveliness, and for single-handedly hand-selling
Before I Fall to the entirety of Williamsburg, Virginia.
To my aunt Sandy, for years of constant love and
support.
To all of my lovely blogger friends and fans, for making
what I do worthwhile.
To my family, as always, for loving me.
And to my friends, of course, for being like family.

Delirium
TURN THE PAGE FOR
bonus material
An exclusive Q&A with Lauren Oliver
An excerpt from the next thrilling installment
in this captivating trilogy, Pandemonium

An Exclusive Q & A with Lauren
Oliver
Q: What inspired you to write Delirium? Did you
always conceive of it as the first book in a trilogy?
A: The idea for Delirium came from an essay I read by
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in which he wrote that all great
books were about love or death. The next day I was thinking
about that quote—particularly about how and in what form a
modern love story could be told—while I was on the
treadmill at the gym. I was simultaneously watching a news
story about a flu outbreak that had everyone freaking out
about the possibility of a pandemic, and I was marveling
that people so easily go into panics about reports of these
diseases. At some point the two trains of thought—love and
disease—just combined in my head.
In terms of conceiving it as a trilogy, I had always hoped I
would be able to extend the story—from the beginning, I
kept the working manuscript in a folder on my computer
called “The Love Trilogy.” So I had a sense of where the
story would go and how it would evolve—and luckily
HarperCollins let me run with it!
Q: Delirium takes place in an alternate present. Did
you feel that setting the novel in what could be our
world was more important than setting it in a less
recognizable time and place?
A: I definitely wanted the world in which Delirium takes
place to be as recognizable as possible. I believed it would
be scarier and feel more immediate to readers; also, in the
aftermath of financial or social disruption, societies can
very quickly transform into pretty restrictive and restricted
places. And we are certainly dealing with a lot of financial
and social disruption nowadays!
Q: While the United States as it’s portrayed in Delirium
has degenerated into a dystopia, what’s happening in
the rest of the world? Is it still the same or have any
other countries adopted the cure?
A: I think most of them have not, no; and while some of
them are okay, I imagine that many other countries—for
reasons economic and environmental—are suffering from
major sociopolitical difficulties and are significantly
unstable. The US would have pointed to these countries as
evidence of places in which the disease, amor deliria
nervosa, runs rampant and has rendered the social and
political climate corrupt. That would have no doubt been
part of the reason they decided to enclose the US within a
border fence.
Q: Before Lena meets Alex, she wants to be cured.
Because of the cure, Lena lost her mother and, in a
way, her sister. Why would she want to have the
procedure if it has already caused her pain and taken
away the people she loved?
A: Well, actually, Lena attributes the death of her mother
not to the cure, but to its failure—she believes that her
mother was ultimately tormented and enslaved by her
emotions. And although Lena regrets the dissolution of the
close bond she shared with her sister, she sees this not as
a loss but as a part of the natural progression of life:
People grow up and grow apart. That is the cycle; that is
the natural order. And, of course, what the cure promises is
the reduction of pain associated with these two “losses”—
Lena has a chance to be rid of her grief and her sadness.
That is a very, very strong motivation for her.
Q: Lena’s best friend, Hana, is a free spirit, and rebels
by listening to forbidden music and going to parties
with boys. However, she ultimately accepts that she
will be cured and chooses not to resist her fate like
Lena does. Why?
A: Hana, like many people, is a free spirit and a rebel
only up until the point when she is required to sacrifice
freedoms and comforts she has enjoyed most of her life.
Many people, for example, possess ideals of tolerance or
generosity that, when tested, they are unable to maintain.
And Hana actually has a life in this society, in a way that
Lena doesn’t. She has a family. She has a future. Lena
really has nothing, and so she of course has less to lose.
Q: Birds are a recurring motif in Delirium. What do they
signify to you?
A: Birds have always been a symbol of freedom and the
possibility of escape. I think I’ve been fixated with birds as
symbolic
creatures since I first watched The Wizard of Oz, in which
Dorothy sings about happy bluebirds being able to soar
away beyond the rainbow, and expresses a wish to do so
herself. And Delirium is thematically very concerned with
ideas of constraint and stability versus freedom and choice.
Q: Several chapters of Delirium begin with a fragment
of text from The Book of Shhh, while others start with a
poem, quotation, or other piece that’s part of the
culture. Was it difficult to invent songs and a body of
literature for this society?
A: No. It was fun! I originally didn’t intend to include the
epigraphs; they were a tool of my own, a way of entering
more fully into the psychological and social landscape of
the book. But then I realized that they would also allow the
reader to get a broader and fuller sense of the world. It’s
always a struggle when you write to balance story with
world-building; the quotes and fragments from The Book of
Shhh enabled me to give short glimpses of the broader
world (its propaganda and politics and intellectual culture)
without cluttering up the text.
Q: There are only a finite number of approved books
that people may read in Lena’s world. Suppose your
reading was similarly restricted. What are the five
books that you could not live without?
A: Wow. That’s so terrifying to even consider. Probably:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, One Hundred
Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, To Kill a
Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Matilda by Roald Dahl, and
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling.
Q: Lena’s six-year-old cousin Grace doesn’t speak,
yet she understands far more than she lets on, and by
remaining silent she’s already engaging in a sort of
resistance. What do you think is in Grace’s future?
Will she become another Lena in eleven years?
A: I can’t tell you that! You’ll just have to read on. But she
is definitely a very strong character. Sometimes, in periods
of oppression and mass insanity, the most decisive form of
resistance is simply the decision not to engage.
Q: Lena repeatedly says that she’s just a regular girl,
not anyone special. How important was it to
characterize her in that way? Did Lena’s character
change at all from when you first had the idea for this
story, or did you always know who she was going to
be?
A: It was very important to me that Lena feel like an
“every girl” and self-identify that way. I wanted to illustrate
through her character that there really is no such thing as
someone who isn’t special, because we are completely
and totally defined by our choices. Lena makes
extraordinary choices and acts with extraordinary integrity
and bravery, and so she becomes extraordinary.
Q: Redemption, transformation, and sacrifice are all
major themes in your writing. Is writing about them a
conscious choice? Why are those themes important
to you?
A: That’s a great question. I do seem to gravitate toward
those three themes again and again. It’s not necessarily
conscious, but I definitely know that I’m uninterested in
writing stories that don’t allow me to explore those themes. I
think I look constantly to transform, and to find beauty and
peace by giving to others. I’ve gone through very dark
periods of my life; I guess I write partially to indicate a way
out of the murk, a way toward the light, even when I can’t
perceive it for myself.
Q: Here is your chance to ask yourself any question
that you would like to answer. You’ve done many
interviews. What haven’t people asked you that you
would like readers to know?
A: Oh man. You know, I think it’s important for people to
know that I love writing and it’s necessary to me, but it’s
also hard, and it remains hard even if you really work at it—
especially when you do, actually. But anything worth doing
in life is worth working for, I think.

Lena’s thrilling story continues in
Pandemonium

A
Now
lex and I are lying together on a blanket in the backyard
of 37 Brooks. The trees look larger and darker than
usual. The leaves are almost black, knitted so tightly
together they blot out the sky.
“It probably wasn’t the best day for a picnic,” Alex says,
and just then I realize that yes, of course, we haven’t eaten
any of the food we brought. There’s a basket at the foot of
the blanket, filled with half-rotten fruit, swarmed by tiny black
ants.
“Why not?” I say. We are lying on our backs, staring at
the web of leaves above us, thick as a wall.
“Because it’s snowing.” Alex laughs. And again I realize
he’s right: It is snowing, thick flakes the color of ash swirling
all around us. It’s freezing cold, too. My breath comes in
clouds, and I press against him, trying to stay warm.
“Give me your arm,” I say, but Alex doesn’t respond. I try
to move into the space between his arm and his chest but
his body is rigid, unyielding. “Alex,” I say. “Come on, I’m
cold.”
“I’m cold,” he parrots, from lips that barely move. They
are blue, and cracked. He is staring at the leaves without
blinking.
“Look at me,” I say, but he doesn’t turn his head, doesn’t
blink, doesn’t move at all. A hysterical feeling is building
inside me, a shrieking voice saying wrong, wrong, wrong,
and I sit up and place my hand on Alex’s chest, as cold as
ice. “Alex,” I say, and then, a short scream: “Alex!”
“Lena Morgan Jones!”
I snap into awareness, to a muted chorus of giggles.
Mrs. Fierstein, the twelfth-grade science teacher at
Quincy Edwards High School for Girls in Brooklyn, Section
5, District 17, is glaring at me. This is the third time I’ve
fallen asleep in her class this week.
“Since you seem to find the Creation of the Natural Order
so exhausting,” she says, “might I suggest a trip to the
principal’s office to wake you up?”
“No!” I burst out, louder than I intended to, provoking a
new round of giggles from the other girls in my class. I’ve
been enrolled at Edwards since just after winter break—
only a little more than two months—and already I’ve been
labeled the Number-One Weirdo. People avoid me like I
have a disease—like I have the disease.
If only they knew.
“This is your final warning, Miss Jones,” Mrs. Fierstein
says. “Do you understand?”
“It won’t happen again,” I say, trying to look obedient and
contrite. I’m pushing aside the memory of my nightmare,
pushing aside thoughts of Alex, pushing aside thoughts of
Hana and my old school, push, push, push, like Raven
taught me to do. The old life is dead.
Mrs. Fierstein gives me a final stare—meant to
intimidate me, I guess—and turns back to the board,
returning to her lecture on the divine energy of electrons.
The old Lena would have been terrified of a teacher like
Mrs. Fierstein. She’s old, and mean, and looks like a cross
between a frog and a pit bull. She’s one of those people
who makes the cure seem redundant—it’s impossible to
imagine that she would ever be capable of loving, even
without the procedure.
But the old Lena is dead too.
I buried her.
I left her beyond a fence, behind a wall of smoke and
flame.

I
Then
n the beginning, there is fire.
Fire in my legs and lungs; fire tearing through every
nerve and cell in my body. That’s how I am born again, in
pain: I emerge from the suffocating heat and the darkness. I
force my way through a black, wet space of strange noises
and smells.
I run, and when I can no longer run, I limp, and when I
can’t do that, I crawl, inch by inch, digging my fingernails
into the soil, like a worm sliding across the overgrown
surface of this strange new wilderness.
I bleed, too, when I am born.
I’m not sure how far I’ve traveled into the Wilds, and how
long I’ve been pushing deeper and deeper into the woods,
when I realize I’ve been hit. At least one regulator must have
clipped me while I was climbing the fence. A bullet has
skimmed me on the side, just below my armpit, and my Tshirt
is wet with blood. I’m lucky, though. The wound is
shallow, but seeing all the blood, the missing skin, makes
everything real: this new place, this monstrous, massive
growth everywhere, what has happened, what I have left.
What has been taken from me.
There is nothing in my stomach, but I throw up anyway. I
cough up air and spit bile into the flat, shiny leaves on either
side of me. Birds twitter above me. An animal, coming to
investigate, scurries quickly back into the tangle of growth.
Think, think. Alex. Think of what Alex would do.
Alex is here, right here. Imagine.
I take off my shirt, rip off the hem, and tie the cleanest bit
tightly around my chest, so it presses against my wound
and helps stanch the bleeding. I have no idea where I am or
where I’m going. My only thought is to move, keep going,
deeper and deeper, away from the fences and the world of
dogs and guns and—
Alex.
No. Alex is here. You have to imagine.
Step by step, fighting thorns, bees, mosquitoes;
snapping back thick, broad branches; clouds of gnats,
mists hovering in the air. At one point, I reach a river: I am
so weak, I am nearly taken under by its current. At night,
driving rain, fierce and cold: huddled between the roots of
an enormous oak, while around me unseen animals
scream and pant and rattle through the darkness. I’m too
terrified to sleep; if I sleep, I’ll die.
I am not born all at once, the new Lena.
Step by step—and then, inch by inch.
Crawling, insides curled into dust, mouth full of the taste
of smoke.
Fingernail by fingernail, like a worm.
That is how she comes into the world, the new Lena.
When I can no longer go forward, even by an inch, I lay my
head on the ground and wait to die. I’m too tired to be
frightened. Above me is blackness, and all around me is
blackness, and the forest sounds are a symphony to sing
me out of this world. I am already at my funeral. I am being
lowered into a narrow, dark space, and my aunt Carol is
there, and Hana, and my mother and sister and even my
long-dead father. They are all watching my body descend
into the grave, and they are singing.
I am in a black tunnel, filled with mist, and I am not afraid.
Alex is waiting for me on the other side; Alex standing,
smiling, bathed in sunlight.
Alex reaching out his arms to me, calling—
Hey. Hey.
Wake up.
“Hey. Wake up. Come on, come on, come on.”
The voice pulls me back from the tunnel, and for a
moment I’m horribly disappointed when I open my eyes and
see not Alex’s face, but some other face, sharp and
unfamiliar. I can’t think; the world is all fractured. Black hair,
a pointed nose, bright green eyes—pieces of a puzzle I
can’t make sense of.
“Come on, that’s right, stay with me. Bram, where the hell
is that water?”
A hand under my neck, and then, suddenly, salvation. A
sensation of ice, and liquid sliding: water filling my mouth,
my throat, pouring over my chin, melting away the dust, the
taste of fire. First I cough, choke, almost cry. Then I swallow,
gulp, suck, while the hand stays under my neck, and the
voice keeps whispering encouragement. “That’s right. Have
as much as you need. You’re all right. You’re safe now.”
Black hair, loose, a tent around me: a woman. No, a girl
—a girl with a thin, tight mouth, and creases at the corners
of her eyes, and hands as rough as willow, as big as
baskets. I think, Thank you. I think, Mother.
“You’re safe. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
That’s how babies are born, after all: cradled in someone
else’s arms, sucking, helpless.
After that, the fever pulls me under again. My waking
moments are few, and my impressions disjointed. More
hands, and more voices; I am lifted; a kaleidoscope of
green above me, and fractal patterns in the sky. Later there
is the smell of campfire, and something cold and wet
pressed against my skin, smoke and hushed voices,
searing pain in my side, then ice, relief. Softness sliding
against my legs.
In between are dreams unlike any I’ve ever had before.
They are full of explosions and violence: dreams of skin
melting and skeletons charred to black bits.
Alex never comes to me again. He has gone ahead of
me and disappeared beyond the tunnel.
Almost every time I wake she is there, the black-haired
girl, urging me to drink water, or pressing a cool towel to my
forehead. Her hands smell like smoke and cedar.
And beneath it all, beneath the rhythm of the waking and
sleeping, the fever and the chills, is the word she repeats,
again and again, so it weaves its way into my dreams,
begins to push back some of the darkness there, draws me
up out of the drowning: Safe. Safe. Safe. You’re safe now.
The fever breaks, finally, after I don’t know how long, and
at last I float into consciousness on the back of that word,
gently, softly, like riding a single wave all the way into the
shore.
Before I even open my eyes, I’m conscious of plates
banging together, the smell of something frying, and the
murmur of voices. My first thought is that I’m at home, in
Aunt Carol’s house, and she’s about to call me down for
breakfast—a morning like any other.
Then the memories—the flight with Alex, the botched
escape, my days and nights alone in the Wilds—come
slamming back, and I snap my eyes open, trying to sit up.
My body won’t obey me. I can’t do more than lift my head; I
feel as though I’ve been encased in stone.
The black-haired girl, the one who must have found me
and brought me here—wherever here is—stands in the
corner, next to a large stone sink. She whips around when
she hears me shift in my bed.
“Easy,” she says. She brings her hands out of the sink,
wet to the elbow. Her face is sharp, extremely alert, like an
animal’s. Her teeth are small, too small for her mouth, and
slightly crooked. She crosses the room, squats next to the
bed. “You’ve been out for a whole day.”
“Where am I?” I croak. My voice is a rasp, barely
recognizable as my own.
“Home base,” she says. She is watching me closely.
“That’s what we call it, anyway.”
“No, I mean—” I’m struggling to piece together what
happened after I climbed the fence. All I can think of is Alex.
“I mean, is this the Wilds?”
An expression—of suspicion, possibly—passes quickly
over her face. “We’re in a free zone, yes,” she says
carefully, then stands and without another word moves
away from the bed, disappearing through a darkened
doorway. From deeper inside the building I can hear voices
indistinctly. I feel a brief pang of fear, wonder if I’ve been
wrong to mention the Wilds, wonder if these people are
safe. I’ve never heard anyone call unregulated land a “free
zone” before.
But no. Whoever they are, they must be on my side; they
saved me, have had me completely at their mercy for days.
I manage to haul myself into a half-seated position,
propping my head up against the hard stone wall behind
me. The whole room is stone: rough stone floors, stone
walls on which, in places, a thin film of black mold is
growing, an old-fashioned stone basin fitted with a rusted
faucet that clearly hasn’t functioned in years. I’m lying on a
hard, narrow cot, covered with ratty quilts. This, in addition
to a few tin buckets in the corner underneath the defunct
sink, and a single wooden chair, is the room’s only furniture.
There are no windows in my room, and no lights, either—
just two emergency lanterns, battery-operated, which fill the
room with a weak bluish light.
On one wall is tacked a small wooden cross with the
figure of a man suspended in its middle. I recognize the
symbol—it’s a cross from one of the old religions, from the
time before the cure, although I can’t remember which one
now.
I have a sudden flashback to junior year American
history, and Mrs. Dernler glaring at us from behind her
enormous glasses, jabbing the open textbook with her
finger, saying, “You see? You see? These old religions,
stained everywhere with love. They reeked of deliria; they
bled it.” And of course at the time it seemed terrible, and
true.
Love, the deadliest of all deadly things.
Love, it kills you.
Alex.
Both when you have it …
Alex.
And when you don’t.
Alex.
“You were half-dead when we found you,” the blackhaired
girl says matter-of-factly as she re-enters the room.
She’s holding an earthenware bowl with both hands,
carefully. “More than half. We didn’t think you were going to
make it. I thought we should at least try.”
She gives me a doubtful look, as though she’s not sure
I’ve been worth the effort, and for a moment I think of my
cousin Jenny, the way she used to stand with her hands on
her hips, scrutinizing me, and I have to close my eyes
quickly to keep all of it from rushing back—the flood of
images, memories, from a life that is now dead.
“Thank you,” I say.
She shrugs, but says, “You’re welcome,” and seems to
mean it. She draws the wooden chair to the side of the bed
and sits. Her hair is long and knotted above her left ear.
Behind it, she has the mark of the procedure—a threepronged
scar—just like Alex did. But she cannot be cured;
she is here, on the other side of the fence: an Invalid.
I try to sit up all the way but have to lean back after only a
few seconds of struggle, exhausted. I feel like a puppet
halfway come to life. There’s a searing pain behind my
eyes, too, and when I look down I see my skin is still
crisscrossed with a web of cuts and scrapes and
scratches, insect bites, and scabs.
The bowl the girl is holding is full of mostly clear broth,
tinged with just a bit of green. She starts to pass it to me,
then hesitates. “Can you hold it?”
“Of course I can hold it,” I say, more sharply than I’d
meant to. The bowl is heavier than I thought it would be. I
have trouble lifting it to my mouth, but I do, finally. My throat
feels as raw as sandpaper and the broth is heaven against
it, and even though it has a weird mossy aftertaste, I find
myself gulping and slurping down the whole bowl.
“Slowly,” the girl says, but I can’t stop. Suddenly hunger
yawns open inside me, black and endless and allconsuming.
As soon as the broth is gone I’m desperate for
more, even though my stomach starts cramping right away.
“You’ll make yourself sick,” the girl says, shaking her head,
and takes the empty bowl from me.
“Is there any more?” I croak.
“In a little while,” she says.
“Please.” The hunger is a snake; it is lashing at the pit of
my stomach, eating me from the inside out.
She sighs, stands, and disappears through the darkened
doorway. I think I hear a crescendo in the hallway voices, a
swelling of sound. Then, abruptly, silence. The black-haired
girl returns with a second bowl of broth. I take it from her
and she sits again, drawing her knees up to her chest, like
a kid would. Her knees are bony and brown.
“So,” she says, “where did you cross from?” When I
hesitate, she says, “That’s okay. You don’t have to talk
about it if you don’t want to.”
“No, no. It’s fine.” I sip from this bowl of broth more slowly,
savoring its strange, earthy quality: as though it has been
stewed with stones. For all I know, it has been. Alex told me
once that Invalids—the people who live in the Wilds—have
learned to make do with only the barest provisions. “I came
over from Portland.” Too soon, the bowl is empty again,
even though the snake in my stomach is still lashing.
“Where are we now?”
“A few miles east of Rochester,” she says.
“Rochester, New Hampshire?” I ask.
She smirks. “Yup. You must have been hoofing it. How
long were you out on your own?”
“I don’t know.” I rest my head against the wall. Rochester,
New Hampshire. That means even though I crossed at the
northern border, I must have looped around when I was lost
in the Wilds: I’ve ended up sixty miles southwest of
Portland. I’m exhausted again, even though I’ve been
sleeping for days. “I lost track of time.”
“Pretty ballsy of you,” she says. I’m not really sure what
“ballsy” means, but I can guess. “How did you cross?”
“It wasn’t—it wasn’t just me,” I say, and the snake lashes,
seizes up. “I mean, it wasn’t supposed to be just me.”
“You were with somebody else?” She’s staring at me
penetratingly again, her eyes almost as dark as her hair. “A
friend?”
I don’t know how to correct her. My best friend. My
boyfriend. My love. I’m still not totally comfortable with that
word, and it seems almost sacrilegious, so instead I just
nod.
“What happened?” she asks, a little more softly.
“He—he didn’t make it.” Her eyes flash with
understanding when I say “he”: If we were coming from
Portland together, from a place of segregation, we must
have been more than just friends. Thankfully, she doesn’t
push it. “We made it all the way to the border fence. But
then the regulators and the guards …” The pain in my
stomach intensifies. “There were too many of them.”
She stands abruptly and retrieves one of the waterspotted
tin buckets from the corner, places it next to the
bed, and sits again.
“We heard rumors,” she says shortly. “Stories of a big
escape in Portland, lots of police involvement, a big coverup.”
“So you know about it?” I try once again to sit up all the
way, but the cramping doubles me back against the wall.
“Are they saying what happened to … to my friend?”
I ask the question even though I know. Of course I know.
I saw him standing there, covered in blood, as they
descended on him, swarmed him, like the black ants in my
dream.
The girl doesn’t answer, just folds her mouth into a tight
line and shakes her head. She doesn’t have to say anything
else—her meaning is clear. It’s written in the pity on her
face.
The snake uncoils fully and begins thrashing. I close my
eyes. Alex, Alex, Alex: my reason for everything, my new
life, the promise of something better—gone, blown away
into ash. Nothing will ever be okay again. “I was hoping …” I
let out a little gasp as that terrible, lashing thing in my
stomach comes riding toward my throat on a surge of
sickness.
She sighs again and I hear her stand up, scrape the
chair away from the bed.
“I think—” I can barely force the words out; I’m trying to
swallow back the nausea. “I think I’m going to—”
And then I’m tipping over the bed, throwing up into the
bucket she has placed beside me, my body gripped by
waves of sickness.
“I knew you would make yourself sick,” the girl says,
shaking her head. Then she disappears into the dark
hallway. A second later, she pops her head back into the
room. “I’m Raven, by the way.”
“Lena,” I say, and the word brings with it a new round of
vomiting.
“Lena,” she repeats. She raps on the wall once with her
knuckles. “Welcome to the Wilds.”
Then she disappears, and I am left with the bucket.
Later in the afternoon, Raven reappears, and I again try the
broth. This time I sip slowly and manage to keep it down.
I’m still so weak I can barely lift the bowl to my lips, and
Raven has to help me. I should be embarrassed, but I can’t
feel anything: Once the nausea subsides it is replaced by a
numbness so complete it is like sinking under ice water.
“Good,” Raven says approvingly, after I’ve made it
through half the broth. She takes the bowl and disappears
again.
Now that I’m awake, and conscious, all I want is to sleep
again. At least when I’m sleeping I can dream myself back
to Alex, can dream myself into a different world. Here, in
this world, I have nothing: no family, no home, no place to
go. Alex is gone. By now even my identity will have been
Invalidated.
I can’t even cry. My insides have been turned to dust. I
think over and over of that final moment, when I turned and
saw him standing behind that wall of smoke. In my head I try
and reach back, through the fence, past the smoke; I try and
grab his hand and pull.
Alex, come back.
There is nothing to do but sink. The hours close around
me, encase me completely, like a tomb.
A bit later I hear scuffling footsteps, and then echoes of
laughter and conversation. This, at least, gives me
something to focus on. I try to differentiate the voices, take
a guess at how many speakers there are, but the best I can
do is separate out a few low tones (men, boys) and some
high-pitched giggling, the occasional outburst of laughter.
Once I hear Raven cry out, “All right, all right,” but for the
most part, the voices are waves of sound, tones only, like a
distant song.
Of course it makes sense that girls and boys would be
sharing a house in the Wilds—that’s the whole point, after
all: freedom to choose, freedom to be around one another,
freedom to look and touch and love one another—but the
idea is very different from the reality, and I can’t help but
start to panic a little.
Alex is the only boy I’ve ever known or really spoken to. I
don’t like to think of all those male strangers, just on the
other side of the stone wall, with their baritone voices and
their snorts of laughter. Before I met Alex, I lived almost
eighteen years believing fully in the system, believing 100
percent that love was a disease, that we must protect
ourselves, that girls and boys must stay rigorously separate
to prevent contagion. Looks, glances, touches, hugs—all of
it carried the risk of contamination. And even though being
with Alex changed me, you don’t shake loose the fear all at
once. You can’t.
I close my eyes, breathe deeply, again try and force
myself down through layers of consciousness, to let myself
be carried away by sleep.
“All right, Blue. Out of here. Bedtime.”
I snap my eyes open. A girl, probably six or seven, has
been standing in the doorway, watching me. She’s thin and
very tan, wearing dirty jean shorts and a cotton sweater
about fourteen sizes too big for her—so big it is slipping off
her shoulders, showing shoulder blades as peaked as bird
wings. Her hair is dirty blond, falling almost all the way to
her waist, and she isn’t wearing any shoes. Raven is trying
to maneuver around her, carrying a plate.
“I’m not tired,” the girl says, keeping her eyes locked on
me the whole time. She hops around from foot to foot but
won’t come any farther into the room. Her eyes are a
startling shade of blue, a vivid sky color.
“No arguing,” Raven says, bumping Blue playfully with her
hip as she passes. “Out.”
“But—”
“What’s rule number one, Blue?” Raven’s voice turns
sterner.
Blue brings her thumb to her mouth, rips at her thumbnail.
“Listen to Raven,” she mumbles.
“Always listen to Raven. And Raven says bedtime. Now.
Go.”
Blue shoots me a last, regretful look and then scurries
away.
Raven sighs, rolls her eyes, and pulls the chair up to the
bed. “Sorry,” she says. “Everyone is dying to see the new
girl.”
“Who’s everyone?” I say. My throat is dry. I haven’t been
able to stand and make it over to the basin, and it’s clear
that the pipes don’t work anyway. There wouldn’t be any
plumbing in the Wilds. All those networks—the water, the
electricity—were bombed out years ago, during the blitz. “I
mean, how many of you are there?”
Raven shrugs. “Oh, you know, it changes. People go in
and out, pass between homesteads. Probably twenty or so,
right now, but in June we’ve had as many as forty floaters,
and in the winter we close up this homestead completely.”
I nod, even though her talk of homesteads and floaters
confuses me. Alex told me the barest little bit about the
Wilds, and of course we crossed once together
successfully: the first and only time I’d ever been in
unregulated land before our big escape.
Before my big escape.
I dig my fingernails into my palms.
“Are you okay?” Raven’s peering at me closely.
“I could use some water,” I say.
“Here,” she says. “Take this.” She passes me the plate
she’s been holding: two small round patties, like pancakes
but darker and grainier, are sitting at its center. She
removes a dented tin soup can from a shelf in the corner,
uses it as a ladle to scoop a bit of water from one of the
buckets under the sink, and carries it back to me. I can only
hope that bucket doesn’t do double duty as a vomit basin.
“Hard to find glass around here,” she says when I raise
my eyebrows at the soup can, and then adds, “Bombs.”
She says it as though she’s in a grocery store and saying,
Grapefruit, as though it’s the most everyday thing in the
world. She sits again, braiding a bit of hair between her
long brown fingers absentmindedly.
I lift the soup can to my lips. Its edges are jagged, and I
have to sip carefully.
“You learn to make do out here,” Raven says, with a kind
of pride. “We can build out of nothing—out of scraps and
trash and bones. You’ll see.”
I stare at the plate in my lap. I’m hungry, but the words
trash and bones make me nervous about eating.
Raven must understand what I’m thinking, because she
laughs. “Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s nothing gross. Some
nuts, a bit of flour, some oil. It’s not the best thing you’ll ever
eat in your life, but it will keep your strength up. We’re
running low on supplies; we haven’t had a delivery in a
week. The escape really screwed us, you know.”
“My escape?”
She nods. “They’ve had the borders running live for the
past week, doubled security at the fences.” I open my
mouth to apologize, but she cuts me off. “It’s all right. They
do this every time there’s a breach. They always get
worried there’ll be some mass uprising and people will rush
the Wilds. In a few days they’ll get lazy again, and then we’ll
get our supplies. And in the meantime …” She jerks her
chin toward the plate. “Nuts.”
I take a nibble of the pancake. It’s not bad, actually:
toasty and crunchy and just a little bit greasy, leaving a
sheen of oil on my fingertips. It’s a lot better than the broth,
and I say so to Raven.
She beams at me. “Yeah, Roach is the resident cook. He
can make a good meal out of anything. Well, he can make
an edible meal out of anything.”
“Roach? Is that his real name?”
Raven finishes a braid, flicks it over her shoulder, starts
on another one. “As real as any name,” she says. “Roach
has been in the Wilds his whole life. Originally comes from
one of the homesteads farther south, close to Delaware.
Someone down there must have named him. By the time
he got up here, he was Roach.”
“What about Blue?” I ask. I make it through the whole first
pancake without feeling queasy, then set the plate on the
floor next to the bed. I don’t want to push my luck.
Raven hesitates for just a fraction of a second. “She was
born right here, at the homestead.”
“So you named her for her eyes,” I say.
Raven stands abruptly, and turns away before saying,
“Uh-huh.” She goes to the shelves by the sink and clicks off
one of the battery-operated lanterns, so the room sinks
even further into darkness.
“How about you?” I ask her.
She points to her hair. “Raven.” She smiles. “Not the
most original.”
“No, I mean—were you born here? In the Wilds?”
The smile disappears just like that, like a candle being
snuffed out. For a second she looks almost angry. “No,” she
says shortly. “I came here when I was fifteen.”
I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t stop myself from pressing.
“By yourself?”
“Yes.” She picks up the second lantern, which is still
emitting a pale bluish light, and moves toward the door.
“So what was your name before?” I say, and she freezes,
with her back to me. “Before you came to the Wilds, I
mean.”
For a moment she stands there. Then she turns around.
She is holding the lantern low so her face is in darkness.
Her eyes are two bare reflections, glittering, like black
stones in the moonlight.
“You might as well get used to it now,” she says with
quiet intensity. “Everything you were, the life you had, the
people you knew … dust.” She shakes her head and says,
a little more firmly, “There is no before. There is only now,
and what comes next.”
Pandemonium
continues …


About the Author
LAUREN OLIVER is the author of the New York Times
bestseller BEFORE I FALL, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of
the Year. DELIRIUM is her second novel, which debuted on
the New York Times bestseller list and was described by
The Horn Book as “a suspenseful story of awakening and
resistance with true love at its core.” A graduate of the
University of Chicago and NYU’s MFA program, Lauren
lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can visit her online at
www.laurenoliverbooks.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on
your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Also by Lauren Oliver
BEFORE I FALL

Credits
Jacket photograph (c) 2011 by Michael Frost
Jacket design by Erin Fitzsimmons
Art direction by Cara E. Petrus

Copyright
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are
products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as
real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.
A GEOGRAPHICAL NOTE ABOUT THE DESCRIPTION OF
PORTLAND, MAINE:
Although many of the larger geographical areas indicated in this book
do, in fact, exist (such as Tukey’s Bridge, the Cove, Munjoy Hill, and
the neighborhood of Deering Highlands), as I had the pleasure to
discover while staying there to research this book, most (if not all) of
the streets, landmarks, beaches, and universities are of my own
invention. To the residents of Portland: Please excuse the fictional
liberties I have taken with your wonderful city, and I’ll see you soon.
The lines from “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in”.
Copyright 1952, (c) 1980, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E.
Cummings Trust, from Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E.
Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of
Liveright Publishing Corporation.
Delirium
Copyright (c) 2011 by Laura Schechter
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted
the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of
this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced,
transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in
or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any
form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known
or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of
HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oliver, Lauren.
Delirium/Lauren Oliver.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Lena looks forward to receiving the governmentmandated
cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe,
predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before her
eighteenth birthday and her treatment, when she falls in love.
ISBN 978-0-06-211243-9
[1. Love—Fiction. 2. Government, Resistance to—Fiction. 3. Family
life—Maine—Fiction. 4. Orphans—Fiction. 5. Maine —Fiction. 6.
Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.O475Del 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010017839
CIP
AC
11 12 13 14 15 LP/BV 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
EPub Edition (c) JULY 2011 ISBN: 9780062114037
Special Edition August 2011
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