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
That 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 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 five-story 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 walkie-talkies 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-N-Save, 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.