Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(12)

“You know,” he said, “one of my great disappointments is that I never had a son. I think maybe it’s time to change that.”

“Mr. Tommasulo, wait! I—”

He reached for me, but I kicked at the mud, pushing myself away until my spine slammed into the fence. He’d maneuvered me into a corner; there was nowhere else to go. Tommasulo leaned down. I clapped my hand over my mouth and nose and shut my eyes, willing myself away from that muddy yard, away from Black River.



A street in Brooklyn. A summer night. I’m seven and you’re ten and Mom is walking us back from a school concert. Out of nowhere, she bounds into the light of a nearby pawnshop. She lifts her arms over her head and does a single perfect pirouette, then stretches out into an impossibly long arabesque, her dark, slender arms reaching out in front of her, one leg reaching back. The universe’s spin slows and comes to a halt. I hear your breath hitch, then stop. Your mouth is hanging open. Mine is too.



I opened my eyes. Mr. Tommasulo was gone.

The girl with the green hair had taken his place. All I could make out through the curtain of rain was her silhouette and the two-by-four in her hand. Mr. Tommasulo was on the ground at her feet, his eyes closed. His skin was as pale as cotton.

The girl whipped around, thrusting the club in front of her. Dale stood there cringing. His face was a mess of bruises. He nodded toward his friend and she stepped away, careful to keep the two-by-four between them. Dale shook Tommasulo until his eyes opened, and then he hooked his hands under Tommasulo’s armpits and hauled him up. Together, the two of them lurched out of the yard and down the driveway. Seconds later they were gone.

I looked at the girl and she looked at me. Something glinted in the hollow of her throat. A silver key hung from a leather cord around her neck.

“Who are you?” I asked.

She dropped the board and ran.





6


BY THE TIME I dug my knife and mask out of the mud and made it to the street, she was gone. I twisted through the neighborhood, searching every side street, yard, and alley, but came up empty.

No matter where I went, I could see the peak of Lucy’s Promise and the arrow-shaped notch in the trees that marked Greer’s camp. They were probably already back there, safe and dry in their cabins. I thought about giving up, telling myself that the girl would eventually run into a guardsman who would help her, but I knew that the other, more likely possibility was that she’d be found by Tommasulo or one of his friends, so I kept going.

I’d just passed the high school and was heading back toward Monument Park when I finally saw her.

An hour had passed, maybe two. The rain had stopped, leaving a junglelike fog. She was on Elm Street, drenched and panting, barely managing to run the length of a few houses before she had to stop and catch her breath. I trailed her until she fell against the stone wall at the edge of the park. She slid down it and collapsed over her knees.

I was half a block away when she saw me. Her exhaustion vanished in a flash. There was a softball-size chunk of rock sitting by the wall. She grabbed it and jumped to her feet.

“It’s okay! I’m not with them. My name’s Cardinal. Cardinal Cassidy.”

“You called that man by name,” she shouted. “I heard you.”

I took a step toward her and she hoisted the rock, ready to swing at my head. I stopped and raised my hands in front of me.

“I know his name. That’s all. I promise. I was trying to help you.”

The girl kept the rock hoisted, ready to swing, as she put more distance between us and searched the surrounding streets.

“Where am I?”

“A town called Black River.”

“How did I get here?”

“You live here,” I said. “I know. It sounds crazy. Just listen. This town has been quarantined for months because of a virus called Lassiter’s. It makes people lose their memories. That’s what happened to you.”

“Those men said I was going to get sicker. They said—”

“They were lying. The virus makes you lose your memory, that’s all. I promise.”

There was a snap behind me. I whirled around, one hand dropping to the hilt of my knife, but no one was there. I told myself it was a branch knocked loose by the storm, nothing else.

“Look,” I said, trying to keep the nerves out of my voice. “There’s a National Guard shelter just a few blocks from here. I can take you there. They’ll let you stay with them while they figure out who you are and where your family is.”

The girl considered. Her fingers had gone white on the rock. She searched the park and the hill above it.

“But those men who attacked us, they live here too. Don’t they?”

“There are people running the shelter. Soldiers. They can protect you.”

“So I’ll be safe there.”

The voice in my head said yes, but I couldn’t get the words out. In the first weeks of the quarantine the Guard had hundreds of men, but their numbers had gradually dwindled until there were only forty or fifty for the whole town. There were never enough of them to keep an eye on everything, not even at their own shelter. If I left the girl there, it would only be a matter of time before Tommasulo and his friends found her. And then, as soon as one of the guardsmen turned his back . . .