Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(29)

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“So,” Greer said. “You gonna take a look?”

We’d been winding through the streets for hours, searching for the girl without any luck.

“Take a look at what?”

Greer nodded toward the note I had clutched in my hand.

“No,” I said. “And you’re not either. Whatever she wrote, it’s none of our business.”

“Yeah, but you can’t tell me it isn’t killing you, right? It’s killing me. Oh! Maybe she was like a bank robber or something and she came here to get away from the police.”

“Then she’d want them to forget her,” I said. “Not the other way around.”

“Right. So maybe . . .”

Greer laid out a dozen more theories as we checked the park and the high school, but I could barely hear him anymore. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears. It seemed to grow louder every minute we stayed in town. I’d become hyper alert too, flinching at every sound and constantly seeing movement in the shadows only to turn and find nothing there. I could feel our house lurking out in the maze of neighborhoods, pulling at me, trying to draw me back. All I wanted was to find the girl and go.

Greer led us down to the alleys and the boarded-up shops on Main Street. Infected emerged from their homes, standing in the gloom of their doorways to watch us. Greer stopped and asked each one if they’d seen her while I waited on the street. The answer was always no. Nothing. Not a trace. The sun was just starting to fall.

“Come on,” I said. “Maybe she headed back to camp.”

Greer agreed and we left Main and rejoined Route 9 heading out of town. Lucy’s Promise rose ahead of us. The pounding in my chest slowly eased.

“Hey, at least we know she’s from Indiana,” Greer said. “That’s something, right?”

“We know she got on a bus in Indiana,” I said. “She could have been anywhere before that.”

“Yeah. Right. Good point. I still don’t get it, though.”

“What’s to get?” I said. “She gives some charity group a fake name, then ditches them once she gets inside.”

“I get that,” Greer said. “I just don’t get why. I mean, what could happen to a person that’d be so bad they’d throw their whole life away over it?”

Greer waited for an answer, but I didn’t say anything. I kept my head down, watching the asphalt beneath my feet. I saw Mom in that alleyway. I saw the house. I saw you and Dad. Glassy chimes jangled in my head.

“Card.”

We’d come to the bridge that spanned Black River Falls. The girl was standing out in the middle of it, leaning against the stone guardrail. She’d taken off the baseball cap, and her hair rippled in the spray-filled breeze. She didn’t move as we came onto the bridge, didn’t acknowledge us. I handed Greer the note. He took it over to her and then rejoined me. The girl stood looking down at the falls for a long time before she tore open the envelope with one swift motion. Inside was a plain white card, square, folded in the middle, like an invitation. It whipped back and forth in the wind as she read.

“Or maybe she’s some kind of international spy and her bosses sent her here to—”

“Shhhh.”

It was a small card, but the girl took a long time reading it. She would come to the end, look up, start again. When she was done, she refolded it and placed it back in the envelope. Greer started to walk toward her, but I held up my hand to stop him.

She leaned against the guardrail and carefully ripped the envelope in two. She placed one piece on top of the other and tore them again. There was a whistle in the trees, and then a starling flew across the water. The girl held the scraps over the guardrail and let them drop into the falls.





12


AS SOON AS Greer and I got back to camp, there was a shriek and Astrid came running toward us.

“Greer! Cardinal! Hi!”

Behind her, everyone else had congregated in the space between the four cabins. They were scrubbed clean and wearing their going-to-town finest. Even the boys. Strips of colored paper had been strung into chains that hung from trees and rooftops like a Christmas garland.

“We, uh, we didn’t think you-all would be back so soon!”

“Well, here we are,” Greer said. “What’s going on, Astrid?”

“Where’s the girl?”

“She’s trailing along behind us,” I said. “She’ll be here in a minute.”

“Oh, okay. Well, we all thought that since Cash and Shan and the green-haired girl—”

“Wait,” Greer said. “Cash and Shan?”

“Oh!” Astrid said. “They’re the kids from this morning. We gave them names till you find their real ones.”

Astrid gestured behind her, and the Joseph’s Point kids—Cash and Shan now—stood between Ren’s and Makela’s groups. They still looked a little shell-shocked, but they were clean and in fresh clothes.

“Anyway,” Astrid continued, “since the two of them and that girl with green hair all joined us at the same time, we thought we should have a welcome party! Eliot was supposed to ask if we could this morning. He said he couldn’t find you, but I think he chickened out and was lying about it.”