The Impossible Knife of Memory(54)

Fought the urge to set my room on fire and scream while the windows and mirrors shattered. Fought the urge to reach inside and punch my own heart until it stopped beating or until I stopped caring, whichever came first.

I walked out of my room. Down the hall.

They were sitting at the table again. She had the coffee cup to her mouth. He stared into the candle flame.

I grabbed my feathered shawl off the floor. Slammed the front door behind me, hoping that it would make the roof cave in. I did not look back to see if it did.





_*_ 57 _*_

“Wait!”

I turned right at the bottom of the driveway and kept walking.

“Wait, where are we going?” Finn called after me.

Walking, walking . . .

He fell into step next to me. “Gracie’s house is the other way.”

What if she kills him? What if she upsets him so much, he shoots her, and then turns the gun on himself?

“I’m not going to Gracie’s.”

“So where are you going?”

Walk. Just walk.

“Bus station.”

“That’s ridiculous. You don’t run away because you don’t like your dad’s date.”

What if he’s been getting worse because she’s been messing with his head? What if he has truly lost it, as in he needs to be tied to a bed, he needs them to shock his brain again? What if he’s already gone over the edge and can’t come back?

“Come on, really?” He jogged ahead then turned and walked backward a few paces in front of me. “What time does the bus leave? Where is it going? You don’t know, do you?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m getting on the first bus out of here.”

“What if it’s going to Poughkeepsie?” he asked. “Nobody in their right mind would go to Poughkeepsie.”

“Stop following me.”

“You’re following me,” he said. “I’m in front.”

“I’m not playing, Finn.”

“I know. That’s what’s scaring me.”

Just walk.

“You’re going in the wrong direction, you know,” he said. “Unless you were going to walk twenty-five miles to the Schenectady station.”

“If you get your car, you could drive me.”

“If I go back to get my car, you’ll disappear.”

I kept my mouth shut, head down, and feet moving because he was right.

Five minutes. Ten.

We left the last streetlight behind, but the road was lit by the stubborn moon. We passed an abandoned farm and walked through the smell of something dead and rotting in the weeds.

Without any warning, Finn suddenly tripped and went down hard.

I wanted to walk past him, over him if necessary, but the sound he made when he hit the ground, a soft “ow,” was so real that I almost felt it.

I stopped. “Break anything?”

He sat up. “Not sure.” He reached forward and felt his right ankle, then slowly flexed his foot, wincing a little.

I put out my hand and helped him up. He dusted off the back of his coat and took a few steps.

“Ankle’s okay, but I think I sprained my butt bone.” He walked a few paces and turned to look at me. “Let’s go.”

The Halloween wind that had blown us all over town hours earlier cut through me, slicing through my clothes, biting my skin, and breaking the fever that had been boiling in me ever since I opened the door and saw Trish at our table.

“Do you think we’ve crossed the border yet?” I asked.

“Canada is that way.” Finn pointed north. “A very long walk.”

“I meant the border to the next town.”

“Why?”

The moon chuckled. It did. I heard it.

“I wish they painted black lines on the ground to show you where the borders are, like on a map.” I wiped the tears off my face. “You know, like when you’re little in an airplane, and you look down and you expect to see fat lines on the ground dividing one state from the other?”

“The company that made the giant paintbrushes to do that went out of business,” Finn said quietly, stepping closer to me. “Sabotage, I think.”

I shivered. “Why are you doing this?”

He pulled a feather out of my hair and held it between us. “I have this thing for Sexy Big Birds.”

I tried to keep my face hard, my fists clenched, but a smile crept up. We kissed, gently at first, then harder. Hotter. We kissed in the moonlight in the middle of nowhere, our arms winding around each other like vines. For a moment, I didn’t feel lost.

“Are you hungry?” he finally asked.

“No.”

“Good.” He lifted my hand and kissed the knuckles. “Let me cook you breakfast. I’ll call Topher, tell him to stay away. We’ll eat and then I’ll take you to the bus station, Scout’s honor, whatever bus station you want.”

“You were never a Boy Scout.”

“Pancakes or waffles?”





_*_ 58 _*_

Night vision goggles turn the dark into shades of green, Oz-like, but they can’t see everything. Thermal-imaging goggles show the heat signature of the hidden enemy. Kill him and you can watch the heat leave his body like a spirit reaching for the moon.