AS SOON AS IT WAS LIGHT ENOUGH TO SEE, ORY SPRINTED. Out of the shelter, down the mountain, all the way to the first ruin of road. That’s where he stopped, jerked to a halt at the edge of that asphalt path.
He had no idea which way Max had gone.
The sun was out, burning so bright everything was white instead of yellow. It made the blow to the back of his head from the night before throb painfully. East, toward downtown Arlington, and then past the river to D.C., was slightly more traversable. West, toward Fairfax County and all the western cities like Falls Church and Oakton and Centreville, was overgrown and wild. Ory gritted through the headache, studying the ground for tracks, but there weren’t any. There was too much grass and rock and not enough dust to see any footprints Max might have left.
How much of her memory had she lost, exactly? Even if it had been a devastating amount, there had to be some figment of it left that would have made her choose one path over the other. A spray of birds shot across the sky from one tree to another, screeching, then disappeared into the leaves. But what if whatever remained wasn’t a part he knew?
The birds chattered again, and then fell silent. Every second that went by was a day. How far could a person who didn’t know where they were going get? No explanation, no clues, no map. She had vanished without a single trace, as silently and mysteriously as had her shadow.
Where did the shadows go? Ory wondered. He didn’t even care about the why anymore. Only the where. The why was inexplicable. Ory didn’t believe in magic, but he knew in his heart that what had happened was nothing that could be understood by humans. It was no natural disaster, no disease, no biological weapon. The best name he’d ever heard for it was curse. Because in the end it didn’t matter who you were. No one escaped—either because they were someone who lost their shadow, or because they were someone who loved someone who lost their shadow.
Ory gritted his teeth. It was impossible to hope now, but he had to believe that the person he was chasing was still Max. Otherwise what would be the point of trying to find her? And if he was chasing Max, then there was only one direction she would have chosen. She’d try to go home. Not the shelter, but their real home. The apartment where they’d lived in D.C., before the Forgetting. Before they’d gotten in the car that weekend so long ago to drive into Virginia for Paul and Imanuel’s wedding. Before everything.
Ory held his breath and ran east, straight into the low-hanging morning light, as if he could outrun his terror. If he could just make it far enough, the rising sun would turn into a bridge, and then he’d be in D.C. And Max would have to be there. She’d have to be.
THAT’S WHAT HE TOLD HIMSELF UNTIL HE COULDN’T RUN anymore.
Odricks Corner had turned into a willow forest, curtains of leaves everywhere. For some reason, the sidewalks had been refashioned into spirals. Ory rested only long enough for the sweat to dry across his forehead. He went on with the gun out then.
Since Paul and Imanuel’s wedding, neither he nor Max had returned to their apartment. She had wanted fiercely to go back, but it was too dangerous. Before the news went down, they’d seen the scenes from Boston, San Francisco, D.C.—fires, looting, roving gangs. There was plenty of food at Elk Cliffs Resort from the wedding, and the slope of the mountain provided natural protection.
Over the years, as more and more of the other guests disappeared, or left to try to make it to their own homes, Ory became convinced that only their mountain was safe. Who knew what was lurking there in the east, in the great silent black hole that had been their capital. For a moment, he remembered the strange group he’d met on Broad Street, what their leader, Ursula, had said. Bad things. Bad things are happening in D.C.
THERE WAS A RUSTLING IN THE HEDGES ALONGSIDE OLD Cedar Road. Ory didn’t like it there, in that part of Arlington. Houses lined both sides of the street, set far back, with low-hanging trees. No one was inside, but the shades behind the windows blinked languidly on their own from time to time, like drowsy eyelids. On the side of one garage, someone had scrawled in charcoal The Dreamless One and The One Who Gathers.
There was more movement, a nervous shuffling. Ory looked and saw no dark shape there under the trembling leaves. He raised the gun and ran.