Even though it has been eight months, I navigate the way to Lena’s old house easily, even remembering to shortcut through the parking lot that backs up onto Cumberland.
By this point, I’m sweating, and I stop my bike a few doors down from the Tiddles’ house, wrestling off my hat and running a hand through my hair so I at least look semi-presentable. A door bangs down the street, and a woman emerges onto her porch, which is cluttered with broken furniture and even, mysteriously, a rust-spotted toilet seat. She is carrying a broom, and she begins sweeping back and forth, back and forth, over the same six inches of porch, her eyes locked on me.
The neighborhood is worse, much worse, than it used to be. Half the buildings are boarded up. I feel like a diver on a new submarine, coasting past the wreck of a tanked ship. Curtains stir in the windows, and I have a sense of unseen eyes following my progress down the street—and anger, too, simmering inside all the sad, sagging homes.
I start to feel incredibly stupid for coming. What will I say? What can I say?
But now that I’m so close, I can’t turn around until I’ve seen it: number 237, Lena’s old house. As soon as I wheel my bike up to the gate, I can tell that the house has been abandoned for some time. Several shingles are missing from the roof, and the windows have been boarded up with fungus-colored wood. Someone has painted a large red X over the front door, a symbol that the house was harboring disease.
“What do you want?”
I spin around. The woman on the porch has stopped sweeping; she holds the broom in one hand and shields her eyes with the other.
“I was looking for the Tiddles,” I say. My voice rings out too loudly on the open street. The woman keeps staring at me. I force myself to move closer to her, wheeling my bike across the street and up to her front gate, even though something inside me is revolting, telling me to go. I do not belong here.
“Tiddles moved off last fall,” she says, and begins sweeping again. “They weren’t welcome around here no more. Not after—” She breaks off suddenly. “Well. Anyways. Don’t know what happened to them, and don’t care, either. They can rot away in the Highlands as far as I’m concerned. Spoiling the neighborhood, making it hard for everybody else—”
“Is that where they went?” I seize on the small bit of information. “To Deering Highlands?”
Instantly, I can tell I’ve put her on her guard. “What business is it to you?” she says. “You Youth Guard or something? This is a good neighborhood, a clean neighborhood.” She jabs at the porch with her broom, as though trying to tamp down invisible insects. “Read the Book every day and passed all my reviews just like anybody else. But still people come poking and prying, digging up trouble—”
“I’m not from the DFA,” I say to reassure her. “And I’m not trying to cause trouble.”
“Then what are you trying to do?” She squints at me closely, and I see a flicker of recognition pass across her face. “Hey. Have you been around here before or something?”
“No,” I say quickly, and jam the hat back onto my head. I’ll get no more help here, I can tell.
“I’m sure I know you from somewhere,” the woman says as I climb onto my bike. I know it will click for her any second: That’s the girl who got paired with Fred Hargrove.
“You don’t,” I say, and I push off into the street.
I should let it go. I know I should let it go. But more than ever, I have an urge to see Lena’s family again. I need to know what has happened since she left.
I haven’t been to Deering Highlands since last summer, when Alex, Lena, and I used to hang out in 37 Brooks, one of the neighborhood’s many abandoned houses. 37 Brooks is where Lena and Alex were caught by the regulators, and the reason they attempted a last-minute, poorly planned escape.
Deering Highlands, too, is even more run-down than I remember it. The neighborhood was practically abandoned years ago, after a string of busts in the area gave it the reputation of being tainted. When I was little, the older kids used to tell stories of the ghosts of uncureds who’d died of amor deliria nervosa and still wandered the streets. We used to dare each other to go into the Highlands and put a hand on the derelict buildings. You had to keep your hand there for a full ten seconds, just enough time for the disease to seep through your fingertips.
Lena and I did it together once. She chickened out after four seconds, but I waited the whole ten, counting slowly, and loud, so the girls who were watching could hear. I was the hero of second grade for a full two weeks.