When I reach the end of my street I hop up on my bike, feeling the gears shudder into place. The breeze feels good as I start pedaling, careful not to go too quickly, staying alert in case there are regulators nearby. Fortunately, Stroudwater, and Roaring Brook Farms, are in the exact opposite direction from the Fourth of July celebrations at Eastern Prom. Once I get to the broad swath of farmland that surrounds Portland like a belt, I should be okay. The farms and slaughterhouses rarely get patrolled. But first I have to make it through the West End, where rich people like Hana live, through Libbytown, and over the Fore River at the Congress Street Bridge. Thankfully, each street I turn down is empty.
Stroudwater is a good thirty minutes away, even if I’m biking quickly. As I get off-peninsula—moving away from the buildings and businesses of downtown Portland and onto the more suburban mainland—the houses get smaller and farther apart, set back on weedy, patchy yards. This isn’t rural Portland yet, but there are signs of the countryside creeping in: plants poking up through half-rotted porches, an owl hooting mournfully in the dark, a black scythe of bats cutting suddenly across the sky. Almost all these houses have cars in front of them—just like the richer houses in West End—but these have obviously been salvaged from the junkyards. They’re mounted on cinder blocks and covered in rust. I pass one that has a tree growing straight through its sunroof, like the car has just dropped out of the sky and been impaled there, and another one, hood open, missing its engine. As I go past, a cat startles up out of its black cavity, meowing, blinking at me.
After I cross the Fore River the houses fall away altogether, and it’s just field after field and farm after farm, with names like MeadowLane and Sheepsbay and Willow Creek, which make them sound all homey and nice: places where someone might be baking muffins and skimming fresh cream for butter. But most of the farms are owned by big corporations, packed with livestock and often staffed by orphans.
I’ve always liked it out here, but it’s kind of freaky in the dark, open and totally empty, and I can’t help but think that if I did come across a patrol there would be no place to hide, no alley to turn down. Across the fields I see the low, dark silhouettes of barns and silos, some of them brand-new, some of them barely standing, clinging to the earth like teeth digging into something. The air smells slightly sweet, like growing things and manure.
Roaring Brook Farms is right next to the southwestern border. It’s been abandoned for years, since half the main building and both grain silos were destroyed in a fire. About five minutes before I get there, I think I can make out a rhythm drumming almost imperceptibly under the throaty song of the crickets, but for a while I’m not sure if I’m just imagining it or only hearing my heart, which has started pounding again. Farther on, though, and I’m sure. Even before I reach the little dirt road that leads down to the barn—or at least, the portion of the barn that’s still standing—strains of music spring up, crystallizing in the night air like rain turning suddenly to snow, drifting to earth.
Now I’m scared again. All I can think is: wrong, wrong, wrong, a word that drums in my head. Aunt Carol would kill me if she knew what I was doing. Kill me, or have me thrown into the Crypts or taken to the labs for an early procedure, Willow Marks–style.
I hop off my bike when I see the turnoff to Roaring Brook, and the big metal sign staked in the ground that reads PROPERTY OF PORTLAND, NO TRESPASSING. I wheel my bike a little ways into the woods at the side of the road. The actual farmhouse and the old barn are still five or six hundred feet down the road, but I don’t want to bring my bike any farther. I don’t lock it up, though. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if there was a raid, but if there is, I’m not going to want to be fumbling with a lock in the half dark. I’ll need speed.
I step around the NO TRESPASSING sign. I’m getting to be quite the expert at ignoring them, I realize, remembering how Hana and I hopped the gate at the labs. It’s the first time I’ve thought about that afternoon in a while, and right then a vision of Alex rises up in front of me, a memory of seeing him on the observation deck, head tilted back and laughing.
I have to focus on the land around me, the brightness of the moon, the wildflowers on the road. It helps me beat back the feeling that I’m going to be sick at any second. I don’t really know what compelled me out of the house, why I felt like I had to prove Hana wrong about something, and I’m trying to ignore the idea—way more disturbing than anything else—that my argument with Hana was just an excuse.
That maybe, deep down, I was just curious.
I’m not feeling curious now. I’m feeling scared. And very, very stupid.