Outside the roar of the storm has stilled. The silence swells and echoes, their ears gradually adjusting to the absence of sound. Now the taps of the slowing rain are discrete, fingers drumming. Instead of an indistinguishable blur, they can make out individual sounds. There is a single drip of rain pattering against the window. There is the single ping of a drop clanging against the gutter like a bell. There, suddenly, is a single bird testing the predawn air, then another bird answering its call.
Though it’s still dark, they eat the last of the cereal for breakfast, because even at the end of the world, they think, these things make them feel more prepared for whatever is to come. Then, without discussing it, they take up their posts on the front steps, though they still are not sure what they are waiting for. The sky is just beginning to lighten. After yesterday’s storm the air feels clean and crisp, the birds shouting at each other from the trees. The rain-damp world seems two shades darker—the rocks changed from pale buff to dark gold, the dirt from gray-brown to near-black—but everything is still here. A squirrel climbs, fusty-eyed, out of its hole, dangles by its rear feet, and stretches itself languidly, first one side, then the other. At Bird’s feet an industrious pair of ants lifts a crumb that’s fallen from his breakfast and begins the long awkward journey back to the nest.
Perhaps it is possible. Perhaps everything is fine, there was just a delay, perhaps Margaret and Domi are on the way to them, safe and sound and triumphant.
I hear them, Sadie says, jumping to her feet.
She’s right: they both hear it, a car crunching up the long gravel drive through the woods. From the front step, they watch it approach. The Duchess’s car, so urban and oddly incongruous here, a thin bright bullet boring through the forest in slow motion. It comes slowly, almost reluctantly. Sadie takes Bird’s hand, or Bird takes Sadie’s hand, they aren’t quite sure which, and they watch the car make its way to the cabin with agonizing slowness. As it nears they can see two figures in the front, though through the tinted glass they can’t make out the faces, only a shadowy shape on the passenger side, another at the wheel. Then it comes to a halt and the engine dies and the passenger door opens, but it isn’t her, it’s a man, a tall body unfolding itself and turning toward them, and Bird makes a choked sound of recognition. It is his father, the Duchess grim-faced behind the wheel, and they know something has gone terribly wrong.
Dad, Bird cries. Dad. But no sound comes out. Beside him, Sadie begins to cry.
And as if his father has heard him anyway, his father runs to him, runs to them, folds them both in his arms.
* * *
? ? ?
She’d waited, the Duchess—waited in her gilded townhouse through the evening and well into the night, waited for Margaret to arrive. As soon as you think they’ve pinpointed you, she’d said. Don’t wait, M. Just get out, before they have time to reach you. Don’t cut it close—you always get carried away. And Margaret had agreed.
And then she’d kept speaking, kept on going, past the point where Domi had expected her to stop, past the point where it seemed prudent, then past the point where it seemed safe, then past the point where it seemed possible. By the time it was clear Margaret wasn’t coming, that something had gone wrong, the sky had circled from light to dark and was beginning to grow light again, and she got in the car and headed for Brooklyn. Margaret’s voice had nearly gone out, the authorities finding and crushing speaker after speaker as they slowly spiraled toward her, but as Domi crossed the bridge, a few minutes after three, there it was again: her old friend, louder now, more distinct, through the speakers they’d missed or not yet found, as if now that she was closer her words came more clearly. Telling the stories that those who needed to tell could not say, now grieving, now angry, now tender, a thousand people shouting through her mouth.
But blocks away she knew things had gone wrong. Suddenly it was eerily silent. The roads were blocked off, starting from Flushing Avenue; she couldn’t even get in sight of Fort Greene Park. A cordon of police cars, sirens off but lights flashing, surrounded the whole area, and she turned down a side street and headed home. She already knew what they were there for, and that they’d found it. Still, she waited, watching her phone, still hoping that the screen would light up and it would be Margaret, calling from somewhere, anywhere, to say that she was all right.
When the phone finally did ring it was well into morning, and it was the call she’d expected, and she was ready. Yes, she owned the property in question—what had they found inside? No, a complete shock and quite an outrageous one, as they could probably imagine. No, she had no idea how—well, wait a moment, there was a keypad at the back; whoever this woman was must have managed to open it and work her way inside. What did they say she’d been doing? Absolutely horrifying. No, she never went there herself; her father had bought it during the Crisis intending to renovate it, but it had never happened and he’d passed and it had been sitting there empty ever since. In fact it was a rather upsetting place for that reason; she never liked to go there but hadn’t been ready, yet, to sell it. Claude Duchess, his name was—yes, like the tech company; that was their family. Why yes, of course, she would make it more secure going forward; she would add an alarm system, hire security to keep an eye on it. Given everything happening these days, you really couldn’t be too careful. If the authorities could let her know when they’d finished their work . . . ? They were too kind; she so appreciated the service they provided, watching over the community—and this reminded her, she’d been meaning to make a donation to support the officers in their duties. No, no—thank you.
In the meantime, she was searching. Margaret hadn’t told her much, but the few scraps she already knew were enough. It was surprising how much you could track down with just a name, if you asked the right people. Ethan Gardner led her to Harvard, then to the library staff payroll, and then, eventually, to what she needed: a Cambridge address, one of the dorms. No phone number, but of course she couldn’t risk a call anyway. It took her nearly five hours to reach Boston, traffic clotting as the afternoon turned to evening, stalling outside of Stamford, then New Haven, then Providence. By the time she reached Cambridge it was just past four, and she parked outside the dorm, waiting. Maybe she’d missed him already, perhaps he didn’t work Friday, perhaps he’d already come home from work or he had never left or she was in the wrong place, and she had driven all that way for nothing. She nearly gave up. But finally, just after nine, there he was—a little older, a little grayer, but the same face she remembered from all those years ago. Dressed the same, even: a tucked-in pale blue oxford, a corduroy blazer. She couldn’t understand it, at the time, what had fascinated Margaret so, but she thought she saw it now, the softness in him, the promise that there could be gentleness in this world.
As he passed by, she stepped out of the car.
Ethan? she said, and he turned, startled. Uncertain. Scanning her face for something familiar.
It’s Domi, she said, and watched recognition flood his eyes. I’m here about Margaret, she said, and then, before he could speak, she added: And Bird.
* * *
? ? ?
He’d come home to an empty apartment that Monday, and his chest had seized. So it had happened, he’d thought in a panic: despite everything, they’d taken him at last. Noah, he called out, flicking on the lights in the living room, then the bedroom, circling the apartment again, as if Bird were a misplaced key he’d simply overlooked. Only then did he see the note on the table, the drawing, the scrap of paper reading New York, NY. After all these years, he still recognized her writing, quick and pointed and sure, and he understood.