“You okay, Mom?”
Audrey stops pacing and fixes her daughter with an inscrutable gaze. Any injuries she might have suffered in the crash are unnoticeable amongst the general ruin of her flesh.
“I just met the author of the Almanac, Mom. Remember the Almanac? Remember how excited you got when we found the Canada issue?”
Audrey glances toward the window of Tomsen’s cell. Julie’s face lights up.
“Yes! That’s her, right there in that room. It’s just one girl, Mom. She’s been out there all these years, searching the world. She even has stories from outside America. Don’t you want to talk to her?”
The elevator’s light winks on. I hear the distant whir of machinery.
“Julie!” Nora hisses. “Get in here.”
Julie glances over her shoulder at the elevator. “Mom?” she says with a trembling smile. “They’re probably going to take you away. I can’t stop them right now, but I promise I’ll come find you, okay?” Her lips tighten. “I won’t leave you like you left me.”
An emotion creeps into Audrey’s face. I’m almost certain it’s sorrow.
“Can you say something, Mom? So I know you’re still here?”
Audrey’s eyes drop to the floor.
“Can you please just tell me you’re here?”
“Julie,” I say, watching the elevator doors and grinding my teeth. “Come on.”
She grips the bars with both hands, pressing her forehead against them, then finally tears herself away. She runs back to the cell and Abram slams the door just as the elevator dings.
I’m expecting interrogators. Pitchmen. Grinning revenants in power ties. But four bored-looking men in beige jackets emerge from the elevator and go directly to Audrey’s cell with barely a glance our way. They collar the three prisoners—a frail, sad woman and two malnourished waifs—and lead them out on poles.
Joan and Alex catch my eye as they shuffle toward the elevator. I wish I knew what to say to them, but I know almost nothing. Where they’re going. What’s going to happen to them. What I can do about it. All I can manage is a feeble wave. They wave back, then disappear into the elevator.
Audrey stops between the open doors.
“Here,” she says.
Julie has turned her back, unable to watch the grim procession, but at the sound of her mother’s voice she whirls around. Audrey is looking directly at her, eyes steady with comprehension if not quite recognition.
“I’m . . . here.”
Julie claps a hand to her mouth. She squints against a rush of tears, but she and her mother maintain their gaze until the elevator doors sever it.
There is a long silence in the cell. Julie moves to the corner farthest from anyone and slides to the floor, wiping her eyes into a dry stare. I can hardly imagine what she’s feeling. Her mother may be emerging, but into what? There is no happy outcome ahead. Audrey died years ago, violently and irretrievably. The plague we hope to cure is the only thing keeping her with us.
I sit next to Julie, but not close. The others settle into their own natural positions, pairings determined by relationship, proximity by intimacy. Abram paces for a while, maybe wracking his brain for an escape plan, maybe just stewing, but eventually he succumbs. We sit in a circle around the perimeter of the room, the overhead fluorescents flickering on our faces like a sallow campfire.
Julie finally notices my stare, and I jerk my eyes away. An image blooms in my head and I permit it to spread, filling my chest with long-absent warmth. What if we met in a different time? One of the many eras that weren’t like this one? What if I were just a boy in a café ignoring his homework to watch a girl sip her coffee? What if this girl had an ordinary life, worrying about work and school and little else, with a heart that had been bruised perhaps but never burned or blackened? What if neither of us had ever killed anyone, never seen our parents die, never been beaten or tortured or saddled with the weight of an impossible quest? What if she caught me staring and smiled, and I said hello and asked her name, and it was as simple as that?
Such worlds have existed, I remind myself. Such worlds are possible. No matter how distant they may seem from this one.
THE WOMAN’S NAME.
“Like what you see?” Mr. Atvist whispers over my shoulder.
I am learning not to recoil at the smell of his breath. He says he stopped smoking on the day my father died, but either the fumes have permanently infused his tissues or it’s just the smell of an old man rotting.
“One of the many perks of working here,” he says, joining me at the visual feast. A blond woman is struggling to navigate her cubicle in a tight red dress. There aren’t many women in the Atvist Building, but the few I’ve seen are improbably attractive and impractically dressed.
“Who is she?” I ask, not taking my eyes off her.
“What do you mean who is she?”
“What’s her name? What does she do here?”
He chuckles. “You ask all the wrong questions, kid. But then you’re probably still a virgin, right?”