Amy knew this to be so. She felt as if she’d always known it—that even as a little girl, a purely human girl, she had sensed the existence of this other realm, this world-behind-the-world, as she had come to call it. She supposed that many children did the same. What was childhood if not a passage from light to dark, of the soul’s slow drowning in an ocean of ordinary matter? During her time in the Chevron Mariner, a great deal of the past had become clear. Vivid recollections had inched their way back to her, approaching on memory’s delicate feet, until things that had happened ages past felt like recent occurrences. She recalled a time, long ago, in the innocent period she thought of as “before”—before Lacey and Wolgast, before Project NOAH, before the Oregon mountaintop where they had made their home and then her long, solo wanderings in a peopleless world with only the virals for company—when animals had spoken to her. Larger animals, like dogs, but also smaller ones that nobody paid attention to—birds and even insects. She’d thought nothing of this at the time; it was simply the way things were. Nor did it trouble her that nobody else seemed to hear them; it was part of the world’s arrangement that the animals spoke only to her, always addressing her by name, as if they were old friends, telling her stories about their lives, and it made her happy to be the recipient of the special gift of their attention when so much else in her life seemed to make no sense at all: her mother’s lurching emotions and long absences, their drifting from place to place, the strangers that came and went with no apparent purpose.
All this had gone on without repercussion until the day Lacey had taken her to the zoo. At the time, Amy did not yet fully comprehend that her mother had deserted her—that she would never see the woman again—and she’d welcomed the invitation; she’d heard of zoos but had never been to one. She entered the grounds to an animal buzz of welcome. After the confusing events of the previous day—her mother’s abrupt departure and the presence of the nuns, who were nice but in slightly stilted way, as if they were reciting their kindnesses off a card of instructions—here was a familiar comfort. In a burst of energy, she broke away from Lacey and dashed to the polar bear tank. Three were basking in the sun; a fourth was swimming under the water. How magnificent they were, how amazing! Even now, so many years later, it gave her pleasure to remember them, their wonderful white fur and great muscular bodies and expressive faces, which seemed to contain all the wisdom of the universe. As Amy approached the glass, the one in the water paddled toward her. Though she knew that her communication with the creatures of the natural world was best conducted in private, her excitement could not be contained. She felt suddenly sorry that such a stately creature should be forced to live like a prisoner, sunning himself on phony rocks and being gawked at by people who did not appreciate him. “What’s your name?” she asked the bear. “I’m Amy.”
His answer was a collision of incompatible consonants, as were the names of the other bears, which he courteously offered. Were these things real? Had she, a little girl, simply imagined them? But no; all of it had happened, she believed, precisely as she recalled. As she stood at the glass, Lacey came up beside her. She was wearing a look of deep concern. “There now, Amy,” Lacey advised. “Not so close.” To put her unease at bay, and because Amy had detected in this kindly woman with her melodious accent an openness to extraordinary phenomena—the zoo, after all, had been her idea—she explained the situation as simply as she knew how. “He has a bear name,” she told Lacey. “It’s something I can’t pronounce.”
Lacey frowned. “The bear has a name?”
“Of course he does,” said Amy.
She returned her attention to her new friend, who was bumping his nose against the glass. Amy was about to ask him about his life, if he missed his Arctic home, when the water was rocked by a tremendous splash. A second bear had leapt into the tank. With paws big as hubcaps he swam toward her, taking his place beside the first bear, who was licking the glass with his immense pink tongue. A collective exhalation of oohs and aahs ascended from the crowd; people began to snap pictures. Amy placed her hand against the glass in greeting, but something felt wrong. Something was different, and it wasn’t very good. The bear’s great black eyes seemed to be looking not at her but through her, with a gaze of such intensity that she could not look away. She felt herself dissolving into it, as if she were melting, and with this came a falling sensation, like putting her foot on a step that wasn’t there.
Amy, the bears were saying. You’re Amy Amy Amy Amy Amy …
Things were happening. Some sort of commotion. As Amy’s awareness widened, she became conscious of other sounds, other voices, coming from all around—not human but animal. The hoots of monkeys. The shrieks of birds. The roars of jungle cats and the concussing hooves of elephants and rhinoceroses stamping the ground in panic. As the third and then the fourth bear leapt into the tank, displacing its contents with their white-furred tonnage, a wall of frigid water bulged over the lip. It crashed down upon the crowd, unleashing mayhem.
It’s her, it’s her, it’s her, it’s her …
She was kneeling by the glass, soaked to the bone, her head bowed to its slick surface. Her mind swirled with the voices, a chorus of black dread. She felt as if the universe were bending around her, swathing her in darkness. They would die, all these animals. That is what her presence meant to them. The bears and monkeys and birds and elephants: all of them. Some would starve in their cages; others would perish by more violent means. Death would take them all, and not just the animals. The people, too. The world would die around her, and she would be left standing at the center, alone.
It’s coming, death is coming, you’re Amy, Amy, Amy …
“You remembering, ain’t you?”
Amy’s mind returned to the patio. Carter was looking at her pointedly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”