The Here and Now (11 page)

“I know. I realize that. You were in bad shape. You were cold and alone and you had the number scrawled on your arm. I wanted to help you. I gave you my sweatshirt—”

I spin. I float. I try to breathe. “That was you.”
Of course
. Now I think,
Of course
.

“The air around you was quivering in the strangest way. You were scared and you didn’t want to talk to me. I pointed the way to a bridge over the river, where you thought you needed to go.”

“I don’t remember any of it,” I say faintly. Again I feel the
world shifting and reshaping behind me. “Did you see other people besides me?”

“No. They were probably coming into the woods in other places. I only saw you.” I can’t see his expression well enough to read it, but I sense he is weighing his words. “But I can recognize them—the people who came. Some easier than others.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can recognize travelers. It’s hard to describe. It’s like the air moves around you in a slightly different way. Not like on the day you came, but a very, very subtle version of it.”

“You can see that right now?”

“On you, barely. Almost not at all anymore. But on others more, particularly the older ones. I could see it pretty strongly on Kenobi.”

“Can other people see it?”

“Nobody I’ve ever met. Not that I talk to people about it a lot. Kenobi says it’s rare, but some people have an acute sensitivity to the time stream. Maybe because I was there that day when the path opened. Some effects of the stream are always there, but most people don’t see it. He says it’s like that psychological experiment everybody watches on YouTube. With the people throwing the basketball? You’ve probably seen it.”

I shake my head.

“Okay, so there are two basketball teams, one wearing black shorts, the other white. You are supposed to count the number of times the white team throws the basketball to the black team and vice versa. At the end they tell you the answer, and then they ask: Did you see the gorilla?”

“The gorilla?”

“Yeah. The majority of people are so occupied by counting
the throws, they don’t see that a guy in a gorilla suit walks right into the middle of the court while the players are throwing the ball, stands there, and then walks away. Most people have no idea the gorilla was there.”

I edge closer to him. I hold his hand. “You see the gorilla.”

His voice sounds tired, and for the first time I can tell that he is sad. “I guess I do.”

Ethan fumbles in his jacket and presents me with the envelope he took from the old man’s shopping cart.

“Is this what he wanted to give me?”

“He said that he had something for you—a key—but that if for any reason he couldn’t give it to you himself, I should find this and make sure to put it in your hands. I think it’s lucky you didn’t give his murderer more time to look around.”

I realize that is true.

“Are you going to open it now?” he asks as I knead the envelope in my hands. I find myself feeling it, shaking it like it is a Christmas present, wanting to even out the shocks if I can. There’s a letter inside. A key jiggles at the bottom. That’s the thing he wanted to make sure I got one way or another.

Ethan turns the car key halfway in the ignition to put the interior lights on. “You ready?”

“You’ll have to read it to me,” I say.

Along with the key and the letter is a small piece of paper with an address wrapped around a magnetized plastic card. Ethan reads the writing on the card:

That’s what the key is for.

I open the letter and squint down hard over the writing. The shape of it. The shape of the signature at the bottom. Blind though I am, the writing stirs more feelings in me. I close my eyes. “Okay. Read,” I say.

ELEVEN

Ethan wants to go straight to the storage place in the Bronx and get to work, but I need to stop at home first.

“Just for a few minutes,” I tell him. “Just to shower off and get clothes. I can’t go around like this. And I have to talk to my mother before we disappear. I can’t do that to her.”

“I think it’s a bad idea.”

“I won’t stay long enough for them to find me. Really. Hopefully, they’re roaming around the squash courts in Spring Valley.”

The most pressing thing for me is my mom. I feel desperate to tell her what happened to Poppy and what I’ve learned. I can’t go on without her knowing. And the pills. I have to tell her about them.

Ethan finally agrees to wait around the corner for me. I promise to be back in ten minutes or less. He hugs me. I feel his lips briefly graze the top of my ear.

“I’ll see you in a minute,” I say.

“Right.”

“It’s okay.” I say it to myself. It’s hard to let go of him.

The house is mostly dark when I let myself in. I’m afraid my mom won’t be there, but she is. I can’t see her face well, but I see the worry in her posture as she walks toward me the moment I open the door.

“Prenna!” Her voice is a shriek. Even in the darkness she takes in the stains on my clothes. “Are you all right? What is going on?”

I throw myself at her. It’s a strange thing for me to do. But she doesn’t retreat. She puts her arms around me. I’m worried she’s been crying.

“Molly, he’s been here the whole time,” I say with a sob. “Poppy has been here. He came later than us, so he was old, but he arrived at the same place. Tonight somebody killed him. I was there. I held him when he died.”

I am sorry to put her through the same one-two I suffered: Poppy’s alive and Poppy’s dead.

She’s still holding me, but her body is stiff. She’s crying too. “That’s impossible.”

“There are so many things I have to tell you,” I rush on. I should be more careful—I know that on some level—but I can’t make myself be. “We have no idea what’s going on, you know. The pills don’t protect us. They are making us blind. The pills that you—”

“That’s not true!” My mother sounds desperate. “Who told you that? Did this man who said he was Poppy tell you that? Because Poppy did not come. No one came besides us.” She lets go of me. “Please don’t talk that way. Please don’t say anything else.”

“But I have to. I don’t have much time. I have to clean myself up and I have to go, and I have so many things to tell you.” Her words are a jumble and so are mine. “I’ll be away for a few days, and I’ll be out of contact, but I’ll be back, so don’t worry. Poppy says this is the critical—”

“Prenna, stop.” She is terrified. “You put your trust in the wrong people! Please be quiet.”

Suddenly I understand the tone of her voice. I hear more than see the presence of two men in the dining room. Ethan was right. I am stupid.

I glance at my mother. I calculate the distance to the door.

“Prenna, we need you to come with us,” Mr. Robert says as he walks toward us. The other man moves to stand in front of the door.

I recognize from his size that the second man is Mr. Douglas, one of the other counselors. He’s well over six feet tall and weighs at least twice as much as me. There’s something in his hand I suspect is a gag.

I look at my mother. “Don’t let them.” I don’t know why I say this. I am out of my mind. I know she can’t help me.

“Please cooperate, sweetheart.” Her voice is begging. “They won’t let any harm come to you if you cooperate. They’ve promised me that.”

“Don’t let them take me.” My voice is rising. “Don’t trust them.”

“Prenna, be calm,” Mr. Robert orders. I know how much he wants to avoid a struggle. He hates anything ugly or unpleasant.

I consider for a moment the neighbors. I glance at Mr.
Douglas and feel a tinge of fear. I don’t think he has the same compunction as Mr. Robert.

I look around, frantic. “I need to shower and get my things.”

“We have what you need for now. Your mother can collect more of your things later,” Mr. Robert says.

“But look at me.”

“There’s a shower where we’re going.” Mr. Robert has my arm and is aiming me toward the door. “Let’s not make it difficult,” he says.

He’s sweating and breathing heavily, and I really loathe him.

“We’ll call you in the morning, Molly, and let you know the next steps,” Mr. Robert says to my sobbing mother as we cross the hallway.

I sit in the back of Mr. Douglas’s car, my arms wrapped around my body. It won’t take Ethan long to figure out what happened. I am ashamed.

Will he try to follow? Mr. Douglas keeps looking up at the rearview mirror, as though he’s expecting just such a contingency. What if they lead Ethan somewhere secret and remote and make him as vulnerable to them as I am? What would they do to him? The counselors are happy to tyrannize us travelers in any way they like, but would they touch a native? It would break so many rules.

And then I wonder, do the counselors take the rules seriously? What about the leaders? Do they really believe in them? Do they stick to them if it means sacrificing their own desires? Or are the rules just for keeping us in line?

As we wind through one neighborhood after the next, I have a sickening thought.
They took Katherine but they left me
. Maybe they let me go free only long enough to lead them to the old man. I am to blame for what happened to him, and now that he’s gone my use to them is over.