Black River Falls (30 page)

He flipped when I told him what he was going to be pitching to Marvel. I laid everything out for him not long after I got to the city. Dad's notes and sketches for Volume Five, plus a few additions of my own. He got to work immediately and has barely taken a break since.

It's a clear night and Manhattan is all lit up. I keep thinking about that time we went to see Mom dance—how the four of us walked to that restaurant afterward dressed up in our fancy clothes. Dad kept telling us to keep our eyes open because at any moment we might turn a corner and see Spiderman grappling with Dr. Octopus or Captain Marvel rocketing overhead. You and I both laughed, thinking we were too big for things like that, but we kept watch anyway, because who knew, maybe the world was just waiting to surprise us. I wouldn't have thought I'd feel the same way after all these years, but even now, when I look down at the lights of the city, they sometimes seem to flicker, like a dark form is passing between us, like a winged man is soaring through the sky.

Earlier tonight, I stopped by my nightstand and I picked up Freeman's letter. I stood there a long time, turning it over and over in my hands.

I'd hoped that writing to you would help me make sense of everything, that it'd give me the guts to finally pull the envelope out of my bag and slide it across Lassiter's desk. But it seems like just the opposite has happened. The idea of forgetting everything, even the worst things, scares me more than remembering.

The envelope tore easily enough. I did it once, and then I stacked the halves together and did it again. When I was done I let the pieces fall into the trash.

Anyway, I guess I better get going. I told Gonzalez I'd have dinner with him and his folks and then help him work on his pitch. I'd say I'll write more later, but the truth is, there's another letter I want to write. I think it's about time I left you alone and got started on it.

Love you, brother,

Cardinal

Dear Hannah,

You wanted to know how my dad's story ended. This is what I came up with.

Cardinal retreats to a cave at the summit of Ghost Mountain, a lone peak at the edge of the Gardens of Null. He watches as Abaddon slowly transforms into Liberty City. Its great towers rise and the burnt red skies turn blue. A canal is dug through the Gardens of Null and soon they become green and lush.

Decades pass. Cardinal turns seventy. Then eighty. Then ninety. He becomes stooped and frail. He rarely leaves his cave. He sees no one.

One day a family is picnicking in the meadow that lies at the foot of Ghost Mountain. A boy dares his little sister to climb it and seek out the crazy old hermit they say haunts the caves. He thinks she'll be too scared to do it, but he doesn't know his little sister very well.

Even at seven years old, Sally Sparrow isn't afraid of anything.

She fills a knapsack with provisions, sneaks away from their parents, and climbs the mountain. She finds the old hermit lying on a bed made of stone in a cold, dank cave. He's shriveled and frail. Dressed in rags. His skin is like tissue paper draped over a frame of bone. Sally's heart breaks. He seems so familiar to her, even though she's sure she's never seen him before. She kneels by his side and feeds him morsels of food from her pack and wets his chapped lips with water from her canteen.

“How did you get here?” Sally Sparrow asks. “What are you doing in this cave all alone?”

Cardinal's eyes are covered in a film of gray. Sally is nothing but a shadow and a warm breath against his cheek. She takes his hand in hers and squeezes. When he speaks, his voice is like the moan of a rusty gate.

“My name,” he says, “is Cameron Conner.”

He tells her everything he remembers about the world to come. All about the Brotherhood and how the Volanti reappeared after a hundred years to betray and murder them. He weeps as he tells her how he saw the great love of his life, Sally Sparrow, die just before he fled uselessly into the past.

Frightened, Sally runs away, but when she reaches the sunlight and sweet air at the mouth of the cave, she's overwhelmed with guilt to have left the helpless old man on his own. She returns, only to find the stone bed empty. The old man and all his things have disappeared.

The final spread will be wordless. The spires of Liberty City sparkling in the light of a noonday sun. High above them, the Brotherhood of Wings soars, with Cardinal and Sally Sparrow in the lead, hand in hand.

Hope you like it. Save me a front row seat for
Hamlet
. I'll be home soon.

Love,

Card

SPECIAL THANKS
to my pal and official science advisor, Dr. Kenneth Fortino, who was kind enough to set me up with a couple world-class scientists whose advice was invaluable to me as I worked on this book. All my thanks to Laura Thomas, PhD (Research Health Scientist, War Related Illness and Injury Study Center, DC VA Medical Center) and Catherine Franssen, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychology at Longwood University). Memory is a bafflingly complex subject and you both helped make it just a little bit clearer.

Thanks as well to Martha Brockenbrough, Joelle Charbonneau, Eliot Schrefer, and Roland Smith. Also to Ken Weitzman and Danielle Mages Amato, who were kind enough to give me their thoughts on early drafts of this book.

Huge, heaping helpings of thanks to Sara Crowe, the whole team at Clarion, and my wonderful editor, Lynne Polvino, who were all tireless in helping me make this the best book it could be.

Photo credit Elizabeth Dahmen

J
EFF
H
IRSCH
is the best-selling author of
The Eleventh Plague
and
The Darkest Path
. He lives in Beacon, New York.