Delirium: The Complete Collection (7 page)

My brain grinds into action, slowly processing his words, the way he’s emphasizing certain details. Then it clicks: He has given me a time and a place. He’s telling me to meet him. “Are you asking me to—?” I start to say, but just then Hana runs back up to me, grabbing my arm.

“God,” she says, laughing. “Can you believe it’s after five already? We’ve got to
go
.” She’s dragging me backward before I can respond or protest, and by the time I think to look over my shoulder to see if Alex is watching or giving me any kind of sign, he has disappeared from view.

Chapter Six

Mama, Mama, help me get home
I’m out in the woods, I am out on my own.
I found me a werewolf, a nasty old mutt
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my gut.
Mama, Mama, help me get home
I’m out in the woods, I am out on my own.
I was stopped by a vampire, a rotting old wreck
It showed me its teeth, and went straight for my neck.
Mama, Mama, put me to bed
I won’t make it home, I’m already half-dead.
I met an Invalid, and fell for his art
He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.
—From “A Child’s Walk Home,”
Nursery Rhymes
and Folk Tales
, edited by Cory Levinson

T
hat evening I can’t concentrate. When I’m setting the table for dinner, I accidentally pour wine in Gracie’s juice cup and orange juice in my uncle’s wineglass, and while I’m grating cheese I catch my knuckles so many times in the teeth of the grater my aunt finally sends me out of the kitchen, saying she’d prefer not to have a topping of skin for her ravioli. I can’t stop thinking about the last thing Alex said to me, the endlessly shifting pattern of his eyes, the strange expression on his face—like he was inviting me.
Around eight thirty the sky looks like it’s on fire,
especially at Back Cove. You should really see it. . . .

Is it even remotely, conceivably possible he was sending me a message? Is it possible he was asking me to meet him?

The idea makes me dizzy.

I keep thinking, too, about the single word, directed low and quietly straight into my ear:
Gray
. He was there; he saw me; he
remembered
me. So many questions crowd my brain at once, it’s like one of the famous Portland fogs has swept up from the ocean and settled there, making it impossible to think normal, functional thoughts.

My aunt finally notices something’s wrong. Just before dinner I’m helping Jenny with her homework, as always, testing her on her multiplication tables. We’re sitting on the floor of the living room, which is squashed up right next to the “dining room” (an alcove that barely holds a table and six chairs), and I’m holding her workbook on my knees, reciting the problems to her, but my mind is on autopilot and my thoughts are a million miles away. Or rather, they’re exactly 3.4 miles away, down at the marshy edge of Back Cove. I know the distance exactly because it’s a nice run from my house. Now I’m calculating how quickly I could get down there on my bike, and then beating myself up for even considering the idea.

“Seven times eight?”

Jenny pinches her lips together. “Fifty-six.”

“Nine times six?”

“Fifty-two.”

On the other hand, there’s no
law
that says you can’t speak to a cured. Cureds are safe. They can be mentors or guides to the uncureds. Even though Alex is only a year older than I am, we’re separated, irreparably and totally, by the procedure. He might as well be my grandfather.

“Seven times eleven?”

“Seventy-seven.”

“Lena.” My aunt has squeezed out of the kitchen, past the dining room table, and is standing behind Jenny. I blink twice, trying to focus. Carol’s face is tight with concern. “Is something the matter?”

“No.” I drop my eyes quickly. I hate it when my aunt looks at me like that, like she’s reading all the bad parts from my soul. I feel guilty just for thinking about a boy, even a cured one. If she knew, she would say,
Oh, Lena. Careful. Remember what happened to your mother
. She would say,
These diseases tend to run in the blood
. “Why?”

I keep my eyes trained on the worn carpet underneath me. Carol bends forward, swoops up Jenny’s workbook from my knees, and says loudly in her clear, high voice, “Nine times six is fifty-four.” She snaps the workbook closed. “Not fifty-two, Lena. I assume you know your multiplication tables?”

Jenny sticks her tongue out at me.

My cheeks start heating up as I realize my mistake. “Sorry. I guess I’m just kind of . . . distracted.”

There’s a momentary pause. Carol’s eyes never leave the back of my neck. I can sense them burning there. I feel like I’ll scream, or cry, or confess, if she keeps staring at me.

Finally she sighs. “You’re still thinking about the evaluations, aren’t you?”

I blow the air out of my cheeks, feel a weight of anxiety ease off my chest. “Yeah. I guess so.” I venture a glance up at her, and she smiles her little skittering smile.

“I know you’re disappointed you have to go through the process again. But think about it this way—this time you’ll be even more prepared.”

I bob my head and try to look enthusiastic, even though a little, pinching feeling of guilt starts nipping at me. I haven’t even thought about the evaluations since this morning, not since I found out the results would be discounted. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Come on, now. Dinnertime.” My aunt reaches out and passes a finger over my forehead. Her finger is cool and reassuring, and gone as quickly as the lightest stirring of wind. It makes the guilt flare up full force, and in that moment I can’t believe I was even
considering
going to Back Cove. It’s the absolute, 100 percent wrong thing to do, and I stand up for dinner feeling clean and weightless and happy, like the first time you feel healthy after a long fever.

But at dinner my curiosity—and with it, my doubts—return. I can barely follow the conversation. All I can think is:
Go? Don’t go? Go? Don’t go?
At one point my uncle is telling a story about one of his customers, and I notice everyone is laughing so I laugh too, but a little too loud and long. Everyone turns to look at me, even Gracie, who puckers her nose and tilts her head like a dog sniffing at something new.

“Are you okay, Lena?” my uncle asks, adjusting his glasses as though hoping to bring me into clearer focus. “You seem a little strange.”

“I’m fine.” I push around some ravioli on my plate. Normally I can put away half a box myself, especially after a long run (and still have room for dessert), but I’ve barely managed to choke down a few bites. “Just stressed.”

“Leave her alone,” my aunt says. “She’s upset about the evaluations. They didn’t exactly turn out as planned.”

She lifts her eyes to my uncle, and they exchange a quick glance. I feel a rush of excitement. It’s rare for my aunt and uncle to look at each other like that, a wordless glance, full of meaning. Most of the time their interactions are limited to the usual thing—my uncle tells stories about work, my aunt tells stories about the neighbors.
What’s for dinner? There’s a leak in the roof. Blah blah blah
. I think that for once they’re going to mention the Wilds, and the Invalids. But then my uncle gives a minute shake of his head.

“These kinds of mix-ups happen all the time,” he says, staking a ravioli with his fork. “Just the other day, I asked Andrew to reorder three cases of Vik’s orange juice. But he goes and gets the codes wrong and guess what shows up? Three cases of baby formula. I said to him, I said, ‘Andrew . . .’”

I tune the conversation out again, grateful that my uncle is a talker, and happy that my aunt has taken my side. The one good thing about being kind of shy is that nobody bugs you when you want to be left alone. I lean forward and sneak a glance at the clock in the kitchen. Seven thirty, and we haven’t even finished eating. And afterward I’ll have to help clear and wash the dishes, which always takes forever; the dishwasher uses up too much electricity, so we have to do them by hand.

Outside, the sun is streaked with filaments of gold and pink. It looks like the candy that gets spun at the Sugar Shack downtown, all gloss and stretch and color. It
will
be a beautiful sunset tonight. In that moment the urge to go is so strong, I have to squeeze the sides of my chair to keep from suddenly springing up and running out the door.

Finally I decide to stop stressing and leave it to luck, or fate, or whatever you want to call it. If we finish eating and I’m done cleaning up the dishes in time to make it to Back Cove, I’ll go. If not, I’ll stay. I feel a million times better once I’ve made the decision, and even manage to shovel down a few more bites of ravioli before Jenny (miracle of miracles) has a sudden late burst of speed and cleans her plate, and my aunt announces I can clear the dishes whenever I’m ready.

I stand up and start stacking everyone’s plates. It’s almost eight o’clock. Even if I can wash all the dishes in fifteen minutes—and that’s a stretch—it will still be difficult to get to the beach by eight thirty. And forget about making it back by nine o’clock, when the city has a mandated curfew for uncureds.

And if I got caught on the streets after curfew . . .

The truth is, I don’t know
what
would happen. I’ve never broken curfew.

Just as I’ve finally accepted that there’s no way to get to Back Cove and back in time, my aunt does the unthinkable. As I’m reaching forward to take her plate, she stops me. “You don’t have to clean the dishes tonight, Lena. I’ll do them.”

As she’s speaking, she reaches out and puts a hand on my arm. Just like earlier, the touch is as fleeting and cool as wind.

And before I can think about what this means, I’m blurting out, “Actually, I have to run to Hana’s house really quick.”

“Now?” A look of alarm—or suspicion?—flickers across my aunt’s face. “It’s nearly eight o’clock.”

“I know. We—she—she has a study guide she was supposed to give me. I just remembered.”

Now the look of suspicion—it
is
suspicion, definitely—makes itself comfortable, drawing Carol’s eyebrows together, cinching her lips. “You don’t have any of the same classes. And your boards are over. How important can it be?”

“It’s not for class.” I roll my eyes, trying to conjure up Hana’s nonchalance, even though my palms are sweating and my heart is jerking around in my chest. “It’s like a guide full of pointers. For the evaluations. She knows I need to prep more, since I almost choked yesterday.”

Again, my aunt directs a small glance at my uncle. “Curfew’s in an hour,” she says to me. “If you get caught out after curfew . . .”

Nervousness makes my temper flare. “I
know
about curfew,” I snap. “I’ve only been hearing about it for my whole life.”

I feel guilty the second that the words are out of my mouth, and I drop my eyes to avoid looking at Carol. I’ve never spoken back to her, have always tried to be as patient and obedient and good as possible—have always tried to be as
invisible
as possible, a nice girl who helps with the dishes and the little kids and does her homework and listens and keeps her head down. I know that I owe Carol for taking Rachel and me in after my mother died. If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably be wasting away in one of the orphanages, uneducated, unnoticed, destined for a job at a slaughterhouse, probably, cleaning up sheep guts or cow crap or something like that. Maybe—maybe!—if I was lucky, I’d get to work for a cleaning service.

No foster parent will adopt a child whose past has been tainted by the disease.

I wish I could read her mind. I have no idea what she’s thinking, but she seems to be analyzing me, attempting to read my face. I think,
I’m not doing anything wrong, it’s harmless, I’m fine,
over and over, and wipe my palms on the back of my jeans, positive I’m leaving a sweat mark.

“Be quick,” she says finally, and as soon as the words are out of her mouth I’m off, jetting upstairs and switching my sandals for sneakers. Then I bang back down the stairs and fly out the door. My aunt has barely had time to take the dishes into the kitchen. She calls something to me as I blur past her, but I’m already pushing out the front door and don’t catch what she says. The ancient grandfather clock in the living room starts booming out just as the screen door swings shut behind me. Eight o’clock.

I unlock my bike and pedal it down the front path and out into the street. The pedals creak and moan and shudder. This bike was owned by my cousin Marcia before me and must be at least fifteen years old, and leaving it outside all year isn’t doing anything to preserve it.

I start cruising in the direction of Back Cove, which is downhill, fortunately. The streets are always pretty empty at this time of night. For the most part, the cureds are inside, sitting at dinner, or cleaning up, or preparing for bed and another night of dreamless sleep, and all the uncureds are home or on their way there, nervously watching the minutes swirl away toward nine o’clock curfew.

My legs are still aching from my run earlier today. If I make it to Back Cove on time and Alex is there, I’m going to be a complete mess, sweaty and disgusting. But I keep going anyway. Now that I’m out of the house I push all my doubts and questions out of my mind and focus on hauling ass as fast as my cramping legs will allow me, spinning down through the vacant streets toward the cove, taking every shortcut I can think of, watching the sun descend steadily toward the blazing gold line of the horizon, as though the sky—a brilliant, electric blue at this point—is water, and the light is just sinking through it.

I’ve only been out at this hour a few times on my own, and the feeling is strange—frightening and exhilarating at the same time, like talking to Alex out in the open earlier this afternoon: as though the revolving eye that I know is always watching has been blinded just for a fraction of a second, as though the hand you’ve been holding your whole life suddenly disappears and leaves you free to move in any direction you want.

Lights sputter in windows around me, candles and lanterns, mostly; this is a poor area, and everything is rationed, especially gas and electricity. At a certain point I lose sight of the sun’s position beyond the four- and five-story buildings, which grow more densely packed after I turn onto Preble: tall, skinny, dark buildings, pressed up against one another as though already preparing for winter and huddling for warmth. I haven’t really thought about what I’ll say to Alex, and the idea of standing alone with him suddenly makes my stomach bottom out. I have to pull my bike up abruptly, stop and catch my breath. My heart is pounding frantically. After a minute’s rest I keep pedaling, slower now. I’m still about a mile away but the cove is visible, flashing off to my right. The sun is just teetering over the dark mass of trees on the horizon. I have ten, fifteen minutes tops until total darkness.