Wither (36 page)

There’s a rumbling sound, and then a big yellow truck sweeps past us, plowing up the snow along the city street.

And we’ve made it. We’re here. The lights and buildings all reveal themselves as though a curtain has just been parted for us. There are more plows, and even a few people meandering beneath the streetlights. The cinema’s marquee is advertising an all-night zombie-fest.

While we were in that barren wasteland, contemplating certain death, the world was peacefully going on just a few miles away. I laugh, somewhat hysterically, and I’m shaking Gabriel and pointing and saying, “See? See what you were missing?”

He says, “What’s a zombie?”

“I don’t know. We could find out, though. We can do anything we want.”

We go into the cinema, where it’s warm and it smells like hot butter and carpet cleaner. Neither of us has any money. Even if I’d thought to steal some, I wouldn’t have known where to look. There’s no use for it in the mansion; even Linden doesn’t carry it around.

But the cinema is crowded, and we’re able to sneak into one of the theatres unnoticed. We huddle together in the darkness, surrounded by strangers. We’re anonymous, and in that anonymity there’s safety. The movies are horrifying, the special effects tawdry and silly, and I feel a rush of exhilaration. “This is what Manhattan is like,” I whisper to him.

“People crawl out of their graves in Manhattan?”

“No. They pay to see movies like this.”

The marathon runs all night, one grotesque movie after another. I drift in and out of sleep. There’s no sense of time, no sense of night or day. I hear the screams and howls in my subconscious, but my mind registers that the horror is fake. I’m safe here. Gabriel holds on to my hand. I wake up at some point to him tracing my wedding band with his finger. It has lost its meaning now; I am no longer Linden Ashby’s wife, if I ever even was.

I was always led to believe that for two people to truly be married, the bride would have to speak on her own behalf at some point.

“My real last name is Ellery,” I say sleepily.

“I don’t have a last name,” Gabriel says.

“You should make one up, then,” I say.

He laughs, and there’s his smile again, shy and toothy and brilliant. His face is washed over by the flickering white screen, and I turn and realize the movies are over and the seats around us are empty. “Why didn’t you wake me?” I ask.

“You looked kind of cute,” he says. He looks at me for a while, considering. Then he leans forward to kiss me.

It’s a fantastic kiss, with neither of us worrying about open doors. His hand is under my chin, and my arms move slowly around his neck, and we’re lost in this world of flickering darkness, in a sea of empty seats, and we are absolutely, unequivocally free.

It’s the creak of the swinging door that breaks us apart, and the theatre employee—a first generation with a broom—saying, “Hey, the shows are all over. Go home.”

I look at Gabriel. “Shall we go, then?” I say.

“Go where?”

“Home, of course.”

It’s such a long way home that I have no idea how we’ll get there. There’s no phone at the house, no way to call Rowan and let him know I’m all right. But once we get out of Florida, I’ll track down a pay phone and call the factory where he was working when I last saw him. There’s a good chance he’s still there. I have to hold on to that thought, though a sinking feeling in my gut is telling me he’s already moved on, lost in his search for me.

Outside, the city has settled into the hazy, fleeting moment between falling asleep and waking. It’s subdued, though not entirely silent. There are still cars and plows mashing up the muddy sludge that’s become of the snow. People are still walking here and there, but with less excitement and urgency. The sky is beginning to take on pink and yellow hues, and I know we don’t have much time. It’s nearly morning, and Vaughn will realize Gabriel and I have gone. That’s if he doesn’t know already, if Cecily has covered for us somehow.

Cecily. She sent that attendant out to help us last night. I didn’t trust it. How could I? But there are no flashing police cars chasing us down. There’s no wild hunt. Gabriel and I stand here, hand in hand, staring at a peaceful city.

Why did she help me?

Yesterday afternoon on the trampoline, she used that word. “Help.”
I’ve helped you,
she cried. And there was such horror on her young face when she realized the opposite was true.

“What now?” Gabriel says, bringing me out of my thoughts.

“Come on,” I say, and pull him along the sidewalk. Fat grains of salt crinkle under our shoes. At least a dozen people pass us, one or two nodding hello, most ignoring us completely. We are just two people in wool coats, on our way home.

We make it to the harbor, and it is different up close from how it looked in the limo. It’s more vibrant. We can really smell the salt, hear the tide turning, the gentle knocking of boats against the dock. I’m eager to get going, to find a boat worth stealing before we’re discovered, but I see the awe on Gabriel’s face and I allow him this moment. This bewildered joy.

“Is it anything like you remember?” I say.

“I—” His voice catches. “I thought I remembered the ocean, but I didn’t remember it at all.”

I sidle up against him, and he puts his arm around me and gives an excited squeeze.

“Think you can steer us out of this place on one of those boats?” I say.

“Oh, absolutely.”

“You sure?” I say.

“Well, if I’m wrong, I guess we die.”

I laugh a little. “Fine by me,” I say.

There isn’t much time to be particular. I let Gabriel choose the boat because he’s the expert. He’s only ever seen pictures, and most of these models are much newer than the ones you can read about in Linden’s library, but his expertise is still greater than mine. We settle on a small fishing boat with an indoor steering panel—I’m not sure of the technical name, and Gabriel has no time to explain—but it will protect us from the cold winds.

It’s surprisingly easy to untie the rope, to cast ourselves off. And even if Gabriel isn’t familiar with these newer models, he’s impressively deft. I try to help, but I only make it worse, and eventually he tells me to just be the lookout. That much I can do.

And then we’re moving.

Gabriel works the steering unit, looking so serious and important, such a contrast to the uncertain little attendant pushing lunch carts around on the wives’ floor. He watches the horizon, and his eyes are blue like  the water, and I know he’s right where he’s meant to be. Maybe his parents were sailors. Or maybe a hundred years ago, when people were natural and free, his ances-tors looked just this way.

We’re finally free, and I have so much to tell him.

Jenna. Cecily. And I know he must have things he wants to tell me, too. But for now those things can wait. I stand at a distance, admiring, letting him have his moment. I let his capable hands steer us into the forever, over sunken continents, until Florida disappears. Just disappears, as though swallowed.

Maybe, I think, we’ll end up on the beach Deirdre’s father painted. Maybe we’ll touch real starfish that we can hold in our hands, that don’t fall right through our grasp. Either way we’ll have to find a shore somewhere.

We’ll have to stop and ask for directions to Manhattan; only, when we stop, it will be in a place where nobody knows us, where I’m not Linden Ashby’s bride and he’s not an attendant, and nobody has ever heard of Vaughn Ashby or his sprawling mansion. We’re traveling up the coastline, and the wind has picked up.

Gabriel puts his arm around me, and I rest my hand on his, feeling the sturdy resistance of the steering wheel.

“Look,” he says in my ear.

In the distance I see a lighthouse. The light washes over us and continues on its rotation. This time, I don’t know where the light will guide us.