by Andy Marino
There was a Watcher sitting on the concrete bench. Colors stolen from peacock feathers flitted in and out of the storm that hid her face. One hand held a sequined clutch. The woman’s stillness had the unsettling effect of making Hannah feel both ignored and scrutinized at the same time.
“Is the other guy coming?” Hannah asked.
“No. This is just between you and me.” The Watcher’s voice was soothing and low. “I’m sorry for how you’ve been treated.”
Great, Hannah thought. But I’m still locked up.
When the Watcher saw that Hannah wasn’t talking, she tried again. “My partner was out of line. There was no reason for him to be so unkind.”
“So you’re going to help me,” Hannah said. “Because Guardians and Watchers work together.” She wondered if there was a human face behind the woman’s disguise. For all Hannah knew, she could be talking to a grinning skull, or a giant ferret head.
“I can try to answer some of your questions,” the Watcher said carefully.
“How long have I been here?”
The Watcher emitted a low hiss that might have been a sigh. “Even if I could tell you, it wouldn’t make any sense.”
“Please let me out.”
“That’s not a question, Hannah.”
“You don’t have to keep saying my name.” Hannah played with a piece of fuzz stuck to her sleeve. “I’ve been telling you the truth, okay? I didn’t mean to mess anything up or break the rules. I don’t care what the banished ones are doing. I just want to get my mother and go home.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”
Hannah thought of a phrase that her mother sometimes used to get what she wanted. “Is there a supervisor I can speak to?”
“Any soul above my rank would not be so accommodating.”
The Watcher opened her clutch and produced a thin rectangular device. It looked like the kind of phone used by everyone in Carbine Pass except for Hannah and Leanna Silver. The woman plugged the forked tongue of the faucet into the back of the phone. Then she clicked a glossy fingernail against the faucet and it snaked across the cell to hover in front of Hannah’s face.
“Stay where you are,” the Watcher commanded before Hannah could squirm away. The phone’s screen displayed static, as if it were picking up a dead channel from an old television.
“There’s nothing on it,” Hannah said.
The Watcher gave the faucet a few insistent taps. “How’s that?”
The static resolved into a grainy close-up of a familiar face.
“Patrick!” Hannah said, speaking to the screen. “Tell them I didn’t do anything wrong. Can you come get me out of here? Can you —”
“He can’t hear you,” the Watcher said. “This isn’t a two-way conversation. It’s a video.”
“From where? The other side of the door? Carbine Pass?”
“Watch.”
Patrick’s forehead, ears, and neck were hidden beneath ragged bandages. His face was pale and sweaty, and there were rust-colored rings around his eyes — a far cry from the gentleman she’d met at Cliff House.
“This message is my official resignation. I have only my own complacency to blame.” Patrick’s voice was cracked and weary. “I forfeit my citizenship according to the precepts set forth in …”
Offscreen, papers rustled and someone whispered.
Patrick continued, “City Watch ordinance 948, sub-section B, earthly Watcher bylaws, termination clause 6 point 095, eighteenth revision.” He cleared his throat. “My job was to identify human candidates to expand our network on earth, much like the Guardian program. It wasn’t necessary for several centuries, but once the banished souls arrived, it came time for me to put it into practice. One of my apprentices — my most promising, I might add — was a boy named Kyle. He often accompanied me on business, and in this way had a hand in shaping the project. That was my biggest mistake, giving him that kind of access….” Patrick shook his head. “All this time, I thought I had recruited him, when he was the one who had recruited me. I have been an old fool of the worst sort. I ought to have known better. He displayed certain aptitudes….”
Hannah flashed back to the feel of Kyle’s hand in hers, their fingers interlocked, as he delivered her safely away from her waking nightmares. It was as if they had glided forward through time, leaving the bad moments behind.
Patrick’s face looked like it was trapped in a snow globe. His voice became garbled. “… changed his appearance … infiltrated my network …”
“What?” Hannah said, talking to the screen again.
“… able to identify the door …”
“I’m afraid that’s all for now,” the Watcher said, reaching for the phone. Patrick was entirely eclipsed by static. She heard his voice come through one last time: “… crossed over …”
The Watcher unplugged the phone and the faucet retracted.
“So, Kyle is one of the people you kicked out,” Hannah said. “One of the banished.”
But that meant … Hannah closed her eyes. She went back to the moment she’d discovered her mother crumpled beneath the lighthouse. In her mind, her mother was rising slowly through the storm, falling in reverse. Then she was alive again, picking her way along the railing that encircled the glass bell of the lamp room. What was she doing up there? Her mother must have seen him — Kyle — sneaking into the lighthouse, and done the Guardian’s job. She had confronted him. And since Leanna Silver was the only person standing in his way …
“He killed her,” Hannah said, opening her eyes.
“Yes.” The Watcher dropped the phone into her clutch and snapped it shut. “Or else he ordered one of his group to do it. We don’t know how many came back with him.”
Hannah imagined a procession of shadowy figures lining up beneath the lighthouse, climbing the ladder and passing single file through the door. She saw Kyle’s hand — the hand she had touched — pushing her mother out into the darkness of the storm.
“Where is she?” Hannah asked, her voice pitching sharply. She jumped up from the cot. “You have to take me to her. Please. I know you know where she is.”
The Watcher seemed to be regarding Hannah with pity. But who could tell? Hannah thought she caught a glimpse of the woman’s auburn hair through the heat-shimmer of her disguise.
“Give me something I can use, Hannah. Is it true that you personally showed Kyle the doorway?”
“I took him to the lighthouse, but” — Hannah shook her head — “one time, that was all. I didn’t know who he was. Or what the door was.”
“When he crossed over, where was he planning to go?”
Hannah wanted to scream. She took a deep breath. “I. Don’t. Know.”
The Watcher seemed to hesitate. Then she brushed past Hannah — a whiff of burning plastic, a stale breeze — and went to the door, where she stopped.
“Your mother is making a fine life for herself in the city. And you’ll be free to join her as soon as you cooperate.”
Hannah was speechless. She couldn’t give the Watchers what they wanted. Was she supposed to live in this concrete sphere forever?
“Wait,” Hannah said, but the Watcher was gone.
Whenever Hannah got sick, her mother would knead her temples and gently compress the bridge of her nose. Then she’d dab peppermint lotion on the back of Hannah’s neck and behind her ears. Hannah would drift off to sleep and wake to find her head in her mother’s lap, eyes watering, nose running — that’s the sickness coming out — and fall asleep again to her hair being slowly caressed.
Lying on her cot, facing the concrete wall, Hannah could almost feel the phantom massage.
There was a song, lilting and sweet, that her mother liked to hum in these moments, but Hannah couldn’t recall the melody. Frustrated, she pressed her knuckles into the cot’s thin cushion. How could she have forgotten a song she’d heard a thousand times?
Then, softly, the tune came floating through the cell.
“That’s it,” Hannah said, turning over and sitting up. Nancy was slouching against the door, humming. “Cork on the Ocean,” Hannah remembered. Over on the bench, Belinda began to whistle. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Albert sang the wrong words, off-key.
“Little baby, I can’t stand your stupid face….”
“Cut the comedian act, Albert,” Belinda said sharply. Nancy stopped humming. Albert shut his mouth and let out a long, irritated breath through his nose. The foamy, churning sound of waves crashing against rocks echoed inside the cell. Hannah felt a hint of cold Atlantic spray on her face.
“Is ‘comedian’ a vocab word in Muffin?” Nancy asked. “I’m starting to wish we wrote some of this stuff down.”
“Maybe the Watchers will give us some paper,” Hannah said. “Where did you go, anyway?”
“Nowhere,” Nancy said, poking around the faucet. “We’re in a prison cell, in case you haven’t noticed. Bet you wish you ate that cushion now.”
Hannah reached over the side of the cot and squeezed Albert’s bony shoulder through his black long-sleeved shirt. He shrugged her off and spat out, “May I help you?”
“You’re real, too. But you disappeared.”
“Um. Yeah.”
“And you can’t just, like, float through the walls?”
“Um. No.”
Albert’s breath smelled a little bit like saltwater fish. Hannah tried to get her nose out of range without being obvious about it. “I’m just trying to figure out how this all works.”
Belinda smoothed her wrinkle-free pants. “We know exactly as much as you do, dear.”
“But you knew about the traps back home way before I did,” Hannah said to Nancy. “I definitely remember that.” She turned to Belinda, thinking of that distracted morning in the classroom. “And I’m pretty sure you know words that I don’t know.”
“Surely you must have read them somewhere,” Belinda said. She pointed to Hannah’s head. “There’s so much information, stewing about, lost in the mire. I just know where to look. I spend more time up there than you do, after all.”
“Totally,” Nancy said. “If you didn’t already know about the traps, there’s no way I could have.”
Hannah shook her head. “I swear I didn’t. You warned me first.”
Belinda scoffed. “Have you ever actually seen one of these so-called traps with your eyes?”
“Yes!” Hannah and Nancy said in unison.
“Could you all please quiet down for one second?” Albert said. Hannah waited for him to continue — it sounded like he had something important to add — but he just hugged his knees even tighter and rested his forehead on them, muttering to himself. The temperature in the cell seemed to drop; Hannah wished for a sweater instead of her light flannel.
“Can you make some warmer clothes appear?” she asked.
Nancy laughed. “Sure, and maybe a lobster and a steak and some mashed potatoes and gravy.”
“Well, can you try to take me with you the next time you disappear?”
“I doubt it.”
“Then what can you do?” She looked at Nancy, Belinda, and Albert in turn. “What are you?”
Nancy’s body, so tense and springy, seemed to deflate a bit. Lost in thought, she spoke to herself in a near whisper, shaking her head. “That’s so weird….”
Hannah suddenly felt guilty, as if she had just pointed out a honking zit Nancy had taken great pains to conceal. “Sorry.”
Nancy ran her fingers through her spiky hair, nervously scratched at her scalp. “No, it’s just that I don’t feel like anything at all. I don’t want anything like you do, Hannah. I sort of don’t care if I get out of here or not.”
“Nonsense,” Belinda said. “Of course you do. We all want to get out of here,” she assured Hannah.
“That’s not what I mean,” Nancy said. “I want to escape — but that’s because Hannah wants to. I want exactly what Hannah wants.” She ran a finger along the concrete wall. “I just don’t know what I want. It’s not any different. It’s not anything at all.”
Albert lifted his head. “Yeah.” His voice, for once, was full of dazed wonder rather than bored irritation. “I never thought about it before. Until I could see you all, I mean.” Albert examined his own hand with newfound curiosity. He sniffed his armpit. Then he stood up. His combat boots were scuffed at the toes.
Albert walked over to Belinda. “Move.”
To Hannah’s surprise, Belinda vacated the bench without a word and stood next to Nancy. Albert placed his palms against the cement wall and took a deep breath. When he let it out, Hannah tasted salt.
“I’m alive in this place,” Albert said.
Belinda frowned. “Maybe you should lower your voice.”
“Maybe you should leave me alone,” Albert said. He turned and began poking the faucet, his polished black fingernails making metallic pings. Then he jabbed at his Adam’s apple, pinched the skin around his collarbone, pressed on his stomach. His eyes widened with each little prod and poke, as if his nerve endings had just begun to work.
“I’m getting us out of here,” he announced. “Right now.”
“Whatever you’re planning,” Belinda said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Too late,” Albert said. “Storm’s coming.”
A steep drop-off separated the Silvers’ lighthouse from the sea, but one path offered a gradual descent past boulders the size of cars. This was the Widow’s Watch. Hannah’s favorite spot was about a third of the way down, where the cliffs on either side formed a huge natural amplifier. She had read about a special place inside New York City’s Grand Central Terminal, where if you stood on one side of a great archway, you could hear the whispers — whispers, think of that! — of people all the way on the other side. This is how she came to imagine the Widow’s Watch: a natural telephone service bringing her sounds from across the Atlantic.
Storm’s coming.
Albert’s words had taken Hannah back there, and she could feel his presence all around her in the rocks, the sea, the vastness of the gull-streaked sky. She breathed deep, tasted the brine in the back of her throat.
Suddenly, Albert began pulling away with great force, taking with him chunks of memory: afternoon along the cliffs, the horizon fading in the dusk; the mad scramble home for dinner, careful not to wedge an ankle between the rocks. A great clap of thunder nearly made her slip off her perch. Raindrops puckered the waves. Hannah placed a palm flat against the rock at her side.
It felt like the concrete wall of her cell.
“You might want to duck under that cot,” Albert suggested. “The wind’s gonna kick up in a second.”
Hannah obeyed.
Back at the Widow’s Watch, the skies were overcast. She’d never seen a nor’easter roll in this fast. Lightning flashed and it seemed so close, even though she knew it must be miles out.
“See you around, Hannah,” Albert said. Hailstones began to sting her skin; she pressed herself against the wall. Tiny chips of ice began to pile up on the floor of the cell. At the same time, the wind howling through the Widow’s Watch was funneled into her ears. She curled up and shivered. The floor of her cell trembled, bouncing her up and down in the tiny space.
The Widow’s Watch began to fade away. Hannah struggled to hold on to it. A boulder the size of a jeep, she thought. Seagull poop. Slippery patches of moss. After a while, she could remember gazing across the sea, listening for the sounds of faraway beaches, but she could no longer see herself there.
She rode out the storm beneath her cot. It wasn’t long before there was a hush so complete that she could hear the settling of dust. She crawled out. Albert had vanished, along with Nancy and Belinda. The concrete sphere had been ripped apart by the wind — the cot and part of the wall behind it were intact, but the sink, faucet, and bench were gone. Rubble was strewn about the floor. Chunks of concrete lay in smoldering piles. The cell was open to the sky, where dark clouds were rolling away at an imposs
ible speed.
Hannah climbed over the edge of her ruined cell and dropped down onto a neighboring rooftop. She was alone. There was nothing else to do but run.
Hannah picked her way across a checkerboard of rooftops that stretched for miles in every direction. Twisted antennae poked up like antlers. Steam leaked out of vents and pipes. The gabled mansions and forlorn chimneys she’d spied from the attic window were nowhere to be found. Buildings in this neighborhood were the color of mustard, their walls stained with a peculiar fungus. In the distance, steeples rose like spears tipped with copper and weather-beaten stone.
Hannah leapt across a narrow alley and landed on a roof that felt like hard rubber beneath her sneakers. She threaded her way past a gathering of empty folding chairs huddled around a low table, through a forest of dials stuck to tall metal poles. They reminded Hannah of the water and electric meters alongside Cliff House: clear plastic bubbles over little round clocks.
The dials displayed symbols like hieroglyphs: dots and scythes and curlicues. They should have been a jumble of nonsense, but Hannah found that she could read them. Astonished, she focused on the stenciled printing on one of the meters until it resolved itself into a word: FOUNDATION.
Hannah kept moving. New gauges loomed, tall and boxy. She darted around a blind corner and crashed into the soft belly of a man in denim overalls. He dropped his clipboard. On the meter next to his head, a row of numbers flipped like a stadium scoreboard.
“Sorry,” she said, relieved to see that the man’s face wasn’t swimming with light and shadow, but frowning beneath an oversized caterpillar of a mustache.
“That’s okay,” he grumbled, stooping to pick up his clipboard. “Can’t make this job any worse than it already is.” He watched the numbers change and made a few marks on his clipboard with a pencil. “You see that storm? Now that was a heck of a thing.”
The man looked up and Hannah followed his gaze. The dark clouds were gone, but there was still something ominous about the sky. It was too low, or the color wasn’t right. Hannah thought it seemed depressed.
“I need a place to hide,” she said. For some reason, the man’s ridiculous mustache made him seem harmless.
