His phone was in his hand and he showed me the screen. 11:54
Today was ending in six minutes. In six minutes, tomorrow would begin.
Where was Krista?
But it wasn’t Krista who I found next. It was another strange and familiar person. Her startled expression stared out from a giant enlarged photo. Crusade of Love, Please Help, Donations Welcome.
She was me.
The photo had been shamelessly enhanced. My two different eye colors had been intensified. Ultra-fine, super-long lashes curled around them. My hair was highlighted and golden. My skin flawless. Rose-dabbed lips and cheeks.
I couldn’t remember the photo ever having been taken. But then I noticed the collar of my raincoat — the one I’d worn every day that week — and the V of my sweatshirt — the one I’d been wearing the day I met Dell. Dell studying my face in the courtyard of her school. We’ll do a before-and-after. Pulling out her phone and snapping a picture. Hey, we can make you famous! Her dazzling smile.
The poster of me was propped beside a group of standing monitors. The screens were all playing the same film. People from my school being interviewed, their voices muted, but subtitles popping across the bottom. Quick-cut footage of different scenes.
A random girl holding a crumpled piece of paper close to the lens, pulling it tight to make up for the creases. The camera zoomed in on my storyboard with stick-figure Superstar, Goddess, and Genius. The panel I’d rejected in the caf. Two speech-bubbles from Superstar’s mouth: Messenger 93! Help me, Messenger 93!
A random guy in our school, showing a scrap of paper to the camera, with Messenger 93 scrawled across it in my handwriting. I had doodled bird silhouettes and Messenger 93 on looseleaf during Ms. Stathakis’s History class. He turned the scrap over and showed the other side: We have to talk. It’s important. The note I’d thrown at Anusha in English class. That I’d forgotten to sign. That she’d crumpled up and tossed.
My brother, Trevor, holding the Infinity Girl storyboard I’d scribbled outside Clio’s house. I must’ve dropped it while I was fumbling with Krista’s phone. Clio must’ve found it and given it to him. The camera zoomed in on the stick-figure crow on Infinity Girl’s shoulder. The speech-bubble: Messenger 93, face what most frightens you.
Remy, standing in Emmett Park, talking to an off-camera interviewer. Subtitles popped in underneath: She said this crow arrived from another planet and told her to find Krista. She said the crow told her that saving Krista would save everyone.
A close-up of Trevor talking to the interviewer: She has this thing for crows.
One of the guys from Math Lab: We had no idea. She didn’t seem like that kind of person.
Mrs. Fariah, my Computer Science teacher: She’s quite the diligent student. But I did happen upon her researching Joan of Arc. I imagine that speaks to a certain mind-set.
Anusha, L.J., and Hattie crammed together on one chair. Anusha was talking: She said she was looking for Krista. We were pretty surprised.
Remy: She said Krista’s baby brother told her that he could see the crow too. You know what they say about babies, right? Like, they can see stuff the rest of us can’t.
Dell: I was the last person to see her. I remember every single thing about that day. I had no idea it would be the beginning of all this. When she went missing I just knew I had to help. That’s how the Crusade started.
Remy: I tried to help her, but she didn’t want help. I guess she had to do it by herself.
Random guy holding my We have to talk note. His subtitles underneath: She’s telling us we’ve lost our ability to, like, communicate, right? We have to talk to each other. Connection is really important.
Dell: She said a lot of deep stuff. Like how you can love and not even know it. Like if you don’t really see someone, it’s not even love.
L.J.: Yeah, I believe her. Oh my god, we all think in different ways, don’t we? And we need that right now. It’s, you know … She stared off-screen as she chose her next words. Her lips started moving again and new subtitles popped in: Beautiful thinking. Being brave. That’s what’s going to save us.
Remy: She said the crow called her Messenger 93.
Random Girl: I think she’s Messenger 93.
Random Guy: She’s totally Messenger 93.
Dell smiling her dazzling smile: Maybe she’s my little messenger.
The screen cut to black with white titles: Messenger 93.
Underneath, subtitles popped in for Dell’s voiceover: We’re donating every cent towards her search. Thanks to you, we’ll be able to send more helicopters and units up north. Cross-fade to Dell on her fuzzy couch: We’re going to bring her home. She gave a discreet smile: Hopefully she’ll have Krista with her.
The screen went black then looped back to the opening titles: Crusade of Love.
My mind numbed out. Techno thumped in my ears like my own amplified heartbeat.
You can’t be a hero without someone to save.
THURSDAY, APRIL 19
THE FALL
1
“SHE FALLS TODAY!” A voice reverberated through speakers. It jolted me back into the room. I checked through the crowd and found a stage. Barbie-Boy was on it, talking into a microphone.
Had he actually said, She falls today? I couldn’t tell anymore.
“It’s midnight, everyone!” He looked different than I remembered. Not a bored kid playing with his friends, but bold and sharp. Evangelical. “Thanks for coming out to Crusade of Love. We raised a ton of money tonight!” He raised his fist and the crowd cheered.
I wanted to feel proud. Excited. Here was the attention I’d been waiting for. They’d made a film for me. They’d raised money. For more helicopters and units. I mattered to them.
Instead I felt sick. Anger simmered underneath it deep, deep down.
Jocelyn was still missing. She’d been missing for —
I reached into my backpack and pulled out the poster Gray had made for her. I smoothed the board as flat as I could. Smoothed her face, her gentle, hopeful expression. Smoothed Gray’s writing, the blue-marker-scrawl haloing her head: Have you seen Jocelyn? Missing for 27 days. I found my pen and scratched out the 27 and wrote 33 above it. Jocelyn. Missing for 33 days.
“Dell wants to thank you for all your donations!” Barbie-Boy pointed across the room. I followed the direction of his hand until I found Dell at the donation desk. Paper-white hair, gleaming teeth, radiant skin. She waved and gave a dazzling smile, and the crowd cheered her. She was wearing a white silk blouse and white silk wide-leg pants. The fabric rippled around her body as she waved. It made her look like an iridescent sea creature.
I pulled Gray’s mask out of my bag. It was slightly crushed from all the traveling. I snapped it over my face. For the invisible girls who disappear off our streets every day. If they’re nobody, I’m nobody. One of many reasons Gray had wanted to wear a mask that day.
I held the Jocelyn poster above my head and channeled Gray. “Where’s Jocelyn? Help us find Jocelyn!” I shouted through the mask, pushing my way past partiers, dancers, Donation-Box Crow People.
No one paid attention. Or if they did, they only glanced at me. Up/down. Disdain. Boredom. They glanced away. So absorbed with whatever else they were doing/thinking.
I jabbed the Jocelyn poster in the air above me. “Help us find Jocelyn!”
Anusha, L.J., Hattie, along with a bunch of other kids, were lined up at the coat-check, getting ready to leave. Not noticing.
I shouted louder through the mask. “Where is Jocelyn? Missing for thirty-three days!”
Remy and Boyd were in a dark corner, taking turns whispering into each other’s ears.
I called out to the whole room. “You want a missing girl? Help find Jocelyn!”
My body jerked suddenly around. I looked down. A hand was gripping my wrist. I aimed my masked ey
es along the arm — until I got to her tightly grinning face. Dell. “What are you doing?” she said.
I aimed the Jocelyn poster between us. Showed it to her. “This girl is actually missing.”
“I’m sorry,” Dell said, babying-up her voice. “This isn’t for her.”
“You have all this money, Dell. Why don’t you spread it around?”
She stared at Jocelyn’s photocopied face. “I don’t even know her.”
“You don’t even know her? You don’t know Messenger 93. And trust me — you don’t know Krista.” I shook the poster at her. “Or would you rather spend your time posing in front of schools with your thumb down?”
“I deleted all those posts.” Dell did look ashamed. “We can’t save everyone!”
I didn’t know what to do next. It was getting hot under the mask. I could hardly breathe.
Because what was the difference between me and Dell? Was I trying to help Jocelyn and save Krista, or was I riding some mission to fake-glory?
I remembered Gray saying how we were everyone — ourselves, each other, the universe. So who was supposed to figure out how to fit us all together?
I said, “Where are you hiding her?”
Dell said, “I think you should leave.”
I sharpened my voice. “Where is Krista?”
Dell’s face crumpled like I’d hit her. “We’re doing the best we can.”
I pulled down the mask. I didn’t care anymore if she knew who I was. The seconds were counting down. “I need to find Krista now!”
Dell looked right at my real face. She didn’t register who I was. Because the girl in front of her didn’t bear any resemblance to the one she’d masked with enhancements and filters. The Messenger 93 that Dell had created.
“This was going to be for Krista,” she said. “Her big reveal. It would’ve been epic.” She waved her hand, implicating everything — dancers, bystanders, the gold velvet, the glitter-balls.
I owe that girl big-time. Going viral. More followers. More attention. More love.
Dell said, “But Krista couldn’t take the competition.”
A small commotion started up behind her. It was Boyd and Remy and one of the Donation-Box Crow People. Boyd stepped between Remy and the Crow. Remy backed away.
“Why do we need so much drama?” Dell asked herself. “It doesn’t even stop when we sleep. We dream about some other version of our lives. We fight with people we don’t even know. We have annoying problems that are gone when we wake up.”
Remy had joined the girls in the coat-check line. Boyd was saying something to the Crow, who approached a side door with a VIP sign taped to it.
Dell said, “Isn’t our real-life suffering enough?”
The Crow glanced back at Boyd. Her beaked half-mask was beautiful — made of lace and feathers. She opened the VIP door and stepped through it. Boyd hesitated. He looked back at Remy. Then he turned to the door and went through it too.
“Don’t worry.” Dell came back into focus. She gave me a truly loving smile. “We’re going to save Messenger 93. She’s worth more than Krista any day.”
On the other side of the coat-check, through the main doors, three uniformed officers walked in. They flanked and blocked the exit and scanned the crowd. A few of the kids noticed and flurried around each other.
It must’ve come out that I’d stolen Krista’s phone. That’s how they knew to track me up north. Helicopters and patrol cars. It was probably why they were here now: tracking my movements.
There was a flutter of silk as Dell turned and noticed the police too. I hid my face behind the Jocelyn poster and edged away. I did a last check that no one was watching me, then slipped through the VIP door.
THE DOOR DIDN’T OPEN to some inner sanctum like I’d imagined, but led straight outside to a fire escape landing. The rusted metal steps that were anchored to the side of the building reminded me of climbing up the water tower. I looked down between my feet, through the grating. A narrow alley ran between the party warehouse and the warehouse beside it. Only hard pavement at the bottom.
She will fall.
Red velvet cord was wound around the rail that led upwards. Boyd wasn’t on the staircase. Neither was the Crow. I climbed up alone. The wind buffeted lightly against the brickwork and swirled into the hood of my coat. It sent shivers down my neck and back. I clung to the velvet cord like it was an umbilical. It took me all the way up to the top landing, which led out onto the roof. The city sparkled far away, beyond the warehouse-infested distance.
There was a large fenced-in patio in the center of the roof, with plush furniture, exotic carpets, potted plants. Sticky, empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays littered the coffee tables. Strings of lights twinkled from the wood-slat walls and along an over-head arbor.
There was another source of light too. White and eerie, like it was coming from a parallel reality. And then I saw what it was. The moon. It had orbited into the night sky. It was full and pure in its roundness. A god watching me through its one annoyed, all-seeing eye.
Only you can save her.
There were no VIPs on the roof. No people at all. Just me wandering in the pale and eerie light, the wind gusting in sooty whorls around me.
2
AT FIRST I HEARD it as an indistinct drone. Then I heard them more clearly. Boyd’s voice: low, insistent, steady. Krista’s voice: high, weepy, on-edge.
“So now you’re with that girl?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t —”
“No, I know you can’t. Because you don’t see the big picture. But I see it, Boyd. It’s supposed to be you and me —”
“You shouldn’t have run off like that, K. Your mom is —”
“My mom is not part of this conversation. My mom is going through her own shit.”
“She’s really worried, Krista. It’s not fair to her —”
“Not fair? You know what’s not fair? Is watching your father fucking die of cancer. That’s what’s not fair. You know what’s not fair? Having your boyfriend dump you out of the blue just when you think your life is finally — maybe — okay again.”
“Krista, come on — It’s time to go home — We can talk about this —”
“I’ve been waiting for you, Boyd! You know how that looks? Dell must think I’m such a fucking loser. She didn’t even know me and she’s still taking care of me. Because she’s a good person. She has a heart. Not like you, Boyd. Dell can have anyone — she’s a star — and she chose me. Me.”
“Wait, Krista — That’s not — You never let me — I never get to say the things I want to say!” He stopped. He was staring at me. By accident, I had wandered too close. Drifted around the fencing of the patio, around the brick box of an elevator bulk-head. Drawn to them like the inevitable next tick of a clock.
Krista noticed Boyd shift. She swung around. Her crow mask was pushed up on top of her head. Her eyes were swollen. Tears were streaming down her face.
I didn’t know what to do, as surprised that I was there with them as they were to see me. I dropped my backpack and surrendered. The Jocelyn poster fluttered in my left hand like a flag. “Get off the roof, Krista,” I said. “You’re going to fall —”
But Krista screamed the most crushing scream I’ve ever heard. There was a split-second where Boyd and I connected. His eyes were glassy with panic.
She will fall.
Then she charged at me.
Literally charged. Crouched over, black-gloved hands clawed out, fresh bird tattoo on her wrist, mouth pried open with rage. Her scream turned into a growl. A growl that came from so deep inside her, it sounded like a storm from the other side of the world.
She was on me before I could stop it. The force of it knocked the Jocelyn poster out of my hand and it spiraled away in the gusting wind, turning end over end like tumbleweed.
Krista and I clasped each other. Reeled together. She stumbled, and then we both went down, me landing hard on my back on the concrete, Krista on top of me. She was growling, digging her nails into my arms, twisting our bodies. The little pointed beak on her half-mask came at my eye. I flinched and rolled us over to one side.
We thrashed and writhed, her coming at me, me trying to get away. Boyd was somewhere in the nighttime air, doing/yelling something.
Krista reared off me and sank into stillness. She was holding a knife. Gray’s knife.
She jumped up. She was staring at the knife, marveling at its unexpected arrival.
I jumped up too. My breath turned to ice in my throat.
Krista turned the knife so that light glanced off its blade. She aimed it slowly higher and higher until it was pointed at my neck. I stepped backwards. Boyd was saying her name. “Krista. Krista. Krista. Stop.”
She spiraled the knife through the air in front of my face. A choreographed move stolen from some movie bad guy. I was hypnotized by the waving blade. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. The one we’d been counting down to. The part of the infinity loop you can never get out of. I held my breath and inched backwards.
“You came here to kill someone?” Krista said, snarling. Snot and tears were running down her face. I remembered holding her little brother Eddie, and how he had been crying too.
“No,” I said. “I came here for you.”
“You going to kill me?” She stepped steadily closer.
“You’re going to fall tonight, Krista. I came to stop it.”
“Did the crow tell you that?” Her lip hooked with disdain. “I laughed my ass off when I heard that story.”
“Please, Krista. Something bad is going to happen.”
She jabbed the knife at me and I jumped back. “Something bad? You don’t get to decide my fate.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“Messenger 93,” she said, sneering. “You’ll do anything for attention, won’t you?”
I surged to get around her, to get away, but she blocked my way with the point of the knife. “This was supposed to be a party for me,” she said. “He was going to be here. I was going to come back tonight. It was going to be amazing.” She jabbed the knife with each emphasized word. “But he showed up with her.”
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