“Over the wall,” Finch said in a rough whisper, tugging me backward toward the park. We crouched in the shadows of a juniper bush. The air was resinous on my tongue.
“Do you see that girl?” Finch asked. His eyes were glittery and weird. “That’s Twice-Killed Katherine.”
It took me a minute to place his words. It was the title of one of the stories in Tales from the Hinterland. “You mean she looks like her?”
“Is her. That girl is Twice-Killed Katherine.” He looked at me with a face like a subway preacher, lit and fierce.
“What, like you’ve seen her before? This is New York. She looks like a million fashiony girls.”
“You’re just saying that because you haven’t read it. Look at her scar. And her hair. And—oh, my god. Do you see what she’s holding?”
I squinted at the thing she held to her chest but couldn’t make it out.
“It’s a birdcage. It’s what Twice-Killed Katherine carries. This is it,” he hissed. “This is the Hinterland!”
I started to respond, but the girl did something so strange and terrifying it shut both of us up for a long time.
A man in a heavy gray overcoat was walking down the street toward her, smoking a cigarette and talking into his cell phone. As he passed her, he did a subtle double-take, maybe noticing her scarred face. Before he could get too far, she opened the birdcage.
The thing that came out of it was canary-shaped, but it wasn’t a canary. It was small and darting and looked like it had been hole-punched out of shadow. It unfurled its wings wider and wider, till it was the size of a hawk.
It went for the man. As Finch and I gripped hands and knelt like cowards in the park, the thing latched onto his neck. He went down noiselessly, and the creature dropped heavily onto his chest. It stretched its wings so we couldn’t see exactly what it was doing. I looked back at the girl. Swallowed a scream, squeezed Finch’s hand harder.
Her black-and-white hair shivered with red. Her skin turned from pale to peach, her lips curled, even her scar plumped up into unmarked skin. But the expression on her face was worse than anything. It was a kind of … selfish ecstasy.
The bird lifted off the man, folded itself back into a tiny wedge of nightmare, and winged toward its cage. The girl clasped the door shut and backed deeper into the shadows between streetlights.
“Is he dead?” I whispered. My voice was a skeleton leaf.
The man on the ground rose shakily to his feet. He was swimming in his coat and had the air of a person who had forgotten something. His hair was ash white. He staggered over the sidewalk like a zombie.
“Run,” said Finch, and we did. We pounded through the park, pools of lamplight strobing over us and dead leaves clutching at our ankles. The air smelled silvery, with a hint of mulch, and the cold wind made my eyes stream. Sweat had pooled on my back by the time we dropped onto a bench.
“That was … that was not possible,” I said hoarsely.
Finch’s pupils were blasted wide. He looked strung out. “That was the Hinterland. Fuck.”
I couldn’t respond. It was my first true glimpse of the Hinterland—my first solid proof that there was something terribly real behind Althea’s messed-up tales. I should’ve been reeling.
But I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe it wasn’t the first glimpse. All my life I thought we’d been stalked by bad luck, in the form of weather and disasters and acts of God and strange human viciousness. Maybe all this time, we were being stalked by the Hinterland.
“What she did to that man,” I asked. “Does she do it in the story?”
He breathed through his open mouth a few times and fell back against the bench. “It’s not how I pictured it, but yeah. It keeps her young. Or alive, maybe. It’s also her revenge.”
“On the people who killed her.”
“And worse. Yeah.”
“So what do we do now?”
“I should call my dad. Make sure he’s at home, or talk him into staying away if he isn’t.” But he didn’t make a move toward his phone.
“Finch,” I said. “Do you think…”
“Katherine wouldn’t hurt your mom.” His eyes flicked to mine. “She doesn’t target women. What we need is a place to stay, get some sleep. Then we figure out what’s next.”
His expression mirrored what I felt—the black-hole suck of exhaustion that strikes after a trauma. When everything has changed and your messed-up brain is flying around the stars—then your body and all its needs imposes itself, cutting you off from madness.
My situation hit me hard. Homeless. Without my mom. Being stalked, by something I couldn’t see the breadth of or understand. I was wrung out, and without Finch I’d be totally alone. “Thank you” was too small, “I’m sorry” so inadequate it made me cringe.
“Okay,” I said. “Lead the way.”
11
Few problems were unsolvable when you had boatloads of cash and a lifetime’s worth of rich friends. Finch made some calls, and an hour after leaving the park we were ringing the bell at a townhouse in Brooklyn Heights. The boy who answered had lank indie-rocker hair that fell to his chin. I could tell he was high even before I smelled the hot-box stink surrounding him.
“Ellery Finch!” he said, but with way more syllables.
“Hey, David.” Finch ducked his head, glanced at me. I’m not a smile-at-strangers type by nature, but life on the road had driven home the importance of being a gracious houseguest.
“Nice to meet you, David. I’m Alice. Thanks for putting us up.”
He grinned at me for a while, then nodded. I was pretty sure he’d meant to say something, but forgot he hadn’t.
David’s family had the whole building to themselves. It was a converted church, exposed brick and salvaged stained-glass windows everywhere you looked. I swore I could smell candle wax and old incense breathing out of the walls.
“Glad you could take us in, D,” said Finch. “Your parents are in Europe?”
“France, man. My little sister’s getting in trouble in boarding school over there. She’s like a crime kingpin in a uniform, man.” We’d interrupted him in the middle of eating a plate of greasy microwave nachos. I found it kind of endearing, even though the cheese was probably small-batch Normandy cheddar. He offered me a bite, and I turned him down.
“The guestroom is stripped. No sheets. You and your girlfriend can have Courtney’s room. Second door on the right, but you have to not mind Doctor Who and shit.”
Finch didn’t correct him on the girlfriend thing, just nodded. “Cool, man. Thanks a lot. We really appreciate it.”
David made a motion like he was balling up the thanks and jump-shotting it into a trash can. “Glad to see you, glad you could come. Want a nacho?”
We declined again. The two of them shot the shit for a while, discussing people they’d gone to junior high with, before David’s parents moved him to Brooklyn. I kept my eyes on the corners where shadows gathered, on the windows where the shades weren’t drawn. Waiting to see a girl with a birdcage, a boy in a cap. My hand was loosely cupped around my phone, set to vibrate. Every minute that passed without word from Ella made the chasm beneath my feet yawn wider.
I could sense Finch’s fatigue, and could barely hide my own. As soon as it was even a little bit polite, he did a yawn and stretch. “Cool if we turn in? We have to get out of here really early tomorrow morning.”