Her voice startles a flock of birds. They go screaming into the sky. The wind picks up, and the Wilds come alive again with rustling and scurrying and creaking: a constant nonsense-babble.
“Come on,” I say, and take Julian back toward the dead house.
Hana
Explosions: a sudden shattering of the sky. First one, then another; then a dozen of them, rapid gunfire sounds, smoke and light and bursts of color against a pale-blue evening sky.
Everyone applauds as the final round of fireworks blooms above the terrace. My ears are ringing, and the smell of smoke makes my nostrils burn, but I clap too.
Fred is officially the mayor of Portland now.
“Hana!” Fred moves toward me, smiling, as cameras light up around him. During the fireworks, as everyone surged onto the terraces of the Harbor Golf and Country Club, we were separated. Now he seizes my hands.
“Congratulations,” I say. More cameras go off—click, click, click—like another miniature volley of fireworks. Every time I blink, I see bursts of color behind my eyelids. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Happy for us, you mean,” he says. His hair—which he gelled and combed so carefully—has over the course of the night become increasingly unruly, and migrated forward, so a stray lock of hair falls over his right eye. I feel a rush of pleasure. This is my life and my place: here, next to Fred Hargrove.
“Your hair,” I whisper. He brings a hand automatically to his head, patting his hair into place again.
“Thank you,” he says. Just then a woman I recognize vaguely from the staff of the Portland Daily shoulders up to Fred.
“Mayor Hargrove,” she says, and it gives me a thrill to hear him referred to that way. “I’ve been trying to get a word with you all night. Do you have a minute—?”
She doesn’t wait to hear his response but draws him away from me. He turns his head over his shoulder and mouths, Sorry. I give him a small wave to show that I understand.
Now that the fireworks are done, people flow back into the ballroom, where the reception will continue. Everyone is laughing and chattering. This is a good night, a time of celebration and hope. In his speech, Fred promised to restore order and stability to our city and to root out the sympathizers and resisters who have nested among us—like termites, he said, slowly eroding the basic structure of our society and our values.
No more, he said, and everyone applauded.
This is what the future looks like: happy pairs, bright lights and pretty music, tasteful draped linens and pleasant conversation. Willow Marks and Grace, the rotting houses of Deering Highlands, and the guilt that compelled me out of the house and onto my bike yesterday—all of it seems like a bad dream.
I think of the way Willow looked at me, so sadly: They got you, too.
They didn’t get me, I should have said. They saved me.
The last, wispy fingers of smoke have dispersed. The green hills of the golf course are swallowed in purple shadow.
For a second I stand on the balcony, enjoying the order of it all: the trimmed grass and carefully plotted landscape, the pattern of day into night into day again, a predictable future, a life without pain.
As the crowd on the terrace thins, I catch the eye of a boy standing at the opposite side of the deck. He smiles at me. He looks familiar, although for a moment I can’t place him. But as he begins moving toward me, I feel a jolt of recognition.
Steve Hilt. I almost don’t believe it.
“Hana Tate,” he says. “I guess I can’t call you Hargrove yet, can I?”
“Steven.” Last summer I called him Steve. Now it seems inappropriate. He is changed; that must be why I didn’t recognize him at first. As he inclines his head toward a waitress, depositing his empty wineglass on a tray, I see he has been cured.
But it is more than that: He is heavier, his stomach a round swell under his button-down shirt, his jawline blurring into his neck. His hair is combed straight across his forehead, the same way my dad wears it.
I try to remember the last time I saw him. It might have been the night of the raid in the Highlands. I had gone to the party mostly because I was hoping to see him. I remember standing in the half-dark basement while the floor thudded with the rhythm of the music, sweat and moisture coating the walls, the smell of alcohol and sunscreen and bodies packed into a tight space. And he had pressed his body against mine—he was so thin then, tall and skinny and tan—and I had let him slide his hands around my waist, under my shirt, and he had leaned down and pressed his lips against mine, opened my mouth with his tongue.
I believed I loved him. I believed he loved me.
And then: the first scream.
Gunfire.
Dogs.
“You look good,” Steven says. Even his voice sounds different. Again, I can’t help but think of my father, the easy, low-belly voice of a grown-up.
“So do you,” I lie.
He tips his head, gives me a look that says both Thanks and I know. Unconsciously, I withdraw a few inches. I can’t believe that I kissed him last summer. I can’t believe that I risked everything—contagion, infection—on this boy.
But no. He was a different boy back then.
“So. When is the happy event? Next Saturday, isn’t it?” He puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels.
“The Friday after.” I clear my throat. “And you? You’ve been paired, then?” It never occurred to me last summer to ask.
“Sure have. Celia Briggs. Do you know her? She’s at UP now. We won’t be married until she’s finished.”
I do know Celia Briggs. She went to New Friends Academy, a St. Anne’s rival school. She had a hook nose and a loud, rattling laugh, which made it always sound as though she was fighting a bad throat infection.
As though he can tell what I’m thinking, Steven says, “She’s not the prettiest girl, but she’s decent. And her dad’s chief of the Regulatory Office, so we’ll be all set up. That’s how we scored an invite to this shindig.” He laughs. “Not bad, I have to say.”
Even though we are practically the only two people left on the deck, I suddenly feel claustrophobic.
“I’m sorry.” I have to force myself to look at him. “I should get back to the party. It was great seeing you, though.”
“Pleasure’s mine,” he says, and winks. “Enjoy yourself.”
I can only nod. I step in through the French doors and snag the hem of my dress on a splinter in the threshold. I don’t stop; I give my dress a sharp tug and hear it tear. I push through knots of partygoers: the wealthiest and most important members of the Portland community, everyone scented and powdered and well-dressed. As I make my way through the room, I pick up on snatches of conversation, an ebb and flow of sound.
“You know Mayor Hargrove has ties to the DFA.”
“Not publicly.”
“Not yet.”
Seeing Steven Hilt has destabilized me for reasons I can’t understand. Someone presses a glass of champagne into my hand, and I drink it quickly, unthinkingly. The bubbles fizz in my throat, and I have to stifle a sneeze. It has been a long time since I’ve had anything to drink.
People whirl around the room, around the band, dancing two-step and waltz, arms rigid, steps graceful and defined: patterns forming and reforming, dizzying to watch. Two women, both tall, with the regal looks of birds of prey, stare at me as I push past them.
“Very pretty girl. Healthy-looking.”
“I don’t know. I heard her scores were rigged. I think Hargrove could have done better. . . .”
The women move off into the swirl of dancers, and I lose the thread of their voices. Different conversations overwhelm them.
“How many kids have they been assigned?”
“Don’t know, but she looks like she can handle a litter of ’em.”
Heat starts to climb into my chest and cheeks. Me: They’re talking about me.
I look around for my parents or Mrs. Hargrove and don’t spot them. I can’t see Fred, either, and I have a moment of panic—I’m in a room full of strangers.
That’s when it hits me that I have no friends anymore. I suppose that I will make friends with Fred’s friends now—people in our class and rank, people who share similar interests. People like these people.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm down. I shouldn’t feel this way. I should feel brave, and confident, and careless.
“Apparently there were some problems with her last year before she was cured. She started manifesting symptoms. . . .”
“So many of them do, don’t they? That’s why it’s so important that the new mayor aligns himself with the DFA. If they can shit a diaper, they can be cured. That’s what I say.”
“Please, Mark, give it a rest. . . .”
Finally I spot Fred across the room, surrounded by a small crowd and flanked by two photographers. I try to push my way toward him but am blocked by the crowd, which seems to be growing as the evening goes on. An elbow hits me in the side, and I stumble against a woman holding a large glass of red wine.
“Excuse me,” I murmur, pushing past her. I hear a gasp and a few nervous titters, but I’m too focused on getting through the crowd to worry about what has attracted their attention.
Then my mother is barging toward me. She grabs my elbow, hard.
“What happened to your dress?” she hisses.
I look down and see a bright red stain spreading across my chest. I have the inappropriate urge to laugh; it looks as though I’ve been shot. Mercifully, I manage to suppress it.
“A woman spilled on me,” I say, detaching myself from her. “I was just about to go to the bathroom.” As soon as I say it, I feel relieved: I’ll get a break in the bathroom.
“Well, hurry up.” She shakes her head at me, as though it’s my fault. “Fred is going to make a toast soon.”
“I’ll hurry,” I tell her.
In the hall, it’s much cooler, and my footsteps are suctioned away by the plush carpet. I head for the women’s room, ducking my head to avoid making eye contact with the handful of guests who have trickled out into the hall. A man is talking loudly, ostentatiously, into a cell phone: Everyone here has that kind of money. The air smells like potpourri and, faintly, cigar smoke.
When I reach the bathroom, I pause with my hand on the door. I can hear voices murmuring inside, and a burst of laughter. Then a woman says, very clearly, “She’ll make a good wife for him. It’s a good thing, after what happened with Cassie.”
“Who?”
“Cassie O’Donnell. His first pair. You don’t remember?”
I pause with my hand on the door. Cassie O’Donnell. Fred’s first wife. I’ve been told practically nothing about her. I hold my breath, hoping they’ll continue speaking.
“Of course, of course. What was it? Two years ago now?”
“Three.”
Another voice: “You know, my sister went to grade school with her. She went by her middle name then. Melanea. Stupid name, don’t you think? My sister says she was a perfect little bitch. But I guess she got hers in the end.”