Requiem

But my feet keep stepping one in front of the other, as though controlled by something other than my brain. The wind sweeps quietly over the bare lots, and the air smells like rot. I pass an old foundation, exposed to the air, and it reminds me, weirdly, of the X-rays my dentist used to show me: toothy gray structures, like a jaw split open and tacked to the ground.

Then I smell it: wood smoke, faint but definite, threaded underneath the other smells.

Someone is having a fire.

I turn left at the next intersection and start down Wy

My throat begins to tighten and release, tighten and release. I can’t be far from 37 Brooks now. I have a sudden terror of coming across it.

I make a decision: If I come to Brooks Street, it will be a sign that I should turn around. I’ll go home; I’ll forget about this ridiculous mission.

“Mama, Mama . . . help me get home . . .”

The singsong voice stops me. I stand still for a minute, holding my breath, trying to locate the source of the sound.

“I’m out in the woods, I’m out on my own . . .”

The words are from an old nursery rhyme about the monsters that were rumored to live in the Wilds. Vampires. Werewolves. Invalids.

Except that the Invalids, it turns out, are real.

I step out of the road and into the grass, weaving through the trees that line the street. I move slowly, careful to touch my toes lightly to the ground before shifting my weight forward—the voice is so quiet, so faint.

The road turns a corner, and I see a girl squatting in the middle of the street, in a large patch of sunshine, her stringy dark hair hanging like a curtain in front of her face. She is all bones. Her kneecaps are like two spiky sails.

She is holding a filthy doll in one hand and a stick in the other. Its end is whittled to a point. The doll has hair made of matted yellow yarn, and eyes of black buttons, although only one of them is still attached to its face. Its mouth is no more than a stitch of red yarn, also unraveling.

“I met a vampire, a rotten old wreck . . .”

I close my eyes as the rest of the lines from the rhyme come back to me.

Mama, Mama, put me to bed

I won’t make it home, I’m already half-dead

I met an Invalid, and fell for his art

He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.

When I open my eyes again, she looks up, briefly, as she stabs the air with her makeshift stake, as though warding off a vampire. For a moment, everything in me stills. It’s Grace, Lena’s younger cousin. Lena’s favorite cousin.

It’s Grace, who never, ever said a word to anyone, not once in the six years I watched her grow from an infant.

“Mommy, put me to bed . . .”

Even though it’s cool in the shade of the trees, a bead of sweat has gathered between my breasts. I can feel it tracing its way down to my stomach.

“I met an Invalid, and fell for his art . . .”

Now she takes the stick and begins working it against the doll’s neck, as though making a procedural scar. “Safety, Health, and Happiness spells Shh,” she singsongs.

Her voice is pitched higher now, a lullaby coo. “Shhh. Be a good girl. This won’t hurt at all, I promise.”

I can’t watch anymore. She’s jabbing at the doll’s flexible neck, making its head shudder in response as though it is nodding yes. I step out of the trees.

“Gracie,” I call to her. Unconsciously, I’ve extended one arm, as though I’m approaching a wild animal.

She freezes. I take another careful step toward her. She is gripping the stick in her fist so tightly, her knuckles are white.

“Grace.” I clear my throat. “It’s me, Hana. I’m a friend—I was a friend of your cousin, Lena.”

Without warning, she’s up on her feet and ru

“Wait!” I call out. “Please—I’m not going to hurt you.”

Grace is fast. She has put fifty feet of distance between us already. She disappears around a corner, and by the time I reach it, she’s gone.

I stop ru

“Stupid,” I say out loud. Because it makes me feel better, I repeat, a little louder, “Stupid.”

There’s a titter of laughter from somewhere behind me. I spin around: no one. The hair pricks up on my neck; all of a sudden I have the feeling I’m being watched, and it occurs to me that if Lena’s family is here, there must be others, too. I notice that cheap plastic shower curtains are hung in the windows of the house across the street; next to it is a yard layered with plastic debris—toys and tubs and plastic building blocks, but neatly arranged, as though someone has recently been playing there.

Feeling suddenly self-conscious, I retreat into the protection of the trees, keeping my eyes on the street, sca

“We have a right to be here, you know.”

The whispering voice comes from directly behind me. I whirl around, so startled that for a moment I can’t speak. A girl has just emerged from the trees. She stares at me with wide brown eyes.

“Willow?” I choke out.

Her eyelids flicker. If she recognizes me, she doesn’t acknowledge it. But it’s definitely her—Willow Marks, my old classmate, who got pulled out of school just before we graduated, after rumors circulated that she had been found with a boy, an uncured, in Deering Oaks Park after curfew.

“We have a right,” she repeats, in that same urgent whisper. She twists her long, thin hands together. “A road and a path for everybody . . . That is the promise of the cure. . . .”

“Willow.” I take a step backward and almost trip over myself. “Willow it’s me. Hana Tate. We had math together last year. Mr. Fillmore’s class. Remember?”

Her eyelids flutter. Her hair is long and hopelessly tangled. I remember how she used to dye streaks of it different colors. My parents always said she would get into trouble. They told me to stay away from her.

“Fillmore, Fillmore,” she repeats. When she turns her head, I see that she has the three-pronged procedural mark, and I remember that she was pulled abruptly out of school just a few months short of graduation: Everyone said that her parents forced her into an early procedure. She frowns and shakes her head. “I don’t know . . . I’m not sure . . .” She brings her fingernails to her mouth, and I see that her cuticles are gnawed to shreds.

My stomach surges. I need to get out of here. I never should have come.

“Good to see you, Willow,” I say. I start to inch slowly around her, trying not to move too quickly even though I’m desperate to break into a run.

All of a sudden, Willow reaches out and puts an arm around my neck, pulling me close, as though she wants to kiss me. I cry out and strain against her, but she is surprisingly strong.

With one hand, she begins feeling her way across my face, prodding my cheeks and chin, like a blind person. The feel of her nails on my skin makes me think of small, sharp-clawed rodents.

“Please.” To my horror, I find that I am almost crying. My throat is spasming; fear makes it hard to breathe. “Please let me go.”

Her fingers find my procedural scar. All at once, she seems to deflate. For a second, her eyes click into focus, and when she looks at me, I see the old Willow: smart and defiant and, now, in this moment, defeated.

“Hana Tate,” she says sadly. “They got you, too.”

Then she releases me, and I run.

Lena