Lucretia and the Kroons

6

The trees ran in two perpendicular lines for two hundred feet, cutting the meadow in half. As soon as Loochie entered the cover of the trees she made a sharp left rather than coming out the other side of the rows. She ran between them. She had the idea that she could trick Pit, lose him, if she did this. She doubted a man, a thing, with only half a skull had more than half a brain. Once he was up again he might keep running straight through the trees and go out to the next meadow on the other side. Meanwhile she would be doubling back toward the open kitchen window.

She couldn’t run so well. The roots of the trees were overgrown and thick and they threatened to trip her up. And there were little stones everywhere, cutting into her soles. Her socks weren’t much protection. Her feet hurt but she didn’t slow down. She tried not to breathe too loudly even though her chest burned from the effort.

Finally she had to stop. She had to catch her breath. She lay down on her back, heaving, with a hand over her nose and mouth to mute the sound. In her own ears her every breath was as loud as a broken muffler. Out there, in the meadow, she heard the Kroon’s high-pitched squealing. Then it seemed to echo. Playing once then again and again. As her breath returned to normal she realized these weren’t echoes. They were replies.

Loochie sat up to check her aching feet. They throbbed like she’d been cut, but they seemed okay. She watched all the yellowed blades of grass in the meadow. Every few seconds they swayed. There was a breeze. Coming from where?

The high-pitched squeals came again. Loochie wanted to get up but found herself paralyzed. Her knees and elbows had locked up from fright. Hadn’t she been trying on wigs in her mother’s bedroom an hour ago? That already seemed a lifetime ago. She must be dreaming. None of this made a lick of sense. Yet somehow she knew she wasn’t. The rough ground beneath her, the squeals of the Kroons, the pain in her feet, all of it too real for a dream. She was awake. And that meant all of this was truly happening. If she was to survive it, she couldn’t stay still hoping to wake up.

She straightened her mother’s wig to steady herself. Loochie got to her feet. She needed to get a better idea of what was happening out there. A strategic view. She would have to climb one of these trees.

She was trembling again. She was used to climbing fire escapes, but hadn’t ever scaled a tree. It didn’t help that this was an insane tree in an insane woods in an insane park that had appeared — insanely — in this apartment.

These trees weren’t at all like the ones she’d seen on trips to the Queens Botanical Garden or Flushing Meadows Park. These trees were like their demented cousins. They were so tall they seemed to run as high as her entire apartment building. Sixty feet straight up, that big. Their trunks were misshapen, bubbling out here and there in thick knots, and their outer bark was gray and ashen, as if burned. In places the bark showed great tears and the inner bark was a sickly white, the color of bones. She didn’t want to climb this tree. She didn’t even want to touch it. But then she heard the calls out in the meadow once again and she had no choice. She reached for the lowest branch of the nearest tree and climbed.

It’s amazing what a person can do when her life depends on it. Loochie scaled that tree from one limb to the next, fearful but quick. Running had been bad without sneakers, but climbing was easier in socks. She was twenty feet up before she looked down. The sight made her dizzy but she shut her eyes and soon she was calm. Then she scooted forward on a limb, going farther and farther, until she was able to peak at the meadow through the tree’s dense leaves.

There were five Kroons out there now. Seventy-five feet away. Pit and Lefty and three more. Two of the new ones looked exactly alike. Twins. And the last of the new ones was low to the ground, as if he was lying on his stomach in the grass. Loochie watched that one. He was pulling himself through the grass. He reached forward and dug his fingers into the dirt and moved ahead a couple of inches. Then, with the other hand, he pulled himself ahead again. Back and forth like this, slow but unceasing. He was missing both his legs but his ratty jeans were full length. The empty denim trailed behind his upper body as if he had two tails.

Pit pointed toward the trees. He barked at the others loudly and they barked back in quieter tones. They were communicating. Coordinating. They spread out and formed a line, fifty feet between each of them. Together they moved toward the woods. The formation would act like a net, one of them sure to catch sight or sound or smell of her. Did Sunny come through here, too? Loochie wondered. How had she have avoided these things? She couldn’t imagine Sunny sprinting away, let alone climbing a tree, not as sick as she was. Maybe Loochie was too late. Maybe the Kroons had already taken up her tiny body and … what? Burned it. Cooked it? Her best friend going up in a cloud of smoke. The thought seemed to tickle the back of her ear, like a fly or some other pest. You’re too late. Sunny’s gone. But she brushed the words away. She didn’t want to hear them.

As she surveyed the park Loochie’s sense of familiarity returned. From her perch up in the tree, she could see more of the grounds. In the distance, far behind the Kroons, she made out a body of water. It looked like a huge lake. But something was off. From here she could see the surface flickering. The lake was on fire. Or maybe it was a lake of fire. And yet the shape of it, the distance from this stand of trees, were recognizable. Meadow Lake. Flushing Meadows Park. She was in Flushing Meadows Park. Where she and Sunny used to skate around the Unisphere.

The Kroons were creeping nearer. Then all five of them stopped looking toward the trees and snapped their attentions at the ground. They looked at the half-dead grass as if they’d all dropped something important. Just like Pit had done in the kitchen earlier. They scanned the ground desperately. She wondered what it was each of them could’ve been searching for, yearning for, so badly. What had Louis called them? Crackheads. Maybe that meant they walked around searching for cracks in the ground?

Loochie entertained a thought. Maybe she could just climb down and talk with them. Explain that she wasn’t meant to be here. She was looking for her friend and they only wanted to go home. But that would have been as futile as trying to convince Priya, Susan, and Monique that they should let her back into their circle. It would never happen.

The Kroon in the grass had stopped altogether. His arms were straight and his spine curled back and his head lifted. He was no longer scanning the ground for cracks. He’d spotted her. He was looking directly at her. He watched her for a moment, his eyes like embers. She shook her head faintly, as if begging him not to tell the others. His eyes narrowed and he grinned. The Kroon opened his mouth and barked. The other four, his brothers, changed direction. They swelled toward her.

Loochie scrambled backward along the tree limb, toward the trunk. The leaves hid her, but it didn’t matter. They’d seen where she was. She climbed down, practically jumping from one limb to the next.

If this place did, somehow, have the same layout as Flushing Meadows Park then she knew exactly where she might find Sunny. If Sunny is still alive. She had the thought and sent it away just as fast. If this place had the same layout then she might find Sunny at their favorite place. The giant replica of the planet, built for the 1964 World’s Fair. Probably the most famous landmark in Queens: the Unisphere.

Loochie lost her footing ten feet from the ground and fell. The drop seemed to take days but eventually she slammed into the earth. She landed on her side, banging her hip and shoulder. She couldn’t keep her eyes focused but still she scrambled to her feet because she could hear the Kroons rushing through the grass. The brittle blades crackled. It sounded like the meadow was on fire.

Loochie ran from them, through the second row of trees. She didn’t think about her feet, shoulder, or hip. Her only thought was to find the Unisphere. She entered a second meadow of half-dead grass. Without meaning to, she let out a sharp laugh.

In the distance she saw a giant silver globe.