Requiem

Hana

In the morning I wake up momentarily disoriented: The room is drowning in sunlight. I must have forgotten to close the blinds.

I sit up, pushing the covers to the foot of my bed. Seagulls are calling outside, and as I stand, I see that the sun has touched the grass a vivid green.

In my desk I find one of the few things I bothered to unpack: AfterCure, the thick manual I was given after my procedure, which, according to the introduction, “contains the answer to the most common—and uncommon!—questions about the procedure and its aftereffects.”

I flip quickly to the chapter on dreaming, scanning several pages that detail, in boring technical terms, the unintended side effect of the cure: dreamless sleep. Then I spot a sentence that makes me want to hug the book to my chest: “As we have repeatedly emphasized, people are different, and although the procedure minimizes variances in temperament and personality, it must of necessity work differently for everybody. About 5 percent of cureds still report having dreams.”

Five percent. Not a huge amount, but still, not a freakishly small percentage either.

I feel better than I have in days. I close the book, making a sudden resolution.

I will ride my bike to Lena’s house today.

I haven’t been anywhere near her house on Cumberland in months. This will be my way of paying tribute to our old friendship and of putting to rest the bad feeling that has bugged me since I saw Jenny. Lena may have succumbed to the disease, but it was, after all, partly my fault.

That must be why I still think of her. The cure doesn’t suppress every feeling, and the guilt is still pushing through.

I will bike by the old house and see that everyone is okay, and I will feel better. Guilt requires absolution, and I have not absolved myself for my part in her crime. Maybe, I think, I’ll even bring over some coffee. Her aunt Carol used to love the stuff.

Then I’ll return to my life.

I splash water on my face, pull on a pair of jeans and my favorite fleece, soft from years of going in the dryer, and twist my hair up in a messy bun. Lena used to make a face whenever I wore it this way. Unfair, she’d say. If I tried to do that, I’d look like a bird crapped a nest on my head.

“Hana? Is everything okay?” my mother calls to me from the hallway, her voice muffled, concerned. I open the door.

“Fine,” I say. “Why?”

She squints at me. “Were you—were you singing?”

I must have been humming unconsciously. I feel a hot shock of embarrassment.

“I was trying to think of the words to some song Fred played me,” I say quickly. “I can’t remember more than a few words.”

My mother’s face relaxes. “I’m sure you can find it on LAMM,” she says. She reaches out and cups my chin, scans my face critically for a minute. “Did you sleep well?”

“Perfectly,” I say. I detach myself from her grip and head toward the stairs.

Downstairs, Dad is pacing the kitchen, dressed for work except for a tie. I can tell just by looking at his hair that he has been watching the news for a while. Since last fall, when the government issued its first statement acknowledging the existence of the Invalids, he insists on keeping the news running almost constantly, even when we leave the house. As he watches, he twirls his hair between his fingers.

On the news, a woman with an orange-lipstick mouth is saying, “Outraged citizens stormed the police station on State Street this morning, demanding to know how the Invalids were able to move freely through the city streets to deliver their threats. . . .”

Mr. Roth, our neighbor, is sitting at the kitchen table, spinning a mug of coffee between his palms. He is becoming a regular fixture in our house.

“Good morning, Hana,” he says without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Hi, Mr. Roth.”

Despite the fact that the Roths live across from us, and Mrs. Roth is always talking about the new clothes she has bought her older daughter, Victoria, I know that they are struggling. Neither of their children made a particularly good match, mostly because of a small scandal that attached itself to Victoria, who was rumored to have been forced into an early procedure after being caught in the streets after curfew. Mr. Roth’s career has stalled, and the signs of financial difficulty are there: They no longer use their car, although it still sits, gleaming, beyond the iron gate in the driveway. And the lights go off early; obviously, they are trying to conserve electricity. I suspect that Mr. Roth has been stopping by so much because he no longer has a working television.

“Hi, Dad,” I say as I scoot past the kitchen table.

He grunts at me in response, grabbing and twisting another bit of hair. The newscaster says, “The flyers were distributed in a dozen different areas, and were even slipped into playgrounds and elementary schools.”

The footage cuts to a crowd of protesters standing on the steps of city hall. Their signs read TAKE BACK OUR STREETS and DELIRIA-FREE AMERICA. The DFA has received an outpouring of support since its leader, Thomas Fineman, was assassinated last week. Already he is being treated as a martyr, and memorials to him have sprung up across the country.

“Why isn’t anyone doing anything to protect us?” a man is saying into a microphone. He has to shout over the noise of the other protesters. “The police are supposed to keep us safe from these lunatics. Instead they’re swarming the streets.”

I remember how frantic I was to get rid of the flyer last night, as though doing so would mean that it had never existed. But of course the Invalids didn’t target us specifically.

“It’s outrageous!” my dad explodes. I’ve seen him raise his voice only two or three times in my life, and he’s only ever totally lost it once: when they announced the names of the people who had been killed during the terrorist attacks, and Frank Hargrove—Fred’s father—was among those listed as dead. We were all watching TV in the den, and suddenly my father turned and threw his glass against the wall. It was so shocking, my mother and I could only stare at him. I’ll never forget what he said that night: Amor deliria nervosa isn’t a disease of love. It’s a disease of selfishness. “What’s the point of the National Security Administration if—”

Mr. Roth cuts in. “Come on, Rich, have a seat. You’re getting upset.”

“Of course I’m upset. These cockroaches . . .”

In the pantry, boxes of cereal and bags of coffee are lined neatly in multiples. I tuck a bag of coffee under my arm and rearrange the others so the gap isn’t noticeable. Then I grab a piece of bread and smear some peanut butter on it, even though the news has almost completely killed my hunger.

I pass back through the kitchen and am halfway down the hall before my dad turns and calls, “Where are you going?”

I angle my body away from him, so the bag of coffee isn’t visible. “I thought I’d go on a bike ride,” I say brightly.

“A bike ride?” my dad repeats.

“The wedding dress has been getting a little tight.” I gesture expressively with the folded piece of bread. “Stress eating, I guess.” At least my ability to lie hasn’t changed since my cure.

My dad frowns. “Just stay away from downtown, okay? There was an incident last night. . . .”

“Vandalism,” Mr. Roth says. “And nothing more.”

Now the television is showing footage of the terrorist incidents in January: the sudden collapse of the eastern side of the Crypts, captured by a grainy handheld camera; fire licking up from city hall; people pouring out of stalled buses and running, panicked and confused, through the streets; a woman crouched in the bay, dress billowing behind her on the swells, screaming that judgment has arrived; a mass of floating dust blowing through the city, turning everything chalk-white.

“This is just the beginning,” my father responds sharply. “They obviously meant the message to be a warning.”

“They won’t be able to pull anything off. They’re not organized.”

“That was what everyone said last year, too, and we ended up with a hole in the Crypts, a dead mayor, and a city full of psychopaths. Do you know how many prisoners escaped that day? Three hundred.”

“We’ve tightened security since then,” Mr. Roth insists.

“Security didn’t stop the Invalids from treating Portland like a giant post office last night. Who knows what could happen?” He sighs and rubs his eyes. Then he turns to me. “I don’t want my only daughter blown to bits.”

“I won’t go downtown, Dad,” I say. “I’ll stay off-peninsula, okay?”

He nods and turns back to the television.

Outside, I stand on the porch and eat my bread with one hand, keeping the bag of coffee tucked under my arm. I realize, too late, that I’m thirsty. But I don’t want to go back inside.

I kneel down, transfer the coffee into my old backpack—still smelling, faintly, like the strawberry gum I used to chew—and shove the baseball hat over my ponytail again. I put on sunglasses, too. I’m wearing sweatpants and an old sweatshirt, the same outfit I put on last night. I’m not particularly afraid of being spotted by photographers, but I don’t want to risk running into anyone I know.

I retrieve my bike from the garage and wheel it into the street. Everyone says that riding a bike is a skill that stays with you forever, but for a moment after I climb on the seat I wobble wildly, like a toddler just learning to ride. After a few teetering seconds, I manage to find my balance. I angle the bike downhill and begin coasting down Brighton Court, toward the gatehouse and the border of WoodCove Farms.

There’s something reassuring about the tic-tic-tic of my wheels against the pavement, and the feel of the wind on my face, raw and fresh. I don’t get the same feeling I used to have from running, but it does bring contentment, like settling into clean sheets at the end of a long day.

The day is perfect, bright, and surprisingly cold. On a day like today, it seems impossible to imagine that half the country is blighted by the rise of insurgents; that Invalids are running like sewage through Portland, spreading a message of passion and violence. It seems impossible to imagine that anything is wrong in the whole world. A bed of pansies nods at me, as though in agreement, as I zip by them, picking up speed, letting the slope carry me forward. I whiz through the iron gates and past the gatehouse without stopping, raising a hand in a gesture of quick salute, although I doubt Saul recognizes me.

Outside WoodCove Farms, the neighborhood quickly changes. Government-owned plots run up against seedy lots, and I pass three mobile home parks in a row, which are crowded with outdoor charcoal grills and fire pits and shrouded over by a film of smoke and ash, since the people who live here use electricity only sparingly.

Brighton Avenue carries me on-peninsula, and technically across the border and into downtown Portland. But city hall, and the cluster of municipal buildings and laboratories where people have gathered to protest, is still several miles away. The buildings this far from the Old Port are no more than a few stories high, and interspersed with corner delis, cheap Laundromats, run-down churches, and long-disused gas stations.

I try to remember the last time I went to Lena’s house, instead of she to mine, but all I get is a mash-up of years and images, the smell of tinned ravioli and powdered milk. Lena was embarrassed by her cramped home, and by her family. She knew what people said. But I always liked going to her house. I’m not sure why. I think at the time it was the mess that appealed to me—the beds crammed closely together in the upstairs room, the appliances that never worked correctly, fuses that were always powering down, a washing machine that sat rusting, used only as a place for storing winter clothes.

Even though it has been eight months, I navigate the way to Lena’s old house easily, even remembering to shortcut through the parking lot that backs up onto Cumberland.

By this point, I’m sweating, and I stop my bike a few doors down from the Tiddles’ house, wrestling off my hat and running a hand through my hair so I at least look semi-presentable. A door bangs down the street, and a woman emerges onto her porch, which is cluttered with broken furniture and even, mysteriously, a rust-spotted toilet seat. She is carrying a broom, and she begins sweeping back and forth, back and forth, over the same six inches of porch, her eyes locked on me.

The neighborhood is worse, much worse, than it used to be. Half the buildings are boarded up. I feel like a diver on a new submarine, coasting past the wreck of a tanked ship. Curtains stir in the windows, and I have a sense of unseen eyes following my progress down the street—and anger, too, simmering inside all the sad, sagging homes.

I start to feel incredibly stupid for coming. What will I say? What can I say?

But now that I’m so close, I can’t turn around until I’ve seen it: number 237, Lena’s old house. As soon as I wheel my bike up to the gate, I can tell that the house has been abandoned for some time. Several shingles are missing from the roof, and the windows have been boarded up with fungus-colored wood. Someone has painted a large red X over the front door, a symbol that the house was harboring disease.

“What do you want?”

I spin around. The woman on the porch has stopped sweeping; she holds the broom in one hand and shields her eyes with the other.

“I was looking for the Tiddles,” I say. My voice rings out too loudly on the open street. The woman keeps staring at me. I force myself to move closer to her, wheeling my bike across the street and up to her front gate, even though something inside me is revolting, telling me to go. I do not belong here.

“Tiddles moved off last fall,” she says, and begins sweeping again. “They weren’t welcome around here no more. Not after—” She breaks off suddenly. “Well. Anyways. Don’t know what happened to them, and don’t care, either. They can rot away in the Highlands as far as I’m concerned. Spoiling the neighborhood, making it hard for everybody else—”

“Is that where they went?” I seize on the small bit of information. “To Deering Highlands?”

Instantly, I can tell I’ve put her on her guard. “What business is it to you?” she says. “You Youth Guard or something? This is a good neighborhood, a clean neighborhood.” She jabs at the porch with her broom, as though trying to tamp down invisible insects. “Read the Book every day and passed all my reviews just like anybody else. But still people come poking and prying, digging up trouble—”

“I’m not from the DFA,” I say to reassure her. “And I’m not trying to cause trouble.”

“Then what are you trying to do?” She squints at me closely, and I see a flicker of recognition pass across her face. “Hey. Have you been around here before or something?”

“No,” I say quickly, and jam the hat back onto my head. I’ll get no more help here, I can tell.

“I’m sure I know you from somewhere,” the woman says as I climb onto my bike. I know it will click for her any second: That’s the girl who got paired with Fred Hargrove.

“You don’t,” I say, and I push off into the street.

I should let it go. I know I should let it go. But more than ever, I have an urge to see Lena’s family again. I need to know what has happened since she left.

I haven’t been to Deering Highlands since last summer, when Alex, Lena, and I used to hang out in 37 Brooks, one of the neighborhood’s many abandoned houses. 37 Brooks is where Lena and Alex were caught by the regulators, and the reason they attempted a last-minute, poorly planned escape.

Deering Highlands, too, is even more run-down than I remember it. The neighborhood was practically abandoned years ago, after a string of busts in the area gave it the reputation of being tainted. When I was little, the older kids used to tell stories of the ghosts of uncureds who’d died of amor deliria nervosa and still wandered the streets. We used to dare each other to go into the Highlands and put a hand on the derelict buildings. You had to keep your hand there for a full ten seconds, just enough time for the disease to seep through your fingertips.

Lena and I did it together once. She chickened out after four seconds, but I waited the whole ten, counting slowly, and loud, so the girls who were watching could hear. I was the hero of second grade for a full two weeks.

Last summer, there was a raid on an illegal party in the Highlands. I was there. I let Steven Hilt lean in and whisper to me, his mouth bumping against my ear.

It was one of four illegal parties I’d attended since graduation. I remember how thrilled I was sneaking through the streets, long past curfew, my heart clawing up to my throat, and how Angelica Marston and I would meet the next day to laugh about how we’d gotten away with it. We spoke in whispers about kissing and threatened to run away to the Wilds, as though we were little girls talking about Wonderland.

That’s the point. It was kid stuff. A big game of make-believe.

It was never supposed to happen to me, to Angie, or to anyone else. It definitely wasn’t supposed to happen to Lena.

After the raid, the neighborhood was officially repossessed by the city of Portland, and a number of the houses were razed. The plan was to set up new low-income condos for some of the municipal workers, but construction stalled after the terrorist incidents, and as I cross over into the Highlands, all I see is rubble: holes in the ground, and trees felled and left with their roots exposed to the sky, dirty, churned earth, and rusting metal signs declaring it a hard-hat area.

It’s so quiet that even the sound of my wheels as they turn seems overloud. A thought comes to me suddenly, unbidden—Quiet through the grave go I; or else beneath the graves I lie—the old rhyme we used to whisper as kids when we passed a graveyard.

A graveyard: That’s exactly what the Highlands is like now.

I climb off my bike and lean it against an old street sign, which points the way to Maple Avenue, another street of large, carved bowls of dark earth and uprooted trees.

I walk down Maple for a bit, feeling increasingly stupid. There is no one here. That is obvious. And Deering Highlands is a large neighborhood, a tangle of small streets and cul-de-sacs. Even if Lena’s family is squatting somewhere around here, I won’t necessarily find them.

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 Wynnewood Road. This is the Highlands I remember from last summer. Here the houses were never razed. They still loom, gloomy and vacant, behind thick stands of ancient pine trees.

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 running, leaving the doll and the stick behind. Automatically, I break into a sprint and tear after her down the street.

“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 running. My heart drums hard in my throat, and there’s a foul taste in my mouth. I take off my hat and swipe at the sweat on my forehead, feeling like a complete idiot.

“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, scanning for signs of movement.

“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.