Wounded, trapped beneath a car, unable to run, unable to rise, at the mercy of a faceless, merciless hunter, a Silencer engineered to snuff out the human noise.
22
HE MET—found would be more accurate—Grace the summer they both turned sixteen, at the Hamilton County Fair. Evan was standing outside the exotic petting zoo tent with his little sister, Val, who had been demanding to see the white tiger since they arrived early that morning. It was August. The line was long. Val was tired and grouchy and sticky with sweat. He’d put her off. He didn’t like to see animals in captivity. When he looked into their eyes, something in their eyes looked back at him.
He found Grace first, standing beside the funnel cake trailer, a dripping wedge of watermelon in her hand. Blond hair that fell to the middle of her back, cool, nearly arctic features, especially the ice-blue eyes, and the cynical turn of her mouth, glistening with juice. She turned toward him and he quickly looked away, to the face of his baby sister, who would be dead in less than two years. A fact he carried within him, locked away in a different kind of hidden room. Sometimes it was hard to shake—the knowledge that every face he saw was the face of a corpse-to-be. His world was peopled with living ghosts.
“What?” Val asked.
He shook his head. Nothing. He took a deep breath and glanced toward the trailer again. The tall blond girl was gone.
Inside the tent, behind a steel mesh fence, the white tiger panted in the heat. Small children crowded in front. Behind them, cameras and smartphones clicked. The tiger remained regally indifferent to the attention.
“Beautiful,” a husky voice murmured in Evan’s ear. He did not turn. He knew, without looking, it was the girl with the long blond hair and lips that glistened with watermelon juice. The exhibit was packed; her bare arm brushed against his.
“And sad,” Evan said.
“No,” Grace said. “He could tear through that fence in two seconds. Rip off a kid’s face in three. He’s choosing to be there. That’s the beautiful thing.”
He looked at her. Her eyes were even more startling up close. They bored into his, and in a knee-weakening instant, he knew the entity hiding inside Grace’s body.
“We should talk,” Grace whispered.
23
AT DUSK, the lights of the Ferris wheel were switched on and the tinny music was turned up and the crowd swelled along the midway, cutoff shorts and flip-flops and the smell of coconut-scented sunscreen and the waddle of big-bellied men in John Deere caps with deeply callused hands and wallets attached to belt loops bulging in back pockets. He handed Val off to their mother, then headed for the Ferris wheel to wait nervously for Grace. She materialized out of the crowd, holding a large stuffed animal: a white Bengal tiger, plastic bright blue eyes only slightly darker than hers.
“I’m Evan,” he said.
“I’m Grace.”
They watched the giant wheel turn against the purple sky.
“Do you think we’ll miss it when it’s gone?” he asked.
“I won’t.” Her nose crinkled. “The smell of them is horrible. I can’t get used to it.”
“You’re the first I’ve met since . . .”
She nodded. “Me too. Do you think it’s an accident?”
“No.”
“I wasn’t coming today, but this morning when I woke up, there was this little voice. Go. Did you hear it?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Good.” She sounded relieved. “For three years I’ve been wondering if I’m crazy.”
“You’re not.”
“You don’t wonder?”
“Not anymore.”
She smiled archly. “Do you want to go for a walk?”
They wandered over to the deserted show grounds and sat on the bleachers. The first stars appeared. The night was warm, the air moist. Grace wore a pair of shorts and a sleeveless white blouse with a lace collar. Sitting close to her, Evan could smell licorice.