A broad smile spreads over his face, an odd light in his eyes. “Tonight. We’re leaving tonight.”
A surge of energy bolts through me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, the air thinning out so it barely fills my lungs. “It’s all set?”
“It’s all set.” Decker leans in hard against the fence and groans. “Christ, I wish I could touch you right now. Soon. When the train comes….” He pulls back to look deeply into my eyes. “You’ll be here when the train comes, won’t you? You’ll meet me tonight?”
“I can get out, but I don’t know if I can get back in. If you can’t open the gate, if my mother finds me out of the house—”
“It’ll be open when you get here. I swear. I have it figured out.” Decker laughs, his voice blending with the breeze rustling through the new green leaves. “I have it all figured out.” He leans in again, dropping his voice like there might be somebody listening. “By this time tonight, we’ll be on our own. I’ve got you a temporary place to stay in the city—”
“Us.”
“I’ve got us a temporary place to stay in the city, one night only, and then we’re out of here. It’s a wide-open country, Persephone. I can get a job anywhere the road takes us. We could go east, toward the ocean, or into the desert, if that’s what you want—”
“New York City,” I say without pause.
Another laugh, because he’s heard it before. “Okay, okay. To the library.”
“The New York Public Library. With the lions outside.” I don’t tell him they’re named Patience and Fortitude, those lions. I’ve waited so long for this chance. I’ve used all my strength to get here. In some weird way, it almost feels like those lions are waiting for me.
“Fine,” he says, his tone generous. “We’ll head in that direction.”
I close my eyes and let the words spin a rose-tinted movie of our new life. We’ll be able to check out books, an endless amount of books. It’s going to be hard, leaving everything behind, and with no money. My mother has never let me have a savings account, but I’ve got a few dollars that Decker slipped me here and there. And the beginning—well, the beginning of all this does make my stomach clench.
We’ll have books, and freedom. I don’t need to focus on the fake ID we’ll need to buy if we want to go anywhere without my mother knowing, or the fact that I don’t have a credit card. The other girls at school all had credit cards. They bought things all the time. It looked so easy—type in a few numbers, press a button, reinvent yourself. Let people see you.
I never bought anything. She’d find out somehow, the way she found out when we snuck off to have our tarot cards read.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.
My mother won’t be at the little house Decker and I will set up for ourselves, wherever it is we land. She won’t be watching.
Hades will.
No, he won’t. He won’t have any idea where I am.
“Hey.” Decker taps my knuckles with his fingertips. “Don’t worry. You can go to work wherever you want. With a face like yours, you’re bound to get hired. You can wait tables or answer phones.” He chuckles. “Or work for a florist.”
The snort that escapes me is part excitement and part irritation. Decker has said this a thousand times if he’s said it once, and I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about. “No one’s going to hire me for my face.” Worry knits my brows. “Will I get hired without references?”
“Of course you will.” His fingers curve down over the fence, eyes warm. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. You’re worth a million bucks.”
I can’t stand it anymore. I turn my head away from Decker to look in every direction.
Nothing is out of place at the forest’s edge. Sunlight pushes through the leaves and falls like strings of pearls to the ground below. Bright flowers bow their heads to the wind in a lazy dance. All the growing things fill the air with a green, fresh scent, spring tipping over into summer.
Summers will never be the same after this, and I have to admit part of me aches for these months already. There is one advantage to having a mother like mine. She sees the value in lying out in an open field and letting the warmth soak into your skin. She makes certain allowances in her favorite season, like letting me spend an hour alone at the brook on the opposite side of the field, far from the train tracks. In the summer, she likes to pretend the train and the tracks that jut out of the earth don’t exist.
“Did you hear something?” There’s a note of anxiety in Decker’s voice.
“Nothing.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I should get back. She might decide to check on me. If I’m not close by…”
Decker releases me but lets his fingertips hang on the fence for a few heartbeats longer. “You know what time, right? It’s important.”
This is a risk for both of us. If he gets caught with me he’ll never work for my mother again. Knowing her, he might not work anywhere again.
I don’t want to think about what would happen to me.
The doors in our house are made from solid wood. I’d be no match for a good lock on one of those if she locked me inside.
That won’t happen. By the time the train comes, she’ll be sleeping. She won’t know we’re gone until it’s too late. “I know when the train comes, Deck. I’ll be there.”
He brings his fingertips to his lips and blows me a kiss. Something flickers across his face. Maybe it’s only a shadow from the dappled light. Decker grins at me again. “You’re going to feel so good with me, baby. I promise you that.”
I let myself believe him, let myself lean into belonging to him. Belonging to anyone other than my mother.
When we’re together, I won’t have to be so afraid.
I’ll love every moment with him. I squeeze my eyes shut and will myself into the future, when he can pull me close and keep me steady while we go out into the world. I’m going to feel so good.
Far off in the distance, somewhere on the other side of the fence, a whistle sounds. That’s Decker’s cue to go. His lips part like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. He jogs off into the trees, following the tracks.
Tonight.
3
Persephone
The fields never seem larger than they do in the pitch-black of night. This is only the second time I’ve gone out like this.
The first was years ago, back when I discovered a slim printing of a ghost story that took place in the New York Public Library. Reading it made chilly waves of dread lap up against my toes and then my shins and then knees, rising until I was under. It was about a woman trapped in the library forever—a book lover’s dream, maybe. Except there was no light. No electricity. No fire.
No way to read the books.
That might have made me afraid of going to the library, but it only strengthened my determination to leave. At least she’d been places before she got trapped. At least she’d read more than a few stolen books. When I was finished with the story I had to do something with my pounding heart and certain doom, so I risked it all and went out into the night.