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At last he reached the top A final door and, on the wall above it, far out of reach, a tiny , its edges scalloped by broken glass, yellowed by soot and ti, the girl had led hi shook the stairwell as the first viral hit the door below hi the air with feathers

That hen he saw it, so encrusted with guano it had blended invisibly into the wall around it He used his elbow to slass, then yanked the axe free A second crash froh the door and streaave it a hard swing, ailanced off, but he could tell he’d done so the distance, and gave the axe another swing, putting everything he had behind it A clean hit: the lock split and shattered He leaned into the door with all hishiht

He was on the roof at the north side of the e

The drop was fifteeni for the virals to take hi freely from his elbow; a trail of his blood had followed hih he had no memory of pain, he must have cut it when he’d smashed the panel But a little blood would hardly make a difference now At least he had the axe

He was turning to face the door, preparing to swing, when a cry reached him from below

"Ju around the corner of the building on horseback, riding fast Alicia aving to him, her body arched forward froht of Theo, lifted up He thought of his father, standing at the edge of the sea, and of the sea and stars He thought of the girl, covering his body with her own, the warmth and sweetness of her breath on his neck and on his cheek where she had kissed hi fro up the stairs, the axe was in his hand

Not now, he thought, not yet, and he closed his eyes and juain and she was alone Alone with no one but the voices she heard, everywhere and all around

She remembered people She remembered the Man She remembered the other man and his wife and the boy and then the woman She remembered some more than others She re: I aht herself to walk in the light, though it was not easy For a time it pained her, made her sick

She walked and walked She followed the mountains The Man had told her to follow the , but then one day the mountains ended; the ain, those same ones Some days she went nowhere at all Some days were years She lived here and there, with these and those, with the man and his wife and the boy and then the woman and finally with no one at all Some of the people were kind to her, before they died Others were not so She was different, they said She was not like them, not of them She was apart and alone and there were no others like her in all the world The people sent her away or they did not, but in the end they always died

She dreamed She dreamed of voices, and the Man For some time of months or years she could hear the Man in the howl of the wind and the scrape of the stars if she listened just so, and it gave her a longing in her heart for his care But over tie his voice became allones, both there and not there, as the dark was a thing but not a thing, a presence and an absence joined The world was a world of drearound below my feet, there is the sky over s and the wind and rain and stars and everywhere the voices, the voices and the question

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

She was not afraid of them, as the Man had been, and the others also, the man and his wife and the boy and then the wo ones away from the Man and she had, she had done it They followed her with their question, dragging it like a chain, like the one she’d read about in the story of the ghost, Jacob Marley For a tihosts, but they were not so She had no na she was One night she awoke and she beheld the like embers in the dark She re out Their faces crowded around her, their drea faces, so sad and lost, like the lonely world she walked in They needed her to tell them, to answer the question She could sht, and of the question, a current in the blood Who am I? they asked her

who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I

She ran fro

The seasons changed They rolled round and round, and round so and then they were not She carried on her back a pack of things she needed, as well as the things she wanted to have because they were a comfort They helped her to reood and the bad Such things as: the story of the ghost, Jacob Marley The locket of the woman, which she had taken from around her neck after the woreat commotion A bone from the field of bones and a stone from the beach where she had seen the ship Fros in the cans she found were not good anymore She would open a can with the tool in her pack and a terrible smell would rise fros where the dead people lay in rows or not in rows, and she knew she couldn’t eat that one but would have to eat another For a tiray, and a beach of s their long arht she watched the stars turning, she watched theover the sea It was the same moon as over all the world and she was happy in that place for a time It was in that place she saw the ship Hello! she cried, for she had seen no one in ever and ever, and was joyful at the very sight of it Hello, ship! Hello, you big boat, hello! But the ship said no words back to her It went away for soe of the sea, and then returned, ht Like a dream of a boat with no one to dreahts to the place of the rocks and the broken bridge the color of blood, where its great bow cae and small, and by then she knew the ship like its fellows upon the rocks was empty with no people on it; and the sea was black with a foul sood And she moved on from that place also

Oh, she could feel them, feel them all She could stretch out her hands and stroke the darkness and feel thereat and terrible brokenheartedness Their endless needful questioning It moved her to a sorrow that was a kind of love Like the love she’d felt for the Man, who in his care for her had told her to run and keep on running

The Man She re sun in her eyes She re of the Man But she could not hear hione

There were others she did hear, in the dark And she kneho these were, too

I am Babcock

I am Morrison

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