The sights were immediately different from Uphill. The sounds and smells were different too. The scent of fried food wafting toward me was so enticing in fact that I didn’t notice when I walked straight into oncoming traffic.
Headlights flashed. I heard a loud honk followed by tires screeching to a halt. I put my hands out in front of me and smashed into hard metal. Between the mouthwatering aromas of fried pastries and meat skewers, there was now a strong whiff of burning rubber lingering in the air. The surface before me gave out. The metal caved under my hands.
The bus honked again, cursing at me. I’d walked right in front of a double-decker bus … and then I’d dented it.
The vehicle swerved off, noticeably worse for wear. The purple paint by the front bumper was chipped. One of the headlights flickered. Passengers pressed their faces against the windows, watching me with mouths agape. I’d definitely be sore tomorrow, but it was probably nothing a few snacks couldn’t fix.
As the bus sped out of view, I caught a glimpse of the glittery silver name on its side. Amaris Shuttle Service. If I didn’t want to walk, I could take this to get around.
I brushed purple paint chips from my hands and kept moving deeper into Downhill, weaving through packs of tourists and occasionally jostling loose items from their pockets and bags. After my run-in with the family in the cemetery, I figured this was the only way I could make it. I needed money to survive: money that tourists had in heaps.
The ocean breeze was much stronger down here. A synthetic sulfurous scent wafted over, and I was instantly dizzy. A few pedestrians covered their noses with small cloths or masks, coughing discreetly. Rats peeked out of rain gutters, their black eyes watchful.
The ground felt uneven; loose pebbles scattered under each step, rolling further and further down the hill toward the Pacific Ocean that bordered this island. I saw another acid-green frog, hopping from stone to stone. Was it an omen of doom, or just another weird little guy?
Penny’s earlier words echoed in my Cog: Is there smoke? I thought again of the Ring of Fire. Of Mount Amaris, biding her time. The city itself, along with the smaller uninhabited islands that made up the archipelago, had formed because of the initial eruption.
Beads of sweat dripped down my neck. The unseasonably warm day was now an unseasonably warm night, even though it was still early spring. I tugged at my collar and kept going, dispelling the memory of Penny’s fear as best I could. It was an existential concern, and I had more pressing things to figure out—like how I would survive right now.
I had to push Uphill away, which meant pushing away Penny, pushing away Father, pushing away the horrors of his lab.
Yet despite my efforts, the images flashed through my Cog, and I saw the other Marietta, unbidden like a ghost. She was another rotten girl like me, covered in black flies, grinning emptily. I felt her presence beside me, on me, in me. I couldn’t get rid of the sensation that we were one and the same. The same clothes, the same bones, the same doomed project.
“I’m not her,” I mumbled to myself. Then louder, I insisted, “I’m Helga!”
A tourist stared at me, clutching her bags to her chest. She backed up fearfully. Maybe she thought I’d lost it.
And maybe she was right.
Even as I spotted the entrance of the Night Market, I could still feel the presence of the rotten Marietta, silent and petrifying in her business attire, her rotting green hands reaching out to pull me back up the hill. To drag me back to where I belonged.
“Screw this,” I muttered. I needed to really embrace my new life if I was ever going to forget my old one.
So I did just that. By the time I arrived at the Night Market’s vendor stalls, I had scrounged up three wallets, a child’s pacifier, and a pair of designer sunglasses just by jostling tourists. I threw out the extra wallets and pacifier, emptying the bills and silver tokens into a single wallet, and donned the sunglasses immediately.
“Cute,” someone said approvingly, looking me up and down. “Very subversive.”
Me? She was talking to me?
The girl had highlighter-yellow hair and several silver piercings. “Your deconstructed Uphill look,” she explained. “The torn button-down, the ruined slacks … It’s perfect.”
My face flushed. Her words covered me like a warm, fuzzy blanket. “You really think so?”
“It’s so Downhill.” She grinned. “I adore it.”
She waved once before disappearing into the crowd. I stared into the middle distance, feeling pretty pleased with myself. Downhill life was already suiting me much better, even though my clothes were messed up and my hair looked like a wet mop. This was at least discomfort I could handle. And I vastly preferred it to Father’s surveillance and persistent disappointment.
This place seemed like the cultural opposite of Uphill. Downhill had none of the stuffy atmosphere and culture that Father had tried to coach into me. I already loved it with all of my rotten heart.
And the approving looks people gave me here certainly helped too.
A gaggle of teenage girls in leather jackets and torn fishnets stalked through the bustling crowd, slicked with rain, all of them cooing about my outfit. An older man with purple eyeshadow beckoned to me from his booth, offering me an immediate discount. I left his stall with tall buckled boots, newly pierced ears, and a new black choker to cover up the bump at the base of my neck—the one physical distinction that made me different from everyone else. My stolen wallet was significantly lighter in weight now too.
The Night Market thrummed with an energy so electric it was palpable. Buyers and sellers haggled at length; shady dealers whispered to guileless tourists; couples held hands and kissed. My stomach twitched whenever I saw the couples. But maybe it was only hunger. I was a growing girl, after all.
There were plenty of food stalls—the tendon meat skewers and puff pastries I’d gotten a whiff of as soon as I ventured past the gate, showcasing items with both East Asian and American influences. But beyond them, there was a plethora of blackberry-themed delicacies. It was obviously the local specialty, given how prolific they were on the island.
There were vendors hawking blackberry tarts and blackberry-and-cream dumplings. A toddler bumped into my leg wearing a blackberry-shaped hat with the price tag still attached. I gobbled up tarts and skewers and deep-fried sweets, and still wanted more.
Rain came down against the black roofs, low and steady. It was warmer here than up on the hill. Downhill was crowded, whereas back Uphill, people tended to keep their distance from each other. Sweaty bodies brushed past me. People jostled, haggled, and flirted with each other, stepping over the blackberries that came up in the cracks of the road.
Behind the market were squat houses that, from this distance, looked like a row of short jagged teeth. Ravens circled the sky and swooped down for garbage to peck at.
I filled my stomach and eyes with everything I could. I bought rings for each one of my fingers and ate so much coffin bread it would’ve knocked out a drove of oxen. I picked over fishnets and fake paintings and trinkets. I played darts, winning an enormous raven plushie to uproarious applause from vendors and tourists alike.
I followed Downhillers to market stalls, avoiding the kiosks that had a weirdly clinical edge—although tourists didn’t seem to differentiate those much from the vendors. The structures’ new paint smelled like chemicals, and the storefront signs were sparse and uniform unlike the handwritten ones in front of the vendor stalls. I sidestepped rats the way I watched an assertive green-haired girl do it. I was a natural Downhiller, through and through.
But something still wasn’t quite right, somewhere deep inside of me. Something that squirmed. The pain alternated between dull and sharp. I couldn’t seem to get rid of it. The pain would sometimes get so pronounced I wondered if it was internal bleeding. When I saw couples together, when I ventured farther downhill, and even when I had certain thoughts opposing Father—it practically throbbed.
Should I have listened to Penny? Stayed and begged for her help, flawed as she was? I found myself having doubts despite my incredible Cog. Could I possibly have taken a wrong turn somewhere?
I rejected this ridiculous thought quickly, having seen my own reflection in a puddle. Not only was I perfectly healthy and fine on my own, but I now had pierced ears and platform shoes. I was beautiful and basically invincible. There was nothing I couldn’t solve by myself.
I was at the edge of the market when someone placed a warm hand on my shoulder. I stopped still. The air smelled of cloves and tobacco. His voice was cool and unhurried.
“Hey,” he said.
My mouth went dry. Blood pounded in my ears. The Night Market faded, and all that was left was him.
The boy was definitely a Downhiller. He wore a thin black T-shirt tucked into faded black jeans. The shirt was so threadbare that there were holes around the collar. Underneath it, a silver necklace peeked out. He had on short black cowboy boots too. They should’ve clipped when he came up behind me, but I hadn’t noticed anything at all until that soft and unhurried “Hey.”
I was extremely aware of my own breathing. Something was happening to me, something I had never anticipated. My hands felt clammy, my cheeks flushed.
Holy shit. Was I dying?
He smiled, silver lip ring glinting in the dark. And despite the ones I’d seen in Father’s lab, all the candy-colored iris slices in glass jars, I’d never seen eyes like his before—a blue so pale they were almost gray.
“The name’s Clyde,” he said. “And what can I call you?”
“Helga,” I said, forcing my voice to sound casual. The ground felt like it was shifting again. Like any second it could swallow me up.
Suddenly, I wished I wasn’t carting around an enormous raven plushie. It might seem somewhat immature. And that’s when I realized I wasn’t dying—I just had a crush, is all.
I walked side by side with the Downhill boy, falling into an easy cadence. He told me which vendors were his favorites, and which ones sold overpriced pork buns. “We—Downhillers, I mean—avoid the kiosks around here, since those come from Uphill. Total tourist bait and way overpriced,” he explained. I glowed inwardly, proud of myself for instinctively knowing those weren’t as good as the vendor stalls. The smell had given it away too. There was something cold about the kiosks, while the market stalls crackled with life.
“The tourists want a sanitized version of the city and reality itself,” he went on. “But I want to see this place—and live in it—the way it really is. Not everything is perfect. It doesn’t have to be.”
My cheeks flushed. He had no idea how much that last part really resonated with me. So much that I almost reached for his hand before stopping myself just in time.
The rain glittered in his bleached white hair. I continually sneaked sidelong glances at him. He was tall—even taller than me in my platforms, with cheekbones that could cut through glass. And when the throngs of people squeezed past us, he placed his hand gently against the small of my back.
“After you,” he said, while I tried my best not to swoon.
We winnowed our way into a side alley as he told me about his favorite bands and movies. Clyde loved black metal and slashers. “The darker the better.” He grinned.
We climbed up a creaking ladder on the side of a warehouse. I was thankful it clanged so loudly with each rung. I was afraid he’d otherwise hear my heart thumping against my ribcage like a prisoner behind bars. We climbed and climbed and climbed until finally, we reached the top of the structure. He took my hand and pulled me over onto the roof.
“This is one of the best views in the whole damn city,” he said, gesturing at it.
From this height, I could see nearly everything.
The people down in the Night Market looked like ants from my vantage point. I could see the clear boundary between Uphill and Downhill: the cemetery that was nestled between them. I could see black circles—the automatic lawn mowers—pruning the long green hill, all the way up to the top of Mount Amaris, to the Institute and Father’s apartment.
But I didn’t want to think of Father now. I turned away from the hill, my spirits slightly dampened.
On the other side of the roof, there were more of Downhill’s low and jutting houses. Lights strobed from the taller buildings behind them. The sound of pedestrians carousing and hawkers beckoning carried over on the wind. With my acute vision, I could even see what they were wearing—the tourists with their bright fanny packs, the hawkers in all black.
A streak of purple night buses curved around all of Downhill, with the final stop at the bottom tip of the island. This was where people came in and where they left, via passenger ships and planes whose lights flashed then faded into the black expanse beyond Amaris.
Seeing the city like this made me feel so alive.
And now I’d even found someone to be here with. Someone gorgeous who wasn’t an Uphiller. And he was tall too, thank god.
“I’ve lived Downhill for a while now, and I’ve never met anyone like you,” he confessed to me suddenly.
My heart raced at his words. And I finally knew it—what part of me had been missing this whole time. I wanted this; I wanted him. I wanted someone who understood me. Someone who liked me just the way I was. No tests needed and no conditions to meet.
Clyde saw me; I mean he really saw me. He picked me out of the crowd. Our steps matched. We were made for each other. Clearly, we were destined to become soul mates.
Up here on the roof, the whole universe felt within my reach. I wanted to pluck down every star from the sky and give them to Clyde, even if I couldn’t see any of them through the haze of purple that covered them—an effect of the neon lights and streetlamps on every corner. I wanted to kill every poet from the past, present, and future. I wanted mine to be the only love that mattered.
Rain cascaded down his gorgeous face. His expression grew serious. “Hilda—”
“It’s Helga,” I interjected quickly.
“Helga,” he corrected, voice smoother than honey. “I think I really like you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I said, blushing.
The temperature was cooling off. The wind billowed against me. He leaned closer, our hands touching. We stayed up on the roof, looking over the city, well into the evening. The market was clearing out. First, customers dwindled, then the stalls came down. We were the only ones left.
Clyde told me that my mind was extremely interesting. He meant to be flattering, but I tugged on my choker, avoiding the subject of my Cog. That could come later in our relationship.
He talked about his love of Downhill and I listened for hours, feeling wistful and content. I wished that things could stay like this forever. Me and him, on this roof. Me and him—taking on the whole world together.
Then the first peeks of orange appeared on the horizon, and the unpleasant twist in my stomach returned.