“SHE FALLS TODAY!” A voice reverberated through speakers. It jolted me back into the room. I checked through the crowd and found a stage. Barbie-Boy was on it, talking into a microphone.
Had he actually said, She falls today? I couldn’t tell anymore.
“It’s midnight, everyone!” He looked different than I remembered. Not a bored kid playing with his friends, but bold and sharp. Evangelical. “Thanks for coming out to Crusade of Love. We raised a ton of money tonight!” He raised his fist and the crowd cheered.
I wanted to feel proud. Excited. Here was the attention I’d been waiting for. They’d made a film for me. They’d raised money. For more helicopters and units. I mattered to them.
Instead I felt sick. Anger simmered underneath it deep, deep down.
Jocelyn was still missing. She’d been missing for —
I reached into my backpack and pulled out the poster Gray had made for her. I smoothed the board as flat as I could. Smoothed her face, her gentle, hopeful expression. Smoothed Gray’s writing, the blue-marker-scrawl haloing her head: Have you seen Jocelyn? Missing for 27 days. I found my pen and scratched out the 27 and wrote 33 above it. Jocelyn. Missing for 33 days.
“Dell wants to thank you for all your donations!” Barbie-Boy pointed across the room. I followed the direction of his hand until I found Dell at the donation desk. Paper-white hair, gleaming teeth, radiant skin. She waved and gave a dazzling smile, and the crowd cheered her. She was wearing a white silk blouse and white silk wide-leg pants. The fabric rippled around her body as she waved. It made her look like an iridescent sea creature.
I pulled Gray’s mask out of my bag. It was slightly crushed from all the traveling. I snapped it over my face. For the invisible girls who disappear off our streets every day. If they’re nobody, I’m nobody. One of many reasons Gray had wanted to wear a mask that day.
I held the Jocelyn poster above my head and channeled Gray. “Where’s Jocelyn? Help us find Jocelyn!” I shouted through the mask, pushing my way past partiers, dancers, Donation-Box Crow People.
No one paid attention. Or if they did, they only glanced at me. Up/down. Disdain. Boredom. They glanced away. So absorbed with whatever else they were doing/thinking.
I jabbed the Jocelyn poster in the air above me. “Help us find Jocelyn!”
Anusha, L.J., Hattie, along with a bunch of other kids, were lined up at the coat-check, getting ready to leave. Not noticing.
I shouted louder through the mask. “Where is Jocelyn? Missing for thirty-three days!”
Remy and Boyd were in a dark corner, taking turns whispering into each other’s ears.
I called out to the whole room. “You want a missing girl? Help find Jocelyn!”
My body jerked suddenly around. I looked down. A hand was gripping my wrist. I aimed my masked eyes along the arm — until I got to her tightly grinning face. Dell. “What are you doing?” she said.
I aimed the Jocelyn poster between us. Showed it to her. “This girl is actually missing.”
“I’m sorry,” Dell said, babying-up her voice. “This isn’t for her.”
“You have all this money, Dell. Why don’t you spread it around?”
She stared at Jocelyn’s photocopied face. “I don’t even know her.”
“You don’t even know her? You don’t know Messenger 93. And trust me — you don’t know Krista.” I shook the poster at her. “Or would you rather spend your time posing in front of schools with your thumb down?”
“I deleted all those posts.” Dell did look ashamed. “We can’t save everyone!”
I didn’t know what to do next. It was getting hot under the mask. I could hardly breathe.
Because what was the difference between me and Dell? Was I trying to help Jocelyn and save Krista, or was I riding some mission to fake-glory?
I remembered Gray saying how we were everyone — ourselves, each other, the universe. So who was supposed to figure out how to fit us all together?
I said, “Where are you hiding her?”
Dell said, “I think you should leave.”
I sharpened my voice. “Where is Krista?”
Dell’s face crumpled like I’d hit her. “We’re doing the best we can.”
I pulled down the mask. I didn’t care anymore if she knew who I was. The seconds were counting down. “I need to find Krista now!”
Dell looked right at my real face. She didn’t register who I was. Because the girl in front of her didn’t bear any resemblance to the one she’d masked with enhancements and filters. The Messenger 93 that Dell had created.
“This was going to be for Krista,” she said. “Her big reveal. It would’ve been epic.” She waved her hand, implicating everything — dancers, bystanders, the gold velvet, the glitter-balls.
I owe that girl big-time. Going viral. More followers. More attention. More love.
Dell said, “But Krista couldn’t take the competition.”
A small commotion started up behind her. It was Boyd and Remy and one of the Donation-Box Crow People. Boyd stepped between Remy and the Crow. Remy backed away.
“Why do we need so much drama?” Dell asked herself. “It doesn’t even stop when we sleep. We dream about some other version of our lives. We fight with people we don’t even know. We have annoying problems that are gone when we wake up.”
Remy had joined the girls in the coat-check line. Boyd was saying something to the Crow, who approached a side door with a VIP sign taped to it.
Dell said, “Isn’t our real-life suffering enough?”
The Crow glanced back at Boyd. Her beaked half-mask was beautiful — made of lace and feathers. She opened the VIP door and stepped through it. Boyd hesitated. He looked back at Remy. Then he turned to the door and went through it too.
“Don’t worry.” Dell came back into focus. She gave me a truly loving smile. “We’re going to save Messenger 93. She’s worth more than Krista any day.”
On the other side of the coat-check, through the main doors, three uniformed officers walked in. They flanked and blocked the exit and scanned the crowd. A few of the kids noticed and flurried around each other.
It must’ve come out that I’d stolen Krista’s phone. That’s how they knew to track me up north. Helicopters and patrol cars. It was probably why they were here now: tracking my movements.
There was a flutter of silk as Dell turned and noticed the police too. I hid my face behind the Jocelyn poster and edged away. I did a last check that no one was watching me, then slipped through the VIP door.
THE DOOR DIDN’T OPEN to some inner sanctum like I’d imagined, but led straight outside to a fire escape landing. The rusted metal steps that were anchored to the side of the building reminded me of climbing up the water tower. I looked down between my feet, through the grating. A narrow alley ran between the party warehouse and the warehouse beside it. Only hard pavement at the bottom.
She will fall.
Red velvet cord was wound around the rail that led upwards. Boyd wasn’t on the staircase. Neither was the Crow. I climbed up alone. The wind buffeted lightly against the brickwork and swirled into the hood of my coat. It sent shivers down my neck and back. I clung to the velvet cord like it was an umbilical. It took me all the way up to the top landing, which led out onto the roof. The city sparkled far away, beyond the warehouse-infested distance.
There was a large fenced-in patio in the center of the roof, with plush furniture, exotic carpets, potted plants. Sticky, empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays littered the coffee tables. Strings of lights twinkled from the wood-slat walls and along an over-head arbor.
There was another source of light too. White and eerie, like it was coming from a parallel reality. And then I saw what it was. The moon. It had orbited into the night sky. It was full and pure in its roundness. A god watching me through its one annoyed, all-seeing eye.
Only you can save her.
There were no VIPs on the roof. No people at all. Just me wandering in the pale and eerie light, the wind gusting in sooty whorls around me.
AT FIRST I HEARD it as an indistinct drone. Then I heard them more clearly. Boyd’s voice: low, insistent, steady. Krista’s voice: high, weepy, on-edge.
“So now you’re with that girl?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t —”
“No, I know you can’t. Because you don’t see the big picture. But I see it, Boyd. It’s supposed to be you and me —”
“You shouldn’t have run off like that, K. Your mom is —”
“My mom is not part of this conversation. My mom is going through her own shit.”
“She’s really worried, Krista. It’s not fair to her —”
“Not fair? You know what’s not fair? Is watching your father fucking die of cancer. That’s what’s not fair. You know what’s not fair? Having your boyfriend dump you out of the blue just when you think your life is finally — maybe — okay again.”
“Krista, come on — It’s time to go home — We can talk about this —”
“I’ve been waiting for you, Boyd! You know how that looks? Dell must think I’m such a fucking loser. She didn’t even know me and she’s still taking care of me. Because she’s a good person. She has a heart. Not like you, Boyd. Dell can have anyone — she’s a star — and she chose me. Me.”
“Wait, Krista — That’s not — You never let me — I never get to say the things I want to say!” He stopped. He was staring at me. By accident, I had wandered too close. Drifted around the fencing of the patio, around the brick box of an elevator bulk-head. Drawn to them like the inevitable next tick of a clock.
Krista noticed Boyd shift. She swung around. Her crow mask was pushed up on top of her head. Her eyes were swollen. Tears were streaming down her face.
I didn’t know what to do, as surprised that I was there with them as they were to see me. I dropped my backpack and surrendered. The Jocelyn poster fluttered in my left hand like a flag. “Get off the roof, Krista,” I said. “You’re going to fall —”
But Krista screamed the most crushing scream I’ve ever heard. There was a split-second where Boyd and I connected. His eyes were glassy with panic.
She will fall.
Then she charged at me.
Literally charged. Crouched over, black-gloved hands clawed out, fresh bird tattoo on her wrist, mouth pried open with rage. Her scream turned into a growl. A growl that came from so deep inside her, it sounded like a storm from the other side of the world.
She was on me before I could stop it. The force of it knocked the Jocelyn poster out of my hand and it spiraled away in the gusting wind, turning end over end like tumbleweed.
Krista and I clasped each other. Reeled together. She stumbled, and then we both went down, me landing hard on my back on the concrete, Krista on top of me. She was growling, digging her nails into my arms, twisting our bodies. The little pointed beak on her half-mask came at my eye. I flinched and rolled us over to one side.
We thrashed and writhed, her coming at me, me trying to get away. Boyd was somewhere in the nighttime air, doing/yelling something.
Krista reared off me and sank into stillness. She was holding a knife. Gray’s knife.
She jumped up. She was staring at the knife, marveling at its unexpected arrival.
I jumped up too. My breath turned to ice in my throat.
Krista turned the knife so that light glanced off its blade. She aimed it slowly higher and higher until it was pointed at my neck. I stepped backwards. Boyd was saying her name. “Krista. Krista. Krista. Stop.”
She spiraled the knife through the air in front of my face. A choreographed move stolen from some movie bad guy. I was hypnotized by the waving blade. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. The one we’d been counting down to. The part of the infinity loop you can never get out of. I held my breath and inched backwards.
“You came here to kill someone?” Krista said, snarling. Snot and tears were running down her face. I remembered holding her little brother Eddie, and how he had been crying too.
“No,” I said. “I came here for you.”
“You going to kill me?” She stepped steadily closer.
“You’re going to fall tonight, Krista. I came to stop it.”
“Did the crow tell you that?” Her lip hooked with disdain. “I laughed my ass off when I heard that story.”
“Please, Krista. Something bad is going to happen.”
She jabbed the knife at me and I jumped back. “Something bad? You don’t get to decide my fate.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“Messenger 93,” she said, sneering. “You’ll do anything for attention, won’t you?”
I surged to get around her, to get away, but she blocked my way with the point of the knife. “This was supposed to be a party for me,” she said. “He was going to be here. I was going to come back tonight. It was going to be amazing.” She jabbed the knife with each emphasized word. “But he showed up with her.”
Boyd was calling Krista’s name, but his voice sounded very far away. Or like it had been slowed down by one of those recording devices.
“And then you walked in,” Krista said. She wasn’t crying anymore. “With your mask and your mission.”
I was cornered now. I’d backed all the way to the roof’s perimeter wall, far from the fire escape, the twinkling patio, the potted plants, the city horizon. Far from the moon.
There was a sudden flapping. I didn’t dare take my eyes off Krista’s knife-holding hand, but the black-feathered wings clipped my peripheral vision. Then more flapping. More wings.
“What the fuck?” Krista squinted through the dark at the commotion behind me, and I took a quick glance over my shoulder.
A dozen crows had arrived. They fluttered over a power line that came right up to the warehouse. One by one, they landed on its tubular steel rungs.
They were showing me an escape route. If I wanted it. If I dared.
Krista stepped closer and jabbed the knife to indicate the crows. “You think that’s funny?”
I climbed up on the ledge. I didn’t need to look beyond my feet to know it was a long and deadly drop down. Three stories. “No, Krista, I don’t think it’s funny.”
Boyd stepped closer. We were a triangle. He was one point, astonished and helpless. One point was Krista wielding the knife. The last point was me, above them, balancing on a two-foot ledge. Edging to freedom.
Boyd shouted, “You’re going to fall!”
But I kept my eyes on Krista as I inched along. Her eyeline ticked from me to the crows, the crows to me. Her brow furrowed. Like she couldn’t understand anything that was happening.
The wind buffeted my back. I rocked for balance and Boyd yelled out. But I was okay.
I reached into my pocket. Felt for all the things I’d stolen to find Krista. Her phone, the drawing of the bird, the photo. I pulled them all out. “These are yours.” I crouched down slowly and set the scrap of bird on the ledge. I laid her phone on top of it. “You stole my wallet at City Hall, so maybe we’re even.”
“Fuck you,” she said.
“9393,” I said, tapping her phone. “That was weird.”
“How do you know that?” She stared daggers at me. “Did my mom tell you his birthday?”
9/3. September third.
“Your father’s birthday,” I said. Krista crushed her lips together. “I’m really sorry he’s gone,” I said. And I meant it.
“You’re crazy.”
“Remember this?” I showed her the photo. Her kissing my cheek. “Remember when we were friends?”
“I was never your friend.”
“Yeah, I know.” I let the photo go. The gusting wind swirled in and took it away.
Either one of us could have made the next move, but Dell came running around the elevator bulkhead. She came to an abrupt stop a few feet behind Krista and Boyd and locked eyes on me. “Messenger 93!” she screamed. White silk rippled around her like turbulent water. “I knew it was you!” A bunch of partiers and three Donation-Box Crow People arrived behind Dell. “Messenger 93!” one of them yelled. “It’s her! She’s here!”
Krista’s face went white. She had her feathered back to Dell, to the others. Only I could see the calculations that flipped across her face. What would they say? How would this look? One of us on the ledge, the other holding a knife.
Fall from grace. Wasn’t that another expression?
Krista threw the knife.
She threw it with such force that it clanged against the steel rungs of the power line that I was trying to get to. The crows flapped and screeched. Not human voices inspiring me, but birds speaking to each other in their own language. The knife hit rung after rung, clang clang clanging all the way down. One of the crows lifted into the sky. It spiraled above us.
Krista started to sob. Hunched-over, shoulder-wrenching sobs. “Help!” she cried. “She had a knife!” She jabbed her finger at me. “She was going to kill me!”
Everyone froze, stuck in some sort of gawking amazement. Boyd had his arms open like he’d lost something important. Remy arrived and joined him. Then Anusha, L.J, and Hattie came around the corner. They were checking me out. Checking with Krista. Krista was sobbing.
The crow circled overhead. I watched it, stuck in the same ring.
Dell went to Krista and put a hand on her wrenching back. She looked up at me. “What is happening?” she cried at me. “What did you do?!”
Everyone turned to me wearing the same hostile expression: What did you do?!
I was spiked to my spot. No words to explain myself.
Krista was supposed to fall. I was supposed to be here to stop it. Instead she was safe on the ground, surrounded by people who loved her, and I was balanced on a precarious ledge.
“Someone get the cops!” Dell yelled. “We need help.” Barbie-Boy was in the crowd, and he bolted to do Dell’s bidding. “Make sure you get all this,” she said, stroking Krista’s heaving back, to one of her friends who had her phone out and was filming.
The wheeling crow caught a downdraft. Its wings tipped and it spun towards us.
The same wind buffeted against me. I lurched on the narrow ledge. Everyone gasped.
Take the fall for someone. There was always another more difficult meaning.
Somewhere far off, a song started to play, a lo-fi synth riff that sounded vaguely familiar.
YOU KNOW WHEN SOMETHING bad happened to you once, and you felt the incision, and it hurt so much until it faded, and then later you remember it for some reason, and the pain repeats in your mind, reflecting and multiplying, over and over — maybe it will never end? Your pain expands times a million. Times infinity.
I closed my eyes.
The end credits of my life scrolled by.
Why had I ever left my house?
I didn’t save Krista.
Krista would always hate me.
I didn’t find Jocelyn.
Jocelyn was still gone.
I’d betrayed Gray.
Gray would never come back.
Everyone at school would know me now.
They would see that I made everything worse.
That I stole what wasn’t mine.
That I chased what wasn’t there.
It wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough.
A familiar voice came in through the void. “Don’t jump.” It was Boyd. “I’ve got you.”
“Don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it.” Anusha, L.J., and Hattie.
People running. Calling out. Yelling for order.
“What are you doing?” Krista’s voice in the noise. “You said it was going to be me!”
She will fall.
I felt the crow land at my feet. Felt it lift its wings against my legs.
The end was so close, I could hear the shush shush of its veins.
She will fall.
Even Joan of Arc had to die.
Maybe that’s what the crow had meant all along.
I lifted my arms and let go. A falling star.
ONLY YOU CAN SAVE her.
The moment I dropped over the edge was the moment I understood.
She is me.
Right from the beginning, it had always been me.
She will fall in seven days.
You must find her.
Only you can save her.
The crow had never once said her name. I had chosen her.
I didn’t want to die. Especially not like this. Random people gaping from the roof of a random warehouse at my spattered body.
My arms wheeled frantically. My legs were weights pulling me down.
The tubular power line was only inches away.
Her skill can be slow motion.
I swung my arms out. One hand caught a steel crossbar. My body jerked to a stop. A g-force so strong, it rattled my everything. Something in my arm ripped. There was a terrible howl. A monster coming. Then I realized it was me screaming.
I dangled and lurched in agony, trying to get a hold on the tower. Pain scorched my shoulder. Threatened to burn off my grasping hand. A dozen crows screamed and fluttered with me. They were sharing my pain. Coaxing me on.
My free hand caught the crossbar. My feet, left first, then right, landed on the rung below. I pulled myself over the steel girder and collapsed. When I took my next breath, it felt like my first one.
The song got louder. I definitely recognized it from somewhere. A repeating refrain. Stuck on the same chords. Not a song, but a siren.
I knew then that it didn’t matter that I didn’t matter to people like Krista.
I wanted to be here.
You will go where you would not go. You will see what you would not see.
I looked at the sky.
The sky was blue.
The full and perfect moon was watching me.
See her, a voice whispered in my ear. See her, see us all.