The Vines

by Shelley Nolden

  Her mouth watered at the memory.

  She might never taste chocolate again.

  Cora hurried past the morgue and stepped outside. She shielded her eyes from the brightness and leaned against the wall. With too few trees to conceal her from passing ships, she would have to limit her movements between buildings to dusk or night.

  The setting sun’s reflection danced on the river, in sync with the sound of water lapping on the beach below the seawall. Without the bustle of human activity, it seemed much louder—and more grating on her ears.

  Across the river, a train rattled past. When its clacking subsided, Cora registered the rumbling of truck engines and beeping of horns.

  Civilization was so close, yet it might as well have been on the moon. NASA had a better chance of achieving President Kennedy’s goal than she had of ever walking a Manhattan street again. Not that she would hear of a lunar landing. Yesterday’s newspaper, discarded by the foreman, might have been the last she would ever read. The batteries she’d stolen for her transistor radio would die within a year, and updates from Ulrich would bear a steep price.

  At least she wouldn’t have to fully rely on him for food. Four years ago, after Ulrich had broken her seemingly beyond repair, he’d “prescribed” gardening. At first the excruciating memories tied to the seeds kept her from planting them, but then she’d found herself kneeling in the dirt, and a tendril of happiness had sprouted within her.

  Since learning of the facility’s planned closure, she’d spent her evenings doubling the size of her plot.

  What if Ulrich had trampled her plants while she’d been watching the workers from the roof? She would have to wait until dusk to check. No, she’d had enough heartache for one day; she would look tomorrow. Even if he’d destroyed her crop, she still would have her stash of seeds and tools.

  A tugboat appeared, and she ducked into the doorway and watched it head toward Gotham, whose towers had spread across the horizon like a steel garden grown wild. The image of her mother, cooking in their apartment, refused to form: Eleanor had died in 1930. Of what, Cora didn’t know, though she had learned that her mother must have reconciled with her brother; the obituary mentioned Kieran’s two sons.

  Canne, too, had died, seven years before O’Toole. Everyone Cora cared about, including Otto, was gone.

  Her only remaining companions were the characters in her complete set of the Beadle’s Dime Novels and the abandoned library books.

  A heron alighted on the beach. And the birds. She smirked. The service building had an auditorium with a film projector. Every Sunday afternoon, the administration had shown a different flick—a big hit with the junkies, who used the dark, close quarters to trade contraband. Watching through a crack in the velveteen drapes, Cora had been mesmerized by the animation in Snow White.

  Cora was no Snow White; she had zero intention of befriending the birds that shared her island. Rather, she planned to eat them.

  And she had no expectation that a prince would arrive and save her with a kiss. A kiss. She would trade a thousand backup batteries to experience just one.

  Somewhere in that metropolis across the river lived her céadsearc. Cora still believed it, even though he couldn’t be the same man she’d imagined while climbing into Alfred’s boat.

  American engineers were developing the technology to reach the moon; the tiny mysteries within her blood, right here on earth, couldn’t be unsolvable. They just couldn’t. All she needed was the right person working on them. That man wasn’t Ulrich.

  She slid down the wall to a seated position. Accustomed to an evening nap before embarking on her night raids, she tucked her chin behind her knees and closed her eyes. Worn down from worry, her mind didn’t resist.

  Cora woke to a purple horizon. The skyscrapers dazzled with light. She sucked in her breath and noticed the usual twinge in her heart at the sight of her city.

  Never again, she promised herself, will I miss a sunset.

  Motionless, she watched the colors of the clouds deepen. By the time full darkness arrived, she wanted to be inside the nurses’ residence. Two weeks ago, after the last of the women and patients had left, Cora had moved back into her former space. Although she would have to make the tuberculosis pavilion her permanent home, for now she wanted to be somewhere that contained happy memories. And she needed to be close to one of her two caches.

  “Good night, Gotham,” she whispered, stepping away from the security of the wall.

  Rounding the corner of the morgue, she halted at the sight of the physical plant. It looked like an abandoned fortress, its thick smokestacks a pair of turrets. The back of her neck tingled with a warning that someone could lunge from the shadows. She reminded herself that all the male patients and staff were gone, and she’d watched Ulrich leave only hours earlier.

  Her stomach rumbled; she hadn’t eaten since morning. For the last time, in what had become a nightly ritual, she gathered the paper sacks the movers had discarded on the beach. As usual, they hadn’t left much, but it would be enough for one meal.

  She filled her bottle at the cistern and took a swig. Her neck prickled again.

  Cora spun.

  The morgue stood motionless. Aside from the river, lapping the shore, and the chirring of crickets, the island was silent. Too silent.

  She began to run.

  Normally by this time of the evening, the iron streetlamps would be glowing. Instead, illuminated by the nearly full moon, they looked like rigid corpses.

  Goose bumps speckled her skin like the pox. Finally, she reached the nurses’ home, yanked open the front door, and locked it behind her.

  In the darkness, she fumbled behind a radiator for her candle and matchbook, then introduced a meager light into the foyer.

  She doubted she’d ever become accustomed to the newly acquired emptiness that seemed to radiate iciness throughout the building. Even though she’d been an outsider while living there, she’d enjoyed listening to the women socializing.

  Now the only friendly voice would be her own. “Hello!” she shouted, and her greeting reverberated up the spiral staircase. “Race you to the top,” she murmured.

  As she climbed, the candlelight cast spindle-shaped shadows on the walls of the lobby, and her footsteps echoed. The air became hotter and thicker. Already the building smelled of disuse. With only one warm body left, all the spirits that must be lingering around Riverside now had space to drift. Cora reached out and imagined her fingers meeting Maeve’s. “Hey, Button, you’d better not leave me like the others.”

  She reached the third floor, and the candle’s glow ended partway down the hall. Ulrich’s departure could have been a ploy; he could be lying in wait for her.

  To calm her nerves, she pictured the crowbar stored in the supply closet adjacent to her room, along with gardening tools, seed envelopes, and other critical provisions.

  If she had her scalpels with her, she could chuck a few into the gloom. Unfortunately, she’d hidden them with the other half of her supplies in the deserted lighthouse. Tomorrow she would retrieve them and begin perfecting her throw.

  Holding the candle at arm’s length, she inched down the hall. Each time the flame illuminated another set of opposing doors, she braced herself for his sudden appearance. The heat, trapped beneath the roof, pressed into her. A skittering sound came from above, and she paused. Too light to be human steps, the intruder must be a rodent in the attic.

  Passing her bedroom, she retrieved her key ring from her satchel. With shaking hands, she selected the one for her closet and unlocked the door.

  Candlelight flickered against the walls of the now bare room and she gasped in shocked horror.

  Closing her eyes, she spun, hoping that when she stopped and looked, everything would be where it belonged. It had to be a trick of her mind after a long day. Dizzy from the motion and heat, she cracked open h
er eyelids and saw only black. Her flame had gone out. She dug into her pocket for the matchbook. The first match wouldn’t light, nor the second or third. At last, the sulfur sizzled, and the room reappeared, still empty.

  All that canned food, the sacks of sugar and flour, the tools, warm clothes, and pots and pans. Half of everything she’d squirreled away. Gone.

  Cora screamed, and her rage reverberated throughout the empty space.

  Snarling, she smacked her hand against the wall, and darkness returned. Cursing, she used a fifth match to relight her candle.

  This couldn’t have been the work of the movers. She’d checked the grooves of her key against all of those on the board in the maintenance building. With 100 percent certainty, she’d been sure she possessed the only one to this room.

  Ulrich must have hired a locksmith. Evidently, when he returned, he wanted her to be on her hands and knees, begging like a mutt.

  Thinking of Mary and O’Toole, she vowed never again to plead for mercy from that monster; never again to roll over when he wished to slice into her.

  Even though her new existence had just gotten much harder, she would not let him break her. After all, she still had the other half of her supplies. The lighthouse! But what if he’d cleared out that stockpile, too?

  She lunged toward the hall, and her foot slid forward. Caught beneath her shoe’s tread was an index card, which she grabbed.

  Written in his thin, slanted cursive were two words: “Trust me.”

  Cora curled her fingers into a fist, crushing the note.

  Fall 2007

  October

  he rubber bow bumped against the rocks as Finn jumped out to secure the raft. Rollie flashed a penlight to help Finn get his bearings. They’d chosen this night for its waning crescent moon—just enough light to see by, but not enough to be seen in their black wetsuits.

  “Watch yourself,” Rollie whispered as Finn teetered on a moss-covered slab of granite.

  If they woke the herons nesting in the nearby mulberry trees, Cora would be upon them in minutes.

  Finn hopped down to the packed sand. The island felt no less foreign than it had the first time he’d beached his kayak.

  A thick mist hung in the grove. Despite the neoprene, he felt its bite. This cool damp was nothing like the heavy air that had preceded the deluge six weeks ago.

  The memory of those moments, when Lily hadn’t been breathing, still sickened him. During the quarantine that had followed, he’d dwelled on how close he’d come to losing her, and just how shitty Life After Lily would be.

  Rollie grabbed Finn’s shoulder to keep his balance, and Finn helped him onto the sand.

  “We need to get out of sight and into PPE,” Rollie said as he hoisted one side of the boat. Finn grabbed the other, and they dragged it over the rocks and into the thicket.

  After removing two large pouches from the raft, Rollie sprayed a cloud of insect repellent around them and began peeling off his wetsuit.

  As Finn quickly stripped down to his Speedo jammers and put on a hazmat suit, it occurred to him that Cora might be watching them. From her perspective, he would look no different from the other Gettlers who’d used her. So easily she could have killed him on the morgue roof. Or any time before then. Hopefully she wouldn’t do so today, either.

  He exhaled slowly through the respirator. Last night, Lily had been on edge. To calm her, he’d outlined his dad’s protocol for operating in this hot zone. And for interacting with the most diseased human who’d ever walked the planet.

  That was the perfect description to keep in his head as he prepared to meet with Cora. There was something about her vulnerability that he couldn’t shake. Unless Rollie and Kristian cured her, she would never have the chance to experience a relationship or even a one-night stand. If her old-fashioned morals would allow for such a thing. Then again, she’d been around heroin addicts in the early 1960s; she had to know that times had changed.

  Regardless, she deserved a chance to live. If they were as close to perfecting her antidote as they claimed, then convincing her to tolerate a few more of their requests might make the difference.

  The knotted muscles in his upper back tightened, and he rolled his shoulders. Only once had he spoken to his brother since their altercation on North Brother. Kristian had denied knowing anything about the bats. Irritated and not in the mood to deal with his brother’s attempts to wear Finn down through esoteric, scientific jargon, Finn had hung up on him.

  Rollie flicked his penlight at Finn. “Do we need to review the plan?”

  “You wait in the lighthouse while I attempt to undo a hundred years of mistrust.”

  “You’re new to Cora,” Rollie said, drumming his fingers against the Teflon covering his thigh. “Spend enough time around her and you’ll lose that cockiness.”

  Not dignifying the comment with a response, Finn continued, “If I’m not back by sundown and haven’t texted that I need more time, you call in Kristian.” He had no intention of letting it come to that. “It’s pretty straightforward, even for someone without a medical degree.”

  Rollie grunted. “You need to get that chip off your shoulder.”

  Finn glanced at his shoulder. “There’s no chip; I like my job. Besides, why would you need me when you already had Boy Wonder as your lab assistant?”

  “Your mind works differently than Kristian’s, and mine. Maybe you’ll see things that we’ve been missing.”

  If Rollie really thought that, he wouldn’t have kept him in the dark, Finn thought, twisting the toe of his boot against the dirt. “Let’s get this done.”

  Careful not to puncture their suits, they covered the boat with loose branches and made their way to the collapsed lighthouse.

  Rollie crawled into the cave-like shelter.

  Now hidden from the river by the mulberry trees, Finn took out his flashlight. “She’ll find you here. We should be using your tunnel.”

  “You’ve only got a chance as long as she believes you’re not one of us. With that maneuver outside the morgue, you certainly went a long way in proving that.” He rifled through his bag, and Finn decided not to start a debate about loyalties.

  “Besides”—his dad looked up—“I wanted to give you two space. This is the farthest structure from her home.”

  “That pavilion isn’t her home.”

  Rollie sighed. “You’re right. It was a tenement on West Ninth Street that was razed in 1925, five years before her mother died in an almshouse in Queens. On that same block Maurice Sendak wrote and illustrated Where the Wild Things Are, which was published in 1963—the year the city shut off power to Riverside.” He found the plastic case containing a syringe filled with the antibiotic-resistant strain of Borrelia burgdorferi.

  “You think I don’t know what her ‘gifts’ have cost her? Every day I work on this puzzle so she can have her life back. And so, her misery won’t have been in vain.”

  He handed Finn the container. “This is just Bb.”

  “You swear?”

  “Yes, I swear.” He gazed down at it. “Hopefully, with this injection, we will save the human race.”

  Finn coughed. “Your bullshit lines won’t work on me anymore.” “At the least it’ll help your mother.”

  Finn shut his eyes. Two weeks ago, Sylvia had begged him to assist her in ending her life, since neither Rollie nor Kristian would. To give her a reason to hang on, he told her that he was confident Lily would be ready to commit by next summer. He planned to propose on the Fourth of July, he confided, and the conversation shifted to wedding rings.

  If he hadn’t convinced Lily by then, there would be a new reason for his mother to hang on: she would understand that he couldn’t simultaneously lose both the women he loved.

  He shoved the case into his backpack.

  Now that he understood Cora’s situation, he’d
brought her an array of supplies, including a tactical flashlight with extra batteries, mosquito repellent, and vitamins. He’d wanted to include a radio, but Rollie had made the case that it would trigger culture shock. And increased feelings of isolation. Finn wasn’t sure he agreed, but for now he didn’t push the issue.

  Lily had jammed in a large box of tampons, which made him uncomfortable. Last, he’d added a book. Apparently, the Twilight Saga was a big hit with teenage girls. Despite Cora’s actual age, he couldn’t stop thinking of her as young.

  Eyeing the forest, Rollie beckoned for Finn to crouch in front of him.

  With the aid of his penlight, he slipped Finn two clear cylinders. “Find a safe place for these.”

  “What are they?” Finn asked, inspecting the ring of colored tape below each of their stoppers.

  “Plan B,” his father whispered. “The orange one contains a dozen black-legged ticks, infected with your mother’s strain of Borrelia burgdorferi. And the red one: cotton dipped in an analgesic.”

  Finn grimaced. “There’s no way—”

  Rollie raised his hand. “I understand why you took her side over Kristian’s. But now that you’ve seen our lab and how close we are . . .” He steepled his gloved hands. “Please. If she won’t agree to help us, see if you can’t set them loose on her clothes. Or, if she skips her nap, use the gas.”

  Finn stood up in protest. “You can’t be serious.”

  Rollie pursed his lips, his silence saying it all.

  “This is so irresponsible. If they bite other animals, they could spread this strain across the Northeast.”

  “By then we’ll have developed an effective treatment and hopefully a vaccine.”

  Exasperated, Finn groaned. No way could he do this to Cora—or the general population—but he knew that engaging in a philosophical argument with Rollie now would be pointless. He studied the tiny arachnids. During the tour of his father’s lab, he would have noticed a tick colony. “Where’d you get them?”