Then, while scrubbing crusted eggs off a pan and visualizing the previous chapter’s sex scene, Aislyn began to hear shouting in her mind. These were crude, vulgar, angry shouts—shouts so suffused with rage that had she heard them with her ears, she would never have been able to make out the words. Incoherent anger. In her mind, though, she had not only heard the words, but known them, and felt them. She’d wanted to fight, as the speaker of those words was fighting, somewhere. Somehow she’d known that. The vicarious aggression had suffused her with a rage so terrible, so overwhelming, that she had to go to her room and destroy a pillow. That wasn’t like her, not at all. She never fought back. Yet this morning she had ripped that pillow to shreds, then risen from foamy carnage filled with a powerful compulsion to go to the city. So powerful had she felt in the wake of that rage that for the first time in years, she actually tried it.
Only to fail. Again.
Now, however, Aislyn feels that strange angry strength stirring inside her again. Who is this woman to stand over her so? She doesn’t belong here, Aislyn knows. Aislyn might be afraid of the city, but SI is her island, and she will not be loomed over on her home ground.
But before Aislyn can open her mouth to stammer out some devastating variant of Please leave before I call the police, the Woman in White leans down to grin into her face.
“You are Staten Island,” she says.
Aislyn starts. It isn’t the words that surprise her, but the fact that someone else has said them. The woman laughs softly, eyes flicking back and forth over Aislyn’s face as if drinking in her shock. The woman continues: “The forgotten one, and the despised one when they bother to remember. The borough no one, including its own, thinks of as ‘real’ New York. And yet here you are! Somehow, despite their neglect and contempt, you’ve developed enough distinctiveness of culture to survive rebirth. And this morning, you heard the rest of the city calling out to you. Didn’t you?”
Aislyn takes a step back. Just for personal space reasons. “I didn’t—” But she did. She did. She heard the city’s raw, defiant demand, and some part of her tried to respond to it. That’s how she ended up at the ferry station. She trails off midsentence because she doesn’t actually need to say the words. The Woman in White knows Aislyn as surely as Aislyn knows her island.
“Oh, you poor thing,” the Woman says, her expression shifting from avid to tender so quickly that Aislyn’s anger vanishes. Now all she feels is a rapidly growing unease in this woman’s presence. “You can’t help sensing some of the truth—but you’re alone amid the vastness of it all, aren’t you? Just one little alga floating amid a green sea of them, convinced of your unimportance even as you threaten a hundred billion realities. I could pity you, if not for that threat.”
“I…” Aislyn stares back at her. Alga? Is that another language? It sounds like the singular of algae. God, did this woman just call her a microbe?
“And now you have to live that truth,” the Woman continues. She’s not looming anymore—not as much, anyhow—but the air of patronizing concern that she radiates isn’t much better. Aislyn stares at her, still trying to figure out whether she should be insulted. The Woman leans closer. “That’s why you’re afraid of the ferry. Half the people on this island absolutely dread crossing that water every day. They know that what awaits them on the other end isn’t the power and glamour we can see from here, but bad jobs and worse pay, and prancing manbunned baristas who turn up their noses at making just a simple goddamned coffee, and prissy chink bitches who barely speak English but make seven figures gambling with your 401(k), and feminists and Jews and trannies and nnnnnNegroes and liberals, libtards everywhere, making the world safe for every kind of pervert. And the other half of the island is the baristas and chinks and feminists, ashamed they can’t afford to live there and leave Staten Island for good. You are them, Aislyn! You carry the fear and resentment of half a million people, so is it any wonder that part of you wants to flee, screaming?”
By this point the Woman is doing more than looming. She is waving her arms, stage-whispering as loud as a shout, flaring her nostrils, wild-eyed. And Aislyn has reacted the way she always does when someone bigger and louder starts yelling; she’s hunched in on herself, leaning away as the Woman leans in and holding her purse strap with both hands as if it is a shield.
She can think of only one thing to say as the Woman runs out of words and falls silent with a fleck of bubbled spittle on her lips. Aislyn blurts, “I… I don’t have a 401(k).”
The Woman in White tilts her head. Looms less. “What?”
“Y-you said—” She swallows. She can’t speak that word here at the ferry station. It’s a home word. “You said, uh, Asian women take your 401(k). But I, I, I don’t have one of those.”
The Woman in White stares at her. It is the first time, maybe, that she has heard something crazier than herself. And after a moment, she bursts out laughing. It is an awful laugh. Delighted, but awful—high-pitched, too sharp, with an edge that reminds Aislyn of the mean girls back in high school, or maybe a cartoon witch’s cackle. Passersby along the sidewalk flinch from that laugh, then stare at the Woman as if they’ve heard a warning from beyond.
And yet, after a moment, Aislyn finds herself grinning, too. Just a little. Then giggling, as the tension of the moment dissolves. The laughter is more than infectious. Aislyn is infected. Bonding by catharsis. All at once she and the Woman in White are laughing together, so hard that Aislyn’s eyes water with the force of her own voice, and so richly that for a beautiful moment all of Aislyn’s troubles feel as nothing. It’s as if they’ve been friends for years.
When the laughter fades, the Woman in White dabs at one eye, with an air of regret. “Oh, my. That was lovely. I have to admit, I’ll miss this universe when everything is said and done. It’s hideous, but not without its small joys.”
Aislyn is still grinning, high on her own endorphins. “Do you ever say anything, you know, normal?”
“Not if I can avoid it.” With a little sigh, the Woman offers a hand to Aislyn. “But I want to help you. Please say you’ll let me help you.”
It’s automatic to take a helping hand. Aislyn frowns, though. “What, uh, do I need help with?”
“This whole process. I’ve watched your kind go through it hundreds of times at this point, and it’s always… fraught. I like you, Aislyn, little island, and it’s terrible, what will happen to you if that primary avatar finally wakes up. He’s a monster. I want to save you from him.”
Through the lingering, head-clearing relief of her earlier laughing fit, it is obvious to Aislyn that the Woman is a crazyperson. Crazypeople are mostly in the city, she’s always thought—homeless druggies and rapists who wear ratty dredlocs and (she supposes) have sores from all the lice and STDs. The Woman is well dressed and clean, but there is a high, manic gleam in her gaze, and her bright, cheerful voice sounds false. No one is ever that happy. She’s clearly Not From Around Here. Maybe she’s an immigrant, too—legal, of course. Maybe she’s a Canadian who has been driven mad by the cold and socialized medicine.
Still, this is a crazyperson whom Aislyn finds herself liking. More importantly, the Woman has said that she wants to help Aislyn—and somehow she seems to know about the strange voices in Aislyn’s head and the stranger compulsion that drove her to the ferry station. It makes Aislyn feel more sympathetic than she ordinarily would be.
So she sticks out her hand for the Woman to shake. “Okay, then. I’m Ais—” And then she trails off, remembering that the Woman knows her name already. How…?
“Staten Aislyn,” the Woman fills in, and giggles as if that is not a joke that a thousand people have made to Aislyn over the course of her lifetime. Not for the last time does she regret her parents’ choice to use an Americanization of Aislyn, rather than its softer Irish pronunciation. The Woman then takes Aislyn’s hand and pumps it, too vigorously. “Yes. Pleasedtomeetyou is appropriate, yes? We’re both composite entities for whom the boundaries of s
pace, time, and flesh have meaning! Let’s be besties.”
“Uh. Okay.”
The Woman gives Aislyn’s hand another pump, and then practically flings her hand away. “Now. Since you seem to be of a sympathetic nature, let’s get started on temporarily saving this local node of your consensus reality from existential annihilation, why don’t we?”
“Well, I really need to get home—wait, what?” Annihilation is what took a moment to process.
“You know about the Bridge Incident?” Like Woman in White, this has already achieved capital-letter status in Aislyn’s mind.
“Of course, but…”
The Woman has turned back toward the Manhattan skyline, which arcs over the roof of the ferry station. The bridge in question is not visible from this vantage, but backwash from the incident has affected the whole Tri-state area all day. Even as they stand there, a trio of military planes shoops past overhead, angling to circle the East River. The Woman is bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.
“You know what made the bridge fall?” she says to Aislyn. “Me! I did that. It was an accident, mind you; I was aiming for that little shit, the primary.” Her smile vanishes as quickly as it appeared. “Cities always fight when I come for them, but usually it’s fair. Strength against strength, as it should be—but he actually threw concepts at me. I had no idea your kind had advanced to the point of using energized abstract macroconstructs in combat. Who expects microbes to go nuclear? That was when I knew the time for stealth had passed.”
Aislyn is staring at the Woman, all her unease forgotten amid shock and horror. Terrorist! her mind cries… and rejects. Terrorists are bearded Arab men who mutter in guttural languages and want to rape virgins. This woman is just crazy. So she can’t really be the person who broke the bridge—but she’s possibly crazy enough to be dangerous. Aislyn decides to play along until she can get to someplace safe. “Oh. Um. O-okay.”
The Woman in White’s head swivels back to her. “I was asleep,” she explains. “The bulk of me was, that is. Never needed more than a fraction of myself to function in this realm before now. But conditions are right, and I have gained a true foothold at last.” She drapes an arm around Aislyn’s shoulders again, before Aislyn can find a polite way to pull away. “There’s five of you, you see, besides the primary. Five potential allies. Five weaknesses I can exploit.”
The things coming out of the Woman’s mouth keep almost making sense. Aislyn almost understands… but finally she shakes her head in frustration. “Primary what?”
“Primary avatar. Help me find him, and then you’ll be free.”
“Free? But I’m not—”
The Woman has begun to walk, pulling Aislyn along. They’re headed toward the bus that Aislyn needs, astonishingly, so Aislyn still can’t bring herself to shake off the Woman’s arm. “Free? You’re not. Right now, you’re part of him. Well, that’s wrong; all of you are part of each other. I think? That’s the best way I can explain it. This algal colony, this microbial mat, has nuclei… Hmm, no, wait, all of your kind have souls; that’s a bad analogy.” She sighs impatiently. “Well, six of you are more in charge than the rest. And those six are highly attuned to one another, naturally. Which means that finding one of you will help me find the rest of you.” She grins, all teeth. “That one in particular.”
They’ve reached the bus and stopped before its open doors. It won’t pull away for another three minutes, according to the clock on Aislyn’s phone. Aislyn has begun to worry, however, that the Woman in White will want to ride with her, or even accompany her home. She tries to think of excuses to give the Woman for why this cannot be.
“Now, head on back home,” the Woman says, to Aislyn’s great relief. “I’ve got other business to take care of. But until we meet again, here’s a thing you need to consider.” The Woman leans close for a conspiratorial whisper; Aislyn just manages not to twitch away. “Why did the others leave you unprotected?”
The question feels like a slap. In its wake Aislyn is stung, then numb. “Wh-what?”
“Well, I’ve managed to locate nearly all of you by now.” The Woman extends her free hand and examines her nails. They’re very long and curved. “The Bronx is a borough of angry, suspicious people who expect betrayal; she’s canny and will take some planning to approach. Manhattan rolled up on top of a taxi and introduced himself to me, quite boldly; typical. Brooklyn, full of attitude and arrogance, came to his rescue when I tried to introduce myself back. And that damnable São Paulo is still here, somewhere, the rude fellow! He must be guarding the primary from me.”
As Aislyn tries to process this (there are five of you), the Woman slides her needle further under the skin. “But no one has come to rescue or guard you. Manhattan and Brooklyn make powerful allies as they work together to track down the Bronx and Queens… but they haven’t thought about you. Not. Even. Once.”
Aislyn stares back, understanding at last. Five of them, plus some sixth who is primary. She is Staten Island and they are the other boroughs, plus New York itself. And are they like her, these other strangers? Do they feel the needs of thousands, hear the voices of millions in their heads? She wants to meet them. Ask them questions, like How do you get your borough to shut up? and Is it really my friend or am I just that lonely?
But she has not found them, because she chickened out of taking the ferry. Even if she had made it to Manhattan, how would she have located them? If Manhattan and Brooklyn found each other, there must be a way. Some kind of city-sonar or something, which would have activated if she’d tried to go to them. Without that effort on her part, however, the sonar has remained quiescent.
Well, why can’t they come to her instead?
It’s inconvenient, she reminds herself. Coming to Staten Island is always inconvenient for people in the city.
Yes, but this is important, isn’t it? They know the city has five boroughs, damn it. And if they’ve chosen not to look for her…
Who’s gonna believe you? her father’s voice shouts, from memory. Who’s gonna help you? Nobody gives a shit. You don’t fucking matter.
Not words ever shouted at her, but Aislyn absorbed them anyway, and now they are wrapped around her bones, a contamination as deep and toxic as lead. She can no more shake off the visceral belief that she doesn’t matter than she can her fear of the city.
“I don’t think they meant to forget you, mind,” says the Woman. “They’ll get around to remembering eventually, and then they’ll come… but they hate taking the ferry. So slow and inconvenient. There’s the Verrazano, but it’s so expensive. What kind of borough makes itself so inaccessible? Didn’t that Jew fellow, the one who sang jazz with all those Black people, call New York a ‘visitor’s place’? But not this part of it. He mentioned Yonkers, of all things, but left this entire borough out of the song. Staten Island, always the afterthought.”
Aislyn sits there, hearing the words and hating them and knowing the truth in them. She doesn’t fucking matter. Her island doesn’t fucking matter. The others have forgotten her when she needs them, bridges are falling and everything is terrible, but she must find her own path to safety alone.
“Oh, now what’s that face?” The Woman in White pulls away and grips Aislyn’s shoulders in a sisterly way. “What’s this sadness? Don’t worry. They might have abandoned you, but I’m here! And just look.” She turns Aislyn around again, cheerfully manhandling her, and then points over her shoulder at the doorway of the ferry station, which Aislyn ran through in a panic not twenty minutes before.
“What am I supposed to—” Then Aislyn sees it. On the metal sill of the door, curling out from a crack in the old painted metal, is the most peculiar thing. It looks like a fern frond, or a very long petal from an exotic flower. It’s so white that it looks translucent, unearthly in its beauty. Aislyn inhales in admiration. “What is that?”
The Woman in White laughs. “Think of it as a camera,” she says. “If you want. Or a microphone. If you ever need me, and you see
something like that around, just speak to it. ‘See something, say something,’ right? I’ll hear and come running.”
It’s more craziness. The Woman cannot possibly see and hear through a flower. Aislyn’s got to get home to help her mother make dinner, so very gently, she pushes the woman’s hands off her shoulders. “All right,” she says. But she likes the Woman. It’s nice to have a new friend, even if that friend is crazy, but she should at least know that friend’s name. “But before I go, what should I call you?”
The Woman tilts her head, grimacing. “You won’t like my name,” she says. “It’s foreign. Very hard to pronounce. I’ve told it to a few of your people and they’ve just mangled it.”
Definitely from Canada, Aislyn decides. “Let me try anyway.”
“All right, then. I’ll need to whisper it in your ear, though. The time is coming when I’ll be able to shout my name across the firmament and all will know its sound—but for now I’m only a whisper in this world. Are you ready?”
The bus driver is walking toward them, yawning and scratching himself. Aislyn needs to wrap this up. “Sure, go ahead.”
The Woman leans close and whispers into Aislyn’s ear a word that tolls throughout her skull like the most dire of great bells, shaking her bones enough that she stumbles and falls to her knees. The world blurs. Her skin prickles and itches and grows hot all over, as if burned by the wind of the word’s passing.
Then someone else has crouched before her. “Ma’am?” It’s the bus driver. Aislyn blinks and looks around. She’s in front of the bus she needs to take home. How did she get here? Was there someone else here just now…?
The driver asks, “Ma’am, do you need me to call 911?”
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