She flicked on the light in the bathroom and blinked at her reflection in the mirror. Her pale cheeks and neck were tentacled with wet hair, her forehead streaked with mud, her thin shoulders lost in the black raincoat. She hardly looked like a brazen car thief; more like a drowned rat. Ivy wiped her face with a towel and let the coat drop to the floor. In the bedroom, she pulled open a drawer: plain T-shirts. Another drawer: thin pajama bottoms. She changed quickly, then shrugged on the gray bathrobe.
Still shivering, she pulled the robe tight and sat on the bed, running her hand over the comforter. Like everything else in this place, it was smooth and airy—not like the gritty, pilled blanket on her bed back home. She crawled under the comforter, turning toward the stripe of light coming through the bathroom door. The pillows cradled her head lightly; the blanket settled gracefully over her bones. For a brief moment, her mind flickered with worry, but then she closed her eyes and gave the worry away.
Sometime later, Ivy jolted awake, scrambling to put things together. Her cheek was sweaty against the pillow. She sat up and saw the shape of a person vaguely outlined in the glass wall—her reflection, she realized, after a gut punch of fear. What had woken her up? She wasn’t sure if she’d heard a snapped branch or a growling dog, or both, but her pricked senses told her something was moving outside, that it was sniffing at the glass, that it was there for her.
The bathroom light was putting her at a disadvantage—she couldn’t see anything outside, while she was on full display—but darkness didn’t feel safe either. She sat frozen for a few more minutes, then reluctantly got out of bed and reached through the bathroom door to switch off the light. She crept to one corner of the window and pressed her face against the glass.
It wasn’t shadowy darkness or starry darkness or movie-theater darkness out there; it was darkness she could only describe as the end of everything. Nothing and everything compressed over millions of years into a hard chunk of coal that turned itself inside out again and again until it was gone. Ivy got back in bed and hid there, blanket pulled up to her eyes, ears straining and raw. The heat whistling through the floor vents made a hollow, faraway sound. Somewhere upstairs, water dripped onto metal.
Ivy’s nighttime fear was quiet, creeping, as shapeless as smoke. It didn’t howl or leer or threaten; it didn’t shoulder the front door or break bottles outside the window. There was nothing to yell at, nothing to scratch or kick or elbow in the nose. It had no name, no weight, and that made it so much worse than any other fear because it left her powerless and lost. If only she could hear Agnes breathing deeply in the bed next to her; if only Gran were down the hall. If she could just climb into bed next to Colin, tuck herself under his arm, and sway along with his deep, sleepy breathing until the fear went away.
She lay listening for what felt like hours, terror slowly congealing into boredom, then inching toward oblivion.
And then somehow, she was staring dreamily into the skinny pines, the carpet of ferns confettied with morning light. The bed was wide and warm, the room’s soft colors slowly waking up along with her. Ivy stretched under the comforter, seeking out cool spots and unclenching her joints. What had she been so scared of? Look at everything that waited for her: a shower, clean clothes, food. She could brush her teeth, pee in a toilet. Nobody knew she was here. The idea that someone or something was lurking outside the glass was crazy; she just wasn’t used to the peace and quiet of nature.
She hugged one of the pillows, a bubble of laughter rising in her throat. She’d done it. She was gone, free, nothing but a memory and a story. She imagined the buzz of excitement running through the school hallways: the oh shits and the get the fuck outs, the muffled laughter outside McFadden’s office door. Ivy could always be depended on for entertainment—jumping naked into Brick Pond, flipping off the Southside girls—but this? This would become the stuff of legend. Remember Ivy? She was bigger than this place. Other people are all talk, but Ivy was different. Crazy, sure, but you gotta hand it to her—the girl had guts.
Ivy rolled onto her stomach and spread her arms wide, embracing the firm mattress. Beyond the shower and the food lay other possibilities. She’d stay here as long as she could, letting things blow over. Then she’d hitchhike to the nearest bus station and buy a ticket to the most westward point she could afford. The car had been useful, sure, but its New York plates had become a liability, and she had a better shot at disappearing without it. She was going to need money, obviously—$52 probably wouldn’t even get her as far as Chicago. But she’d make stops along the way, working at gas stations or walking dogs or panhandling if she got desperate. She felt excitement sparking in her brain once again, the same jittery exhilaration that had come over her when she first roared out of Good Hope in
