“Our little corner of reality is about to change hands,” she said. “The people who support the new landlord are delighted that the Change has begun. Those who support the departing landlord are terrified.”
“But where are you in all this?” I said. “You’re just a girl from the Midwest. Why you?”
“I was a girl from the Midwest who could hear the signals and was bathed in the Prime Frequency. Depending on one’s perspective, I was the right girl in the right place at the right time, or wrong girl in the wrong place at the worst time.”
“So if you hadn’t been standing in that spot in the Sheep Meadow at that moment, none of this would have happened?”
“Correct.”
I felt suddenly weak and dropped onto a nearby bench.
“So it’s my fault?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I was determined to find the origin of that awful sound I’d heard.”
“But I could have stopped you, or at last made you put it off till the next day…or delayed you even an hour.”
“I didn’t know it would sound again, or what would happen if it did. And you certainly couldn’t know. So guilt is not an option here.”
“But it’s ruined your life.”
Her expression remained impassive. “It changed the life I had. Now I have a new life.”
Anger flashed through me. Whatever she’d wanted for herself in the future, whatever plans and dreams she might have had were all gone now, ripped from her. And she didn’t seem to care.
“How can you be so…so…so accepting?”
She stared at me with those non-Ellie eyes. “What makes you think I have a choice, Mother? What’s done is done. I can’t change it and neither can you. I have a task to complete and then I am free.”
My heart leaped. “Free? You’ll be back to normal?”
“I will be free to do whatever I wish, but…normal? This is my new normal, Mother.” She held out a hand to help me to my feet. “Come. We are due back in Manhattan.”
“Due?”
“No one there knows I’m coming, but I’m needed.”
We retraced our steps to the elevated D train and rode it to the Grand Street stop where we walked a block or two to Allen Street. From there we passed through an area full of Asians that I assumed was part of the city’s Chinatown.
Eventually we turned down a side street lined with red-brick-fronted former tenements. Ellie stopped before a massive, ancient-looking three-story building of stone block that could have been a bank or a fortress. Its windows were deeply recessed within solid granite walls. Atop a set of wide granite steps, an intricate seal was suspended above a heavy inlaid door.
“What is this place?” I said.
“A lodge of the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order. I’m needed inside. There’s something I must do.”
“Please don’t tell me all these horrors have happened to you just so you could show up here and do something!”
She shrugged. “It’s possible. Maybe I was pushed toward the Sheep Meadow so the signal would prepare me for this. Or…maybe I brought this on all by myself and am being sent here simply because I happen to be handy.”
I wanted to scream. I couldn’t bear the thought of my Ellie being used…a tool.
She started up the steps and I went to follow but she turned and stopped me. “I must do this alone. You don’t need to see this. You’ve had to see too much already. Wait at that coffee shop we passed on the corner. Have a nice cappuccino and I’ll join you when I’m finished.”
“But—”
“They don’t allow women, Mother.”
“But you’re—”
“They’ll make an exception for me.”
So saying, she turned and ascended the steps. I watched the heavy door close behind her, but I stood fast.
Have a nice cappuccino? I don’t think so. That was my daughter in there. Alone.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
ERNST
“Excuse me, Mister Drexler,” said the acolyte from the reception desk. “There’s a young woman here to see you. A teenager, actually.”
Ernst broke from his reverie. He’d been working on a plan for Slootjes’s elimination—the manner of his death, the disposal of his remains—but getting nowhere. And time was running out.
“A teenager? Asking for me?”
“She didn’t ask for you by name. She asked to see the man in charge and, well…she said you had need of her services before noon.”
Who was this? Some teenage hooker?
He was about to tell the acolyte to send her away when the phrase before noon struck a chord.
“She said ‘before noon’? You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
Slootjes was planning to send out his email blast at noon. Could this be related?
What was the harm? The Change had begun. Anything could happen. He’d take a chance.
“Send her in.”
A few seconds later the acolyte admitted a dark-haired teenage girl, rather pretty. But something odd about her—far beyond the oddity of the ratty old blanket she’d tied around her neck to wear like a cape.
Ernst stood and extended his hand. “Good morning, Miss…?”
“Ellie. Just call me Ellie.”
As she took his hand Ernst felt a mild shock race up his arm as giant spindly spider legs sprang out behind her, framing her. He managed to repress a gasp and maintain a stolid front. He’d seen his share of strange things during his years in the Order. This was simply another.
When he broke contact, the legs faded from view. And abruptly the reason for her presence became clear.
“Well, Ellie, I was going to ask what service you thought you could render, but I think I know what it might be.”
“I was guided here to solve your problem.”
“Guided by whom?”
“The same who delayed the sunrise.”
“And why would one capable of such a feat stoop to take part in this mundane matter?”
“I am not privy to that.”
Privy…not exactly a typical component of the modern teenage argot. But then, this Ellie obviously was not a typical teen.
“Although,” she added, “I might venture that the answer is simply: Because it
