Wait.
She slowed in the air as the sense of wrongness grew.
The Oldsmobile turned onto Jay Street, tires screeching, and arrived at the House of Relief.
The attendants lifted Sophia from her mother’s lap, laid her carefully upon a stretcher, and carried her inside. Doctors were alerted, the surgery prepared. The bullet was lodged in the patient’s abdomen; it would need to be removed, and the internal bleeding stanched. A nurse peeled aside Sophia’s clothing to probe the wound—
—and in the air above West Broadway, the jinniyeh cried out in pain. She shook herself, tried to take a deep breath, and then remembered that she didn’t breathe.
Six directions, what was happening to her?
The bullet had indeed lodged itself in Sophia’s abdomen—but first, it had passed through the jinniyeh.
The jinniyeh’s body ought to have parted easily around it, like a fingertip passing through a candle-flame. But her injuries had weakened her deeply; and instead the bullet had torn away a tiny scrap of her substance and carried it straight into Sophia, coming to rest beside her womb. The flame ought to have guttered and died there, overwhelmed by its human host. Were that anyone but Sophia, it would have.
But Sophia’s body had harbored jinn-flame before.
A cinder, a bit of ash, left behind.
In the years since, Sophia’s body had scarred itself deeply around this tiny cinder, enclosing it like an oyster’s grain of sand. Now, the new flame thrashed about, desperate to survive—and in its throes it sensed the cold cinder nearby, safe inside its hollow. A place where it could live.
With its last strength, the flame gathered itself and broke through.
The cinder ignited—and a tiny thread of fire climbed its way up Sophia’s spine.
The jinniyeh turned about blindly in the air. Something was happening far away, but also inside her. Below her was West Broadway, and the Elevated—and there on the next block was a man with a shave ice cart, like the ones she’d seen on walks in Central Park with her aunt. She’d always begged for a shave ice, but Auntie had said—
The jinniyeh stumbled in midair. Spasmed. Changed.
For the briefest of moments, a naked woman fell through the sky.
She loosed her form at once, found the wind again, flew higher. She looked down, saw Union Square and Madison Square, with Gramercy Park between them. The East River to one side, the Hudson to the other. Streets and avenues, city blocks, ferries, frankfurter carts. Peanut vendors. Rag-pickers. Astor Place, Washington Mews, billboards, marquees, Chinese lanterns, pretzel sellers, newsboys, tobacconists—
The jinniyeh shrieked in rage.
* * *
Dear Headmistress:
I’m not really running away, because I should have left already. I’m eighteen, not fifteen, which means I’m no longer a ward of the state. My mother’s death certificate will tell you that Malke Altschul died after childbirth in January of 1897. I shouldn’t have lied to you, but then the lie grew too big to correct.
You warned me recently that the world will fail to meet my standards. You’re probably right. Still I hope to find a small corner of it where I can be myself.
Respectfully,
Kreindel Altschul
She left the note on her pillow.
Supper would be over soon; she didn’t have much time. She opened her footlocker, removed her Asylum-issue coat and her small drawstring bag, and filled the bag with the two dollars in hoarded coins that was the sum of her worldly wealth. After a moment she grabbed her composition notebook, tore out her Psalm translations, and stuffed them inside as well.
The residents were in the dining hall and the staff had all gone home, leaving the hallways empty. She left the Asylum by the side door, as though she were merely going to the infirmary—but then went past it, opened the broken gate, and walked out into the evening.
She expected shouts, bells, truancy officers. None came. She’d left the Asylum, and not a single soul had stopped her. With every step it became more real. She was leaving at last! Where would she go? She’d follow the pair in the river, try to find them somehow . . .
She rounded the corner onto Broadway—and at once was overwhelmed by the sight of the avenue, with its rushing traffic and hurrying crowds. Suddenly she felt lost and mouse-like. She had no idea how to navigate the subway or the Elevated; she’d never so much as ridden a streetcar by herself. She was a runaway, no matter what she’d written, a frightened girl out alone after sunset. Already she was drawing attention, the passersby staring at her Asylum-issue clothing, clearly wondering if they should intervene . . .
As she looked around in growing panic, her gaze nearly passed over a boy in a Western Union uniform. He stood in front of an apartment building on the corner, his bicycle beside him, watching the passersby as though hoping that someone would appear. He saw her; his eyes widened in surprise. “Kreindel?”
“Toby?” she said. “What are you doing here?” And then, mortified at her own bluntness: “I didn’t mean—I just thought you’d be downtown by now. Are you making deliveries?”
He gave her an oddly nervous smile, as though she’d caught him at something. “No, I just have to find someone,” he said. “Say, you haven’t seen your cooking teacher around lately, have you?”
“Miss Levy?” she said, confused. “That’s who you have to find?”
“Yeah, she’s a friend of my ma’s. I wasn’t sure if you were talking about the same lady, before. But it turns out you were.”
“Miss Levy . . . is a friend of your mother’s,” she said slowly.
“Sort of, I guess. I just wanted to talk to her, about something. But she isn’t home. You haven’t, have you? Seen her, I mean?” Then he paused, looking Kreindel over, seeming to register at last that she was alone on the street, in her uniform. “Hey—are you running away?”
She eyed him. “What if I am?”
He grinned. “Good. I’m glad. That
