River Tam

The path under her feet is paved in concrete.

Across the pond is a board fence, another paved path, and a wide sprawling meadow lined with trees. The meadow's thronged with people: throwing balls or discs for dogs to run after, pushing strollers, walking in groups, walking alone.

And beyond the trees rise the silhouettes of skyscrapers, painted a dozen different shades of rose and gold by the sunset.

Welcome to Central Park, River Tam.

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People everywhere.

People and a skyline.

There's grass under her, things change and she's not sure -- she gets confused. She is confused.

Pressing her back to a tree, River stares at the cheerful melee, and watches, and listens.

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A woman walking by with seven dogs of varying sizes gives her a mildly curious glance, and moves on.

Not far away, sitting on a rock next to the path, a prematurely balding young man is playing a set of pan-pipes, watched by a smiling man and a solemn two-year-old girl.

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River closes her eyes.

One breath. Two.

There's a young girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen, sitting with a book a few yards away. River pushes slowly off the tree, and heads towards her.

"Hi," she says. She's trying, trying hard; it shows a little.

"This is New York?" It treads the border between question and statement. On Earth, she doesn't quite say.

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The girl looks up at her, raising her eyebrows.

"Um, yeah," she says warily.

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"I'm lost."

River swallows; her gaze darts down to the girl's book, and the air beside.

"I need to find -- it's a corner."

"Forty-sixth and Second. I don't know the path."

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The girl looks a little uneasy.

"Uh -- okay, um, you want to get out of the Park on the east side, then, that way --" She points, vaguely, in a direction that's closer to southeast than east. "And from there you can probably catch a bus downtown?"

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River nods, just a little too jerkily.

"Thank you," she says carefully, and turns away.

Her steps hurry as she goes.

(She had to ask. She's adrift.

But there are ears in the shadows.)

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The paths out of the park twist and curve unexpectedly; it's nearly impossible to go in a straight line here.

Finally the paths divide to go right and left around a vast white building, and spill out onto the sidewalk beside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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River's eyes flick constantly from one thing to another: the buildings, the shadows of tree and rock, the empty air and the people.

Southeast, the girl pointed. The skyline has a shape; she remembers. Remembers more than people think.

(The hazy heat of August is just the same as before.)

She sets out at a fast walk, slipping lithely between pedestrians.

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Eighty-first street to Forty-sixth; almost two miles. Easily over two miles, factoring in the longer blocks between the avenues.

At Sixtieth street the vast park to her right comes to an end, to be replaced by an open plaza, backed by a tall building and flanked by a gilded statue of a horse and rider and a high circular fountain. The streets ahead are lined with expensive shops, and starting to be more crowded.

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It's a cross-section of life here: homeless beggars, high-class executives, a trio of girls on violins and an old man playing a whining warbling saw, joggers and skaters, families out with dogs.

River has no Earth money. No bus pass, no map, no guide. Southeast, following the skyline or an internal compass: she walks, and she runs.

There's desperation in her tight-backed hurry, in her wild darting eyes, in the way her breath comes fast and her hands twist and twitch at her sides and in her hair. Passersby veer away from her half-consciously, with glances of faint pity or disgust or nothing at all; she ignores them, arms tightening now and then around her torso, and jogs frantically on.

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The expensive shops eventually taper off, yielding to high-rise residence and office buildings, punctuated by tiny restaurants and newsstands and drugstores.

She's nearly there.

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This is familiar scenery now, seen only once but graven in the memory. Many of the signs are different, but the buildings and streets and intersections are the same.

Except it's wrong, deeply and chillingly. There's no singing in the air, no subvocal calling of love and always and yes -- nothing but silence and concrete.

These are ordinary city streets.

River's almost running by now, and if her breath is coming fast and harsh it's not from the exertion.

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There is a tall black building, on the corner up ahead.

And there is a little park across the street from it, with a fountain and a statue of a turtle.

And that's all.

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This, too, is familiar. She knows it heart-deep, and she doesn't know it at all.

The city smells of fumes and bodies and hot asphalt, and nothing at all of roses.

There's a woman heading into the black tower: an elegant woman, dark-skinned, power-suited, well-coiffed. River hits the corner just in time to trail in her wake.

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Inside the building is ... a lobby.

Security desk, a bank of elevators, a few sad-looking potted plants.

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There's no rose.

There's nothing. Marble and parched dirt and dispirited people slogging through the end of a long workday; no song of the White. No heart of the world. No fire and no memorial dedication and no wash of all-consuming rightness.

Just an office lobby, and a security guard beginning to stare at the tatterdemalion girl beginning to weep silently in the middle of the room.

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

When he finally clears his throat and tries a tentative, "Excuse me, miss?" she whirls around, glaring hotly at him for an instant before she spins and runs out, back to the 42nd Street and away.

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The sun is long gone, and the bright colors of sunset are fading into ash and slate and soft violet.

There's a man sitting wrapped in a threadbare blanket, in the shelter of a piece of construction scaffolding. A scrap of cardboard propped in front of him reads, in straggling childish capital letters:

BE YE KIND TO THE STRANGER IN THY MIDST; FOR YE WERE STRANGERS IN THE LAND OF EGYPT
ANY FOOD OR CHANGE YOU CAN SPARE
GOD BLESS

His dull stare focuses abruptly as she approaches.

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River's half-running, arms wrapped tight around her middle. A beat, a stumble -- her head snaps around, but she doesn't appear to quite see him.

Her face is streaked with tears.

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He's shaking his head.

"Don't be naive," he says suddenly, his voice hoarse and wetly wheezing. "Came she didn't with the rest. Ever. Ever-ever? It's getting dark."

This last is apparently directed at River, with impatient urgency.

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"Fan-gon." River sucks in a breath, shoves back her hair with both hands, and focuses for an instant on the man before her gaze skitters sideways. A businessman dodges sharply left to avoid her, muttering something under his breath.

"He remembers," she whispers to the wall behind the man. "Scary monsters."

"Amp it up."

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"Scary monsters," he repeats, his eyes locking with hers. "Hairy scary quite contrary. With their teeth on backwards. You don't, you don't want to ..."

He coughs. Coughs again, and wipes his mouth, and looks back up at her with what might be worry.

"Are you lost?"

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"She can't find the door."

River's hand drifts to her hip, tracing through the air for something that isn't there, and settles stiffly on the heavy fabric of her coat.

"Face the dark alone. We gotta."

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