The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

had of ever walking a Manhattan street again. Not that she would hear of a lunar landing. Yesterday’s newspaper, discarded by the foreman, might have been the last she would ever read. The batteries she’d stolen for her transistor radio would die within a year, and updates from Ulrich would bear a steep price.

At least she wouldn’t have to fully rely on him for food. Four years ago, after Ulrich had broken her seemingly beyond repair, he’d “prescribed” gardening. At first the excruciating memories tied to the seeds kept her from planting them, but then she’d found herself kneeling in the dirt, and a tendril of happiness had sprouted within her.

Since learning of the facility’s planned closure, she’d spent her evenings doubling the size of her plot.

What if Ulrich had trampled her plants while she’d been watching the workers from the roof? She would have to wait until dusk to check. No, she’d had enough heartache for one day; she would look tomorrow. Even if he’d destroyed her crop, she still would have her stash of seeds and tools.

A tugboat appeared, and she ducked into the doorway and watched it head toward Gotham, whose towers had spread across the horizon like a steel garden grown wild. The image of her mother, cooking in their apartment, refused to form: Eleanor had died in 1930. Of what, Cora didn’t know, though she had learned that her mother must have reconciled with her brother; the obituary mentioned Kieran’s two sons.

Canne, too, had died, seven years before O’Toole. Everyone Cora cared about, including Otto, was gone.

Her only remaining companions were the characters in her complete set of the Beadle’s Dime Novels and the abandoned library books.

A heron alighted on the beach. And the birds. She smirked. The service building had an auditorium with a film projector. Every Sunday afternoon, the administration had shown a different flick—a big hit with the junkies, who used the dark, close quarters to trade contraband. Watching through a crack in the velveteen drapes, Cora had been mesmerized by the animation in Snow White.

Cora was no Snow White; she had zero intention of befriending the birds that shared her island. Rather, she planned to eat them.

And she had no expectation that a prince would arrive and save her with a kiss. A kiss. She would trade a thousand backup batteries to experience just one.

Somewhere in that metropolis across the river lived her céadsearc. Cora still believed it, even though he couldn’t be the same man she’d imagined while climbing into Alfred’s boat.

American engineers were developing the technology to reach the moon; the tiny mysteries within her blood, right here on earth, couldn’t be unsolvable. They just couldn’t. All she needed was the right person working on them. That man wasn’t Ulrich.

She slid down the wall to a seated position. Accustomed to an evening nap before embarking on her night raids, she tucked her chin behind her knees and closed her eyes. Worn down from worry, her mind didn’t resist.

Cora woke to a purple horizon. The skyscrapers dazzled with light. She sucked in her breath and noticed the usual twinge in her heart at the sight of her city.

Never again, she promised herself, will I miss a sunset.

Motionless, she watched the colors of the clouds deepen. By the time full darkness arrived, she wanted to be inside the nurses’ residence. Two weeks ago, after the last of the women and patients had left, Cora had moved back into her former space. Although she would have to make the tuberculosis pavilion her permanent home, for now she wanted to be somewhere that contained happy memories. And she needed to be close to one of her two caches.

“Good night, Gotham,” she whispered, stepping away from the security of the wall.

Rounding the corner of the morgue, she halted at the sight of the physical plant. It looked like an abandoned fortress, its thick smokestacks a pair of turrets. The back of her neck tingled with a warning that someone could lunge from the shadows. She reminded herself that all the male patients and staff were gone, and she’d watched Ulrich leave only hours earlier.

Her stomach rumbled; she hadn’t eaten since morning. For the last time, in what had become a nightly ritual, she gathered the paper sacks the movers had discarded on the beach. As usual, they hadn’t left much, but it would be enough for one meal.

She filled her bottle at the cistern and took a swig. Her neck prickled again.

Cora spun.

The morgue stood motionless. Aside from the river, lapping the shore, and the chirring of crickets, the island was silent. Too silent.

She began to run.

Normally by this time of the evening, the iron streetlamps would be glowing. Instead, illuminated by the nearly full moon, they looked like rigid corpses.

Goose bumps speckled her skin like the pox. Finally, she reached the nurses’ home, yanked open the front door, and locked it behind her.

In the darkness, she fumbled behind a radiator for her candle and matchbook, then introduced a meager light into the foyer.

She doubted she’d ever become accustomed to the newly acquired emptiness that seemed to radiate iciness throughout the building. Even though she’d been an outsider while living there, she’d enjoyed listening to the women socializing.

Now the only friendly voice would be her own. “Hello!” she shouted, and her greeting reverberated up the spiral staircase. “Race you to the top,” she murmured.

As she climbed, the candlelight cast spindle-shaped shadows on the walls of the lobby, and her footsteps echoed. The air became hotter and thicker. Already the building smelled of disuse. With only one warm body left, all the spirits that must be lingering around Riverside now had space to drift. Cora reached out and imagined her fingers meeting Maeve’s. “Hey, Button, you’d better not leave me like the others.”

She reached the third floor, and the candle’s glow ended partway down the hall. Ulrich’s departure could have been a ploy; he could be lying in wait for her.

To calm her