False Mermaid

He was glad that he’d so far managed to avoid that young lady he’d met outside the library a couple of days ago. Saw her again yesterday. What did she want? Better if he didn’t get close enough to find out. She’d start asking questions. That’s what she really wanted, he could see it in her eyes. The thought of having to answer questions always triggered a panicky feeling inside him. A need to get away. Next she’d be wanting to have a look in his pack, and he wasn’t about to give up any of that. Not without a fair trade—not on your life.

He sat down at the bottom of the steps to rest for just a minute, pressing at the stitch in his side, and looking down at the battered high-tops on his feet, water stains up the sides, a crack in the left sole, and it suddenly occurred to him—why not both soles? Didn’t he take just as many steps with the right as the left? Whatever the answer to that puzzle, these shoes wouldn’t be good much longer. Only a few more days’ wear in them, really. In his situation, a man needed decent footwear.

Reaching into his pack, he brought out a crumpled paper bag, and unrolled it, taking out a pair of new-looking black sneakers. Had anyone ever seen such a pair of shoes? He held them up, admiring the electric blue stripes along the sides. Still like new—only a little blood on them. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, as his mother used to say.

He still remembered the day they’d been given to him. That was how he thought of it, like a divine bestowal. Down on the riverbank one summer morning, washing his feet—he always felt more human when he had clean feet—so there he was, sitting on a rock, pants rolled up to his knees, rubbing cold water and sand between his toes, when a heavy bundle came hurtling down from above, and landed with a splash in the gravelly riverbed not three feet from where he sat. The water began to push against the bundle, and he had to move quickly to keep it from tumbling away. Once he had it, he looked up, trying to spot whoever had dropped the thing. Maybe they’d want it back—you never knew. No one visible above on the bridge. So he’d kept it, not even opening the bag until later that evening. That’s when he’d found the shoes, the sweatshirt he was wearing, and a pair of pants, too. As if someone up there knew exactly what he needed. It got cold, sleeping on the ground, even in summer. The clothes fit him all right; the hell of it was that the shoes had not. Never would. He’d hung onto them anyway, thinking maybe he could trade them for a different pair. But these shoes were extra special, worth a lot in trade. Nobody had ever offered what they were worth. Years of wear left in them. He’d swap them for something that would last a long time, with all the walking he did. When he’d finished admiring the shoes, he carefully rewrapped them in the brown paper bag, and stowed them again in his pack. He reached into the front pouch pocket of his shirt and pulled out the handwritten note he’d found there when he’d first put the sweatshirt on. I know what you did, it said. Hidden Falls 11 pm tonite. How could anyone know what he did? He only did what was necessary, what he had to do. What they all had done.

Harry hefted the pack on his shoulder, and looked across the empty railroad tracks, and beyond them, at Shepard Road. He crossed the rail bed, watching where he put a foot in case he’d stumble and fall. There wasn’t much danger. Trains came through only a couple of times a day now, and walking the tracks wasn’t as perilous as it had once been. But beyond the tracks, the cars on Shepard Road flew along at ungodly speeds.

He waited patiently until the road was clear in both directions before picking his moment to cross. And when it came, he moved with the grace and agility of a much younger man, hardly conscious of the muscles in his legs and back, of all the bones and sinews that worked together so miraculously to propel him forward.

But the SUV that hit him was traveling nearly sixty miles an hour, and Harry Shaughnessy was suddenly and unceremoniously removed from the mortal world.

BOOK FIVE