Far below, Beverly could see the glow of headlights and taillights on the streets; practically every building she saw was lit from within. Though the sky was clear, there were no stars overhead, and her mom explained that city lights washed them away. Beverly didn’t understand what her mom meant—how could stars be washed away?—but she didn’t have time to ask, because her mom took her hand and led her to another area of the observation deck, where in the distance, they could see the Statue of Liberty. Her mom told her that she’d always wanted to live in the Big City, even though she’d said the same thing half a dozen times already. When Beverly asked her why she hadn’t moved there, her mom said, “Some things aren’t meant to be.”
Beverly could no longer see the pirate, and she wondered if he was still saying words that no one else could hear. She thought about Fran and Jillian, her friends from school, and wondered whether they would trick-or-treat together for Halloween. Maybe, she thought, she could dress as a pirate, but more than likely she would go as a cowgirl again, just as she had the year before. Her mom already had the hat and the plaid shirt and the toy gun and holster, and Beverly knew if she asked about dressing like a pirate instead, she’d be told that they couldn’t afford it.
Her mom was talking and talking and talking, but Beverly didn’t bother to listen. Sometimes, when her mom talked, Beverly knew that whatever was being said wasn’t important. From another spot on the observation deck they saw the Brooklyn Bridge, which looked small enough to be a toy. By then they had been on the deck for nearly an hour, and when Beverly eventually turned toward her mom, she saw tears on her cheeks. Beverly knew not to ask why her mom was crying, but she found herself wishing that her mom had been able to live in the Big City.
All at once, Beverly heard screaming and shouting, and she was bumped so hard she nearly fell over. She grabbed for her mom’s hand, and the two of them were suddenly caught up in the movement of the crowd like fish trapped in a strong current. To stop meant being trampled, even Beverly knew that, and they stumbled forward. Beverly could see nothing but the bodies around her—elbows darting, bags swinging. The screaming grew louder, with more people joining in, everyone on the observation deck moving quickly in the same direction, everyone caught in the same riptide, until Beverly and her mom were finally spit out the back and able to catch their balance.
“What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.”
Above the roar, Beverly could hear individual cries of “Don’t!” and “Come back!” and “Stop!” and “What are you doing!” and “Get down!” She didn’t know what any of it meant, just that something bad was happening. Her mom knew it, too; she was on her toes, trying to see over the crowd, and then, just as suddenly, the crowd stopped moving. For a few seconds, everything was still and no one moved at all, and it was the most unnatural thing Beverly had ever experienced—until the screaming started up again, this time even louder.
“What happened?” Beverly heard someone shout.
“He jumped,” another man shouted.
“Who jumped?”
“The guy who was dressed like a pirate!”
There were barriers and fences, and Beverly wondered if she had been mistaken in what she’d heard. Why would the pirate jump? The other buildings were too far away to reach.
She felt her mom squeeze her hand again and tug.
“Let’s go,” her mom said. “We need to leave.”
“Did the pirate jump?”
“What pirate?”
“The one I stood next to when I first got here.”
“I don’t know,” her mom said. She led them through the gift shop, toward the elevators, where a line had already formed.
“They grabbed for him, but no one could stop him,” Beverly heard the man standing next to her say, and when she stepped into the elevator, Beverly thought about the pirate, and thought about falling, and she wondered what it was like to go down and down, lower and lower, until there was nowhere left to go.
Beverly sat up in bed, blinking in the darkness, knowing it had been less a dream than a memory, except that this time she’d been falling, too, hand in hand with the pirate. As always when the dream resurfaced, she woke to the hammering of her heart, with shaky breaths and her sheet damp with sweat.
I’m not falling, she thought, I’m not falling, but even so, the physical sensation was slow to pass. Her heart continued to race, her breaths rapid, and even as the dream began to fade, she knew she wasn’t herself. The world felt off-kilter and foreign. She forced herself to concentrate on the details of the room as they emerged in vague and darkened shadows. She saw a window with thin shades drawn, the soft white sky of dawn seeping through. She saw her clothing piled on the floor. There was a lamp and a glass half filled with water on the bedside table next to her. Across the room stood a chest of drawers with a full-length mirror hanging beside it. Little by little, she began to make sense of her surroundings.