Passenger

I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy—

Etta took a step back, feeling trapped between their pity and the wall of sound that was slamming into her back in waves. Panic made the bile rise in her throat, burning.

“Go!” Gail said frantically to one of the older men. “Get out there!”

“I’ve got her.”

The dark-haired girl, Sophia, stepped out of the green room, reaching out to take Etta’s arm. She hadn’t realized how unsteady she was until the arm Gail had thrown around her lifted, and she was forced to lean on a stranger a whole head shorter than her.

“I’m…I’m fine.…” Etta muttered, swaying.

“No, you’re not,” Sophia said. “I hear it, too. Come on!”

The easiest explanation was that she’d snapped, that the stress had gotten to her, but…someone else had heard it, too. It was as alive and real for her as it was for Etta, and it flooded reassurance through her system to know she hadn’t lost it, that she hadn’t just crashed and burned because her stage fright and anxiety from childhood were colliding with the way Alice had doubted her.

Etta thought, just for a moment, she might cry in relief. The sound moved like burning knives beneath her skin as Sophia expertly wove them through the dark backstage area and out a side entrance that dumped them directly into the dark, silent museum, just at the entrance of the Egyptian wing.

Wait, Etta wanted to say, but her mouth couldn’t seem to catch up to her mind. Where are we going?

“It’s coming from over here,” Sophia said, tugging her forward.

Etta took a step toward the Egyptian wing, and the sound grew more intense, the oscillations quicker, like she was working a radio dial and tuning until she found a signal. Another step, and the pitch rose again into a frenzy.

Like it was excited she was paying attention.

Like it wants me to find it.

“What is that?” she asked, hearing her own voice shake. “Why can’t anyone else hear it?”

“Well, we’re going to find out—Etta, right? Let’s go!”

In the dark, the Met wore a different, shifting skin. Without the usual crush of visitors clogging the hallways, every small sound was amplified. Harsh breathing. Slapping shoes. Cold air slipping around her legs and ankles.

Where? she thought. Where are you?

What are you?

They moved beneath the watchful gaze of pharaohs. In the daytime, during the museum’s regular hours, these rooms radiated golden light, like sun-warmed stone. But even the creamy walls and limestone gateways were shadowed now, their grooves deeper. The painted faces of sarcophagi and gods with the heads of beasts seemed sharper, sneering, as the girls followed the winding path through the exhibits.

The Temple of Dendur stood alone in front of her, bleached by spotlights. There was a massive wall of windows, and beyond that, darkness. Not here.

Sophia dragged her past the pools of still waters near the temple, and they ran past statues of ancient kings, past the gateway and temple structure, through to the small gift shop that connected this section of the museum to the American wing. There were no docents, no guards, no security gates; there was nothing and no one to stop them.

Nothing and no one to help her.

Go find Mom and Alice, she thought. Go home.

But she couldn’t—she had to know. She needed—she needed—

The blood drained from her head, until she felt as dizzy and light as the specks of dust floating through the air around her. It was like passing into a dream; the halls were blurring at the edges as she walked, devouring the gilded mirrors, the rich wooden chests and chairs. Shadows played with the doorways, inviting her in, turning her toward one of the emergency stairwells. The sound became a pounding, a drum, a call louder and louder and louder until Etta thought her skull would split from the pressure—

A deafening shot ripped through even the feedback, startling Sophia to a skidding stop. Etta’s whole body jerked with the suddenness of it. Awareness snapped against her nerves; the stench of something burning, something almost chemical.

She saw the blood first as it snaked across the tile to her toes.

Then the milk-white head of hair.

The thing was a crumpled body.

Etta screamed, screamed, screamed, and was drowned out by the pulsing feedback. She pushed past a startled Sophia to get to the body on the cold tile, heaving, a sob caught in her throat, and dropped down to her knees beside Alice.

Breathing, alive, breathing—

Alice’s pale eyes flickered over at her, unfocused. “…Duck?”

Blood sputtered from her chest, fanned out against Etta’s hands as she pressed them against the wound. Her mind began to shut down in its panic.

What happened? What happened?

“You’re all right,” Etta told Alice, “you’re—”

“Shot?” Sophia said, leaning over Etta’s shoulder. There was a tremor of something in her voice—fear? “But who—?”

A shout carried to them from the other end of the hall. Three men in tuxedos, one of them the man in glasses she’d bumped into in the Great Hall, followed by a security guard, seemed to come toward them in slow motion. The emergency light beside them caught a pair of glasses and made them glow.

“Call 911!” Etta yelled. “Somebody help, please!”

There was a slight pressure on her hand. Etta looked down as Alice’s eyes slid shut. “…the old…familiar places…run.…”