“Answer immediately,” said the mayor.
“A woman who’d lie about this is capable of any sort of lie,” said Tuttle.
“Tell us,” ordered Jenkins.
The audience waited.
“To me.” The voice that spoke came from behind her, from the final committee member who now stood to join his partners. She felt a pair of hands, a warm harness at her shoulders. The Colonel. “And now I have it. Proof. My Mind Box has given it to me.” He held up the logbook above his head, like a priest holding a Bible. “She is my wife. And the child is mine.”
At that moment, Opal felt it rising up in her—an earthquake that began at her feet. Her whole body began to tremble. She could feel froth at the corners of her mouth. Her body was a foreign object, no longer in her control.
The gasping of the crowd again. Dixie closed her notebook. Chairs toppled to the floor as spectators jumped up. Now Opal was on the floor. Jagr tried to reach her. She could see his boots, caked with mud, drawing near. “My wife,” he yelled, but he was blocked by the Earthshine Girls, who’d run to the front. The Colonel peeled the contraption off Opal’s head and helped her up.
From his pocket he produced a ring: Hazel’s wedding ring. She recognized it from the portrait, the way the artist had drawn it to look like it was catching light. The Colonel now held the ring between two fingers, and he pushed it onto Opal’s knuckle. That the ring fit seemed to be of some comfort to the Colonel, who bent over her, weeping. He kissed her neck, her cheek, her eyes once more. His tears were warm and wet against her skin.
“It’s me,” she whispered.
Outside, Opal’s body trembled with exhaustion, with the worry that Jagr was not far behind. He’d produce documents, proof. He’d have the law on his side.
“I will not lose you twice,” the Colonel said. “We’ll go away.”
She imagined her life as Hazel. He’d save her, his wife. They’d leave the next morning, enough time for him to make travel arrangements and get his affairs in order. She touched his arm. He felt solid beneath his coat, immovable. “Did the Mind Box—” Opal said. Her throat was raw. “Give you the truth?”
“Science is incapable of lying,” he said.
Yes, she thought, but it can be wrong.
THE NEXT MORNING, SHE GATHEREDher trunk and began filling it with her belongings. She folded her clothes; she collected her papers and letters and pens and little trinkets—how easy it is to accumulate effects. From her icebox, she retrieved the coffee tin with her savings.
As she was locking the latch on the trunk, a pain seared through her side, as though the baby were pulling at her ribs. Opal lost her breathand sat on the trunk and covered her eyes and, for the first time since she’d run away from Gallipolis, allowed herself to cry.
She didn’t want the neighbors to hear her. She contained her sobs, and it occurred to her that’s how she always felt—contained—her whole life: to kitchens and factories and houses and special elixirs and this body of hers, which now doubled her over, thick with discomfort. She wanted to be big, but not in this way. She wanted to be as wide as the world, but here she was in her apartment, dark except for the orange light of the streetlamps that cast long rectangular lines on her wall. The Colonel would be here soon. The baby kicked again.
He told her not to answer to anybody. When he arrived, he’d whistle, as he did now, outside her door. The sidewalks were crowded with evening walkers. The entire city seemed to be outside tonight, skygazing, searching for the comet that would swoop into the earth’s atmosphere with its toxic tail. May 19. The day the scientists said the world would end.
They walked to the Colonel’s car, parked around the corner because the street vendors had set up their food carts. “We’ll take a train to Baltimore,” he explained. “From there we’ll board a boat.”
“France?”
“London. I know a doctor there who specializes in—” He stopped talking and looked up toward the sky. Then, Opal saw it, too, smoke from the direction of the Earthshine factory. The plume looked fat and wormlike, gray against the black. She thought of the Earthshine Girls—Maria and Ruth and Gilly and the others. How when the séance had concluded last night, they’d formed a wall of their bodies so Jagr couldn’t get to her.
“Take me there,” she pleaded. “Something awful’s happened. I feel it.”
“But, Grouse,” he said. He checked his pocket watch. “It could be fireworks.”
“Please. Five minutes. It’s all I ask. Five minutes and then the rest of my life.”
She wondered how far London was from France, and if a boat could take her there quickly. The car moved toward the factory; the fat worm of smoke faded from the sky.
When they arrived, a crowd had gathered outside. The Colonel instructed his driver to get as close as possible, then he opened the door and helped Opal down. From here, they couldn’t see any smoke, but they could still smell it, acrid in the air.
“Five minutes,” he said. “And be careful.”
Opal made her way through the crowd to the entrance of the factory, where a group of Earthshine Girls stood.
The chain on the door had been cut.
She stood on her toes now and spotted the Colonel waiting near his car. He held his hat over his heart; his hair was mussed. She must be quick. “Who did it?” Opal asked.
