The wind circled over the black water and climbed the jagged, rain-slicked cliffs, its moans echoing over the jutting rock and splashing back toward the Hudson. It dragged itself over the crumbling graveside dirt of the cliff’s edge and slid along thorny vines and kudzu-choked trees.
The wind tugged itself across the root-cracked sidewalks lining the river forest and the city edge. A red-tailed hawk dove through the fog. It appeared on silent, ghostlike wings, an apparition. The wind sliced through its talons, and the hawk shrieked. A wet-furred mouse skittered under a crushed aluminum can, and a rat dove into the flooding sewer. The hawk veered, and the wind caught the current under its wing, gliding higher. Below, a man snapped closed his black umbrella and ducked into the small light of his apartment building.
The wind paused and ceased its wailing.
What was that?
The wind stretched, reaching toward the noise.
It was a sharp cry of fear. A desperate, pleading noise.
Was it . . .?
Yes.
It was the quick rushing of running feet. The pounding, the flight, the fear.
The wind knew that cry.
The wind knew that voice.
The cry pierced the thick fog and speared the wind, causing it to perk up and twitch to hear more. It listened intently to the sounds leaking through the mist-shrouded streets.
“Please,” the voice begged. “Please. Please. Please.”
The voice was heavy with running breaths. Chased and chasing breaths. The “please” was an exhale.
The wind sped away from the river and rushed through the dark, brick building-lined streets. It gushed through puddles, flew over a lone taxi’s hood, and blew the dense fog from its path.
This far north, this far into the night, the streets were quiet.
What came out after midnight?
Rats.
Cockroaches.
Predators and the prey they hunted.
The wind forgot to mourn. It forgot to weep. It chased the sound of pounding feet.
There!
The wind blew into a narrow alley. Stagnant, dark, wet, hot. This alley was a sharp wedge stuck between three brick buildings that had been sandwiched together a century ago. A dead end.
It smelled of crumbling brick, rusted metal, rotting garbage, and the rat that had died in heavily sprinkled poison.
The wind whipped through the alley’s narrow opening and shoved at the two men facing off in the dark.
It buffeted the men. They ignored it, focused only on each other.
That was fine. Humans always ignored the wind.
The one—“Please”—was sweat-soaked, wide-eyed, and shaking. He backed away from the other, tripping over a broken sack of garbage. His back hit the redbrick wall. He stopped, trapped.
The wind rode over his stumbling, racing pulse, and made a questioning noise. Are you all right?
It was the innocent one. The Jersey Devil’s son. The wind had been there the night this one was conceived. It was a night of hate and terror and horrifying things, but this innocent one had come out of it.
