And not even Pax, with his smooth promises of safety, security, protection… not even he can shelter me from eternal doom if I truly am evil, right?
I am full of questions, and Spirit doesn’t answer questions.
What if that mob is right, and my soul is horribly, irreparably stained?
That
is
another
question.
CHAPTER SEVEN
New York City is chilly this evening, and a thin layer of coal dust clings to the ice in the air, making my teeth, eyes, skin feel gritty. Newsies shout headlines down Delancey Street: “Read it here, folks! Worker finds $12,000 in gems buried beneath Boston!” “Meat prices to jump again—at their highest since the War Between the States!” “Read about the man who jailed his own daughter! Imprisoned her for her ‘mania for fancy dresses’!”
I weave through the streets toward 233 Broadway. The under-construction Woolworth Building. It soon will be, our city leaders boast, the tallest building in the world, at fifty-five glorious stories. It’s nearly complete, the bottom floors already wrapped in a skin of white terra-cotta, the upper floors still a skeleton of steel, fingers clawing skyward. I’d say it’s my favorite place in the city, but it’s more accurate that I find it the most mysterious.
Why skyward? Why up? Why are humans constantly striving for taller, loftier, higher? Do they feel they can reach heaven by elevator?
One would think having a direct connection with Spirit would give me all the answers on how to reach heaven. Instead, my connection leaves me with doubt and skepticism on what to expect in the afterlife. If all it is are garbled attempts to reachthose still living, I want no part of that. I don’t even want to connect with the living now.
At least, this is what I tell myself.
Spirit wraps me in the sensation of a hug as I think this. It is comforting, but this false embrace makes me feel more alone than ever.
I realize—almost too late—that I am eerily close to Washington Square Park. To the Asch Building. My soul singes at its edges, thinking of that place. Nope. I walk six blocks out of my way to avoid the searing pain that block brings forth.
At last, the Woolworth spire comes into view. The setting sun casts creeping shadows across the building, the raw steel flexing, climbing the orange and pink clouds.
I love New York. New York doesn’t always love me. It looks good and big and prosperous, but the prosperity doesn’t always trickle my way.
“Snuff!” I call down yet another alley. I’ve been looking for the mangy fleabag for close to an hour. How pathetic, that the only thing keeping me from hightailing it to relative safety on the other side of the city is dragging along my petulant stray cat. I’m lucky that rat-faced pastor and his urchins haven’t heard my calls and followed me here with their fists and their fury. Their condemnations and their damnations. But I’m not about to leave this cat behind. I leave too many things behind. That cat is my only friend. My only family. “Snuff!”
That stray don’t know his name!
You tink dat smelly cat will come to you without food, anyhows?
“Mew!”
I tilt my head.
“Mew!”
A tail, flipping around a corner.
I give chase.
“Snuff!”
The bastard cat dashes ahead, under flower and fish stands, through the shadows and slush beneath the elevated train, past a dinging cable car, behind a laundry cart.
“Snuff!”
That sneak. All I catch is a small, teasing mew, a twitch of sarcastic whisker when I close in.
I follow and twist and cuss until I realize it’s dark and cold and I’m in a part of the city I don’t recognize. A bend of lantern light passes and dies. I shiver.
