Free Lighthouse Island by Paulette Jiles Page A

below her sliding away in dim ribbons. Her heart pounded and she was very thirsty but did not drink from the stolen two-quart bottle. She had no idea when she would get more. A chain of fluorescent tubes lit the tunnel. On the far side of the tracks, in a wall honeycombed with large holes she saw a heap of dirty clothes. She stared for a long time to see if it was a person, or a body, or merely a wad of rags. In her state of cool terror everything seemed removed, or secondhand. Then from a loudspeaker overhead a voice said, Hi!
    Nadia didn’t move. She didn’t turn her head. She said, in return, Hi!
    Give me your destination and we’ll get started, the voice said.
    Nadia said, The old Sissons Bend neighborhood.
    A pause.
    I’m sorry! That destination is no longer valid. Do you have an alternative?
    Nadia thought in a desperate jumble; names, random nouns, anything that could be a destination.
    The voice said, If you are unsure of your destination, could you give me an approximate direction? Say yes, no, or I don’t know.
    North, said Nadia.
    Good! That’s a start. The next train north is in ten seconds. Step back from the platform, please. Did you know a change in our thinking is coming? Be alert! When you board our special northern service train, you can use the keypad to the left of the . . .
    And the rest of the words were drowned out by a deafening roar. A bright headlight shone from far down the tunnel to her right, and then the platform itself was lit up by the intense searchlight on the engine and the noise was terrific. It sighed to a stop and the doors opened. The interior of the car was lit by brilliant fluorescent lights. Bare plastic seats. She hesitated.
    Here you are! said the voice. This is the four-twenty north carrying the locomotive post. Here you are. This is the four-twenty north. Watch your step. Watch your step. Here you are!
    Nadia stepped in and the doors slammed shut.
    There was no one else in the car. It was perfectly empty. She sat down and clung to one of the stanchions. The train bolted forward and increased to what seemed an incredible speed. All the cars ahead of her and behind her were brilliantly lit and empty. She had never ridden in an underground train; she had never known of anybody who had ridden in one; she had never known anyone who had even gone down into the underground system. Everything smelled of diesel smoke and plastic.
    She looked for the keypad but there wasn’t one.
    Wherever it stopped, she would get off, and keep on walking. She would walk north.
    Why not just keep on, sidling along like a kind of tidy derelict through the world, unnoticed, unremarkable, unavailable to all the computer records that would contain her entire history, housed underground somewhere? She would be beyond the reach of oversupervisors and arrest teams, beyond the reach of the buses that baked people alive, beyond anybody’s reach. To the end of the world. To Lighthouse Island.
    After a while she fell asleep and dreamed.
    Someone called her by name, an urgent call in a low voice. Nadia! She was in youth housing of some sort that was made of glass or crystal, or perhaps it had no walls at all, only a series of steps from one level to another also made of something transparent. It was evening outside and in this landscape leaves lifted and fell slowly in a sea wind, leaves as big as book covers and they were dark green and very glossy.
    She didn’t belong there but she wanted very much to stay. Then a man came walking down the glass stairs with the most splendid smile. It turned her heart over and she called out to him, Oh it’s you! He was about to say something important when she woke up, chilled and dusty. She lay slumped over on the plastic-covered seat with her notebook and tote bag fallen to the floor in front of her and her garnet earrings sparkling as if her mind were still on sleep mode and had temporarily lodged itself in the dark