And so, as Mr. Moore put it, war had been declared, and directly to our enemy’s face. But the Doctor was quick to remind him that, while we could be happy that all had gone well and the detective sergeants were safe, thinking of Libby Hatch as our “enemy” was not going to help our cause. We were on our way upstate not only to learn exactly what she’d done, but why; and while it might be tough, given all the things we knew about her, to try to see things as she’d seen them during her years of growing up and becoming a mother, it was more important than ever that we do so. Talk about “enemies” and a “war” wasn’t going to help that process: if we were ever going to understand what had driven the woman to her past and current acts of violence enough to guess at her next moves, we were going to have to let go of the image of her as the Devil’s handmaiden. She was a person, one who’d been made capable of unspeakable things by unknown events what we would never really appreciate if we couldn’t see them through the eyes of first the girl and then the young woman she’d once been.

This was all sensible talk, and I’d heard similar from the Doctor many times before; and maybe if the weather had calmed down at all on Wednesday, it would’ve been easier for me to stay equally reasonable. But dawn that morning saw the sky black and every window in the house starting to rattle in its frame. By noon a howling gale had roared up from the southwest to slam into not just the city but the whole eastern part of the state, as well. Up in Matteawan, we later learned, the rain was so heavy that a whole set of dams burst, and eight people were killed in the flood that followed. Maybe it’s true that what goes on in the sky is just weather and doesn’t signify anything more; but the notion that we’d stirred the wrath of some powerful being somewhere flitted into and out of my head all day long as we made our final preparations for departure the next morning.

By late Wednesday evening the storm was still raging, and I still hadn’t seen or heard anything from Kat. As the night wore away, I realized with ever more misgiving that she would likely end up leaving for California while we were upstate and, lacking any way to contact me there, would think I had no interest in what had become of her. Caught up in such thoughts, my mind was tormented for several hours with the question of whether I should make a quick circuit of her usual haunts. When she’d been at the Doctor’s house, she’d left me with the notion that she wouldn’t be going back to the Dusters’; but the amount of cocaine what had clearly been in her body when she’d come to Number 808 Broadway had made me doubt that she’d kept completely clear of the place. And as I sat in my room and watched the lightning, thunder, and rain throw branches of the trees in Stuyvesant Park first one way and then another, my doubts only multiplied. Did she have a flop, I wondered, on a night like this? She had the money to afford someplace decent, that was certain-or had she already spent it on a burny binge? Had Ding Dong found out about her good fortune, and forced her to fork it over? Could she count on anybody besides me to care enough to find out? I hoped so. Because no matter how fretful I got that night, I found that I just couldn’t head out the door. I told myself it was the high winds and the rain; but a voice inside me answered that I’d spent plenty of time wandering the streets in weather like that. Then I protested that it was her place to come to me for once, if she needed help; but I knew that, mad as she’d been when we parted, she never would. The plain truth was that I didn’t know why I couldn’t go out to look for her. I was worried whether I’d ever hear from her again, I was worried about where she was and what she was doing, but I simply couldn’t go after her and I couldn’t say why.

I woke the next morning to find that the great storm had blown out to sea. Sunshine and a light breeze were quickly drying the city, while the temperature had finally dropped into the seventies. There were a few branches on the grass and walkways of Stuyvesant Park, but other than that the tempest didn’t seem to’ve left any permanent scars on our neighborhood. It wasn’t yet 7:30, but the carriage the Doctor’d engaged to take our bags and ourselves down to the Twenty-second Street pier would arrive in just half an hour, and the Mary Powell was due to get under way at nine; so I dressed and cleaned up quickly, sitting on the lids of the big suitcase and small valise the Doctor’d given me so that the things would close, and then banging my way downstairs with them.

Cyrus and the Doctor were both awake, the Doctor in his study packing books and papers and Cyrus in the kitchen, once again making coffee. By the time it was ready, the three of us were, too: we’d stacked our bags and trunks by the front door and had nothing left to do but drink Cyrus’s strong coffee and grow ever more anxious to get on the boat, the first of which activities only aggravated the second. I made a last round of the back door, the yard, and the carriage house, sneaking myself a smoke as I made sure everything was locked down tight. Then, finally, the hired rig appeared. The driver, an old German who the Doctor spoke to in his native language, helped us get the bags aboard, and then we turned to say our good-byes to the house, not knowing just when we’d pass through the little iron gateway to the front yard again.

The weather only improved as we made for the Hudson, the breeze remaining mild and the sky marked by just a few large, quick-moving clouds. When we reached Ninth Avenue and Twenty-second Street, I stuck my head out of the carriage and looked ahead to the pier: the Mary Powell was docked and surrounded by a large crowd. We crossed over Tenth and then Eleventh Avenues, and as we did the number of people and rigs making for the pier steadily increased. The smell of the river and the prospect of going someplace new and exciting were making my blood positively race, but I didn’t know how agitated my movements had become ’til the Doctor threw a playful arm round my head, telling me it was the only way he could think of to keep my skull from exploding.

Our fellow passengers at the pier seemed to be as excited and relieved by the sudden change in the weather as we were. Most of them weren’t near as laden down with baggage, though-ships like the Mary Powell catered mostly to day cruisers-and we didn’t have any trouble finding a porter to help us with the bags. I told the Doctor that I’d help the man get them off the carriage and on board the ship if he and Cyrus wanted to go ahead and check our parlors to see which other members of our party had arrived. This they did, and I quickly commenced moving the luggage onto the amiable Italian porter’s hand truck with the assistance of our big German driver. I didn’t understand a word what either man said, but that didn’t matter; the sight of the river steamer all decked out and ready for the voyage, her twin stacks and big side paddles signifying confidence and power, together with the excitement that was coursing through the merry collection of people both aboard the ship and on the pier, kept me moving in a happy, spirited, and sure fashion.

Strange, what little things can change your mood faster than spit: a sound, maybe, or even just a smell can sometimes twist your thoughts and feelings worse than hours of conversation or days of experience. For me, that morning, it was a sight-just a glimpse, really-of the person I least wanted to see in the world:

Ding Dong. He was sitting about thirty yards away, atop a big pile of freight on the wharf-but his eyes were honed right in on me. His vicious features were twisted by the same evil, idiot grin that was generally in evidence; and as soon as he knew I’d caught sight of him, he jumped to the ground, grinned even wider, and made a vigorous, obscene movement with his hands and his pelvis.