“I—I don’t think so.” Lyra suddenly wished they hadn’t stopped.
“Sorry.” The girl did look sorry, but she kept her eyes on 72. “Don’t know her.” Then she turned and gave Lyra a smile that wasn’t friendly—more like she’d just eaten something she shouldn’t have. “Cool scalp, by the way. Dig the Cancer Kid look.”
They went on. Lyra could still feel the girl staring and wondered if 72 did, too. All he said was, “Too many people,” and she nodded because her throat was too tight to speak. Ugly. Which meant the other girl was pretty. What a strange way to live, among all these people—it made Lyra feel small, even less important, than she had among the thousands of replicas grown like crops in the barracks.
The next person she stopped was older and ugly: wrinkles that made it look as if her face was melting, pouchy bits of skin waggling under her chin. But she didn’t know who Emily Huang was and only shook her head and moved off. They stopped a man, and a boy about twelve who rode a flat thing fitted with wheels that Lyra remembered only belatedly was called a skateboard. No one knew Emily Huang, and Lyra didn’t like the look the man gave them.
She was hot and thirsty and losing hope. The town kept expanding. Every time they came to the end of a block she saw a new street branching off it with more buildings and more people.
“We’re never going to find her,” 72 said, and she disliked the fact that he sounded happy about it, as if he’d proven a point. “We might as well keep walking.”
“Just hold on,” she said. “Hold on.” Spots of color floated up in front of her vision. Her T-shirt clung to her back. She took a step and found the pavement floated up to meet her. She grabbed hold of a street sign—Loading Dock, No Standing—to keep from falling.
“Hey.” 72’s voice changed. His arm skimmed her elbow. “Are you all right?”
“Hot,” she managed to say.
“Come on,” he said. “With me. You need water. And shade.”
Almost directly across the street was a park that reminded her of the courtyard at Haven, down to the statue standing at its center. This one was of a woman, though, her hands held together in prayer, her head bowed. Tall trees cast the lawns in shade, and benches lined the intersecting pathways. 72 kept a hand on her elbow even though she insisted he didn’t need to.
She did feel better once she’d taken a drink of water from a water fountain and found a bench in the shade where she could rest for a bit. Somewhere in the branches birds twittered out messages to one another. It was pretty here, peaceful. The park ran up to an enormous redbrick building, portions of its facade encased in glossy sheets of climbing ivy. Lyra saw another cross stuck above the glass double doors and the letters beside it: Wallace High School. Her heart jumped. Wallace. The girl on the street had mentioned Wallace.
“What do you want to do now?” 72 was being extra nice, which made Lyra feel worse. She knew he thought they’d failed. She knew he knew how sick she was. Without answering him, she stood up. She’d just seen someone moving behind the glass doors, and she went forward as if drawn by the pull of something magnetic. “Lyra!” 72 shouted after her. But she didn’t stop. It didn’t take him long to catch up with her, but by then she was already standing in front of Wallace and a woman had emerged, carrying a stack of folders.
“Can I help you?” the woman said, and Lyra realized she’d been standing there staring.
“We’re looking for Emily Huang,” Lyra said quickly, before she could lose her nerve. Remembering what the girl had said, Lyra added, “We think—she may go to Wallace.” She wasn’t sure what that meant, either, and she held her breath, hoping the woman did.
The woman slid on a pair of glasses, which she was wearing on a chain. Blinking up at Lyra, she resembled a turtle, down to the looseness of the skin around her neck.
“Emily Huang,” the woman said, shaking her head. “No, no. She never went here.” Lyra’s heart dropped. Another no. Another dead end. But then the woman said, “But she came every career day to talk to the kids about the work she did. Terrible some of the stuff they said about her later. She was a good girl. I liked her very much.”
“So you know her?” Lyra said. She was dizzy with sudden joy. Nurse Em. She would help. She would protect them. “You know where we can find her?”
The woman gave her a look Lyra couldn’t quite read. “Knew her,” she said slowly. “She lived right over on Willis Street, just behind the school. Can’t miss it. A sweet yellow house, and all those flower beds. Woman who lives there now has let it go to seed.”
And just like that, the happiness was gone. Evaporated. “She’s gone?” Lyra said. “Do you know where she went?”
The woman shook her head again, and then Lyra did know how to name her expression: pity. “Not gone, honey,” she said. “Never left, some say. Hung herself right there in her living room, must be three, four years ago now. Emily Huang’s dead.”
Lyra didn’t know what made her want to see the place where Emily Huang had lived. When she asked for directions to Willis Street, 72 didn’t question her, and she was glad. She wouldn’t have known how to explain.
Behind the school they found quiet residential streets running like spokes away from the downtown, and houses at last, these concealed not behind walls but standing there pleasantly right on their lawns, with flowers waving from flower boxes and vivid toys scattered in the grass. It was pretty here, and she couldn’t imagine why Emily Huang would have been so unhappy, why she would have killed herself like poor Pepper had. Then again, she remembered how Nurse Em had sobbed and Dr. O’Donnell had held her by the shoulders. I know you, she’d said. You’re a good person. I know you were just in over your head. So maybe she was unhappy even then.