MirrorWorld

“Because you’re sitting here having a conversation with me instead of watching The Price Is Right every day, or just plain dead.”

“My file is pretty detailed,” I say.

She turns back around and gives me a tight-lipped smile, the kind a mother might when her child is being naughty while simultaneously adorable.

“I’m not adorable,” I point out.

She laughs. “Far from it. It’s just … it’s good to—”

The ambulance sways hard to the side. Tires squeal.

Allenby leans forward and opens the door a crack. She gasps. “What’s happening?”

“They’re everywhere,” says the man behind the wheel. “I don’t know if I can find a way around them.”

“Can we stay here?” she asks. “Wait for them to pass?”

“I don’t think they’re going anywhere anytime soon.”

“What’s happening?” I ask. I turn my head back, but the upside-down slice of the world beyond the ambulance is just blue sky.

“Just relax,” Allenby says, patting my shoulder. “We’re fine.”

I push myself up, inspect the expert stitching on my abdomen. “I wasn’t worried.”

Allenby is so entranced by what’s happening outside, she doesn’t notice me moving. I slide up behind her, angling for a view.

“We should be okay,” the man says, “unless they get hungry for ice cream.”

Ice cream? “What is it, a Little League parade?”

Allenby jumps, placing a hand to her chest. “Bloody hell. You shouldn’t be up. I still need to cover that.”

I push past her. The man in the front seat is short but fit. The kind of guy who’s got energy to spare and can eat entire pizzas. But he’s not young. Despite the full head of dark hair, the crow’s-feet framing his eyes and flecks of white in his goatee give away his age.

When the driver swerves again, I look up.

The street is filled with angry people. Some carry picket signs with slogans like: RAISE MINIMUM WAGE, NO MORE PROPERTY TAXES, and my favorite, NO MONEY, LESS PROBLEMS. Some carry bricks. Others wield guns. Their voices rise and fall, repeating some kind of chant, muffled by the vehicle’s thick walls. On the surface, they’re protestors, but they feel more like a mob. The violent tension brewing outside is almost explosive, a powder keg just waiting for the fuse to be lit.

We pull to the side of the road and stop. It’s a downtown area. Tall brick buildings line both sides of the street. Looks familiar. Manchester, New Hampshire, I think. The driver raises his palms to the people outside the vehicle, mouthing the word, “Sorry,” over and over until they’re placated and move on. But there are more where they came from. Many more. All of them angry. Afraid.

“We’re in an ambulance,” I say. “They won’t move if you hit the siren?”

The driver just shakes his head.

Allenby puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s best to—”

People move for ambulances. It’s a universal fact. I’m not sure why I believe this so soundly, but I do. If staying here is a risk, then we should use the tools at our disposal.

“No, don’t!” the driver shouts.

My finger is already resting on the switch for the siren. I flip it.

The siren blares to life.

But it’s not a siren.

It’s a song. “Do Your Ears Hang Low?”

The plucky tune puts words in my head. “Do they waggle to and fro?” I look at Allenby. “We’re in an ice cream truck?”

But she doesn’t respond. Her eyes are locked straight ahead on the frozen mob of more than a hundred people, all staring at us with hateful eyes. The signs lower. The chanting stops. These people have no real cause. They’re just afraid and angry, expressing it as a hot-button issue bandwagon. But the violence in their eyes is different from the eyes of people with a cause. There is nothing righteous in these people’s eyes. Instead, I see a kind of vacant mania that was commonplace in SafeHaven. These people just lacked an outlet for their pent-up violence. But now I’ve given them direction. The jingle of the ice cream truck, its jovial blare like a mocking voice, has lit the fuse. All of this comes clear to me in a moment. Only one mystery remains. “Why are we in an ice cream truck?”

4

The crowd outside shouts at us. There are so many commingling voices that understanding the individual messages would require a supercomputer. And yet I clearly understand the communal meaning of their words: hate. But why? Who hates an ice cream truck, other than protective, corn-syrup-fearing parents?

“What are they so afraid of?” I ask, not because I’m concerned for their well-being, but because I know there could be a subtle danger that I’m not seeing simply because I wouldn’t fear it.

“How do you know they’re afraid?” Allenby asks.

“People only act like this when they’re afraid.” It’s not a memory. It’s simple knowledge. “I don’t feel what they’re feeling, but I’ve learned to recognize it in other people and understand the kinds of things it can lead to. There is no short supply of fear in a mental institution.”