The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,57

a stroller back and forth; the baby, buried in a mound of pink fabric, was asleep. The woman glanced at Lacey and regarded her, momentarily, with suspicion: what was a black nun doing with a little white girl? But then she smiled, a little too forcibly—a smile of apology, of retraction—and the couple moved away down the path.

Amy peered at the map. Lacey didn’t know if she could read, but there were pictures beside the words.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Bears?”

“What kind?”

The girl thought a moment, scanning the images. “Polar bears.” Her eyes warmed with anticipation as she spoke; the idea of the zoo, of seeing the animals, was something the two of them now shared. It was just as Lacey had hoped. As they’d stood there, more people had come through the gate; suddenly the zoo was humming with visitors. “Also zebras and elephants and monkeys.”

“Wonderful,” Lacey said, and smiled. “We will see them all.”

At a snack stand they bought a bag of peanuts and made their way into the zoo’s interior, its rich zone of sounds and smells. As they approached the polar bear tank they heard laughter and splashing and shouts of hilarious terror, a mixture of voices both young and old. Amy, who had been holding Lacey’s hand, released it suddenly and dashed ahead.

Lacey made her way between the shoulders of the people who had gathered at the bear tank. She found Amy standing with her face just inches from the glass that gave an underwater view of the bears’ habitat—a curious sight in the Memphis heat, with rocks painted to look like ice floes and a deep pool of Arctic blueness. Three bears were basking in the sun, lounging like gigantic rugs by a fire; a fourth was paddling in the water. While Amy and Lacey watched he swam right up to them and, fully submerged, bumped his nose on the glass. The people around her gasped; a jolt of pleasurable fear shot down Lacey’s spine, into her feet and fingertips. Amy reached out and touched the sweating glass, inches from the bear’s face. The bear opened his mouth, showing his pink tongue.

“Careful there,” a man behind them warned. “They may look cute, but to them you’re just lunch, little girl.”

Startled, Lacey turned her head, searching for the source of the voice. Who was this man, to try to scare a child like that? But none of the faces behind her returned her look; everyone was smiling and watching the bears.

“Amy,” she said softly, and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Perhaps it’s best not to tease them.”

Amy seemed not to hear her. She leaned her face closer to the glass. “What’s your name?” she asked the bear.

“There now, Amy,” Lacey said. “Not so close.”

Amy stroked the glass. “He has a bear name. It’s something I can’t pronounce.”

Lacey hesitated. Was it a game? “The bear has a name?”

The girl looked up, squinting. A knowing light was in her face. “Of course he does.”

“He told you this.”

The pool erupted with a tremendous splash. The crowd drew a sharp intake of breath. A second bear had leapt into the water. He—she?—paddled through the blue toward Amy. So now there were two, bumping the glass just inches from her face, their bodies big as automobiles, their white fur rippling in the underwater currents.

“Will you look at that,” someone said. It was the woman Lacey had seen at the kiosk. She was standing beside them, holding her infant up to the glass by the armpits, like a doll. The woman, whose long hair was stretched away from her face by a tight ponytail, was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and flip-flops. Lacey could discern, through the folds of her shirt, the still-loose belly of her pregnancy. The husband was behind them, guarding the empty stroller and holding the camera.

“I think they like you,” the woman said to Amy. “Look, sweetie,” she sang, and jiggled the infant, making her arms flap like a bird’s. “See the bears. See the bears, sweetie. Honey, take the picture. Take … the … picture.”

“I can’t,” said the man. “You’re not looking the right way. Turn her around.”

The woman sighed irritably. “Come on, just take it while she’s smiling, is that so hard?”

Lacey was watching this when it happened: a second splash, and then, before she could turn her head, a third. She felt the glass bulge beside her. A ridge of water crested the lip and began to fall, everyone aware of what