As I approached Lock Street, and then the Lock Street Bridge, which would bring me to Black Rock Street and to my house, I began to feel frightened. As if an anesthetic were fading my knee began to hurt. Miriam had warned me—He doesn’t want to see your face.

At the bridge the pain in my knee intensified. My legs became weak. I could not seem to catch my breath. Wind from the river made my eyes water. Below, the Niagara River rushed dark and glittering in patches like the scales of a great snake but there were no black snakes visible in the water near shore. There was no oily-chemical odor to turn my stomach.

Leaning against the railing of the bridge, feeling suddenly tired. On the pedestrian walkway with my back to traffic. Recalling the morning when Katie and I had seen the snakes in the river.

Not long ago. Yet it seemed long ago.

The morning of the day when Hadrian Johnson had been struck down.

The morning of the day when Hadrian Johnson would begin to die.

There came a sharp male voice behind me—“Hello? Miss?”

A South Niagara police cruiser had glided to a stop beside the walkway. One of the officers had rolled down his window and was staring at me.

He’d recognized me, I thought. Children’s Protective Services had sent out an alarm.

Quickly I turned away. Trying not to panic. It would be (falsely) claimed by both police officers that I’d begun climbing over the railing of the Lock Street Bridge, to throw myself in the river, and in that instant the officer nearer me was out of the cruiser and rushing at me fiercely shouting—“No! Stop!” Always I would remember, he was faster than I was. And how fast he was. Gripped my arm, dragged me back from the railing, harder than I could have imagined any adult man might grip me, and when I struggled, sobbing and screaming at him to let me go, he did what law enforcement officers are trained to do, without a moment’s hesitation gripping my arm harder, really hard, behind my back, and raising it, even as he tripped me off-balance so that I fell to the plank walkway, now paralyzed with pain, a pain so intense in my upper arm that I could not even scream, I could not even draw breath, losing consciousness as swiftly as a light is switched off.

He hadn’t even asked my name. Hadn’t taken time. Needing to know only that I was a ward of the court, a runaway. And that was the way South Niagara cops treated runaways.

II

“Praying for Violet”

VIOLET, HERE. A LETTER FOR YOU . . .”

My aunt Irma could not have been more surprised, turning the letter over in her hand, frowning suspiciously.

“The return address is South Niagara. Do you know anyone named G. Pyne? On Highgate Avenue?”