The Fifth Healer

29.

Just as the guard reaches the velvet rope blocking off front of the monument, when I'm sure he is about to take a look up, I hear the loud buzz of a cell phone vibrating in this otherwise silent, hallowed space. He reaches back and removes his mobile from its belt holder, distracted by something on the screen as he turns his back to the statue. Finally, one good thing that cell phones have done for me.

The guard's stolen flashlight has returned to its official home base on his belt. He's facing the pillars he just walked through. Nice he didn't see me, but now I'm stuck. A thirty-foot drop to a stone floor would almost certainly break my legs or worse. The only other option would be to ride Lincoln like a playground slide-slip down his chest, then over the chair between his knees. But all that movement would undoubtedly draw the guard's attention.

Then I feel like there's a face looking at me after all, a face that's been staring at me the whole time. It's a face, or at least a shape that reminds me of one, subtly carved into the curls of hair on the back of Lincoln's head. Holding onto one of his ears-large union-preserving, Gettysburg-address sized ears, ears as big as both my hands-I shift my weight slightly for a better look, making a small swish. The guard twitches.

Wait...ears.

I feel a ping in my brain. A memory of something.

I saw something recently, something ear-related. I look at Lincoln's ear again, where I'm gripping the top of his earlobe. Hey, wait. The tattoo. I have a tattoo on my right ear. I saw it after my shower. On the top inside of the earlobe. An up arrow.

I look up. The ceiling is a grid of bronze girders supporting tiles of candle-yellow marble. I hadn't noticed until now, but the stone is actually emitting light. The stone ceiling must be cut incredibly thin and lit by bright lights in an attic. During the day, they're probably lit naturally by light from the sun. The sun has been a key piece of many of the clues and riddles so far. Is this ceiling what my tattoo was pointing me toward?

It's the only thing I see when I look up, but even so I can't see any way up to get up to the ceiling. I don't know how it can help me in this situation.

What if, instead, the tattoo points to my ear because I'm supposed to do something with Lincoln's? I slowly bring my other hand over to grip Lincoln's ear with both hands, right on the corresponding location of my tattoo. I tug it gently up, in the direction of the arrow. Nothing. Which makes sense-it's made of stone.

I pull harder anyway. I feel the ear click up a notch, like turning on a light switch. Something shifts inside the head of the statue. I let go of his ear. Lincoln's parted hair slowly lifts, rotating silently from a perfectly balanced hinge hidden inside his forehead. The whole lot rotates off, like a hairpiece, as if his marble hair was the removable cap to a bottle. I watch wide-eyed as it moves without the slightest sound-a remarkable feat considering how heavy that stone must be. His hair is standing straight up, as if balanced on top of his forehead, like a circus trick. I peer over his ear and, looking down inside his head, discover it's hollow. A person-sized hole cuts down through his body. What's more, a ladder is fixed to the wall of the passageway. I can't tell how far it goes because of the darkness. But it goes down deep, far deeper than the statue itself.

I don't waste a second. I carefully climb into the escape hatch, standing on a rung of the ladder. I descend quickly. When I reach the bottom-way, way down-I look up at the hatch, now just a tiny bright pinpoint, at the exact moment it begins to shut slowly, resealing the statue's hair. Behind me is a standard exit door. I push it open and find myself in a grassy area behind the monument building. I step out and let the door shut, looking behind me to discover the door is hidden by thick vines clinging to the outer wall.

What happened to Ainsley? Is she at a police station somewhere?

With plenty of time remaining until 1:15, I walk around the front of the monument, returning my cravat to its normal position. I decide to look around while I wait. Walking on a nearby sidewalk, I see no tourists but three park rangers, each scanning the ground with a flashlight like the one Ainsley took. They're looking for someone-Ainsley. But they ignore me.

I make my way down the stairs and wander along a sidewalk, eventually ending up near the Vietnam Memorial, As I walk, I hear a "pssst" from a bush. I stop.

"Nikolai, over here," whispers Ainsley.

I can't see her.

"Bend down," she says.

I do, finding space between two thick plants. When I say space, I mean enough room for small mammals, maybe a dog. Not exactly human-friendly. But I'm so happy to hear Ainsley's voice that I don't complain. I just crawl through the hole, finding myself in a clearing just tall enough to sit up in.

"What were you thinking back there?" I say. "You could've been arrested."

"You're welcome. Are they still looking for me?"

"They're everywhere."

"Please tell me you got the feather."

I nod. "Thanks to you."

I notice that our knees are touching. That's how cramped we are in this small space. I instinctively tense my hips, not wanting my legs to press too hard into hers. Not because of my prosthesis or anything-it ends below my knee, so both of my knees are all-organic, cage-free joints-but because I don't want to push disrespectfully into her personal space. She was in these bushes before I was, after all. It's her hideout. Her space.

As the sun rises, though, the area becomes less of a hideout and more of a fishbowl. The branches and small leaves were enough to keep us hidden in the black-and-white beams of flashlights during the night, but they don't provide enough privacy from the all-seeing rays of the sun. Joggers are beginning to run by with increasing frequency, and more often than not, they double-take when they see us, slowing down briefly to try and figure out what they are looking at.

We spot two park rangers coming this way on the sidewalk. Did the security guard bring in the park rangers as backup? Are they still on the hunt for someone Ainsley's height with freckles and chestnut hair?

"They're gonna see us," I say, speaking softly, even though they're still far out of earshot.

"You think?" she whispers back.

"So what do we do?"

"We let them," she says. "Let them see us."

"Won't they, you know, arrest you?"

"Not if they don't recognize me," she says with a conspiratorial smile.