Close Your Eyes

5

When they were nine, Sylvia and Victoria spent the night in Central Park. Earlier that day, Victoria had handed Sylvia a note as they parted ways after school. On the subway, Sylvia had unfolded it.

Belvedere Castle, midnight tonight, under the dragon. I dare you.

Ever since they had studied the history of Central Park, the public expanse of land that ran from Fifty-ninth Street to 110th Street and between Fifth Avenue and Central Park West, spanning over eight hundred acres, Sylvia had been obsessed with Belvedere Castle. Built in 1865, the castle now served as a weather station. When you climbed to the turret, the highest point in the park, you gained a panoramic view in every direction. The first time Pauline took Sylvia up, Sylvia stood in the afternoon sunlight—shading her eyes to see the Delacorte Theater, the Great Lawn, Turtle Pond—and felt an unfamiliar but thrilling sentiment: power.

Power was something Sylvia had very little of. Pauline controlled Sylvia’s every move outside of school, and Victoria basically told Sylvia what to wear and whom to speak to during the day. Maybe it was to get some measure of strength that Sylvia had begun leaving bugs and even a dead bird in Victoria’s locker. When Victoria ran to Sylvia, almost in tears over the latest disgusting discovery, Sylvia held her friend, savoring the feeling of comforting someone, taking care. In idle moments, Sylvia tried to figure out what sort of shock might lead Victoria to need her even more.

When their class had taken a trip to Central Park, Sylvia had led Victoria away from the group. “Please,” she’d begged. “I want to go to Belvedere Castle.” The chaperoning teacher was distracted, and the girls easily broke away. They held hands as they followed a paper map, eventually reaching the stone building. Above the castle entry was a giant dragon made of metal: an eagle’s face, a serpent’s tail, the wings of a giant bat. “That’s freaky,” said Victoria.

“I love it,” said Sylvia.

It was clammy inside the castle. Sylvia reached out to touch the stone wall, and it was rough and cold. The air smelled of grass and something darker, like rust. The bright afternoon disappeared, replaced by a murky light. Sylvia could still taste her peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich in her mouth.

The girls ignored the tourists peering at skeletons and telescopes (the castle also served as a nature observatory and museum) and climbed to the turret. Their footsteps were heavy and loud in the enclosed space, but the observation tower was flooded with light. As Sylvia stood next to her friend, taking in the view, she wondered—just for an instant—how it would feel to push Victoria off the edge and watch her fall.

The night of Victoria’s dare, Pauline went to bed late, leaving the television on in her bedroom. Sylvia had packed a backpack with a blanket, bread, and one of Pauline’s Coca-Colas. She shouldered the pack and quietly let herself out of the apartment. Her hallway was empty, but she could hear someone shouting on the second floor. Sylvia waited for the shouting to stop, and then she ran downstairs, pushing open the door to East Eleventh Street, which was alive with music and neon lights. No one—not the druggies sitting on the sidewalk, not the man at the newspaper kiosk, not the guitar strummer at the entrance to the subway station—no one noticed Sylvia or asked her what on earth a nine-year-old was doing out of her apartment in the middle of the night. She walked to Greenwich Village, slipped a token into the turnstile.

Sylvia was nervous as she waited for a train in the deserted subway station. Her eyes darted to every shadow, worried that someone would hurt her, push her down. She was ready to fight back: they had learned from a self-defense video in gym class to grab for an assailant’s ear or try to break his or her nose. A group of loud kids in nylon jackets walked by Sylvia, yelling and punching one another, but they did not pay her any mind.

Finally, her train appeared on the track, its lights blazing. Sylvia stepped back as the train halted, the smell of the brakes burning in her nose. There was a man slumped into the corner of the car—asleep? drugged?—but Sylvia sat down far away from him, watching the empty stations as they passed. She got off at Seventy-ninth Street.

It was quieter uptown, and smelled as if a heavy rain had cleansed the pavement while Sylvia was underground. As Sylvia entered the park, her backpack heavy on her shoulders, she heard a woman crying on a bench but ignored her.

It was a spring evening, and the air tasted of asphalt. Jutting out from Vista Rock, the castle loomed large and dark. Sylvia moved toward it quickly, trying not to think about who could grab her, about the stories of murder and rape that Pauline read aloud every day from the newspaper, saying, “Sylvia, listen to this! This is why you come straight home after school …”

She reached the doorway of the castle and squinted, but Victoria was nowhere to be seen. Sylvia was exhausted, the small thrill of a midnight liaison completely faded. She figured she’d wait for a few minutes—and then what? She’d get back on the subway. But the thought of the Union Square station in the dead of night made her stomach heavy.

“Sylvia!” Victoria’s voice came from a shadowed area to the right of the castle.

Sylvia narrowed her eyes but saw nothing. “Vee?” she hissed.

“Over here,” said Victoria.

Sylvia crept toward the sound, hoping her vision would adjust and she could find her way. After a few steps, she saw a shadowy light, and behind a tree, she found Victoria. Somehow, Victoria had smuggled her expensive pink bedspread out of her apartment and spread it out on the ground. She held a lit candle. “You came,” said Victoria, her smile dazzling. “I knew you would. Look!” She lifted a cardboard bakery box. “Chocolate cake!”

All Sylvia’s fears dissipated as she sank down next to her friend. They ate the rich fudge cake with their fingers and drank Pauline’s soda. Then they snuggled under the bedspread, and Victoria blew out the candle. The sky above them was a velvet cape embroidered with diamonds, and Sylvia was filled with an unfamiliar sense of peace. It was so nice to be sleeping outside, not in her stuffy closet space. Victoria took a length of Sylvia’s blond hair and braided it together with her own. She said something softly, and Sylvia said, “Mmmm?”

“I love you,” said Victoria.

Happiness washed over Sylvia. She fell into a deep sleep, perhaps the most complete sleep of her life.

That year for her birthday, Victoria gave Sylvia a silver bracelet with a single charm: a winged dragon. “I got one, too,” said Victoria, latching it around Sylvia’s wrist. “You can never take it off, no matter what. Promise?”

“I promise,” said Sylvia.