The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding: A Novel

“Ruby!” Felix screamed.

It wasn’t the scream of a man whose heart had been shattered by a lover. It was the exclamation of a spoiled child who, for once, had not gotten his way. I galloped to the curb and flagged down one of the checkered cabs that had become plentiful now that gas rationing had made private cars scarce. It took several fumbling tries to open the door before I threw myself inside.

“Where to, lady?” the cabbie asked.

I swung the door shut. Through the window, I saw Felix running out of the grand front doors to stop me. His face twisted with livid fury.

I pounded the back of the cabbie’s seat and yelled, “Gravesend. Brooklyn. Two hundred fifteen West Sixth Street. Go, go, go!”

“Okay, lady! Stop hitting my car!”

He stepped on the gas pedal, and I fell backward with a thump just as Felix reached the curb, his hand nearly touching the door. His car and driver were not out front; all the servants had been told to leave so that no one could witness what he’d done. I turned in my seat and watched as he grew smaller and smaller in my field of vision.

Everything felt terrible. I could barely keep my eyes open, and when I did, the city flew by me in ghastly twists and turns. I would have vomited but for the fact that there wasn’t much in my stomach after days of no food and hardly enough to drink. I pulled on my coat, buttoning it up but still shivering.

Deep in the pockets, I could feel the bottle of zinc chloride. Such a simple compound—a fluffy white crystalline substance composed of one zinc atom bound to two chlorine atoms. A tiny little gift that could tip the balance between having a warm, beating heart and being cemetery fodder. That is, if I could use it properly. If I could survive this nightmare.

I had been so focused on the beauty and violence of the chemicals and plants around me that I’d forgotten there was a larger game to be played. Half the world would win, and half would lose in this second world war. A bullet could kill or save a life; chemicals could do the same in the right or wrong hands, and my hand was being forced. I would have to step into the light, instead of letting the war swirl around me as if it were a play on stage and I were merely a spectator. This was my time to do something. It would take every skill I had to survive and come out on the winning side.

I must have lost consciousness, because I remember waking up.

“We’re here, lady.”

I tried to open the door, but I could barely find the handle. The cabbie got out and opened it.

“That’ll be three dollars twenty cents.”

I had no money. I remember him screaming at me, something about useless, drunk broads, and then I was tripping forward, onward and onward until I was stumbling behind a section of small houses, some attached in a row. An old woman in her backyard raking leaves looked at me aghast. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. But when she saw me, I spewed out the only lucid piece of information in my addled brain.

“Two hundred fifteen West Sixth Street?”

She pointed to a detached house a few doors down, and I followed the direction, weaving drunkenly around nonexistent obstacles. My legs grew so weak and wobbly that I fell to my knees at the back of the house, which looked terribly old and sad, with brown shutters and stairs splintering from overuse and too many New York winters.

I couldn’t take another step. My body was exhausted, wrung out, and scrambled from whatever had been laced in my tea and in the absinthe.

I’ll just rest, I thought. Just for a bit. I’ll save the world after I get a little breather. No one will find me here. Felix won’t find me here.

I’ll be safe. For now.

And under the steps I crawled