Prince of Air by Ann Hood Page B

Maisie’s rain boots tucked into their mother’s Wellies, anyone would know a family lived there.
    â€œOkay,” Felix said.
    His mouth had gone dry, and the word came out like a croak.
    â€œNow let’s see,” Maisie said, “we just have to get to the subway at Lexington Avenue and Fifty-Third Street.”
    â€œI don’t think so,” Felix said.
    â€œYou think we should walk over to Broadway instead?”
    â€œMaisie, think about it.”
    â€œYou want to walk over to Eighth Avenue?” Maisie said, turning west. “Fine with me.”
    â€œMaisie, it’s 1894,” Felix said. “There are no subways yet.”
    Maisie stopped in her tracks.
    She couldn’t imagine New York City without subways. One rainy Saturday, their father had taken them to the Transit Museum. They’d sat in old subway cars and saw the different ways fares had been collected, like the first paper ticket-choppers and the later turnstile designs that accepted coins and tokens. But she couldn’t remember exactly when subways had started.
    â€œGranville T. Woods,” Felix said. “Invented the third-rail system for conducting electric power to railway cars. Without it, we wouldn’t have had subways at all.”
    â€œSounds vaguely familiar,” Maisie mumbled. She hated when Felix knew more than she did.
    â€œAnd as it is,
we
don’t have subways at all right now. I think they’re about ten years away.”
    â€œSo we . . . walk? Sixty blocks?” Maisie did some fast calculating. Over three miles.
    â€œNo,” Felix said. “We take one of those.”
    He pointed upward at an elevated train track with a train clacking along it.
    â€œI suppose it’s as easy as finding one going downtown,” he said.

    It was that easy. Twenty minutes later, Maisie and Felix were crossing Fourteenth Street and heading down Hudson Street. When they reached the corner of Hudson and Bethune, Maisie literally jumped with joy.
    â€œWe’re home, Felix!” she said, clapping her hands.
    Felix stood still, taking in everything around them. It looked the same, but it also looked completely different. Instead of cars moving up Hudson Street, there were carriages pulled by horses. And the smell of horse manure was almost suffocating in the summer air. Felix could actually see piles of it everywhere.
    â€œLook, Felix,” Maisie said, pointing down Hudson.
    On the corner, two blocks away, stood the White Horse Tavern, right where it stood when they lived in the neighborhood. It looked exactly the same, too, just the way it looked when their father went there after work on Friday nights.
    â€œWow,” Felix said.
    He glanced down their block. The corner where a D’Agostino’s supermarket should stand now had an apartment building on it instead.
    â€œNo D’Ag’s,” Maisie said as if she’d read his mind. “But it’s the same building!” she realized.
    â€œYou’re right,” Felix said.
    He took a deep breath and started down their block, Maisie walking close beside him.
    â€œI don’t know why, but I feel kind of creepy,” Felix said.
    They stopped in front of 10 Bethune Street.
    â€œIt looks the same,” Maisie whispered.
    His mouth had gone all dry again so Felix just nodded.
    â€œIf we go around the corner, and you stand on my shoulders, you can look inside our apartment,” Maisie said hopefully.
    â€œWell,” Felix managed, “we’ve come this far. Might as well.”
    They rounded the corner onto Greenwich Street. A light shone in the window of what would have been their living room.
    â€œI guess someone’s home,” Maisie said.
    â€œKneel down,” Felix told her.
    Maisie kneeled as close to the window as she could get, and Felix climbed onto her shoulders. The apartment seemed lower to him. But maybe he had grown in the almost year since he’d last