Liberty Falling-pigeon 7 by Nevada Barr Page B

southeast corner of Ellis, its windows looked out on both Liberty and Manhattan. This, Anna decided, would be where she would have her city abode. Two or three hundred grand and the place could be made livable.
    The sun had sunk into the blood-red miasma over the western horizon. Shadows lost their edges and migrated out from closets and corners to cloak the passages and pool in the middle of the rooms.
    It was time to get back to the world of the living. Even in the broad light of day these ruins were hazardous, and Anna hadn't thought to bring a flashlight. Prosaic physical danger, real as it was, wasn't the only thing that spurred her to finish her explorations. With coming darkness, the place was beginning to feel creepy. Like any self-respecting ruin, Ellis Island had its ghost stories. The first day Anna had lunched in the employee break room, the actors hired for the summer to portray immigrants filled her in on the paranormal wildlife. At noon she'd been polite but skeptical. Now, close to nightfall, in the confusing, disintegrating maze that was Island HI, stories of women in white, strange cries and flickering candles in abandoned attics were no longer amusing. With the willies came a preternatural sense of hearing. Shuffles and whispers, creaks and skritches that had been inaudible when sunlight was streaming in began to take on a sinister orchestration.
    "Nerves are shot," Anna said. Her voice startled her and she wished she hadn't spoken aloud, called attention to herself.
    Across the harbor the city would be donning its evening dress; she decided she would find her way above stairs, take in the view, then come back down and return to Island I by the outdoor path that ran along the eastern side of the island to the slip where the ferries docked.
    Leaving the open area of the ward for the stairs, she realized how much of the day was gone. For a moment she had to wait in near darkness for her eyes to adjust. The stairs were in bad shape. Risers were missing. Plaster, moss and mold covered others so it was impossible to guess at their condition. The rail, but for the upper third, had fallen away from the wall and lay partway down the stairwell. In the black recess beneath the steps, between a rotting upright and a door to another room or closet, was a small storage cache long abandoned like the rest of the islands. A rank smell both sweet and nasty permeated the air. The wise choice was to wait till daylight returned, but then the view would be lost. Taking pains to stay near the wall where the support would be strongest, and never to put all her weight in any one place, Anna eased up the staircase.
    Manhattan's lights seen from the high windows of the upstairs ward were worth the climb. The harbor sparkled with its own brand of industrial fireflies and the bridges were strung with necklaces whiter than diamonds and bisected by the ruby and gold of auto running lights. All this against a sky of pale sea green. Enjoying the show, breathing the soft air of a June evening, Anna stayed longer than she had intended.
    When she finally turned to go, darkness had crept closer. As had the ghosts. Mocking herself even as she listened for clanking chains and spectral footsteps, she made her way back through the inner twistings of the building, darkened by empty cupboards and closed doors, to where she remembered the stairs being.
    Shut away from dusk's ambient light, she felt her way along, trailing her fingers against one wall and straining her eyes for the gleam from a polished drawer handle, any scrap of light to focus on. Flapping, sudden and loud, stopped her heart for an instant. Pigeon, she reminded herself. The old hospital was haunted by roosting pigeons.
    The head of the stairs brought some small relief. Though the bottom opened into an unlighted hallway, to her night-wide irises the faintest tinge of gray was discernible where the hall angled into the downstairs ward room with its generous windows. Wishing she'd been