IM STANDING THE MIDDLE OF THE DRIVE AND STARE up at the house.
It is light pink, almost like cake frosting, sitting ten feet above the ground on wooden stilts.
A palm tree sways in the front.
In the back of the house a pier extends twenty yards into the Gulf of Mexico.
If the house were a mile to the south, the pier would bein the Atlantic Ocean.
Henri walks out of the house carrying the last of the boxes,some of which were never unpacked from our last move.
He locks the door, then leaves the keys in the mail slot beside it.
It is two o'clock in the morning.
He is wearing khaki shorts and a black polo.
He is very tan, with an unshaven face that seems downcast.
He is also sad to be leaving.
He tosses thefinal boxes into the back of the truck with the rest of our things.
That's it, he says. I nod.
We stand and stare up at the house and listen to the wind come through the palm fronds.
I am holding a bag of celery in my hand.
I'll miss this place, I say.
Even more than the others.
Me too.
Time for the burn?
Yes.
You want to do it, or you want me to do it.
Henri pulls out his wallet and drops it on the ground.
I pull out mine and do the same.
He walks to our truck and comes back with passports, birth certificates, social security cards, checkbooks, credit cards and bank cards, and drops them on the ground.
All of the documents and materials related to our identities here, all of them forged and manufactured.
I grab from the truck a small gas can we keep for emergencies.
I pour the gas over the small pile.
My current name is Daniel Jones.
My story is that I grew up in California and moved here because of my dads job as a computer programmer. Daniel Jones is about to disappear.
I light a match and drop it, and the pile ignites.
Another one of my lives, gone.
As we always do, Henri and I stand and watch the fire. Bye, Daniel, I think, it was nice knowing you.
When the fire burns down, Henri looks over at me.
We gotta go.
I know.
These islands were never safe.
Theyre too hard to leave quickly, too hard to escape from.
It was foolish of us to come here. I nod.
He is right, and I know it.
But Im still reluctant to leave.
We came here because I wanted to, and for the first time, Henri let me choose where we were going.
Weve been here nine months, and its the longest we have stayed in any one place since leaving Lorien.
I'll miss the sun and the warmth.
I'll miss the gecko that watched from the wall each morning as I ate breakfast.
Though there are literally millions of geckos in south Florida, I swear this one follows me to school and seems to be everywhere I am.
Ill miss the thunderstorms that seem to come from out of nowhere, the way everything is still and quiet in the early-morning hours before the terns arrive.
Ill miss the dolphins that sometimes feed when the sun sets.
Ill even miss the smell of sulfur from the rotting seaweed at the base of the shore, the way that it fills the house and penetrates our dreams while we sleep.
Get rid of the celery and Ill wait in the truck,
Henri says. Then its time.
I enter a thicket of trees off to the right of the truck. There are three Key deer already waiting.
I dump the bag of celery out at their feet and crouch down and pet each of them in turn.
They allow me to, having long gotten over their skittishness.
One of them raises his head and looks at me. Dark, blank eyes staring back.
It almost feels as though he passes something to me.A shudder runs up my spine.
He drops his head and continues eating.
Good luck, little friends, I say, and walk to the truck and climb into the passenger seat.
We watch the house grow smaller in the side mirrors until Henri pulls onto the main road and the house disappears. Its a Saturday.
Iwonder whats happening at the party without me. What theyre saying about the way that I left and what theyll say on Monday when Im not at school.
Iwish I could have said good-bye.
Ill never see anyone I knew here ever again.
Ill never speak to any of them.And theyll never know what I am or why I left.
After a few months, or maybe a few weeks, none of them will probably ever think of me again.
Before we get on the highway, Henri pulls over to gas up the truck.
As he works the pump, I start looking through an atlas he keeps on the middle of the seat.
We've had the atlas since we arrived on this planet.
It has lines drawn to and from every place weve ever lived.
At this point, there are lines crisscrossing all of the United States.
We know we should get rid of it, but its really the only piece of our life together that we have.
Normal people have photos and videos and journals; we have the atlas.
Picking it up and looking through it, I can see Henri has drawn a new line from Florida to Ohio.
When I think of Ohio, I think of cows and corn and nice people.
I know the license plate says THEHEARTOFITALL. What All is, I dont know, but I guess Ill find out.
Henri gets back into the truck.
He has bought a couple of sodas and a bag of chips.
He pulls away and starts headingtoward U.S. 1, which will take us north.
He reaches for the atlas.
Do you think there are people in Ohio? I joke.
He chuckles. Iwould imagine there are a few.
And we might even get lucky and find cars and TV there, too.I nod.
Maybe it wont be as bad as I think.
What do you think of the name John Smith,I ask.
Is that what youve settled on?
I think so,I say. Ive never been a John before, or
a Smith.
It doesnt get any more common than that.
I would say its a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Smith.
I smile. Yeah, I think I like John Smith.
Ill create your forms when we stop.
A mile later we are off the island and cruising across the
bridge. The waters pass below us.
They are calm and the moonlight is shimmering on the small waves, creating dapples of white in the crests.
On the right is the ocean, on the left is the gulf; it is, in essence, the same water, but with two different names.
I have the urge to cry, but I dont.
Its not that Im necessarily sad to leave Florida, but Im tired of running.
Im tired of dreaming up a new name every six months. Tired of new houses, new schools.
I wonder if itll ever be possible for us to stop.