The Changeling

by Victor LaValle

“I know where we are,” William said. “This must be North Brother Island.” William didn’t consult his device this time. He could recite the history from memory. “North Brother Island remained uninhabited until 1885, when Riverside Hospital was established to treat victims of smallpox. In time the hospital treated victims of other quarantinable diseases. After World War II, the island became housing for war veterans. And in the fifties it became a treatment center for drug addicts, though it eventually closed because of corruption among the staff.” William moved the phone’s spotlight over the hydrant. “In that time the hospital grew to include the original treatment center, a library, dorms for the staff, a chapel, a foundry, a stockhouse and a coal storage house, a doctor’s cottage, a recreation center, and a morgue. It even had sidewalks and roads.” Apollo and William didn’t realize it, but they were already walking on concrete, only inches below the overgrowth. North Brother Island housed a small town that had been reclaimed by the earth. If it had been daylight, they would’ve already spotted a few of the larger derelict buildings, but for now those were camouflaged by the night and vegetation. So they stayed by the fire hydrant, marveling at it as if they’d unearthed a spaceship.