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She believed in my father and went to his meetings. He walked out with her in the desert after the storms and kept her company while she found hollows filled with rain and painted with water. He wanted to make things—changes—that would last. She always understood that what she did would fade away.
When I see Cassia dancing without knowing she’s doing it—turning and turning in delight as she looks at the paintings and carvings in the cave—I understand why my parents both believed as they did.
It’s beautiful and it’s real, but our time together could be as fleeting as snow on the plateau. We can either try to change everything or just make the most of whatever time we have.
Chapter 26
CASSIA
Ky leaves one flashlight on so that we can see each other while we talk. When Eli and Indie fall asleep, and Ky and I are the only two left, he switches off the light to save it. The girls on the cave walls dance back into darkness and we are truly alone.
The air in the cave feels heavy between us.
“One night,” Ky says. In his voice, I hear the Hill. I hear the wind on the Hill, and the brush of branches against our sleeves, and the way he sounded when he first told me he loved me. We have stolen time from the Society before. We can do it again. It will not be as much as we want.
I close my eyes and wait.
But he doesn’t go on. “Come with me outside,” he says, and I feel his hand on mine. “We won’t go far. ” I can’t see him; but I hear a complicated mix of emotion in his voice and feel it in the way he touches me. Love, concern, and something unusual, something bittersweet.
Outside, Ky and I walk down the path a little way. I lean back against the rock and he stands before me, reaching up to put his hand along my neck, under my hair and the collar of my coat. His hand feels rough, cut from carving and climbing, but his touch is gentle and warm. The night wind sings through the canyon and Ky’s body shields me from the cold.
“One night . . . ” I prompt him again. “What’s the rest of the story?”
“It wasn’t a story,” Ky says softly. “I was about to ask you something. ”
“What?” The two of us draw together under the sky, our breath white and our voices hushed.
“One night,” Ky says, “doesn’t seem like too much to ask. ”
I don’t speak. He moves closer and I feel his cheek against mine and breathe in the scent of sage and pine, of old dust and fresh water and of him.
“For one night, can we just think of each other? Not the Society or the Rising or even our families?”
“No,” I say.
“No what?” He tangles one of his hands in my hair, the other draws me closer still.
“No, I don’t think we can,” I say. “And no, it isn’t too much to ask. ”
Chapter 27
KY
I never named anything I’ve written before
no reason to
since
it would all have the same title anyway
—for you—
but I would call this one
one night
that night
when we let the world be only you
and only me
we stood on it while it spun
green and blue and red
the music ended
but we
were still
singing
Chapter 28
CASSIA
When the sun comes into the Carving, we are already on the move again. The path is so narrow that we usually have to walk single file, but Ky stays near me, his hand on the small of my back, our fingers brushing and clinging every chance we get.
We have never had such a thing before—a whole night to talk, to kiss and hold on—and the thought and we never will again keeps coming back to me, will not stay buried where it should, even in the beautiful light of the Carving morning.
When the others woke, Ky told us what he thought our plan should be: get back to the township by evenfall and try to slip into one of the houses farthest from where he saw the light. Then we’ll keep watch. If there’s still only one light, we can try to approach in the morning. There are four of us and, Ky thinks, only one or two of them.
Of course, Eli is so young.
I glance back at him. He doesn’t notice. He walks on with his head down. Though I’ve seen him smile, I know the loss of Vick weighs heavily on both of them. “Eli wanted me to say the Tennyson poem over Vick,” Ky told me. “I couldn’t do it. ”
In the lead, Indie shifts her pack and looks back at us to make sure we still follow. I wonder what would have happened to her if I had died. Would she have cried for me, or would she have gone through my things, taken what she needed, and moved on?
We steal into the township at dusk, Ky in the lead.
I didn’t look closely when we came through before, and now the homes intrigue me as we move quickly down the street. People must have built their own, each house different in some way from the one next to it. And they could walk into each other’s residences, cross each other’s thresholds whenever they wanted. The dirt paths speak of this; unlike the ones in the Borough, the paths here do not go straight from front door to sidewalk. They wind, they web, they interconnect. The people have not been gone long enough for their comings and goings to have been completely erased. I see them there in the dirt. I almost hear their echo in the canyon, the callings-out: hello, good-bye. How are you?
The four of us crowd inside a tiny weathered house with a watermarked door. “I don’t think anyone saw us,” Ky says.
