I hesitate, anxiety threading though my chest. But when he looks at me, there is strength in them, resolve, and I take some of it for myself. He looks at me like he knows I’m stronger than I might seem. That I’m capable of taking care of myself. And at last I nod, because he needs to know that I’ll do it—that I won’t go looking for him. That Cricket and I will leave without him, if it comes to that. I’ll make sure she’s safe. That I’m safe. But then what? Will we make our way back to the barn eventually? Look for August? Time is running out. But before I can tell him any of this, Noah has turned away, and I watch as he makes his way down to the river, a dark silhouette in the wet, rain-soaked trees, picking a path easily over rocks, then up the far side of the ravine.
And I hope that he’ll—I need him to—come back.
Hours pass. The sky turns dull again, the sun falling to the west, and the walls of the ravine cast long shadows over the river and the cave before the sun has fully set. The air becomes dark, cold. Bitter, teeth-clenching cold.
I pace along the opening to the cave, watching the far side of the river for Noah to appear through the trees. But he doesn’t return.
How long do we wait?
My nerves bounce along my thoughts—imagining all the thingsthat might have happened to him. He could be hurt, injured in the trees on the far side. Or he could have come across Theorists or even scavengers. My mind won’t settle, won’t stop conjuring up reasons I need to cross over the river and look for him. This boy I hardly know.
I pull the postcard from my pocket, tracing the shape of the tall, glittering tower with my fingertip,Paris. La Tour Eiffel, and I think of Mom, of the cabin, the valley. Wishing she was here. Wishing I was safe back in my bed, just for a night, listening to the river outside my window and the stalks of corn in the garden swaying in the wind.
I long for something familiar.
Anything.
But then Cricket’s eyes flutter open and she moans, a pain still inside her, eyes glancing around the cave. “Where’s Noah?” she asks, voice thick with sleep.
I slide the postcard quickly back into my pocket, out of sight. “He went up the far ridge to look for supplies.”
Cricket turns on her side, face pinching as she pushes herself up to sitting. “How long’s he been gone?” She looks pale, chilled, and I retrieve the old, burnt blanket at the back of the cave, shaking out pine needles, dead leaves, and a small orange beetle that falls to the cave floor, then skitters away back into the dark. “Here,” I say, folding it over her. It smells like ash, like rot, but she doesn’t argue. I’m surprised by how unwell she seems—I wonder if she felt this bad when I met her at the saloon, but she’s been hiding it? Or if maybe it’s getting worse, a thing that’s come on quick. Something that’s taken root now, and she won’t be able to shake.
“He’s been gone all day,” I tell her, looking back to the river, reflecting silvery white in the moonlight.
“I’m guessing he told you not to go after him?” She shakes her head, not expecting me to answer, because she already knows. “No point looking for him anyway. We’ll be too slow. Better to wait here.”
But I don’t want to wait.We need to keep moving.Yet, Cricket still looks too weak—she needs more rest. And I can’t carry her. We’ll wait another hour, maybe two. “I can start a fire,” I say. Mom taught me to build fires with a smooth rock and a stick split down the middle. I can even use the charcoal remnants from the last campfire that was burned here.
But Cricket frowns. “We can’t risk the flames being seen.”
So we wait in the dark of the cave, watching the river, the far side of the ravine, for a shadow slinking down through the trees. For Noah to return.
Cricket asks for more pills, and I give her two. She falls asleep beside me, head on the hard ground. With my index finger, I trace the constellation on my neck into the ash near the old campfire. It comforts me, the dark straight lines, each star cluster. The mark of an Astronomer.
I lie on my back next to Cricket, staring up through the pines. Tova and Llitha are just visible above the treetops, twin stars that started it all. But they’ve shifted a little to the south since I first saw them. They’re moving away. Not long now until they’ll be gone, swung wide on their orbit, away from us. To the north lies the dark half of the sky—a black patch empty of stars, where light cannot exist.
It’s the shadow,Mom would say, gesturing with her palm to the place where there are no constellations to memorize or name. No nebulas or Milky Way. Only darkness and nothing else.
I let my eyes sink closed, not wanting to count the stars, not wanting to think about what’s been lost or what comes next. I rest my head against the hard ground of the cave, my rib aching a little—but not nearly as bad as it was—feeling the cold night air against my face, and listening to Cricket’s fevered, restless dreams.
Someone is in the cave with us.
A shadow grows long across the walls; a boot steps beside my ear. I turn my head, slowly, eyes scanning the dark—afraid to move, afraid to make a sound.
But when the shadow comes into view, and my eyes adjust, I see: it’s Noah.
“Tried not to wake you,” he whispers.
I push myself up, relief swelling in my chest. I had thought the worst, feared he wouldn’t come back, and seeing him standing a few feet away, I resist the urge to reach out and touch him to be sure he’s real. Not just a dream. Beside me, Cricket is still passed out, sunk into a deep, wincing sleep. “You were gone a long time.”
He nods softly. “Found an abandoned house up on the other side. Grabbed what I could.” He holds up a crudely made metal canteen for carrying water, dented on one side, and a bit of rope, too short to be useful. He didn’t find much.
“Did you see anyone over there?” I ask.
He kneels down beside the unlit campfire, only a few feet from me, mouth cut into a sharp line. “No one.” Then his eyes lift, and I can see the exhaustion, a burden he carries that he doesn’t want me to see. But there is even more in his bone-weary eyes: a hint of whohe really is, a gentleness he tries to keep hidden. Yet, it’s there all the same. A boy who knows sadness as well as danger. Who perhaps has even known love, who has touched another and felt himself sinking into the comfort of their arms. Who has whispered words in the coldest hours of night and placed his lips on the soft places of someone he’s afraid to lose. He is a boy who looks at me unlike I’ve ever known, likeIam the riddle, not him. Like I am something to be unwound like a spool of thread—something he both fears and longs to be closer to, to peer beneath my skin and see the starlight etched onto my bones. I swallow, and at last he says gently, “Get some sleep. The sun will be up soon, and we’ll need to keep moving.”
Still, he won’t take his eyes away from mine, and for a moment I think he’s going to say something else, his lips parted just a little. But the air between us feels too thin, like it’s about to break, and I pull my gaze away, crossing my arms over my chest.
