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“Do you want to try again?” Evie asked.
“What the hell. Let’s go.”
This time, Evie held Theta’s hands.
“Are you sure?” Theta asked.
“Pos-i-tutely,” Evie answered.
When Theta Knight finally willed her fire to blossom, what she felt was alive. It was as if the scar tissue of her past was kindling for this new, cleansing fire. It burned away shame. This fire was fuel. Theta was fully awake in her body. She rejoiced in this fact, i
n this body, fully hers. She was letting the fire in slowly, listening to it like Evie had suggested. She could hear Evie asking, “What is it telling you?”
It’s about time, Theta thought. Having Evie near gave her confidence. “I’m going to try to direct it,” she said.
“All right. I’ll hold your arm, instead of your hand, then. But I’m right here, by golly!”
Theta put up her hand and imagined sending the fire out in a straight line, as if it were a piece of fishing line. Her hand warmed, and in a moment, the fire shot forward toward a dying tree.
“Come back,” Theta murmured. “Come back.”
The fire sucked back up into her hand, which smoked slightly. The tree was barely singed.
“How was that?” Evie asked.
“Good,” Theta said and burst out smiling. “Real good.”
“All the cows are safe and accounted for.”
“Well,” Theta said. “I guess it’s a start.”
From the sunroom window, Ling watched Evie and Theta in the field. Ling had judged Evie harshly before, but she was starting to have a complicated respect for Evie now. No, she and Evie would never be best friends, but Ling was starting to understand that you didn’t have to be best friends with someone in order to work with them. The two of them shared a common purpose, and they could work together toward that purpose.
“I think we might do better if we had a common goal in mind,” Ling said later, when they had gathered in the pasture once more. “I think we should try to enter the land of the dead.”
Shortly after they’d arrived in Bountiful, Ling and Jericho had told everyone about the night they’d managed to make brief contact with that other world. She reminded everyone of that now.
“Why wait for him to find us? Why not surprise him at home?” she said.
“That’s a bad idea,” Sarah Beth said.
“Why?” Jericho asked.
“It’s not a good place. Somebody could see us. He could see us. Right, Isaiah?”
“Right,” Isaiah said, looking defiantly at Bill and Memphis.
“Waiting around isn’t safe, either,” Ling said. “I vote we try.”
“All those in favor, raise your hands,” Memphis said, raising his. One by one, the Diviners agreed. All except for Sarah Beth and Isaiah.
“I don’t wanna go,” Sarah Beth said. She seemed genuinely frightened, and Evie thought about the girl’s near-death experience. She wanted to tell Sarah Beth that she understood. After all, it had happened to her, too.
“It will be all right,” Evie said.
“How do you know that?” Sarah Beth said.
“I promised your mother I’d look after you, and I will,” Evie said, hoping to make Sarah Beth feel better. “Here. Let’s stand in a circle.”
