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“What the hell good is my intuition if it’s faulty? It didn’t fucking work today.”
“Maybe Ford was fated to die; maybe, despite your new intuition, you can’t change fate. Remember when we first met him? You said then that had we not been going to Madras and stopped when and where we did, he would’ve died. Maybe, no matter what, there was nothing we could’ve done about it, and that’s why you didn’t know it was going to happen.”
“This has messed me up, Mercury.” Stella shook her head. “I don’t know how to be me after what happened today.”
“It’s like what we told Karen last night. You have to accept yourself—and that means flaws and all.” Mercury sighed and stood. Instantly, Khaleesi was on her feet beside her. “I’m going to go to pee and then try to sleep.”
Stella looked up at her. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Mercury bent and kissed her best friend on her tear-damp cheek before walking slowly from the cave.
It was another clear, cold night. The sky was so alight with stars that Mercury didn’t need the lantern. First, she headed to the truck, where she retrieved the boom box that she’d already loaded with the correct CD. Then she picked her way back to the newly dug mound of earth under which Ford rested.
Khaleesi lay at the edge of the dirt as Mercury turned on the boom box. She kept the volume low, pulled off her boots and walked to the center of the grave. She dug her feet into the freshly turned earth and breathed deeply of the scents of the clay and cedar, sagebrush and juniper that surrounded her. From her pocket, she brought out Ford’s switchblade, opened it, and pressed its razor-sharp edge to her palm, where, a lifetime ago, she had accidentally cut herself and first begun to learn about the changes that were happening to them.
As scarlet bled from her hand, Mercury began to hum the melody of “Strawberry Wine” along with Deana Carter’s sweet voice. Slowly at first, and then with more joy as she relaxed into the tempo, Mercury waltzed over the earth while her blood softly rained all over Ford’s grave.
She felt the change and didn’t need to look, though after the song ended and she’d taken the last steps of the solitary waltz, Mercury did glance down. The top of the grave was covered with yellow wildflowers that tickled her toes and lent their sweet fragrance to the somber night.
“I would’ve liked to have made a new world with you too,” she whispered to his grave. “I’ll miss you, Oxford Xavier Diaz. A lot.”
Mercury retrieved the boom box, and she and Khaleesi walked slowly, silently, back to the cave, but instead of going inside, they went to the little knoll on which Imani stood as she stared into the southwest.
Mercury didn’t say anything at first. She just stood beside Imani in the silent, but attentive night. Mercury didn’t look to the southwest. There was nothing there for her. Instead, she turned her gaze up, imagining that Ford might look up at the same star-filled sky from the Summerlands and, maybe, mourn with her for what they’d lost.
Imani gasped, which pulled Mercury’s attention from the stars.
“What’s wrong?” She whispered the question to her friend, not wanting to break the listening silence.
“He will come!” Imani said.
“Huh? Who’s he?”
Imani turned her face, and her dark, expressive eyes glowed the emerald green of the fog.
“The Destroyer. Prepare or perish.”
