“What do you want me to say?” she asks.
“Anything. ” I need to hear something besides my own breath, my own tired heart.
Somewhere, before Indie’s words turn into nothing sounds in my ears, I realize that she’s telling me things, many things; that she can’t stop herself from talking now that she thinks I’m too far gone to really listen. I wish that I could pay better attention to the words, that I could remember this. I only catch a few phrasesAlways at night before I slept
and
I thought everything would be different after
and
I don’t know how much longer I can believe
It almost sounds like poetry, and I wonder again if I will ever be able to finish that poem for Ky. If I will know the right words to say when I finally see him. If he and I will ever have time for more than beginnings.
I want to ask Indie for another blue tablet from my pack, but before I can say anything I remember once again how Grandfather told me that I was strong enough not to take the tablets.
But, Grandfather, I think, I didn’t understand you as well as I thought I did. The poems. I thought I knew what you intended. But which one did you want me to believe?
I remember the words Grandfather said when I took the paper from him that last time. “Cassia,” he whispered, “I am giving you something you won’t understand, yet. But I think you will someday. You, more than the rest
. ”
A thought flitters into my mind like one of the mourning cloaks, the butterflies that string their cocoons along the twigs both here and back in Oria. It’s a thought I’ve almost had before but I haven’t let myself finish it until now.
Grandfather, were you once the Pilot?
And then another thought comes, one light and fast and that I don’t grasp completely, leaving me with another impression of gently moving wings.
“I don’t need them anymore,” I say to myself. The tablets, the Society. I don’t know if it’s true. But it seems that it should be.
And then I see it. A compass, made of stone, sitting on a ledge exactly at eye level.
I pick it up, although I’ve dropped everything else.
I hold it in my hand as we walk even though it weighs more than many of the things I have let fall to the ground. I think, This is good, even though it’s heavy. I think, This is good, because it will hold me to the earth.
Chapter 21
KY
Say the words,” Eli tells me.
My hands shake with exhaustion from the hours of work. The sky grows dark beyond us. “I can’t, Eli. They don’t mean anything. ”
“Say them,” Eli commands, tears coming again. “Do it. ”
“I can’t,” I tell him, and I put the sandstone fish down on top of Vick’s grave.
“You have to say them,” Eli says. “You have to do this for Vick. ”
“I already did what I could for Vick,” I say. “We both did. We tried to save the stream. Now it’s time to go. He would do the same. ”
“We can’t cross the plain now,” Eli says.
“We’ll stay by the trees,” I say. “It’s not night yet. Let’s get as far as we can. ”
We go back and gather our things at the camp near the mouth of the canyon. As we wrap up the smoked fish, they leave silver scales on our hands and clothes. Eli and I divide up the food from Vick’s pack. “Do you want any of these?” I ask Eli when I find the pamphlets Vick brought.
“No,” he says. “I like what I chose better. ”
I slide one into my pack and leave the rest. It’s not worth carrying them all.
Eli and I start across the plain walking side by side in the dusk.
Then Eli stops and looks back. A mistake.
“We have to keep going, Eli. ”
“Wait,” he says. “Stop. ”
“I’m not going to stop,” I tell him.
“Ky,” he says. “Look back. ”
I turn and in the last of the evening light I see her.
Cassia.
Even far away, I know it’s her by the way her dark hair tangles with the wind and how she stands on the red rocks of the Carving. She’s more beautiful than snow.
Is this real?
She points to the sky.
Chapter 22
CASSIA
We’re almost to the top; we can almost look out over the plain.
“Cassia, stop,” Indie says as I start to climb an outcropping of rocks.
“We’re almost there,” I say. “I have to see. ” Over the last few hours I’ve felt strong again, clearheaded. I want to stand on the highest point so I can try to see Ky. The wind is cold and clean. It feels good rushing over me.
I climb on top of the highest rock.