Page 40 (2/2)

Do you need any help? I pause a few feet away

Julian and Gordo turn around

Lena! Julians face lights up, then iain as he realizes I dont intend to coe new place, and now I have nothing to give him

Were okay, Gordo says His hair is bright red, and even though hes no older than Tack, he has a beard that grows to theup

Julian straightens up and wipes his palms on the back of his jeans He hesitates, then co a strand of hair behind his ear Its cold, he says when hes a few feet away You should go down to the fire

Iht, I say, but I put my hands into the ar next to the fire wont help The tents look good

Thanks I think I of it His smile doesnt quite reach his eyes

Three days: three days of strained conversation and silence I know he is wondering what has changed, and whether it can be changed back I know I hi not to say

He is giving entle

You look pretty in this light, he says

Youblind I intend it as a joke, but my voice sounds harsh in the thin air

Julian shakes his head, frowning, and looks away The leaf, a vivid yellow, is still tangled in his hair, behind his ear In that moers through his hair and laugh with hiine? And hell lace his fingers through mine and squeeze Hell say, What would I do without you?

But I cant bring myself to move You have a leaf in your hair

A what? Julian looks startled, as though Ive recalled him from a dream

A leaf In your hair

Julian runs a hand ih his hair Lena, I

Bang

The sound of a rifle shot makes us both jump Birds start out of the trees behind Julian, te into individual shapes Someone says, Damn

Dani and Alex ee fro across their shoulders

Gordo straightens up

Deer? he asks The light is nearly all gone Alexs hair looks almost black

Too big for a deer, Dani says She is a large woman, broad across the shoulders with a wide, flat forehead and almond-eyes She reminds me of Miyako, who died before ent south last winter We burned her on a frigid day, just before the first snow

Bear? Gordo asks

Might have been, Dani replies shortly Dani is harder-edged than Miyako was: She has let the Wilds whittle her down, carve her to steel

Did you hit it? I ask, too eager, though I already know the answer But I a Alex to look at me, to speak to me

Might have just clipped it, Dani says Hard to tell Not enough to stop it, though

Alex says nothing, doesnt register h the tents, past Julian and ine I can srass and sun-dried wood, a Portland smell that makes me want to cry out, and bury my face in his chest, and inhale

Then he is heading down the embankment as Ravens voice floats up to us: Dinners on Eat up or miss out

Coertips Gentle, patient

My feet turn me, and movehot and strong; toward the boy who beco next to it, blotted out by the smoke That is what Alex is now: a shadow-boy, an illusion

For three days he has not spoken to me or looked at me at all

Hana

Want to know my deep, dark secret? In Sunday school, I used to cheat on the quizzes

I could never get into The Book of Shhh, not even as a kid The only section of the book that interested ends and Grievances, which is full of folktales about the world before the cure My favorite story, the Story of Solooes like this:

Once upon a ti the days of sickness, to Each woive the child to the other wo that she would die of grief if the baby were not returned solely to her possession