Crossed

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.