Ursula nodded determinedly. “New Orleans is out there.”
“What’s New Orleans?” Wes asked from behind us, studying the landscape from beneath the shade of his palm.
“It’s where we’re going.”
“No, we’re not,” Dhuuxo said.
Outside the RV, we stood clustered in two groups, one beside each tired taillight. The ones who wanted to remember—Ursula, me, Ysabelle, Victor, and Intisaar; and the ones who didn’t—Dhuuxo and Wes. Wes was pacing listlessly in vague circles, as if trailing some sort of shifting magnetic attraction, but Dhuuxo was still, staring calmly into Intisaar’s eyes. In the dirt behind us, tiny little lightbulbs the size of grapes were pushing slowly through the earth, unfurling like new crops. Farther back, a carved porcelain teacup the size of a freighter sailed silently past in the sky like a cloud, its smooth, rounded lip tilted at a graceful angle.
“Please, Dhuuxo,” Intisaar said. “Don’t do this.”
Dhuuxo shook her head. “Trust me, walaashaa. Transcendence was right. Not that we should follow them, but that there’s so much more out there than whatever might be in New Orleans. I can feel it.”
“Let’s just go there first,” Intisaar begged. “If you don’t like it, we can leave.”
“No, it’s a mistake. Trying to save what we used to have—that isn’t the way. We have this power for a reason. We’re supposed to use it. We’re supposed to make something new.”
Intisaar wiped her face fiercely, to slap off the tears before they trickled down. “What about me?” she asked. “I don’t want to be new. I want to remember.”
“I know you don’t understand yet,” Dhuuxo said. “But you will soon. I can show you.”
Intisaar turned to us. “If we go faster, we can make it,” she said hurriedly. “If you help me get her back inside, I can hold her. I can remember for the both of us.”
Ursula sighed. If it had been possible, Dhuuxo and Intisaar would be the ones who could do it. But it wasn’t possible.
“We promised,” I finally said. The teakettle was passing now, following after the cup, birds clustered on its spout like dust. The porcelain gleamed in the setting sun. “We have to get everyone there, even if they don’t remember that they wanted to go.”
“I will not go,” Dhuuxo said firmly. “I will undo the vehicle if you try and force me.”
We all tensed. Ursula spread her arms protectively, as if her hands could stop anything from reaching the RV. “The RV is ours,” she said. “It’s going to New Orleans.”
“Are you sure?” Dhuuxo asked. She looked at Wes. “Maybe it’s going somewhere else.”
There was a small, groaning sigh behind us then. The beginning of something. Or the end.
“Dhuuxo, no!” Intisaar screamed. I felt my breath catch, but I couldn’t look at what was behind us now. It was death, emptiness. Ory. I couldn’t move.
But Ursula could. All the air came back into the world suddenly. Everything was a few iterations lighter, like I’d taken off a hat and a coat.
I turned and looked. The RV was the same. It was still the same. It was as I remembered it.
“Go before I kill you,” the silver-haired woman said quietly.
Dhuuxo nodded. She was slicked with sweat, damp from forehead to her shoes. Humid stains crept through her clothes at her armpits, her knees. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I would have let it go. I didn’t mean to—what you had to give up.”
“Go before I kill you,” she said again.
Dhuuxo turned slowly and strode off toward the distant hills, almost floating over the ground. Wes considered for a long moment. “I’m sorry, too,” he said softly. He turned to follow his new, liminal queen.
I hugged Intisaar before she could say anything. “Stay,” I said. “Stay and remember.”
“She’s my sister,” Intisaar whispered helplessly. “I can’t leave her.”
“I know,” I said. Her hand slipped out of mine.
Then there were only four of us, standing beneath Dhuuxo’s glowing moon.
I turned around at last and touched the aluminum side of the vehicle. It felt solid, real. “The RV’s okay? Everything’s okay?” I asked desperately.
Our driver nodded, exhausted. But instead of going back toward the RV, she turned and walked away, into the tall grass waving in the field stretching away from the road. She walked faster and faster.
“Wait!” I cried. I chased after her. Where was she heading? None of us could drive the RV but her. “Wait!” But she just kept going until she was moving at a run. “Stop!” And then she disappeared.
But no—she’d only dropped to her knees, and the grass had appeared to swallow her.
I slowed as I came up behind the gap in the sea of weeds where her body had crumpled the stalks beneath her. She wasn’t moving. Just kneeling there, staring into the distance in silence. The grass hissed softly around us.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said. Her voice was thick. “I just needed—I needed.”
“It’s all right,” I said.