I take his cold, bloody fingers and unwrap them from the moonstones they clasp. I tuck the gems into my bag, and continue working methodically, packing everything away: all of the herbs and minerals, the agate cup and blade, the leftover candles and matches. All the while, my words take Miles down the Stony Path toward the River.
When I’m done, I continue caring for Miles, peeling back the bandage I made by wrapping my shirt around his chest. Blood no longer flows from the bullet hole. I wonder if he will start bleeding again if I move him, and if he does, if it will make any difference.
I smooth back his hair, feeling his cold forehead under my fingertips. I brush his eyelids closed as I sing of what he will see on the Path, and touch his chin to shut his mouth. And then I do something I never did to my other Rite-travelers. I kiss him. I touch my warm mouth to his cold one and, closing my eyes, wish that I could transfer my life to him. That my spirit could slip out from between my lips and reignite his extinguished flame.
I have never known love—at least, nothing other than a child’s love for her parents or the fierce love of friendship. So I don’t know how to label what I feel for Miles. There is something there. An unopened bud. And I hope with all my heart that it won’t die before it’s able to start blooming. Before I can even tell what kind of flower it will be.
More emotion than I have let myself feel for a long time threatens to overwhelm me. For once, I allow it to come. My tears fall onto Miles’s cheeks. Crying is a foreign thing to me, but I let it happen. Until finally, something shifts inside me and the tears stop. I feel empty but strong.
I take a deep breath and rise to my feet. It’s time to go. I have to get him—us—away from here. I’ve done everything I can do to help him begin his path. I can continue the Song later.
I lean over the lifeless corpse of this boy who made me cry. And, though I know he can’t hear me, I fold my arms across my chest and speak loudly and clearly. I speak to the Miles I know—the rebel, the boy who loves to break the rules. I dare him to take his wild, unfocused defiance and direct it toward the task he faces.
“Miles Blackwell,” I challenge. “You better the hell live.”
2
MILES
THE SCENE . . . IT KEEPS REPLAYING AS I SLEEP, over and over again like it’s on loop.
It starts once again, as from the darkness I hear her voice. “Miles,” she says, and it’s like a pure musical note piercing through the thick fog enveloping me. “Miles, are you still here with me?”
My mouth is already open. All I have to do is push out the words, but it is like shoving a boulder up a hill to get them out. “I think so.” I want to see her, but my eyes won’t focus. She is an angel radiating a light so intense it has blurred her features.
“You have to swallow this,” she says. I feel something warm touching my lips and a tangy paste being smeared onto my tongue, and then a flood of water cascading over my mouth, my face. I swallow automatically, and then choke and cough, spasms racking my body. She wipes my mouth with something soft.
The musical notes come again, penetrating the haze. “Miles Blackwell, do you hear me?”
“Yes,” I hear myself respond.
She says something about the Yara. About my becoming one with it. About dedicating my life to the earth. I hear the words but they bounce off me, like I’m made of rubber. My words scratch against my throat. “Juneau, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Miles, do you agree to trade your life of eighty years for one of many hundred?” she continues.
And now my mind is clear enough that her words make sense. Juneau is giving me the Rite. She is giving me the drug that my father is so desperate for. She’s trying to turn me immortal. I wrench my eyes back open, and there she is, shining like a supernova. “If I don’t, do I die?” I ask.
“You might die anyway. But this is my best try,” she confesses, and her eyes are tipped with flames. Flashing. Shining in the candlelight.
I fight to get the words out, but my voice is like dust. “Then I do, Juneau.”
She moves around me and settles my head in her lap. She combs my hair with her fingers, and it feels like she’s stroking my soul. Kneading it into a peaceful rest. I have been holding on so tightly that when I let go and breathe my last breath, it is a comfort. It is a relief.
Before the scene replays once again, there is a pause. It’s long enough for me to formulate my thoughts into questions: Did this really happen? And if so, where am I now?
3
JUNEAU
ALTHOUGH WE’RE HIDDEN FROM THE MAIN ROAD, this deserted cabin a half hour outside Los Angeles won’t hide us from our pursuers for long.
I breathe deeply until the hypnotic daze that floated me peacefully through the Rite evaporates and my mind is once again sharp and clear.