We bury Blue by the river. It takes us hours to break through the frozen ground and make a hole big enough to accommodate her. We have to remove her jacket before we bury her. We can’t afford to lose it. She feels so light as we lower her into the ground, just like a baby bird, hollow-boned and fragile.
At the last second, as we’re about to cover her with dirt, Raven pushes forward, suddenly hysterical. “She’ll be cold,” she says. “She’ll freeze like that.” Nobody wants to stop her. She strips off her sweater and slides into the makeshift grave, taking Blue in her arms and wrapping her in it. She’s crying. Most of us turn away, embarrassed. Only Lu steps forward.
“Blue will be okay, Raven,” she says softly. “The snow will keep her warm.”
Raven looks up, her face wild, tear-streaked. She scans our faces once as though struggling to remember who we are. Then she jerks, suddenly, to her feet, and climbs up out of the lip of the grave.
Bram steps forward and starts to shovel the dirt over Blue’s body again, but Raven stops him.
“Leave her,” Raven says. Her voice is loud and unnaturally high-pitched. “Lu’s right. It’s going to snow any minute.”
It does start to snow as we’re packing up camp. It continues to snow all day, as we make our way silently through the woods in a long, ragged line. The cold is a constant pain now, a fierce ache in my chest and fingers and toes, and the snow is mostly driving ice, and burns like hot ash. But I imagine that for Blue it falls more gently, and covers her like a blanket, where it will keep her safely until spring.
now
It’s still raining in the morning.
I sit up slowly. I have a wicked headache, and I’m dizzy. Julian is no longer next to me. The rain is pouring through the grates, long, twisting gray ribbons of it, and he is standing underneath them.
His back is turned to me, and he has stripped down to a pair of faded cotton shorts he must have found when we scavenged for clothing and supplies. My breath catches in my throat. I know I should look away, but I can’t. I’m transfixed by the sight of the rain coursing over his back—broad and muscled and strong, just like Alex’s was—the rolling landscapes of his arms and shoulders; his hair, now dark with water; the way he tips his head back and lets the rain run into his open mouth.
In the Wilds, I finally got used to seeing men naked or half-naked. I got used to the strangeness of their bodies, the bits of curling hair on their chests, and sometimes on their backs and shoulders, to the broad, flat panes of their stomachs and wings of their hipbones, arcing over the waistband of their pants. But this is different. There is a perfect stillness to him, and in the pallid gray light he seems to glow slightly, like a statue carved out of white rock.
He is beautiful.
He shakes his head a bit and water pinwheels from his hair, a glittering semicircle: Happy and unaware, he starts to hum quietly. All of a sudden I am horribly embarrassed: I’m trespassing on a private moment. I clear my throat loudly. He whips around. When he sees me awake, he jumps out of the stream of water and scoops his clothes up off the platform lip, covering himself with them.
“I didn’t know you were awake,” he says, fighting to get his T-shirt on, even though he’s soaking wet. He accidentally gets his head caught in an armhole and has to try again. I would laugh if he didn’t look so desperate.
Now that he has cleaned away the blood, I can see his face clearly. His eyes are no longer swollen, but they are ringed with deep purple bruises. The cuts on his lip and forehead are scabbing over. That’s a good sign.
“I just woke up,” I say as he finally gets his shirt on. “Did you sleep at all?”
Now he’s wrestling with his jeans. His hair makes a pattern of water spots around the neck of his T-shirt.
“A little,” he says guiltily. “I didn’t mean to. I must have dropped off around five. It was already getting light.” His jeans are on. He hauls himself up onto the platform, surprisingly graceful. “Ready to move on?”
“In a bit,” I say. “I’d like—I’d like to get clean, like you did. Under the grates.”
“Okay.” Julian nods, but doesn’t move. I can feel myself blushing again. It has been a long time since I’ve felt this way, so open and exposed. I’m losing the thread of the new Lena, the hard one, the warrior made in the Wilds. I can’t seem to pull myself back into her body.
“I’ll need to get undressed,” I blurt out, since Julian doesn’t seem to be taking the hint.
“Oh—oh, right,” he stammers, backing away. “Of course. I’ll just—I’ll go scout ahead.”