“What, those two?” he says, looking at them in the rearview and smiling.
Callie is smiling too, but in her sleep and not at us, and Ted makes a little nose twitch like he’s having a dream that he’s a rabbit, and Stan and I start to laugh as quietly as possible so that we don’t wake them. Then Ted’s nose stops twitching and he settles in a bit more, finally finding a comfortable position with his head on Callie’s shoulder, and his mouth relaxes into a gentle grin.
Our Icelings, our brother and sister, are sitting right behind us, smiling. Even Ted is smiling. And I have to say, it looks weird, Ted smiling, like nobody ever taught him how. Like his whole face is learning it for the first time, seizing this moment when he’s asleep to work this problem out.
It’s totally possible this will work out terribly. But we’re here, and they’re happy, and something about this feels right. Like we’re on the right course. Bobby’s right in front of us, and I can see both him and Greta, sitting in the passenger seat, through their rearview mirror. And I can see that Greta’s smiling. And I’m thinking we’re where we’re supposed to be. And whatever this is, we’re going to meet it head-on. Grass crowns and all.
Stan points to a sign on the highway.
ISLAND FERRY, 100 MILES
EIGHTEEN
IT’S AMAZING WHAT a police escort can do in terms of getting you up into Canada.
We’ve been driving for, roughly, forever. At some point we all sort of decided to carpool, or at least the people who weren’t already carpooling, like Stan and me, so that we can all sleep in shifts. After our car-to-car chat with Jayson, which happened around midnight, more and more people started rolling down their windows to introduce themselves, sort of like a game of telephone but with really scary life stakes on the line. Anyway, the two things all of us on the road have in common is that A of all, we all have Iceling siblings, and B of all, we are all exhausted.
So for the past long stretch we’ve been sleeping and driving in shifts all through the night. I imagine this is the kind of thing that, under normal circumstances, would look very suspicious—a bunch of teenagers taking over an entire highway, all of us driving together on the same route with identical siblings in our backseats, not even stopping to sleep in proper beds—but our circumstances are nothing like normal, and it’s actually kind of liberating not to have to worry about being stopped and punished just for being under eighteen. I don’t know about the other cars, but I know that both Stan and I could really use a shower. Or a rainstorm to stand in for one. Applying drugstore pore cleanser in a truck stop bathroom will only get you so far.
All of a sudden, we glide into a stop. Once again, we’ve become just one in an expanse of red taillights. All around us, Icelings are opening car doors or else being stymied by child locks, and it’s so foggy and packed with cars that I can’t see a thing except taillights and Icelings everywhere. So I open the passenger door and step out to get a better look, and then I climb up on the front tire to get an even better one. I shiver and brace myself against the wind, feeling absurdly grateful for the extra parkas and winter gear Bobby had stored in his car—my “warmest parka” feels more like a base layer up here, and in the rush of leaving I forgot about a whole category of clothing called “accessories.” I don’t care that Bobby’s gear is old and smells like mothballs. I tug my new, borrowed fur hat tighter against my ears and squint, then widen, my eyes. We’re stopped at the edge of the sea.
This is it.
Not it it. But this is where we’ve been driving to. This is where the road led. To a parking lot in a place (horrifyingly) called Meat Cove. I see a pier, some docks, and a lineup of several industrial-looking and paint-chipped boats and ships and freighters, and everything looks very, very old. Standing on the dock is a grumpy old sailor wearing a peacoat, a watch cap, and, I kid you not, from what I can see from my vantage point, he has an eye patch and a cane.
Callie’s going home, I think to myself, and I gasp. I cover my mouth, and I cry.
I turn and duck back into the car to see her, to hold her hand. She’s sitting there patiently, looking out to the dock, to whatever lies beyond it. Ted’s clamoring at the child lock. Stan lets him out. I go to open the door for Callie, and, as soon as I do, she’s off and running, along with Ted, toward the other Icelings who’ve already bolted and are now down by the pier.
We others, we siblings, bleary-and blank-eyed, as if in a fever, shepherd the Icelings forward, while our adopted brothers and sisters zoom to and fro, from clique to clique, moving against or herding, reminding me of what a high school reunion might be like if you actually liked high school and missed your classmates.
“Huh,” says Stan. “They all have the same kind of hair.”
“What?”