“No—no sleeping. I need you to stay awake. I need company. Someone to talk to.”
“What are we going to talk about?”
Rolling the firestick between my fingers, I hesitate. “What do you think we should talk about?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked this question. There are countless things that could be said between us, and probably countless more that should be left unsaid.
I grasp the firestick between my palms, one end buried in a notch cut in the fireboard, surrounded by fistfuls of dry grass like clumps of human hair. Rubbing my hands back and forth, I twirl the stick like a drill. My hands pass down the entire length of the stick once, twice, three times. Friction builds, and at last a ribbon of smoke curls around the board.
Distracted by my task, I almost forget the question I asked you. I’m not sure how long you’ve been silent. “Mya?”
“Fine,” you say, the word scratching in your throat like you’ve swallowed bits of gravel. “I’ll try to stay awake, but you need to give me something to stay awake for.”
“Meaning?”
“Why don’t you tell me a story?”
“I don’t know any stories.”
An ember catches. An orange glow blooms in the kindling. I lie on my side and blow a steady stream of breath into the grass, coaxing out garlands of smoke.
“Everyone who’s ever lived has a story to tell, Kol.”
As the fire spreads I sit up, turning your words in my mind. What could I possibly tell you? All my stories have become entwined with yours. “What do you want to hear?” I ask.
“Tell me something wonderful—a story that’s startling and marvelous.” Despite your grogginess, there’s a lilt of expectation in your voice. “Tell me about the most startling and marvelous day of your life. . . .”
I watch the flame grow until the fire spreads from the kindling to the larger branches. Then I let my eyes fall shut. The light of the fire dances on the backs of my eyelids like the sun overhead on a summer day.
“I lie in the grass with my eyes closed,” I start, “listening for the whir of honeybee wings. . . .”
THIRTY
I don’t know how long I talk, but I tell Mya everything. Every moment since we met in the meadow—she relives it all through my words.
She sits still, her back against the wall. All the while she hardly moves. At times she flinches, pulls her knees a bit closer to her chest. Everything I tell her—our story—she already knows, yet it’s all still new, all seen through my eyes.
Pulling her from the water and carrying her, half conscious, to this cave—those are the last things I describe for her. My words trail off. There is nothing more to say.
The rain has finally stopped. Silence surrounds us. For a moment we sit without speaking. Drips fall at intervals across the mouth of the cave, creating a pattern of sound almost musical in its cadence.
All at once, Mya shifts away from the wall as if reacting to a distant voice calling her name, then wobbles and sags forward onto her knees. I lurch toward her and catch her by the elbow, but she draws away. “The fire.” The words slip from her lips with a vague agitation so that I immediately turn and check the fire pit.
“It’s fine,” I say, but she turns away.
“The fire at your camp, the fire . . . what Lo’s people did . . . I wish . . .” She trails off. “And Chev . . . he’s all right? He will survive?”
“Yes—”
“And the others of my clan?”
“Most . . . most appeared to be doing well,” I say, not wanting to lie. The truth is, I don’t know if any have died. I saw many hurt, but why burden her with that now?
Mya crawls away, moving toward the opening of the cave. Like last time we were here, I am left with only her silhouette. She sits cross-legged, looking out into a mist that rolls up from the sea, a thick warm haze pushing in to replace the fleeing cold.
Something about the hard, dark shape of her against the billowy clouds is so sad that it sends a shiver through me and I crawl up beside her and sit. Looking over, her profile is fixed and unreadable—neither relaxed nor tense, just intent and focused, though nothing, not even the foam on the waves, can be seen through this fog. She must be focused on something else, something unseen.
I lean toward her, sliding my hand across the cold, damp space between us. The tips of my fingers graze the back of her hand, trace a slow circle on her cool skin, then come to rest, draped across her fingers. I wait, counting my breaths—one, two, three. When I get to five and she hasn’t pulled away, I wrap my fingers around hers.