But Mya doesn’t flinch. Instead, she bends her head toward the wound, daring to move closer to Lo, to a place so close she is almost within range of Lo’s grasp. A long slow hiss of breath leaks through Mya’s lips until, finally, she speaks. “So deep . . .”
“It is.” Lo’s reply comes out half cough, half laugh. She gives Mya an eerie smile, her jaw clenched. “I fell . . . when you fell, when we struggled right here, before. The spearhead—I clutched it in my hands, waved it at you. Then . . .” Lo sags, dropping onto one knee. The hem of her parka falls back into place, leaving just a watery trickle of blood still visible beneath it, running down the side of her pants. “It wedged up under my ribs when I landed on the rocks.” She plants her foot and, trembling, rises back to her full height. “I wanted you to know. If my body was found, I didn’t want you to think that you had done it. I guess neither of us did it—”
“We both did it,” Mya says.
A cluster of fast-moving clouds fly overhead; shadows flit across Lo’s face. She shuffles a fraction of a step toward Mya, though it’s impossible to tell under these surreal circumstances—circumstances that seem to hold us suspended above the rules of movement and balance—if she intended to move or not.
“It was my own fault.”
“No,” Mya says. “It was an accident. A fall—”
“Not this,” Lo breaks in, her voice a wet rasp. “Before . . . It was my own fault.” She quiets, bends at the waist, convulses with a syrupy cough, then straightens. “The night I became lost on the gathering trip with your family. I’ve been angry for years about the suffering I endured that night, but I’ve known all along—I couldn’t even admit it to myself, but now I have to . . . I have to admit it to you. . . . It was my own fault.
“So much of both our lives turned on the events of that night and what’s been said of it since then. Now I am going to the Divine, and I don’t want to face her with that lie still on my lips.”
“It was no one’s fault,” Mya says, but I hear something in her voice, some hesitation, like a toe catching on a stone. “It just happened. Let’s not think of that now—”
“I have to—”
“No. You have to let me try to help you.”
My heart slips out of rhythm as I watch Mya slide forward, stretch her foot over the gap that separates them, and reach for Lo. Strength drains from my legs, the rock beneath my own feet sways, as four arms stretch up, Lo shuddering, her hands opening and closing at the ends of her raised arms. Mya slides closer, eases her hands around her shoulders, and enfolds Lo in an embrace.
Time holds still, as if it, too, were wrapped in that embrace. Every rule of nature—of rocks and water—of blood and legs and feet and balance—every rule is held suspended for one long exhale. Until, with a burst of blinding sunlight, the rules are restored. Mya’s feet shuffle over a surface slick with trickling blood mixed with water and the recent memory of ice. Lo’s eyes widen, and something like a gasp escapes her lips. “Help me.”
But it’s too late.
They both jerk, snapping to the side, then righting, almost catching themselves upright, but then tilting, slipping, their arms still entwined, both of them moving as one, plunging into the ravine.
My feet are on the rock, and then they are in the air. Cold burns through me, right to my bones, as I plunge into the water.
White foam rolls around my shoulders, crashing over my head. I dive under, into the current, eyes open, and there, carried along like a leaf on the wind, I see them.
Mya’s arm is extended, her hand clasped to Lo’s belt, tethering them together. They move as one body, feet kicking wildly, transforming the water into a cloud of tiny bubbles that float toward the surface, blocking my view. As bubbles rise, burst, and dissolve away, an agonizing weight presses down on my chest—I need to breathe.
I break the surface and the sun warms my face. My mouth opens and gulps in air. I reorient myself. Downstream I spot Mya, clinging with one arm to a high rock along the side, her fingers bleached white with cold, clawing at the jagged edge. Behind her, the other hand clutches Lo’s hood, Lo’s face bobbing up and down on the surface of the current—one moment above, one moment below.
Mya coughs, clutches at the rock, and screams.
Her voice, a sharp snap, echoes like a thunderclap through the ravine. Her grip on Lo’s hood has given out. Lo floats away from her, disappearing back under the foam.
I fight against every impulse within me, willing my fingers to peel away from the rock.
The current carries me past Mya, the stream rolling downhill. I follow Lo, kicking hard, trying to pull within reach of her. For Mya, I tell myself. For Mya. Lo tumbles in the churning current, her movements in sync with the water’s movements, her blood tinting the stream pink.