Lees notices him, and when she turns back to me, fear replaces the exhaustion in her eyes. “Who is that?”
“I don’t know,” I call. Panic and fatigue snarl my thoughts. He must be from the clan on the river. Is he trying to drive us away? Or to stop us from paddling too far out? “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. We have to stay ahead of him.”
Even after being at sea since midday, fear motivates us. Once we agree to outrun the stranger, our combined efforts are too much for him. He drops back. I see him raise his paddle and lay it across the deck of his boat. He’s given up.
When I see him turn back toward shore, I let myself slow. I glance at Lees, but she is no longer looking back at me. She is staring straight ahead.
I look past her shoulder—to gaze once again into the immense and limitless sea—and I see what has caught Lees’s attention. Not far away the shore of a rocky island looms up and out of the dark water. Another rises right behind it, and behind that one, another.
We have reached the string of islands and they are just as Roon described—like beads strung on a cord, pointing us out to sea. Lees and I slow and then wordlessly steer the kayak beyond one island, and then the next, fighting against all instinct, pushing farther out to sea as the night comes down.
The sky is impossibly pale, as if covered by a coating of snow. It’s so pale—so washed in the long summer twilight—the starlight can’t break through. If only I could see the stars—the campfires of those who inhabit the Land Above the Sky—I could follow their pathways and stay on a westward course.
I wish I had a truly black sky—an obsidian sky—so I could clearly see the trails of light. I think of Kol and the burial ceremony for his father that took place today. Somewhere in tonight’s sky a new star will shine, when Kol’s father builds his first campfire among the dead.
Lees and I turn and look over our shoulders more and more frequently the farther west we move. Our eyes squint into the distance as we both watch the edge of the last island disappear.
“We should be there soon!” Lees calls, her voice fired with anticipation. This is her way—to make the best of the worst. To choose excitement when she could choose dread.
I’m so glad she’s here to balance out the darker voice in my head.
We paddle hard, watching the horizon, my eyes sweeping south to account for the northward drift of the waves, until at last I glimpse a shadow on the water.
The eastern edge of an island.
I flick a look at Lees. A fire lights in each of her eyes as a smile as warm as a roaring hearth breaks across her face.
Our oars stab the water in unison, turning the kayak slightly south, as the shadow on the water grows bigger and darker. The silhouette takes shape—trees and ledges and outcroppings of rock gain clarity as we pull closer.
We have lost almost all light, but all my fear is gone.
By the time we pull the kayak onto the beach, the sun will finally disappear for its brief rest, and the stars will shine at last. I’ll be able to lie on my back on the beach and look up and see their light, like a sign from the Divine. I’m so full of hope for this, I almost don’t notice the change in the sea.
At first, I think it’s only me—that my exhausted arms are not responding to me as I think they should. I stroke the water on the left side of the kayak, but the kayak still veers left. I push harder, dig faster, and I see that Lees does, too. But still the kayak pushes south.
Until all at once a wave picks us up and turns us, dropping us so hard, water splashes across my face. This boat suddenly feels much smaller than it did a few moments ago.
Like this—fighting against a suddenly stormy sea—a stormy sea despite a clear, windless night—we fight our way to shore.
At last, with legs wobbling like stalks of kelp, Lees and I tumble out of the kayak into the shallow water and haul it up onto shore. The grade is steep, and we just manage to get it out of the sea and up onto solid ground, when the ground goes out from under us.
I find myself beside Lees, both of us on our hands and knees, as the island shakes beneath us.
TEN
My mind goes back, reeling to the moment in the canyon, as the mammoth herd thundered by. My cheek braces against the cold sand, and I bite the inside of my lip. My mouth fills with the taste of bile and blood.
Then everything stills. Just as I begin to believe the foot of the Divine will appear on the sand in front of my eyes, the shaking stops.
The stillness stretches. Could the feet of the Divine have passed over these islands like stepping-stones? Could this be our punishment for having traveled beyond the horizon?
If so, she has moved on, at least for now.
I find the strength to lift my head, and my eyes meet Lees’s.
Her gaping gaze darts from my face to the ground to the sea and back again. Her hands, clutched to her chest, shake as if the ground were still moving. “Do you think that’s my fault?” she asks. “Because Roon and I angered the Divine?”
Her sweet self-reproach overcomes my anxiety, and I sit up. “No,” I say. “I don’t think anything you’ve ever done could anger the Divine that much.”
“But you said—”
“I said if you and Roon ran away and he didn’t attend his father’s burial—”
“Then what? What could have brought that on?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s stopped for now. Whatever brought it on, let’s hope it’s over.”
We pull the boat far enough up away from the water that we are sure high tide won’t reach it, but I tell Lees to leave it right there—right in the wide-open space, away from trees and cliffs. The sky is finally black, the stars finally shining. I don’t dare trek back under cover. Not after that quake. Instead I ask Lees to dig out something for us to eat while I spread the mammoth hide across the cold ground.
“We’ll sleep right here,” I say. Even though I know it’s the only choice, the chilled air that swept in with the dark sky sends a shiver through me. “It won’t be cozy, but at least nothing will fall on us.”
Lees spreads out a piece of caribou hide and places on it a full skin of water and two piles of dried mammoth meat and berries. It’s nothing grand, but it fills our stomachs. Fear had soaked into every bone of my body during the quake, but it finally drains away, replaced by a deep ache. Dragging ourselves despite our fatigue, Lees and I stash the packs of food and other supplies beneath the overturned kayak. When we’re done, we wrap ourselves between the folded halves of the mammoth hide. Before I can say a single word to Lees, she drops her head against my shoulder. “In the morning, we’ll scout around to find a better site,” I say, but her body has already gone heavy and still with sleep.