For a moment I hover over him. Relief crowds out every thought, and I forget to speak. I forget to cry. All I do is drop to the dirt beside him and pull him into my arms.
I would stay like this if I could. I wouldn’t need to ask him how he came here or why. I wouldn’t need to ask him anything at all. If I could simply lie on the ground here and hold on to him, knowing he is safe.
But he won’t lie still. He sits up, and before I can stop him he is climbing to his feet, running a hand over his hair.
It comes away coated in blood.
For a moment, he stares wide-eyed at his hand. “I think,” he starts, but he doesn’t finish. His left leg buckles beneath him, and he drops down hard onto his knee. “Still a little weak, I guess,” he says. I remember the night of the stampede. The deep cuts in his knee.
I crouch down in front of him. “How bad are you? Can you walk?”
He slumps forward and blood runs across his forehead and down his cheek. I think of Noni and her feverweed—the claims she made that it could stop the flow of blood. Would I know the plant if I saw it? My eyes sweep the sparse shrubs and vines that grow between the rock face and the trees.
Before he gives me his answer, a twig snaps.
Then another.
The sound comes from the shade of the woods, just about fifteen paces from the ledge . . . just ten paces from where we sit.
I look at Kol, and I realize what a grave mistake I’ve made. To climb the rock to get above him, I was forced to drop my pack and leave it behind. My pack with the atlatl and darts.
And our spears are in the bear.
I reach for my knife—the small thin blade of flint tucked into Ama’s sling that is tied at my waist, and I know that this weapon will be useless against a short-faced bear. Or a wolf. Or any other predator that might step out of the shade and into the sunlight.
I glance back at the way we just came, wondering if it would be possible for us to flee by going down the rock face. I could retrieve my pack. But would we be putting ourselves back in the path of a wounded bear?
Could Kol even make that jump, I wonder, as he swipes more blood away from his eyes.
One more snap of a twig—this one louder than the others before it, and I prepare to scramble down. I’ll help him. . . . I’ll ease him over the ledge.
But then I hear my name, and I turn back.
At the edge of the clearing, just this side of the trees, stands Chev.
FOURTEEN
Framed by the branches that edge the woods, my brother’s face peers at me like the face of a ghost. My thoughts reel, fighting and thrashing at the end of an unseen cord like a harpooned seal fighting against the rope.
Chev couldn’t have known where to find us without Kol. Kol must have brought him here. Because here he is, not surprised to see me, but surprised to see Kol on the ground, blood flowing down his face.
“What happened?” Chev asks, as he rushes to Kol and drops to his knees. He takes his head in his hands, tilting it to look at his wound.
Watching him, I want to shout for him to back away. I want to scream that he is not needed to tend to Kol’s injuries. But I know it won’t help Kol if I fight with my brother now. Instead, I speak in a voice just loud enough to be heard. “I can take care of him. There’s a plant on this island that slows the flow of blood. I’ll find some. We can use it to treat his wounds.”
My words rattle in the air. Despite my calm tone, inside my gut something kicks and writhes, like a beetle on its back that can’t right itself.
“It was a bear,” Kol says. “I guess it got the best of me.” Kol says this as if it’s a joke—as if we are meant to laugh. But Chev’s frown deepens.
And my anger soars.
“I can take care of Kol,” I say. “There’s a girl on this island who will know how to treat his wounds. I’ll take him to her.”
“What girl? Do you mean Lees? Because I know you brought her here.” Chev gets to his feet and slides an arm around Kol’s back, under his arms. He draws him to his feet.
Bile rises in my throat as I form the words I want to spit at him—that it is his fault Kol is here in the first place . . . that if he hadn’t meddled in his sisters’ lives, none of this would be happening. But then Kol shrugs off Chev’s arm and stands on his own.
“I’m fine,” he says. “It’s a head wound. Head wounds bleed, but I swear I’m fine.” Kol turns to me. Blood still trickles along his forehead, but it does seem to be slowing. A smile spreads across his face like the sun on a cloudless day. It’s a smile that could melt me. It always does. “I’m here with you. I’m all right.”
And though the anger still burns in my throat, though I still taste it on my tongue, I force myself to let it go. Kol’s eyes glow with the warmth of the meadow, and I let my anger float away on the breeze, as insubstantial as smoke.
Kol is here. He is right in front of me. What use do I have for anger now? If he brought Chev here, there must be a reason. And the light in his eyes tells me the reason must be something good. As my anger abates, curiosity takes its place.
“Why—” I start, but my question is interrupted by the sound of feet on the trail below. Before I can look down over the ledge, I hear a voice.
Seeri’s voice.
She calls and waves two spears—both bloody—Kol’s and mine. “I found these spears in a bear!” Before I can grab hold of his arm to help, Kol is sliding over the ledge and scrambling down the face of the cliff to join her. She tosses him his spear as if she’s playing with him—as if she is challenging him to a throwing contest—but I notice her disheveled braid, the hem of her tunic, her own spear—all stained red with blood.
Chev and I follow Kol over the ledge, dropping down onto the trail beside him. Though my palms scrape a bit on the rock, sliding down is much easier than climbing up. Seeri is waiting for me on the path. She hands me my spear. “I’d embrace you,” she says, “but I should wait until I’m a little less bloody.”
“You’ve killed it then?” Kol asks Seeri. It seems so obvious, so simple, as if he were saying, “You’ve gathered the roots,” or “You’ve filled the waterskins.”
“She didn’t do it alone.” A voice—a boy’s voice—calls from farther back on the trail. Pek comes around a turn and Kol smiles.
“Then why is your spear the only one still clean?” he asks.
“Someone had to lure the bear to Seeri—”
“And then run away,” she adds.
“I wasn’t running away. I was getting clear so you could take the shot.” His tone is light, with only a touch of defensiveness or maybe wounded feelings running along the edge of his words. But then Seeri laughs and it’s clear she’s just teasing him. Pek laughs, too, and all at once I feel the relief of knowing that the bear cannot threaten us anymore. My family is safe. There may be other bears on this island, of course, but the one that injured Kol will not be a danger to him anymore.
Not Kol. Not Seeri. Not Lees or Noni.
“The girls,” I say. “Lees and Noni—”
“Noni?” Chev asks, raising an eyebrow at me.