“It was a symbol,” Grandmother explains. “Of an innocent dying on behalf of someone else—the greatest act of love. A choice to die so someone else doesn’t have to.”
“Your stories are full of symbols, aren’t they?”
“Every great story has sacrifice,” Grandmother says.
“Don’t you think saying that goes against your ‘we can’t apply Anglo-Saxon context and standards to Native stories’ mantra?”
“Yes,” she says. “But I never said that. You did.”
Someone’s saying my name. A low voice that lilts and drawls. Hands squeeze my shoulders, push my hair from my face. “Natalie, wake up.”
I blink against sleep to see full lips, dark hair, and hazel eyes, all shaded by darkness, hovering over me. My head is inexplicably throbbing, and the hoots of owls and rustle of nightlife surround me. “Beau?”
He helps me sit up. “Where am I?” I ask before I can register that I’m lying on the cool cement of Megan’s back patio.
“I’ve been calling you for hours,” Beau says, gently cradling the back of my neck. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“My phone,” I say, fighting back the lingering confusion. “I threw it in the woods.”
His eyebrows flick up in surprise, but his usual soft, heavy smile is missing, his shoulders hunched and tense.
“What’s wrong?” I say, touching his lips.
His eyelids dip. “Kincaid’s awake.”
“Both of them?” It’s little more than a whisper.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve been losing track of time more and more. No one else seems to notice, but it’s like I’m missing for hours at a time. I woke up standing in my room with my phone in my hand and a voice mail from Rachel.”
“Have you seen him yet?”
He shakes his head. “I wanted to find you first.”
What happened to me? Where have I been for hours? I wrap my arms around Beau and press my forehead against his heart. “What’s happening to us?”
He strokes the back of my head. “I don’t know.”
Maybe our Closings are happening, but there’s more to it than that. All these things are connected—Grandmother’s stories, her warning, our two worlds, and our missing time. “I’m scared,” I tell Beau, and he kisses me, his way of both comforting me and admitting he feels my fear too.
He lets out a long exhale. “There’s something else.” I pull away from him so I can see his eyes while he tells me. “I don’t know what it means,” he says, shaking his head. “But I saw your family.”
“What? When? They’re not here. They’re—”
“I know.” He nods. “They must’ve been my version. At a gas station, lots of stuff in the backseat, like maybe they were just passing through. Your brother was wearing a St. Paul’s sweatshirt. Think maybe he goes there, or went there, or—I don’t know.”
“I don’t understand—I wasn’t with them?”
He shakes his head again. “Waited until they left, just to make sure you weren’t in the bathroom or something.” I feel nauseous and dizzy again, like my body’s spinning but my brain’s stationary. Beau touches my shoulder to steady me. “Natalie.”
“It’s okay,” I tell myself. It doesn’t feel okay. It feels bad; it feels like the very sort of thing the word bad should be reserved for. “It’s okay. We can figure this out later. We should just get to Matt.” He doesn’t budge until I start staggering to my feet, and then he helps me up and leads me around the house. “Beau?”
He stops in front of the truck.
I force the knot in my throat down. “How’d they look?”
Beau pulls me forward so his lips rest against my forehead. “Happy,” he says. “Your family looked happy.”
I close my eyes tight. “Good.”
We ride together to the hospital, though we don’t know which worlds we’ll be able to find when we get there. I take his hand as we cross the parking lot. “Which world is this?”
He closes his eyes for a second then looks at me. “I can’t tell. It’s getting harder.”
What could that mean? What could it mean that two distinct versions of the same place are no longer so distinct? What could it mean that Beau’s losing hours at a time? What could it mean that in his world, I’m not with my family, but I’m also not with him?
We go inside anyway, and when Rachel, dark hair and puffy eyes, springs toward me in the waiting room, I know which world we’re in.
I also know that something’s wrong.
Rachel grabs me tightly and immediately starts to shake and sob against me. “Rachel,” I say, my voice broken, almost angry. Her weeping doesn’t let up, and I push her back harder than I mean to. “Rachel, what happened?”
She looks at me, her mouth agape and twisted, her forehead wrinkled and cheeks wet.
“Rachel,” I demand. Beau’s standing a few feet behind me, stock-still and expectant. “What happened?”
“He . . .” She closes her hands around the hem of her tank top and squeals throatily, “He’s gone.”