Ivory and Bone (23 page)

I
follow the trail back up into the trees, ducking into the shadows, gauging my progress up the slope by the feel of the ground under my feet—first spongy, turning to gravel, turning to rock. Here, the underbrush thins, the soil too grudging and meager to support roots. Finally, I emerge above the trees.

In front of me rises a cliff, and above the cliff, a canyon of stone. Shivers—part
fear, part cold—ripple across the skin of my arms and back as I make my way up the cliff and into the canyon. Climbing down this trail this morning was difficult. Climbing up now, even as the sleet finally slows, might be impossible.

Did you really come this way?

I scramble up and over boulders, each one more slick and treacherous than the one before, water racing around the sides. I come to
the place where the trail splits, rocks rising
to my right, up and out of the ravine, leaving the rapids below to my left. Ascending the rocky ledge, my feet test every surface, searching for the safest footholds.

Halfway to the summit, I reach a huge shelf of stone—a hanging boulder as flat and smooth as my mother’s cutting stone. Ice coats the surface. My eyes trace its edges, seeking the safest
route. Water runs off the canyon wall, draining into crevices in the trail—small gaps between boulders and knobs of rock—before spilling over the edge and into the ravine far below. My eyes follow the course of the rushing water as it passes beneath this slick shelf of rock.

That’s when I spot you.

You lie perfectly still, directly below the place where I stand, on a strip of rock just above
the water. Did you fall? Before I can process all the possibilities, I’m lying on my stomach, lowering myself, feetfirst, over the edge. I hang by my hands for just a moment before I drop into the ravine.

Even through my heavy sealskin pants, the cold cuts into me like daggers as I slide into the water. Surfacing, I call your name, but the sound is swallowed up in the roar of the rapids. I scramble
to the side of the stream. The wall is too steep to climb out, but the water runs shallow and my feet find the bottom.
Careful, careful.
My legs brace against the force of the current. If I fall—if the water pulls me away—there will be no hope for either of us.

You lie on your side, facing away from me, your legs
underwater from the knees down. Your hips balance on a small ledge that protrudes
from the wall of rock just beyond you.

I call your name again, but you give no response.

The dread I’ve been feeling transforms to gradual acceptance—you are not conscious. You can’t be—if you were, you would answer. But you must be alive. . . . You must be. The position of your body—your head out of water—you couldn’t have fallen like that. No, you must be alive.

All I need to do is reach
you, to find a way to lift you out of the ravine.

I lean heavily into the current, taking slow, steady strides, clutching at the canyon wall. One . . . two . . . three more steps and I am there.

I reach out to lay a hand on your back, but before I touch you, my hand jerks away. A wide stripe of blood paints the back of your parka from collar to hem.

A head injury . . . blood must be running
down from some hidden wound.

Careful to hold on to the rock you lie on, I run my eyes over the stain and up the length of your back to a dry, crusty puddle on your collar, protected by your draped hair. I reach out a hand and gently touch you. To my surprise, you startle and turn toward me.

“You’re awake.” It’s obvious, but it’s the only thing I can think to say.

“Where is she?”

“Where’s who?”
I ask, though I’m certain what your answer will be.

“Where’s Lo?”

“I don’t know,” I say, taking care to look behind me without compromising my balance.

“She found me in my hut—I’d gone to get another spear. She found me, and we fought. I cut her—a gash across her forehead. There was so much blood. . . .”

I remember your hut, the bloodstains on the walls.

“I threatened her, warned her to run
back to the beach, but she said I would have to kill her—I would have to kill her or die. . . .” Your voice trails off and your eyes fall shut, as if you have dropped back to sleep.

“Mya?” I squeeze your shoulder and your eyes fly open again.

“She followed me,” you say. “She chased me into this canyon. We struggled. . . . We struggled and we fell.”

Could Lo still be here? To my left and right,
to my front and back, I see no one, yet there are plenty of spaces and crevices between rocks for a person to hide. We need to get out of the open. The cave is our best hope, but we’re not there yet.

Despite your quick reaction to my touch, you are far from alert. Talking seems to have exhausted you. You scowl and turn away.

“Mya, you can’t sleep here. Mya!” I shake your shoulder, not rough
but firm, and you spin around, wide-eyed, as if you’d already forgotten I was here. You whirl so quickly I grab you by the waist to keep you from falling from your narrow perch. “Mya!” Your eyes are already closed; your forehead slumps against my shoulder. I take your face between my two palms. Your cheeks feel warm, despite the cold all around us. “Can you stand?” I shout into your face. “We need
to get out of here.”

“I can’t go now. . . . I’m tired,” you say, keeping your eyes pressed shut and jerking your head from my hands.

Cold claws at my feet. If we are going to get out of here, I am going to have to get us both out on my own. “I’m sorry, but we have to go now.” Without another word, I wrap one arm around your back and scoop up your legs with the other. I lift you slowly, mindful
of my footing under the water, rushing and flashing, as if it, too, were full of panic, hurrying out of these hills.

As I straighten, you wrap your arms around my neck to hold on. “Why won’t you let me be?” you ask, though you don’t put up any fight and even let your head fall against me.

I don’t answer you. I doubt you would hear me. Besides, I’m not sure what my answer should be. I didn’t
come looking for you because I think you need me. You have too much strength for me to think that way. I owe you; that’s true. You saved my life more than once already.

At my core, of course, I know my reasons are so much bigger than that.

But now is not the time to wrestle with motives. I shove these thoughts aside so I can focus on my task. Each step is a new test. My feet are numb inside
my boots, and rain still falls in my eyes, though the air is warming. The ice that coated the rocks earlier is melting away, and as I climb closer to the summit, the runoff slows. I force myself to step slowly, holding you close against me to keep our weight centered over my feet. At last, the water is so shallow that I am able to step up out of the stream and onto the rocky trail. From here, it’s
a short distance up to the crest of the cliff and down the sea-facing side to the cave.

This morning I thought this path was the most treacherous I’d ever crossed. I would never have believed I’d cross this same path carrying you.

I try to remember each foothold in my mind’s eye—I’d studied them so carefully this morning—this one was a bit deeper than the others, this next one a wider stride
to the left. Rocks the size of men encroach so far into the path that they snag on my parka. In front of me there is a nearly straight drop to the sea.

I stop to catch my breath a moment, looking out over the water. Boats move in the distance—the boats of Lo’s clan, receding into the north. Could Lo be on one? Could I have passed her on the trail and not seen her?

A loose rock teeters under
my left foot and my mind is called back from the boats to the cliff beneath me. My body goes as still as stone, so still each beat of my heart ripples through me like a wave. I pull you closer and breathe . . . breathe . . . breathe . . . Water runs down my face, drips from my chin to my chest, and I wait, measuring the beat of my heart against the beat of the drips. Time stretches, full of nothing
but breath and beats and drips, until at last my heart has quieted.

I turn my head slightly left, and my eyes trace the wall of rock down until I spot the thin shadow of a ledge—the lip of the opening of the cave. The path is too narrow for me to turn; I have to descend the rest of the way with my back to the cliff. The rain has slowed to a drizzle but the sky has darkened. I shut out the sounds
of the sea beating against the rocks below, the voices of the gulls calling over the beach farther south. I focus all my senses on the next three steps.

Three steps . . .

A gust of wind blows up from below, such a blast your hair flies briefly into my face, pelting me with needles of ice that cling to the strands.

Two steps . . .

I pause, notice a lull in the wind and mutter a hasty, garbled
tangle of words I hope the Divine will accept as a prayer, and then shift our weight over my feet. My left foot
reaches back, searching blindly, until it finds the ledge.

One step . . .

Ducking my head, shifting all our weight to the left, I stumble backward into the cave. Folding my body in half to avoid the low ceiling, I let myself tumble onto the floor. Still curled in my arms, you land
hard against my chest.

If you were asleep before, the force of the fall wakes you. You sit up, startled, and look around, wide-eyed, until I see you recognize where we are. With only a sideways glance at my face you crawl deeper into the safety of the shadows behind me.

The darkness in this cave is so complete I can no longer see you, but I can smell your blood.

“I think your wound has opened
up again.”

“No, it’s fine.” Your words echo against the close walls. Even so, your voice sounds small. “I ran my fingers over it. It’s dry.”

We need light and heat. I pat the ground, feeling for the remnants of the fire we made in here before.

“The wound is under your hair, Mya, and your hair is drenched.”

“My hair is
cold
—wet with rain and ice. It would be warm if it were wet with blood.”
Injured, bleeding, freezing—yet still stubborn.

“I’m going to try to get a fire going,” I say.

My hands search the floor, fumbling across silt and
cinders, until they land on a chunk of splintered wood that flakes at the ends as if it’s been burned. A short distance away the ground drops down into a shallow hole—the fire pit.

I crawl farther into the dark, one hand extended out in front of
me, my knees grinding against knots of broken wood and nubs of rock. At last, my hand lands on what I remember as a deliberate, orderly stack of firewood piled against the far wall.

It’s unnerving to be in a place so dark. It’s even more unnerving to be here with you.

As I turn pieces of wood in my hands, my eyes begin to adjust to what little light filters in from outside. Black yields to gray
as shadows become objects. I separate kindling and tinder. On a flat rock beside the wood I discover the starter kit—a long whittled stick and fireboard. “Give me just a little longer and I’ll get you warmed up, all right?”

I wait, but you don’t answer.

“Mya?”

“Go ahead and make a fire. I think I’ll just sleep a bit.”

“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. . . .”

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.

Her face turns toward me, her brow furrowed, her eyes darkened with concern. Strands of damp hair zigzag across her forehead and hang in her eyes, and unbidden, my free hand moves to her face and smooths them back, tucking them behind her ear. I hardly need to move to reach farther around her head, to feel gently for the
spot where the dried blood still clings, and to cup my hand at the nape of her neck, rocking toward her and touching my lips to hers.

Mya’s lips move under the pressure of mine, bringing a rush of dark warmth to my heart and flashes of yellow, green, and gold, as bright as summer sunshine, to the backs of my eyes. A cool hand presses lightly to my cheek, slides along my jaw, and a blaze of heat
runs across my skin as her fingers trace down my throat, skim my collarbone, coming to stop, palm flat, against my chest. I’m lifting my other hand, ready to wind it around her waist, when I feel the pressure from that palm, subtle but firm.

Her head tips back, her hand pushing me away.

She draws away, and I watch her through eyes that ache to return to her the way I imagine a drowning man’s
eyes ache for the receding surface. But there’s no use in trying
to coax her back. Her eyes are already focused beyond my shoulder. She stares into the mist, at something inside herself, something only she can see. Whatever it is, she stays silent about it. Her lips are pulled tight, a fine, straight line, with no hint of my kiss left on them.

Finally, as if she’s waking from a dream, the darkness
ebbs from her eyes. Her gaze meets mine and she gives me a weak smile.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s not that I don’t want you to kiss me. I want you to, and I want to kiss you back. But kissing you just now made me forget everything else. And right now, there’s too much I need to remember.”

Her eyes burn with an intensity that magnifies her words. I nod and try to return her smile before dropping
my eyes and turning away.

And I realize that the one thing I need from Mya—the one thing I’ve needed from Mya all along—is for her to let go of the past. And I realize that that may be the one thing I cannot ask of her.

Little time passes before we are on our way, hiking the same trail we hiked this morning. It’s easier now that the rain has stopped—
easier
, but far from easy. We scramble up
the cliff, shrouded in hazy vapor, then ease our way onto the rocky path above the ravine. I thank the Divine that the fog clings to the cliffs on the sea-facing side of the trail. Once we are descending into the valley, the mist is gone,
though everywhere, on all sides of the rocks beneath our feet, water streams, rushing from the summit to the ground below.

We travel in silence, too focused
on our footing to speak, Mya a few paces ahead of me. At places the water is high, running over our feet, but then we reach the spot where the trail splits, the pathway following along the ledge that hangs above the water-filled ravine. Progress is slow—we move no faster than wet boots can safely move over wet rocks, which is not very fast at all. My attention never leaves the ground. It isn’t until
Mya stops, holding breathlessly still on the path for just a few moments too long, that I take my eyes off the rocks beneath my own feet long enough to look up at her.

My ears find focus first—the rushing roar of water passing deep within the ravine, the echo of stones worked loose by the flood, plummeting into the torrent below. My gaze settles on her back, focuses on her straight shoulders,
her legs, one foot braced behind her.

Beyond her is the broad flat shelf of rock—the very one I stood on when I came this way before—when I looked down and saw her far below.

Across from her, in a pose that mirrors her own, stands Lo.

I can’t see Mya’s face. I can see only a sliver of Lo’s. Neither girl stirs, not a muscle flinches. A cloud slides away
from the sun and all at once we are coated
in hot, dry light. Finally, Lo speaks. “Mya. I was hoping I would see you again. I was hoping you were still nearby—”

“You will not hurt her—” I start.

“Mya,” Lo says again, in a voice that not only shuts mine out but invalidates it, as if she never heard it, as if I’d made no sound at all, so fixed is her attention on Mya. “I have no hope left—whatever I’d hoped to accomplish, I’ve failed.
I will not make it home.” She moves, her hands rising from her sides, and Mya takes a wobbly step backward, her foot landing in a thin stream of runoff that pours from the wall and splashes across the trail, spilling over the side and into the rapids below. Mya’s shifted stance allows me a view around her, and I see that Lo is only lifting the hem of her parka, revealing something red and dark and
wet. The wound is grotesque, and a wave of nausea swamps me. Something inside me shadows over, dimming my vision, shrouding the injury in darkness and hiding it from my sight. Without thinking, I step back.

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.

Watching her body rise and fall, with no tension or effort left in her limbs, I know that her Spirit has left her. I know that I have failed.
She is carried away now on another kind of stream, to rejoin the spirit of the Divine.

Eventually, we reach the place where the ravine widens, the sharply angled cliffs crumbling into a mass of boulders that tumble to the floor of the valley below. The stream splits, and Lo’s body catches on a rock. Here the water turns suddenly shallow and the current calm, and I clamber up onto rocks beside
her. I bend, wrap an arm around her waist, slippery with blood, and lift her from the water.

I don’t hear her approach, but all at once, Mya appears beside me. She crouches, and with fingers white as ice, she turns Lo’s head and brushes her hair aside, revealing the bloodless, blue lips and wide, white eyes of a drowned girl.

Beyond us, the water drops over a jumble of sharply
angled rocks,
dividing into three wispy waterfalls that spill to the valley floor below, pooling and rippling into creeks that disappear into the distant tree line.

Mya stays silent, but I notice the sound of my own breath. It rushes fast and desperate in and out of my lungs, reminding me I’m alive.