Page 54 of The Last Stars in the Sky
“They’re not looking,” Kerry mutters. “They’re focused on the road. Idiots.”
Walking ahead of me, Mattie gives a jerky nod of understanding, her eyes on the ground, her slender bodypractically vibrating with tension. My poor daughter. How much has she already endured? And yet there is likely more to come.
When we finally reach the cover of the trees again, we all breathe shaky sighs of relief, giving each other oddly shamefaced looks, as if fear is something we shouldn’t feel, when right now it’sallwe feel.
Another couple hundred feet and we find it—a short spill of frothing water, and then a small, still pool with several flat stones stretching across, almost to the other shore, but not quite. In fact, I realize with a weary, sinking sensation in my gut because nothing, it seems, can ever be even close to easy, very much not quite. There’s a good ten feet between the last stone and the opposite shore—too far to jump, if I even had the strength to jump, which I’m not sure I do.
“I think this is the best we’re going to get,” Kerry states matter-of-factly, and I have the jolting feeling that I spoke aloud, even though I know I didn’t.
“How are we going to get across?” Mattie asks.
Kerry’s expression firms. “We’ll have to wade the last few feet. It’s not that deep.”
“But it’s freezing—” I protest feebly.
“We don’t have a choice, Alex.” She speaks plainly, but also with sympathy. “Will you do it?”
I force a nod.
The water is cold, barely above freezing, with chunks of ice floating in it. If it were just a little colder, it would have frozen over, which would have been a lot simpler. I press one hand to my shoulder, fling the other one out to keep my balance as we start across the stones—Kerry first, then Mattie in the middle, me last. When I step into the river, off the last stone, the water comes rushing well past my kneecaps and I almost fall over.
I put my other foot in the water, and both my legs are instantly, entirely numb. I have a sudden urge to let the icywater sweep me away; how long would it be before I lost consciousness? A matter of moments, and then, sweet oblivion. It’s frighteningly tempting.
“You can do it, Mom,” Mattie calls softly, and so I grit my teeth and keep walking; ten feet isn’t any distance at all, or so I tell myself, but right now, it feels endless. I glance ahead at Mattie, her arms flung out for balance. The water goes up even higher on her, all the way to her thighs, rushing around us fast enough, I think, to knock her off her feet. I may have been tempted to let myself fall, but I don’t want Mattie to.
Step by faltering step, the rocky riverbed shifting under our feet, we finally make it to the far side. When I clamber out, hauling myself onto the bank, my legs feel as if they are on fire, and my shoulder throbs worse than ever.
We stand on the opposite shore, all of us shivering uncontrollably, our jeans already starting to freeze right onto our skin.
“We’ll need to get out of these clothes as soon as we get to Kyle’s,” Kerry says. Her teeth are chattering. “I don’t think his place is too far from here.”
The next fifteen minutes are a dazed blur; I’m so cold I feel as if my mind has slowed down, my thoughts trickling through me like molasses, or stalling completely, so I can’t think at all. Even though I’m freezing, my shoulder still burns.
I follow Kerry through a maze of side streets and shabby buildings—I haven’t been to this part of Corville, and I never realized the town was this big—with no idea where we’re going, and I don’t even care. The will to figure this out, to get past this and back to the sweet safety of the cottage, is slipping away from me once again. It all feels so hard, sopointless. I just want to lie down.Lie down and close my eyes, drift away…
“Mom.” Mattie slips her arm through mine, tugging me along none too gently. I realize, belatedly, that I have stopped walkingand have been simply standing there, staring into space. “We’ve got to keep moving,” she says, tugging on my arm again. “We’re losing Kerry.”
I blink and see that Kerry is striding ahead, into an alleyway between two dilapidated buildings, while we’ve fallen behind in a small, abandoned parking lot.
“Okay.” I try to move faster, but it feels like I can’t. I don’t know how much longer I can keep trying, and for what. It all feels sofutile. We get the car, we get back home, andthenwhat?
“Mom,” Mattie says again, and I focus on my daughter’s face. She’s shivering like I am, her eyes dark and her skin pale and clammy, but she’s still so young and vibrant and beautiful, her whole life ahead of her, even if I have no idea what it might look like, what world she’ll live in. Yet for her sake, and Ruby’s, and Sam’s as well, I know I have to keep going.
“I’m okay,” I tell her, and I squeeze her hand. “I’m okay.”
Five minutes later, we are in an apartment building, a squat two-story building of fake brick, the kind that’s papered on over concrete blocks, with a roof of peeling tiles. The front door is hanging off its hinges, and the whole place has a deserted, desecrated air. People have either left or are hiding.
Kerry heads up the narrow staircase in the middle of the building, to the apartment at the end. There is trash in the hallway, old pizza boxes and junk mail, a broken stroller and even a single, dirty sneaker. In the air is a stomach-roiling smell of sewage, trash, and rotting food—at least I hope it is food that’s rotting, and not something worse. I breathe through my mouth, but I’m not sure that’s any better. The air feels thick, like I can taste it on my tongue.
“Man, this place was always a dump,” Kerry mutters, “but this is something else.” She taps, quietly but firmly, on the flimsy front door of Kyle’s apartment, paint peeling off plywood, while Mattie and I wait behind, shivering, gazes darting nervouslyaround. I feel watched, even though there’s no one else here, and the whole complex has an air of abandonment to it.
“Kyle,” Kerry calls, softly at first, and then more loudly, enough that Mattie and I jump a little. “Kyle!It’s your cousin, Kerry. Open up. I can help you.”
Shecan helphim? I glance at Mattie, who shrugs back. Kerry swears under her breath and then, taking a step back, she kicks the door down. It doesn’t take much; the thing comes off its hinges like it was made of cardboard.
She steps into the hallway, and we follow; the smell in here is worse than outside. I glance at the open doorway across from us and nearly gag; it’s a bathroom, and the toilet is overflowing with excrement. Mattie covers her mouth and nose with her sweater, her eyes wide and dark above her hand.
“Kyle,” Kerry calls, her sweatshirt up above her face. “God help me, Kyle, this place is apit.”
