Page 27 of In Her Own Rite

She grins, victorious. “Where are you thinking of going?”

“I don’t know,” I say, resting my head on my knee again. “If I’d planned ahead, I would have rented a cabin somewhere, just for me. But my heat came earlier than I expected, and honestly, I was too stressed about Kier’s rite to think about it. The prices will be sky-high now. If I want to get out of here without paying a fortune, I should probably just go to our place on the north island.”

Maren wiggles her eyebrows at me.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just saying. Shit goes down at the north island.”

“Agaayu, don’t remind me.” She and Seb got together there during Fire Week last summer.

“How long do you need a place for?”

“Just a couple days, I think.” I look up at her, hopeful. “Want to come with me? It could be fun. Like a girls’ trip.”

“Nah. Seb and I are releasing the salt scrubs this week, and Ineedthem to go well. He’s having a hard time living here with the elders, and now that Kier’s done his rite, all that’s standing between us and our ownfikarigis Gabe’s rite and the money for a new place. It’s all hands on deck.”

“Oh, of course.” I try to mask my disappointment. A few days at our massive north island house, by myself, is going to drive me almost as crazy as being around Kieran would. “Well, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ll bring my paint supplies. Oh, shoot.”

I look up, thinking.

“What?”

“I need the car to get to the north shore, for the ferry. I don’t want to leave the wholefikawithout a car for a week, but I also want to get out before Kieran and the others get back. Any chance you can drop me off?”

“Yeah, sure, no worries,” she says, and pours some of the fresh coffee into her mug. “Just let me know when you’re ready to go.”

Packing takes justunder ten minutes—I always have a duffle ready under the bed, just in case. At Maren’s insistence, I also borrow her little purple suitcase and fill it with my watercolor painting supplies, some paperbacks she lends me, and enough snacks to tide me over for the first day or two. I consider bringing Mom’s old book of poems, but decide against it—I won’t be gone that long. We load them into Saga’s old Jeep and get in the front, Maren in the driver’s seat.

“Thanks again,” I say, looking over my shoulder at the woods in the direction of the common hall. “I think it’s smart for me to get out of here before Kieran’s back.”

“Oh noo, I hope we don’t have any engine trouble.” She gives the key in the ignition a half-turn to make the car sputter.

“Don’t.”

She grins and turns the car on for real, then adjusts her mirrors. Ourfikauses the car for transporting goods, mostly—because the others shift, we don’t use it often for getting around. People on the mainland drive every day, and even though Maren lived in a city for the last few years she was there, she’s still more comfortable behind the wheel than I am.

“Here, you put on some music,” she says, and drops her phone in my lap as we pull out of the driveway. I pick up the phone—huge, practically a tablet, with a giant plastic knob on the back so she can hold it more easily—then swipe through the apps to find her music, tapping on a suggested playlist. The sound of artificial horns and a heavy beat flow from the Bluetooth speaker Maren’s hung off the head of her seat.

“Oh my God, this song is so old,” she says, turning onto the main road.

“New to me,” I say, moving my head with the music.

“Whatisn’tnew to you guys? I could bring a stack of post-its back from the mainland and tell you I invented them.”

“What’s post-its?”

She gives me a look as we turn for the woods. “You’re kidding.”

I laugh. “Yeah, I am. But for real, I don’t know this song. It’s fun.”

“If you like this, you’re gonna love her newer stuff.”

Maren names a few albums I should add to the queue, and then gives me a hopelessly complicated walk-through of this artist’s dating history, and that of a few others I’ve never heard of. Every once in a while, I interrupt her to call out directions. We make our way through the trees and forest separating thefikarigfrom town, then into the town center, and eventually the plains and farms behind, heading for the north shore. The clouds ahead are growing more ominous, and I look up the weather forecast to see that it’s going to snow soon.

After about an hour, I glance in the side mirror and see something in the distance far behind us. It’s a large white blur, and for a second I think my eye is just imagining that it’s moving towards us. But then—

“Oh my God, I think that’s Kieran,” I say. “Stop the car. Pull over.”

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