“Get through it for what reason? Nothing seems to matter anymore.”
“That’s just it, Nix. I can’t let myself believe that nothing matters.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine that right now.”
He had no comeback to that. Her argument was too strong, and his was based only on wishful thinking and a threadbare piece of optimism.
They sat together and listened to the forest.
“Benny?” Nix asked quietly after a while.
“Yeah?”
“Last night… when you kissed me…?”
His throat went instantly dry. “Yeah?”
“Why did you do it? I mean, was it because I was so upset and you didn’t know how else to help me? Or was it because you really wanted to?”
“I-”
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
He took a breath. “I kissed you because I wanted to,” he said.
She nodded. “Last night, when you thought I was sleeping… I saw you looking at her card.”
Benny plucked a stem of grass and ran it slowly between his fingers. It felt like cool silk. “Did you?” he asked.
“I saw you throw it away, too.”
“Did you?” he asked again softly.
“Yes, Benny… I did.”
She didn’t say anything else, didn’t speak another word for a long time. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and they sat there and waited for the day to burn away.
49
BY LATE AFTERNOON THE SUN WAS COMPLETELY COVERED BY A SHEET OF thick gray clouds. The temperature fell, but the humidity thickened the air to a hot soup. Benny drowsed against the trunk of one of the pines, and in his dreams he heard a sound that was like the roar of Lilah’s waterfall. The sound started small and far away, and Benny’s dreaming mind made it
The roaring sound grew steadily louder, and Benny thought that maybe he was making some distance, that he was nearing the waterfall, but when he looked around, all he saw was the plateau on which the bounty hunters had their camp. Something brushed him, and he turned to see that Nix was running next to him. She was screaming, but Benny could not hear her voice. The roar of the waterfall kept getting louder and louder. And it was deeper in tone now, more of a loud drone than the splash of water.
“Benny!” Nix called his name, but it didn’t match the shape her mouth made.
The roar was huge.
“BENNY!”
With a start, Benny realized that Nix’s voice was not coming from the girl running beside him, and just as quickly he understood that he was dreaming and that the real-world Nix was yelling at him. He snapped his eyes open. The camp and the zombies vanished. The roar, however, was still there. Deep and loud, and getting louder.
“Benny!” Nix yelled.
“What… what is it?”
“You have to come and look!”
Nix grabbed his hands and fairly hauled him to his feet and then pulled him out from under the shelter of the trees. Not toward the promontory that looked down on the camp. Instead, she pulled him toward the trail that led back into the woods. She was running, and her grip was so tight and insistent that Benny ran too.
“What is it? What’s that sound?”
“You have to come
They raced along the path to a clearing, and there, Nix stopped and pointed. She need not have bothered, because Benny saw it. His eyes bugged wide, and his mouth fell open as he stared up at the roaring thing.
It was silver and white, with vast wings that lifted it high above the mountains. Benny raised his hand, as if he could touch it. The thing appeared to move slowly, but that was an illusion. It was just so far away. Higher than the tallest of the surrounding mountains, skimming just below the ceiling of gray storm clouds. In another hour there wouldn’t have been enough light to see it. If the storm had started, it would have been both invisible and unheard.
But they stood there, holding hands, staring up as it roared above them, soaring with alien majesty from one horizon to the other. Coming from the west, heading east; far, far above the Rot and Ruin.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
Nix just shook her head.
“Where did it come from?”
“From the east.”
“No, it’s heading east,” he said, but Nix shook her head.
“It came from the east and turned around. I saw it and ran to get you.”
They watched it go, diminishing in size from a giant to a gnat and then to nothing, taking its roar with it. When it was gone, there was at least five minutes of silence before the birds began to sing again. They stood in the clearing for ten minutes more, hoping it would come back.
Benny said, “Nix… did we just see that? I mean, tell me we actually saw that.”
Nix’s green eyes were filled with magic, and her smile was bright enough to hold back the storm. “It’s real, Benny. We saw it.”
“But
She shook her head, and they stared off to the east. The thing they had just seen belonged to another age, to the days before First Night. They knew about them from the history books, but neither had ever seen one. Never expected to. They kept looking into the distance.
But the slow, lumbering jumbo jet did not return.
50
THEY DID NOT KNOW HOW TO TALK ABOUT WHAT THEY HAD JUST SEEN. It was strange and wonderful, but it seemed more like a dream than a part of what they were about to do.
“I wish I could tell Tom,” Benny said.
“I wish I could tell Mom,” said Nix, then she said, “Benny, if we get out of this-”
“
She gave only a tiny nod to acknowledge that possibility. “After this is over,” she said, “we need to find out about that jet.”
“Sure, I mean we let everyone know-”
“No,” she said firmly. “
