“We need to talk,” I say to Angela. She nods and follows me out of earshot of her children. She sways on her feet, steadying herself against the rock face.
“You all have heat exhaustion,” I say. “Once it turns into heatstroke, you won’t have a lot of time before medical attention becomes necessary.”
“But we’re stuck,” Angela says, looking at the sunbar, then back at me. Her voice wobbles.
“I have to go for help,” I say.
“No, you can’t leave us—”
“I have to,” I say, looking her in the eye, making sure she understands what I’m saying.
“Can you get through the sunbar?” she asks.
I look back at it and nod. “It’ll take a lot of my energy, but yes. It won’t burn me the way it would you.” What I don’t tell her is that it’ll likely send me right into heatstroke, and I won’t have much time before I pass out from it.
But it’s the only way.
“I’m going to try and make you some hailstones. They won’t last all day, but they’ll help.”
“Thank you,” she says, her voice small and scared.
I walk to the other side of the field, a safe distance away, and get to work.
Magic rises inside me. I take a long, deep breath and hope the freezing current gives me enough energy for what I need to do. On my exhale, I close my eyes. The cold flow of winter pours through my fingers and into the earth, searching out every drop of water it can find.
When the flow of magic is heavy with moisture, almost too much to carry, I pull. I pull as hard as I can, with every bit of energy I have. My pulse is racing, and I’m dizzy, but still I pull. The cold magic stings against the sweltering heat, but still I pull.
I’m sweating, and my breathing is so shallow and so fast. But still I pull.
In one swift motion, I send the droplets of water into an updraft of air, freezing them as they rise. Once they get heavy enough, they begin to fall, amassing more water. I shoot them back into the updraft, refreezing them. I do it over and over and over again. They have to get large enough that they don’t melt right away.
But it’s so hard. I’m breathless. My skin is clammy. I’m light-headed, and the ground seems to tilt beneath me. I struggle to stay upright.
I struggle against the 113 degrees of heat.
I struggle to remember why I’m doing this, why I’m here.
I keep going, but my magic falters. I’m not strong enough to hold the updraft needed for the hailstones to keep freezing. They begin to drop.
They’ll all melt if I can’t get them high enough, vanishing before they can do any good.
“Clara!” Angela calls in the distance. “He isn’t responding to me. He just passed out!”
I can do this. I have to do this. My hands shake, and my face is tense, eyes squeezed shut and jaw clenched tight.
Then I remember Sang and the waterfall. I’m in the current, rushing toward it. I have to choose to fall.
I take a long, deep breath. I inhale my fear—fear that I won’t succeed, fear that Angela and her children will die out here. Fear that the Earth has been hurt so badly that we can never make it whole again. Fear that I will never be enough.
Then I let it all go. I release all the tension in my body, tilt my head back, let the current push me over the edge.
I’m in a free fall of magic, power bursting from my fingers and into the air, tossing the hail higher and higher as if it’s weightless. I create as much hail as possible, stones dropping out of the sky in rapid succession.
When I open my eyes, I’m stunned. The field is covered in them, hailstones the size of peony blooms.
My head is pounding. All I want to do is sleep.
I gather as many as I can and rush them to Angela. I hand her a hailstone. “Hold this to his mouth,” I say. Angela takes it, hands shaking. “Come on, baby,” she whispers over and over.
I grab more hailstones and pack them all around the boy, against his neck and armpits and legs. His eyes slowly open, and I breathe out in relief.
But he isn’t sweating, and when I put my hand to his forehead, I can feel the heat rolling inside him. Angela and her daughter aren’t far behind.
I have to get them out of here.
I gather more hailstones and pile them up around both kids. “Stay with them. Keep putting ice around them, and yourself too. I’m going to get help.”
“Clara,” Angela whispers, touching my arm. “You don’t look well.”
“I’m okay,” I say.
She grabs my hand and looks into my eyes, worried and scared and red with tears. “Thank you.”
I nod and walk toward the sunbar, keeping my steps as steady as possible so Angela doesn’t see how drained I am.
My cell phone is dead, but if I can get to the road, I have a chance of seeing another person. All I have to do is walk.
The sunbar warps the space in front of me, and nausea coats my stomach.
I take a running start, close my eyes, and jump through it.
I gasp when pure sunlight pierces my skin and cradles my organs. My temperature rises like a balloon that’s slipped through my fingers, going up and up and up.
I collapse when I get to the other side.
I choke on the air and claw at the earth.
Maybe I could sleep right here. I want to sleep.
My head throbs.
I force myself to stand.
I step over rocks and through underbrush, following the path I came up yesterday. I’m careful with each step I take.
I’m not sure how much time has passed when I finally see the tire marks left by Mr. Burrows’s
