The Ruins

understood why. She was sitting cross-legged, slumped forward, the umbrella propped on her shoulder, her eyes shut, her mouth hanging ajar: she was sound asleep. Jeff stood for nearly a minute, staring down at her, his hands on his hips. His first flash of anger at her negligence passed in an instant; he was too worn-out to sustain it. He knew it didn't really matter, not in any practical sense. If the Greeks had arrived, they would've called out as soon as they'd glimpsed her sitting here, would've roused her while they were still far enough away to be stopped. And, more to the point, the Greeks hadn't arrived, probably weren't ever going to. So there was no place for anger here; it came and went, brief as a shudder.

Her umbrella was angled the wrong way, its circle of shade only covering the upper half of her body, leaving her lap, her crossed legs, exposed to the noontime sun. Her feet, in their mud-stained sandals, were burned all the way up to the ankle-a deep, raw-meat red. They were going to blister later, then peel, a painful process. If it were Amy, this would involve a prodigious amount of complaining-tears, even, at times-but Stacy, Jeff knew, probably wouldn't even notice, let alone mention it. This was part of that spacey quality of hers, a sort of disassociation from her body. Jeff often found it hard to resist comparing her to Amy. He'd met them together, had lived in the same dorm with them his freshman year, one floor down, directly beneath their room. He'd come up late one evening to complain about a pounding noise and found them in their pajamas, crouched above a small pile of wood with a hammer and nails and a sheet of instructions written in Korean. It was a bookshelf Amy had purchased over the Internet, very cheap, not realizing she'd have to put it together herself. Jeff ended up building it for them; in the process, they'd all become friends. For a short period, it wasn't even clear which of them he was courting, and he supposed that this was part of what made it so difficult for him to stop looking at them in a comparative way, weighing their differences, one against the other.

In the end, Amy had won him with her personality-she was so much more solid than Stacy, more grounded, more dependable, despite her complaining-but, in a purely physical sense, Stacy had actually been the one he'd found more attractive. It was something about her dark eyes, and the way she could look at you with them, all of a sudden, a glance that seemed almost painfully open, hiding nothing. She was sexy, alluringly so, where Amy was merely pretty. There'd even been a brief period, shortly after he and Amy had started dating in earnest, when Jeff had entertained the brief, tawdry fantasy of having an affair with Stacy. Because what had happened on the beach with Don Quixote wasn't an isolated occurrence. Stacy had a tendency toward that sort of thing; she was promiscuous in a sly, helpless way, almost despite herself. She liked to kiss strange boys, to touch and be touched, especially when she'd been drinking. Eric knew about some of these misadventures, but not others. They had fights over the ones he did discover, screaming and cursing viciously at each other, only-always-to make up in the end, with Stacy offering tearful, apparently heartfelt promises, which she'd inevitably break, sometimes within days. It seemed strange to remember all this now, especially his fantasy of betrayal, and difficult to recall exactly how he'd managed to entertain it. Or why, for that matter. Far away: that was how it felt.

The odd thing about Stacy was that, despite the aura of sexuality she exuded, there was also something strikingly childish about her. Partly this was a matter of personality-that flightiness, that preference for play and fantasy over anything that might possibly feel like work-but it was just as much something physical, something in the features of her face, the shape of her head, which was noticeably round, and a little too large for her body, more like a little girl's than a grown woman's. It was a quality Jeff doubted she'd ever grow out of. Even if she survived this place, even if she lived on into a wrinkled, stooping, shuffling, trembling old age, she'd probably still retain it. And, of course, it was especially heightened now, with her looking so defenseless, sunk so deeply in sleep.

She shouldn't be here, Jeff thought. The words rose in his head unsought, startling him. It was true, of course: None of them should've been there. Yet they were, and without much prospect, it increasingly appeared, of ever managing to be anywhere else again. It had been his idea to come to Mexico, his idea to accompany Mathias on his search for Henrich. Was this what those words were pointing toward, some hesitant shouldering of responsibility? The vine had taken root on Stacy's sandals, clinging to the leather like a garland, and as Jeff began to flirt with this idea, he crouched before her, reaching to pull the plant free.

She woke to his touch, jerking away, scrambling to her feet, dropping her umbrella: frightened. 'What happened?' she asked, almost shouting the words.

Jeff made soothing motions in the air; he would've touched her, too-grasped her hand, hugged her-but she took a step backward, moving beyond his reach. 'You fell asleep,' he said.

Stacy shielded her eyes, struggling to orient herself. The vine was growing on her clothes, too, Jeff saw. A long tendril hung off the front of her T-shirt; another trailed down the left leg of her khakis, twining itself around her calf. Jeff bent, picked up her sunshade, held it out to her. She stared at it, as if she were having trouble recognizing it-what it was, how it related to her-then she took it, propped it on her shoulder. She retreated another step. As if she's frightened of me, Jeff thought, and felt a flicker of irritation.

He waved up the hill. 'You can go back now.'

Stacy didn't move. She lifted her sunburned foot, scratched absentmindedly at it. 'It was laughing,' she said.

Jeff just stared at her. He knew what she meant, but he couldn't think of a way to respond. Something about her, about this encounter here, was making him conscious of his fatigue. He had to resist the urge to yawn.

Stacy gestured around them. 'The vine.'

He nodded. 'We went back down into the shaft. To look for the cell phone.'

Stacy's expression changed in an instant-everything did, her posture, the sound of her voice-animated by hope. 'You found it?'

Jeff shook his head. 'It was a trap. The vine was making the noise.' He felt as if he'd struck her; the effect of his words upon her was that dramatic. She slumped, her face going slack, losing color.

'I heard it laughing. The whole hillside.'

Jeff nodded. 'It mimics things.' And then, because she seemed in such need of reassurance: 'It's just a sound it's learned to make. It's not really laughter.'

'I fell asleep.' Stacy seemed surprised by this, as if she were talking of someone else. 'I was so scared. I was…' She shook her head, unable to find the right words, then finished weakly: 'I don't know how I fell asleep.'

'You're tired. We all are.'

'Is he okay?' Stacy whispered.

'Who?'

'Pablo. Is he'-and here again, there was that fumbling search for the proper words-'all right?'

It was odd, but it took Jeff a moment to grasp what she was talking about. He could look down and see the blood spattered on his jeans, but he had to struggle before he could remember whom it belonged to, or how it had gotten there. Tired, he thought, though he knew it was more than that. Inside, he was in full flight, just like the rest of them. 'He's unconscious,' he said.

'His legs?'

'Gone.'

'But he's alive?'

Jeff nodded.

'And he's going to be okay?'

'We'll see.'

'Amy didn't stop you?'

Jeff shook his head.

'She was supposed to stop you.'

'We were already done.'

Stacy fell silent at that.

Jeff could feel his impatience building again, his frustration with her; he wanted her to leave. Why wouldn't she leave? He knew what she was going to say next, guessed at it, waited for it, but was still taken aback when it came-affronted.

'I don't think you should've done it,' she said.

He gave a brusque wave, swatting the words aside. 'A little late for that, isn't it?'