feet, moving.
I shook my head, bending over the map again. The mountain ridge was so far in the distance I couldn’t
guess at the miles between us and it. There was no way I was walking out of this parking lot and into the
empty desert unless I had no other option.
Let’s be rational,I suggested, tracing my finger along a thin ribbon on the map, an unnamed road that
connected to the freeway a few miles east and then continued in the general direction of the range.
Sure,she agreed complacently.The faster the better.
We found the unpaved road easily. It was just a pale scar of flat dirt through the sparse shrubbery,
barely wide enough for one vehicle. I had a feeling that the road would be overgrown with lack of use in
a different region—some place with more vital vegetation, unlike the desert plants that needed decades to
recover from such a violation. There was a rusted chain stretched across the entrance, screwed into a
wooden post on one end, looped loosely around another post at the other. I moved quickly, pulling the
chain free and piling it at the base of the first post, hurrying back to my running car, hoping no one would
pass and stop to offer me help. The highway stayed clear as I drove onto the dirt and then rushed back
to refasten the chain.
We both relaxed when the pavement disappeared behind us. I was glad that there was apparently no
one left I would have to lie to, whether with words or silence. Alone, I felt less of a renegade.
Melanie was perfectly at home here in the middle of nothing. She knew the names of all the spiny plants
around us. She hummed their names to herself, greeting them like old friends.
Creosote, ocotillo, cholla, prickly pear, mesquite…
Away from the highway, the trappings of civilization, the desert seemed to take on a new life for
Melanie. Though she appreciated the speed of the jolting car—our vehicle didn’t have the ground
clearance necessary for this off-road trip, as the shocks reminded me with every pit in the dirt—she
itched to be on her feet, loping through the safety of the baking desert.
We would probably have to walk, and all too soon for my taste, but when that time came, I doubted it
would satisfy her. I could feel the real desire beneath the surface. Freedom. To move her body to the
familiar rhythm of her long stride with only her will for guidance. For a moment, I allowed myself to see
the prison that was life without a body. To be carried inside but unable to influence the shape around you.
I shuddered and refocused on the rough road, trying to stave off the mingled pity and horror. No other
host had made me feel such guilt for what I was. Of course, none of the others had stuck around to
complain about the situation.
The sun was close to the tips of the western hills when we had our first disagreement. The long shadows
created strange patterns across the road, making it hard to avoid the rocks and craters.
There it is!Melanie crowed as we caught sight of another formation farther east: a smooth wave of rock,
interrupted by a sudden spur that swung a thin, long finger out against the sky.
She was all for turning immediately into the brush, no matter what that did to the car.
Maybe we’re supposed to go all the way to the first landmark,I pointed out. The little dirt road
continued to wind in more or less the right direction, and I was terrified to leave it. How else would I find
my way back to civilization? Wasn’t I going back?
I imagined the Seeker right at this moment, as the sun touched the dark, zigzagging line of the western
horizon. What would she think when I didn’t arrive in Tucson? A spasm of glee made me laugh out loud.
Melanie also enjoyed the picture of the Seeker’s furious irritation. How long would it take her to go back
to San Diego to see if this had all been a ploy to get rid of her? And then what steps would she take
when I wasn’t there? When I wasn’t anywhere?
I just couldn’t picture very clearly whereI would be at that point.
Look, a dry wash. It’s wide enough for the car—let’s follow it,Melanie insisted.
I’m not sure we’re supposed to go that way yet.
It will be dark soon and we’ll have to stop. You’re wasting time!She was silently shouting in her
frustration.
Or saving time, if I’m right. Besides, it’smytime, isn’t it?
She didn’t answer in words. She seemed to stretch inside my mind, reaching back toward the
convenient wash.
I’m the one doing this, so I’m doing it my way.
Melanie fumed wordlessly in response.
Why don’t you show me the rest of the lines?I suggested.We could see if anything is visible before
night falls.
No,she snapped.I’ll do that part myway.
You’re being childish.
Again she refused to answer. I continued toward the four sharp peaks, and she sulked.
Have you lost your mind?Melanie hissed.Do you have any idea how visible headlights would be
out here? Someone is sure to see us.
So what do we do now?
Hope the seat reclines.
I let the engine idle as I tried to think of options besides sleeping in the car, surrounded by the black
emptiness of the desert night. Melanie waited patiently, knowing I would find none.
This is crazy, you know,I told her, throwing the car into park and twisting the keys out of the ignition.
The whole thing. There can’t really be anyone out here. We won’t find anything. And we’re going
to get hopelessly lost trying. I had an abstract sense of the physical danger in what we were
planning—wandering out into the heat with no backup plan, no way to return. I knew Melanie
understood the danger far more clearly, but she held the specifics back.
She didn’t respond to my accusations. None of these problems bothered her. I could see that she’d
rather wander alone in the desert for the rest of her life than go back to the life I’d had before. Even
without the threat of the Seeker, this was preferable to her.
I leaned the seat back as far as it would go. It wasn’t close to far enough for comfort. I doubted that I
would be able to sleep, but there were so many things I wasn’t allowing myself to think about that my
mind was vacant and uninteresting. Melanie was silent, too.
I closed my eyes, finding little difference between my lids and the moonless night, and drifted into
unconsciousness with unexpected ease.
CHAPTER 11
Dehydrated
Okay! You were right, you were right!” I said the words out loud. There was no one around to hear me.
Melanie wasn’tsaying “I told you so.” Not in so many words. But I could feel the accusation in her
silence.
I was still unwilling to leave the car, though it was useless to me now. When the gas ran out, I had let it
roll forward with the remaining momentum until it took a nosedive into a shallow gorge—a thick rivulet
cut by the last big rain. Now I stared out the windshield at the vast, vacant plain and felt my stomach
twist with panic.
We have to move, Wanderer. It’s only going to get hotter.
If I hadn’t wasted more than a quarter of a tank of gas stubbornly pushing on to the very base of the
second landmark—only to find that the third milestone was no longer visible from that vantage and to
have to turn around and backtrack—we would have been so much farther down this sandy wash, so
much closer to our next goal. Thanks to me, we were going to have to travel on foot now.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,she chanted until I lurched, stiff and awkward, out of the car. My back throbbed
as I straightened up. It hurt from sleeping so contorted last night, not from the weight of the pack; the
pack wasn’t that heavy when I used my shoulders to lift it.
Now cover the car,she instructed, picturing me ripping thorny branches from the nearby creosotes and
palo verdes and draping them over the silver top of the car.
“Why?”
Her tone implied that I was quite stupid for not understanding.So no one finds us.
But what if I want to be found? What if there’s nothing out here but heat and dirt? We have no
way to get home!
Home?she questioned, throwing cheerless images at me: the vacant apartment in San Diego, the
Seeker’s most obnoxious expression, the dot that marked Tucson on the map… a brief, happier flash of
the red canyon that slipped in by accident.Where would that be?
I turned my back on the car, ignoring her advice. I was in too far already. I wasn’t going to give up all
hope of return. Maybe someone would find the car and then find me. I could easily and honestly explain
what I was doing here to any rescuer: I was lost. I’d lost my way… lost my control… lost my mind.
I followed the wash at first, letting my body fall into its natural long-strided rhythm. It wasn’t the way I
walked on the sidewalks to and from the university—it wasn’tmy walk at all. But it fit the rugged terrain
here and moved me smoothly forward with a speed that surprised me until I got used to it.
“What if I hadn’t come this way?” I wondered as I walked farther into the desert waste. “What if Healer
Fords were still in Chicago? What if my path hadn’t taken us so close to them?”
It was that urgency, that lure—the thought that Jared and Jamie might beright here, somewhere in this
empty place—that had made it impossible to resist this senseless plan.
I’m not sure,Melanie admitted.I think I might still have tried, but I was afraid while the other souls
were near. I’m still afraid. Trusting you could kill them both.
We flinched together at the thought.
But being here, so close… It seemed like Ihadto try. Please —and suddenly she was pleading with
me, begging me, no trace of resentment in her thoughts—please don’t use this to hurt them. Please.
“I don’t want to.… I don’t know if Ican hurt them. I’d rather…”
What? Die myself? Than give a few stray humans up to the Seekers?
Again we flinched at the thought, but my revulsion at the idea comforted her. And it frightened me more
than it soothed her.
I didn’t like leaving the wash, just as I’d resisted leaving the car. I could follow this wash all the way
back to the road, and the road back to the highway. It was miles and miles, and it would take me days to
traverse, but once I stepped off this wash I was officially adrift.
Have faith, Wanderer. We’ll find Uncle Jeb, or he’ll find us.
If he’s still alive,I added, sighing and loping off my simple path into the brush that was identical in every
direction.Faith isn’t a familiar concept for me. I don’t know that I buy into it.
Trust, then?
In who? You?I laughed. The hot air baked my throat when I inhaled.
Just think,she said, changing the subject,maybe we’ll see them by tonight.
The yearning belonged to us both; the image of their faces, one man, one child, came from both
memories. When I walked faster, I wasn’t sure that I was completely in command of the motion.
It did get hotter—and then hotter, and then hotter still. Sweat plastered my hair to my scalp and made
my pale yellow T-shirt cling unpleasantly wherever it touched. In the afternoon, scorching gusts of wind
kicked up, blowing sand in my face. The dry air sucked the sweat away, crusted my hair with grit, and
fanned my shirt out from my body; it moved as stiffly as cardboard with the dried salt. I kept walking.
I drank water more often than Melanie wanted me to. She begrudged me every mouthful, threatening me
that we would want it much more tomorrow. But I’d already given her so much today that I was in no
mood to listen. I drank when I was thirsty, which was most of the time.
My legs moved me forward without any thought on my part. The crunching rhythm of my steps was
background music, low and tedious.
There was nothing to see; one twisted, brittle shrub looked exactly the same as the next. The empty
homogeny lulled me into a sort of daze—I was only really aware of the shape of the mountains’
silhouettes against the pale, bleached sky. I read their outlines every few steps, till I knew them so well I
could have drawn them blindfolded.
The view seemed frozen in place. I constantly whipped my head around, searching for the fourth
marker—a big dome-shaped peak with a missing piece, a curved absence scooped from its side that
Melanie had only shown me this morning—as if the perspective would have changed from my last step. I
hoped this last clue was it, because we’d be lucky to get that far. But I had a sense that Melanie was
keeping more from me, and our journey’s end was impossibly distant.
I snacked on my granola bars through the afternoon, not realizing until it was too late that I’d finished the
last one.
When the sun set, the night descended with the same speed as it had yesterday. Melanie was prepared,
already scouting out a place to stop.
I eyed the fluffy-looking cactus in the failing light, so thick with bone-colored needles that it resembled
fur, and shuddered.You want me to just sleep on the ground? Right here?
You see another option?She felt my panic, and her tone softened, as if with pity.Look—it’s better
than the car. At least it’s flat. It’s too hot for any critters to be attracted to your body heat and —
“Critters?” I demanded aloud.“Critters?”
There were brief, very unpleasant flashes of deadly-looking insects and coiled serpents in her memories.
Don’t worry.She tried to soothe me as I arched up on my tiptoes, away from anything that might be
hiding in the sand below, my eyes searching the blackness for some escape.Nothing’s going to bother
you unless you bother it first. After all, you’re bigger than anything else out here. Another flash of
memory, this time a medium-size canine scavenger, a coyote, flitted through our thoughts.
“Perfect,” I moaned, sinking down into a crouch, though I was still afraid of the black ground beneath
me. “Killed by wild dogs. Who would have thought it would end so… so trivially? How anticlimactic.
The claw beast on the Mists Planet, sure. At least there’d be some dignity in being taken down bythat. ”
Melanie’s answering tone made me picture her rolling her eyes.Stop being a baby. Nothing is going to
eat you. Now lie down and get some rest. Tomorrow will be harder than today.
“Thanks for the good news,” I grumbled. She was turning into a tyrant. It made me think of the human
axiomGive him an inch and he’ll take a mile. But I was more exhausted than I realized, and as I
settled unwillingly to the ground, I found it impossible not to slump down on the rough, gravelly dirt and
