I struggled to sit up. “You haven’t even told me why you’re here.”
His intense stare remained fixed on me. “I wanted to check on you. And give you this.” Everett pulled his hand from behind his back,presenting a dead copperhead, the tail coiled around his forearm. The snake’s slitted eyes were open, glassy and unseeing.
If it wasn’t for the medicine muffling my feelings, turning them cotton-ball soft, I think I would’ve screamed. Instead, I leaned closer, morbidly curious. I studied the leaflike pattern of its scales. “Is this the snake that bit me?”
He nodded. “I went back and found him while you were in the hospital. Now you don’t have to worry when we go back to the woods.”
He held the snake higher, presenting it like a trophy.
“An eye for an eye,” I murmured. I searched myself. “It’s strange. But I think it does make me feel safer. Thank you.”
He lowered his hand. “You should always feel safe, Ruth. I’ll make sure of it.”
I looked out the window at the blood moon. Every part of tonight was surreal; reality twisted on its side. I was half-convinced I was dreaming. “Let’s go outside,” I said. If this was a dream, I could do anything.
Ever eyed me. “Are you sure you can manage?”
I floated to the window and leaned out. Apocalypse or not, the sky was a splendor. The red-orange light and the eerie quiet made my neighborhood feel like another, more peaceful place. “Yes. I want to be outside. Not trapped in here.”
“Okay then, Rapunzel. Let’s climb to the roof. That’ll be the best view.”
I turned to him.
“It’ll be just like climbing a tree.”
Slowly, I shook my head.
“You’ve never climbed atree?”
“You climbed through my window holding a dead snake, and I’m the strange one?” I raised my eyebrows. After a moment, his face cracked into a smile.
“Fair enough,” he allowed. “I guess that means you don’t want it?”
I bit my lip. “No, thank you. But if you throw it in the garden, it’ll scare my mother.”
His smile turned wolfish. He crossed to the window and dropped the dead snake matter-of-factly into the flower bed. Then he glanced at me. “Come on. I’ll help you up.”
Everett turned out to be right about the trellis: it was almost as good as a ladder. We climbed it slowly, then made our way across the roof, me in front and Everett behind, his hands hovering over my waist, ready to grab me if my feet slid on the shingles. Halfway across I looked back and found him concentrating intensely on my feet. “What?” he asked when he caught me. But I only smiled and kept moving.
Finally, we came to the edge of the roof and sat with our legs dangling over the side, the whole bloody landscape sweeping before us. “I know it’s supposed to be scary,” I said. “But it feels more like a fairy tale.”
“The Bible is a fairy tale.”
From up here, Bottom Springs seemed smaller and more manageable, less like it could hurt me. I felt a surge of affection—for my hometown or my heretical friend, I couldn’t tell. “Promise me you won’t say those sorts of things to other people. And don’t ever bring them snakes.”
“I know. But it’s you.”
I closed my eyes to soak in the feeling of being ayou—and swayed, hands slipping on the shingles.
“Careful,” Everett said, gripping my arm. “Lean against me if you’re having trouble.”
For a boy who’d been reluctant to hold my hand earlier today, this seemed a leap. My heart rate climbed, a small echo of the way it pounded in the meadow when his mouth closed over my thigh. I scooted until our legs touched and leaned my head against his shoulder. Everett wrapped an arm around me. He smelled green and mineral, like the woods.
“Will you show me how to climb trees? I like the way the world looks from high up.”
He squeezed my arm, which I took to mean yes. We sat in contemplative silence until he said, “Ruth?”
“Hmm?”
