‘Never-Summer Wilderness,’ the cheerful voice answers her. ‘On our way to Nowhere. That’s where you were headed, right? Noon told us to look out for you.’
‘Let me go,’ Riley says, struggling again. ‘Put me down!’
She feels them come to a halt. ‘Ok,’ the voice says. ‘But you have to take it slow. Don’t fight like that or we’ll all go over.’
They lower Riley to the ground. ‘Watch your step.’
Riley’s breath seizes in her lungs. To her left is a sheer drop down the rock face. Hundreds of feet below, a thread of silver stream worms its way through a canyon. They are descending on a narrow single-file trail, winding along the cliff. This must be the other side of the pass. To the right pine forest rears up, clinging impossibly to the nearly vertical mountainside. It feels like the trees are going to roll down over them like the sea.
The boy slings the blanket he has been carrying her in over his shoulder. He smiles at Riley, shoving his shock of straw hair from his eyes – a white, dazzling smile. Then she sees that the sides of his mouthare black and empty, missing teeth. He wears an old black velvet jacket, faded in places to green. A smoking jacket, Riley thinks they’re called. It’s too big for him. ‘I’m Cal,’ he says. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Riley.’
‘That’s Everett.’ When Riley turns to look at the person behind, who was carrying her feet, she sees a head encased in black wool. Flinty eyes stare out from a balaclava. There’s some feeling in his look that’s so strong that she can’t breathe for a second.
Riley catches the scream in her throat and smiles instead. If people want you to be afraid, smile so that they don’t think you’re prey. Lies go deeper than words. Riley can lie with her whole body.
The black-encased head gives Riley a tiny nod.
‘Everett doesn’t talk.’
Riley wonders if they are going to kill her. It doesn’t really matter because the drop is way worse. She clings to the cliff like a pinned insect. She feels the height pulling at her, gently, like a sucking mouth. Her breath comes hard.
‘Riley’s a dumb name,’ Cal says, reaching for her. She gets ready to bite but she can’t control anything. She is frozen. Cal gently pries her hands loose from their grip on the cliff. ‘So dumb,’ he says to himself, shaking his head.
‘It’s a great name,’ she says, stung. ‘Cal isn’t even a name. It’s just short for something. Your mother didn’t love you enough to give you an actual name?’ She doesn’t even really know what she’s saying at this point.
Cal slides into place beside her, blocking the view of the deep canyon below. ‘My mother’s dead,’ he says. ‘Have some manners.’
He sounds so like Riley when she talks to Oliver that she can’t help laughing, though it comes out sounding kind of insane.
‘Mine is too.’ With Cal on one side and the rock on the other, the path doesn’t feel so bad. She doesn’t feel like she’s going to be blown away.
‘Where’s Oliver? My brother?’
‘They ran ahead with him.’
Riley is scared, and exhausted by being scared, and all she wants to do now is hold Oliver and smell his hair. Riley turns and places a gentle hand on Cal’s chest. She doesn’t push, exactly. She applies the tiniest amount of pressure. Behind him the drop yawns. She hears Everett move, the shift of stones underfoot. He’s getting ready. She keeps her eyes on Cal.
‘I don’t like being apart from my brother,’ she says.
‘His leg is hurt. They ran on ahead because he was in pain. They took him to Noon. You’re too heavy to run with. It’s ok, I promise.’
It has been so long since Riley trusted anyone that she doesn’t recognise the feeling at first. A homeliness, a relaxation of the mind and body. She trusts Cal, though she has no reason to.
Riley steps back. Everett lowers his raised arm, which, she now sees, holds a machete. The blade is weathered, but sharp. He tucks the blade back into its sheath in some unseen place in his clothing and she thinks,remember that.
‘Let’s go then,’ Riley says. As they walk Cal keeps himself between her and the drop. She tells herself that this is good because she can attack at any time. Not because he has put himself between her and that endless fall.
Half an hour later the snow has stopped. They have walked back down through spring, then into the summer.
The sheer wall of rock to the right gentles out and the path veers onto solid ground. It’s so wonderful, solid land.
Riley follows Cal along an animal track that runs through rustling summer leaves. Wild jasmine and morning glory are everywhere. The path grows fainter until it’s a mere graze, a ghost through the trees.
Riley feels Everett’s silence in her wake. ‘One of you walkingahead of me, one behind,’ she says lightly. ‘It looks like you’re guarding a prisoner.’
Cal turns. ‘You’re not a prisoner,’ he says, serious. ‘You’re just about to be free.’
