“We’re good, Fleur!” Julio shouts when we catch up to him. “You can turn it off now!”
“I can’t! I can’t hold it!” The ground shudders all on its own, splitting the road ahead of us.
“Not good!” Julio swerves to avoid the growing crack. We all back away as it moves past us over the highway, eating pavement and belching dust, severing us from our escape route.
“We have to cross now, before it’s too wide to jump! Go!” Jack shouts.
Julio and Amber sprint toward it. They launch themselves into the air and land hard on the other side. Noelle leaps next, turning back to extend a hand to Yukio and Gabriel as they jump. The other Seasons are quick to follow.
Julio and Amber shout at our Handlers to hurry. Behind us, electrical wires hiss and spark and another archway collapses. Sirens wail from both sides of the border.
The fissure is jagged, as deep as I saw it in my mind. Marie and Woody take a running leap, the weight of their backpacks propelling them to their knees on the other side. Chill holds Poppy around her waist, close to the edge. It’s already too late, the fissure’s too wide. There’s no way they’ll make it across together.
The other Seasons watch as Marie and Woody stretch their hands over the gap, calling for Chill and Poppy to throw their packs. Chill slides them off and hurls them across as Amber and Julio lean over the crack.
“We’ll catch you,” they shout. “Hurry, Poppy!”
“Don’t worry,” Chill says. “I won’t let go.”
They jump. My breath catches on a silent scream when Poppy’s feet land short, one hand still clinging to Chill’s, one grabbing blindly for Julio’s outstretched fingers as she slides down the wall of the fissure. Noelle reaches down, catching her under her arms. Her eyes find mine across the rift as she hauls Poppy to her feet.
“We go together, on three.” Jack takes my hand and counts us down. Our feet push off the precipice and we jump, propelled across the gap by a blast behind us as the immigration building’s windows blow out and the structure is engulfed by fire. Amber and Julio drag us off the ground, running toward a hole in a chain-link fence. No one notices as our group slips among the cars parked inside it.
Crouching low, Julio assesses the lot, guiding us to a Winnebago that looks older than all of us. I squat against the side of it, willing the earth to settle as Jack picks the locks. We all file in. Julio climbs into the driver’s seat and reaches under the dash. He strips a few wires, pinching them together in one hand. Then he reaches across the console with a crooked grin at Jack.
Jack chokes out a laugh. He slaps a palm into Julio’s outstretched hand. With a spark and a sputter, the van’s engine turns over, and the border disappears in a cloud of smoke behind us.
46
Dust to Dust
JACK
The Sonoran Desert is brutal in the daylight. The Winnebago’s window tinting is a weak shield against the sun’s daggers, and the AC only manages to blow more hot, dry air through the vents. The hazy peaks on the horizon feel like a mirage, slipping farther into the distance the longer we drive. I lick my parched lips at the sight of them. Would give anything to stick my bare feet in a cold mountain stream or lie naked for one minute in a bed of snow. But these aren’t the mountains I’m used to. They’re jagged and bare as bone, cutting up through flat, fiery landscapes dotted with yellow grass and thorny scrub.
Julio drives the first leg of the trip. Mostly because he’s more awake than the rest of us. The climate favors him, makes him nod his head and hum along to therancheramusic on the radio. I lay mine back and try to rest, but I’m kept awake, unable to ignore the familiar disquieting cough that’s started somewhere in the back of the camper. I turn in my seat.Gabriel and Yukio slump beside each other on the floor, hugging their knees. Their skin’s flushed, their eyes glassy, wary as they watch the Autumns huddled on the far side of the cab. According to the map we picked up at a gas station south of Tecate, we have at least thirty hours of driving ahead of us, a third of it through Sonora.
“Oh, for Chronos’s sake,” Amber grumbles, holding the back of a chair for balance as she surveys the lot of them. “You,” she says, pointing to the row of Summers taking up the length of the couch. One of them yelps as she grabs him by the elbow. “Don’t be such a baby. It doesn’t hurt.” She shoves him into the tight gap between Gabriel and Yukio. Their eyes widen as their skin brushes.
I turn back to the road, drifting in and out of a hazy sleep as the coughs quiet. Every few hours the terrain changes and the air smells different, pungent oils of parched vegetation and dust giving way to the smoke of carne asada vendors in passing towns, then to sage as night falls.
“Smell that?” Julio asks just after dusk, one arm draped out the RV’s open window. The sky’s swirled with lavender and gray, our headlights catching the dark flash of bats swooping over the highway. A mile marker puts us about an hour north of Hermosillo. I take a deep breath. Catch a hint of something sweet.
“What is it?”
“Cactus flowers,” he says, frowning at the road ahead of us. “I haven’t smelled saguaro flowers since I was a kid.”
“So?”
“They don’t bloom this time of year.” Julio turns off the radio, plunging the RV into silence.
The perfume grows stronger, the cab filling with the scent of pollen and the chorus of insects along the side of the road. Our headlightsdrill a tunnel through the dark. At the end of their reach, a shadow cuts across the highway.
Julio slams on the brakes. Our tires squeal, kicking up smoke as we skid to a stop. Jolted awake, the Seasons in the back of the RV scramble forward to see over the front seats.
Fifty feet in front of us, a van’s parked sideways across the road.
“They’re Summers,” Fleur says, peering over my shoulder. “Maybe Julio should try talking to them first.”
