Natalie nodded. Taking a deep breath, she faced Li’s rock tomb. “Good-bye, friend,” she said. “Thank you for the beauty you brought into my life. I’ll never forget you. Rest in peace.”
“Where to?” I asked Natalie.
“Anywhere,” she said. Despite the sun, her teeth chattered.
I thought fast. “I know just the place.” I hitched up my pack, keeping my hands away from Charley, not wanting to touch her since I’d just touched death. “To the tubes.”
“To the tubes,” Jason echoed.
We walked in silence. The funeral hangover threatened to make me sick.
Another death on my watch.
It was a relief to spot the tubes. South of the Arches, a web of tunnels carved from old lava flows sat open to the sky. Glistening with fresh water and heated daily by the sun, the tubes were perpetually warm. Not as hot as the showers Charley dreamed of, but a marked change from the icy Cove.
Even better, South Beach lay on the other side. A wide black beach stretching down the western coast to the southern tip, someone before my time had slapped it with the generic name, and it stuck. Seeing the setup for tonight, I relaxed. Not totally, but enough. Enough to stay sane one more day, enough to hold the possibility of sleep. Camping near the sea beat crashing deep in the island any day. One less side to guard.
I turned to Charley. “You’ll like this. It’s Nil’s version of a warm bath.”
For the next few hours, the four of us lounged in the tubes, elbows out, faces to the sun, chilling like we were in a hot tub at a ski chalet—only this was Nil. And not for one minute did I forget. Judging by Nat’s face, neither did she. Death hung with us like a fifth wheel.
When the air cooled, we foraged. I fished, Charley harvestedredfruit, and Jason and Nat gathered firewood. Charley might have been green, but our team purred with island efficiency, enough to dispel the aura of death. Action was always the best Nil antidote, a fact I’d forgotten in the wake of Li’s burial. While Natalie cleaned the fish, I showed Charley how to make fire using my bow. Rub and blow, coaxing the wisp of smoke to burst into flame. The brittle tinder caught within minutes. The blaze was not just for warmth; it was for protection. Animals disliked fire.
As the fire burned and the sun set, I took first watch.
Natalie was already asleep, or lost in thought with her eyes closed. Jason was sacked out beside Nat. Beside the fire, Charley lay in my arms, her back resting against my chest, her face tilted to the clear Nil sky. Even with the crappy day we’d had, I felt guiltily content. I’d buried a girl today, and now I held the perfect one in my arms. It was the yin and yang of Nil, and it was totally twisted.
Charley had been quiet for so long that my gut said she wasn’t thinking about the stars.
“Thinking about Li?” I asked softly.
“I can’t believe she didn’t make it.” Charley’s voice was subdued. “One thing’s for sure, I’ll never look at black rock the same. I hiked all over piles of that stuff my first day here, and for all I know, I was walking over dead bodies. Like a cemetery.” She shuddered.
“Well, I’ve never buried anyone in black rock before, if it makes you feel better.”
“It doesn’t. Because you and I are just the latest drop-ins. Look at the Wall. It’s covered in names. There’re hundreds on there.”
“I know,” I said.
Charley’s face was still tilted toward the stars. “Do you think we’re here for a reason? I mean, on Nil?”
“I don’t know. But”—I kissed her head—“right now there’s no place I’d rather be.”
“Same.” She smiled, then looked straight at me. “Who’s Ramia?”
“Ramia?” I replied, startled.
“Natalie mentioned Ramia, and that name sounds familiar. Who is she?”
“A girl. She left a few weeks after I arrived.”
Charley’s eyes stayed on mine. “She didn’t make it, did she?”
“No.”
“And she’s the one who carved that creepy bone bracelet I heard about?”
“Yup.”
