Lee looked to her, brightness returning to his eyes. “Right,” he said. “I want to explore... whatever appeared when we touched.”
Sen nodded. “We should return to your side of the house first. It’s safer.”
“All right,” Lee said, though he made no move to stand up. Perhaps he could also sense the strange peace that had descended over the river, this cool silence in the clearing that felt like it belonged to neither of their worlds, but a separate third world for only them. In that moment, as she sat beside Lee, death felt very far away, like it was no more than a bad dream.
“Let’s go,” Lee said at last, standing up and brushing off his pants.
They walked back to the house side by side, their wet footsteps sloshing in the mud. Sen would have to hide the footprintslater, but that was a problem for morning. They returned to Sen’s room that would one day become Lee’s room, where a light burned from the other side of the closet door. Sen waited for Lee to open it, but he had frozen in the doorway, his gaze fixed on the far wall.
The angle of the moonlight in the near-morning hours illuminated the far-left corner of her room, where she’d tossed her painting supplies.
“What is that?” Lee said, pointing at the corner. His voice had sounded so quiet and earnest out in the forest, but now it had jagged edges, too loud for this house where samurai were sleeping.
Sen followed his gaze to one of her recent paintings, the face of a woman she’d seen in her dream. She had wide moon eyes and a long, haunted face.
“My paintings,” Sen said uneasily.
Lee shook his head, turning to her. “That’s my mother.”
Chapter Twenty
Lee
“Lee, come help me for a second,” his mother said.
Lee swung the hammock until it set him on his feet, then looked over the edge of the balcony. He’d been reading on the second floor of the bungalow in Cambodia for most of the afternoon.
When he peered over the edge, he saw blood.
His book slid from his fingers, falling to the ground. He hurried downstairs and threw open the door to the first-floor patio. His mom was in her swimsuit, crouched in front of something large and brown. It made wheezing sounds and sat in a pool of blood.
“Mom?” Lee said, clutching the doorframe.
“Lee, help me,” his mother said again. “Be brave for me.”
Lee swallowed, then slowly stepped onto the porch.
His mother was kneeling in front of a turtle, making soothing sounds as it twitched and splashed in the blood. Instead of a round shell, the turtle’s center curved in like an hourglass, its middle pinched in around a ring of plastic from a six-pack of soda. A purple ribbon curled out of the turtle’s nostril.
Lee’s mom looked over her shoulder, her eyes dark. “Scissors, Lee,” she said.
Lee dashed off, glad to have an excuse to look away. He dug through his mom’s suitcase until he found her nail scissors, then hurried back and jerked them toward her, afraid to draw too close. His mom worked the tiny scissors through the plastic, finally ripping away the plastic ring. She sighed as she set it to the side and placed the scissors beside it.
“Hold her for me, Lee,” she said.
Lee stepped forward slowly and placed his palms on the warped shell. The turtle turned its head to the side and watched Lee with sad black eyes.
Lee’s mom grabbed the end of the ribbon and pulled.
The turtle made a low sound of pain as Lee’s mother tugged the endless length of string out of its nose. The turtle wobbled from side to side, but Lee held its shell down with shaking hands. More blood sprayed from the turtle’s nose until at last his mom had pulled the entire ribbon out.
Lee let go immediately and backed up against the wall. The turtle turned around and started shimmying across the sand, heading back for the water.
“Will its shell go back to normal?” Lee said, watching the deformed turtle wobble away.
“Probably not,” his mom said with a sigh. “It’s broken forever now.”
The wind tossed her curls back, and Lee thought he had never seen his mother look so sad. Not for him, not for his father, not for herself. But for this turtle, tears bloomed in her eyes.
