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CHAPTER 3
It was near the end of her known life, in her mid-thirties, when Adina Astra finally discovered the last strand of the Lost Constellation. Hitherto, it had been the most beautiful specter in her life—an image of something almost real, almost describable, self-evidently more special than a million dreams, something more important than any idea in the dictionary or any treasure in the emperor's vault… but it had been incomplete. And now...?
Adina Astra was not a singer. She had a creaky voice and no sense of pitch. But on the day she learned of the final line from a nut vendor in Sunderwight, she pranced in a daze across the fields and meadows, and for hours and hours, she sang. Afterward, she could remember nothing of what she had sung, and she dared not speak to any of her colleagues or loved ones. Instead, she huddled in the field, shivering in her cloak, and strained to take her eyes off the heavens where the stars still shone, albeit overwhelmed by the light of the sun. At last, wracked by fatigue, she lowered her face to the earth and slept.
It was then that, for the first and only time, Adina Astra spoke with the stars.
No.
Was that it, then? Was that really the end?
Sometimes, in dreams, you think of something that could go wrong… and no matter how unlikely it is that it should go wrong, somehow, the moment you think of it, you know it's going to. Just because you thought of it. Had that notion spilled into real life? Had Mae brought this on herself?
I was just jawing! she wanted to tell the universe. I didn't really think the eclipse would end the world!
She cried aloud, except that it didn't make any noise. Please forgive me! She cried. I'm so sorry, everyone! Did I really just end the world? Please forgive me! I didn't know what I was doing!
The tears in her eyes finally caught up with the ones already welling from her soul. I'm so, so sorry. I know there was so much left so many of you wanted to do…
Green circles that weren't quite complete spun by her. Burbled by. Everything here was burbling. Suddenly Mae realized—no, remembered—where she was.
Tremendous relief soaked through as she relaxed almost too far. She hadn't ended the world. She might just be about to die, was all.
[ o . C ( O ) o c 0 . o ]
That was Black Goat. She was with it again. It had brought her here to talk to her. A black place, with ripples of blue and green almost too dim to see. Bubbles of something that wasn't emptiness floating by. Sounds burbling everywhere underneath the level where sounds should be. Now, suddenly, some of those sounds sounded like they should mean something. It was talking to her.
She wasn't even scared, though. Oh… wait. Yeah. There it was. Yes, she was scared. She was pretty decently scared, really. It just hadn't felt like it at first, since for a few moments she'd genuinely believed that she'd managed to inadvertently end the world. Compared to that, ordinary terror was pretty tame.
But her numbness to it was wearing off. "Um… what do you want? Is there something you need from me?"
[ c O & . C )) (( 0 . ]
She couldn't understand. Or… or could she? Before, in the water in the mine, she hadn't wanted to understand. But when she focused on the sounds, the wretched flaws in the whirling circles, the burbling, she started to grasp ideas. A thought came to mind and mind's eye simultaneously:
A huge null symbol. ∅. Struck like lightning before her, orange and black. Its center emptier than emptiness. Hunger. Then the center blinked black and filled up, and it was a circle filled with nameless and tenebrous satisfaction. Hunger satiated. Gratitude. Figures falling, one by one, into a notch in the top of the huge naught. Each one adding satiation. The cult of uncles and dads. A plan fulfilled. An unexpected gift.
Mae's body, if she had one, was being… tousled with affection. Agitated. It was like she was in a carwash, but she was only an astral projection, and the water was love, and the love was arcane. She didn't understand. What had she done to deserve this? How could she escape?
"He's thanking you for feeding him," said Broderick's voice.
She was simultaneously mortified that she was being watched during this most humiliating of experiences and relieved that someone was there with her. "Broderick! You're here?"
"Yep. You can't see me?"
She looked, but could only see the flashing holes in that desaturated symbol, divided by a crossbar she could no longer see. Even her own (astral?) body was hard to focus on. "Nope. I'm terrified for my life, Brody. Is it okay if I call you Brody?"
He didn't respond for a few moments. "I think he was hungry, and you fed him," he said, more distant than before.
"Hey, don't go! I'm over here!" Mae cried. She felt her head violated, outside to inside. "AGH, stop! I didn't feed you! You crazy thing! If anything I helped crash the mine down on top of you so you'll go hungry!"
The tousling stopped. She saw a small cavern—the room around the shaft, partly caved in, the robed figures gathered around it with one lantern glowing. Ceremoniously, they heaved one of their own in, then immediately began chanting while he fell. His scream echoed as the scene disappeared.
"Oh God. They're sacrificing themselves to you! They're hoping you do something to save them!"
There was only a swimmy incomprehension. Blue-green waves meandered by in weird patterns. Now she saw a silhouette edged in faint yellow and recognized Broderick's profile. "I see you! You're over there!"
He faced her and started moving closer, half swimming and half using nothing but willpower. "He wanted to talk to us both together, I guess. That's why we're here. But why do—"
Abruptly his silhouette turned upward, neck stretching, and he was silenced. Mae could only watch. She willed herself closer but wasn't sure if she was making progress. "Please let us go," she told Black Goat, wherever it was. "I'm afraid."
There was a sudden flash of—yep, that was definitely the scary painting from the Historical Society. A black goat faced with a curved barrier. It raised its black hooves to rend it, then smashed them into the barrier, but though it bowed, it didn't break. Again and again the creature madly scraped and slammed against the curved line, but never tore a hole. Its efforts grew weaker as the image faded.
This was awful. She didn't know what that barrier was, but she was rooting for it to break just because the tension was so terrible. What did this thing want from her? How could she leave? She'd gotten out before by saying "If you're going to kill me, do it—if not, let me go." But she didn't want to dare this horror from beyond to kill her. She'd been desperate then. She wasn't desperate now. She was enjoying life. She felt more or less mentally healthy again for the first time since she was thirteen. Her hometown was falling apart, but at least her friends were happy, she had a job, and her relationship with her parents was good again. She had hope. She couldn't bring herself to repeat that ultimatum when she had hope.
Broderick was still silent, still stretched out. His silhouette was white against black now, or black against blue—somehow she couldn't tell. She swam over, forgetting for a moment that she couldn't, and put her hand on his shoulder. He looked at her but barely seemed to see her.
"No," he said. "No, that's not right."
"What's not right?"
He eyes shone white for a moment with little black ovals. "I won't do it. I don't care if he killed my father."
"What? What are you talking about?" asked Mae.
Broderick set his head on her shoulder, staring far away. "I won't do it."
This was just getting more confusing. "Let us go!" Mae shouted at the ripples and bubbles. "Let us out! We don't know what you want from us!"
A heart beating. But not a normal person's heart, with valves and things. Just a circle, pulsing. Pounding large, pounding small. Seizing the attention of the ears, the senses, making every little hair stand up. Getting more urgent, if not louder. The hole in the middle of an empty symbol. A color that was nothing but sheer contrast. A hunger, a hunger, a hunger. The sweep of desert wind, tearing into her sides. The removal of… good things, little pebbles of color, stars from the sky, comets and planets with rings, all piled up and being taken away. Flailing hooves. Flailing horns. A heartbeat so large and empty it was about to burst.
Don't end me, Mae kept saying to herself. Don't end me, don't end me. My friends care about me. They may even love me. My parents definitely love me. Even my town is starting to love me again, a little—I can feel it, and I want that love. It matters, because I lost it. I want Possum Springs to love me again. Don't end me here. Tell me this isn't what death looks like. Let this be something on the way from something to something, not the end of all roads.
She was embracing Broderick. She could feel his sure, flat form hugging her soundly. She could hear him weeping. The pounding went away. Everything was growing quiet and dark. Even the burbles were stilling.
Suddenly, a picture of a man in a ditch in the woods, picking wildberries. His beard a mess, his clothes torn. Bruce. It was Bruce. Where was he? Why wasn't he with his children and grandchildren, like he said he'd be?
"I know those woods," said Broderick. "Who's that man?"
The picture was gone. Mae had a sense of pleading, of desperation. A full belly for now, coupled with the memory of starvation. Of nowhere to stay. Of being forced to drift, to find shelter, to tear holes in search of new air. To survive.
A glaring crescent of yellow hugging red, surrounded by black, flared in Mae's mind. She felt the niggle of round things, like fat fingers or bugs or lips, all over her body. Then she opened her eyes.
"I really didn't think the stars could talk," said Adina. "For all I loved them, I genuinely didn't believe they could think or feel."
"All things feel in some reference frame," said Ibon. "People told me that fish didn't feel. But I knew they must, if I could find something that mattered to them."
"So you drank all the water in the oceans," said Adina.
"I did! It wasn't easy, but I made the fish cry. It was worth it to know they could. It was worth it to know they had voices."
"I always wondered about that story. Did they die? Fish out of water, I mean…"
"There are still fish, aren't there? Don't worry, skytalker. I didn't let them die."
"Did you… let the water out again?"
"No. I taught them to cry. I taught them to sing and to let their feelings out. In the end, they cried so much that they filled the oceans up again. Why did you think the oceans are salty?"
Screaming, in the distance. A young voice, driven to the height of… something. Tumult all around. Greg's nose in her face, his big eyes peering with no concept of personal space. Mae gasped and sat up.
They bumped heads.
"Ow!" said Gregg. "I mean, holy shit, Mae! Are you alive? You're alive!"
"Is she up?" came Bea's frazzled voice from a short way off. "He's up. This is uncanny."
"Oh god, I didn't want to lose you!" cried Gregg. He dived into a hug, and Mae strained to keep from collapsing flat on her back. It was still dark, but the light was starting to come back. The screaming was just about the end of the total eclipse. "Gregg—"
"Dude. Don't do that again, okay? Don't just black out like that. I was ready to lose it."
"We were all ready to cry," said Angus.
"Holy buck, Gregg. I was so afraid and I think I'm still afraid. Is—" She looked over to where Bea was huddled over Broderick, who was groggily coming to.
"You guys are both all right?" she asked. "Geez. What the hell happened?"
Broderick didn't look ready to talk, so Mae had to. "We… it was…" Should she lie? Hide the truth? "It was the thing from the hole," she blurted before she could decide against it. "The thing from the mine. It still has its hooks in me." She shuddered and felt herself go faint, still feeling the powerful pulse. "Okay, lying down now."
Gregg lowered her to the ground. "Lying down engines engaged. Lie away, captain."
But she didn't want to lie. "It took us. Me and him." She gestured in Broderick's general direction. "It wanted us for something, but I don't know what."
"Did it let go because the eclipse ended?" asked Bea. "If so, you should be safe for another seven years, at least."
Mae lay swimming in the putrid leftover memories of what had happened. It was like waking up from a dream, but instead of fading all too fast, these memories were trying to linger.
"You can't die," said Castys. "You want to slip away into blackness, but you can't."
"But people die all the time," Adina pointed out.
"People die. But you don't. You stay."
"Me personally?"
"Whoever you is. If you're really looking for heaven… if you're really looking… then you can't die, no matter how much you may want to. Since the search is part of you, and it won't let the future be infinite blackness. It just won't."
Adina looked around at the bubbles and ripples of the deep ocean. "But if you're stuck here, drowning underwater forever… is there still any hope for your search?"
"Yes," said Castys. "And that's the worst part."
Cameras snapping. Murmurs and cries and voices everywhere. The sound of fireworks. A crescent boldly growing on the sun's right edge. Why her? Why did she have to be the one lying here, asking herself what was real?
Suddenly, Broderick's soft touch was on her arm. She looked at his face. He was shaken too, but he wasn't afraid—she could see that in him. He was there, on the ground, to comfort her.
"Did you guys have the same experience?" asked Bea.
Mae started to nod, but then realized that, like the most captivating dreams, this might have all been in her head. "You… you were there with me, right?" she asked the lanky half-stranger.
He nodded. "He was desperate. He needed our help."
Mae swallowed. "Black Goat? Our help?"
He closed his eyes and didn't elaborate.
"We had the same experience," Mae confirmed, looking up at Bea.
"Great. So. Now I've got to realign my worldview and figure out what's real and what's fake again. And worry about the possibility that I might be going to hell after all. Thanks a lot."
"Bea." Angus grasped her shoulder firmly, as if demanding eye contact, which she defiantly gave him. "You're not going to hell. You're a good person."
She paused. "And you think that's all it takes?" she murmured.
Gregg was there with a bottle of water. "Here, bottoms up. Both of you. What the heck just happened?"
Mae took it and swigged. "I dunno if I can describe it. Remember when I blacked out down in the mine, on our way out? I was there again. And this guy was with me."
"He knows us," said Broderick. "He needs us."
"Still not sure it's a 'he,'" said Mae.
Broderick shrugged. "We need to talk."
"What, alone?"
He looked at the others, then back to Mae. "I think we'd better."
"Okay, hold on," said Gregg. "This is my oldest friend we're talking about here. You're not dragging her off anywhere without me."
Mae's follicles tingled. "Gregg."
He saw her stare and his face weakened. "You sure, Mae?"
"He's not dragging me anywhere. I'm fine. I'm physically fine." She leapt to her feet and jumped in place, to prove it.
Bea helped Broderick up. "I'm glad to hear it. But does that mean your emotional health is… questionable?" she asked.
"It's not questionable because it's a mess, plain and simple. But we have to talk alone." She pointed in a random direction. "We'll be right over there."
Her friends stared at her. "Okay," said Angus.
"Fine," said Bea.
"Don't run off," pled Gregg. "Stay cool. Okay?"
"Like I have a choice," retorted Mae. She took Broderick's hand. "Come on." And she marched him into the awestruck crowd.
"How did you live with yourself?" demanded Adina. "Did you really think what you did was just?"
Dohr the Murderer stared at her. "There is no justice. It's a fairy tale. Justice is what mothers tell children to make them think the world is fair. Justice is an idea to keep people in line. Something they can dream exists after they die, or after the world is made perfect. In this world, there is no justice."
But Adina stood her ground. "Then shouldn't we try to make justice, if we can?"
Dohr chuckled. "There you have it. That's it exactly. I made my own justice. It had a certain beautiful symmetry to it, didn't it? Right down to the chickens."
"Do you really think it was just to murder everyone and everything the king held dear, only because he insulted you?"
"And everyone I held dear."
"But insults aren't equal to murder."
"And there's your problem. You think justice is about equality. Ever heard of 'an eye for an eye'? Doesn't get a lot of play these days, does it?"
"So what is justice, then, if not equality?"
Dohr struck a firm stance, clutching the dead head of the king in his hand by the hair. "It's an artform. Like any artform, it's whatever you make it."
They stepped over sleeping children, past barking dogs, past the smell of gunpowder. "What did it show you?" asked Mae urgently.
He paced a while further. Now they were near the edge of the field. The ends of the stiltwalker's stilts were visible just past a bush, lying on the ground. He turned, put his hands on Mae's shoulders, drew her close. He paused even then.
"The man who moved out of town. The one who helped shoot my father. When he left, he left behind a wife and six children. The wife is sick. The children don't know what to do. The oldest one is taking care of things, but they're weak. Vulnerable." He swallowed.
Was he going to go help them? Did he need Mae to help him help them? "…And?"
"He wants me to sacrifice them," Broderick said. "To go to the woods with a rifle, and take them captive, and bring them back to his hole, one by one, and sacrifice them."
Mae gulped, and gaped. "…You can't do that."
"I can't do that," agreed Broderick.
"I mean… you shouldn't do that. No one should do that. You shouldn't even be thinking about it!"
"I wish I could stop," he said.
Mae was scared now, looking into his dark eyes. "Do you… is there even a hole to throw anyone into? I thought the hole was in my town, and it… got closed up."
"There's a hole in Mannetsburg too. I think there's a few holes. They all lead to the same place."
She wanted to ask what that was. She didn't. "Is that this abomination's idea of justice? The guy kills your dad, so you kill his family to get even?!"
"I think so. I think in its twisted mind, it's the same thing. Plus, it's seven easy sacrifices. It's hungry, Mae."
"When I'm hungry, I eat a PB&J! Or tacos!"
"Well, Black Goat doesn't eat tacos."
"It eats people."
Broderick nodded soberly.
"Promise me you won't do it," Mae demanded.
"It wouldn't even make sense as revenge. The man left them behind. He doesn't care about these people anymore. He'd probably never know if they were gone."
Mae heated up and stood on tiptoes so she could get closer to Broderick's face. "Promise me you won't do it!"
He looked at her with… pity, maybe. "I promise."
"You aren't tempted, are you?"
"No."
"Then why do I feel like maybe you're tempted?"
"I don't know. Maybe Black Goat has a hold on me. I'd be lying not to admit I'm shaken."
"I'm shaken too! But I want it gone. I don't want it to hold me or have anything else to do with me!"
"Maybe that's because you're afraid of him," said Broderick. "But…" He looked at the sun, then winced and looked away.
Mae dug around in her pocket for her viewing glasses. She put them on. "But what?"
He spread his hands. "I guess I sympathize with him."
Mae wondered whether she was looking at a monster. Or a saint. Or maybe both. Maybe a saint would sympathize with a monster. Or maybe only another monster would be able to see things its way, even for a second. But then she remembered what she'd said to Bea last night—what if it's so far past evil that it isn't completely evil anymore?
"I don't expect to understand you," said Adina, making an effort to stare into the monster pope's eyes.
"And why exactly would you expect it to concern me whether or not you understand?" said Rubello, drawing inward. His eyes were red marbles.
"I don't know," Adina admitted. "Everyone else seems to want me to understand their point of view."
"Vanity," said the creature. Was there really fire in his craw?
"What I don't understand," persevered Adina, "is why they made you a saint. Pope, sure. The church is corrupt—my parents knew that well enough to see I never went. People can do awful things to become pope, then sweep it all under the rug. But a saint? How did they justify that?"
He appeared smug, even as his brow heated up. "What does sainthood require? A life of heroic virtue, yes. Noble writings, yes. But mostly miracles." His face glowed. "I was a master of miracles. Miracles were my bread and my butter."
"Miracles like consuming your rivals with fire?"
He nodded. "If it happened, it was a miracle. And if it was a miracle, it must have been for the best. Miracles do not wound the world, only help it."
"But that can't have been a virtuous act!" Adina protested.
"It did not appear it, but it must have been," declared Rubello. "For in my time, it became unfashionable to speak of Old Scratch as if he held any power." He smiled darkly. "And that ungenerosity is what cost the church… dearly."
Adina fled before the plumes of red could reach her.
His head, his lanky neck, was on her shoulder. His long arms were around her. He was kneeling. His face was turned downward.
Somehow, Mae wasn't agitated. She was okay. She was okay with this.
"I'm not bad. I'm not a bad man," said Broderick. "I don't know what to say. I know it's horrible, asking me to kill all those children. And I won't. But I can't hate the thing. It's acting in accordance with its nature, like all of us. I can't hate it, Mae from Possum Springs."
Somehow, she knew it was true. "I'm not bad either. Not really. I mean, I'm bad in the sense of something that doesn't work right—a bad sprocket or whatever. But I'm not a bad person. We're just stuck in this together."
"Do you think we're really stuck? Are we going to be drawn together, again and again?"
Mae gulped. In a way, she wanted the answer to be yes. She needed connections in her life. But this one… was just too creepy. "I don't know, Brody."
He took his arms from around her. "Who was that man? With the scruffy beard?"
"Oh, Bruce?" She'd forgotten about him showing up. What had that been about? "Just a drifter I knew. He passed through town a few months ago."
"He was living in the woods near Mannetsburg. I know those woods. I think I may know that place."
Mae started to worry again. "Do you think he's really living there now?"
"I think it only shows you things that're real."
Sickness welled. "He said he was going back to his family. His kids. His daughter's children, playing in the yard. Handmade signs with markers."
"I guess he didn't make it."
A bitter pill snapped inside of Mae. "Or he was just saying that," she realized. "Oh god. Bruce was just saying that to make me feel better! He never had a daughter. Or maybe his daughter was dead. Or never wanted to speak to him again."
"If he was a drifter…" began Broderick.
"The pastor wanted to find a place for him to stay in the church," said Mae.
"But if he had a family the whole time to go back to…"
"Then why didn't he go back sooner?" she finished. "It doesn't make sense. It wasn't like he was living the dream in Possum Springs."
"Sounds like a happy fiction," agreed Broderick.
Tears came. "It was. Oh god, it was. But… but at least he's still alive. Still getting by."
"Why do you suppose Black Goat showed him to us?" asked Broderick softly.
Mae sighed, not ready to deal with this. "Maybe he wanted us to sacrifice him too."
He nodded. "It would make sense."
"Well, that's not happening."
"No."
Her rage found an outlet. "Damn it, can't you say that like you mean it?!"
"I do mean it! You don't have to yell."
She balled her fists. "I'm angry! Yes I have to yell! Yelling is what people do when they're angry!"
"What good does it do to be angry at it? It's a thing from beyond."
"No. It's not a thing from beyond. I've seen the things from beyond. They're horrible. They're space bugs."
Broderick was caught up short by this. "Really?"
Mae nodded. "I talked to a big cat in a dream, and it showed me these blind creatures from beyond the sea. The astral sea, I guess. It said I was coming to them." Weird how easy it was to say all this, now that so much had happened.
His throat caught. "You talked with the All-Seer too?"
Oh no, what now? "The All-Seer?"
"That big cat. That was how they appeared to me."
Easy enough to believe the giant cat god was a 'they.' "The big cat was the All-Seer? Yeah, I guess that would make sense. They kept talking like everything was happening at once, like no one ever heard of time." She was starting to shake. Fireworks were bursting nearby, lighting up the rapidly lightening sky, and each one shook her a little more.
"What did they say to you?"
Mae tried to remember. It wasn't easy. "They said that nothing meant anything. That existence was monstrous. That the end was so close to the beginning that there was no time to forget in between."
The stranger who wasn't a stranger anymore took a breath. "Wow. Pretty grim."
"That's not what you talked about?"
"Not quite. I asked what they were. They said they were the All-Seer. So I asked if they could really see everything. Yes, they said. They could."
"Did you believe them?"
"I didn't. I asked if they could see who was going to win the next day—the Bluebears or the Asbestos."
Huh! "I think we root for the Smelters in my town."
"You think?"
"I'm not really big into sportsball. So what did the cat god say?"
"Just this. 'That can be seen, but not understood.' What do you make of that?"
Mae wasn't sure. "That they're not into sportsball either?"
Broderick shrugged. "So I figure. I asked if there were going to be storms the next day. Anything I could verify. It said 'There are many storms always.' 'But where?' I asked it. 'All places are storms,' they said."
"They told me all things are atoms."
"Seems like a big picture thinker. I never got a real prediction out of that cat."
Mae remembered something she'd put together. "I think they told me about Black Goat," she volunteered. "They said a great beast was in the desert, and it went into the sky and made a tear. And then little creatures like me, and I guess you, came through and made trouble. So the cat went to fix the hole, and now we can't go back again. But I think Black Goat was the reason we got through in the first place. We went through its tear."
Broderick absorbed this. "And now the beast can't get back again."
"Are you sure?"
"Didn't you feel it? He was trying. He showed us how he was trying."
Scrabbling against the barrier. "Oh wow. I saw a painting like that. In the historical society."
"And now he's worried he's going to starve, and won't ever get home."
"Wow." Was she actually feeling sorry for the cosmic horror? "If it could tear a hole once, why couldn't it do it again?"
"Could be it's harder going one way than the other. Could be the big cat made it impossible."
That could be, sure. Mae looked at the field, feeling uncomfortable. Some people were still watching, shooting photos, having fun. Others were getting up and leaving. She glanced at the sun—it was half alive again.
"How long do you suppose before Black Goat starves?" she asked.
Broderick spread his arms. "No way of knowing."
"Do you… do you think there's some way to rescue it?"
"By making a new tear?"
"Or however," she encouraged.
"What two places is the tear even between?"
"The deep underground and the sky of the desert?" she conjectured.
"So these creatures come from a place below where we live?"
Mae remembered that in the painting, the black goat was breaking through a sky barrier from the top. "Or a place high above."
"Maybe both and neither."
"A place between."
"So how would we even get to a place between?"
She shut her eyes. "It doesn't seem possible. For little creatures like us."
"Could start a war even if we did. Maybe Black Goat escaped that big cat for a reason."
"Maybe it was a bad reason. Maybe it should go back."
Broderick was silent.
"And what if Black Goat takes a century or longer to starve?" Mae went on. "It could plague us for our whole lives!"
He gulped. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to find that friend of yours. Bruce? And I'm going to help him, if I can."
"I wonder why it showed him to us," said Mae.
"As a gift, I'd guess."
"As a gift, or as a hungry dog, begging for a meal?"
"Don't know. But I'll help him. And I'll contact the authorities about that man's family. Let them know about his sick wife."
"Good. But what about Black Goat?"
Broderick looked helpless, and like he hated being helpless. "Mae, there's nothing we can do."
Mae sighed and closed her eyes. She felt like she was pounding against a barrier, sometimes. Like she'd ripped a hole in the world by mistake when she was thirteen and now she couldn't get back through.
"The hardest part," said Simone, "wasn't getting myself up each day to rejoin the fray. And it wasn't the long hours, or the stealth, or the exhaustion, or even the killing when killing was needed."
"What was it, then?" asked Adina.
"The hardest part was recruiting people to the cause. Convincing them that now was the right time in their life to step over that line. To make themselves targets. To give up peace until there was peace for all. That's the biggest thing you can ever ask anyone to do."
"I can imagine. How did you do it?"
Simone huffed a veteran's breath. "I helped them see that nothing is impossible. I told them stories about revolts that succeeded. Movements that overwhelmed oppression. Heroes from the past. I did my best to convince them that with a willing and strong heart, there's nothing you can't accomplish."
Adina felt her own heart beating. "And did you believe that yourself?"
"I had to. Otherwise, how could I ask them to?"
Adina looked again at the map in her hand. The Cave of the Snake loomed large against everything else. Her fear was thick as paste. She looked back at Simone.
"I believe it," she said.
"I died in the line of duty," said Simone. "Our revolution failed."
"But you live on in legend," said Adina. "And now we have peace."
Simone came to Adina. She looked something like Adina's lover. Of all the constellations, she was the only one whose touch she could feel. "You have something important you have to do, don't you?"
Adina sighed. "Yes," she admitted.
"And you're afraid."
"As afraid as I've ever been of anything."
"But your heart is strong."
Adina knew it was true. "Yes."
Simone looked into Adina's eyes. "Then there's only one question left. Is it willing?"
Adina stared back and felt the answer rising.
"We'll see about that," said Mae.
A/N: As I post this, the solar eclipse is crossing America! I hope you're watching it and this update dings on your phone at just the right moment to add to the chaos.