The Book of M (34 page)

Naz put her hand on his shoulder as he bent to kiss Vienna's forehead. Through the gap between the two carriages that blocked their view, she could see Watson's long, velvet neck as it trembled against the dirt. Unexpectedly, Ory was there, grimacing. He held the gun as if it was ten times heavier than it was. The electric, stormy gleam shivered inside the barrel. He seemed to have forgotten how to use it.

“Come on,” Naz said softly. “Do it for Watson. Do it for Vienna.” The gun wavered as Ory wavered. He moved the cold muzzle around on the horse's temple for what felt like hours as she lay there in the dirt, whining. He was afraid it wasn't on the exact right spot, afraid he'd only miss or make it worse, torturing her with burning, searing thunder, and then need to use more and more bullets until he used too many and someone stopped him, and the horse would be in
more
agony, not less. Watson moaned. “Do it for us,” Naz whispered.
Do it for me,
she realized she'd actually meant. Ory closed his eyes and turned his head away.

He was going to miss, she saw. And he was too afraid to take a second shot, so he couldn't take the first. He wasn't going to do it. Shoot the horse or come to New Orleans. He was going to run. He
was going to go back to Washington, D.C., to go backward into his memories until he died.

But when he finally pulled the trigger, one bullet was enough.

“I'm staying,” he said to Naz when she came out from behind the carriage.

“I believe you now,” she said.

I'M SORRY I HAVEN'T—I KNOW IT'S BEEN A FEW DAYS.
WE ALL
lost so much the last time, I just didn't want to record for a little while. I didn't want to think about it. It's so hard to explain to you what it's like. How sometimes you don't know you've lost a thing, but sometimes you do—just not what it was. When that happens, it's easier just not to think at all. If you don't think, you won't stumble onto the fresh, cold chasm in the winding canyon of your memories. For just a little while, it's easier not to try to remember anything at all.

But then of course I miss you. And then I want to remember you. Even if it means encountering the gaps.

I hope we make it, Ory. We have to make it before I forget you so they can fix me, so I can find you once more. So I can make all of this right again, and save us both.

But it's getting worse. Much, much worse.

The roads here are winding instead of straight. They swerve lazily all around, as if a giant bent over and gently stirred the landscape with a spoon. There's an argument inside the RV every time we come to another turn, about whether we should attempt to drive through the swath of non-road in front of us or whether we should follow the curves around to save the tires, even though the hours and the miles are growing, growing, growing.

“We could just drive right over it,” Dhuuxo said softly from over the top of Ursula's seat. Before us spread a large and dark puddle, too deep and too wide to plunge through without killing the engine. “Just right over, like gliding.”

“No we can't,” Ursula said firmly. “We can't drive over water.”

“But we could,” she insisted. I looked up and saw that faraway look in her eyes. A feathering around the edges. A seeing of a thing that none of the rest of us could see just yet, but soon would.

“Stop,” I said.

“We
could,
” she whispered.

“We're never going to make it in time if we don't do something,” Wes added softly.

“We're never going to make it with enough of ourselves left if we do too much,” Ursula replied.

Sometimes Dhuuxo will give up, sometimes Ursula. Sometimes neither will, and it escalates into a screaming fight until Intisaar starts to cry. I'm afraid of her now, Ory. I'm afraid of Dhuuxo. When Lucius left the group and Ursula drove us out of Transcendence's camp with an RV made from a cage and saved us, and something else, something I know I no longer remember, we all saw how much you could gain if you paid enough. I thought that because Dhuuxo came with us, she felt the same—that the price was too high. Maybe she did, I don't know. Maybe it isn't that Dhuuxo doesn't want to resist, but that she
can't
. I suppose it doesn't matter. The result is the same. She's letting go, more and more. Little things—changing the color of her clothes, changing the lengths of her intricate, tumbling braids, blooming flowers all along the sides of the road where there was nothing an instant before. The trees sing now, in a language I don't understand. Slowly, bigger and bigger things, too. The strength of the warmth in the air. The brightness of the moon, so we can continue to drive even at night. At first Ursula didn't say anything. She just looked at Intisaar every time something happened. Intisaar would nod back, to promise that she was watching Dhuuxo, that she wouldn't let her fall too in love with the magic.

But every time it happens, Dhuuxo slips further and further away. She's so far gone now that I don't know if Intisaar can bring her back. Her only choice may be to let her go—or follow her.

I think we're losing Wes, too. Now it's the two of them always trying, studying this new world they can see—not the world that's there but the world that
could be
—while Intisaar sits with her back against the back of my seat, watching them in terrified silence. Victor and Ysabelle have taken to yelling for Ursula every time they think Dhuuxo might be forgetting something, making that horrible trade. To warn her before it happens. The pull inside the little cabin is so strong now, it's not just about her and Wes—every time Dhuuxo forgets something, she's in danger of taking us with her too, even though we don't want to go. Our RV often jerks to a stop in this winding wasteland, brakes screeching, Ursula climbing out of the driver's seat like a provoked bear, roaring at them, shaking them by the shoulders, even hitting them, once.

“So help me God,” she snarled in Dhuuxo's face. Dhuuxo strained to get away, and Ursula grabbed her braids at the base of her skull, pulled her face so close to her own and held it there that they could have kissed, if they hadn't wanted to kill each other instead. “I will not let you endanger the rest of us, too. If you give up one more time, I will throw you out of this caravan. I will leave you behind.”

“
Please,
” Intisaar begged.

“Don't be afraid,” Dhuuxo whispered. “There's nothing to be afraid of.”

“Do it again and watch me keep my word,” Ursula said.

I held Intisaar in terror, waiting for something horrible. An absence, a shifting, an addition to reality. The only one strong enough to stop Dhuuxo if she tried something was Ursula, because they had both forgotten so much—but she would have to use the magic right back to thwart anything Dhuuxo tried to do, and none of us know how much Ursula has left. What if what it took from her was the memory of how to drive?

“I'm sorry,” Dhuuxo finally said. Her cheeks were wet then. “I don't know if I can stop it.”

“You can,” Ursula said. She pointed at Dhuuxo's twin sister, and they studied each other's identical features. “You have to.”

She tried. Intisaar watched her, and Victor and Ysabelle watched Wes. We wound around the circular lands. Every revolution made them more and more agitated, as if each turn hurt.

“How much longer can it go on like this?” Intisaar asked Ursula softly one night as we drove under the glow of Dhuuxo's unnaturally luminous moon. Everything shone silver, almost as bright as day.

“I don't know,” Ursula said. “But there has to be an end.”

“Maybe it's a test,” I offered. “Maybe whoever is waiting in New Orleans made the land like this so only those who really want to go will make it.”

“Maybe it's a warning,” Dhuuxo said then. She wiped the sweat from her tired, furrowed brow. “Maybe they made it like this because they don't want us to come.”

“No,” Ursula said. “The stories are about The Welcoming One, not The
Un
welcoming One.”

On the fourth day, the road finally uncoiled into a straight, long line. We came around the last bend and all gasped. Ursula had to stop the RV for a moment so we all could take it in. An endless stretch of green with a single gray ribbon straight through it, extending out until it faded against the horizon.

“We made it,” I finally said. “We can't be far.”

“I can't see anything at all,” Ysabelle mused, squinting. “Just green.”

Ursula nodded determinedly. “New Orleans is out there.”

“What's New Orleans?” Wes asked from behind us, studying the landscape from beneath the shade of his palm.

“It's where we're going.”

“No, we're not,” Dhuuxo said.

Outside the RV, we stood clustered in two groups, one beside each tired taillight. The ones who wanted to remember—Ursula, me, Ysabelle, Victor, and Intisaar; and the ones who didn't—Dhuuxo and Wes. Wes was pacing listlessly in vague circles, as if trailing some sort of shifting magnetic attraction, but Dhuuxo was still, staring calmly into Intisaar's eyes. In the dirt behind us, tiny little lightbulbs the size of grapes were pushing slowly through the earth, unfurling like new crops. Farther back, a carved porcelain teacup the size of a freighter sailed silently past in the sky like a cloud, its smooth, rounded lip tilted at a graceful angle.

“Please, Dhuuxo,” Intisaar said. “Don't do this.”

Dhuuxo shook her head. “Trust me,
walaashaa
. Transcendence was right. Not that we should follow them, but that there's so much more out there than whatever might be in New Orleans. I can feel it.”

“Let's just go there first,” Intisaar begged. “If you don't like it, we can leave.”

“No, it's a mistake. Trying to save what we used to have—that isn't the way. We have this power for a reason. We're supposed to use it. We're supposed to make something new.”

Intisaar wiped her face fiercely, to slap off the tears before they trickled down. “What about me?” she asked. “I don't want to be new. I want to remember.”

“I know you don't understand yet,” Dhuuxo said. “But you will soon. I can show you.”

Intisaar turned to us. “If we go faster, we can make it,” she said hurriedly. “If you help me get her back inside, I can hold her. I can remember for the both of us.”

Ursula sighed. If it had been possible, Dhuuxo and Intisaar would be the ones who could do it. But it wasn't possible.

“We promised,” I finally said. The teakettle was passing now, following after the cup, birds clustered on its spout like dust. The porcelain gleamed in the setting sun. “We have to get everyone there, even if they don't remember that they wanted to go.”

“I will not go,” Dhuuxo said firmly. “I will undo the vehicle if you try and force me.”

We all tensed. Ursula spread her arms protectively, as if her hands could stop anything from reaching the RV. “The RV is ours,” she said. “It's going to New Orleans.”

“Are you sure?” Dhuuxo asked. She looked at Wes. “Maybe it's going somewhere else.”

There was a small, groaning sigh behind us then. The beginning of something. Or the end.

“Dhuuxo, no!” Intisaar screamed. I felt my breath catch, but I couldn't look at what was behind us now. It was death, emptiness.
Ory.
I couldn't move.

But Ursula could. All the air came back into the world suddenly. Everything was a few iterations lighter, like I'd taken off a hat and a coat.

I turned and looked. The RV was the same. It was still the same. It was as I remembered it.