I touch Mark’s cheek, still convinced that this isn’t real.
He lets go of my hand.
How are you, Shelby? he says, in sign.
What?
How are—
I heard you, I say. But I mean … what? What the hell? What are you doing here? Mom said there was no one at the library with your name. Who ARE you?
Mark blinks his beautiful eyes and I see that they weren’t glowing, before, they were just reflecting the moon. You shouldn’t trust everything your mother says, he says.
I think of the coyote, saying there will be two lies and then there will be the truth. Was that the first lie then? Or was it … was it Mom telling me about Dad chasing us?
I hold Mark’s gaze. You’re saying she was lying?
I’m not saying that. I’m saying you shouldn’t trust everything she says.
I shake my head. I can’t deal with this.
I tried to save you, he says. Outside the library. I tried to pull you back from the car. But I wasn’t quick enough.
It’s okay, I say. It’s just my leg. Don’t worry about me.
But I do worry about you, he says.
Well, stop.
No, he says. It’s my job to worry about you. That’s why I came.
I close my eyes. I kind of hope when I open them he will be gone and I can go back to normalcy, but he’s still there, still VERY there, I can smell the warm scent of him, weirdly comforting. I don’t understand, I say. Why are you here exactly?
He smiles, but it’s a sad smile. I’m here to take you to the Dreaming, he says.
I’m not dreaming now?
No.
No?
This scares me somehow, though I don’t really know why. I mean, him saying it’s not a dream doesn’t mean anything; even if it were a dream, he’d probably say that. But there’s something disturbingly real about the pine needles and moss below my feet—my foot, I should say, because only one of my feet is bare, the other is encased in a massive white exoskeleton—about the breeze on my face, Mark’s cheek when I touched it, faintly raspy with stubble.
What the hell is going on?
Calm down, says Mark. It’s all right. I’m here to help you.
Why?
Because you need help.
I hold his gaze without looking away. His eyes are like tunnels into forever.
Take my hand, he says.
He holds out a hand to me, like it’s obvious to him that I’m going to do whatever he says, and maybe he’s right, because I take it.
We’re stepping sideways, he says. Through the air.
I don’t know how to—
We step sideways, through the air.
For a moment, I’m still a girl.
Then I disappear, slowly, a Polaroid picture in reverse, washing out of existence. I look down to see my hands fade away, then my arms, then my body.
I am nothing but electrons and empty space between them, eons of space. In my eyes are pinwheels, blazing against the skylike darkness that is everywhere and everything, and at the same time is just my mind, spooling out to erase the world.