At some point you feel her lurch behind you, and she must have ditched the rifle, because the next thing you know her right arm is clutching you as well. Her head is pressed against your back, and she is sobbing, huge choking sobs that threaten to heave you both off the ATV. You hang on for dear life. You are astonished and filled with something bigger than strength.

You shake the stinging rain from your eyes and glance at the dense bush to either side of the cone of light, wondering if you could veer into it if a car was approaching. There would be no room for two vehicles on this rough path. Part of you wonders if you would just crank up the acceleration and hold your path. Die big.

Then you are at the turn, you swing left, and a tense few minutes later, you are at the Jeep. Kitty seems to almost fall off the ATV, and then she stumbles away from you, away from the car, and you are afraid she is going to take off into the cedars, leave you standing there. But all she needs is to throw up.

The sound that comes from her is like some monster’s death throes. You want to go to her, steady her, because she is shaking like a leaf. You’re still sitting on the ATV with the headlights on. In your head, Tank is running in Hulk-like strides up the road, maybe sweeping up the abandoned rifle on his way. But you don’t say anything. Finally she straightens up, and without looking at you, she finds the keys to the Wrangler in her pocket and hands them to you. You take her elbow and guide her to the passenger seat, like you imagine you would with a girl you were taking to the prom. Some prom.

Only after you’ve started the Jeep do you get out and stop the ATV. You hurl its ignition key into the bush, climb back into the Jeep, and take off.

The road south is as empty as it was coming north and twice as lonely. Neither of you speak, not in words at least. But you wonder if maybe your blood is talking to her blood. It courses through you like a wild imprisoned thing that hasn’t yet realized you have been set free. You glance at her, stooped over in the seat beside you, her hands collected together in her lap. She might be a girl in church sitting in silent prayer. She might only be asleep. Then she sniffs, and you are so glad to hear it.

The cell phone rings, making you both start.

“Don’t answer it,” she says, which is odd because she’s the one holding it now; you gave her the thing when you took the wheel. When it stops, she stares at its face. As a passenger on the way up, you had a chance to look around the cab and so you know where the inside lights are. You turn them on, and she checks the voice mail. It’s another one of those cell phones, like Niven’s, with a fat antenna that can get reception from anywhere. There’s no password on Tank’s cell.

“Hey. This thing might take a while. Feed the boy some breakfast, eh? Don’t do anything foolish.”

“Wallace,” you say.

Then she turns off the lights, and you are in the comforting darkness again. She’s still shivering, worse than you. You turn up the heat but not too high. Already the effects of adrenaline are wearing off, and you have no idea how long this drive is going to be.

At first you thought she was letting you drive because getting stopped by the cops was not a problem anymore, not as far as you can see. But the truth is she couldn’t have driven. What she did back at the lodge sapped every ounce of strength from her, as far as you can tell. She needs you, Blink. How’s that feel?

After another little while, you hear her breathing change, and, glancing sideways, you see that she is asleep, her head against the window. Your right hand snakes out and touches her hands, still clasped together in her lap. Wet and cold despite the warm air pouring into the vehicle from the heater.

You’re on the beach with Granda. He’s carrying the kite in one hand and holding your hand with the other. He’s saying something about your dad, something about how he and your mother can’t seem to make it work. You gaze at his belly, at the kite folded up under his arm. Mikey the Monkey. You didn’t want to stop flying Mikey the Monkey. You wanted it to lift you right up into the crazy wheeling summer sky. But Granda said it was time to go, and maybe you even knew what that meant — that there was something he and Nanny had to talk to you about — the thing you didn’t want to hear.

“Whatever happens,” he says. “Nan and I will still be your grandparents, lad. Don’t forget that, will you, boy? Hold on to that.”

“BLINK!”

You jolt awake, and Kitty’s hand is on the steering wheel trying to get the Jeep back on the road.

You take control, breathing hard, your eyes opening and closing worse than ever.

“Sorry,” you say when at last you’re on an even keel.

“Bad dream?”

You wipe the sleep off your face. A dream? No. Something you had forgotten. Granda had told you not to forget it, but you had until just this moment.

You reach Highway 7, look both ways, then turn west.

“Where we going?” she says.

You shrug. “Not to Kingston,” you say. It’s as good an answer as any. A few minutes later, the Jeep rolls past an Ontario Provincial Police station. There are two cruisers parked in the parking lot. You slow down.

“Don’t stop,” she says.

“I wasn’t. Just don’t want to be speeding.”

Then Sharbot Lake is left behind, and you’re on a long deserted stretch of two-A-empty highway.

“The cops aren’t going to be any help,” she says.

You don’t bother to answer.

You see the motel ahead and start to slow down. It’s after three, and your little snooze at the wheel back on 509 only really reminded you how deep this well of tiredness is that you’re carrying around inside you. You’re fading fast.

You pull off onto the gravel lot, and Kitty jerks awake. She must have drifted off again and figures you’re heading into a ditch.

“Where are we?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.”

She leans forward to peer at the motel. “This looks like a setting for a horror movie,” she says.

“Yeah, but there’s a vacancy.”

“You’re not kidding,” she says. “There’s not one single car here.”

“Good,” you say as you pull up to the office, hoping that the lights on in there means somebody’s on duty. “That way we can pick any room we want.”

You turn off the motor and turn to look at her.

“I don’t like this,” she says. “They can track the car.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Unless Tank had another cell phone somewhere, nobody knows what happened.”

She stares at you, her eyes quizzical. “What happened to you?”

“Back there? Not much.”

“I’d say a whole lot. You sound like . . . I don’t know. You sound like you’re forty or something.”

“Is it that bad?” you say.

She doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even smile, but her eyes look at you as if you’ve changed. Well, maybe you have. Then suddenly you swear under your breath and smack yourself in the forehead. “The van! I totally forgot the van.”

Kitty reaches over and pats your leg. “I didn’t,” she says.

You stare at her, but all she does is smile. So you shrug and reach for the door handle, but now it’s Kitty’s turn to cry out in alarm. “Wait a second,” she says, grabbing your arm. She turns to stare at the motel. “What are we going to do about money?”

Tired as you are, you can’t stop yourself from grinning. You pat her on the leg. “Leave it to me. I’m forty, remember?”