Page 27 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

They snickered. Vivi wondered how it must feel for Calla to kiss another man after being married to Wayland for eight years. She almost saidsomething about it. But Vivi didn’t want to disrupt the peace between them.

“What areyouthinking about?” Calla asked.

Vivi sighed. “How stupid I was to give Quân the letter.”

“It’s okay. We’ll find something better in Arles.”

Persistent Calla, the only person whose tenaciousness rivaled Vivi’s own. Kind Calla, whose indefatigable hope sprouted like the bunches of cilantro in their mother’s garden. Vivi smiled in the dark, her chest splitting with affection. “Goodnight, Button.”

“’Night, Bee.”

For a moment, it was just as it used to be. Calla’s even breathing turning into soft snores. The scent of oranges winding its trail toward Vivi from across the room. Cold air on their skin, worn sheets under them, a dangerous and breathtaking world they’d only begun to consider.

Chapter 9

Vivi stood at the edge of a river whose name she’d since forgotten. She was herself and not herself, a figment, a wisp. She sensed through her mind’s haze that she’d forgotten something essential within the ease of the water. On its surface, the river appeared restful, languorous even. But once she set her foot in, she could feel the pull of the current, the way her skin puckered against the cold. A fleet of minnows tickled her arch. She was suspended between desire and fear, an emotional cliff so familiar that she could cut her tongue on its broken contours.

For a moment, the currents of the river cleared and its surface was as smooth as glass. She saw herself in the reflection. But it wasn’t her, it was her ancestor, the sharp-eyed woman inBlue Mirror. The muse. The woman was mouthing something to her. Vivi could almost hear it, a shape of words bubbling in the water. She leaned in to listen. Closer and closer, until her nose became wet and her lips touched cold.

“Vivi. Vivi, come back home.”

But where was home? The muse would tell her. The muse knew it all. She opened her arms to the water and it opened itself back, a mother’s long-awaited embrace.

I’m coming.

Then, with a painful jerk, she slammed onto the floor of the balconette. Her head hit the edge of a metal chair, sending a zing of pain up her skull. Calla was sprawled on the concrete next to her, eyes wide.

“What the hell,” Vivi said. It was all she could manage. Her teeth chattered.

“You were sleepwalking. I thought you were going to tumble over. Come here. Let me look at you.”

Calla helped her up and checked her head. There was no blood. She led her inside and tucked her back into bed. Then she got in next to Vivi, curling her arms around her waist. Her grasp was so tight that Vivi coughed to catch her breath.

“Easy there.”

“How long?” Calla asked. “Since you’ve been having the night terrors?”

Vivi thought about lying. But there was no point. If she and Calla were going to do this together, there should be no more lies between them. None except the one that could break them. “Since I strippedBlue Mirror.”

“Every night?”

“No. Only once before.” She paused. “I’m scared, Button.”

And she was, not only because of how closely she’d stood to the edge of the balconette. There was a part of her that still wanted to be pressed against the surface of the water. It was as if all her years of careful control had been shattered the moment she removed the last of the overpaint fromBlue Mirror.

Vivi said, “I’m scared I’ll go too far.”

“You won’t. Not with me here. I’ll nail your shoes to the floor if I have to.”

And Calla squeezed again, harder yet, but Vivi found this pain bracing. It said,I won’t leave.I’m not scared of your darkness, because it’s the same as mine. But Vivi didn’t believe her, not really. Calla always found a way to leave.

They were facing the window, through which they saw a dusting ofconstellations on the belly of the night. Vega, brightest light of them all, was unchanging as it’d always been when they’d searched for it in Deer Creek.

Once, before May left, beforeTu?n’s accident and the pills and the alcohol and the ceaseless fighting, May had taken the girls on a twilight picnic. She did things like this occasionally, brought them on secret adventures, just the girls. May loved storytelling and she loved stars, especially constellations, which she felt to be a ballad of the two. She told them all the myths: Orion and his cursed scorpion, Andromeda rescued by Perseus.

That evening, the three of them were hoping to see the unicorn meteor shower, the Monocerotid, which would be most visible in the hours after sunset.Money-sorry, Calla called it, her mouth working at the syllables with such grave diligence that no one laughed. She was three, trying to stay awake. But her eyes soon closed and it was just Vivi and May lying on the blanket in the clearing.

Quietly, patiently, May retold the story of Castor and Pollux, the Gemini twins who never strayed far apart, until the first streaks of white began to pierce the sky. Vivi had been so completely happy, with her mother on one side of her, Calla on the other, their father up late in his newly built shed behind the farmhouse. Her small world, an ordered arrangement that stood at the very center of the universe.