Mountains covered in ancient trees towered over the winding road and banks of mist meandered across the pavement as I drove through a rainforest of vine and moss.
Almost home . . .
My rust stain of a car groaned down the switchbacks, and if the blood in my veins hadn’t felt like lightning, I would have worried. It took every ounce of self-control to keep my foot on the squealing brake, not to let off and fly around the turns—or off them. If I’d been alone, I might have yanked the wheel straight into the woods just to get there faster.
Holly was curled up in the passenger seat, baggy clothes hiding a stick-thin version of me at ten, of Jinx before she chose oblivion. She’d slept most of the way, half across the continent on highways, our nights spent in cheap motels and gas station parking lots. Then she slept some more.
I reached over to smooth her black hair out of her face, but I hesitated a breath from touching her. I wrapped my hand around the wheel again and focused on the road.
At the bottom of the mountain, the trees fell back. Dark water shadowed the road, reaching out until it bled into the storm clouds roiling over the ocean. A metal sign, rusted as my car, welcomed us to the Korena territory.
I hit a pothole so deep I almost lost a tire in it.
Holly started awake as her head hit the window, jumping out of her skin like someone shot at us. Pale eyes wide and panicked, she dug her ragged fingernails into the center console.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I kept my voice low despite the buzzing under my skin. I covered her hand with mine, tracing circles with my thumb. “Just a pothole. Roads are as bad as I remember.”
Her grip loosened but her back never relaxed into the seat. I squeezed her hand and gestured out the window with it. She watched the water fly past. Lightning arced between clouds and she checked the time on the dash.
“We should make it there before dark.” Thunder grumbled in the distance. “Not before the storm, though.”
She didn’t say anything.
The coast curved around until we could see the far shore in the distance, a town glittering at the end of the mainland, built up at the water’s edge. From that distance, the bridge was a pencil-thin line tracing the horizon, following it forever into the ocean.
Under my hand, Holly put her thumb between her middle and index fingers and made a fist.
“Sure, kid.”
The rest stop was right off the water, the bridge to one side, heading north until it disappeared into the horizon, and back the way we came to the east. I waited for Holly outside, my arms full of her favorite gas station snacks. I leaned on the rail, trying to see into the murky depths without dropping my haul. The bathroom door creaked open.
“This side’s the inner sea.” I offered her the pile of snacks as she leaned over to see what I was looking at. “The storm’s kicking up the water, but on a calm day you can see down forever.”
She glanced at the bridge.
“That side too.”
She wasn’t interested in the sour cream and cheddar chips or the jerky, but she played with the little keychain around my finger.
“I liked it.” I let her take it. “Couldn’t say no.”
It was one of those magic wands, but a good one like they used to sell in the nineties. Thick, with crescent moons and black cats in purple glitter. She turned it over and over in her hands. There was a ghost of a smile on her lips.
It was the first since she stopped talking.
“Come on, kid.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulder to pull her back to the car, my heart in my throat. “We’re almost there.”