It took less than thirty seconds to relay to Jaz what I’d learned. And it took even less time than that for all three of us—her, me, and Kason—to load into the rental car and head into downtown Sacramento. Blake was nowhere to be seen, and Adam had asked me about coming, but I’d told him to stay behind. If Brooklyn showed back up at the RV, I wanted someone else there besides Blake.
“So she texted her sister thirty minutes ago?” Jaz was wearing that intent look, the one that told me her mind was clicking through all the possibilities.
“Right. She was waiting at the bus stop then.”
“Which bus stop?” Jaz ran a hand through her braids. “There’s gotta be a hundred of them in a city this size.”
“Only one for transit out of the city.” Kason waited for the light to turn before swinging onto a side street. “That’s where we’re headed. But she could have already left.”
“She could have.” Jaz tilted her head as if considering the idea. “But I don’t think she could get a bus out that quickly, could she? At this time of night?”
“I’m not sure.” Kason shook his head. “Why did she leave her luggage?”
That was the part that didn’t make sense to me either. “Maybe—maybe she just didn’t think to grab it. In any case, I think we can assume she’s not going back to the RV. If she’s not at the bus stop, we’ll have to let Brandi know that she’s headed home.”
Jaz pressed her lips together. “But—what if she doesn’t actually go home?”
I hadn’t even considered that possibility. “Where else would she go?”
“I don’t know.” Jaz spread her hands. “But I think we can agree that there’s a lot going on we don’t know about.”
Jaz was right. What if Brooklyn just disappeared? Panic clutched my throat as I considered all the ways this situation could go very wrong. We were across the continent from home, with no one to call for help, following a story none of us could read.
Oh, why hadn’t I said something earlier? Why hadn’t I tried to talk to Brooklyn more? Or told Jaz about what I’d seen?
And then for just a moment, it was Gran’s voice in my mind. Reassuring in its very crispness.
Water under the bridge.
I took a deep breath, pushing down the panic. I forced myself forward. And there in front of us was the bus stop.
“Do you see her?” Jaz pressed against the car window.
I scanned the rows of waiting shadows arranged on the benches. “I can’t tell.”
Kason pulled up to the curb and turned off the car. “C’mon. Let’s check.”
The bus station didn’t have many people at this time of night. The ones who were there looked half-weary, half-resentful, as if their plans hadn’t included waiting on a bus out at—how late was it now? Ten? Eleven? I’d lost track of the time zone changes long ago. All I knew about time was that we were running out of it.
“I don’t know, Jenna.” Jaz came up beside me, keeping her voice low. “I don’t see her here. The bus left an hour ago, so before she called her sister. And the next bus will be in fifteen minutes.”
“Okay.” I tried to think. “Are we sure it was this stop?”
Jaz shrugged. “It’s the closest one to the RV and the only place to catch an interstate bus.”
“Would she have maybe gone somewhere else to wait?” I could see why she might not have wanted to linger around this gloomy place. “Maybe—”
“Like a coffee shop or something?” Jaz glanced around. “I don’t see much open at this time of night. There’s a Waffle House over there, but I don’t really think Brooklyn is a Waffle House kinda girl, you know?”
“I know.” I shrugged. “But maybe—any port in a storm, right?”
“Yeah.” Jaz nodded and motioned to Kason. “Okay, guys, let’s split up. Kason, check any restaurants or anything on this side of the street. I’ll take the other side. Jen, stay here in case she shows up. We’ll be back by the time the bus leaves, and we all have our cell phones.”
The plan made sense, but somehow, as I watched Jaz and Kason leave, I had the sense that something was off. That I’d overlooked a clue I should have noticed.
I prowled around the bus station again, searching for the missing piece I could only feel. And then suddenly, I saw it. A little archway right next to the bus station, marking the beginning of a gravel path. I moved closer until I could read the writing on the sign.
McCULROY GARDENS.
Flowers. The one thing Brooklyn had said she loved. The design hennaed along her arm.
The gardens weren’t much, just a splash of green in the center of the city. Floodlights every few yards illuminated only the gravel path, leaving me guessing at the colors of the flowers on the shadowy shrubs. Frogs and insects stroked a chorus in the trees around me. The air was heavy with the aromas I recognized from Gran’s garden: fertile earth and damp leaves and flowers giving praise. Soon, I could hear the rejoicing of water, and then the path opened up to concrete benches surrounding a fountain glowing with pastel accent lights.
And there was Brooklyn.
Hunched on one of the concrete benches. Here in the place of flowers.
Relief washed over me like weakness. Whatever else happened, at least we’d found her. I cleared my throat, trying to get her attention without startling her. “Brooklyn?”
Her head snapped toward me, and then the fear on her face melted into something heavier. “Jenna.” The way she said my name was part statement, part question. “What are you doing here?”
I shrugged and crossed the little area toward her. “Looking for you.”
She looked down.
“We were worried about you.” I was standing close enough now to touch her shoulder, but I kept my eyes on the fountain, watching the way the colors shifted every few seconds. They’d switched from green to pink to blue before Brooklyn spoke again.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“So—” I scraped one foot through the gravel. I just needed to get her to talk, convince her to go back to the bus station. “What’s, uh, what’s going on?”
Brooklyn absently tightened her messy ponytail. “I could ask you the same thing. I thought you were in Blakely.”
“I was. Kason picked me up this evening.” A far from complete explanation, but Brooklyn just nodded absently. As if figuring out how I was there took more energy than she had left. I kept talking, because what else could I do? “And while he and I were there, Jaz called us and said you’d left. We came straight back to find you. We tried to call you—Jaz texted too—”
“I turned my phone off after I talked to Brandi.”
“Yeah. I talked to her too.”
“And she told you I was at the bus stop.”
She didn’t sound mad, and part of me wondered if she’d wanted to be found. If she’d hoped that people cared enough to come looking.
“Yeah.” I felt stupid just standing there, so I sat tentatively on the bench next to her. The concrete beneath me was cool and damp from the fountain spray. “She’s worried about you.”
“I know.” Her laugh clouded with sadness. “She’s always been.”
I thought about Jaz, the way she watched me with eyes that knew more than I’d told her. “I think sisters just do that.”
Brooklyn nodded. And then there was silence. Silence I didn’t know how to break.
What would Jaz do?
Jaz would wait for Brooklyn to take the next step.
So I bit my lip and watched the fountain cycle with agonizing deliberation through its colors. And right when I’d decided Brooklyn wasn’t going to say anything after all, she sighed. “You know something?” She didn’t wait for a response before she nodded at the fountain. “I used to throw coins in fountains all the time when I was a kid. Wishing.”
“Really?” At least she was talking. “Wishing for what?”
“All kinds of things.” She leaned against the back of the bench. “The first time, I think I was four or five. I was wishing for one of those fancy Barbies that came out that year. You know, the one that had that long fur coat thing?”
“Oh my gosh, yeah!” I’d never had one, but I could still remember how excited one of the girls at school had been over hers. “It had seashells on it or something, right?”
“Coral, I think.” She gave a shaky laugh. “I wanted one so bad. Stupid thing to wish for.”
“Not stupid.” I shifted on the bench. “What did you wish for after that?”
“Um—I guess next I was wishing for a pony. I wished for a pony for years. I couldn’t understand why living in an apartment building meant we couldn’t have one.”
I laughed. “I mean, it could have stayed in the elevator.”
“Right? That’s what I tried to tell my parents.” Her voice got quieter. “After that, I guess I started wishing for bigger things. Harder things.”
The fountain faded from green to blue. I nodded at it. “Did you make a wish tonight?”
“No. I don’t have any change. Anyway, I think I’m out of wishes.” Her laugh was shaky. “I think they’re pretty dangerous things.”
Hadn’t I felt the same about the stars, the first time I’d looked through Kason’s telescope? Everything that flickered on the edge of faith was dangerous. But the only truly deadly thing, I’d learned, was safety.
“Brooklyn—listen.” I had to get her back to the bus stop before Jaz and Kason tore the thing apart looking for us. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but just come back with me, okay? Jaz and Kason are at the bus stop, and we can talk about—”
“Jenna.”
Something in her tone put the brakes on my sentence.
She took a deep breath and held it. Squeezed her hands together and kept her gaze on the water. Then she closed her eyes and pushed the statement out.
“I’m pregnant.”
I felt as if I’d been shoved through one of Kason’s portals. Every coherent thought I’d ever had flew straight out of my mind and flitted away on the night air. I opened my mouth. Closed it. Willed Jaz to appear in front of me and wrap her wisdom around the situation.
But Jaz wasn’t here. This was on me. “Oh—I—”
And then I didn’t have to say anything else, because Brooklyn started crying. Great, heaving sobs of desolation. Like her soul was being wrung out.
What could I do? I was about to panic when I saw the moon, sailing high now. Patiently watching with unclouded compassion, giving away a light not its own. A light that held places and planets and people together.
I slid close to Brooklyn and I wrapped my arms around her and I held on tight, as tight as I could. And she clung to me even tighter, like she was trying to keep herself from being dragged under. And we sat like that while the lights changed the water all along the rainbow and back again.
Finally she sat back, wiping her eyes, smoothing her face. “It’s Blake.”
I nodded. I’d heard a lot of surprising things today, but that wasn’t one of them.
“I started suspecting right after we left.” She picked at her chipping fingernail polish. “I tried to tell Blake in Albuquerque that something was wrong, that I was going to take a test. He wouldn’t believe me, and he said some—nasty things.”
So that explained the late-night meeting I’d witnessed. And to think I’d been so jealous. Now the memory of Blake’s hungry kiss made me shudder.
“I bought a test that next morning, when we were all shopping separately. And then—” She shrugged. “I didn’t want to tell him. I knew what—I knew how he’d be. But today—when I got so sick—I had to.” Her words were rattling faster. “And I know that I wasn’t—I mean, I know I shouldn’t have—I didn’t—” An invisible weight was balanced across her shoulders. “I was stupid. That’s it. Just stupid. I know what you’re thinking.”
What I was thinking right at that very moment was that I might punch Blake when we got back to the RV. I took a deep breath, searching for words that might begin to soothe some of her scars. “I—I think—” The lines of light. Reaching for them was still unfamiliar to me, but for her sake, I would try. “I think that all of us get lost in the dark sometimes. But I think that light follows us there.”
She looked up suddenly, the intensity in her eyes startling. “Do you really believe that?”
Did I? I thought of desert sunsets and fires burning in the heart of crystals and the way the stars strung the stories most clearly in the darkest places. “Yes.” I didn’t know where the believing had happened, but somewhere between Ohio and California, it had come true for me. “I believe that.”
Brooklyn dropped her gaze for a moment. Then she sighed. “You’re—you’re so sweet, Jenna. Thank you.” She shifted. “I—you’ve been really great to me on this trip. I appreciate that.”
Guilt rose in my chest. I’d misjudged her, been jealous of her, but she thought I’d been great. Just because I’d asked her a couple of times if she was okay. “Well. I mean—of course.”
“No one else is going to—” Her voice broke. “My parents—oh my gosh. My mom will say she always knew this would happen.” Acid sharpened her laugh. “And my dad will—he’ll straight-up kill me. He’ll have a fit about ‘this is why you don’t mess with boys’ and ‘after I paid all that money for a private Christian school.’ And Brandi—” The fountain lights caught the tears glittering in her eyes. “Oh, Brandi.” She took a deep breath and swiped at her eyes. “This is it, Jenna. This ruins everything for me.”
She said it with the dreary calm of desolation. But I could see the fear flickering behind her eyes. The fear I’d once stupidly believed girls like Brooklyn didn’t feel.
“What did Blake tell you to do?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from her.
“To take care of it and not tell anyone.”
You know, I could just hear his voice, saying those words. See exactly how his eyes would have hardened. This guy who’d driven us far too fast across America, who now wanted to cover his trail with darkness. A darkness he’d force Brooklyn to carry for the rest of her life, if she did what he asked.
I wanted to grab her hand, to tell her not to listen, to tell her not to tangle the lines in choices she’d never be able to undo, choices that stacked dark on dark. But the decision before her was one sized only for her strength.
“Is that what you want to do?” I kept my voice calm.
“I—” She was looking at the fountain again. “Know what I read online?”
“What?”
“The baby is the size of a seed right now.” She glanced down, absently tugged at her T-shirt. “Did you know that? The website said at five weeks, babies are the size of seeds.”
“Wow.” I shook my head. “Didn’t know that.”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Just thought that was interesting. A seed.”
“Uh huh.”
“So—” She took a deep breath and pushed her hair back. “That’s my answer to Blake.” She looked around the dark garden, and I suddenly knew the flowers and the grasses and the waters were waiting for her words just as I was. “Seeds should always grow.”
And I could feel it, the rightness of it, the lines of light that would take her into a future where only good would spring from this single planted decision. I squeezed her shoulder. “That’s good.”
“It won’t be easy.” She glanced down. “All the people at church…”
I thought of the taco in tattooed hands. Don’t confuse God with the people who speak for Him. “If they live out what they preach, they’ll accept you.” I took a deep breath. “Some won’t. And those you have to walk on by.”
“I know.” She shook her head. “But—I mean, they’re not wrong. I made a big mistake.”
Mistake. My father’s word, and I pushed against it. “Brooklyn—we all make bad decisions.“ Even now, the lines were pulling. “But your baby is not a mistake. And—and you’ll be okay.”
She gave a soft, skeptical laugh.
“I’m serious.” For just a crazy instant, I wondered if this was it, if this was why I’d been brought all these thousands of miles, to sit here in the dark and rewrite my story for the next character. “Just don’t stop fighting. For you. For your baby. For the light. And—and one day, your baby might ask. About their father, about—all this.”
“What will I say?”
“The truth.” I reached to the stars for what I wanted to say to Brooklyn, and what I wished I could have said to my parents, and what I hoped that I, the girl born outside a closed door, had finally learned. “The truth is that—they’re loved. That they are always loved. That whatever lines are drawn in their life, they are all done by hands of light.”
The moon was beaming at me.
“Thank you.” That’s all she said, but her eyes held some overwhelming gratitude, as if I’d given her a gift too precious to bear.
“Oh, well—” Gratitude never fit well in my hands, so I stood. “Sure. Come on. Come back with me. We’ll decide what to do from there.”
She nodded and stood beside me, tugging her shirt down, running her hands over her ponytail. Ready to walk out of this garden carrying a seed.
“But first—” I dug in my shorts pocket until I found a quarter. Nice and shiny in the glimmer of the fountain lights, when I held it out to her. “Make a wish.”
“Oh—” She looked down. Shook her head.
“Come on, Brooklyn. One more wish.” I pressed it into her hand. “Make it for your baby.”
She blinked. Then she nodded and turned to the fountain. Straightened her shoulders, squeezed her eyes shut. All the hope and fear and pain and peace on her face.
And then the coin sailed into the water in a single shining arc of light.
#
When Brooklyn and I emerged from the dark gardens to the bus stop, Jaz and Kason were waiting for us, wearing matching worried expressions. Brooklyn didn’t feel like telling the story, so she sat in the car while I gave the other two the condensed version. By the time I finished, Jaz was all but boiling over.
“Oh, Blake better not be at the RV when we get back there,” she muttered. “I swear, my rock collection is gonna find his head before—”
“He’s not worth it.” Kason squeezed a comforting arm around my shoulders. “Good work, Jenna.”
The light wove all around and through me at his words, and I smiled, because I could feel it, the way the story was finally singing in my soul. “Thank you, Kason.”
He smiled at me, that adorable crooked smile, and I knew two things right then and there. First, in a world of shadowed guys like Blake, Kason was the rarest kind of light. And second, I didn’t need to let too much time go by before I told him so.
When we loaded into the car, Brooklyn shrank back into the seat, peering fearfully at both twins as if awaiting a reprimand. But Kason just gave her an encouraging smile, and Jaz slid into the backseat next to her for a long, fierce hug. Then she sat back and touched Brooklyn’s hennaed hand. “You need anything for this baby, you let me know. My Auntie LaRita has loads of baby clothes that her kids outgrew. She keeps saying she wants to find someone who can use them.” Jaz rolled her eyes. “And heaven knows they’re in great shape. She’d hug a hornets’ nest before she’d let any of her kids touch dirt.”
Brooklyn just swallowed and nodded. “Thank you, Jaz.” All she said, but I could see her shoulders relax, and I knew what grace looked like.
“Well, of course.” Jaz motioned to Kason. “Drive, brother. We need to get back to the RV. I have a bag of flaming Funyuns there. That will make everything better.”
The heaviness floated away on the laughter that spilled through the car, and I turned around in my seat. “Really, Jaz? Third-degree burns in the mouth help people in emotional distress?”
“Actually—” Brooklyn’s laugh was still balancing on the edge of tears, but there was a light in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “I’ve been craving spicy foods.”
“See?” Jaz flung her hands in the air. “Gosh, what would any of you do without me?”
But as we drew closer to the RV, the fun faded. By the time we turned into the park, Brooklyn was picking at her fingernail polish again. As we pulled up, I could see a figure standing outside the RV door. Arms crossed like a barred gate.
Blake.
Kason darted a swift glance at Brooklyn as he parked. “Want me to handle this?”
“No.” She lifted her chin with the courage I’d seen on her face at the wishing fountain. The same courage she’d need for every step of the road she would walk. “I’ll talk to him.”
But she didn’t get a chance. By the time we unloaded from the car, Blake’s vein was already throbbing. “I thought you weren’t coming back here.”
“I—I need my things.” She twisted her hands together. Even with her back to me, I could hear the way her breath was coming faster.
A movement on the picnic table bench caught my eye. Adam. Sitting quietly, his hands wrapped around his dragon.
Brooklyn was still trying to keep her voice calm. “And about the trip—”
“Trip?” Blake jerked out a hard laugh. “You’re not going on with us.”
“Hey.” Kason stepped forward. His voice was even, but I noticed for the first time that he had a couple inches on Blake. “This trip belongs to all of us.”
“Not to her.” Blake narrowed his eyes at Brooklyn. “We had an agreement.”
Jaz’s eyes held a dangerous spark. “Is that what you call it?”
The way Brooklyn’s shoulders sagged suddenly snapped something loose inside me. “Why, Blake?” I stepped up beside her, forced myself not to flinch at the hardness in his eyes. “Because you feel guilty?”
It took just a moment for my words to settle, but when they did, shock rippled through his anger. He swung toward Brooklyn. “What in God’s name, Brooklyn? Did you—”
“I—I told them I was pregnant.” Fear was fighting hard in her voice, but she was standing her ground.
“You’re what?” Adam scrambled up from the picnic table. “Did you say you’re—”
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!” Ignoring Adam, Blake jabbed a finger at Brooklyn. “We had a deal! I told you what to do. I was even willing to pay for it!”
“And I told you I don’t want to do that.” Her hands were moving restlessly, fingers wrapping in the hem of her T-shirt. “I—I can’t do that. This baby is—”
“Don’t you call it that.” His voice was loud enough now I half-expected other campers to come see what was going on. “This is your mistake.” He jerked out a hard laugh. “You were a mistake. I should have never given you another look. But there’s no chance in—”
“Okay.” Kason took a step closer. “Hey, man, you need to back off.”
“Back off?” Blake cursed, the rough edges of the word loud. “This is my girlfriend, bro. Not your business.”
“You get any closer to her—” Kason’s voice was rising too—“and it will become my business.”
Blake wavered for a just a moment before shrugging. “Fine.” He nearly spit the words at Brooklyn. “Go home.”
“Go home?” Jaz looked ready to start breathing fire. “You can’t tell her to leave.”
“Sure I can.” He smiled, the nasty smile of someone who held the final winning hand. “Haven’t any of you realized yet that it’s my name on the lease agreement for this RV? I can take this bus back to any TravelTime location, anytime. And either Brooklyn goes home, or I’m taking it back tonight.” Smugness oiled his tone. “There’s not a thing any of you can do to stop me.”
I’d never thought about that. From the silence of the others, no one else had either.
Brooklyn swallowed and glanced at us. “Guys, it’s okay. I’ll go back to—”
“No.” The word was the only thing that felt right. I stepped up next to her and squeezed her cold fingers. And then I looked at Blake. The boy with the hardened eyes and the midnight soul. The boy I’d once thought I loved. The boy who was the same kind of face-saving fool as my father.
“Blake—” I looked past the selfish squint in his face, to the place deep inside that I hoped still listened to something besides the darkness. “It will only get darker for you from here. But Brooklyn will be the one who finds the light.”
“Along with us.” And there was Jaz, squeezing my other hand. “If she leaves, Jenna and I go with her.”
“I go too.” Kason’s hand was reassuring on my shoulder.
Blake cursed again, but not as loudly this time. He spun and pointed at Adam. “Adam? What about you?”
Adam was watching, cautiously, Sacramento cradled close to his chest. He looked at Blake, opened his mouth, then shook his head and stepped next to Kason. “I’m with them on this one, man.”
“Fine.” Blake’s face curled into a sneer, and the last trace of any good-guy image disappeared as he jabbed his finger in Brooklyn’s face. “Go on. Be stupid and destroy your life. But don’t ever tell anyone that I’m the—”
“That you’re the father?” Jaz had obviously been pushed beyond every limit. She shoved herself forward and all but flung the words in Blake’s face. “You mud-grubbing, stone-spitting, low-down son of sediment, I don’t think Brooklyn would want to disgrace her child by naming you as the father. By earth, wind, and water, I swear that if it were up to me, you would be a fossilized igneous—”
Yeah, I don’t think Blake knew what half of those words meant, but by the time Jaz finished raking him—and she did a phenomenally thorough job, I can tell you—three things had happened.
First, the whole campground had been exposed to the most creative litany of geological cursing I’d ever heard.
Second, Blake’s tough-jerk persona had been reduced to a sulky boy all too eager to get away.
Third, Brooklyn was smiling.
And so it was that within ten minutes, we were all standing in the dark in the Stone Hollow RV Park, watching the taillights of the RV lose themselves in the stream of traffic. The last thing I saw was the dog sticker on the door. Not the only phony thing in that RV.
“Well—” Kason studied the haphazard pile of luggage at our feet. “At least I remembered the telescope.”
“And I have my rocks.” Jaz had slung the bag over her shoulder, as if it might become her ammunition.
“Guys, I’m so sorry.” Even in the dark, the quiver in Brooklyn’s voice let me know that her strong front was crumbling. “This is all my fault. I’ve ruined the trip for everyone—the eclipse—”
Jaz pulled her into the kind of hug that silenced apologies. “None of that. I couldn’t have driven any further with that glacier-brained, dolomite-dumb lump of—”
Adam cleared his throat and touched Brooklyn’s shoulder. “What she said. We’re all in this together. But—” He glanced around nervously. “Yeah, so, uh, what do we—what do we do now?”
“Well—” Kason reflexively adjusted his glasses. “We’ve got to figure a way back to Ohio. We can either—”
But suddenly I knew the story was still unfolding. I stepped forward. “No.”
“No?” Jaz looked expectantly at me.
I smiled, because I could almost feel that pull, the way Jaz and Kason could. The lines of light drawing us to each other and to the star that did not move and to what waited at the end of all the land. “We keep going.” I smiled at Kason. “We’ve got an eclipse to get to.”
His smile rose to meet mine. “Indeed we do.”
Jaz laughed suddenly. “Of course. You’re so right.”
“Really?” Brooklyn looked half-afraid to hope. “You mean—”
“Good thing Kason rented an SUV.” I crossed to the rental car and opened the door. “Load up, guys. We only have sixteen hours until the eclipse.”