We were still driving when darkness came. First it was sunset, the light gathering itself into a final hurrah at the western edge of the world. And then it was car headlights flicking over our faces and neon signs buzzing to life at the gas stations and the road forging forward past what we could see. Finally, around nine o’clock, we pulled up to the Kozy Kamp RV Park just west of Denver.
“No stars here.” Kason sounded disappointed as we stepped out of the RV.
I looked around. The city glowed and flashed like a carnival on the horizon. Over our heads, jets rumbled back and forth, an intermittent pulse to and from the international airport nearby. Another big city, but the air was different. I sniffed. “It smells—”
“Like altitude.” Jaz drew in a satisfied breath as she walked up beside us. “We’re exactly a mile above sea level.”
I sniffed again. The air was dry and cool and sort of—sharp, with an unexpected tang. Was that what Jaz meant? I rubbed my bare arms. “It’s colder than I thought it would be.”
“Also the altitude.” Kason chuckled. “Just wait till we hit the mountains tomorrow.”
Although I strained my eyes toward the western horizon, darkness was hiding the Rockies well. But the mountains were there, I knew. Waiting. And that filled me with a strange kind of hope.
I slept soundly that night, better than I had since Oklahoma, and only woke up the next morning because someone was jostling me. Insistently. I groaned and rolled away.
“Jenna!” A whispered hiss.
Even in my muddled halfway state, I knew that voice. I sighed but kept my eyes closed. “Jaz, what are you doing?”
She didn’t seem deterred by my irritation. “Mountains! You can see the mountains! Come on, you’ve gotta get up!”
I sighed and stretched my arms over my head. A rush of chilly air prickled along my skin. I blinked awake. “Hey, it’s cold!”
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t realize it would be this cold in June.” Jaz was standing on the foldaway ladder, her elbows resting on the bunk. “C’mon! I’m telling you, you can’t miss the mountains.”
“Okay, okay!” I scrambled out from under the blanket and waited for her to climb down before descending the ladder myself. The floor was freezing under my bare feet. I shivered. “What’s the temperature?”
“Forty degrees. Unseasonable cold snap is what they’re saying online.” Jaz opened the door, sending a blast of frosty air swirling into the RV. “You coming?”
I shivered again as I stepped out the door. The sun had risen not too long ago, and the light was still the early-morning filtered kind. The RV next to ours had the curtains drawn. Like most reasonable people on vacation, they were probably still asleep. What time did Jaz get up, anyway?
“There.” She pointed, and my breath stalled. Right in front of me were the mountains. All along the western horizon, a jagged line ringing the world. They were still in the distance, but close enough that I could see the shadows and ridges of the carved peaks, the clouds already gathering above them.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Jaz was clearly enjoying my reaction.
I couldn’t answer. I could only stare. Of course I’d studied the Rockies in school, but I’d simply never dreamed they would be that majestic. That vast.
“Bigger than you thought?”
“Yes.” Like everything else on this trip. “Much bigger.”
The landscape we traveled through that day was something I’ll never forget, something wondrous and wild. We were traveling up and over the spine of America, the road burrowing among sharp cliffs and steep peaks and rocks carved higher than I’d imagined.
“I didn’t know the mountains were this—” I searched for a word.
Kason smiled at me. “Real?”
“Yeah.” I joined his laughter. “Real.”
“Like something out of Narnia, right?”
Of course he’d recognize that. I smiled. “Definitely.”
About mid-morning, Blake rotated his shoulders and sighed. “I need a break from driving these roads.”
Jaz leaned forward. “Why don’t we stop for a quick hike?”
“A hike?” Brooklyn had spent the day wrapped in one of the blankets off the couch. “Isn’t it sort of cold for that?”
“Aw, c’mon. You can’t go through the Rockies and not hike.” Jaz pointed at a brown attraction sign. “There. Badger Run Natural Area. Let’s stop there for a few minutes.”
The natural area was a mountain version of the little trailhead back in Amarillo—same empty parking lot, same lonely picnic tables, same small trail losing its way into what looked like nothingness. “Okay.” Jaz squinted at the trail sign. “Looks like there’s an observation point in a mile. Let’s go.”
That was part of Jaz’s power. She could say let’s go and never had to look back to know that the rest of us were following her.
The trail wound steeply upward between sentinels of pine trees into woods that looked as if they held all the world’s secrets. The air still had that fresh, exciting smell, now spicy with the scent of evergreens. And all around us, the mountains rose, granite giants holding the sky on their shoulders. I jogged to catch up with Jaz. “This is amazing.”
“I know.” Jaz was breathing deeply too. “You realize we’re right on the Continental Divide here.”
“I—no.” Somehow I’d never considered that. “So does that mean—”
“We’re west of the divide. Everything heads toward the Pacific now. Including us.” She laughed.
I thought about that for a moment. Another point of no return. I’d passed a lot of those. Enough that I wouldn’t go back to Mount Victory the same person. But somehow I didn’t mind.
“Crazy, isn’t it?” Jaz tilted her head. “If a drop of water falls just a little left or right, it changes its course entirely. Like us. Small decisions—you never know where they lead. How far they go.”
“Yeah. I guess so.” I thought about my mom, my dad. The decisions they’d both made that had left me on the other side of the divide. But somehow, here in this Narnia, the memory didn’t ache the way it normally did.
“So, Jenna.” Jaz kicked a pinecone. “I’ve been meaning to tell you thanks. For being a friend to Kason.”
“Oh—of course.” For an instant I wondered what Kason had said to Jaz about me. My face heated oddly. “He’s—he’s a really amazing guy.”
“Well, I think so, but little sisters are always biased.” Jaz chuckled. “And yes, I am sixteen minutes younger than him.” Her tone turned more serious. “He thinks you’re amazing too, you know.”
When he’s not chasing UFOs, he’s chasing you. I shrugged off Blake’s words. That wasn’t what Jaz meant. “Well—” My laugh sounded nervous even to me. “That’s—kind of him. He’s been a good friend, especially once my dad—all of that.”
“Uh huh.” Jaz glanced at me. “Why did you really want to find your dad?”
I took a deep breath. Normally I wouldn’t have wanted to talk about this story, but the mountains were like protective arms around me, and the air still smelled like courage. “Remember what you said I came on this trip for?”
“Yes. Belonging.”
“Yeah. That. I guess that’s why I was looking for my dad. I always felt out of place. I wanted to have a family I belonged to.”
Jaz tunneled her hands into her pockets. “Sometimes belonging doesn’t come where you think it will. Sometimes it’s hard. Really hard.”
I thought about the way she lived each day with wide-open eyes, the way she walked forward into limitless sunsets. “Not for you.” The instant the words were out, I flinched at the resentment I could hear in my voice, but Jaz didn’t seem to care.
“Why not for me?”
“Because—” What could I say? “Things are easier for you. You have a great family and Kason and—and everything—and I wish—” The cold was burning behind my eyes. “I wish I were like you.”
The saddest smile flitted over her face. She reached for my hand, squeezed it briefly. “Oh, Jenna. You don’t, I promise.”
“But you never have to worry if—”
“I worry all the time.” Her words stopped mine in their tracks. She stopped. Turned. Planted her hands on her hips, the expression in her eyes rawer than I’d ever seen it. “Do you think I don’t notice? Do you think I don’t see the way the others react to me?” She gave a soft laugh. “Everyone at school thinks I’m crazy. They don’t know where to put me. How to define me. So they avoid me. I’m an island, Jenna. It used to hurt a lot more. It still hurts enough. Look at this trip, even. Haven’t you realized that Blake has been making digs about Kason and me since we left Ohio?”
I stared at her. All this time, I’d thought she was immune to sarcasm. I thought she didn’t notice the looks, the tones, the undercurrents. But she did. “Jaz—I’m sorry—”
“It’s nothing for you to be sorry for, Jen.”
Even in the serious moment, her shortening of my name made me smile.
“Did Kason talk to you about the lines of light? That’s what I had to learn. To follow those lines even when I was afraid. Especially when I was afraid.” Her voice dropped. “That’s what I’m doing now. On this trip.”
“You never told me why you’re on the trip.”
“I know.” She was quiet. “Things happened, a little while back, and—well, part of it is Kason’s story. He’ll tell you, when he’s ready. But he and I—we both dealt with things in our own way. Our own time.” She started walking again, leading us around a curve in the trail. “Part of that, for me, was this trip. To prove to myself—that I could be brave again.”
Her braids were pushed back, showing the crystal tattoo on her neck. And suddenly I realized what I’d missed before. What I’d overlooked in her chaotic braids and flamboyant fingernails and zesty personality.
Jaz was a crystal. Forged in the fires underneath. Holding a light not her own.
“How do you do it?” I really wanted to know.
There was a sad note under her laugh. “Sometimes you carve out your own space. But what saves me is I know who I am.” Her words were quiet but held the bedrock that supported the mountains. “I’m known, Jen. I’m named. Sand and stars, remember? Nothing lost, nothing unknown, nothing let go.” Each word was like a prayer. “I remember that. I hold to that. I am who I am, and God is Who He is, and as for the others—well, I try to make sure that everyone I meet knows they’re not forgotten either. That they belong.”
“I want to be like that.”
She sighed. Tilted her head. Shared a half smile with the sky. “You’re already like that. More like that than you think.”
I wasn’t, but then Jaz had been ignoring my weaknesses the whole time we’d been on the trip. “I’m not—”
“Look!” She burst forward suddenly. “Oh wow! Now this is a view!”
The mountains unrolled before us in a limitless sweep of peaks and valleys and cloud shadows drifting over the windswept world. I stood there, on the brink of a view that stretched all the way to the horizon. A view big enough to make me feel alone.
But I wasn’t.
Sometimes you find belonging in a place you don’t expect.
I was on the other side of the Continental Divide from the place I’d known, the future I’d planned, even the answers I’d hoped to find. But I’d never been closer to what I was actually looking for.
“Jaz?”
“Yeah?” She gave me that sunrise smile. The one that I now knew had withstood the darkness.
I wanted to say that I was thankful she was my friend. That I liked hearing what Kason had said. That watching both of them had made me follow the lines of the light, and I was starting to see a pattern where before there had been only pain.
But instead I fished my phone out of my pocket. “I need a photo.”
“Of course you do.” She held out her hand. “Stand over there. I’ll take it.”
“No. A selfie. Together.”
Her smile came with a slow assurance. “Well, naturally.” She glanced out at the mountains, as if sharing a secret. “What else are friends for?”
#
Long before I was ready to leave the Rockies behind, Blake started looking at his watch. As soon as we finished the trail, he herded us all back into the RV. It was long past lunchtime, so when we hit the town of Grand Junction, we stopped at a corner restaurant, Blake maneuvering the RV awkwardly into an oversized “bus parking” area at the corner.
The town itself was like the set for a western, with log buildings and boardwalks popping with bright summer flowers. Flags snapped from the storefronts, and the mountains glowed in the afternoon sun, seemingly rising at the very end of the street. We passed a newsstand with a crooked FREE sign, and Jaz snagged a paper. “‘Record size crayfish discovered in Highline Lake.’” She shook out the paper and laughed. “That’s your front-page story for today, guys.”
Kason raised his eyebrows. “Actually more interesting news than most I hear at home. What’s it say, Jaz?”
“Hmm….’Scientists discovered a larger-than-normal specimen of freshwater crayfish during recent aquatic investigations. Weighing in at just under five ounces, this crayfish is four and a half inches long…’ Ooh. That actually sounds kind of scary.”
“Guys, forget the crayfish.” Blake seemed even more irritated than normal. He brushed past Kason and yanked open the restaurant door. “We don’t have much time.”
Jaz raised her eyebrows and folded the paper. I glanced behind, expecting Brooklyn to make some snarky comeback, but she seemed drawn into herself, eyes shadowed with the same burdened expression she’d worn on the drive yesterday. I never would have thought I’d miss her drama, but the lack of it was starting to worry me. Had Jaz noticed?
We filed into the restaurant and were shown to a corner booth, where menus waited on the red plastic tablecloth and big windows overlooked the street. Over bison burgers—it sounds gross, I know, but I swear they were amazing—Blake filled us in on the rest of our itinerary for the day.
“We have about two hours left to reach Moab.”
Adam shook his hair out of his eyes. “Utah, right?”
“Yes.” Blake took a bite of his burger. “Moab is right next to Arches National Park. Apparently they have a big festival there tomorrow. We’ll be there for it.”
“The summer solstice festival.” Kason smiled. “No better place to celebrate the solstice. I can’t wait. Plus, the moon will be moving into—”
“Anyway, as I was saying.” Blake cut in. “We’ll spend tomorrow in Moab. Guys, do you realize we’re over two thirds of the way through the trip? We’ve been on the road nine days, and we only have four till the eclipse.”
Adam shook his head. “Doesn’t seem like that long.”
Blake kept talking about our route, but I was looking at Brooklyn. She was sitting in the booth directly across from me, with Adam between her and Blake, staring at her food as if trying to gather strength to eat. I glanced at Jaz next to me, but she was saying something to Kason.
I leaned forward, keeping my voice low. “Hey, Brooklyn? You all right?”
She jerked slightly, as if bringing her mind back from some faraway place. “Oh—uh—” Her eyes darted toward Blake before she looked back at me. “I’m just tired. And I still feel carsick from the drive.” She shrugged awkwardly. “And I don’t really like burgers.”
“Then why did you—” Oh. Because Blake had ordered for all of us. Well, why hadn’t he known? I shrugged. “Hey, you could order something different. Give that one to Adam. He’s a human vacuum cleaner.”
“No.” Something quick, uneasy, behind her word. “It’s okay.”
Her shoulders were slumped beneath some invisible weight. I tilted my head, trying to read behind her expression. To look deeper. The way Jaz would. “Are you sure?”
Again she darted her eyes to Blake. Then she bent her head and picked at the sesame seeds on her burger. “I’m sure.”
All too soon, Blake ordered us out of the restaurant—the fact that the schedule was self-imposed didn’t alter his fanaticism to follow it—and we were back on the road to Moab. The scenery kept changing, the mountains sinking into low hills and the desert reclaiming the Rockies. Late in the evening, we finally drove into Moab—a red-rock desert town, with bare sandstone cliffs twisting themselves into fantastical shapes above the city. I’d rarely seen Kason more excited. As soon as we parked the RV, he and Jaz headed to the office to get more information about the festival.
I rambled around the park by myself for a few minutes, but when mosquitoes emerged, I ducked back into the RV. A hairdryer was whining in the bathroom—had to be Brooklyn—but Blake must have still been outside checking us in. The only person in the coach was Adam, sitting at the table with his lizard. He glanced up guiltily when I walked in. “Hey. Sorry.”
“Sorry? What for?”
He was already fumbling with the box, opening the flaps. “I’m not supposed to have Sacramento out unless we’re by ourselves.”
Something about the way he looked like a caught little boy made me sad. “Who said?”
“Blake.”
I frowned. “Well, I don’t mind.”
He looked at me warily. “You sure? You won’t tell Blake I had him out?”
I held up three fingers in a gesture I hoped would remind him of his Boy Scout days. “Scout’s honor.”
A weak smile softened his face. “Thanks.” He glanced back to the lizard. “Sacramento gets kind of lonely in that box. He likes to come out and get some attention when he can.”
I had to admit that the lizard did seem fairly content, sitting on Adam’s hand. Although who knew what—if anything—really went on behind a reptile’s cautious expression. “I didn’t know lizards got lonely.”
“Bearded dragons.” Adam shrugged. “Anyway, I think everyone gets lonely.”
Something about the way his voice dropped when he said it was sort of sad. He seemed lost somehow. Sitting there, holding maybe the only thing he had to love.
I swallowed. “Yeah. I guess so.”
What had Jaz said about him? Adam is running from something hard. Something that hurts him.
Before we left Mount Victory, I would have passed on by. But now—I was starting to see the pattern. And the light that burned in the crystals and connected the stars and glowed on the desert horizon was maybe mine to share.
I try to make sure that everyone I meet knows they’re not forgotten either.
I took a deep breath. “You know, I haven’t seen him up close yet.”
Adam darted his eyes at me. “You haven’t?”
“No.” I took another step. “So, anyway, I was wondering if maybe you could show him to me. I’d love to see him.”
Adam’s head snapped up. Shock turned to suspicion turned to a hopeful kind of eagerness. “You—you mean it?”
“Yeah.” I was surprised to find that I did. “I mean it.”
He studied me. So did the bearded dragon.
I waited.
Then Adam stuck out his hand. “You wanna hold him?”
What? That was entirely farther from what I’d had in mind. But this invitation held a weight even I couldn’t deny.
Belonging is hard. Harder than you think.
Okay, then. I nodded and forced a smile that I hoped looked excited. “That’d be great.”
Adam carefully slipped the dragon into my palms. He was heavier than I would have guessed, his feet cool and dry. The odd scratchiness of his little claws wasn’t as unpleasant as I’d expected. I shook off the shivery feeling his scaliness gave me and leaned forward for a closer look.
Honestly, he was—beautiful. Startlingly, surprisingly so. His scales pieced together like a mosaic, splashing red and orange and electric blue along his body. Like a desert sunset. His eyes slanted at me, wisely reptilian, and I could see the fluttering of his breathing, the way his skin stretched and released in time with his heartbeat.
“He’s—amazing.”
Adam gave a soft sound that could have been a laugh. “I’ve always thought so.”
“And he’s a bearded dragon?”
“Yeah. Beardies are pretty awesome. They’re really smart and easy to train, and they bond with their owners well.”
Unashamed excitement colored his usually monotone voice, and suddenly I had the disorienting notion that none of us, through all the days of traveling, had ever seen the real Adam. The kid who slumped on the couch and played video games was just the wary alter ego of this curious guy whose best friend was a reptile. And honestly, I liked this version much better. “Does he mind traveling?”
Adam shrugged and studied the lizard, stroking one finger down his back. “He probably doesn’t love it, but beardies are pretty chill about stuff like that. I didn’t trust leaving him at home.” He paused. “Mom won’t come around him. She says lizards and snakes and stuff like that are gross.”
“What about your dad?”
Something hard and rigid tightened his face for a moment. “I’m not asking Dad.”
I wanted to tell him I understood, that I’d felt the same broken edges that were slicing at his story.
The dragon shifted, his tail dangling over Adam’s fingers.
“Why is he called Sacramento?” Adam had said something about that to me back in Tulsa, hadn’t he? Something about how he hadn’t been the one to name him.
He glanced down. “He was my older brother’s pet before he was mine.”
“Oh.” See beneath, Jaz had said. “Where’s your brother?”
“In Japan.” Adam shrugged again. Like it didn’t matter where his brother was. But the brokenness in his eyes showed something different. “He joined the army when he got out of high school. Four years ago.”
“Really?”
“Uh huh. Rob’s a mechanic. He works on those big ole army helicopters and stuff. Anytime something’s broken, they bring it to him. He’s real good at fixing stuff.” Adam was still stroking the lizard. “He’s always been good at fixing stuff.”
“You must miss him.”
Adam bent his head forward so that his hair flopped over his eyes. “He calls me still. When he can. First place he went for training was Sacramento.”
“So he named the lizard that?”
“Yeah. And then he told me to take care of him when he was first deployed.” Adam cleared his throat and reached for the box. “He knew I would take good care of him.”
For some reason the story made me want to cry. Was this what Jaz had meant? That underneath each of us was something broken, something painful, some unhealed place that was still waiting for an eclipse answer?
I wanted to give him something. Hold out some kind of hope. “I can tell you’re really good with him.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He seems happy with you.”
The corners of his mouth softened. Like he was trying not to smile. “I hope so. Rob will be real happy when he comes back, don’t you think? He’ll see what a good job I’ve done.”
He looked up at me with this painfully hopeful look, all the fear he didn’t let anyone see beneath his acne scars and shaggy hair. I swallowed down some sort of ache. “He’ll be very proud. He must love you a lot to leave Sacramento with you.”
Adam looked quickly down again. “He knew I could handle it. And I can.”
The hairdryer switched off. I quickly transferred Sacramento back to Adam’s hands. “Better put him in the box before Brooklyn comes out. Thanks for showing him to me.”
“You can hold him again. Whenever you’d like.”
“Thanks. I will.”
The lines of light were drawing. Strong and straight and true.
And for the first time, I’d had a part in it.
Wednesday, June 19
Denver, Colorado, to Moab, Utah
355 miles
I had no idea that the mountains were so big. Or that Brooklyn didn’t like burgers. Or that even dragons got lonely.
There’s a lot to see once you start looking.