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  "Help her!" Tears streamed down my face.

  "We can't until she's inside and we get what we need to clean her up." Tens held the door open and motioned to me. "Go with her. Get the fire roaring, offer her fresh water. I'll bring Auntie in and then we'll get that arrow out."

  I nodded

  I worked in a fury, placing a pillow under Custos's limp head, then blowing on the fire's last few red embers, begging them to catch. When wood crackled in the fireplace, I raced into the kitchen and grabbed a bowl of water.

  Tens was settling Auntie on the sofa when I came back in.

  "You should be in bed," I told her, unable to make my voice gentle.

  "I'm fine, child. Feeling better already. Besides, my room is lonely and you need a guiding mind to fix up this girl. Years as a nurse have qualified me to teach you." Auntie's color was back and her eyes sparkled in the lamp light. "Tens, close that door and let's get lots of light in here." Tens left the room, silent.

  "Meridian, see if Custos wants to drink. She's lost quite a bit of blood."

  I knelt and held the trusting gaze of my newest friend. She lifted her head and tried to drink, but I could tell she only wanted to appease me.

  "We'll try chicken broth later." Auntie said, breaking into another hacking cough.

  Tens returned with the first-aid kit.

  "You find the razor where I told you to check?" she asked.

  "Yep." Tens lifted a straight razor from the kit.

  "Good. Now, Meridian, find a large sewing needle and thick thread in my basket."

  My stomach fell. Dying was almost easier to handle than the blood. "You're not—"

  "No. child, you are," she said with confidence. "Sterilize the needle in the fire or the firewater—doesn't matter which."

  I dug through the basket and found a needle, then held it to a match to clean it. I handed Tens the thread to dip in the alcohol.

  Auntie struggled to sit up and catch her breath. "We need to get the arrow out without doing more damage. The best way to do that is to cut the skin around it just enough to remove it. We're lucky it's right under her skin; whoever shot her had lousy aim."

  I swallowed back bile, but Tens didn't seem fazed.

  Auntie stopped him from shrugging out of his overcoat. "Don't remove your leather coat—it'll give you a bit of protection if she doesn't understand we're trying to help. You hold Custos's head. You're going to have to grip her so she doesn't bite Meridian."

  That left me to do the cutting and stitching. "I can't even quilt. You said yourself I'm a terrible sewer; I have no talent for it."

  She shushed me. "This can be ugly and crooked and ain't nobody going to care. You have to. Now get to it."

  My hands quaked as I leaned over Custos. The only sounds in the room were the fire and her heavy panting breaths. I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer to whatever god might be listening. I didn't want to cause Custos any pain.

  "Steady yourself. Meridian. Work fast, it'll hurt less. You'll need to clean the wound with the alcohol, then sew her up."'

  Tens sat down and put Custos's head in his lap. He didn't take his eyes off me. "You can do this. You owe her."'

  I remembered falling asleep on the hike up the hill, the pleasant feelings of warmth, Custos's growls to get me moving to the safety of the house. He was right. I owed Custos my life. Even if I sewed like shit and was just as likely to cut myself with the razor as her. I swallowed, trying to channel every medical television program I'd ever seen to my fingers.

  Custos didn't move, other than to hold her breath through the hard parts. The cuts were easier to make than I expected because the arrow lay shallowly under her skin. I dabbed alcohol on the wound and she whined, but didn't make any moves away from me or Tens.

  "Almost there." Tens nodded at me. "You're doing great."

  I readied the needle and held the jagged edges of her flesh together. I sewed seven stitches, smeared antibiotic cream on top of them, and placed a handful of gauze over it all.

  "Here. I'll lift her and you can wrap the bandage all the way around so it's secured." Tens leaned over Custos and lifted. My hair brushed his face and his fell in mine. He smelled of pine and fir and wet dog. It made me smile.

  "Done." I sat back, collapsing against the chair legs.

  "Good, good." Auntie smiled. "Your grandfather would be proud, Tens. You're a good medic."

  "You knew him well?" Tens seemed shocked.

  Auntie chortled. "Of course I knew your grandfather. Did you think he told you to come to this place on a lark?"

  "I always thought it was profound. That he wanted me in a place, not with a particular person."

  "It was about the place. It was where you were meant to come next on your journey. You're from a long line of Protectors, on your mother's side. But if I correctly remember Ty's soft heart for the ladies, then I daresay he might have known about the person, too." Does she mean me? Are we destined to be together? However much I felt for Tens, the idea of predestined relationships bothered me.

  Tens's face flushed a breathtaking crimson and he stared down at the carpet. "Do you know anything about my parents? My father? Mother?"

  "No, not much, I'm sorry. Your grandfather didn't like to talk about it. Your father was an illegal immigrant from Cuba. Your mother was too young and she didn't survive childbirth."

  Auntie turned to Custos. "She'll sleep here tonight. Let's give her broth in a little while and see if we can't get her to drink it. I'm thirsty for real hot chocolate. Anyone else? Have I told you about the marshmallows my grandmother made during the winters?" Auntie's face melted into an expression of childhood bliss.

  Tens jumped up, clearly ready for a change of topic. "I'll get it."

  "Do you love him?" Auntie asked after he left the room, shoving her hair from her face and wiping her cheeks with the edge of a quilt.

  "How do I know?" I chewed on my lip, scared to admit to feelings I wasn't completely sure of.

  "It's different for everyone. For me, with Charles, it was the littlest things. I was able to live to my full potential and not ever apologize for being a Fenestra. He took my destiny in stride. Even when I wasn't able to keep my promise to him."

  "What promise?" That familiar shadow in my peripheral vision hovered.

  "I promised him that I'd be there when he died. That he would see heaven through me."

  "You couldn't have known."

  "I should have. There was a doctor with him. He said it was peaceful. But he won't be waiting for me, not after this life. I know that."

  The pipe-smoke scent got stronger. "Do you smell that?"

  "What, child?"

  I shook my head. "Nothing, I guess."

  "If you love him, if you think you love him, hang on to him. Your destinies are intertwined. Your choices and his choices are tangled. This I do know."

  "What makes you so sure?"

  "Faith."

  "In God?"

  "The Creators have many names: singular, plural. Names are more about the humans and the time than the Creators themselves."

  I wondered if she was going to dredge out the crystals and start chanting.

  She laughed at me. "You think I'm an old crazy lady."

  "No." But my denial was halfhearted at best.

  "You do. I know because I thought my grandmother was nuts too."

  "You did?"

  "Of course. But then I started listening and looking, really observing the world around me. After my mother died, my grandmother lived with us. She was a Fenestra. She taught us the history to pass on. Gods are male and female because that's the human limitation. But there's no gender to energy. Do you call your batteries he or she? Do you name the lightbulb Fred or Ginger? No, it's energy. It's timeless, it's faceless, it's sexless."

  I nodded.

  "Meridian, you're special. You've been given the greatest gift of the Creator: the ability to help souls find their nirvana, their enlightenment, their heaven. Humans have many names for it, b
ut it has a sameness to it. I wish we had more time, but we're running out."

  "Why?" I croaked the word. I'd miss Auntie, more than I'd ever thought possible. I wanted to slow down time.

  "Hot chocolate." Tens carried in a tray and set it in front of Auntie.

  We sipped in silence and I kept an eye on Custos.

  "Tens, you need to hear this too. Have you heard of Atlantis? The Aztecs? Easter Island? Gede in Kenya?" Auntie's voice sounded stronger.

  Some of the names rang bells from her journal, so I'd hazard a guess. "Gone?" I asked.

  "All work of the Aternocti. All because there were too few of us to reclaim energy for good."

  "What am I going to do about it?"

  "We." Tens tugged on my hair, making me smile.

  Without warning, Auntie seemed to doze, her chin hitting her chest. The mug slipped from her hands and the noise of it falling on the floor startled her awake. "Oh dear me."

  "Don't worry about it."

  "Let's finish this tomorrow, okay?" Auntie stood. "Tens, hand me the cane by the door, please. I think I need it tonight."

  "Let me carry you." Tens scooped her up and I followed, up the stairs and to her bedroom.

  "She's got a fever," I whispered to Tens as a chill shook Auntie and the bed. "I don't think aspirin's going to cut it. I think we should call a doctor." I didn't try to conceal my concern.

  "Let's talk in the hallway. Meridian." Tens motioned me toward the door and Auntie blinked her eyes open.

  "You don't have to talk about me like I've lost my mind. I know I'm dying, remember? No doctors—sleep. I've got more days in me yet." A cough wracked her body.

  I glanced at Tens, who bent to check one of the space heaters. He shrugged. "Are you sure? Maybe they can help."

  Auntie patted my hand. "Don't worry, you're not light yet. It's not time." Then she gripped me with surprising strength. "Promise me that I won't die in a hospital. Promise me." Her skin was dry and flaky, superhot.

  "I don't think—"

  "Promise me!" Her eyes grew wide and panicked.

  I licked my lips. "I promise," I whispered, wondering if there could possibly be anything more difficult to face.

  I started to paw through piles of quilts, looking for the warmest and coziest. Each was precisely sewn with diamond shapes, trees, circles, or stripes. Some of them were intricate as tapestries, depicting scenes like the ancient story tableaus hanging in museums. Tiny faces made of bitty scraps of tans and taupes, browns and creams. Animals and landscapes. Stitches so fine I couldn't see them. Velvets and brocades, linens and polished cottons. Sari-like patterns and batiks, Japanese silks and dark-washed denims. Snowflakes and sunshine, rainbows and rivers.

  "Shoo. I need sleep." Auntie's snores accompanied us as we finished tucking her in and making sure she had water within reach.

  "I'll stay with her tonight."

  I glanced at Tens. "You don't look good either. Are you feeling okay?”

  "I'm fine. Why don't you check on Custos and then hit the sack?"

  I nodded, watching him settle down on the floor next to Auntie's bed.

  "Are you—" Sure?

  "Go." Tens jerked off his boots and closed his eyes.

  Chapter 24

  I lay down on the sofa next to Custos; I'd grown accustomed to her night noises. Sleep eluded me. When I finally fell asleep, though, I dreamed.

  I dreamed of the only family vacation we ever went on—to Australia, of all places. I think my parents hoped we could outrun the death that followed me like a conjoined twin.

  On our first full day in Australia, we rode in a cab to the Australia Zoo. Dad wanted to see the oldest living giant sea turtle. There'd been lots of controversy over whether or not Darwin really brought her back to England from the Galapagos Islands. I was nine. I didn't much care, but my dad thought we should see the turtle that might have been in the presence of the great Charles Darwin.

  The zoo was crowded with school groups and other tourists. We waited in line for what seemed like hours. My father kept talking to everyone around us, "gathering intel" as he liked to say. The turtle's name was Harriet, "Etta" for short. She'd been sick with a respiratory bug a couple of weeks earlier, but on this day she'd recovered enough to go out into her habitat. People lined up to gawk at her, and I wondered if she minded the same way I did when people stared at me.

  I pressed up to the glass, jostled by a bunch of people. I watched the turtle drag herself closer to the glass and to me. Everyone thought it was so cool that she was coming over to say hello to us. But I remember the terror I felt. I wanted her to go the other way because she was huge and beautiful. Her shell reminded me of giant sand dunes. And her eyes were fathomless.

  I knew what was coming, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  I tried closing my eyes, but she kept moving toward me. The day had been overcast, but the clouds suddenly parted. There was a sunbeam and the turtle paused in it. She turned her head, so I could see one eye. One perfect, cavernous, clear eye. I saw to the beginning of time in that eye. I locked gazes with her.

  She put her head down in the sand and sun and heaved a sigh. Everyone thought she'd gone to sleep. But I stood there for a good fifteen minutes, frozen, my parents trying to get me to snap out of it. I remember Etta said she'd been waiting for me. She had something to tell me.

  On the couch. I woke enough to flip over restlessly. Then Etta's eyes sucked me back into dreamland.

  The eyes morphed into ones I recognized as Reverend Perimo's. The irises fell away, swirling like sunspots, until the only thing that remained was a blackness so dark, so molten I was afraid I’d fall in. He spoke to me: "Don't believe them, Meridian. You can have it all. You can have him back. You can live forever. 'Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead."' Celia's hands reached for me and I sprang away. I ran.

  I ran alongside an old train. A smiling young man in a soldier's uniform reached for me and called out, but I was caught from behind.

  I wrenched myself from the iron grip and found myself on the floor beside the couch, tangled in my blankets. Custos lifted her head and whined.

  "I'm okay. Go back to sleep." I stood and wrapped a quilt around myself, then padded to the kitchen. I dug a spoon into a carton of mocha fudge chunk ice cream.

  When Tens walked into the room, he said, "Her fever broke."

  I jumped. "Crap, you scared me."

  "Sorry." Tens got another spoon out of the drawer and sat across from me.

  "I'm missing something. I can feel it," I said, frustrated with myself.

  Tens just waited and ate the ice cream.

  I could barely taste my favorite flavor. "It's right there. I know it is."

  "Maybe you're trying too hard." He kept eating, watching me.

  I gazed out the window at the night. "I had this crazy dream. God, it was so real."

  "You'll figure it out. Stop thinking about it and it'll come to you. I'll sit with you if you want," Tens offered.

  "No, I'm okay."

  "Then go up to bed. I'll check on Custos. No one could sleep well on that spiny sofa."

  I smiled. "Sure. Thanks."

  * * *

  The next morning. I put water on to boil for tea and mixed up pancake batter. I found an unopened package of bacon in the fridge and set it on to cook.

  I jumped when Auntie suddenly greeted me from behind. "Good morning, little one."

  "You guys have got to stop doing that!" I placed tea in front of her. "How are you?"

  "Much better. Right as spring rain on the wheat fields."

  I didn't believe her, but her expression didn't leave me room to question her further. I nodded, deciding to go along with her until I had an opportunity to suggest a hospital again. "Hungry?" I asked.

  "Famished."

  "Me too." I grinned as Tens wandered in barefoot and wearing a threadbare T-shirt and jeans with holes at the knees.

  "Smells good." He perched on the counter, grabbed an apple, an
d bit into it.

  "Always hungry." Auntie chuckled. "I have an idea. We should go to the hot springs up the road and soak."

  "Hot springs?" I asked.

  "They're beautiful. Just the right temperature. They're also healing for the body and soul. I haven't been in years. I don't know why; they're one of my favorite places on earth." Auntie's expression grew wistful.

  "Then we should go." Tens said.

  "Sure." I flipped a couple of pancakes off the griddle and added bacon to the plate, then set it down in front of Auntie. "Dig in."

  "I couldn't possibly eat all of this."

  "Try. I'm sure the human vacuum can help if there are leftovers." I giggled at Tens's fake offended expression.

  I served Tens and then myself. We munched in companionable silence. There was peace in the kitchen, a calm I hadn't felt since my birthday. I realized with a shock that this was what happy felt like.

  We piled into the Rover after breakfast and Auntie directed us to the hot springs. I'd borrowed one of her ancient bathing suits with shorts and a long-sleeved top. I would have showed more skin in a wet suit, but I didn't care.

  She seemed young, free, happy. She reminded me of the grouse that skittered around us, which were ever changing with the seasons, now winter white and in perfect harmony with the world.

  We splashed and soaked and tried each pool. We had the place to ourselves.

  "I'm so glad we came." Auntie cuddled against me and gazed up into the sky. She peered so intently, I wondered if she could see the rings of Saturn with her naked eye. "Everything changes, Meridian. Everything is temporary, except the sky. When you find yourself caught up in the horrors or the heroes of a lifetime, look up. Don't look down. That which is beneath our feet is liquid, but the sky, the sky is solid, constant, ever ready and ever hopeful that the sun will rise in the morning and the moon will rise at night. They don't really set, you know. They're always rising, just rising for someone else."

  "Right." I glanced around for Tens, who'd gone back to the car for towels. Auntie and I were alone with this moment.

  "This too shall pass. It's rising for you now. I only have to finish the quilt. Yellow ginghams of first love, steely blues of family branches. I do believe you are an intense red of youth's passion. I forgot. It seems so long ago I turned sixteen."