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  If only I could talk to River. He would know what to do.

  “Everyone here wants to help you,” she adds.

  “Here?” I ask, glancing at all the white, white, white surrounding me.

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you all this right away. It’s just I hoped seeing your grandmother might …” She shakes her head. “But you want to know where you are. Of course you do. That’s perfectly reasonable. This is a military hospital, in Camp Solanas, California, just outside San Diego,” she says. “We’re keeping you here while we verify your identity, and then we can clear you through customs.” I have no idea what she’s saying, or how it all seems to make perfect sense to her when it means nothing to me. “But we’re fairly certain that you are Megan Anna Baynes,” she says.

  “My name is Sky,” I say, but my voice is a whisper now, filled with uncertainty. “Sky,” I repeat. “Sky.” A little louder.

  She ignores me. “You’re sixteen years old, and you were born right down the road in San Diego.”

  “I am Sky,” I say again.

  She nods. “We think most likely your mother decided to change your name after she left. But not legally, of course, which for our purposes would still make you Megan Anna Baynes.” She pauses. “But just to be sure, we’re verifying your identity with a DNA test.”

  “A what?” I ask her.

  “D-N-A.” She says each sound sharply and slowly. “We’ve taken your grandmother’s blood and some of your blood, and we’ll basically see if they’re a match. If you two are family.”

  “My blood?” I recoil in horror at the awfulness of these people for taking my blood. Skeletons. I shiver.

  “It’s a very standard test. And very accurate,” she says. “We should have the results back tomorrow, and if they come back as we believe they should, then we’ll be able to clear you through customs, and you can leave the military base and …” Her voice drops off.

  “And what?” I ask.

  “And go home,” she says.

  Chapter 10

  The night my mother and Helmut ate the mushrooms it was raining. A few times a year we would get a storm that would last longer than a few hours, sometimes for a week. It was going to be one of those—I could tell just by the heaviness of the air, the persistent smell of moisture stinging my nose. Our traps had already been empty for days, and we were starving.

  Helmut brought the mushrooms back, two large handfuls of them. They had been growing by River, just on the other side of Falls, such a treat, Helmut said. We’d had mushrooms before, but these looked different. The other ones had been tiny and white, and these were larger, with thick black stems.

  Helmut handed one to each of us and pulled some purple flowers from the wooden box. My mother stared at it for a moment and then looked to Helmut. He took her hand and pulled her out of Shelter, into the rain.

  “Oh, Petal,” I heard him say from outside. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper, so I couldn’t make out what else he was saying.

  I sniffed my mushroom, and it smelled like dirt, like the mud at the bottom of River that would sometimes stick between my toes.

  Before I could take a bite, River grabbed my hand. “Come on,” he said. “I have to show you something.”

  “Now? I’m starving.” He nodded, and he tugged my hand and pulled me into the rain.

  Helmut and my mother stood there, outside Shelter, their faces wet and slick with water. My mother was smiling, and Helmut held his hand on her cheek while he whispered in her ear.

  “Where are you going?” Helmut asked as we walked past them.

  “Bathroom Tree,” River said quickly, and pulled me with him.

  “Hurry back,” Helmut said.

  River nodded, and we started through the rain. I followed him, even though I wasn’t sure why, what he was doing, what he needed to show me at Bathroom Tree. My feet sank into the wet ground, the water tumbling through my hair, splashing across my cheeks.

  River walked down Grassy Hill, sliding a little, past Bathroom Tree, nearly tumbling into the water that shares his name. I followed, mud splashing up my legs to my knees, and as we slid, the mushroom fell from my hands into the mud and my stomach ached with hunger.

  “What are we doing?” I asked River as he rinsed the mud off himself in Falls. “I’m hungry. And I don’t even need to use Bathroom Tree.”

  He didn’t answer but walked to the other side of Falls, and so did I. Then he pointed. I saw rows and rows of purple flowers, their delicate petals breaking in the weight of the rain.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “This is where Helmut said he found the mushrooms,” River said.

  “So?”

  “So he lied,” River shouted into the rain, his words breaking as drops spilled down his cheeks, onto his tongue.

  “Maybe he just made a mistake,” I said.

  River shook his head. “There are no mushrooms here. I come here all the time to collect the flowers. I came here this morning.” That was always River’s job, collecting, as Helmut always said, the things without teeth, the things even a dreamer could catch: flowers, leaves, coconuts.

  “So?” I said again. “You just lied about us going to Bathroom Tree.”

  “That’s different,” River said.

  “How?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just is.”

  I was uncomfortable with the notion of lying. I knew what it was. I’d done it once, when I was younger and I told my mother I hadn’t swum past Rocks, only for Helmut to tell her that I had, that he’d seen me. “There is no lying here,” my mother had reprimanded me. “We aren’t going to survive unless we tell each other the truth. Always. Do you understand?” She’d shaken me a little. I’d understood. I’d never lied to her again, and didn’t think she’d ever lied. Or that River or Helmut had, either. And I felt uneasy then, thinking that suddenly everyone seemed to be lying.

  “Besides,” River said, picking some wet purple flowers. “You know how they like to be alone in Shelter when they start whispering like that.” He handed me some flowers, and I nodded.

  I knew he was right, and that even though Helmut said hurry back, he probably wouldn’t be mad now if we didn’t. I took the flowers from him and chewed on a wet, slick petal. And we sat there for a while in Cove By Falls, listening to the sound of the rain.

  It was dusk by the time we walked back to Shelter, and Helmut and my mother were already asleep, his thick arm wrapped tightly around her.

  I leaned down to kiss her on the cheek before lying on the other side of her, and she murmured a little bit and smiled. “Good night, Mom,” I whispered.

  “Good night, Megan,” she whispered back.

  That was the last thing she ever said to me.

  The square sun comes and goes when green people tap the coming-in place. Someone brings me more food and a silver stick called a fork that looks like a smaller kind of fish spear.

  The woman who says she is my grandmother does not come in, but neither does River, though I ask for him again and again.

  “Tomorrow,” the last green woman says. “I promise. First thing in the morning.”

  The square sun hurts my eyes, and I’m relieved when she makes it go away and it’s dark again. After she is gone, in the dark, I can trick myself into a false sense of comfort and sleep. In the dark, I could be anywhere.

  I imagine River that night of my birthday, when he rolled over on his other side and wrapped his arm around me, his warm breath whispering in my hair.

  I imagine he is here with me now.

  In my hazy half sleep, I hear him whispering to me. “Helmut lied,” he’s saying.

  Chapter 11

  I awake to the sound of a noise, like a bird pecking a tree, and a different green woman is here, again, with more food. “Good morning,” she says as she walks in the coming-in place and turns on the square sun.

  “How do you do that?” I ask. My head feels thick with sleep, warm from the pret
end River, and then suddenly cold when I realize his presence was nothing more than a dream, again.

  “Do what?” she asks.

  “Turn the sun off and on like that.” I point to the yellow square above me.

  “Oh.” She wrinkles up her face. “That’s a light,” she says. She puts the food on top of my stomach and then walks back to the coming-in place. “Look, here’s the switch. I press it, and the light goes off.” She does, and the sun disappears. “Then I press it again, and it goes back on.”

  “How?” I ask.

  “Electricity,” she says. I shake my head. “It’s … it’s just a system of wires and energy that gives us power.” I shake my head again. “Oh, man,” she says. “Maybe I should get Dr. Cabot.”

  “That’s okay,” I say, not quite ready to see her again, knowing that now it is tomorrow and she will have news of the D-N-A. Then I realize that I suddenly have to pee, and I think it has been days since I’ve gone, which I don’t understand, but now I have to go. A lot. “Where is Bathroom Tree?” I ask, trying to remember the word that Jeremy used on the boat, but now it escapes me.

  “Oh,” she says. “They removed your catheter, so that makes sense. It’s right through here.” She pulls and another coming-in place appears. “Do you need help getting out of bed?” I shake my head, and she nods. “I’ll give you some privacy,” she says. “And I’ll get Dr. Cabot.”

  After she leaves, I get out of Bed, and my legs feel unsteady. I nearly fall, and I grab onto the side of Bed to catch myself. Then I go and use their strange Bathroom Tree the way River showed me on the boat, and when I’m finished I wipe my hands on the sides of what I’m wearing—which I see now is a white thing that covers most of my body. It’s thinner than my rabbit pelt, even though it covers more of my body, and it’s cold in here, colder even than Falls first thing in the morning. I shiver.

  I walk tentatively to the coming-in place, wondering what lies just beyond. Dr. Cabot called this place Military Hospital, and the green man from yesterday told me River was at Next Door. I sense that means he’s close, but also that me walking through the coming-in place now might not be considered behaving, and that if I do, Dr. Cabot might tie me back to Bed and Velcro might run on my wrists. I wonder if next time they will bite, and I shiver.

  But I need to see River, and so I push on the coming-in place, the way I’ve watched all the green people do. The tall square moves a little, and out in the beyond, there is more white, a narrower space, like a pathway between the trees. Only there are no trees and barely any light, and the pathway is narrow. “River,” I whisper out into the beyond. “River.” I say his name a little louder.

  I walk down the pathway until I notice a separation in the white, where a bit of yellow light pours out to where I’m standing, glowing against my bare, cold feet. It’s another coming-in place, I realize, and I push on it lightly. “River,” I whisper. “Are you in there?”

  “Sky?”

  I push harder, and beyond the coming-in place, the space looks identical to mine. White, white, white, with Bed in the center. River sits on the end of it now, wearing something strange. Like what the green people wear, only it is not green. The bottom half is blue like the sky, the top part white like sand. It’s weird to see him like that, the flesh of his chest and his back and his shoulders hidden. But I don’t care. I’m so happy to see him right now.

  “River!” I practically jump on him, wrapping him in a giant hug.

  “Skyblue,” he whispers into my hair, and he strokes my messy braid back, twirling it between his fingers.

  “I’ve been asking and asking for you. But they wouldn’t let me see you.” It’s hard to speak because suddenly I’m choking on tears. River wipes at my cheeks with his thumbs, pushing them away.

  “How’s your leg?” River asks.

  “My leg?” He points, and I look down to my calf, which I notice now is covered with a large white leaf, with a little bit of red—blood—seeping through. That must’ve been from when I fell that last night on Island. It hurts a little, I realize now. Although I haven’t noticed it until this moment.

  “They said it was infected,” River says.

  “Infected?”

  “They said you might’ve died without their help.”

  “Oh, Riv, come on. It’s just a little scrape. The aloe would’ve fixed it.”

  He shrugs, and then I notice what it is that’s so different about him. Not just what he’s wearing but other things, too. The blond hair on his face is gone, and so is his braid. His hair is short and tied back in a small point at the nape of his neck. “They cut your braid,” I gasp.

  “I did it,” he says, pulling back, looking away.

  “Why?” He shakes his head, but he doesn’t answer. He sits back on the edge of Bed. “We need to find a way to get out of here,” I tell him. “I don’t trust these people. There’s a woman here who says she’s my grandmother.” My words fall out in a tumble, my voice sounding small, the way it used to when I was very young still, just a child.

  “Sky, stop.” He takes my arms in his hands. “She is your grandmother.”

  I shake my head. “How do you know that?”

  “I just do,” he says.

  “You can’t possibly remember her.” I put my hands on my hips. “You were what, three, when you left here?”

  “Four,” River says. “And I don’t remember … her.” His voice trails off as if there is more he should tell me.

  “But you remember,” I say. “Something? Someone?”

  He shrugs, but he doesn’t say anything else. He holds his lips together, firmly, in a line, and I know he doesn’t want to tell me. Whatever it is he knows, he isn’t going to let me in on it. Which stings worse than when Sergeant Sawyer poked my arm through the poncho back on the boat. River and I tell each other everything, or we used to.

  It occurs to me that everything is different, that River is already different. And not just the way he looks, either, but the way he seems. He stares at me now, as if we haven’t shared hundreds of nights and days together, as if here in this strange place he’s not even sure he knows me anymore. And it’s the first time I understand it, that Island is lost to us now, maybe forever. The thought sinks in my chest like a rock in the water that shared River’s name, hard and heavy, and for a moment I’m not sure I can breathe.

  “Sky,” he says, reaching for my arms, but I shrug him off. “You’re going to go with her, and you’re going to have a good life here.”

  “And what about you? You’ll come with me?” I ask, my voice still small.

  “I can’t,” he says.

  “Why not?”

  “Because. I just can’t, all right?” He runs his fingers through his shorter hair, and I can tell that he’s still not used to it, that he still misses what we’ve lost, too, even if he isn’t going to admit it.

  “Riv.” I reach for him, but now he’s the one who pulls back.

  “Listen,” he says. “Everything is different now. And we need to figure things out here on our own, okay?”

  “Our own?”

  “You’ll be with your grandmother. You’ll love it.”

  “And you?” He shrugs. “River,” I say, “I’m not going anywhere without you. I’ve been with you forever, and I’m not going to let these green people keep me from seeing you.”

  He shakes his head. “They didn’t,” he says softly.

  “Yes, they did. I’ve been asking for you since I woke up.”

  “I know,” he says, and then he looks down and lowers his voice. “I told them I thought it was better if we didn’t see each other. I told them I didn’t want to see you.”

  His words are so sharp, like that stone cutting through the belly of the fish, and now he’s cutting through me, ripping out my guts, throwing them away carelessly. Red entrails twisting in the wind, staining all this awful whiteness.

  “I don’t understand,” I whisper.

  He reaches out and twirls the end of my braid
one last time. “You take care of yourself.” His voice trembles, and I think maybe he wants to cry, except his face is solidly emotionless, his skin smooth the way I remember it as a child. He’s running next to me on Beach, sitting in the sand, drawing with me.

  “River,” I say one last time.

  “No,” he says. “Not River.” He pauses. “Lucas.”

  Back in my own space, I find myself crying. On Island the only time I remember feeling this way was after I dragged my mother’s limp body into Ocean. But now there are tears I don’t even know I had, and they come and they come, until my chest rattles like a trap that has snapped its kill, and suddenly the entire world is dead, silent.

  “I’ve got good news,” Dr. Cabot says, stepping in through the coming-in place. She stares at me for a moment, raising her thick blond eyebrows, as if she thinks about asking me what’s wrong, but then she seems to change her mind. “DNA is back, and you are who we thought you are. We’re clearing you with customs as we speak, and then we’ll be able to release you into your grandmother’s custody.” She pauses. “Of course, I will be happy to assist you with whatever you need after that, but your grandmother insisted she’s bringing in her own private psychiatrist to work with you in her home.”

  “And what if I don’t want to go?” I whisper.

  “You’re a minor in the state of California,” she says. “And so by law we have to …”

  I don’t understand what she’s saying, and though she is still talking, I stop listening because I do understand I’m going to have to go … somewhere, that I can’t stay here, in Military Hospital, the whiteness, forever. I wouldn’t even want to. I can’t go back to Island, and even if I could, I would be alone, and I wouldn’t want to be there alone. River—no, Lucas—doesn’t want to be with me here, now that he has a choice. On Island, I never questioned my place in the world, where I belonged, where I’m supposed to be. Now I am a girl without a place. It’s worse than hunger—it’s the saddest, most lonely thing I’ve ever felt.