The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,24
around my face. The bindle cat, trotting along at my heels, vanishes to chase some hidden creature in the forest undergrowth. He always returns, and I give him his freedom.
After all, I am chasing my own hidden thing.
As I see the trees thinning ahead, I break into a run.
Beyond the forest here lies the Mirror of Divinity, a vast salt flat that stretches leagues in all directions. The water, only a finger deep, is so poisoned by salts and minerals that nothing lives there, not a single insect to stir the surface. Even the breeze from the river is gone, not a ripple disturbing the Mirror’s reflection of the heavens. The bindle cat, melting out of the forest-sea beside me, takes one step into the water and hisses angrily, licking at his wet paw and loudly cursing the salt.
I leave him at the forest’s edge and step out into the water, my footsteps splashing gently against the crusted minerals beneath. All that exists, above and below, is stars.
The cosmic river flows across the sky in an arc of indigo and pearl, meeting itself in the water’s surface and curving away again beneath my feet. The water ripples at each step, as tremulous as my own heart.
And there, still smoldering and smoking from the fires of its descent, is the fallen star. Shadowy and dark, it seems to draw all the light around it into itself. I would be afraid, were I not so hopeful—already I know it is no bit of celestial rock, for it has structure, intention, purpose. Arcs of shadowlike wings curve toward the sky, and a tiny pinprick of light glows deep within its dark skeleton.
I can hold myself back no longer—relief and joy are too strong, and I cannot wait one more second.
Timing my steps to the drumming of my heart, I strike out across the night sky beneath my feet and toward the fallen star.
FOUR
NORTH
The glider plunges through the clouds, the world turning solid gray, my vision gone but my ears full of screaming alarms and the horrible grinding of my engine, my own ragged breathing barely audible above it all. I yank at the controls, unable to help myself even though I know it won’t make a difference.
And then I burst through the bottom of the clouds and the starlit world of Below spreads out beneath me. I see dark masses that might be forests with shadowy rivers winding through them, and a huge sheet of water that gleams up at me, flat and motionless as a mirror.
I can’t help looking at it all, taking it all in as it rises up to meet me, this place I so desperately wanted to see. This place that’s going to kill me.
Then the Skysinger shudders, snapping my head back and jarring every bone in my body, and my nostrils are filled with acrid smoke and the smell of burning plastic, and instinct takes over, driving me to fight a battle I’ll surely lose.
I unsnap my harness, sliding down in my chair so I can kick at the access panel by my feet, jamming the flat of my foot against it once, twice, three times, until it begins to buckle. The glider’s powered by her engines, and the circuits that power them might be a smoking ruin, but that’s not the only way to steer her.
My wildly kicking feet shove aside the wreckage of the hatch cover and push through, and I flail around for the thick bunch of cords that control my wing flaps. As I press hard against them with my boots, I feel the Skysinger start to tilt just a little, and I throw my weight sideways to help with the course correction. I can’t see what I’m doing, and I’m steering by feel, but ever so slightly, I think her nose is coming up as she loses height.
Maybe, maybe, enough to land.
The alarms are still screaming all around me as I struggle backward, one foot jamming in the hatch as I fight to free it, hands scrabbling against the sides of the cockpit as I try to lever myself back into my chair.
I snap my harness back into place, and the next instant we’re at the water, and the world’s whirling by impossibly fast, and my head’s spinning from the impact, and my glider’s skimming the surface and sending up huge sheets of spray, tumbling, rolling completely over once, and then slowing, dragging, until everything’s still.