Radiant - By Christina Daley Page 0,45

Then, she went home.

At nine o'clock, the buzzer rang. Mary mowed down a neighbor to answer the front door.

"Good evening, Mary," Carter greeted politely.

He didn't look like James Bond tonight, but it didn't matter. She didn't realize until that moment that she had really missed seeing him. But she composed herself. "Hey. So, where did you want to talk?"

He looked around. "If we were at school, I'd say the Art room. Is there some place we can go where we won't be disturbed?"

Mary thought for a moment. "Let's go to the roof. That way, we won't break Mom's rule about the apartment."

"That's fine," he said. "But you will need a coat. And shoes with socks."

She looked at him curiously.

"You asked for the truth, did you not?" he said.

"All right," she said. While he waited in the hall, she switched out her flip-flops for her sneakers and grabbed her jacket from the closet. "How's this?" she asked when she returned to the hall.

"That should be fine," he said.

As usual, no one else was on the roof.

"All right. Now what?" she asked.

Carter moved towards her and wrapped his arms around her.

"Whoa, what are you doing?" she asked.

"My apologies," he said. "But I've not done this with another person before. You may want to put your hands on me, too. It will be easier the more we're touching."

She looked at him, seeing if he was trying to mess with her. He certainly seemed serious enough. Finally, she placed her arms around his shoulders.

"All right," he said. "Hold on."

Mary began to ask him to hold on for what. Then, her weight was gone. It was like when an elevator starts going down. But the feeling didn't go away, like gravity had been shut off. Mary also couldn't understand what she was seeing. There was the city, but it was far away, like looking at it from an airplane. There was also water, though she couldn't tell if it was from a lake or an ocean, or even if she was standing next to a sink and watching it drip each individual drop. There were faces, but no features. Not even skin color. And there were stars. Millions of them. More than Mary had ever seen in all her life. She couldn't tell how much time had gone by. Seconds? Minutes? Days? Weeks? Years? Lifetimes? It was like time was switched off along with gravity.

And just like that, everything felt normal again. Gravity, time, and the colors all returned to their proper places. Mary felt the ground beneath their feet and saw an open, dusky sky above.

Carter let her go and stepped back. The sandy, rocky ground grumbled beneath his feet. That was the only sound just then. No cars. No sirens. No video game explosions. Mary never knew that quiet could seem so loud before. The cold air nipped at her skin. Mary spotted some bristly bushes just behind Carter. There was also a giant rock. And not far away was a…cactus?

"Where are we?" she finally managed to say.

"Arizona," he said. "Watch your step. It's a long way down."

Mary stared at him. Then cautiously, she turned and gasped. Yawning before her was a massive chasm in the earth. At the bottom, she could faintly make out a thin line of water that was a river.

"Carter?" she asked. "What is that?"

"The Grand Canyon," he said. "Or part of it."

Mary hardly blinked. Then, she laughed. "That's, like, thousands of miles away. This is some kind of a screen or something, right? It's just a projection on the floor." Though how he got it up onto the roof was beyond her. She walked forward and reached down to touch the screen.

"No wait!" Carter shouted.

Mary's fingers didn't meet a screen. They met nothing, and she lost her balance and fell.

"AAAAYYYYYEEEEE!" she screamed, hurling towards a ledge of sharp rocks below.

The weird elevator feeling and time stopping came back. The next thing she knew, Mary was in Carter's arms. They were sitting on the rocky ground back at the top.

She didn't stop screaming. "OMIGAWD! WHAT WAS THAT?"

"Mary," Carter tried.

"OMIGAWD! OMIGAWD! OMIGAWD!"

"Mary! Please!" Carter said. "You're not falling anymore. I've got you."

Mary stopped screaming, but only because she needed to breathe. She looked at Carter before jumping up and scrambled behind the large rock. She peered out at him suspiciously.

Carter remained where he was.

"W-w-where are we really?" she demanded, her voice trembling.

Carter folded his hands in front of him. "Arizona. This really is the Grand Canyon. The Northern Rim."

Mary glanced