it seemed like to Jak. He could only hear his own pounding heart and the sharp gasps of breath as the two fought to hold on, fought to be the first to use his weapon.
They rolled again and Pup’s growly bark got closer, the smell of him strong in Jak’s nose. “Stay back!” he yelled at Pup, rolling again, juggling with his knife, trying with everything he had to rip the other boy’s knife away from him. But his short call to Pup had given the boy the upper hand and he went back and swung down, catching Jak on the arm with his blade before Jak could roll away.
Jak yelped from burning pain and terror, throwing his body forward and stabbing his knife into the boy. Directly into his heart.
Everything stopped. The boy froze in his movement, his eyes widening and then dropping. Blood fell from the side of his mouth, dripping down his chin and onto the ripped-up, too-small coat he wore.
Jak grabbed the boy. What did I do? He can’t die. Not with a single stab. No! The boy’s eyes met his, the crazy fog in them clearing away. Their gazes locked together, breath mixing, though the boy’s breaths were getting weaker, further from each other. Jak’s heart sputtered when—for a lightning flash—the other boy looked . . . happy. He smiled before his body sagged, and both of them fell to the snow.
Jak sobbed, scooting out from under the dead boy, the boy’s body dropping to the ground. Jak pulled himself to his feet, shaky, standing over the body, shock making the world seem too bright, unreal. A dream. A nightmare. He’d killed a person. He felt something warm on his cheeks and realized he was crying. He brushed at the wetness before the tears mixed with blood could freeze.
He stared at the boy, his eyes moving over his ripped clothes, down to his twisted leg, and blackened foot, bare now that the handmade shoe had come off during their battle. Jak closed his eyes for a second, his heart squeezing.
I would have shared with you, he whispered brokenly inside himself.
Jak stared at the boy’s face, which no longer looked crazy, death making him look younger. And with a jolt, he recognized him. He was the blond boy who had gone over the cliff with him that night. He’d been living out here all this time too.
And whatever he’d gone through, it had driven him out of his mind.
No! Had he passed him in the woods once or twice, hiding from the sound of footsteps because he’d thought they might belong to an enemy? The thought was too terrible for Jak to think about.
Instead, he turned toward Pup, who was now lying in the snow, a large spot of blood next to his hurt leg. His heart, which had slowed, began racing again. Jak had to get him home and treat his injury if he could. Jak picked up the boy’s sharp, curved knife, put it in the waistband of his pants, and then went fast to Pup, picking the large animal up and hefting him over his shoulder.
Jak walked back to the dead boy, wiping the tears that were again sliding down his cheeks, trying to come up with words to say over the boy’s body. His baka had said prayers, but he didn’t remember any of the words she’d whispered as she’d held the beads in her hands.
Pup moaned softly and Jak moved him a little, trying to be careful of his injury. “Starlight, star bright,” Jak finally said, the words coming quickly, knowing the rhyme wasn’t a prayer, but having nothing else to offer. “First star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.” And then he closed his eyes and wished that the boy was now running through fields of flowers under the warm heavenly sunshine. That he was healed, whole, and no longer hungry.
The ground was too frozen for Jak to bury him, so he left the boy’s body where it was. The boy didn’t need it anymore anyway, and the forest did. Other hungry creatures would feed on it and live to see another day.
Like Jak.
Although he could feel that a part of him had died along with the boy left lying dead in the snow.
With Pup over one shoulder, he grabbed the leg of the deer, pulling it along behind them, beginning the journey back home. Anger and hopelessness roared