World's End

Page 149

"I'm not crazy anymore."

188

WORLD S END

HK gets up. "You were crazy to come here," he says.

"Yes." I watch the water move. "I know."

"I have to get back." He picks up two pails and fills them clumsily at the river's edge. Somehow the water lies obediently inside the buckets. He stands looking back at me. "If you want SB, I'll take you to him." He

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starts away, limping. I catch up with him and take the buckets as we begin to climb the path. He leans heavily on my shoulder, until I can hardly keep my balance. My own feet leave a bloody trail behind us.

"HK," I say, "I'm going to get us out of here."

He looks at me bleakly. "Don't say that. Nobody ever gets out of here."

"We will," I promise. But the Lake stirs inside me, and suddenly I know that I will never leave this place alive, I will never be really free or in control of myself again

--unless I solve the mystery that lives in my head, answer the riddle, ask the right questions. . . .

"You see?" HK mutters. "You know it too."

I don't answer. We reach the top of the cliff, panting and giddy from the pitiless heat, and start into the town.

I try not to flinch as ghosts walk through me, hoping HK

doesn't notice. My own ghost... I did see myself, safe and sane, in the future. All in blue. The way I saw my mother, in the past, in red. Song in red; my brothers in blue. As if I saw my own memories made into

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ghosts. . . .

But how can I remember things that haven't happened yet? How can I believe such a thing, how can I know that they aren't simply delusions? My confidence crumbles. They're consistent! my mind insists. Past and future are always consistent colors-- Why? And what about the rest of the ghosts--whose memories are they?

Those things mean something together, they are too familiar. I stop in my tracks. The Lake turned blue. As I