As she searched, she looked down at the fallen architecture and
read the names graffitied on its sides. Gracus loves Lucinda.
Ethan loves Sarah. Michael loves Erin. For what seemed like days
she ran her fingers over the names carved into the broken bones
of fallen loves, stepping around the tumbled pillars of unkept
vows and dusting the headstones in the graveyard of love with
her hands. Every kind of death had a resting place in the dry
lands.
She walked until her feet bled.
Helen woke to a room filled with sad blue light. She tried to roll
over and felt tied to her mattress, like she had been jumped by the
Lilliputians in the middle of the night. Somehow in her sleep she
had shucked off her shirt and shoes, but her jeans were so tangled
up in her sheets that she had to push herself off the bed and fight it
out on the floor to unwrap herself. It was an ugly battle, especially
since she was still covered in dirt from the trench Lucas had dug
with Hector?s body, dried blood from her cut feet, and a gray,
powdery dust from the dry lands. Her feet had healed themselves,
of course, but still there were blood-encrusted foot smears all over
her sheets. They were ruined, and she would have to buy new ones.
Luckily, her dad was too squeamish about girl stuff to ask
questions.
She shimmied out of her jeans on her way to the bathroom and
climbed into the shower before the water even had a chance to heat
up. Opening her mouth, she gulped down as much of the cold
spray as she could catch. She was so dry inside. Her body ached
from walking hundreds of miles under a dead sun?the cold water
was like a blessing even though it made her shiver. Helen looked
down at her skin and watched the water get forced into little rivers
by the raised hairs of her goose bumps. It made her think about the