no life with their nectar. They were never going to bear
fruit.
The terrain she plodded through was no longer hilly nor toilsome,
the temperature was neither hot nor cold, and no sharp
stones or thorny bushes cut her feet, but still, the place was intolerable.
Helen may as well have stood in one spot for weeks, staring
at the same uninspiring flower and breathing the same stale
air, as walk. The land she had entered was unchanging, repetitive,
pointless, and the longer she stayed there the more numb she
became.
It was a meadow of misery.
Helen woke up and couldn?t remember what day it was. Did it matter?
she wondered, but then she remembered that if it was
Saturday she wouldn?t have to go to school. That meant she
wouldn?t have to put up with any more of the random awkward
questions she kept getting from eager girls trying to determine
whether she and Lucas were still dating. The vultures were circling,
painting their lips or flexing their muscles, all of them hoping to be
the first to land on one or the other of the carcasses.
If it was Saturday, Helen wouldn?t run the risk of seeing Lucas
from afar as he went from class to class. She wouldn?t have to recognize
the graceful curve of his shoulder or the curious tilt of his
head rising over the throngs of nondescript shapes that made up
the rest of the population. If it was Saturday, she could go to the
Delos house knowing that he wouldn?t be there while she trained.
But if it was Saturday, that only left her with a different pile of crap
to shovel for the next sixteen or seventeen hours?all day she?d
have to be where he wasn?t.
Helen rolled over on the air mattress, looked at the clock, and
saw that it was indeed Saturday. Nine and a half days had passed