Page 88 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

And yet, when Vivi glanced at Calla, she knew that it was not simple at all.

With a hard yank, Vivi pulled Calla toward the back of the house.Calla made a yelp of protest, but Vivi ignored her, wiping water from her eyes to survey the yard. A tower of bricks had been stacked against the side of the house. It was a miracle that they hadn’t yet washed away. If the sisters could climb onto the bricks, they might be able to reach the edge of the roof, then pull themselves up. Parts of the roof had begun to crumple inward from the fallen tree they’d heard earlier. It wouldn’t hold for long, but they only needed to buy time.

“You go first!” Vivi shouted.

Calla hoisted herself onto the tower, then gazed down at Vivi, unsure of what to do next.

Vivi swallowed her frustration and boosted her the rest of the way, Calla crashing onto the roof, stunned by the force behind the push.

By that time, the screen had grown slippery in Vivi’s hands. With a grunt, she tossed it up to Calla, freeing herself of its weight. The wood clattered on the roof. Vivi could almost see the paint melting away in the rain. Or maybe that was an illusion from the blur of water in her vision.Tâm’s offering was, in the end, such a small and easily destructible thing.

Had it all been worth it? She didn’t have time to ask the question in the moment, but she did for many days—years—afterward. The answer would always elude her.

Vivi fumbled onto the bricks, fighting to grab at the fascia of the roof.

Calla shook herself. She leaned down and held her hand toward Vivi. “Come on. I’ve got you.”

Then she began to pull Vivi up. As she did, the folding screen began sliding down the edge of the roof on the other side of her. Calla turned toward it, still holding her sister’s hand. With her other hand, she stretched her fingers toward the screen. Her face whitened with the effort of dragging Vivi up and simultaneously reaching for the screen.

Calla’s grasp finally met a corner of the screen. Her body made a sort of crucifix on the roof—one person, torn between two desires. Vivi wanted Calla to save the art, those panels they’d traveled so far to find,the mystery they’d nearly given their lives for. But more than that, Vivi wanted Calla to save her.

The rain loosened the clasp of their hands, but didn’t break it. There was a sliding sensation under Vivi’s feet. Gravity falling away. All at once, the pile of bricks crumbled under her, flotillas of red taken by the flood.

The only thing keeping Vivi aloft was Calla. And Calla couldn’t hold on to both Vivi and the folding screen. She’d need two hands to haul her sister up.

“I can’t lose everything again,” Calla said, a plea in her voice.

Tr?n tìm. Was this the end of seeking? If it was, Vivi wouldn’t beg. She’d done enough of that.

“You never lost me,” Vivi said. “You never could.”

The storm seemed to quiet. Or maybe Vivi was the one who’d muted the sounds of the swelling flood, the crack of lightning, the wind that howled and snapped. It was just her, staring up at her sister. Waiting for Calla’s decision.

Above her, Calla swallowed. There was an apology in her expression. Then, with a strangled cry, she let go.

Chapter 32

The love between sisters is a sort of cosmic lace woven from a million tiny moments.

Soft two a.m. snores from the opposite twin bed; stupid arguments about gym shorts; a parade of boys-turned-men whispering clichés in your ear; games of Stiff as a Board; snooping in diaries carelessly hidden; all the hot water gone when you want to use it; citrus perfume that makes you think of winter in the woods; pushing a kid into a locker because he looked at her the wrong way; pinching her on the forearm so it bruised like a rosebud; a litany of private jokes that you never want to explain to anyone else.

Knots of grief, loops of affection, all tatted together into a tangle, a blessing, an astonishment.

Those threads began somewhere, with one point of tentative connection—the first time your eyes met above a hospital crib? The first time she burbled your name?—but the origin doesn’t matter.

In the end, the beauty that those threads have wrought comes not from the architecture of the lace, but from all the breathtaking light it lets through.

The storm eased. Calla and Vivi lay side by side on the roof. When the sky finally cleared of its thunderclouds, they saw constellations emerge.In LongXuyên, those constellations had shifted from their usual placement in the cosmos for them but remained otherwise unchanged. Steady as starlight.

“Do you think it’s gone?” Calla asked.

After she lifted Vivi onto the roof, Vivi had looked down to watch the folding screen float away. The hinges had broken in the fall, the panels wrested apart. No longer a narrative, but a series of jumbled hopes.

“I don’t know.”

“After all that.”

“After all that.”