—the language is too old—I understand enough. I understand why my grandfather loved this poem because I love it too. Al of it. The rage and the light.
The line under the title of the poem says Dylan Thomas, 1914-1953.
There is another poem on the other side of the paper. It’s cal ed “Crossing the Bar,” and it was written by someone who lived even further in the past than Dylan Thomas—Lord Alfred Tennyson. 1809-1892.
So long ago, I think. So long ago they lived and died.
And they, like Grandfather, wil never come back.
Greedy, I read the second poem, too. I read the words of both poems over again several times, until I hear the sharp snap of a stick near me.
Quickly, I fold up the paper and put it away. I have lingered too long. I have to go; to make up the time I’ve lost.
I have to run.
I don’t hold back; this isn’t the tracker, so I can push myself hard, through the branches and up the hil . The words of the Thomas poem are so wild and beautiful that I keep repeating them silently to myself as I run. Over and over I think do not go gentle, do not go gentle, do not go gentle. It isn’t until I’m almost at the top of the hil that realization hits me: There’s a reason they didn’t keep this poem.
This poem tel s you to fight.
One more branch stings my face as I break through the clearing, but I don’t stop—I push out into the open. I look around for the Officer. He’s not there, but someone else is already at the top. Ky Markham.
To my surprise, we are alone on top of the hil . No Officer. No other hikers.
Ky’s more relaxed than I have ever seen him, leaning back on his elbows with his face tipped toward the sun and his eyes closed. He looks different and unguarded. Looking at him, I realize that his eyes are where I notice most the distance he keeps. Because when he hears me, he opens them and looks at me, and it almost happens. I almost catch a glimpse of something real before I see again what he wants me to see.
The Officer appears out of the trees next to me. He moves quietly, and I wonder what he’s observed in the woods. Did he see me? He looks down at the datapod in his hand and then back up at me. “Cassia Reyes?” he asks. Apparently I was predicted to finish second. My stop must not have been as long as I thought.
“Yes.”
“Sit there and wait,” the Officer says, pointing toward the grassy clearing at the top of the hil . “Enjoy the view. According to this, it’s going to be a few minutes before anyone else gets up here.” He gestures to the datapod and then disappears back into the trees.
I pause for a moment before I walk toward Ky, trying to calm down. My heart pounds, fast, from the running. And from the sound in the trees.
“Hel o,” Ky says, when I get closer.
“Hel o.” I sit on the grass next to him. “I didn’t know you were doing hiking, too.”
“My mother thought it would be a good choice.” I notice how easily he uses the word “mother” to describe his aunt Aida. I think about how he has slipped into his life here, how he became who everyone expected him to be in Mapletree Borough. Despite being new and different, he did not stand out for long.
In fact, I’ve never seen him finish first in anything before, and I speak before I think. “You beat us al today,” I say, as if that fact weren’t obvious.
“Yes,” he says, looking at me. “Exactly as predicted. I grew up in the Outer Provinces and have had the most experience with activities like this.” He speaks formal y, as if reciting data, but I notice a sheen of sweat across his face; and the way he’s stretching his legs out in front of him looks familiar. Ky’s been running, too, and he must be fast. Do they have trackers in the Outer Provinces? If not, what did he run to out there? Were there also things he had to run from?
Before I can stop myself, I ask Ky something that I should not ask: “What happened to your mother?” His eyes flash to me, surprised. He knows I don’t mean Aida, and I know that no one else has ever asked him that question. I don’t know what made me do it now; perhaps Grandfather’s death and what I’ve read in the woods have left me on edge and vulnerable. Perhaps I don’t want to dwel on who might have seen me back in the trees.
I should apologize. But I don’t and it’s not because I feel like being mean. It’s because I think he might want to tel me.
But I am mistaken. “You shouldn’t ask me that question,” he says. He doesn’t look at me, so al I can see is one side of him. His profile, his dark hair wet with the mist and the water that fel from the trees as he passed through them. He smel s like forest, and I lift my hands to my face to smel them—to see if I do, too. It might be my imagination, but it seems to me that my fingers smel like ink and paper.
Ky’s right. I know better than to ask a question like that. But then he asks me something that he shouldn’t ask. “Who did you lose?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can tel ,” he says simply. He’s looking at me now. His eyes are stil blue.
The sun feels hot on the back of my neck and the top of my hair. I close my eyes the way Ky did earlier and tip my head back so that I can feel the heat on my eyelids and across the bridge of my nose.
Neither of us says anything. I don’t keep my eyes closed for long, but when I open them the sunlight stil blinds me for a moment. In that moment, I know I want to tel Ky. “My grandfather died last week.”
“Was it unexpected?”
“No,” I say, but real y, in some ways, it was. I did not expect Grandfather to say the things he said. But I did expect his death. “No,” I say again. “It was his eightieth birthday.”
“That’s right,” Ky says thoughtful y, almost to himself. “People here die on their eightieth birthday.”
“Yes. Isn’t it like that where you came from?” I’m surprised that the words escaped my mouth—not two seconds ago he reminded me not to ask about his past. This time, though, he answers me.
“Eighty is . . . harder to achieve,” he says.
I hope that the surprise doesn’t show on my face. Are there different death ages in different places?
People cal and feet crunch from the edge of the forest. The Officer steps out of the bushes again and asks people their names as they break into the clearing.
I shift my position to stand up and I swear I hear the compact in my pocket chink against my tablet container. Ky turns to look at me and I hold my breath. I wonder if he can tel that there are words in my head, words I am struggling to remember and memorize. Because I know that I can never open the paper again. I have to get rid of it. Sitting here next to Ky, drinking in the sun with my skin, my mind is clear— and I let myself realize what that sound in the woods meant earlier. That sharp, stick-snapping sound.