The Gray: Chapter 41–Epilogue

“You’ve always loved the rain. When you were tiny—in diapers even—you would just splash down into any mud puddle you could find.”
“Aunt Ruthie!” I say, feeling my face flush.

“Sometimes the world itself messes with us. You know all about that. When all that stuff happened with Eli and Jesse, it affected Boon, too. He lost one of his best friends. Think about how Obi-Wan felt when he lost Anakin, or had to leave Luke? I don’t think that part was anybody’s fault. It’s what we call collateral damage.”

There’s hay everywhere—on the floor and in huge bales stacked in the loft.

Duke trots over to the water trough and takes a long, slow drink.

The saddle is on the ground, but he’s put a bridle on her.

Eli puts his hands on the pommel. “It’s time for you to get back on the horse, I guess. Don’t worry, I’ll lead her the whole time.”

I feel my stomach churning as she leans side to side, antsy, ready to run.

Star lifts her front legs high above our heads. Boon and the others cower while Eli tries to get ahold of the reins.

“Boon has always been arrogant, and a bully, but I think for some reason, seeing you with Eli, actually being friends? I think it made him more of a jerk.”

After a while, he stopped trying to explain it all away. He acknowledged that it was a gift, a good part of who he was, and it didn’t make sense to try to change it.

There, just inside the tree line, we see deer mixed in with the forest, perfectly blending in with the tree bark and dappled sunlight.

Old trunks lay open and empty on the floor, everything ransacked.

He nuzzles my hand, maybe looking for an apple.

Then, in an instant, the yellow lights of the houses dwindle into gray beneath the fading silver moon.

“Are my parents really coming?” I ask, looking up at her.
“They are,” she says gravely.

At the pond, huge leaves float on the glassy water, and on each there’s a tiny frog fresh from tadpole life. They float like a miniature armada in the flecks of sunshine, their silvery-green bodies shimmering.

They float like a miniature armada in the flecks of sunshine, their silvery-green bodies shimmering.

It’s murky, but it’s his face reflected in the water, his long beard and the faded pattern of his checkered shirt.

I reach down to where the water is trickling over the surface and pass my fingers over it, feeling its smooth face until I find a shallow groove, like a tiny canyon, the only place where the surface of the stone is different.

I don’t know how long we’ve been riding, but my behind is numb, my body is wet from the sporadic rain, and my throat aches.

We wind in and out of the towering trees glistening in the gradual rain until finally I can see the meadow opening wide in the distance.

My breath becomes rushed, and my vision starts to get blurry. I feel the Gray on the periphery, but I hold on to Duke.

A lanky coyote bolts in front of us, snapping its giant jaws at Duke.

"How?" Eli says, breaking his silence, his voice hoarse.

"Wait!" I shout, trying to turn Duke, but he’s like a giant barge.

He drops the reins, and I see his shoulders slump a little.

Then Eli picks the boy up and spins him around, his legs flailing in the air.

I can hear it then, the same exasperation in his voice, circling above me like a heavy cloud of questions waiting to be asked.

Aunt Ruthie teaches Ivy and me how to braid challah. Mine could use improvement, but Ivy’s looks like tiny intertwining snakes, too small to be loaves of bread.

After the performance the house erupts in loud applause and shouts for an encore until Ivy puts on some funky music, and she and Aunt Ruthie pull everyone into the center of the room for a dance party.

She stops dancing for a second, then pulls me in tightly because her mom is dancing right next to us, her eyes suddenly stern.

Trees bloom in tufts of green on every side.

Star is cantering now, moving down through the meadow and the trees to the banks of the water, where the Far Point waterfall crashes into the pool.

Jesse points to a shallow ledge, and then to a rock outcropping just behind where the water is falling.

We eat macaroons that Aunt Ruthie sent along, and Jesse tells us about how he tried surfing in California—and about the time he saw a dolphin in the waves.