get off this train and try to cross the border.
We may not make it across. I know that. I have always known that, and I know he does too.
And so Jerusha and I wait, only leaving when the flow of people exiting the train has slowed to a trickle. We can see people walking toward the Guard Station and the border. Toward the path that curves off into the distance.
My feet don’t hurt anymore. I am ready to stand.
I am lighter than air, soaring.
CHAPTER 40
A s Jerusha and I get off the train, every breath I take tastes like a beginning, and the sun is beautiful, gilding everything and everyone around us.
I have never felt so alive. I ache, I am exhausted, but I am here at the border.
And I am here because I was helped by someone I was taught to hate.
Jerusha has helped me, but more than that, he has shown me something. I see that everyone around us is not a thing. Not a sheep. I see that everyone is a person.
Everyone I see matters to someone else.
Everyone who has died by my hand or at the whim of Keran Berj or from the People’s fury is mourned.
It is not just one person, or even one group of people who matter, who deserve to live.
I see that now. Everyone deserves life. It has taken me so long to reach this point.
It has taken me my whole life.
And now here I stand where I have struggled to be. Where I have longed to be.
Here I am, and I am scared.
I see the border, marked by a thin line painted on rocks resting on the sand. I see the station we must pass through to reach it. I see the path that lies just beyond it.
I see Guards standing by it, waiting. Their faces are a blur in the morning light.
Jerusha stands still beside me. He knows as well as I do what could happen now.
I tense, then hold out my hand like a sister would.
Like a friend would.
After a moment, Jerusha clasps his hand to mine.
I let my fingers twine with his, and we walk together into the light. To the waiting path. To the border.
To life.
Acknowledgments
M any thanks to Julie Strauss-Gabel, who looked at this book, saw what it could be, and made it all happen.
Thanks also go to Lisa Yoskowitz, for always being so kind to me.
As always, thanks to the usual suspects, including everyone who read drafts of this book, especially Jessica Brearton, Katharine Beutner, Clara Jaeckel, and my husband.
And of course, thanks go to Robin Rue, who always believes in me, and to Diana Fox, who has held my hand so many times that I owe her about twenty dinners.
Finally, many, many thanks to The Sheep Meadow Press for permission to use an excerpt from Miklós Radnóti’s stunning poem, “Forced March.” The poem can be found in Clouded Sky: Poems by Miklós Radnóti , with translations by Steven Polgar, Stephen Berg, and S. J. Marks.
We may not make it across. I know that. I have always known that, and I know he does too.
And so Jerusha and I wait, only leaving when the flow of people exiting the train has slowed to a trickle. We can see people walking toward the Guard Station and the border. Toward the path that curves off into the distance.
My feet don’t hurt anymore. I am ready to stand.
I am lighter than air, soaring.
CHAPTER 40
A s Jerusha and I get off the train, every breath I take tastes like a beginning, and the sun is beautiful, gilding everything and everyone around us.
I have never felt so alive. I ache, I am exhausted, but I am here at the border.
And I am here because I was helped by someone I was taught to hate.
Jerusha has helped me, but more than that, he has shown me something. I see that everyone around us is not a thing. Not a sheep. I see that everyone is a person.
Everyone I see matters to someone else.
Everyone who has died by my hand or at the whim of Keran Berj or from the People’s fury is mourned.
It is not just one person, or even one group of people who matter, who deserve to live.
I see that now. Everyone deserves life. It has taken me so long to reach this point.
It has taken me my whole life.
And now here I stand where I have struggled to be. Where I have longed to be.
Here I am, and I am scared.
I see the border, marked by a thin line painted on rocks resting on the sand. I see the station we must pass through to reach it. I see the path that lies just beyond it.
I see Guards standing by it, waiting. Their faces are a blur in the morning light.
Jerusha stands still beside me. He knows as well as I do what could happen now.
I tense, then hold out my hand like a sister would.
Like a friend would.
After a moment, Jerusha clasps his hand to mine.
I let my fingers twine with his, and we walk together into the light. To the waiting path. To the border.
To life.
Acknowledgments
M any thanks to Julie Strauss-Gabel, who looked at this book, saw what it could be, and made it all happen.
Thanks also go to Lisa Yoskowitz, for always being so kind to me.
As always, thanks to the usual suspects, including everyone who read drafts of this book, especially Jessica Brearton, Katharine Beutner, Clara Jaeckel, and my husband.
And of course, thanks go to Robin Rue, who always believes in me, and to Diana Fox, who has held my hand so many times that I owe her about twenty dinners.
Finally, many, many thanks to The Sheep Meadow Press for permission to use an excerpt from Miklós Radnóti’s stunning poem, “Forced March.” The poem can be found in Clouded Sky: Poems by Miklós Radnóti , with translations by Steven Polgar, Stephen Berg, and S. J. Marks.
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