The Other Side of Blue(51)

“Who?” My voice sounds raspy. “What’s her name?”

Mayur seems to not hear them. He speaks only to me.

“Pippa,” he says.

Pippa.

Suddenly, I am very cold. Behind my closed eyes, I see stars again. I can’t breathe.

“Give it to me.” Mayur’s lying. He doesn’t have a note.

Mayur turns on his flashlight. The beam jiggles as he pulls a piece of paper from his front pocket. He unfolds it. I can’t read it in the semidark, but when the light shines over the signature at the bottom, I can see it’s real. I can see the way Pippa’s “p’s” intertwine and loop back around her name. Mayur couldn’t fake that signature, couldn’t even know it.

I snatch the note from his hand. The thin paper tears in my fingers.

Kammi touches my arm. “Cyan, are you okay?”

“Let go of me.” I yank away from Kammi, her hand on my arm reminding me of Mayur. I squeeze the note in my hand. “Don’t touch me. Leave me alone.”

I spring to my feet and run back toward the entrance, which glows like the moon across open water. I just keep running toward it. I don’t even turn my flashlight back on.

“Stop!”

“Watch it!”

Voices shout behind me like bad spirits. Slaves used these caves for voodoo ceremonies, I read that somewhere. Or maybe Martia told me. She said she wouldn’t go in caves. She’s superstitious.

It’s my fault. I came here. I feel the dampness where Mayur’s mouth touched my skin, and I feel sick.

The ground goes out from under me. The moon disappears, and I feel myself falling. My shoulder slams against rock. The flashlight flies from my hand. I don’t know up from down. Something rough scrapes my head, and I lose my left flip-flop. The backpack I’m wearing slams against a hard surface. Then the back of my head hits the ground.





Chapter Twenty-Five


I’M LYING FLAT and I don’t feel anything. Except for my head. It hurts.

I wake up again. Or maybe it’s for the first time. My head is hot, but everything else feels cold. I lie there, breathing. I’m no longer falling. The world spins the way it does after a ride at a fair.

When I open my eyes again, I blink to make sure they’re open. The darkness is the same as when my eyes are closed.

The silence presses against my chest, reminding me of Mayur, of his body against me. I try to move a little. A toe, an ankle, the other leg. My shoulder twinges. I’m lying on my backpack, and it digs into my muscles. I roll over a little and then gag from the nausea. I slip the backpack off and lie down again.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Or how far I fell. Or where the others are. Did they leave me?

I imagine Mayur somewhere nearby, telling his cousins how I let him touch me. How he held my breast in exchange for a secret. Maybe Roberto teases him, saying he didn’t get enough for his secret. Maybe they’re laughing. Maybe not Saco.

“Hello?” My voice comes out, but it sounds like a whisper even to my own ears.

No answer. I run my hands beside me, trying to find the flashlight.

The note, too, is gone. Knocked from my hand.

I have to find the flashlight. Then I can find the note. Above, I can see only a faint patch that’s less black than everywhere else. That must be the way out. I can’t tell how high it is, though, or how far away.

Feeling the ground for the flashlight, I take off my right flip-flop. The other one I lost when I fell. The sports sandals are in my backpack. I can use them when I get out. On all fours, I inch my way closer to where I can see the faint spot.

“Hello!” This time, I shout toward the spot.

From far away, I hear a faint hello. They didn’t leave, I think. Then I realize it’s just an echo. The hello is my own voice coming back at me.

My head still hurts, so I lie back and rest. I feel better knowing I can open my eyes and see the way out, even if I can’t yet reach it. I think about what Mayur told me.

Pippa is Philippa’s nickname. She and Dad spoke Italian when she came to paint. Mother didn’t know then that Philippa liked Dad, did she? When she practically lived with us?

“Philippa was willing to sacrifice almost anything for her art,” Mother said to Kammi at Café Azul. It wasn’t true, though. She sacrificed her art for something forbidden. She was my mother’s best student. Did Dad love her back?

All this time I thought Mother was wrong, that she’d been having the affair. Affair.

I feel like I’m going to throw up. I gag, but I move my head. I ease my way along the cave floor, making sure there’s not another hole I can fall through, until I feel a wall. I drag my backpack with my other hand. Inside, I still have the water bottle and some snacks. The pastries are probably crushed, but they’ll taste just as good if I feel hungry again. I can’t tell what time it is. I sit upright, wobbly, my legs shaking.