Page 128 of River & Rue

And then a voice envelops me. A current too strong to fight, it pulls me up and up.

“I’m sorry, Rue. I’m so, so sorry. You did everything you could. You were just a kid, and you fought so hard—you both did. Your parents failed Teddy, not you. It’s not your fault. He knows it. He loves you. He knows it’s not your fault.”

As I rise, I feel another current. Soft and warm and tickling.

Teddy.

“Are you ever going to tell me the end of the story?”

“There isn’t one, silly. All those jumps through space and time made Lucky St. James immortal. He’s somewhere out there right now.”

“But does he find it? His home?”

“I think so.”

“You think? What the heck, Rue!”

“I’m kidding! Stop tickling me!”

“Well?”

“Of course he finds his home.”

“I knew it. What’s it like?”

“What do you think it’s like?”

“Well, there has to be an ocean with white sand and a forest with big trees to climb. And there can’t be any of those poisonous plants that almost killed him on the alien-bug planet.”

“Obviously.”

“And there have to be people who love him.”

“There are. He has a big, beautiful family, and he tells them stories of his old world so the memories never die. He’s safe and loved and happy.”

“Forever?”

“Forever and ever, Teddybear.”

I’m almost there, but Teddy’s still with me. So close I see him.

He’s running down a hill covered in daffodils, his arms spread wide, a crown sitting askew on his short curls.

He looks back at me, his face alight with joy.

“Fly, Teddy, fly!”

And he does.

I surface with a gasp and crawl back to shore. Back to him.

“You’re almost there, Rue. Let it go.”

I don’t question how he knows.

“Mal and I decided not to go to the funeral my parents arranged. We had our own ceremony by this oak tree Teddy and I used to visit on our walk home from school. I braided him one last daffodil crown. She wrote him one last note. We buried them by the tree.

“My parents never really recovered—I honestly don’t know what was worse for my mother, Teddy dying or her belief that she’d failed her god. But either way, they acted like I was a ghost. I think we exchanged one sentence-worth of words over the next two years.”