Page 69 of Summer of Salt

It seemed private, somehow, this moment of transformation. It seemed like my sister’s business.

I focused my attention on Peter.

I knew that he would use that gun, because that is what small, scared men did: they used things more powerful than themselves to make up the difference. They hid behind weapons of mass destruction: big guns and bigger bombs.

They were small, small, small—

Peter was small, but I could see him becoming bigger in his own mind as his finger inched toward the trigger.

“I’m giving you one last chance,” I said.

He laughed. “You’regivingmea last chance? I’m the one with the gun!”

And I watched as his finger wrapped around the trigger.

And I lifted my hand into the sky.

And I didn’t know quite how I did it, only that the tightness in my belly was moving upward. A tightness that demanded to be released.

And I raised my hand higher—

And the skies opened up—

And the skies poured down—

And I heard a loudcrack—the loudest of cracks—the crack of an old evil gun held by a young evil man—

And the flash lit up the entire world—

And everything went white.

After

Iwoke up in my bed.

The world was dark.

There was a bandage wrapped around my head, covering my eyes.

I started to unwind it, but I felt my mother lay her hand on my wrist.

Call it a Fernweh thing or a daughter thing; I knew my mother’s hand even with bandages wrapped so thickly around my eyes that the light couldn’t even peek around the edges.

“Easy,” she said. “Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes underneath the bandage. My mother’s hands started to unravel it for me. My mother’s hands were steady, cool things, and I could feel them trembling through the thin fabric.

When she slipped the bandage off, she put one palm over my eyes.

“Give it time,” she said.

Without the bandage, even with my eyes closed and my mother’s fingers blocking the sun, the world seemed so, so bright. My eyes ached with it.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Don’t you remember?”

“Is Mary okay?”