Firewalker (Worldwalker 2)

Then is it so impossible to imagine that maybe all the choices I’ve made—evil as they may seem—are the same choices you would make if only you knew the rest of my story? Everything I’ve done has been to save as many lives as I can. To save Rowan’s life.

Go away, Lillian.

CHAPTER

3

Lily could still smell Rowan’s delicious Christmas-in-January dinner when she awoke with a start. She wiped her mind clean of Lillian, wanting to kick herself for being so naive and so weak. How could she have listened to her for so long?

Lily got out of bed, feeling a strange disquiet. A quick glance around her room proved she was alone. But something was wrong. She could feel it.

Rowan? Where are you?

Living room.

Lily padded downstairs on her tender feet and found Rowan on the couch. The couch was made up like a bed and he wore a pair of her dad’s old pajamas pants. His face was lit by the blue glow of Lily’s laptop, his eyes staring at the screen.

What’s going on, Rowan?

He slid over in his makeshift bed and Lily sat next to him. On the screen was an ancient black-and-white photo of a pile of bison carcasses. He clicked on another link, and Lily saw a vast field scattered with countless dead bison.

At least when Outlanders die fighting the Woven, we get to go out bravely. There is no dignity in starving to death.

The bison slaughter was only one part of it, Rowan.

Lily took the laptop and typed in “Native Americans, smallpox” and let Rowan read. When he was finished, Lily typed in “Trail of Tears.”

She sat beside him for the next hour as he browsed through one atrocity after another. They both read about how the different tribes were rounded up and forced on death marches across the continent to the reservations. They both learned the many different paths the Native Americans were forced to take, all of which were different legs of the journey known as the Trail of Tears. They stored those paths step by step in their perfect willstone-enhanced memories. Finally, Rowan pushed the laptop aside.

I can’t read anymore tonight, Lily.

Do you want me to go?

Of course not.

Rowan pulled Lily against his chest and leaned back against the pillows. He was quiet for a while, just holding her. “The route that went through Arkansas on the Trail of Te

ars? That’s where my dad and I used to hunt. I was born somewhere around there.”

“So, you’re from Arkansas?” Lily asked, trying to get her head around it.

“I guess so,” he said, shrugging. “We don’t call it that in my world, of course. It’s confusing because there are some things about our histories that are the same.”

“I know,” Lily said, sitting up. “And I think I’ve figured it out. Our worlds used to be one. Then the Salem Witch Trials happened and our worlds split. Everything in history before the trials is the same in both worlds, but after, it’s all different.”

“Our worlds split?” Rowan brushed her hair back. “Why do you think that happened?”

Lily smiled down at him. “It’s always happening. Every choice we make is the splitting of one universe into two. In one universe, you go right, in another universe you go left. During the Witch Trials here, the witches were hanged.”

“And in my world they were burned,” Rowan said, catching on. “It was the burning that gave the witches incredible power—the ones who survived the pyre, that is.”

“And they took over your world,” Lily finished. “In my world, they died or ran away from Salem and hid.”

Rowan looked at Lily admiringly. “How do you know all this?”

“Your shaman told me,” Lily replied quietly, resting her head back down on his chest. “So, what tribe are you from, Rowan? You never told me. Cherokee? Choctaw?”

“Mostly Cherokee, but the tribes in my world have evolved. We’re not ‘Native Americans,’ as you call them. We’re Outlanders. We’re the survivors of the Woven Outbreak and the throwaways from the cities, so we’re mixed now. Outlanders are a bunch of different races all blended together and we speak whatever language mash-up we need to in order to get by,” Rowan answered, stroking her hair. “My mom was white, you know, but she never spoke a word of English.”