“No,” I said calmly. “The bus was going over anyway.”
“You’ll never know that for sure!”
“No. I won’t.”
“And you’ll never change what happened.”
“No. But I can get off this ride. Forever.”
The back end of the bus disappeared over the edge. I held the boy in my arms safe from the flash of heat and from the sound of the explosion, knowing this was the last time I’d ever have to hear it. It’s all right, Blake. It’s over now. I’ll hold you and comfort you, and I’ll forgive you for being the lucky one. I forgive you for not being strong enough to hold that bus up with your bare hands and save them all. I forgive you for surviving. I held him tight, until I realized there was no one at all in my embrace. I was wrapping my arms around myself.
The ride was finally over.
I had made it out.
16
Reality Falling
The world—the real one, that is—takes a lot of abuse, but it just bounces back. Resilient—that’s the word. However we try to twist it, whatever weird stuff we throw at it, it still holds firm, always there.
The worlds of Cassandra’s park were not so resilient. In the end they turned out to be no more substantial than soap bubbles churned out by The Works. All it took to shut the whole thing down was a well-placed monkey wrench. All it took was one survivor.
As I stood at the icy edge of Colfax Ravine, the mangled guardrail beside me, the heavens and earth began to shake. Cassandra suddenly lost interest in me and looked up with growing dread.
It happened all at once: a sharp tearing of sky and splitting of earth. Gears ejected from the ground. The light of different skies poured into the tearing fabric of the dead gray clouds that covered this scene of my memory.
In the distance the Leaning Tower of Pisa tore a hole in the sky and crashed to the ground. Much closer, a healthy chunk of Mount Rushmore fell from above and took out the road less than a hundred yards away.
As the cracks in the ground widened into fissures, people began to climb out. Freed from The Works, they ran in all directions, delirious with—was it fear or relief? I couldn’t tell. Many fell back into the great fissures, unable to escape the park, but many more navigated the hazards to find the falling brick walls and shredding gates that once enclosed the park. I tried to find Maggie and Russ in the crowd, but there were just too many faces.
Did I do this? I had seen Cassandra’s Egypt dissolve, but that was only one ride. This was all of them coming undone, collapsing into one another. This was the entire park dying. A gear the size of a manhole cover exploded from the ground, and I ducked to keep from being beheaded. When I looked up again, there was Quinn, spilling from the barren world of black sky and confused road signs onto the cracking asphalt.
The second he saw me, he ran to me, giving me a cool high five and a less-cool hug. “You made it!”
I was too distracted to see Cassandra coming. She hurled Quinn out of her way and slid right up to me. Before I could make a move, I felt her hand on my chest, her nails like talons digging into my skin, growing toward my heart. I was frozen. Paralyzed. Quinn tried to grab her, but the power of her searing, freezing extremes jolted him like an electric surge.
“This isn’t over,” she hissed. “It can’t be over. I can’t be over.”
“Let me go.” My voice was so weak, I could barely hear it.
“You’ll take me with you.” Her other hand was cupped behind my head now, her nails in my scalp.
“No.”
“Because of you, I’ve found fear and have finally experienced loss. Because of me, you’ve found strength. We’ve been too much to each other. And so you’ll take me with you. I will sleep within you.” Her earthen shroud clung to me, dissolving into my flesh, covering me like a cocoon. She pressed closer still. “Your world needs me. Needs what I offer, needs what I take.” I could feel the cold and the heat of her soul beginning a migration into mine. “There’s always room for another theme park. There are always more who want to ride.”
She wanted a safe haven within me, lying dormant until she was strong enough to build a new park. I would not be a harbor for a spirit such as this. If my will was my strength, I must make mine stronger than hers.
“No!” I said, much more forcefully than before. I still couldn’t move my arms or legs, but there was fear now in her eyes. “There’s still one more thing you need to feel. One more experience left.” It was difficult, but I raised my arms. I fought to grip her shoulders.
“Experience it with me, Blake.”
“No,” I told her. “You’ve got to face this alone.” Then I shoved her with the full force of my will. She flew from me as if she weighed nothing at all and landed a dozen yards away on the cracking asphalt.
She pushed herself up, but only enough to look at me, eyes locking on mine. A shadow grew above her, but she didn’t move. Even from a distance, I could feel the extremes of her soul, but I felt them as something more human: fiery, passionate anger joined to a chilling and hopeless longing. But now both extremes were caught in a delicate balance, and she was unable to move as the shadow grew larger all around her.
“Good-bye, Cassandra,” I said as a farmhouse plucked from the plains of Kansas came down on her with a deafening crash.
And Cassandra was gone. Not so much as her feet stuck out from beneath the house.
“She was a bad witch,” said Quinn.
A strange light glowed around us now, hurting my eyes, making it difficult to see anything.
Quinn looked aside, seeing something that I didn’t. “Mom?”