Free Searching for Sky by Jillian Cantor Page A

understand that I need to do what she’s asking or stand here in this strange blackness forever. So I get into Car Cave, and I let her tie a rope around me, which she promises will keep me safe. I don’t argue with her, because, really, what other choice do I have now?
    And this, I begin to realize, might be the worst feeling of all. Even worse than being here without River. On Island, especially this past year, every decision I made was my own. But here, I’mso lost. I know nothing. I am nothing . All I can do, for now, is listen to her and do as she says.
    I watch as she moves her key, turning it funny as if she was going to roast it like a fish over Fire Pit.
    Suddenly I hear a loud noise, like the rush of Ocean in my ears, only harder, louder, the way Ocean would sound if it pulled me under and I would have to struggle for a moment to find my way back to the surface to breathe.
    But then I understand Car Cave is moving, pulling my body, not gently, along with it.
    Black whirs around us. To my side, Military Hospital slowly grows smaller, just the way Island did as the boat moved across Ocean. And soon we have whirred so much I can no longer see Military Hospital at all.
    I put my hand up to try to stop everything from moving so fast, to hold on and catch a fistful of the air, but my hand slams into something hard. I push and I push, grasping to feel the air against my skin.
    “Oh, honey, don’t do that,” the grandmother woman says. “You’ll hurt yourself on the window.”
    We are still for a moment, and I stop pushing. There is a small red sun in front of us, and I sigh, thinking this is over. But then the sun turns green, and we are flying, as if Car Cave is a bird and we’re riding its wings.
    Suddenly there are these strange cars everywhere, all around us, so close, moving so fast. So many colors, a swirl of water and sand, sky and rocks, birds and trees, and one that is red, like blood, that moves so close to us, I think I could touch it, or that itmight touch me—and crush me—and I push my hand harder now to try to push myself out, to save myself.
    I clutch my stomach with my hand that is not pushing to get out. I start gagging and I know it, that all the strange food I ate at Military Hospital is going to come back up.
    As suddenly as it began, the motion stops, the grandmother woman escapes, runs to my side, and is pulling the rope off me to let me out of Car Cave and into the cool rush of noisy air.
    Just in time for all the food to come back up, swirling in strange colors against the black ground.
    “Oh, honey,” she says, rubbing my back. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. The freeway is a lot sometimes, even for me.”
    She keeps rubbing my back, until the food stops coming, until I sigh and wish all the strange whirring cars away. I wish for Ocean, the starry sky, the sounds green birds make at night.
    “I’ll get off at the next exit,” she says, “and we’ll take the side streets back. Fewer cars, a little slower going.” She pauses. “You tell me if you need to be sick again, and I’ll pull over.”
    I nod, because I sense she is trying to help me now, even though I don’t understand most of what she just said. And besides, I don’t think there is anything left in me. My stomach is empty; I am empty.
    She helps me back behind the rope in Car Cave, but before she walks back to her place and moves her key again, she says, “Why don’t you try to close your eyes. It might help a little bit.” She pauses. And then she says softly, “That’s what I used to tell your mother, when she was a little girl and she’d get carsick.”
    My mother, in Car Cave? I shake my head because it doesn’t feel real. But I do as she says and close my eyes.
    A woman begins singing softly in my ear, and I have no idea who she is or why she’s here. I hadn’t noticed anyone else in Car Cave, and her voice sounds different from the grandmother woman’s, higher, more pure. I like it. It reminds me of