The Game of Love and Death(85)

“I’ll just get it for you, then,” she said.

“I want to fly,” Henry said. He walked closer. “In the plane.”

“You’re sure about that?” Flora tilted her head, scarcely wanting to believe he’d had a change of heart about heights.

“Yes.”

She smiled, tentatively. “I happen to know a pilot who doesn’t have anything to do for the next hour.”

Henry smiled back. It was pinched-looking, but it was better than nothing. She deeply regretted what had happened between them before. If she could take those words back, she would. It wasn’t that she was ready to accept what he offered, ready to choose him. But love and a life together: Maybe it could be possible someday.

Her head began to throb. The best thing for that, though, was to take to the skies.

“Ready?” she asked. “The conditions are perfect.”

She stopped herself before she started rambling. Best just to show him what she loved. Perhaps it could be the beginning of forgiveness.





HENRY tried telephoning Flora as soon as Mr. Thorne departed. He had to warn her about Helen, about who she really was. The phone rang and rang, but she did not pick up, and Henry feared she’d already left to take Helen up in her airplane. He burst out the door and ran down the steps before he stopped on the sidewalk, not sure where to go: to Flora’s house, to the airfield, to Hooverville to seek help from James, to confront the fake Helen wherever she might have run to.

Unable to decide, he stood paralyzed as cars zoomed by, kicking up clouds of dust on the cobbled streets. People hurried past him, giving him sidelong glances for his obvious distress. He decided to take his chances bargaining with Death. She’d as much as invited him to, only he hadn’t realized it. What if he had kissed her? Would it have saved Flora? He would have done it a thousand times were that the case.

To think, he’d turned away from Helen because it felt like death to live without Flora. He’d been right about that. He just hadn’t understood how right he was.

His pockets empty, he ran toward the airfield. He had miles to go, but already, his shirt stuck to his back and his lungs burned. He ran downhill on Twenty-Third Avenue, heading toward the bridge; the barest hint of a breeze blew from behind. A car pulled up. It was James, only not the version he’d known earlier. This James Booth sat behind the wheel of a Cadillac even finer than Mr. Thorne’s. His suit was new, finished with a gray silk tie worn over a snow-white shirt. It figured that Love was vain.

“Get in,” James said.

Henry obeyed, relieved, yet angry for what Love had done to him, to Ethan, to all of them. “We have to hurry. They’re at the airfield. If Helen gets there first …”

“I know.” James’s voice was quiet.

“You have to help me,” Henry said. “I want to trade. I want to take Flora’s place.”

James did not reply, though he turned for a quick glance as he held the steering wheel with both hands.

Henry yelled, “Will she take me instead? Tell me!”


James did not answer right away. The street curved and they approached the Montlake Bridge, whose copper-topped turrets reminded Henry of Rapunzel’s tower. Lights flashed and the guardrail dropped, signaling the bridge was to rise. The delay was agony. At last the bridge began to lower itself. They sped over the Montlake Cut past the University of Washington, veering toward Sand Point.

James finally spoke. “She’s never said yes to such a thing.”

“What else can we do?” Henry’s stomach felt full of snakes. “There has to be something. Anything. It can’t end like this.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong.” James’s voice was reassuring but distant, as if he were a school administrator explaining some foul-up with a test packet. “You played as well as I had hoped. I’m proud of you.”

Henry slammed his hands on the dashboard. “You’re talking as though it’s over. It’s not.”

“It is,” James said. “It’s over and we lost.”

Henry’s throat was so tight it hurt. “Then can nothing help? Can nothing save Flora? What about Death? What will kill her?”

“Nothing,” James said. “She’s immortal, as am I.”

“Then what makes her suffer? I want to hurt her as she’s hurt me.”

“Waiting. She’s been suffering all along, and she won’t wait anymore. I could turn back, Henry. No one would blame you. This could be terrible to watch.”

“Could be?”

“Depending on her method.”

“Henry curled his hands into fists. “Drive faster.”





DEATH leaned back as the plane rose, feeling the comfort of victory in hand. And it could not come soon enough. Her hunger had peaked. It threatened to burst outside of her, to lick the world with a tongue of fire.

The shivering sky filled the windshield. Flora gripped the yoke. Death wanted to touch those hands, to take just a little, but she forced herself to hold off a moment longer. She’d waited so long for this. The perfect time would soon arrive.

The girl leveled the plane, and the sky slid upward until it shared the windshield with the silver of the lake and the green of the trees around it. She turned toward Death, her face vulnerable, full of hope. Death had to look away. Flora would find out soon enough, but Death still felt shame at the fundamental truth of her existence. She wanted to hide it as long as she could. And she wanted, just once, to have someone look at her with love in their eyes.