2000 Kisses by Christina Skye

Author:Christina Skye [Skye, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-48103-0
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-04T05:00:00+00:00

Blue foothills rose before Tess like a dream. There was something rich and intensely welcoming in the green chaparral and the waves of bright wildflowers. Above all rose one blue peak, calling her, claiming her.

She consulted Mae’s map once. After that she had no need for it. She followed her peak and it guided her without error.

Where the valley floor rose into the foothills, she slowed and rolled down a window. The pungent scent of juniper and piñon filled the air, while the sun beat warm upon her shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a brown shape running alongside the car. A coyote, she thought in awe.

Another brown form emerged from the opposite side of the car. In loose, loping strides they paced her up the winding road. There in the sunlight, when Tess should have felt uneasy, her fear vanished. The presence of these wild creatures seemed as natural as the rest of this day’s magic.

By the time she wound along the twisting gravel road and passed a tangle of fallen boulders, the coyotes had vanished. She stopped the car where the road ended in a steep slope. With water and hat in hand, Tess set off along the path, as Mae had described it.

Then something stopped her.

The broad brown path seemed wrong somehow. She scanned the rugged landscape from horizon to horizon. Above her rose an ancient twisting piñon, and something whispered that this was the way. Once underneath those tangled branches Tess saw a smaller path, now overgrown with scrub. As she took her first step, an eagle cried high overhead, and for the space of a heartbeat, the air seemed to shimmer. Tess shivered at the sound of muffled drums, but she did not stop to question what pulled her along that steep, twisting path.

She simply followed its wild call.

At the top of the slope, she came to a dead end. Fallen rocks blocked the way where there should be none. But how did she know they did not belong?

Suddenly how did not seem to matter. Only the climb mattered. She fought her way forward, pulling herself up over the slope from rock to rock, scratching her hands and cutting her legs. At the top she came to a ledge—and beyond that a village of stone that slept in the shadow of the curving cliff, slept as if waiting for the laughter of returning families.

Or as if waiting for some lost magic to restore its life.

Tess looked up. Marks covered the weathered stone. Animals. A sun. A handprint, captured in deep red hues.

She hesitated, drawn to touch that handprint. Around her the air seemed to hum, to glow. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe, and there was a blur of something like clouds before her eyes. Dazed, she walked through the whiteness and found her way to the other side.

But not to the village. Not to the cooking fires, the laughter, and the barking dogs. Up she went, where the path rose to the high cliffs.

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