Amy Bechtel: In Fortune's Hand

“Is she still alive?” Ria asked.

“So far.”

Ria glanced involuntarily at the blanket-wrapped bodies near the wrecked car. She hoped Jenny had family still living, someone like Granna who would take her in and love her and care for her. She wondered if Jenny knew what had happened to the others. If anyone had told her. If she didn’t know yet, she’d find out all too soon.

“At least she’ll know what happened to her mom and brother,” Ria said bitterly. “At least she’ll know.”

“Ria?” Darcy touched her shoulder.

“I’ll never know what’s happened to Paul. Whether he’s alive or dead.”

“No. You won’t.”

“What’s worse than that?” You said there was something worse. Please—” Maybe hearing about something still worse would make today’s horrors recede. Ria was willing to try it.

“I used to think not knowing was the hardest thing,” Darcy said. “For some maybe it is. It might be for you. I don’t know.”

The piece of metal in Ria’s pocket jabbed her in the leg and she took it out and turned it in her hands, twisting and flexing it.

Darcy said, “I was working with a team searching for a missing girl. Someone else found the girl, and I found a body. Not much left, but enough to identify. It was a boy who’d been missing for five years.

“I was the one sent to tell the family. I thought I was doing them a good turn. At least they’d finally know for sure what happened. But the boy’s mother had accepted not knowing, had built her hope on it. She’d put him in fortune’s hand.”

“What happened when you told her?”

“She mourned. And went on. But without hope. And I felt like I was the one who’d killed him, because I took away the life he’d had within her.”

Ria clenched her hand around the piece of metal she held, twisted it one last time, and dropped it. Paul would like that, she thought. Being in fortune’s hand. If she could put him there. If she could hope for him, hope that Aurora might land safely on one of Ruby’s planets, hope that the planet could sustain and nurture its crew. It didn’t matter so much that the hope was a thin one. Living on the edge and against the odds was very much Paul’s style.

The lizard below was still sitting on its rock, in spite of the deep chill in the air. The first light of the Sun touched the green and gold of its skin, and glinted brilliant red in a circle around its throat, as if it were reflecting off a ruby collar. At the first touch of the Sun, the lizard whirled about and disappeared into a crack between the rocks.

And with that the music was back in Ria’s head, her own music, a song for Paul, for Aurora and for Ruby. Not a lament, but a sprightly air, full of possibility. She sang it, wordless and soundless in her mind, until the copter appeared once more in the desert sky.