The Waters & the Wild by Francesca Lia Block Read Free Book Online Page B

put waist-length braids in her hair.
    Â 
    One day, Haze and Sarah went to the park where they had once flown with their friend. They were close enough that they could smell each other, but they had not yet touched. His skin looked even paler beside hers. His hands were big. He could have covered her whole hand with his, made it disappear.
    They were both beautiful. Neither realized that they had feared their own beauty, hid it intentionally. Neither realized they had been challenging the world: Find me lovely anyway, desire my friendship, come close in spite of my strangeness, my belief in UFOs and reincarnation. I dare you. But someone had come close anyway.There was nothing left for them to prove.
    â€œAre you really an alien?” Sarah asked him, turning her head to the side, wrinkling her nose. “Because you look like a young man to me.”
    â€œAre you Sarah?” he answered. “Or Stephanie?”
    â€œNeither. I think I need a stage name.”
    â€œHow about ‘the Comeback Kid’?”
    â€œHa. What is that supposed to mean?”
    â€œYou know. Like you came back from another life.”
    â€œI thought that’s what you meant. I’m okay being in this one now, thank you.”
    â€œMe, too,” said Haze.
    A cool low sea fog had chased all the children from the park. Night was coming, darkening the lawns. The sky was clear again now, a deep pulsing blue tinged with violet.
    â€œDo you remember when we flew?” Haze asked her.
    â€œOf course, young man.”
    Haze stood up, brushed the grass off his seat and held his hand out to her. His heart felt light and buoyant, as if it might lift him off his feet, an internal hot air balloon.
    â€œWill you join me?”
    â€œAre we leaving Planet Earth?”
    â€œNo, just taking a little trip. I don’t want to leave anymore,” he said softly, his new voice smooth as the evening sky.
    Â 
    Haze and Sarah knew that this was not the end of the world. At the same time, they sensed that perhaps the end of the world as they had known it was near. One of them had seen, or believed he had seen, whole galaxies destroyed and new ones reborn. Theother had witnessed, or believed she had witnessed, unbearable human suffering and then returned to a world where one kind of suffering had been abolished, at least in certain places, and new suffering had come to pass. They both, in their short present lives, had known war and watched the climate change enough to threaten the earth’s existence. They had found each other; they belonged to the world. They had lost Bee, but not forever. Under the earth upon which the dream city of Los Angeles had been built, they sensed a stirring as of water, a shining as of gold. They felt the reverberations of music. Magic had returned. The king and queen, having shed their old skins, reached out to embrace their lost child in an underground garden.
    And her friends knew someday they would find her again.

Acknowledgments
    THANKS TO
GILDA BLOCK, LYDIA WILLS,
TARA WEIKUM, JOCELYN DAVIES,
ALYSSA REUBEN, JASON YARN,
AND LAURA KAPLAN
    AND TO MY READERS,
MY CONSTANT INSPIRATION

About the Author
    FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK, winner of the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award, is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling books, including WEETZIE BAT ; DANGEROUS ANGELS : The Weetzie Bat Books; NECKLACE OF KISSES ; a collection of stories, BLOOD ROSES ; and the poetry collection HOW TO (UN)CAGE A GIRL . Her work is published around the world. You can visit her online at www.francescaliablock.com.
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Also by Francesca Lia Block
    WEETZIE BAT
    GIRL GODDESS #9: NINE STORIES
    THE HANGED MAN
    DANGEROUS ANGELS: THE WEETZIE BAT BOOKS
    I WAS A TEENAGE FAIRY
    VIOLET & CLAIRE
    THE ROSE AND THE BEAST
    ECHO
    GUARDING THE MOON
    WASTELAND
    GOAT GIRLS: TWO WEETZIE BAT BOOKS
    BEAUTIFUL BOYS: TWO WEETZIE BAT BOOKS
    NECKLACE OF