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Back The Lightness Save as PDF
Chapters (25)
  1. THE LIGHTNESS
  2. Praise for The Lightness:
  3. Dedication
  4. i
  5. 1
  6. 2
  7. 3
  8. 4
  9. 5
  10. 6
  11. 7
  12. 8
  13. 9
  14. 10
  15. 11
  16. 12
  17. 13
  18. 14
  19. 15
  20. 16
  21. 17
  22. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  23. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  24. About the Author
  25. About the Publisher

And so I let the light escape through my skin, and as I did, I felt an immense release, and as I did, I felt myself lift off the ground.

Saint Teresa: “It comes, in general, as a shock, quick and sharp, before you can collect your thoughts, or help yourself in any way, and you see and feel it as a cloud, or a strong eagle rising upward, and carrying you away on its wings. I repeat it: you feel and see yourself carried away, you know not whither. For though we feel how delicious it is, yet the weakness of our nature makes us afraid at first, and we require a much more resolute and courageous spirit than in the previous states, in order to risk everything.”

My eyes flew open, expecting mountaintops, clouds, continents. But I saw only trees, barely blacker than the night they cut into, and I saw that I was seated securely among them, a root or rock digging into my right thigh. Again? Still? I crawled toward Serena, who was sprawled out on her back, her hips raised, moving her head slowly back and forth in the dirt.

“You see,” she said. “You see, you see, you see.”

I suppose it was only at this point, so late in the summer, that I truly began to believe. I should remember this: no matter what else, no matter the end we were speeding toward by then, no matter her real motives, her master plan—she did give me what I came for. Later, when Luke had gone, I lay stiff and flat beside her on her narrow mattress, barely wide enough for two bodies, if they don’t move, if their breaths are shallow. I heard somewhere that if you lie next to someone for long enough, your hearts begin to beat in unison. I wonder if the weaker heart slows to mirror the stronger, or if the stronger softens for the weaker, or if both drift slowly together, toward a new rhythm neither has felt before. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke. I thought I’d heard a sound, seen a shadow. But then it was gone, or it had never been there, and soon I was dragged swiftly back down, down, down into the deep sleep of a girl whose heart at last has a twin.

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