Once they were alone, Regan walked toward Wolf and wrapped her arms around him. “You okay?” she asked in a quiet voice.
He looked down at her, nodding his head. “I guess. I knew the teenage years were going to be rough. I didn’t know it would be this rough, though. I miss my sweet little girl. The one who idolized me and was convinced I hung the moon. I wish that girl would come back. She was here when I left.”
Regan grinned. “She’s twelve. You haven’t even gotten to the teen years. That’s when you’re going to wish you could lock her in a room until she turns eighteen, or run away yourself and let us girls deal with her. This is a tough time for all of us, but I bet it’s even harder for her.”
He groaned, resting his forehead against hers. “You’re not helping.”
That made her laugh. “Quit worrying about it and show me this aquaponics stuff. I really hope I can do it. I’d hate to be the one who kills our main food source.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Wolf assured her with a quick kiss to reinforce the promise. “The main thing to remember is, if you don’t know, ask. Don’t guess.”
“Got it. Don’t screw up,” she said with a smile, hoping to lighten his mood a little.
Together, they walked toward the small building that resembled a traditional greenhouse. It was in a sunny, southern-facing spot in the clearing around the house. Wolf had built it with hurricane windows for added stability.
“It’s going to be stuffy in here. I apologize for that now,” he said, opening the door into the twelve-by-twelve space.
Regan was immediately overtaken by the smell of moisture, fish, and vegetation. It wasn’t a bad smell, but it was definitely unique. The sound of bubbling water, though, could only be described as soothing, and almost reminded her of being in a pet store and wandering among the fish.
Right away, the sight of green, leafy vegetables growing over the top of two of the large plastic water containers intrigued her. Everything looked so green and lush. She walked toward one of the tanks and looked inside to see fish happily swimming around beneath the surface.
“These are the tilapia?” she asked.
“Yes. They’re the easiest to keep alive, and breed like crazy! Bonus? They don’t eat each other like some other fish breeds do. They like the warm water and won’t get stressed if it gets up to eighty degrees in the tanks, which can happen in the heat of the summer. Fish like trout don’t like the heat. I tried to use them in my tanks, but it didn’t work out well. They took too much monitoring, and I wanted a system that was fairly sustainable without a lot of work on my end.”
Regan nodded her head, making her way around the room and peeking into the other white plastic tanks. She stopped at one and smiled, watching little fingerlings happily swimming around in a smaller tank that was labeled the nursery.
“This is cute,” she said, pointing to the sign.
“Lily did that.”
“Why don’t you leave them in the bigger tanks? You said they won’t eat each other.”
“Things can get a little rough for the babies when they’re trying to survive in an enclosed space with thirty adults. We put them in here, let them get some size on them, and then transfer them to one of the larger tanks,” he explained, peering into the water.
“What are these plastic containers? Did you buy them like this?” she asked, tapping the side of the heavy plastic that looked like it was a giant box.
“They’re called IBC containers. I had to cut off the top, cut a portion of the top off, and then invert it to place over the tank. There are actual containers you can buy, but it was more cost-effective to do it this way and I wanted to do it by hand.”
She chuckled. “Of course, you did.”
They walked to another tank and Regan studied the top portion of the tank that was placed over the bottom tank filled with water. She reached out to touch the reddish-brown balls that the kale and beans were growing in. “What is this?” she asked, running the wet pebbles through her fingers.
“Hydroton, which is clay. It’s the one thing I splurged on for the system. It’s pretty lightweight, holds moisture, and is easy to reuse. I experimented with gravel and it just wasn’t quite as good. It was too heavy for the system and caused problems with the roots. This option is great for the roots of the plants and isn’t too heavy. The roots don’t get bound or stunted like they can in heavier material like gravel. Plus, it’s easy to clean every month or so.”
“Okay, so tell me what I need to know to keep this all running smooth.”
He pointed to a clear hose. “This pushes air into the fish tank. It’s a big deal. It keeps the water circulating and oxygenated for the fish. The pump,” he said, and held up a black tube, “pushes water into the grow bed. These two things are what keeps everything going smooth. If there isn’t enough oxygen, the fish will die. If the fish die, the plants will die. The fish produce the nutrients the plants need to thrive. The plants like fish poop.”
Regan giggled. “That’s something I do know. Poop is fertilizer.”
He nodded his head. “Exactly. There’s a balance. We don’t want too much fertilizer, or in this case, fish poop. Too much can create high nitrogen and kill the plants. Too little, and the plants aren’t going to thrive.”
“What do the fish eat?” she asked.
He drew in a deep breath. “Well, there are several options. We have actual fish food, but if and when we run out, we’re going to have to feed them a natural diet.”
“And that would be?”
“Worms, flies, and other bugs.”
Regan began shaking her head. “You want me to go out digging for worms and catching flies to feed the fish?”
He smiled. “In a nutshell, yes, at some point.”
Wolf walked to the tall shelf positioned between two tanks. There were brown bags lined up on the bottom shelf.
“This is the fish food,” he said, grabbing a bag and heading to the first tank.
“How much do you feed them?”
He opened the thirty-pound bag, setting it on the floor in front of the tank, and pulled out a scoop. “It varies, but this scoop is about right. You put the food in and check back in five minutes. If the food is gone and you don’t see any floating around, they need a little more. If there is still food floating, check back in another ten minutes, and if you still see food in the water, you feed them a little less.”
Regan nodded her head, committing the information to memory. “How often?”
“At least twice a day. Once in the morning and then in the evening. Sometimes, I’ll feed them in the afternoon if the food disappeared especially quickly that morning, and then they get less that night.”
“Okay, got it.”
Regan took the scoop from Wolf and went about feeding the fish until she got to several Rubbermaid totes without lids that were lined up next to each other. She stared down at the totes, noting that each of the surfaces of the water were covered with a green slime that reminded her of some of the ponds they had seen in the swamp.
“Uh, are these broken?” she asked.
Wolf put the feed back on the shelf and came over to stand next to her.
“No, these bins are growing duckweed.”
“And what is duckweed, exactly?” she asked, her lip curled with disgust as she stared down at the bins.
“Duckweed is going to keep you from having to go digging for worms.”
“It’s fish food?”
He nodded his head. “Yes. However, the stuff can clog up the air hoses, so I don’t like to put it in as is. About once a week, I’ll skim the top, leaving a good layer over the water, and then dry it.”
“It looks like it’s nothing but slime.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Basically, it is. It’s almost all water, but the little bit that’s left after it dries is great for the fish.”
Regan took a deep breath. There was a lot more to the aquaponics than she’d realized. “And how do we dry it?”
Regan watched as he used a small cup to skim the tops of the tanks and deposit the slime on the screen. Once he was finished, he took the screen from her.
“Follow me,” he ordered. Carrying the screen flat, he walked out of the greenhouse to a sunny area of flat ground and put the screen down.
“That’s it?” she asked.
He smiled. “Yep. It takes a day or two to dry, so sometimes you’ll just have to let it dry on the ground in there because of the rain, but it’s sunny enough now. Then, we bag it up and it will be a back-up food source when we run out of the other fish food. We can also feed it to the chickens.”
She nodded her head. “Got it.”
“In a pinch, we could eat the duckweed, as well,” he added.
“Ew! Not a chance, Wolf.”
He laughed. “It’s a great source of protein. It tastes a lot like spinach.”
“I’m going to take your word for it.”
They walked back into the greenhouse.
“Any questions?” he asked.
“How are the pumps running without power?” she asked, only now realizing they would take electricity.
He pointed up to the glass windows. “Each of the pumps is connected to a small solar panel. They aren’t connected to the main solar power system that runs the house. They’re completely independent.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the same shelf the food was kept on. There were several dark brown bottles on the top shelf.
He reached for one. “These are pH test strips. It’s important you test the water in each tank, every single day. Having a perfect pH is critical to the health of the fish. If the water isn’t moving as it should, the pH is going to get out of whack. I can’t tell you how many fish I’ve lost to a bad pH.”
Regan instantly worried. It sounded too important for a novice to be in charge of. “What pH should it be?”
He dipped a strip into the water before holding it against the chart on the bottle. “I like to keep it around seven. Any higher, and the plants aren’t going to thrive. Any lower, and the fish are going to struggle in the acidic environment.”
“How do we keep it at seven? I don’t remember a lot from biology, but don’t we need chemicals to increase and decrease it?”
He shrugged. “That is an option. I run filters on each tank, which helps keep the acidity level down. In some cases, I need to remove some fish to help gain control. I do have some additives in case of emergency. The key is keeping a close eye on things and being ready to jump in and take action.”
“I’m going to kill Tabitha for putting me on this job. This is way too much pressure.”
“You’ll do fine. Like I said, always ask me or RC if you have a question. Don’t guess,” he replied. “And you can rely on Tabitha also; I know she’s focused on getting a garden started, but I’ve explained this to her, as well. You guys are a team, remember?”
She nodded and began to answer, but then paused, cocked her head to the side, and looked around the area. “Do you hear that?”
Wolf listened for a few seconds. “Hear what?”
“I don’t know for sure. It sounds different than it did when we first walked in here.”
He shrugged. “I don’t hear anything.”
Regan took a second to look at him, taking in the sight of his furrowed brow and clenched jaw. He looked so stressed, she realized that she’d probably only had half of his attention this whole time—he was still worried about his daughter, or else about something that she hadn’t even been considering. Maybe he doubted her also? But, no, he’d sounded too confident in her for that—this tension she saw in him now was all Lily, whether it should have been or not.
“Are you okay?” she finally asked.
“Yes, why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. All this stuff with Lily has to be getting to you. The whole way back from the swamp, your sole focus was getting home to your daughter. It doesn’t seem like it’s been the reunion you wanted or expected.”
He smiled ruefully, but didn’t argue when she stepped into his shoulder and leaned against him in an offer of support. “It isn’t,” he admitted. “She’s always been so happy. When I would come home, she would talk my ear off telling me about every little thing that happened at school or who did what. Now, she barely says two words to me. She’s changed…and not for the better.”
“She’s going through a typical phase. It’s new to you, but this is what preteen and teen girls are like, I promise. Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Regan said, turning and embracing him.
He sighed, resting his chin on top of her head. “My dad thought he was the best one to talk to her. When did that happen?”
Regan pulled out from under his head and looked into those brown eyes that were full of sadness. “They went through the initial blackout together. I’m sure they became closer because of it. Can you imagine how scary that must have been for her? You were gone and I know she was worried about you. She counted on him. It doesn’t mean you’ll never be close to her again.”
Wolf smirked, showing off his perfect set of white teeth. “How did you get to be such an expert?”
Regan laughed, and gave him a quick kiss. “Uh, I was a teenage girl once. Granted, I didn’t have parents to be mad at, but I did have those feelings of hating the world and wanting to buck authority.”
“Which you did, you little rebel,” he teased.
Suddenly, again, Regan wasn’t listening to him, and pulled away from his embrace. “There! Did you hear it?”
She walked away from him to one of the tanks on the far wall. She picked up the clear air tubing when she reached it, and noticed it was hanging outside of the tank. It wasn’t connected to the pump at all.
“Oh crap!” he muttered as he came up beside her. Quickly, he reached into the tank and pulled up the pump, connecting the hose. “It doesn’t look like the fish are stressed. They’re still swimming around pretty well. Good catch. Seems like you do have a knack for this after all.”
Regan was smiling already, proud of herself for catching what could have been a costly mistake. Wolf turned to look at her and she immediately stopped smiling. There was a look of complete devastation on his face.
“Wolf? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
He shook his head, both hands covering his face so that his fingers could massage his eyes. “How did I miss that? You picked up on it and you’ve never worked in here. I’m not myself. I can’t seem to think straight. All those gut instincts and natural abilities I once had seem to have vanished.”
Regan reached up to pull his hands down, forcing him to look at her. “Relax. Let’s go for a walk. We’ll go to our secret spot,” she offered, and before he could disagree, she grabbed his hand and led him out the door. That was what they both needed.
“It’s not really a secret, you know?”
She laughed. “Not entirely, but it does give us a little privacy. Come on, you need to clear your head. You’re the one overthinking everything.”
Hand in hand, they walked toward the small, southern-facing inlet of the island, which was still overgrown with cocoplum and trees.
“Oh!” She stopped, squatting down to look at a series of shrubs with pretty yellow flowers.
Wolf stood beside her. “Necklacepod.”
She reached for what resembled little bean pods. “Are these edible?”
He shook his head. “No. Some old Native Americans claim there are medicinal qualities to the plant, but we don’t mess with it. A little too much and you could die. Not a risk I want to take.”
She dropped the plant and stood up. “Me neither.”
They kept walking on to their secret spot. Wolf had taken her to the area shortly after they’d arrived, when Regan had been feeling overwhelmed by everything. He’d told her it was his spot to
think. She loved the view of the ocean that stretched into the horizon, not marred by other islands or the mainland. It was peaceful, with only the sound of the water slowly rolling in and out. The tip of the rocky island shielded the water, quieting the waves to a near-silent lapping, and it was far enough away from the other beaches of the island, and sheltered enough by trees, that they rarely heard anyone else from the group while they were there.
“Sit,” she ordered him, pointing to one of the large rocks.
She sat down beside him and they stared out at nothing. Although the island was quiet, it was hard to find any truly quiet, alone time—not unless you actively sought it out, as they just had. The island wasn’t all that big, and there always seemed to be someone around.
“I’m sorry,” he offered quietly. “This isn’t like me.”
“I’m happy to know you’re human,” Regan answered simply. “We’ve all had our moments since this whole thing happened. You’ve been the pillar of strength, always keeping a cool head and teaching us as well as leading us. You deserve to have a moment of weakness now and again. Just don’t make it a habit,” she teased, pushing her shoulder into his.
Wolf didn’t laugh. “This isn’t me,” he repeated. “I’ve always been able to trust my gut. My dad taught me survival from the time I could walk. It’s always come so naturally to me, I’ve never had to think about it. Now, I feel like I can’t remember anything and I’m second-guessing everything I do.”
Regan took hold of his hand and gripped it tightly, knocking it into his thigh for emphasis so that he met her gaze. “Stop,” she told him. “Seriously. You’re in a funk. You can make a mistake, but you get up, dust yourself off, and keep moving. You got us here, alive and in one piece. That was because of your survival skills. Guess what, Wolf? I have a pretty good gut instinct, as well, and the only reason I followed you out here was because I trusted you to keep me alive. I relied on my own gut—and I know you aren’t trying to tell me mine is broken.”
“That was me before the return to this place.”
“Look at this place!” she nearly shouted. “It’s an island paradise that doubles as the best place to ride out the end of the world as we know it. Your house is amazing. It’s comfortable and built to withstand the weather. I feel safe here, and that isn’t something I feel very often,” she pointed out.
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