by Mike Mullin
I asked Ben to lay out an optimal settlement plan assuming we continued to grow. He presented me with plans for two hundred, five hundred, one thousand, and twenty thousand inhabitants. I hadn’t asked him for a plan for a city that size, and I hoped we wouldn’t grow to anything like that large. Managing a city of twenty thousand sounded like a nightmare. Ben also came up with a numbering scheme for everything. Each longhouse would have a number, and the associated greenhouses and turbine towers a letter. So Turbine Tower 2-A would be the first tower at the second longhouse, and so on.
At night I worked on the wedding. Darla did most of the planning, but she parceled out little tasks to me— figuring out whether we could bake a cake (no, we didn’t have baking powder or eggs), finding enough safety pins to hold preapocalyptic dresses and tuxes onto postapoca-lyptically thin bodies, and tracking down a wedding service to adapt. That last one was easy; nearly every abandoned farmhouse had a Bible, and one of them had a Lutheran Book of Worship with a wedding service too.
Belinda made great use of the medical supplies; only two more people died, and nearly everyone would be healthy enough to attend the wedding. Only one question gnawed at me: would Mom even come?
Chapter 56
I desperately wanted Mom to come to the wedding, but I was equally terrified to ask her. What if she said no? So I put off the trip to Warren. And put it off some more. I realized I was being terribly unfair to Rebecca—she loved Darla, and if she didn’t get to come to the wedding, she would probably skin me and make a winter coat out of my hide.
Three nights before the big day, I was on guard in one of the sniper nests. We had four of them built by then, and we staffed all of them 24/7. Our security procedures would make attacking Speranta with anything less than a tank suicidal. I routinely gave myself the worst shifts, the ones that started at 2:00 A.M. or 4:00 A.M., both because I figured that was when we were most likely to be attacked, and because I had noticed that people seemed more enthusiastic about heinous tasks when I was also willing to do them.
I was scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars, looking at darkness, darkness, and more darkness, when a knock sounded on the hatch under me. I just about jumped out of my skin.
Uncle Paul’s muffled voice said, “You’re lying on the hatch.”
“Actually I’m having a coronary on the hatch,” I said as I scooted aside and pulled it open.
“Sorry. Can’t wait until we get a telephone system installed.” Uncle Paul flopped on the floor, panting. “That’s a ridiculously long climb.”
“You’re working on telephones?” I let the hatch clang shut and went back to scanning the horizon while we talked.
“It’s on the list. After the wedding. Should be possible. We’ve got power, and we can scavenge the components.” “What about cell phones? Or some way to communicate with scouts? Ben wants me to set up a patrol schedule.” “Tougher. I don’t know much about cellular switching systems. Maybe radios would be easier. I’ll work on it,” Uncle Paul said. “Anyway, I didn’t come up here to talk about telephones.” He paused for a long while. Just as I was getting ready to break the silence, he said, “Does my sister-in-law or Rebecca know you’re getting married on Sunday?”
I cringed. I had been avoiding the topic, even with myself. I certainly didn’t want to talk about it with Uncle Paul. “I don’t know.”
“Well, has anyone gone to Warren to tell them?”
“Not that I know of.”
“They’re going to be pretty upset if they don’t get an invitation to your wedding.”
“Mom’ll be upset either way. Sometimes I think the only thing that would make her happy is an invitation to Darla’s funeral.”
“That’s not fair, and you know it.”
“Neither is the way she acts around Darla!”
“Maybe not. You know, the relationship with parents is never easy. It’s so fraught with emotion that neither the parents nor their children can think about it rationally.”
“I don’t really think of myself as a child anymore.” “You’re not. But becoming an adult doesn’t make it easier. Harder, really.”
I rolled to a new sniper port to continue my scan of the horizon. “I don’t get where I went wrong with Mom, why it’s all screwed up so badly.”
“Assigning blame isn’t going to help. If you can, think about it like a political problem. You’re getting damn good at those.”
I snorted, my eyes still glued to the horizon. “You liked the way I outmaneuvered Evans, huh?”
“He still doesn’t know what hit him. If the relationship with your mother were purely political, what would you do?”
“I’d take the offensive.” And that was when I knew exactly what to do.
Chapter 57
In the morning I went to Warren. I left Uncle Paul in charge of Speranta and Darla working on a wind turbine—I thought my mother might be more open to the news if she wasn’t staring at Darla as she heard it. Darla asked who was going with me, and I said I had talked to Uncle Paul, which was technically true, if a little deceptive. I had decided to go alone—on skis I would be fast and stealthy.
I breezed into Warren a little before lunch. There were still no sentries, no wall, not even so much as a barbed-wire fence. I skied right up to the back door of the house where Mom and Rebecca were living.
When I peeked in the window, I was greeted by a scream from Mom—she and Rebecca were sitting at a table right under the window, sewing by the light it let in. There was a huge pile of cloth scraps and old clothing on the table, which they were laboriously patching by hand.
I waved through the glass, and Mom sat back down heavily. Rebecca smiled and waved back before popping up to open the door. I knelt and started slowly untying the straps that held my boots to the skis—we had far more pairs of downhill skis than cross-country skis, so someone working under Darla’s direction had converted a bunch of downhill skis so they could be attached to the toes of modified hiking boots. They worked fine, but they were a real pain to put on and take off.
Before I had even the first ski detached, Rebecca was outside. “Oh. My. God. That hook is wicked, bro.” She reached out as if to touch it, and I moved my hook away. “Careful. The edge is razor sharp.”
She drew back her hand. “I’d heard about it from Dr. McCarthy, but whoa.”
“It wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had on a Thursday night,” I said.
“I always pictured you more as a Peter Pan type than Captain Hook.”
I wondered how long the Captain Hook comments would follow me. The rest of my life, probably. “Yeah, me too.”
“I kept meaning to come visit,” she said, “but it got crazy busy.”
“Same here.” I gave her the short version of recent events while I wrestled off the skis. Then we were inside. Mom stood in front of the door, hands wrapped around herself as if she were cold. Well, she probably was—it was freezing in there. I had gotten used to the longhouse, which was usually above fifty. Mom’s house was cold enough that I could see my breath in the air.
“Alex, your hand . . .” Mom said, still clutching herself. Go on the offensive, I reminded myself. “It’s fine, Mom.” I held my arms wide for a hug. “Good to see you.” She opened her own arms, wrapping herself around me, and for a moment it felt like everything was all right. “How’ve you been?” she asked. “I mean, other than . . .” “The hook’s not bad once you get used to it,” I said. “And everything else is going well. We’ve got enough food, finally. . . . you should come visit. Bring your mending. We’ve got an electric sewing machine hooked up you can use. Or we can get you new clothes pretty easily.” The Wallers had more clothing than both our settlements could use in a lifetime.
“You’ve got electricity?”
I kicked myself mentally. We could handle a few more refugees, but not the floods that might show up if word got around about how well-off we were. But I couldn’t rewind the conversation. “We only use it for sewing when the wind
is blowing and the batteries are fully charged. Heating the greenhouses is the top priority. But yeah, nobody sews by hand in Speranta anymore.”
“Well, I’d love to see that and to use your sewing machine, but I’ve got new duties here as First Lady. And I’ll be principal of the new school when it opens next month. Maybe I can come see your little settlement in a few months when the school’s running well.”
First Lady? What did she mean by that? And little settlement? And how was it that Warren could mow down kids in the road a few months ago and now be opening a school? Focus, Alex, that’s not what you’re here for. “Could you make a short trip this weekend? It’s not far, only a couple hours on skis.”
“I really don’t have the time, honey.”
“I know! We could pick you up on a Bikezilla. You could sit in it and just ride there and back—make it a one-day trip.” It would be a hard day for whoever was pedaling the Bikezilla, but whatever.
Mom sat back down and picked up the jeans she was patching. “What’s so important about this weekend anyway?” I hesitated. There was no easy way to say it. “Darla and I are getting married on Sunday.”
“Absolutely not!” Mom snapped.
Chapter 58
“You could consider it, at least!” I said.
“No. You are not marrying that girl.” Mom held the needle as if she was going to stab it into the jeans. “I wasn’t asking for permission!”
“Good, because I forbid it.”
“Mom!” Rebecca said.
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me. That girl is bad for him.” “After all the time I spent trying to convince you to invite Alex, to let me go tell him?” Rebecca said. “You’re just going to shoot him down when he reaches out to you?”
Huh? “Tell me what?”
“Alex, I swear to God,” Rebecca said, “I’ve had bowel movements more observant than you are.”
I wasn’t sure whether to scream or cry—I felt like doing both. “What am I supposed to be observing?”
Mom was stitching away furiously, ignoring us both. “Her hands,” Rebecca said. “You’re supposed to notice her hands.”
I looked. They were the same hands Mom had always had—long fingers with angles a little too sharp to be elegant. “Her rings,” I whispered. They had been gold— yellow. Now they were platinum. And the diamond on her engagement ring was, like, twenty times the size of the one Dad had given her. “Why’s she got new rings?”
“She remarried, dumbass.” Rebecca whirled toward Mom. “I can’t believe your hypocrisy. You’re going to forbid Alex from marrying Darla, you’re not going to his wedding, and you didn’t even invite him to your own?”
“It was only a small thing,” Mom said.
“Yeah,” Rebecca replied, “like fifty of the mayor’s cronies and me.”
“She married Mayor Petty,” I said flatly, still not believing it, but at the same time understanding that it was true.
Mom kept her attention on her sewing. I spun, opened the door, and rushed outside, slamming the door with a satisfying crash.
I knelt to tie my boots back into my skis but couldn’t do it; my hand was shaking too badly. This was a stupid idea. Reaching out to Mom. One thing I knew: Speranta was going to have a law allowing children to divorce their parents. I didn’t know if she could forbid me to marry—in the old world, maybe, although I was eighteen now. In this new world, not a chance.
“Alex, wait.”
I was so freaked out that I hadn’t even noticed my sister following me outside. “Why? Nothing’s going to change her mind.”
“I know. But I’m coming with you. I want to see my big brother get married. It would have been such a delicious scandal in the old world, huh? Eighteen-year-old high school senior marries college-age girl?” Rebecca smiled sadly.
“Hurry then, okay?”
Rebecca went back inside. By the time I had calmed down enough to start strapping on my skis, I started hearing shouting from inside the house. Then crashing noises. I wondered if I should go back inside to make sure Rebecca was okay. But my presence might make it even worse.
Finally Rebecca emerged, looking flushed, wearing a heavy coat, backpack, and ski boots. She was carrying a really nice set of Saloman XADV cross-country skis in her arms. She snapped into them in less than a tenth of the time it’d taken me to get into my jury-rigged setup. “We’d better get out of here before Mom calls the sheriff—or our new stepfather.”
“You think she will?” I asked.
Rebecca shrugged.
We left Warren in silence. I took a different route back to the homestead, weaving in and out of old ski and snowmobile tracks as much as possible to confuse our trail. We had traversed almost half the distance back to Speranta before either of us spoke again.
“You have extra clothing at the new farm?” Rebecca asked. We were single file with me in the lead, so she had to yell.
“Yeah. Plenty.” Clothing was easy to come by now. I tried not to think too much about its provenance, though— some of it came from the closets of the dead. “Why?”
“I don’t think Mom wants me to come back.”
I stopped and stepped out of the ski track, letting her draw alongside me. “I’m sorry.” I drew her into an awkward, one-armed, sideways hug. “How did everything get so messed up?”
She sighed heavily, leaning into me. “I thought I could convince her to, I don’t know, accept you and Darla or something. But it just got worse. It was always Darla this and Darla that—if the bacon stuck to the bottom of the pan, I swear, Mom blamed Darla for it. I tried ignoring her, I tried arguing, but nothing seemed to work.”
“I don’t get it. Why? Mom seemed to hate Darla from the moment they met.”
“Think about how they first met, in the middle of the same gun battle where Dad got shot—”
“But Darla had nothing to do with Dad’s death. If anyone was to blame, it was me! I talked Dad into helping rescue Darla. I did that.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Alex.”
“I know that. It was the goddamn Dirty White Boys’ fault. That isn’t my point. So why the hell does she blame Darla?”
“Because she can’t blame you.”
“Why not? I’d rather have her angry at me than Darla!” “It’d be too much like blaming herself.”
I fell silent, thinking about it. When had my little sister gotten so mature, so perceptive? Or maybe she had always been that way, but I was finally open enough to notice it? But it still didn’t completely make sense. “She’s obviously over Dad. She married that politiciansicle, after all.” “Politiciansicle?” Rebecca asked.
“Petty. He’s cold, has a stick up his butt, and you’ve got to lick it to get him to do anything.”
Rebecca laughed. “You always did have a way with words.”
I caught sight of two figures in the distance moving toward us. “Someone’s coming,” I whispered. I unslung the rifle from my back and dropped flat in the snow. Rebecca threw herself prone alongside me.
Chapter 59
I flicked off the safety and chambered a round, then pushed my head up just enough to see. There were definitely only two of them, headed directly toward us on skis, but I couldn’t make out their faces at this distance. I held the rifle ready and watched them approach.
When they got within shouting distance, one of them spoke up, “Alex, if you shoot me, so help me, the wedding’s off,” Darla yelled.
I pointed the rifle away from her, safetied it, and ejected the round from the chamber. When they got closer, I could see that Darla was skiing alongside Zik.
“What were you thinking, taking off on your own?” Darla said as she reached us.
“I’m fast and stealthy on my own,” I replied.
“And if you’d broken a leg or something? Who was going to go get help? Or drag your sorry ass home?”
“Oh.” I hadn’t really thought about that possible scenario. She sort of had a point.
“Sorry.”
“Never mind. Let’s get home.” Darla gave Rebecca a hug, and then all four of us pointed our skis toward Speranta.
“Guess your mom’s not coming?” Darla said after a bit.
“No,” I said.
“What’s the deal? I mean, I get that she blames me for your dad’s death for some reason, but why’s she taking it out on you?”
“That’s the main thing, but there’s more to it,” Rebecca said. “You know she was feuding with Uncle Paul, right?”
“No. When? I never heard them argue,” Darla said.
“It was stupid,” Rebecca said. “It all started about three and a half years ago, before the eruption. Max dared me to jump off the barn into a haystack. I did it, like an idiot, and broke my arm. Mom blamed Max, since he was older and it was his farm, even though it wasn’t like he pushed me or anything. And then Mom and Uncle Paul started arguing over who would take care of the medical copays. Uncle Paul sent her a check, but she wouldn’t cash it. Said it had to come from Max, or he wouldn’t learn. Maybe she was right, but Uncle Paul felt like she was meddling. So the point is, she was never comfortable on the farm anyway.”
“But that’s where she was when Yellowstone blew, right?” Darla said.
“Yeah. That’s why Mom decided to go to Warren that day. To try to patch things up with Uncle Paul.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“You’re a little bit oblivious sometimes, Bro,” Rebecca said. “Anyway, then Mom cracked up before the battle— she would never talk about that, but I think she was embarrassed afterward. Maybe even afraid Uncle Paul would blame her for Aunt Caroline’s death.”