The Cardinal Gate

by Amy Cissell

  I tried to shake off the panic-inducing pressure and concentrate on the map, but I couldn’t focus.

  “Why don’t we start driving? We can figure it out on the way,” Florence said.

  “Breakfast first?” I asked.

  “Of course. No one wants to be trapped in a car with a hungry dragon.”

  “I’m not that bad.”

  “Yes, you are,” Isaac and Florence said together.

  We packed up and headed out. I gazed mournfully at the minivan. “This is a far cry from the beautiful truck you bought me in Portland.”

  “We’ll trade it in again soon,” Isaac said. “We’ll need something older with no computer parts. We’ll want to start collecting gasoline. Modern gas stations won’t work if the grid goes down.”

  “By the end of this journey, we might not even have a working car,” Florence added. “Be grateful for what we have now.”

  That shut me up. I’d mourned the impending loss of the internet, but hadn’t thought through all the implications of throwing the world back to a pre-Industrial time. The minivan suddenly looked shiny and new.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “That about sums it up,” Isaac said.

  Also by Amy Cissell

  Eleanor Morgan

  The Cardinal Gate (Feb 2017)

  The Waning Moon (Jun 2017)

  The Ruby Blade (Oct 2017)

  The Broken World (Mar 2018)

  The Lost Child (Apr 2019)

  * * *

  Oracle Bay

  It's Not in the Cards (Oct 2018)

  First Hand Knowledge (Nov 2018)

  Belle of the Ball (Dec 2018)