It was so goddamned frustrating. Watching them take what did not belong to them had been much harder than she had anticipated. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right.
Well, little lady, life is rarely fair and right.
This would not be sustainable. Her mind was racing ahead to the end of the season, when they would be turning to the fruits and vegetables they had canned for the winter ahead. They also would miss out on the late-season trading activity, when they normally acquired a decent supply of commercially canned goods that were still floating around.
At some point, they would have to make a stand.
True, it might cost them everything.
But some things were worth risking everything for.
12
Life went on.
That was the strangest part of this for Lucy.
Life went on.
Winter had finally receded after stubbornly hanging on, even surprising them with a little freezing rain not long after the Haven had taken its first delivery. Now they were into early May, the time of year when the air smelled fresh and clear and warm. Pleasant breezes swirled across Promise. Some mornings were still brisk and chilly, but often the sweatshirts and coats were shed by late morning.
Lucy returned home after a long day, first, a full day in the clinic, capped off with a few hours in the fields assisting with the harvest. There was so much coming in from the farm that they needed all hands on deck to pick, sort, and organize. And of course, set aside the Haven’s share. She was bone tired, too exhausted to even eat. Skipping meals was not a great strategy, but the idea of expending energy to eat dinner seemed too much to bear right now. She stripped off her wet and dirty clothes, exchanging them for shorts and a t-shirt, and lay on her bunk. A brief thunderstorm had broken a shell of humidity while they were picking vegetables, and it had felt good to be in the rain, brief as it was.
And yet for all her exhaustion, she could not sleep.
There was too much on her mind.
It had been nearly a month since the spasm of violence that had brought them to this terrible point in their lives. Yet for all the fear and loathing that accompanied this new life under the thumb of the Haven, it was something they slowly became accustomed to. They buried their dead, and within these past few weeks, the violence had become a distant, albeit terrible, memory. After all, this world was about survival and doing what you needed to do to ensure such survival.
They still had not come up with a plan to deal with the Haven. For now, they had no choice but to comply. Otherwise, they would kill more Promise residents and then just take what they wanted anyway. It was self-defeating to raise a fuss. They would just be hurting themselves.
The odd thing was how quickly you became used to it. People still came and went, lived like they had been living. They had easily met the weekly quota, and they still had enough to eat. But they were robbing Peter to pay Paul. Food that would be headed for canning and pickling for the coming winter was being redirected toward the Haven. If you put that out of mind, then it was easy to fall into a sense of security. They had to remember. Initially, it didn’t seem too bad, even though your gut told you otherwise. Even when they told you that you were part of something bigger.
“We look out for each other,” Joshua had said.
It wasn’t out of the goodness of their hearts, of course. Promise was a valuable producer, and they intended to keep the supply lines open. And did they ever produce that spring. The rains were plentiful. Slow-moving showers every few days that kept the crops fat and happy.
But she could see and hear it in the others. Resigned acceptance of their new fate. Excuses made, rationalizations given.
After all, it wasn’t like they had to become best friends with the people from the Haven. They came every week, collected their cut, and they were on their way. There was plenty for the rest of them to eat. They didn’t need the Market anymore. If they needed something they didn’t have, they went through the Haven. It was more expensive, of course, but that’s what happened when a new competitor cornered the market.
But through the balance of the spring and as they rounded the turn for summer, things were copacetic. The field hands returned each day loaded down with tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers, zucchini. Eggs and meat were plentiful, and in the absence of refrigeration, they stored preserved food in large zeer pots, an ancient form of refrigeration dating back thousands of years. The technology was simple enough. A smaller pot sat nested inside a larger one that was lined with wet sand. The evaporation of the water from the sand pulled heat from the inner pot and kept its contents quite cold. For such a primitive design, it worked remarkably well.
At some point, they would have to deal with the Haven, but they weren’t there yet. It was percolating in the back of her mind, something they would get to. She didn’t want to be beholden to them forever, but she did not want to risk their lives to do so.
Plus, she had other things on her mind.
Norah.
Thoughts about Norah kept her awake on this night despite the fatigue deep in her bones.
Their relationship had remained chilly in the aftermath of their showdown at the fire pit. She tended to her chores quietly and efficiently without being told. Unfortunately, this removed one of the threads connecting the two of them, which was exactly what Norah wanted. Fewer opportunities to hassle her about her chores meant fewer opportunities to pry into her personal life.
Lucy’s daughter, Emma, had never made it into her teens, and so this was an entirely new experience for Lucy. She could only draw on her own experience as a teenaged girl, and she had been so different from Norah that it provided no useful perspective. Norah was extraordinarily kind but very quiet, hard to reach. She was slow to trust others. To her detriment, Lucy had been quick to trust, as evidenced by her repeated mistakes with the boys prowling the hallways of Collegiate High School.
Lucy sat up in bed.
A boy.
It had to be a boy.
She had known it all along, she supposed. She simply did not want to accept that her little girl, her Norah, was a young woman now and would be doing the things that she herself had done at sixteen. When she finally accepted what she knew to be true, everything fell into place. Norah’s day-dreaminess, her scattered brain, it all added up. She had a boy on the brain.
Solving this unsurprising mystery had dislodged one of the splinters keeping her awake, and she quickly fell onto a deep, dreamless sleep.
It occupied much of her thoughts for the next week.
At work, in the fields, sitting around the fire with her friends, lying in bed. She couldn’t help but want to know more, a protective instinct washing over her. The idea that a boy would hurt Norah, that he would break her heart was painful enough, and it hadn’t even happened yet. She was already fired up, angry for Norah, hell, even for Emma, who would never have to endure heartbreak.
No, sweet girl, none for you. Your heart was pure and unbroken to the end.
Initially, Lucy assumed it was one of the boys from Promise. There were three who fit the bill. Norah had been friends with them for a long time, and it would not have been surprising if one of those friendships had blossomed into something more. And absconding into the woods for nighttime rendezvous would be just the thing teenaged lovers would do.
She watched her carefully for the next week or so, watched her interactions with the handful of teenaged boys who also called Promise home. The kids were a relatively tight group. Sure, they had their drama and their squabbles, but they seemed to get along, understanding that they alone had one another’s backs. There were brief romances and hurt feelings from time to time, of course, but for the most part, they made up a happy little cornerstone of their community. But after a few days of observation, it became obvious she had eyes for none of them. They were friends, and they joked and treated each other like brother and sister, but the spark simply was not there. No lingering eye contact, no hip squeezes, physical contac
t that continued a moment too long. No sneaking off after a meal together.
Eventually, Lucy concluded that the apple of Norah’s eye was not local. Which meant Norah had found herself a long-distance beau. And the only place she would have met someone would have been the Market. She had always enjoyed making the trip, as all the youngsters did. It was their chance to break free of their cocoon, if just for a little while.
She continued watching Norah for another week, no longer calling her out on her late-night excursions. Instead, she used the opportunity to collect information. Clearly, telling her she was grounded had had no effect. Forbidden fruit tasted all the sweeter after all. It was difficult discerning the patterns in Norah’s movements, especially with the constant work in the clinic. But eventually, she had found the needle in the haystack of Norah’s life.
On a pleasant Sunday afternoon, Norah told Lucy she was going for a bike ride to clear her head. She wasn’t asking was the thing. She was telling Lucy, and this was how it was going to be. Ordinarily, Lucy would have insisted she go with a friend because they worked on the buddy system. But she let it slide this time. After all, Norah would have a buddy on this trip. She just wouldn’t know it.
“Be back before dark,” Lucy said. “Long before dark.”
“Fine,” Norah said agreeably.
Perhaps she had been surprised by Lucy’s quick agreement. She might have been spoiling for a fight. Well, she wasn’t going to get one. Lucy had a longer game in mind.
Norah left Promise at noon on a bicycle, carrying a backpack. She had pilfered a few items from the kitchen, as though she were assembling a picnic. She pedaled north and then northeast for ten miles along State Route 522 to a little hamlet called Gum Spring. Following her had been tricky; Norah had developed a good set of instincts. It took all of Lucy’s skills and abilities to successfully track the girl undetected.
Norah made her way to a small park on the edge of the town, bordered by a long rock wall. The park was choked with grassy weeds, neglected, but it was also home to a beautiful, large, and ancient oak tree at the wall’s base. It was a clear day, the sunshine glinting off the quartz in the rocks. Norah leaned her bicycle against a bench and then set out a small blanket. She set out two plates and two sets of silverware. She was expecting company.
Lucy tucked herself behind a grove of trees just west of the park. She leaned her bike against the trunk of an old maple. Then she pulled out her binoculars to begin her surveillance. Norah was about a hundred yards distant.
“I know you’re there,” she called out suddenly.
Lucy chuckled to herself. She had not been as stealthy as she thought. She emerged from her hiding spot and approached Norah sheepishly. She felt like the most overbearing, pain-in-the-ass parent in the history of parenting.
“I need you to come home with me,” Lucy said.
“I’m not leaving.”
“Norah, dammit, I need you to understand something.”
“Oh, I understand plenty.”
“You’re just a kid. What exactly do you understand?”
“Don’t you trust me?”
Lucy could hear the hurt in her voice. The fight went right out of her.
“I do trust you,” she said. “I just worry.”
Norah did not reply as she continued setting out the picnic.
“You don’t need to worry,” she said after a few moments of awkward silence.
“Is he a good guy?” Lucy asked.
Norah set a loaf of bread down on the blanket and turned to face Lucy.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s the nicest person I’ve ever met.”
Her voice was full of steel and resolve.
Norah chuckled softly.
“What?” Lucy asked.
“Probably too nice for this world.”
They stood there in the quiet, neither saying a word. As it threatened to become awkward, the sounds of hooves clopping along the desolate road through the center of town reached her ears. Norah, all five-foot-seven of her, stood up as her guest approached. The smile on her face was apparent.. Like a marvelous shooting star through a desolate, black sky.
“Just be home by dark,” Lucy said.
“I will.”
Lucy nodded and began making her way back to her bicycle. As she drew away from the park, she stole glances over her shoulder at the happy reunion unfolding. The boy aboard the approaching horse was about Norah’s age, maybe a little older. He was fair skinned, a shock of red hair atop of his head. She hoped sunscreen was a regular part of his skin care regimen. He dismounted gracefully and looped the horse to the bench where Norah had left her bicycle.
Norah ran to him, throwing her arms around him. They kissed passionately but clumsily, the fumbling embrace of young people who had not been at it very long but were goddamned dedicated to getting it right. Lucy turned away, feeling quite embarrassed at this intrusion into Norah’s life. She looked back when their chatter resumed. They had taken their seats on the blanket; Norah had begun serving their lunch. It wasn’t much, just some flatbread and hard cheeses. Lucy’s eyebrows rose in surprise when Norah withdrew a small plastic bottle containing a dark liquid.
A little wine for the happy couple.
Lucy watched a bit longer. Norah was positively beaming and did much of the talking. The boy listened attentively and seemed utterly enraptured by her. She had seen enough. As Norah and the boy lay on the blanket looking up at the sky, pointing at cloud formations, Lucy elected to take her leave of the happy couple.
She walked her bicycle to a narrow road that paralleled Route 522 to stay out of Norah’s line of sight. The route was a bit more indirect, but it was more scenic, and it would give her time to think. It was a lovely afternoon, and she was looking forward to the ride home. Her mind was at ease for the first time since that morning when she had started reading the Stephen King novel in front of the blazing fire pit. It felt like a million years ago.
It was true that you were only as happy as your unhappiest child. For so many years, she could be only as happy as Emma was as she fought the leukemia that ultimately took her life. And since she had died, Lucy’s happiness was a null function, an impossibility because you could not divide by zero. The denominator of Lucy’s life was zero.
Until Norah.
And now, to see Norah so happy filled her with joy unlike anything she could remember in a very long time. Perhaps since before Emma had gotten sick.
She became so wrapped up in her thoughts that she did not see the deer flashing in front of her until it was almost too late. She veered sharply to right while squeezing the bike’s rear brake handle. The back tire struck a patch of damp leaves, causing her to lose control. She had been moving at a good clip, and the sudden act of braking put her balance in jeopardy. Gravity took over, and the bike skidded hard, tipping to the left as it ran off the road.
Lucy gasped in surprise. The bike dumped her, sending her rolling across the shoulder and down an embankment into a ditch, her arms and legs pinwheeling every which way. Before her body came to rest, her head struck a partially exposed rock. Fortunately, it was a glancing blow and not enough to cause permanent damage.
Unfortunately, it was a good enough smack to knock her out.
She watched a hawk fly overhead before she blacked out.
13
Lucy came to a few moments later.
She blinked hard a few times, clearing her field of vision. She breathed in slowly and exhaled, unsure how badly she was injured. It would be a good test whether she had suffered any internal injuries. Minimal pain. She finished emptying her lungs, rewarded with a cleansing if shaky breath. It felt good and probably meant she had not suffered any broken ribs or damage to her lungs. She pressed a hand to a particularly sore spot on the side of her head. Her hand came away tacky with a little blood, but the flow did not appear to be heavy.
The crash had left the lower half of her body submerged in about a foot of water standing in the ditch; the rest of he
r lay against the embankment. She had been lucky. If she had landed inverted, her head in the water, she could have drowned during her brief stint of unconsciousness.
She sat up, pushing off the arm pinned underneath her. So far, so good. Using her hands to brace herself, she tried to stand up, but a sharp pain shot through her right ankle and brought her quickly back to her seat. The pain in her ankle became the center of her universe. If she put any weight on it, if she twisted it in any direction, fire shot through the muscles and the tendons. Already, it was swelling rapidly, the outer part of her ankle almost the size of a golf ball. She palpated the swollen tissue surrounding the bone. Her ankle was badly sprained, possibly fractured.
She was still nearly ten miles from home. She looked judgmentally at her crashed bike a bit higher up on the embankment. Hopefully, it was still in working condition. She didn’t know if she could pedal right now, but it was a hell of a lot more appealing than trying to walk. Maybe with a little work, the ankle would loosen up long enough for her to get home.
Using the rock that had knocked her out for leverage, she pushed up to her feet, careful to keep the weight off her injured ankle. A wave of nausea washed over her and nearly sent her back to her seat. But she remained upright, closing her eyes as the swimminess passed. The embankment was steeper than she thought. Even when standing, she was barely level with the road. It would be difficult for anyone to see her, which, for now, was a good thing. Better to stay hidden.
She tested the ankle, gently adding some weight to it. But she abandoned the experiment as quickly as she had begun it. The piercing pain of a badly sprained ankle rocketed up her leg; she could feel the crunchiness of the torn tendons. She wanted to scream in frustration. A similar ankle sprain during a training exercise while she had been in the Army had laid her low for nearly a week.
American Midnight | Book 2 | Nightfall Page 10