American Midnight | Book 2 | Nightfall

by Kazzie, David

  Something inside her began to stir.

  She went to see Jack at the end of the day. The cicadas were loud. Baby owls screeched in the woods not far from his tent.

  “I need you to come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “I need to go see Emma.”

  It was a short ride back to the farm, and they were there even before the heat of the day had set in. The familiar valley stretched out below them as they peaked the final rolling hill approaching from the west. They led the horses to the old stable. Abandoned years ago, they smelled musty and dry. Days gone by. She wanted to tell Jack about the pregnancy, but she wanted to tell him in front of Emma. She wanted Emma to know first.

  It sounded silly, but it made her feel better all the same.

  Emma had been cremated. Lucy could not stomach the idea of her sweet, beautiful girl decomposing in a wooden box. Her ashes had been sprinkled in a sunny corner of the farm, near a big, oak tree sporting a good, old-fashioned tire swing. She had carved Emma’s initials into the trunk of the tree. Every year, on Emma’s birthday, Lucy lay flowers at the base of the tree. Keeping track of that date was one of Lucy’s primary motivators in being the keeper of the calendar. She would not dare lose the thread of the calendar, lest she lose the defining contours of the best day of her life.

  It broke Lucy’s heart to see the farm these days. Without constant attention, the fields had become overrun with weeds and wild grasses. Where before there had been orderly rows of crops, now it resembled an agricultural scrapyard. It wasn’t a total loss, however. In high summer, mint and strawberries grew wild, and she and Jack would harvest as much as they could before heading back. Generally, though, the landscape reminded her of the movie Titanic, when the underwater cameras swept over the wreckage of the ship, the detritus that lay entombed within.

  With the horses secure, they set out on foot for Emma’s memorial. Jack had not inquired as to the purpose of the trip. He intuited that his sister’s silence was intentional. She would speak when she was ready.

  The gravel path curled around the perimeter of the farm; it too had seen better days and was mossy with weeds and grass. Weeds, nature’s immortal beings. They grew in everything and nothing, even broken concrete. They grew in the heat and in the cold. They grew with water and without.

  The memories came rushing back on the fifteen-minute walk, even the smells, or more accurately, the memory of the smells. The fecund aroma of fruiting plants, of chickens and sheep that had once lived here. The olfactory memories were powerful indeed, plugged into the mind’s central processor, always there on boot-up.

  The tire was still hanging from the thick branch. It swayed in the gentle afternoon breeze. Emma had loved swinging on it; she especially loved it when her uncle Jack pushed her on it. It had been one of her and Jack’s favorite activities. They had come here often when she had been sick, at least when she had been up for it, in between treatments. She was often too weak to do what other kids did, but she could swing, oh boy, could she swing. Jack was content to push her for hours on end. Neither of them ever tired of it.

  Lucy approached the tree reverently. It was a good tree. Thick and healthy and full. The sun was overhead now, but the oak’s canopy provided strong shade from its broiling rays. She rubbed her thumb against the carving in the trunk. Emma’s initials were a stark white against the trunk’s brown bark. Behind her, Jack stood quietly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. She knelt down and whispered the news to Emma. Then she stood up.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  The words hung in the quiet afternoon air.

  He did not reply.

  “Yep,” she said. “You’re gonna be an uncle again.”

  He laughed.

  “A new baby.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dang, Luce, I know the world has gone to shit, but did you forget everything they taught us in health class?”

  She emitted a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. Just like Jack. Making jokes. It was a little endearing. It let her know that even if she wasn’t calm, he was.

  “Can I ask who the father is?”

  She wasn’t sure how to answer. Jack didn’t know Tim beyond the story she had told about Arlington. He was a ghost to her brother, nothing more.

  “Was it this fella Tim?”

  She nodded.

  “Does he know?”

  “No.”

  She had to tell him, of course. Tim had a right to know that he would soon be a father. Well, probably would be at least. These days, it was a lot to assume that either or both of them would still be alive nine months from now.

  She couldn’t tell him right now.

  Because he would demand that Lucy come to his community, where she would be cared for. But that meant turning her back on Promise. She couldn’t do that yet. She had things to do first. She had to fight to make this place a home. She didn’t know what the future held.

  “You okay?”

  He wasn’t asking her about morning sickness. He was asking if she was okay on an existential level, on a fundamental level. Whether she was okay with bringing a baby into a terrible world that didn’t have much to offer and could often be cruel to its weakest and youngest.

  A smile spread across her face.

  That’s when it hit her. She had to do it for the child growing inside her, for Norah, hell, she had to do it for Emma.

  The Haven would not take this from her. They could not be allowed to have the last word. They would no longer bend the knee. There were times in your life you had to make a stand. No matter what the cost. In Promise, they had built a home, a community, a family. To let the Haven come in and take that? It couldn’t be allowed. It could not happen.

  It was time to sit down and figure out how to expunge the Haven from their lives. They would have a weakness. No one was perfect. No one was infallible. They would find it. Perhaps they had grown fat and comfortable. No one had made a stand. No one had punched them in the mouth. And Promise had been as guilty as anyone else of lying down. It had been easier to lie down. But that came with a terrible price. The price was their humanity. Their free will. Their reason for living. Their very happiness.

  They should have fought back from the very beginning. They had made too many compromises. They had fallen back, and fallen back, and fallen back, always thinking this last compromise would the one to keep the Haven out of their hair permanently. And as Lucy had finally understood, there would always be more to take from them. Maybe everyone was waiting for someone else to step up. No one wanted Promise to collapse. They all knew the score.

  Was that the kind of world she wanted to bring this new baby into?

  Hell no.

  Could she die before the baby ever saw the light of day?

  It was possible. Yes, it was possible. It was even likely. Fighting back against an enemy like the Haven would require sacrifice. It would demand it. Because nothing was easy, not anymore. But her baby deserved a mother who would fight.

  Promise deserved people who would fight.

  They were all children of Promise, but they were also its caretakers. They were children and parent to one another. They leaned on one another when they needed it, and they held each other up when they could. Promise was a living, breathing entity, as much a part of Lucy Goodwin as she was a part of it.

  It was a thing she loved with her whole heart. It was a place that would be home to her new baby, where her child would grow and be loved and be happy. She could have another chance at happiness. She had waited more than a decade for happiness. Maybe she hadn’t believed she could ever be happy again. But she could, she believed that now. There was love in Lucy’s heart, love that she had let go dormant. She loved her brother, she loved Norah, and she loved this thing inside her that was no more than a kidney bean of tissue and blood. She would fight for them.

  “Yeah, I think so,” she said. “I am more than okay.”

  She turned to face her brother.
/>   The look on his face was one of steely determination. She hoped it reflected the one in her own.

  “This isn’t gonna be easy,” he said. “Just so you know.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. A wave of nausea washed over her.

  “I know.”

  21

  For the next two weeks, it was all Lucy thought about. It was all the Council discussed. If they were going to make a move against the Haven, it had to be perfect. There was no room for error. The consequences of failure would be vast, too horrible to contemplate.

  It was terrifying because they may have ignited the engine of their own destruction.

  It was freeing because it meant the status quo was coming to an end, and for the first time, they were the ones shattering the so-called peace with the Haven. It wasn’t peace they had after all; it was bondage. It was peace built on a lie. Whatever happened, they would be the architects of their fates now.

  Lucy was sleeping better than she had since the day the Haven had swept into their lives like a storm cloud. The morning sickness persisted, but it was manageable; it hit her every morning like clockwork. She developed a mammoth revulsion to eggs. Just the sight of Promise’s few chickens made her stomach flip. It was a shame, as she normally enjoyed eggs, and they were a good source of nutrition for pregnant women. It was also very odd. With Emma, she had eaten scrambled eggs every morning for the entire pregnancy. She craved it like she had craved no other food in her life. No strong cravings this time around, which was for the best. It wasn’t like she could pop down to the supermarket and grab a big bag of spicy Doritos whenever she felt like it. Without regular access to prenatal vitamins, she had to work very hard to ensure the baby got the nutrition it needed.

  Meeting in secret, the Security Committee spent a week working out the details of their first move against the Haven. Every night after dinner, they met in the cafeteria, brainstorming and strategizing. Normally, there was alcohol, which made it easier to discuss their insane gambit. Because even in hushed whispers, it felt crazy, it felt like certain ruin. But the alcohol made it a little easier. Just enough to loosen your tongue a little and not be trapped by your fears. That was why they called it liquid courage after all.

  “We could poison their share,” Jack said in one of their early discussions.

  Lucy considered the idea, the nuts and bolts of it. They could douse the produce in any one of several lethal toxins. This idea gained some steam before Lucy reminded the group that they knew little of the Haven’s demographic makeup. The Haven was likely home to children and other innocent people who did not steal from others, who did not execute hard workers when they came up a little short. The idea was dead on arrival.

  “What about an alliance with the others from the Market?” she suggested.

  They spent the next thirty minutes discussing an alliance with the other Market communities; a federation could prove a formidable adversary to the Haven and force it to abandon its system of tribute.

  “Possibly,” he replied.

  “None of these people want to be under the Haven’s thumb,” Lucy said. “Common enemy and all.”

  “No, it’ll never work,” he said. “You know why.”

  Lucy considered it as she took a sip of her moonshine. But a number of holes quickly appeared in the plan. Jack was right. It involved too many moving pieces and would likely collapse under its own weight before they made a move. But the primary flaw in the plan was that she didn’t know if all the others could be trusted. She didn’t know if any of them could be trusted. It would only take one to betray their confidence. Someone seeking to stay in the Haven’s good graces. Rooting out uprisings, being rewarded for their betrayal. And their rebellion would be squashed in its crib.

  “You trust any of those clowns?” Jack asked Lucy.

  “Not enough of them,” she said, sighing.

  Then he laughed one of his big, bellowing laughs. She had forgotten what that sounded like; it made her feel warm, made her feel safe.

  Despite Jack’s gallows humor, a pall fell over the discussion. The sudden awareness that they were alone in this struggle. They would have to do it alone.

  Jack sat up a little straighter.

  “They’re not totally useless, however.”

  She was intrigued.

  “Go on.”

  “There’s got to be at least one teacher’s pet in the bunch,” he said. “Someone ratted us out to the Haven. So they’ve got a line into the party somehow.”

  A chilling thought occurred to Lucy. What if the leak was coming from inside Promise? She kept her suspicion to herself for the moment.

  “They know who I am,” Jack said, “so I can’t go undercover. But I could become a double agent.”

  “How would that help us?”

  “We would find out where they’re based.”

  The precise location of the Haven was indeed the holy grail. Without it, they would remain the boogeyman, the monster under the bed, the axe murderer hiding in the closet.

  They had to find it.

  Jack left at first light on Market Day. He wore a cloak and had shaved his beard. One of the women had used makeup to lighten his skin and smooth out the crow’s feet around his eyes. He also wore a pair of reading glasses. Up close, the disguise wouldn’t last long, but if he managed to avoid entanglements, he would be able to operate on the sly for a little while. The Council had finally settled on an espionage mission against the Haven.

  The Market was in full swing when he arrived a little after noon. He’d spent a portion of the morning doing reconnaissance from the perimeter. He stayed mobile, unwilling to pin himself down. There were no scouts prowling the woods surrounding the Market proper.

  He’d been spoiling to fight back for months. Lying down for those who took from him was not part of his DNA. It was like undergoing an organ transplant, one that your body sought to reject. Part of him wanted to punch the Haven right in the mouth, but even he understood that was not the smart play, at least not yet. No, this approach was best.

  He would be found out; he was counting on it. He found it hard to believe that all their Market partners had fallen under the Haven’s thumb, but he had to consider the possibility. Finding out would be instructive.

  There had been a few changes to the Market since he’d last been here. Two armed men stood guard at the gate. They questioned each person looking to enter. They conducted pat down searches, confiscated a few knives and other sharp objects.

  Jack’s heart raced a little as his turn in the queue drew near, but he was waved through with minimal hassle. They either didn’t know who he was or they didn’t care. There weren’t as many booths as there had been in the past, but the crowds were decent. He suspected illicit substances had gained value as currency in recent months. People would be selling more than that, too. They would be selling themselves.

  Jack approached Barrett’s booth first, waiting until the man was alone. He liked Barrett. Found him to be a standup character.

  “Good morning,” Jack said.

  Barrett eyed him with suspicion for a moment before he saw behind the weak disguise. Then he smiled broadly.

  “Jack,” he said, more in a whisper. “What are you doing? You know you’re not supposed to be here.”

  “Hence the disguise.”

  “Man, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s not much of a disguise. Like, not at all.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “I have my reasons.”

  “Want a peach?”

  Jack’s stomach rumbled, but he declined. No need to draw Barrett into his poisoned orbit.

  “No thanks,” he said, waving his hand at the offered fruit.

  “You guys holding up out there?”

  “We’ll be fine,” he said. “You?”

  Barrett sighed.

  “I mean, it is what it is,” he said. “You square with the house?”

  “For now,” Jack replied.

  H
e leaned back, glanced around surreptitiously.

  “Might be a long winter, if I’m being honest with you.”

  Barrett’s community had less than thirty residents. Although their contribution to the Haven would likely be small, they had no chance but to comply.

  “At least they let you have Market Day still.”

  “Yeah, no one knows why you were blackballed.”

  “We killed two of their guys.”

  Barrett’s eyebrows rocked upward.

  “Yeah, that would do it.”

  “But you guys are getting through it?” Jack asked.

  “Look, as long as they get their cut, they’re okay with us playing house.”

  This made Jack chuckle.

  “Be safe, buddy,” he said, gently rapping his knuckles on Barrett’s table.

  “You too.”

  Jack picked his way through the crowd for an hour, picking up on bits and pieces of conversation. Much of the discussion centered around their new overlords. Most, if not all, had fallen to the Haven over the past two months. Eventually, the sense that he was being watched started tickling at him. About damn time. He drifted to the edge of the Market, near a booth offering tarot card readings and fortune telling. Hey, if she was finding buyers for her bullshit, more power to her.

  “Want me to read your future?” asked the woman at the booth. She was older, in her sixties. Her thick, silvery hair was tied back in a long braid. She wore heavy eyeshadow. She was tall and thin.

  “No thanks,” he said.

  “First one is free.”

  He glanced around. He could sense someone watching him, but he still couldn’t locate the source.

  “Okay.”

  She picked up an ornately designed deck of cards and lay down the one on top. It depicted three men standing over a fourth man down on his knee. The man in the middle held a sword at the nape of the man’s neck.

  “The Judgment card.”