His answer was another tiny snore, and she left him and went to sit at the kitchen table. She flipped through the seed packets.
“My word,” she whispered. “Watermelon!”
Visions of cold melon danced through her head. A smile, perfectly unexpected in the wake of all of they’d experienced in the last week, formed on her lips and she barked a giddy laugh.
“Freaking watermelon!”
It was late and she was exhausted, but she did what needed doing. She put water on for a bath. While it warmed, she stashed the seeds in a clay jar that she tucked far in the back of the cabinet above the electric range. They’d almost died for those seeds, and she couldn’t think of anything more valuable in that moment.
She took her time, cleaning and oiling the guns before opting only to hold onto the shotgun for protection. The others she locked in the safe the Winstons kept in the back of the front closet.
When she’d triple-checked the locks, she poured herself a small dose of the whiskey they had left and took a bath. The water was wonderful—therapeutic and intoxicating. She sipped whiskey and closed her eyes and let her mind go blank.
The bath was rejuvenating; the filth and grime slipped from her skin and formed a crust on the surface of the water. When it became tepid, she scrubbed herself clean, released the water, and rinsed from a bucket of cold water she’d held in reserve.
She put a fresh gauze bandage on her wound and scrubbed her teeth and crawled into bed next to Ben. His fever had broken, it seemed, and he was sleeping soundly.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered in his ear. “We’ll start the garden tomorrow.”
The word had never tasted so
good on her lips.
TWENTY-FIVE
She had to be careful, and she had to start right away. If they were going to make it work, she couldn’t afford to waste any of the seeds they’d almost traded their lives for.
She took some old newspapers—brittle as onion skins—and shredded them, then made a series of damp nests in some cookie tins she’d found in the pantry. She labeled each tin and placed them in the box window off the dining room, where they could take the greatest portion of whatever sunlight managed to poke through.
She pushed seeds into each nest, taking her time, speaking to them while she worked, imploring life to (improbably, if she was honest with herself) flourish from such humble and long-dormant beginnings.
“You’ll be the strongest, tastiest corn that’s ever grown in Georgia!” she cooed as she spritzed the misshapen kernels with water from an old hairspray bottle that she’d rinsed out. “We’ll use you to make masa and tortillas and…oh jeez, sweet cornbread! You’ll be so delicious!”
When she was finished, she checked on Ben.
“Unbelievable,” he rasped. His hair was a sweaty tangle and he was severely dehydrated, but the color was building in his cheeks and it filled her with happiness to hear him speak. “We…really made it.”
Alice laughed, pulling him into a gentle embrace. She told him about the seeds, about her plans to begin work on the garden immediately. If they would have a summer harvest, not even an afternoon could be wasted.
She brought him lunch and carefully cleaned and bandaged his wounds. When he had finished eating, he smiled. It wasn’t much—just one little smile—but it was a start.
“I’m going to sit this one out today, ‘kay hon?” His chuckle terminated in a wince as flares of pain fired through his knitting body.
“Loafer,” she said, grinning at him. She brought him the book he’d taken from Putt’s and refilled his water. “Enjoy it. It was a pretty popular novel in its era.”
The sun broke through at mid-day and scattered the clouds. The day became hot and bright. Alice checked on Ben every hour and spent the remainder of the day getting dirty on the miracle farm, preparing the earth for a summer garden.
~
Two things happened in June: Ben got out of bed and a host of yellow-green shoots erupted in the tins on the windowsill.
~
It was the warmest summer Ben had known since leaving the shelter. Perhaps things were changing. Perhaps all the Earth needed was time.
Or maybe he had changed. Maybe decent weather had always been there, and he’d just been too beleaguered—too hungry and weak to notice it.
Whatever the case, summer finally came to the miracle farm. A garden matured, tenuously at first, before flourishing. They fetched water from the creek throughout the day for the thirsty plants; they kept the rows of produce neat and trim and free from weeds. Late in June, they expanded the plot to accommodate the sprawling squash vines and rows of burly lettuce; they set basket after basket of fresh produce aside in the cool clay of the root cellar.
The ash storms remained a nuisance, but they were happening less frequently, slowing to a pace of only one or two big blows per week. On those days, they covered the garden as best they could with tarps before dusting off the plants and raking the ash out of the soil.
The sun emerged more often in the morning; it showed itself more frequently at dusk. Its reemergence helped them get restful sleep, and they grew strong in this new harmony with the light.
Life—life was happening.
They hunted, and Alice shot a deer near the end of July. They took their care with it, putting every part of the animal to use on the farm. Ben caught stringers of catfish from the creeks that bisected the fields; they were much hardier than the scant few he’d managed to catch in all of his wandering years.
As the garden bore fruit, their cuisine became increasingly complex. They roasted fish and potatoes with Vidalia onions over an evening fire. They made delicious cast-iron ratatouilles and learned how to mill the first small, sweet batches of corn, which they turned into griddlecakes.
The orchards flushed white and pink with blossoms, and the sun and rain nourished the grasses; they shared the waste of their farming operation with the ponies, who gained weight. It wasn’t uncommon for Ben and Alice to now catch them frolicking in the orchard at sunrise, little tendrils of mist tracing up from the earth as the day warmed.
They built a foundry behind the barn, and Ben experimented with making metal casings. He recycled some of the old iron implements in the barn and, after trial and error and the help of a book he’d found in the Winstons’ house, he fashioned a couple of workable bullets.
Life—once again, life was returning.
It seemed that there were more birds in the air that summer. There were more earthworms. There were even more mosquitoes in August.
Ben and Alice grew closer. Theirs was a comfortable way of being—an intimacy founded on mutual respect and a shared sense of purpose. Love, though neither had chanced using the word yet, was happening.
On a warm night in early August, they made love right there in the garden. A clumsy brushing of hands—one small gesture that could have gone any number of ways—resulted in a frantic disrobing. They came together there in the Georgia soil, the sun slinking off into the west in front of a fan of pink and blue clouds, and when they were finished, a strange mood fell over them both. They caught their breath in silence.
A strained, awkward silence.
“What is it, Ben? Is it…are you thinking about her?” Alice said. She rested her cheek on his chest.
“Oh, no,” Ben replied. “How could you ask me that, Alice?”
“Then what is it?” she said. “I can…I can feel it. Something’s not quite right, just occasionally. I just assumed that you were still thinking of Coraline.”
Ben sighed, shaking his head. “I haven’t thought of her in that way in a long time, Alice. That’s the truth. It’s you and only you. You’re the only one I think about now. You’re the only one I care about.”
And it was true. He had put Coral’s picture away—had not turned to it for strength in months. When he thought about her at all, it was with the same sorrow he held for the Beamers and Mr. Brown and the parents he’d never known. They were people in his life
that were no longer there, and nothing more.
“But…?” Alice said.
Ben laughed. “I have to admit, this…well, it’s getting a little weird, Alice. It’s strange how well we understand each other. I have…well, you’re right. Something’s been eating at me.”
“I knew it!” she said, slapping his ribs. “Ben, what is it? What’s going on?”
He told her about the promise he’d made to Arthur. His thoughts, almost daily, now drifted toward Gwen and Lucy and the thin man who had helped him rescue Alice from a terrible fate. “I owe them. I’m just…I’m scared to go back after all that we’ve accomplished this summer. I guess I’m afraid to make good on my promise, and it feels terrible. Those people need our help.”
“You’re not alone. It’s the same way for me. I can’t stop thinking about them. I only knew those girls for a couple of hours, but I can’t stop thinking about where they might be now. I guess…I guess they’re probably with Roan.”
It was a warm night. They lay there, naked and dusty and comfortable and safe, considering the plights of others.
“So what should we do?” Alice finally asked.
He kissed the top of her head. “What if it was us? What if we were out there somewhere, just…just waiting for someone to come and help us?”
“I’d hope that promises would be kept,” Alice immediately replied. She raised her head and looked into his eyes. “I guess that’s our answer.”
“I guess it is.”
After a while they gathered their things and went inside. There were things to do before returning to
Bickley.
TWENTY-SIX
Ben whistled in appreciation. It was quite a feat of engineering, the way she’d rigged it up. Alice had slipped the wheels off one of the kids’ Radio Flyer wagons and replaced them with small, inflatable tires she’d yanked from old farming machinery in the barn. It would cover most of the terrain they’d have to cross without too much exertion. They used bailing wire to build a cage stretching almost to Ben’s shoulders. He could push from behind while Alice pulled on the handle.
They stuffed it with bushels of produce—corn, lettuce and cabbage, snap beans, onions, potatoes, squash, tomatoes, apples (both bags of dried slices and some of the still-sour batch they’d picked early from the orchard), carrots, melons, kale, broccoli and spinach. Ben scrubbed out an old tackle box. He labeled the compartments and filled them with the seeds they’d meticulously collected over the course of the summer.
“They’ll be stunned when they see this,” Ben said. “We just need to be certain that they’re the only ones to see this.”
Ben took the automatic and Alice chose the little handgun that Pinnock had given them. It was reliable and easy to shoot, and she liked the idea of using one of their own weapons against them if they were attacked.
They left at dawn, this time with better bearings. Because they knew the way and the light hung around until almost 9:00, they arrived on the outskirts of Bickley at dusk. They were exhausted and sweaty from wrangling the awkward cart over difficult terrain, but they had made it.
“There,” Ben pointed. The house was dark. It looked dead—an utterly deserted structure.
“Damn. You sure, Ben?”
He nodded. “It doesn’t look promising, I’ll admit. Maybe Roan made good on his promise here. At any rate, we have to try. Can’t come all this way without at least knocking.” He put his shoulder against the cart and they covered the last bit of distance in silence—a slow, dark shape toiling against the indigo backdrop of the coming night.
They squatted in that same copse of saw palmetto, Ben putting the binoculars on the old place. “I’m going to go around back and have a look around. Cover me, but watch your back, Alice. We’ve done this before, hon.”
She wore a rueful smile. “I won’t be caught out like that again, Ben. Let’s just get this over with.”
He took a chaste kiss and sprinted for the house. No gunshots. No lights. No life.
The place was dead.
He slunk up onto the porch and peered into the kitchen, the dim moonlight offering just enough light. The table had been overturned, the chairs upended on the floor. He cursed and went around to the side of the house, a shadow peeking through windows.
Empty.
He climbed the front steps and knocked lightly. The door was unlocked and he slipped inside. The living room had also been torn apart. Shattered porcelain littered the hardwoods. Splintered frames and torn photographs were strewn about the room.
“Arthur?” he called softly. “Hello! Anybody here? Gwen?”
He climbed the stairs, searching for life and finding only disorder. The destruction was complete, and he felt his heart sink as he returned to the kitchen. A picture—a simple pencil illustration on construction paper—was pinned to the old refrigerator with a magnet. It depicted a trio of stick figures. The smallest figure had no eyes.
Lucy was quite the artist, even with her setbacks.
He tried the tap in the sink. Air clunked through the pipes, but no water flowed. He was about to leave when he heard the scraping. It came from the pantry.
He crept over to the pantry door.
“Somebody there?” a voice called out. It was high and reedy, as if it hadn’t been used in ages. “That you, Ben?
“Arthur?” Ben said. “Is that you, Arthur?”
“I’m here,” the man called back. “Is it really you?”
“I’m here, Arthur. I told you I’d come back.”
There was a sudden, high-pitched shriek. He heard a little voice call out, “Ben Stone? Ben with the apples?”
“That’s right, Lucy. Ben with the apples. I’m going to open the door, Arthur. Don’t shoot me, now.”
He slid it open and saw, tucked away in the corner, a tiny trapdoor leading to a crawlspace. A gaunt face popped out of the hole, barely lit by the lamp down below. Arthur, already a scarecrow of a man, had cheekbones like straight razors and deep shadows beneath crazed eyes. He wore his spectacles, though the left lens was missing.
“Oh, thank heavens! Hurry, Ben! It’s my Gwendolyn! She needs help!”
Ben clamored down the ladder. The room had surprising dimensions; he could almost stand tall, though Arthur still had to stoop beneath the floorboards.
“Ben with the apples?” Lucy called again. Her voice was soft and weak. She made no effort to move from Gwen’s side.
Arthur’s wife reclined on a mattress of molding burlap sacks. She was unconscious and, Ben could tell straight away, deathly ill. “How long has she been this way?”
“Fever started a week ago, I suppose. Hard to tell, we’ve been down here so long. She hasn’t…she hasn’t been conscious in at least a day’s time.”
“Dehydration?”
Arthur nodded. “We all are. I haven’t had a drink of water in…in days. Lucy too, I think. We’ve tried to keep Gwen going. We’ve just a tiny bit left. It’s all…”
Ben didn’t let him finish the sentence. He tore up the ladder and out into the yard, where Alice stepped out from behind the brush. “Are they there?”
“Water,” Ben said. “They’re down in the crawlspace, but Gwen’s dying. She doesn’t have much time left. We need to get them some water.”
They had about two gallons. It would have to do. They both went down and Ben poured a measure into a tin cup. He pried Gwen’s mouth open and tipped the contents down her throat.
Her respiration was shallow, her skin like scorched parchment. He poured a little of the water onto her forehead. “Gwen! Listen up, Gwen…we’ve got water here, and we need you to drink some. We’re here with you, Gwen, and we need you to drink up! Can you hear me? Come on now, Gwen…”
He kept talking to her, slipping water down her throat in tiny swallows. After about ten minutes, her eyes fluttered open. Cracked lips worked silently in confusion, her eyes darting about the room. After a moment, the blank expression lifted and she spoke.
“Apples?” she cro
aked. “You brought food?”
Ben smiled, and Arthur knelt, sobbing as he took her hand. Lucy smiled. “They came back, Grandma! I told you they would!”
“Drink up,” Alice said, shouldering Ben aside and assuming the role of caregiver. “You’re severely dehydrated.” She turned and clapped a hand to Arthur’s emaciated shoulder. “This isn’t safe, Arthur. My name is Alice, by the way. I owe you a debt of gratitude for helping my husband rescue me all those months ago.”
They shook hands, Arthur’s tears glistening like quartz shale in the tangles of an old man’s beard.
“Listen—you can’t run that lantern down here. We’ll asphyxiate. How long since you’ve been upstairs?”
“Months,” he croaked. “Haven’t really been up there since just ya’ll left.”
“Come on,” Alice said. She scooped Lucy into her arms. “We’re going up now. You two help Gwen. Lucy and I will go first.”
“But…” Arthur started, but Alice was already on the ladder, her hand on Lucy’s back. They vanished, and Arthur shot Ben a querulous look.
“What can I say? The woman’s decisive. Best just to do what she says.”
As they were helping Gwen up the ladder, she made a remark that hit Ben in the gut. He had to bite his lip to keep the laughter at bay.
“I didn’t know you two were married,” she croaked. “So rare these days.”
“Surprises,” Ben finally responded, letting the slip go. He wore a wry grin. “Every day is just filled with ‘em.”
Gwen nodded and they helped her upstairs. When they had her on the couch, Ben went back for the lantern. He moved quickly from room to room, pulling the shades and the drapes until he’d buttoned the place up as tight as he could. He cracked a few windows in the parlor to vent the place a bit and they extinguished the lamp, opting instead for a couple of candles.
“They need food,” Alice said when thing were secure. They were walking cadavers—even Lucy, who appeared withered in the candlelight.
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