by Tosca Lee
“Yes! I can!”
“But she’d be terrified. And I’m telling you, she doesn’t want to leave.”
I cover my eyes as tears slip down my cheeks. Because I don’t understand. Don’t see how or why Julie would want to stay. I feel betrayed by them both.
“You promise she’s safe,” I say, my voice breaking.
“I promise. What’s more, she’s happy here. And I think you would be, too.”
I chuff a laugh.
“Just . . . come when you can and see for yourself. If you want to leave with Truly then, no one will stop you.”
DAY 192
* * *
Last night they let us into the army base’s bowling alley after hours, where we had the entire facility to ourselves and Chase taught me how to bowl and I had my first—and last—beer.
The night before, it was a Bollywood movie at the community center. Which I might have enjoyed except that I couldn’t stop thinking about Julie. Hoping her sons, whom I grew up playing with, are safe. Worried her health might take a turn for the worse. Wishing I’d insisted on talking to Truly. All reasons I insisted on a weekly phone call until I’m allowed to leave.
“Do you have everything you need?” I asked Dr. Acheson this morning. “Because I can’t keep doing this. I appreciate the movie and the bowling, but I’m going crazy.”
Crazy from the news, crazy from being indoors, even though they change our room every two days. Crazy from wondering why Julie would possibly want to bring her boys to the Enclave, if a bunch of girls Lauren’s age are love bombing her into thinking she’s happy. If I’ll have to rescue Truly again once this is over.
“We do. Though we’d like to keep you close,” Dr. Acheson said. “But I’d definitely say you’ve earned some R and R.”
• • •
TONIGHT AS I step inside the boat, I can smell the salt of the black expanse before us beneath the sickle moon. Can hear the waves on the nearby beach, rolling in like a breath and away like an exhale, as though the ocean were breathing. Can taste the spray as we pull from the dock and head out into open water.
“I love you,” Chase murmurs against my shoulder, wrapping his arms around me.
It’s an hour to the island of Vieques, where the boat drives right up onto the beach. I take off my shoes as Chase gets out, the duffel of our new belongings over his shoulder. He offers me a hand and I climb out, barefoot, just in time for a wave to wash over my toes.
I gasp and then squeal like a kid.
“It’s there,” the lieutenant who drove us here says, pointing to a yellow house with a porch light shining over the front door.
We thank him and Chase gives the boat a push into the water. But all I can think is I’m standing on the edge of the thing I’ve wanted to see my whole life. It’s here. Out there in the inky night.
I linger in wonder long after Chase has fished the key from the envelope in his pocket and taken our things inside. Eventually he returns with two plastic chairs and sets them in the sand, where we sit through the night, and later doze to the sound of the surf.
Chase is asleep when I wake, a blanket similar to the one covering me around his shoulders like a shawl. Gold glows in the eastern sky, gilding the clouds, throwing the palm trees along the cove into stark relief.
Ripples line the sand; the waves that lapped at my toes last night have moved out with the tide. I watch as the water turns from denim to turquoise beneath the rising sun. I wonder how many miles it is to the U.S. mainland from here, to South America, Africa, Europe, and even Russia. This water called the Caribbean Sea doesn’t care where it’s supposed to become the Atlantic but flows against every ocean shore. Connecting all the continents it supposedly separates. Too vast to be understood, too wild to be contained, beautiful and fearsome at once. The waves rolling to that rhythmic breath that seems to say, Be still. Know that I Am.
I spent fifteen years seeking God inside a compound. In rules, locked in a white penitent’s cell. Shunning the wider world as dangerous at best and evil at worst. Which it is—more than I ever imagined. But it is also where I found Noah and Otto, Ashley and Chase in some of its darkest corners.
I can’t stop thinking about what Kestral said.
What’s an island but just one more enclave cut off from the rest of the world?
I’d wanted to shout that it’s a safe place.
But looking out at the ocean now, I realize that every time I ever met God, I was nowhere safe.
DAY 229
* * *
Our last morning in Vieques, we eat breakfast on the beach.
Chase is trying to read the newspaper we picked up in Esperanza. He’s been claiming for days the Spanish he learned while stationed in Honduras is finally coming back to him.
“ ‘U.S. Accuses Russia of Acts of War,’ ” he translates. “ ‘The U.S. has formally accused Russia of war acts including attacks on the United States’ electrical grid, the December attack on the Centers for Disease Control, and the kidnapping and false imprisonment of Colorado State University professor Dr. Ashley Neal in order to obtain stolen samples of the original disease . . .”
He scans down the front and flips to the inside. “ ‘Puerto Rico Ships First Doses of Vaccine as U.K. and Switzerland Ramp Up Production . . . Germany Sends Additional Aid . . .’ Ah, here, way down in the corner of page 3: ‘Wynter Roth, the twenty-two-year-old fugitive—’ ”
“Twenty-three,” I say.
He glances at me. The Puerto Rican sun has turned the sultry cocktail of his Native and African American and Middle Eastern genes a dark bronze.
Meanwhile, it’s taken me nearly two weeks to get a decent tan after I peeled like a lizard.
“Twenty-three? When did this happen?” He blinks.
“In Chicago,” I say, picking at the sweet Mallorca bread left over from my egg and cheese sandwich. “Keep reading.”
He picks up the paper again.
“ ‘The twenty-three-year-old’—” He looks at me, flicking the newspaper. “I should write to the paper and make them correct it. This is just bad journalism. ‘Fugitive wanted for murder in the December 11 death of Jaclyn Theisen has been exonerated as new forensic evidence points to Theisen’s husband, New Earth cult leader Magnus Theisen. In a signed statement before his death, Dr. Ashley Neal testified that the samples were retrieved and delivered to him by a do-gooder who wishes to remain anonymous, hailing that person as a national hero.’ ”
He puts the paper down.
“Wow,” I say.
He turns and pulls me into his arms. “I’m holding a national hero,” he whispers against my ear.
I laugh as he nuzzles my neck and then turns me toward him so he can look at me.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” he says.
“Yes?” I loop my arms around his neck, having expected the question about his reenlisting for days—weeks—now. Especially since he and the Doomsday team have stayed in communication.
“When we get back to the U.S. . . .” His gaze softens. “I want you to marry me.”
I blink, and then laugh. “Oh, really?”
“Don’t you want to? If not right away . . . eventually?” he says, the smile faltering.
“We’ve only known each other six months.”
“And a half. Almost seven. In apocalypse time, that’s like, five years.”
I tuck a tendril of hair behind his ear. I’m going to miss it when he reenlists.
“Practically a lifetime,” I say.
“Lifetimes being in short supply during apocalypses and all.” He looks up and I follow his gaze out toward the water where the boat is coming to ferry us back to the mainland.
“Where are you going to find a preacher?”
“I’m a Marine. I’ll find a preacher.”
“Where are you going to find a ring?” I tilt my head.
He lifts his brows. “I’ve never seen you wear jewelry.”
We never had such things in the Enclave. But
I’ve tried Julie’s on in secret.
“Diamonds look good on me.”
“Well then, I should probably do two things,” he says, reaching over for the duffel as the boat comes to shore. “First, tell you I’m thinking of reenlisting.”
“And the second?”
“Start shopping for rings worthy of a hero.”
“Oorah,” I say with a smile.
DAY 231
* * *
As we pull up the gravel drive I remember so vividly, I lean forward and gape.
The walls are gone. The new guard towers torn down.
Chase stares. “What the . . .”
We pull up to a hand-painted sign in the parking lot.
WELCOME! VISITORS’ CENTER
The sign points to the old administrative building. Or, rather, a new building where the old one used to be.
I get out and look around. The front parking lot, where the Select gathered for my casting out, has been turned into a playground. The barrows have been painted bright colors.
Julie was right—and wrong. Because it isn’t just that a lot’s changed.
The Enclave I remember is no more.
The few fragments of wall left standing support grape and sweet pea vines and vertical gardens.
Another’s been turned into a climbing wall. The girl on it leaps down and comes running toward us.
“Hi,” she says. “Can I help you?”
She’s wearing jeans.
“Um, yes. Thank you,” I say. “I’m looking for Kestral.”
“I’ll get her!” she calls, running off.
I walk up the path toward Percepta Hall, and stare at a signpost with brightly painted boards pointing in different directions.
HUNGRY?
PRAYER CHAPEL (ALL WELCOME!)
VISITORS’ CENTER
SCHOOL
PLAYGROUND
CLINIC
VOLUNTEER
COUNSELING OFFICE
CLOTHING CENTER,
NEED HELP?? ASK ANYONE!
“I take it it wasn’t like this before,” Chase says.
“No,” I say, faintly.
A figure comes running down the path. Kestral, her face tanned, hair caught back in a scarf. Work gloves on her hands.
“You’re here!” she shouts, catching us up in big hugs. “We’ve been waiting for you forever!”
I used to think she was pretty. Angelic, even. But she’s radiant now.
And then—
I let her go and catch my breath at the figure behind her. Practically fall into Julie’s arms.
She’s thinner, her hair grown out its natural gray. But she looks healthy—and more than that, happy.
I follow her and Kestral to the school as Kestral talks about the medical clinic in the new facility. It takes me a moment to realize she means the building Magnus meant to turn into a quarantine for those seeking refuge from the disease.
“We’ll be a licensed vaccination center in the next few weeks,” she says.
“And . . . Magnus?” I say.
“Buried beneath the gravel drive,” she says dispassionately as we reach the school. “Along with his legacy.”
She opens the door to what used to be the Farm—the boys’ dorm.
“Winnie!” Truly shouts, getting up from her desk and running to grab me around the waist. I grab her up, vowing this time I will not let her go. Not again. Not ever. We’re joined by Lauren, who hugs me and then walks with Chase as we follow Kestral to the warehouse.
“The seed bank is the only thing we kept,” Kestral says. “Because I think we’ll need it in the days to come.” She opens the door and we step inside. “Visitors!” she shouts.
They come to greet us, and I’m astonished to see their faces. To recognize so many I knew before—including Ara, who is smiling for the first time I can remember.
“You made it!” a male voice says. I look over Lauren’s head to see Mel shaking Chase’s hand, and Zach waiting his turn.
But there’s one who simply won’t wait. He comes charging through the crowd from the direction of the office, an exuberant streak of white and brown that leaps at Chase.
“Buddy!” Chase laughs and grabs him up into his arms as he did the night we found him.
“Come!” Kestral says, taking me by the arm. “Come see, and then we’ll go eat.”
We walk from building to building—each of them so changed as to be unrecognizable. Except for Percepta Hall with its steeple, which is now a prayer chapel with unlocked meditation rooms below and a new chaplain. When Kestral takes me inside to her office, I stop in shock.
“Reverend Carolyn!” I say, before rushing to hug her.
“I went on a pilgrimage when I left the silo,” she says. “It was a long, convoluted adventure.”
I want to say: Aren’t they all?
“But the long and short of it is that it led me here.” She smiles, and it’s like she’s a new person.
“Hey, do you by chance do weddings?” I hear Chase ask as I continue the tour.
• • •
KESTRAL EXPLAINS THAT parcel next to this one.
“We have a brand-new building going up there, a new model for community living,” she says. “With better space efficiency to accommodate more people. And more jobs. And look,” she says, gesturing inside the storehouse where Jaclyn once slipped me a note to trust her. “The storehouse is nearly empty.”
“What are you going to do?” I say. I’ve seen at least three hundred people more than the five hundred who lived in the Enclave before.
“No, you don’t understand,” she says, beaming. “That’s the goal. We want our shelves to be empty. We want our walls removed. We don’t defend—we welcome and accept. We have nothing for anyone to steal, because we give it freely.” Her eyes shine. “We don’t hide here—we work here for the means to go out and feed others.”
My expression crumples. I swipe at my eyes, vision blurring as I take in the empty shelves, adding the image to my collection of beautiful things.
Noah’s wall.
Otto’s drawings.
Chase’s smile.
The wide blue sea.
Beauty to inspire new beginnings. A new start.
A new Earth.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
During the final edits for this book, a “bomb cyclone” hit my home state of Nebraska, delivering devastating blizzards to the west and water to the east. Seventy-nine thousand miles of waterways swelled in what would become the most widespread destruction in our state’s history. As the National Guard rolled in, Black Hawk helicopters flew rescue missions, and the town closest to our farm ran out of fuel, I was filled with eerie déjà vu, having included similar scenes in The Line Between.
As I write these acknowledgments, many of our roadways and bridges remain unusable, if not washed out altogether. Ranchers, farmers, and entire communities throughout the Midwest are still reeling in the aftermath of the blizzard, ice dams, and floods that cost some their livelihoods, many their homes, and a few their lives.
Thank you to the first responders, volunteers, and everyone who have donated their time, funds, skills, supplies, and simple elbow grease to those here in need. As the daughter of a native Nebraskan and great-great-great granddaughter of one of Nebraska’s first women homesteaders (a widow with four children, no less!), I can attest we are a resilient people who value hard work and we take care of our neighbors. Thank you to the neighbors here, and in other states, who have taken care of us during these weeks and months.
Please continue to keep Nebraska—and the entire Midwest—in your prayers.
Meanwhile, thank you, as always, to my readers for going on yet another adventure with me. (Given the weird real-life stuff that has ensued since writing this book—and the influenza A I got while writing the first one in the series—not to mention the fact that I learned while writing The Progeny that I was distantly related to Elizabeth Bathory . . . I take it you won’t
mind if I pause to write a story about a novelist who wins the lottery??) Thank you to my amazing launch team for not only helping to release this story into the wild, but also making it far more fun.
Thank you to Marine veterans Craig Conger and Bill Dieckman for your time, patience with my questions, and thoughtful answers—and most of all, for your service.
Special shout-out to Carolyn M. Richel, MS Ed, after whom Reverend Richel is named in this story. Thank you, Carolyn, for your generosity through Compassion Connect, and for the special and important work you do in hospice.
Jennifer Jackson, thank you for reading an early draft of this story and for being an advocate of books and authors like me—as a bookseller and a librarian. Thank you to all the booksellers and librarians who help readers connect with new books, authors, and their next great adventure.
Thank you to the indispensible Cindy Conger and Stephen Parolini, my publicist Mickey Mikkelson, agent Dan Raines, and the entire team at Simon & Schuster. Thank you, Michael Napoliello, Maria Frisk, and Ted Fields of Radar Pictures, and Aaron Lubin and Ed Burns of Marlboro Road Gang Productions, for being such fabulous partners and having great taste in stories.
Thank you to my growing family, which I am so blessed to have more of today than ever. And to my boys—Kayl, Gage, and Kole—for being so understanding of my weird hours and the Cool Ranch nachos that disappear during the night. I might have lied when I said I didn’t know what happened to them . . . all five times.
Thank you, Bryan, for the great gift of your love, gentleness, humor, wisdom, and imagination. I’ve struggled to put into adequate words how much I love you, and have finally concluded I’m not that good of a writer. But it won’t stop me from making cheesy attempts in public, and earnest ones in private.
Thank you, first and last of all, to the Ultimate Author. Yes.
You were right.
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