Melt (Book 8): Hold

by Pike, JJ

  “Not my problem,” said Aggie.

  “If someone said they were going to kill your mom if you didn’t do something, I think you’d do it.”

  Chloe was probably right, but Aggie didn’t want to free them. She wanted to think about it. She walked on, tracking away from the house so they wouldn’t know where she was going, before tracking back again. They shouted after her for a good ten minutes, but she didn’t listen. Instead she imagined what it would be like to live in a village where you were afraid for your life.

  The map was remarkably detailed. It didn’t look like the workings of a deranged mind. Alice had drawn the footprint of the cabin, the location of their barns, a couple of little broccoli heads to denote where the hydroponic farm had once lived. The big X—buried treasure, no kidding—was beyond the bear barrel, to the south of the house. She’d even drawn little footprints to show how many steps Aggie was supposed to take.

  Reggie sniffed around the charred beams of what had been their house. Aggie didn’t want him in there, just in case there were holes or jaggedy bits that could harm him, but she didn’t have anything to tether him with. She propped her rifle by a tree and counted off the steps.

  There was nothing special about the piece of ground where she was standing. She didn’t recall either of her parents being there, looking at it, talking about hiding anything. YET ANOTHER secret her dad had kept from her.

  She hadn’t thought to bring a shovel or a spade, but there would be something she could use in their old barn. Reggie ran ahead. He was a good boy. He stood by the barn door, barking. She was getting used to his doggie serenades.

  The door was open. Damn Hannah and Chloe. She’d known they’d been down in their cellar, but it bugged her that they’d come back and gone through everything again.

  She found a spade soon enough and went back to her “treasure” hunt. She had to count her steps from the bear barrel again to be certain she was digging in the right place.

  The one thing Mom hadn’t indicated on the map was how deep she was supposed to dig.

  They weren’t going to be stupid about it. If they had buried silver they wouldn’t want it to be someplace where anyone could stumble onto it. It was going to be at least a foot down.

  After she’d dug a foot Aggie decided she might as well keep on digging. Michael had dug Fran a grave that was six feet deep. Surely she wouldn’t have to go that far.

  Reggie’s bark started up. Aggie wiped her forehead on her sleeve and went for her gun. That wasn’t his happy sound. That was an alert.

  The dog that came at them was massive. Like, mountain lion or bigger. Possibly the biggest dog she’d ever seen in her whole life.

  “KC! Off!” There was a human, calling from the trees.

  Before the human arrived Aggie was flooded with dogs of all shapes and sizes, knocking her to the ground.

  “Sorry about that.” The woman placed her handheld cooler on the ground, away from the lovefest that had enveloped Aggie, and shoved her hand into the massive, writhing pile of fur. “They’re overly-enthusiastic.” She helped Aggie get to her feet. “My name is Barb. I’m looking for Alice Everlee. She gave me her card. Wrote her address on the back and said I should come and find her after we got off Manhattan. Any idea where I might find her?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Alice had no idea how she made it to the salt mines. She and Bill had only been out there once. He’d been obsessed with mines as long as she’d known him. His dad had been a mine inspector, but it went deeper than that. He didn’t only enjoy the bits you got to see on the tour: The stalagmites and stalactites and underground rivers and embedded crystals. He liked the cool, dark silence of the place. The lack of people. The certainty that no one could reach you. He liked the isolation, the calm, the otherworldliness. That this should be their home made sense.

  What didn’t make sense was that her children were in mortal danger.

  The gates to the mine complex were locked. That meant they’d found another way in. If they’d locked them from the inside they’d have been on the lookout for her.

  It took almost as long to find the side entrance as it had to get there. Her brains were addled and her anxiety off the charts. She knew not to scream and draw attention to herself. There could be people in the woods, looking for a place to hole up, but she was close to shutting down by the time she was inside.

  Mimi was in the first chamber, chatting to Bryony. “Oh, good. You’re here.” She didn’t elaborate. She pointed to her left.

  Alice ran.

  There were voices up ahead. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure the place was habitable. There were garden lights—the kind that run on batteries and don’t require wiring—along the floor, showing her the way.

  She stumbled on Midge’s room first. Bill was there, holding their daughter’s hand. She was sitting up on a small palette, looking very pleased with herself.

  “Midge?” Alice fell to her knees.

  “Mommy! Everyone is calling me Margaret now.” She didn’t sound blind. Alice caught herself. How do you “sound” blind? She didn’t sound scared or altered or anything other than her lovely self. Of all her children, Midge had escaped Alice’s madness. She was an innocent.

  Alice took her hand and kissed it. “Margaret. I’m so happy to see you.”

  “Me, too.” Margaret took her mother’s hand and kissed it back. “I wasn’t sure you’d come. Daddy said your work is even more important now.”

  The words were like daggers to her heart. Her little girl hadn’t been sure her mother would come to find her when the world was falling down around her ears.

  “I can’t see you, Mommy.”

  Alice waited. She didn’t know what to say. None of her reading had prepared her for her daughter going blind.

  “But I can smell you.” Margaret laughed. “You don’t smell good, Mommy. You smell like you’ve been wearing the same clothes for a long time. And a bit like dogs.”

  Midge had her father’s sense of humor. It was endlessly charming.

  Bill laughed. “She’s right. You smell like wet dog on a summer’s day, after a roll in the grass and a dip in the fairy pools.” He was doing it for Margaret.

  Alice didn’t know how to engage in this way. It wasn’t quite the same as Paul and Petra’s secret language, but it was close. She didn’t have their ease or playfulness. It had been beaten out of her long ago and she’d never found her way back to that place.

  “I wanted to take a shower, Margaret, but the water has been off and I’ve been busy.”

  “There’s a bathroom here,” said Margaret. “Daddy says you can take a stand-up bath.” She leaned forward and whispered. “That’s not a bath. That’s a wash. It means you can have a wash.” She lay back on her bed. “But he’s going to build us a bath and a shower as soon as we’re settled. Aren’t you, Daddy?”

  Bill nodded. “Your wish, as ever, Queen Margaret, is my command.”

  “Then hear me and heed my words…”

  Alice was spellbound. It was exactly as she’d imagined. Midge and Bill had the perfect relationship, built as it was around shared books and jokes and meals. She’d been so busy trying to protect her children from the bad in her, she’d missed the good in them. She wanted to lie on the ground and cry until all the tears that lived inside her were spent.

  “…I would have you keep Mommy close by.”

  It kept getting worse. Alice thought she’d borne all that she could bear, but there was more.

  Bill was looking right at her, his eyes full of tears.

  “How’s Paul? Where’s Paul?” she said.

  “He’s resting,” said Bill. “They sewed him back up. Their biggest worry now is infection.”

  “Go and see Paul, Mommy, but come back. He’s asleep and I’m awake and I want to talk to you.”

  Alice had her orders.

  Bill told her how to get to the sickbay but Alice got lost several times. She was shaking so hard by the t
ime she got there she had to lean against the wall for a minute to get herself right with the world.

  Paul was on a camp bed by the wall. There was a man sitting at the head of the bed. She’d never met him. He had to be the doctor Aggie had mentioned.

  “I’m Paul’s mother.” She held out her hand.

  The doctor didn’t shake it. “I’m Nigel. Your son is very lucky, Mrs. Everlee. He had a cardiac episode but we were able to resuscitate him. You have Hedwig to thank for that. If she hadn’t brought the supplies with her in the van I don’t think he would have made it.”

  Alice had seen Hedwig. Once. But she owed her everything. Paul was alive because of the thoughtfulness and preparedness of strangers.

  “I’m going to ask you not to touch him.” Nigel was kind but firm.

  He was talking to her as if she was a child. Was it that obvious? Did she look like she was freaking out? She should look that way. For once she was allowed to let what was happening on the inside match what other people saw on the outside. Her daughter was blind and her son had died and been brought back to life. This was possibly the first and only time she felt she was allowed to be what Petra called emo.

  “He’s on antibiotics, so we’re hopeful. You have your daughter to thank for that. Well, I had a little to do with it, but mostly you have Aggie to thank for your stash of meds.”

  “And Hedwig.” There was another man the other side of the cave. He laughed as he said Hedwig’s name. She hadn’t seen him lurking in the dark. “I’m Doctor Handel. Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Everlee. You have an extraordinary family. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “That’s all Bill’s doing,” she said. “He made them what they are.”

  “He did a damned fine job.”

  She wasn’t allowed to touch Paul even though he was pale as death. “When will he wake up?”

  Nigel shrugged. “When he’s ready.”

  “Will you come and get me the second he does?”

  Nigel nodded. “It’s not like there’s far to go. We’ll holler. You’ll hear us.”

  Alice sent her son a chunk of her heart. They’d said nothing about him being infected with MELT. Only that he was on antibiotics and they hoped he’d wake up soon. Please, dear God, I will do anything to keep my children safe.

  Bill was waiting for her in the corridor. She knew he had to be in excruciating pain, but she longed to lean on him and feel how solid and real he was. He’d always grounded her. She needed him now more than ever.

  “Can we talk?” He led her away from Midge’s room.

  “Of course we can. We can do whatever you want us to do.”

  “I have something I have to tell you.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  Petra rounded the corner. “Mom!” She burst into tears and threw herself at her mother. “Have you seen Paul? Isn’t it terrible?” She sobbed so hard both their bodies shook. “But he’s alive. And Midge, Margaret, is alive.” Her sobs subsided into hiccups which took a few minutes to get under control, but which also allowed them all to laugh as if this was life and normal and nothing terrible was hanging over them. “We made it. We made it because of you. Both of you. I know I’m a pain and I say too much and feel too much and want too much and just get on everyone’s nerves, but I mean it, I love you so much I can hardly bear it. Thank you for everything. We’re weird. I get that. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re the best. We’re the Everlees.”

  “Petra?” Bill unwound his daughter’s arm from around her mother’s neck. “Show me your hand.”

  Petra held out both her hands. On the back of her right hand was a bump the size of a silver dollar.

  Alice stared, unblinking. This is what it was like. She thought she’d experienced hell, but that was nothing compared to seeing her children suffer.

  “How long have you had this?” Bill’s voice was even. Nothing like the loopy man who’d been in the car with her or the basket case who’d lost it when they found Fran. This was her husband of 20 years: Kind, thoughtful, always managing the situation for the best outcome. He’d know what to do. Because Alice surely didn’t.

  “I don’t know.” Petra stared at the bump like it was an alien who’d just landed on her and evoked only curiosity. She wasn’t flailing about and screaming the way Petra normally did. “About a day, I guess. Is it the thing?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s get Nigel out here and see what he thinks.”

  Alice found she couldn’t move. It wasn’t only that her legs didn’t work, but that she didn’t want them to work. She wanted time to stop. Whatever came next was going to cause her to become a million miniature bats who flitted to the ceiling and stayed there, upside down and eating spiders forever. It would be better, wouldn’t it, than being Alice Everlee at this moment. Petra was ill with the sickness because of her.

  Nigel didn’t touch Petra’s hand. Not to begin with. He got a headlamp and a swab stick and he poked it from afar. “Looks like a blister. Do you have any allergies?”

  “No.”

  “Been near any poisonous plants recently?”

  “Probably.”

  “We can’t culture it. Could have been brought on by a whole host of things. We’ll put some antibiotic ointment on it, bandage it, watch and wait.”

  “But it’s not the plague?” Petra said it first, but they were all thinking the same thing.

  “I haven’t seen any lesions that presented like blisters.”

  “It’s not from MELT?” Bill whooped. He was beside himself.

  Quite right. They should all be happy. Alice forced a smile. She hadn’t come down of her adrenaline-panic high.

  “I don’t want you near Paul, in case it’s something contagious, but if you’d like to follow me to the hospital, I’ll tend to your blister.” Nigel was jaunty, jokey even.

  Alice and Bill watched Petra walk away. She turned right as she reached the bend in the corridor and blew them kisses.

  When Alice turned back to Bill he was deadly serious. She rarely saw this side of him. None of them did. He was Dad of the Year every year because he was so freaking amazing. He kept it together, did what was right, made their children feel safe. He was everything. She had to break her silence and let him know what had been weighing on her. Now, more than ever, he had to know.

  “I have to tell you…”

  “No,” said Alice. “I have to tell you. It’s been eating me alive. I can’t keep it in. You might hate me and I won’t blame you if you do, but that just underlined the importance of you knowing this.”

  “Okay.” He waited, half smiling, half frowning.

  Her beloved husband was looking at her with a mix of admiration and confusion. She couldn’t let him hang in suspense. She had to come out and say it. “Steven McKan may be the twins’ biological father.”

  Bill snorted with laughter.

  Alice waited.

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I only want you to know in case something happens to me. Professor Baxter believes some of us may have some built in immunity. We’re both immune. What we’ve been through proves that. But if Paul and Petra aren’t related to you, they might be susceptible.”

  “It’s not true.”

  “I hope not,” said Alice, “but we have no way of knowing.”

  “You slept with Steven McKan?”

  “Once.”

  “But he’s a stuffed shirt. A pompous ass. A self-important bag of hot air who likes the sound of his own voice.”

  “It was a mistake. I was mad at you. I was drunk.” She stopped herself. “I make no excuses. I was wrong. I didn’t mean to do it, but I did it. I’m sorry.”

  “He’s not their father, I am.” Bill was hardening, the smile disappearing from around his eyes.

  Alice hung her head. She didn’t want to press the point. She didn’t want it to be true. She thought she’d feel some relief, but none was forthcoming.

  “I need a minute.” Bill walked away.

&nb
sp; She couldn’t stop him. Shouldn’t stop him. He had every right to be disgusted with her. She wandered to the wall and slid to the floor.

  Bill asked Nigel for some more painkillers, checked on Paul, chatted with Petra, walked past her without comment and visited with Midge for a while. Their laughter filled the caves. It only made everything ten times worse. He was managing in ways she never could. She’d dumped the worst news on his doorstep and he’d gone right back to being a dad.

  Mimi and Bryony dropped by with Mouse, the dog. They were going to get some food, they said, and would she like some? Alice needed water, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask for anything. She had to sit and wait for Bill to want to come back to her. She didn’t expect him to forgive her, but she needed him to know how sorry she was. She’d messed everything up. Again.

  She stayed by the wall for an hour. Maybe more. Her backside went to sleep, her arms grew cold, her head was pounding. She didn’t deserve painkillers. She deserved exactly what she was getting. The cold shoulder. No, that wasn’t right. She deserved much worse. She’d married a man without telling him he might not be the father of her unborn children. She’d been so in love she hadn’t allowed it to enter her calculus. She’d told herself he was the father and all would be well. If MELT hadn’t burrowed into human skin and made people deathly ill she might never have told him.

  Which might be another layer of hell she had to investigate. They’d put such a premium on telling the truth but she’d had this lie sitting on her heart all this time.

  Bill’s footsteps echoed off the walls around her and she struggled to stand.

  “Let’s go outside,” he said.

  Alice followed him in silence. She had to take whatever he said. On the chin. Because she loved him and had hurt him and deserved whatever came next.

  The sun was setting and the air was cool. Bill took a moment to water Indie before returning to her side. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Okay.”

  He kicked the dirt with the toe of his shoe.