Agnes at the End of the World

by Kelly McWilliams

  The prayer space pressed against Agnes’s ribs like a balloon of heat, expanding in every direction. Sweat dripped down her nose. She’d never felt so oppressed. She hated this low-ceilinged room, the dark, the damp. She’d only ever wanted sky, and freedom, and Zeke—

  “Oh, Agnes,” gasped Beth. “Look.”

  At first the little huddled bodies looked the same as all the others. More red arms and legs, bowed heads, blank eyes. But two twined very tightly, not an inch of space between them, and a third bent halfway over them—as if protecting, sheltering.

  She recognized that third body’s shoes. They were scuffed brown leather.

  They were Sam’s.

  The kids.

  Their small bodies trembled like leaves on the outer branches of a great tree. Agnes covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Sam tried to protect them.” Beth knelt, tucking her prairie skirt beneath her. “Even while he was sick.”

  Before Agnes could stop her, Beth had wrapped her arms around the three petrified children, encircling them.

  Her mind flashed to their trailer, remembering how she’d taught the twins to braid their hair; how she’d teased Sam for scuffing his shoes; how joyous it was when the breadsticks were finally baked. Small moments of happiness, winking like fireflies in their dark, difficult lives.

  Now the prayer space swirled inside her like a living thing. She’d never experienced it like this before: as something separate, alien. But the prayer space had always been alien. A temporary gift.

  God was about to speak.

  Anxiety seized her. What if she fainted before she had a chance to rescue her family?

  “What do I do?” she cried out. “How do I save them?”

  Agnes, the voice thundered. A kiss.

  Yes.

  “Beth, close your eyes.”

  Her sister ducked her head against her arm. Then Agnes pressed her lips to Sam’s hard, bristling cheek. She kissed him as she’d done a million times, pouring into him all her love, her hope, her heat.

  Breathing out.

  The prayer space left her body in a rush. Her kiss grew into a spectral wind, a shimmering heat wave. For the first time, she could see her power.

  She heard her mother’s record:

  ’Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear, and Grace my fears relieved…

  The prayer space whirled chaotically around the room, weaving and caressing the gem-hard skins locked in their Nested embrace.

  How precious did that Grace appear, the hour I first believed…

  Agnes wept, watching the prayer space leave her, feeling both awestruck and bereft.

  In the bunker, the Nest vibrated faster, harder. She heard teeth and bones rattling, felt the ground quaking beneath her shoes. Beside her, a face she didn’t recognize dripped like overheated glass.

  “Beth,” she gasped. “Don’t look.”

  Skins distorted, twisted, and fell like masks, shattering on the earthen floor. People came apart and slid away from one another, shedding gemstone skins. The hanging bulb blazed brightly, picking up the electric heat. Then it broke from its chain and fell. Agnes held tightly to her family.

  The bunker had become a crucible.

  Beth screamed.

  “Keep your eyes shut!”

  It seemed to go on forever, the chaos of cracking, breaking, melting.

  She lifted her head and saw the hot, shimmering wind hovering between Nest and ceiling. Then it swept gracefully up the stairs, twirling in elaborate eddies, up and out into the day.

  Into the world.

  “Thank you,” she whispered to the prayer space, that force that had guided her, protected her, sustained her. “Goodbye.”

  It would keep going, she knew, until every Nest on earth had felt its kiss. She closed her eyes, imagining the millions of infected people and animals that dotted the world. The prayer space would race across the earth’s surface like wildfire, burning away the scars of infection, preparing the land to be reshaped into something new, something better.

  That was her prophecy: The world could be better.

  Agnes felt tired. So tired.

  She was almost glad when she finally felt herself slipping away.

  A month ago, she and Zeke had escaped from their dying home star like two shards of wayward light. It was only fitting she’d returned for a miraculous blaze, before an endless dark.

  She opened her eyes one final time.

  In the sunset of the dissolving Nest, she saw God.

  Not heard, or sensed, or guessed—but saw.

  Every mystery was laid bare: the reason for the Virus; the Prophet’s evil; the reason, even, for those sweet slender moments of love. It was all part of the same story, the same universal fabric, twinkling with human stories like stars.

  Beautiful. You’re so beautiful.

  She held on to Beth and the kids as long as she could, drinking deeply of her faith. Finally, calm settled on her mind like a snowdrift, blessedly cool.

  “Agnes?” Beth howled. “Agnes?”

  But she didn’t hear.

  For Agnes, at last, a loving silence and amazing grace.

  61

  BETH

  What will we remember, when the red dream is done? What lessons will we take away?

  —AGNES, EARLY WRITINGS

  Beth was packing up the last of her personal items: hairbrush, toothbrush, the clothes Jazz had given her for the trip.

  Sexy Outsider clothes, which Beth hoped might one day show off her tattoo.

  She was finally leaving town, for good.

  She’d carefully chosen her going-away outfit: a bohemian headband, multicolored; a red tank top; denim shorts; and flip-flops. She loved feeling the air on her toes. Loved makeup, too. Mascara, eyeliner, blush. Jazz had taught her how to play with color and shadow.

  The twins, both wearing T-shirts and jeans, wanted to help her pack. But every time she set them on a task, they wound up fiddling with their Nintendos.

  Beth wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to return home. The radio reported that the mail service continued to struggle and that trains, planes, and buses would be out of operation for years. If she wanted to go far, she must plan to be gone a long time.

  And she did want to go far. She and Cory had it all mapped out. They’d drive clear across the country, stopping anywhere that struck their fancy.

  Zipping up her bag, excitement pulsed in her belly.

  To finally see the world beyond Red Creek…

  But of course, it wasn’t called Red Creek anymore. These days, the land was known as Benny’s Hollow. Ezekiel had submitted his idea for a name, as did many others, for a vote. Benny’s Hollow won in a landslide. People had no idea they were naming their town after a lazy orange cat.

  Many Outsiders had wanted to name the town after Agnes, but the Captain decided that would lead to too many questions. People would want to hear the story of a town named after a teenaged girl, and for now, that story remained their secret.

  Agnes in the bunker was something you whispered about. A legend, a myth.

  “Beth!” Cory called from the porch. “Aren’t you ready yet?”

  Flustered, she kissed the heads of the twins.

  “Can’t we come with you?” Mary begged. “We want to have an adventure, too!”

  “You’ve still got school, remember? Cory! Help me find Sam. Then I’m ready to go.”

  “I never can find that kid,” Cory said irritably, twirling his keys on the porch. “He’s got ants in his pants.”

  “Bees today, actually.” Danny appeared on their doorstep, hanging on to the collar of one very grumpy-looking preteen boy. In the last two years, Sam had shot up like a beanstalk. Now swelling marred his bottom lip.

  Beth rushed to the door. “What happened?”

  “Got stung by one of Mr. Mullen’s honeybees. Jazz brought him into the clinic.”

  Beth kissed the sulking boy’s cheek, ignoring his protests.

  Then she hugge
d Danny tightly around the neck. “It’s so good to see you.”

  Danny spent every waking hour helping his mother treat patients in what used to be the midwife’s hut. They’d transformed that old shack into a full-fledged medical facility with floors, beds, electric lighting.

  “You’re too thin.” Beth pinched his wrist. “I thought we were all supposed to fatten up.”

  Danny smiled tiredly. “Trust me. I am trying.”

  Cory snorted. “That’s true. I’ve seen what this guy can put away.”

  For months after the strange events in the bunker, life at Benny’s Hollow had teetered on the edge of disaster.

  There simply wasn’t enough to eat.

  Outsiders foraged in convenience stores, while others, like Cory and Beth, ground acorns into grain and tilled the meadows into arable land. Fearing for their lives, they’d worked their hands to the bone.

  Then, in early spring, the fields turned fertile, and life mellowed. Transplanted apple trees, just now beginning to bud, lined the church road. Soon, farmers expected harvests of snap peas and corn.

  Jazz claimed to have predicted it all. She’d hatched a truly magnificent crop of monarch butterflies that very spring.

  Around the same time, life improved on the Outside. Cell service revived, and as soon as the social networking sites reappeared, Danny sent out a flurry of messages announcing that Benny’s Hollow, a thriving safe haven, would welcome all peaceful migrants in search of home.

  That, he said, fulfilled Agnes’s great dream: to see the gates of Red Creek flung open.

  At first, no one came. Beth had watched disappointment etch crow’s-feet around Danny’s eyes. He wanted people to see the new world he’d helped make. He wanted it to grow. Even in the early days, when they’d lingered on the verge of starvation, he’d always envisioned Benny’s Hollow becoming a thriving desert city.

  In those days, Beth had felt sick with anxiety and a tortured hope, too. But it wasn’t the Hollow’s long-term sustainability she’d been thinking of.

  It was the children.

  Of all the faithful in the bunker, only the kids had survived. No one knew why the adults had perished while the children had opened their eyes and woken up. The Kings, the Hearns, the little Jamesons, even Magda had made it out, alongside Sam and the twins. Yet their parents had died—every last one. Beth would never forget how they’d simply melted, like overheated glass.

  She’d never been able to identify her own parents’ bodies. Anyway, there’d been no time for funerals, and no time for grieving. All those orphans had needed caring for. The night air had resounded with the wails of kids who’d lost the only life they’d ever known. They’d begged for the patriarchs, for Laws to follow, for their moms and dads.

  A nightmare. Beth didn’t like to think about it.

  Instead, she preferred to remember the first few new families to trickle into their safe haven after Danny sent out his messages. The Ventimiglias had brought five dairy cows; the Rosensteins had set up their new electrical grid; the Mullens were experts in high-desert farming; and the Boises were a family of veteran schoolteachers, perfect for a community with so many children in need of educating.

  Now the town flourished, four hundred strong and growing.

  “Did you catch the report today?” Danny lowered his voice so the kids couldn’t overhear. “Six hundred days after, and there hasn’t been a single reported new infection. Not since…”

  He didn’t have to finish. There had been no new infections since the day Beth and Agnes went down into the bunker. Not one.

  People claimed that on that day, newly infected people—children and adults alike—became miraculously well. All over the world, fevers cooled. The sick sat up in their deathbeds.

  Stranger yet, within a week of Agnes and Beth’s descent, many of the Nested revived—unfreezing like in a fairy tale.

  Those were the lucky ones.

  Millions remained petrified, huddled in red-marbled Nests. Those Nests would be their resting places forever: The Burn Squads were decommissioned, and people could be imprisoned for harming any human Nest.

  They will stand as memorials to the Red Time, a lady politician had announced over the radio. We must never forget the many we lost, and how lucky we are to have survived.

  Beth turned to Danny. “When do you think they’ll realize it’s finally over?”

  “Oh, it will never be over,” he said. “We came pretty close to extinction. We’re still close. Most places don’t have any bird population left, and that wreaks havoc on the insect world, which wreaks havoc on—”

  Cory held up his hand. “Save us the science lesson, doc. We’ve got to hit the road.”

  Beth gazed out the window at their meadow, where a handful of children played tag. It boggled her mind that with all the science in the world, no one really understood how such a strange Virus had come into existence, or why so many were suddenly cured.

  “Maybe we ought to tell someone, sometime,” she wondered aloud. “Maybe someone should know who was responsible.”

  Danny looked pained. “Not yet. What if the world isn’t ready to hear it?”

  They all fell silent.

  They still grappled with what they’d witnessed at the bunker. Miracles will do that—shatter a person, changing the way they see. Beth thought they’d wrestle with what they’d seen Agnes do, from their own distinct perspectives, for the rest of their lives.

  She changed the subject. “Zeke.” She loved calling him that. “Is he in church?”

  Danny nodded. “You bet. Getting ready for Sunday. The Lord’s day, or what have you.”

  “After all that’s happened, you’re still not a believer?” Beth asked, smiling.

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

  Cory smacked his forehead in mock astonishment. “You must’ve put in a thousand hours helping us build a new church.” He paused, growing more serious. “The things we do for love.”

  Danny shrugged. “The church makes people happy. That’s what matters.” He peered at Beth. “You’re planning on saying goodbye before you leave, right?”

  She bristled. “Of course.”

  Cory took her hand. “We’d better hurry. I want to know what Texas looks like by this time tomorrow.”

  Beth glanced back. Sam was crushing a bag of chips, and the twins were lost in their electronic games. So much had changed—and so little.

  “Goodbye, everyone,” she called. “Wish me luck.”

  The twins rushed her for one last hug. “Goodbye, Cory! Goodbye, Beth! Send presents!”

  Wiping away tears, she let Cory help her into the truck.

  It was time to go to church.

  62

  BETH

  Sorrow can also be rich soil for those brave enough to plant there.

  —AGNES, EARLY WRITINGS

  Beth was dreadfully nervous, entering the church.

  Even now that it had been rebuilt, renewed, she never went inside. Watching Cory nearly die had ruined churches for her forever.

  If that weren’t enough, there was what the Prophet had done.

  The day the Nest melted, she’d hurried the stunned children up the bunker stairs, planning to shelter them in the church building. By the time she emerged, smoke curled in the distance, and Cory was sprinting towards them.

  The Prophet had immolated himself at his pulpit. The fire quickly consumed the walls, the ceiling, the spire. The flames painted an image of ruination and despair she’d never forget.

  She held tightly to Cory’s hand. “I feel like I’m forgetting something.”

  “Relax,” he soothed her. “It’s only nerves.”

  Beth looked around her, taking in every change. Dozens of windows let in the light, and no ominous cross dangled. The rescued kids had decorated the walls with murals: images of Agnes and Beth glowing in the heart of the bunker, or images of their parents, the homes they’d lost. And books—so many books!—crowded the lobby, Outsider volumes
on every subject, painstakingly collected into a small but growing library.

  And there at the pulpit, chewing on the end of a pencil, was Agnes.

  Beth’s heart swelled with pride.

  Her sister wore her hair in its customary braid, woven with her scarlet ribbon. But she’d swapped out her prairie dress for jeans and a white T-shirt, her boots for white sneakers.

  Agnes acted as the Hollow’s unofficial preacher. Though Beth didn’t attend services, she read all her sermons in the newsletter. Every week, the words amazed her. Outsiders and Red Creek veterans all left the church full of excitement, full of song.

  Benny napped in a shaft of sunlight while Zeke bustled around the pews, putting out hymnals. He wore a continuous glucose monitor affixed to his arm now, reading his blood every minute of the day. When Beth first saw his blood glucose numbers appear on Agnes’s phone, she wept. With the help of Outsider technology, his life was a thousand times safer than in the Prophet’s Red Creek. And Zeke loved it, because he didn’t have to stick his finger to check his levels anymore.

  When Agnes wanted to be alone with her work, she asked Max to take Zeke out to play. The Outsider boy had been teaching him and the other kids to play soccer.

  “How’s this week’s sermon coming?” Cory called into the sunny silence.

  Startled, Agnes dropped her pencil. She grinned when she saw him.

  “It’s called ‘The Blessings of Imperfect Faith,’ Cory Jameson, and it’s going very slowly, if you must know.”

  Her eyes found Beth’s and her expression changed. She hopped down from the dais, nimble in her jeans.

  They faced each other uncertainly. Agnes knew Beth didn’t like to be in the church. Too many memories. She also knew Beth was leaving—probably forever.

  Agnes pulled her into a warm embrace. She smelled like the inside of a Bible—where her nose was often buried—and bright sunshine.

  “I worried you wouldn’t say goodbye,” Agnes scolded. “I thought you might slink off.”

  Beth frowned. “Are you sure you don’t still need me here? I worry I’m letting you down, by leaving.”