by David Arnold
She smiled a little, took a bite so she wouldn’t have to say anything.
“Nico.” He set down his fork and knife. “Listen—”
“Can this wait?” Whatever conversation was about to happen—whether it involved the packed bag by the door, or the fact that her father was showing the same early symptoms of whatever illness had killed her mother—Nico needed the night air, the woods, the calming presence of the Bell at her back. “The attic deck,” she said. “After we clean up. I’ll make tea.”
That small smile again. “The way I like it?”
The way he liked it was with four Sweet’N Lows.
“I wasn’t aware there was any other way,” she said.
After dinner Nico hauled buckets of water from the mudroom pump to the kitchen, where her father washed dishes. They bagged the rabbit bones, jarred the fat, hung the skins. Chores were robotic and function and unthinking—Nico was grateful for them.
“Almost out of dish soap,” said her dad.
“We’re due for a Delivery Day soon.” She tossed a bone to Harry, who trotted off to his hidey place under the stairs. He’d be there, content to gnaw for an hour or more.
“You know what I was just thinking about?” Her dad had moved from washing to drying, setting the dishes on the counter. “Right after we got married, our first place, that little apartment on Westlawn. You wanted a dog, remember? But the super wouldn’t allow pets, so you smuggled in that tiny thing—what was it? A terrier? Only it was so yappy, the whole place knew what was up.”
“Dad?”
Even as part of Nico wanted to let him finish the story, to go along with it, Yes, of course I remember, she couldn’t do it. In his eyes now, the realization of his error. More than sadness or confusion, it was the look of someone who’d stepped inside their own house only to find themselves at the bottom of a hole.
“Nic.”
“It’s okay.”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She took the towel from his hands, was about to lean in to hug him, when they both heard it—out of nowhere, a deep rumble in the distance.
Water dripped from a half-washed plate.
Fire popped in the woodstove.
Harry was back in the kitchen now, bone in his mouth, ears perked.
“I can’t tell if it’s getting closer,” Nico whispered.
Her dad put a finger to his lips, eyes on the boarded-up window over the sink. “Okay,” he said, holding out a hand. “Let’s go.”
She took his hand, and together, they descended into the cellar.
Lights
It was a rule. Like the Farmhouse boundaries or limited outdoors time or not slaughtering animals outside: the sound of a swarm dictated they hunker down in the cellar as a family, sing songs that had outlived their creators, listen to Nico’s mom read the Bible in the hushed-pure tones of a true believer. Bleak moments made a little lighter by the presence of each other. Now, whatever brightness Nico had once found in the cellar was buried right along with the woman who’d brought it.
She sat with her father in the far corner, their backs against the cold cement wall. Overhead, the swarm was close, the Farmhouse pulsing and moaning under its weight.
Occasionally, growing up, her parents had offered glassy-eyed accounts of swarms crashing over cities like waves, drowning houses, buildings, crowds. Whether you died from the Flu the Flies planted inside you, the process of their planting it, or were simply consumed in midair, nothing could make a warm body cool so fast as a Flu-fly.
Or so she’d been told.
She pulled her knees up under her chin, let her long hair fall in her face like a curtain. In the candlelight, the fresh mound in front of them was easy to see, like a bulging tumor in the middle of the dirt floor.
“I was her?” Nico’s voice was just loud enough to be heard over the droning outside.
“What?”
It had gone just like this with her mother, too: she’d be acting normal one minute, and then, with no warning, they were someone else to her. In those moments, Nico always had her dad as her true north.
Now her true north was suddenly pointing south.
“The apartment on Westlawn,” she said. “Your story in the kitchen just now. You thought I was Mom?”
A beat, then: “Yes.”
Eventually the droning dissipated, all was quiet. And even though the swarm had moved on, they stayed in the cellar awhile, staring at the grave, which was part of the earth, which was, allegedly, still spinning.
“Of course she smuggled in a terrier,” said Nico.
They both smiled a little, and it felt like second and third candles in the dark. And when she put her head on his shoulder, she realized it was the first physical contact since their three had become two.
“I miss her,” she said.
At first he didn’t say anything, and she thought maybe he was confused again, but then he said, “Me too,” and she understood.
He’d always had trouble talking and crying at the same time.
Birds
On average, the Deliverer came to the Farmhouse once a month.
Drop-offs were downright celebratory, given their shortage of visitors through the years. (In Nico’s darkest moments, she wondered if there was anyone out there to visit.) And so, the evening of a Delivery Day usually called for a feast, a break from corn and whatever sad rabbit or gopher had been caught in one of the traps along the perimeter. They would boil extra water and crack open five, sometimes six or seven Metallyte pouches of cheesy lasagna or tortilla soup or chili mac, and stuff themselves silly.
She’d read enough books to get the gist of Santa Claus, and even though they didn’t celebrate Christmas, she thought the Deliverer was probably a lot like Santa. She’d never seen the Deliverer’s face; so far as she knew, no one had. The Farmhouse had a specially designed slat, a square-cut hole with a plank that opened and shut guillotine-style, through which the Deliverer dropped food, tea, salt and sugar, soaps, lighters, candles. Before canned foods gave way to freeze-dried, she had vague memories of slippery-sweet peaches, pears, rings of pineapple—but that was a long time ago. The only items not passed through the door were the five-pound tubs of cinnamon (once doled out by the US military, when there was such a thing); these, the Deliverer left on the porch. And because the front door opened directly into the library, it was not uncommon for Nico to hear the slat in the door slide up, to see those gray-gloved hands slip through the opening and drop the rations on the floor. The process lasted seconds. The slat dropped, the Deliverer’s footsteps descended the front porch, and it was over.
When Nico was young, she’d believed those hands to be magical little birds fluttering through the door bearing exotic foods from far-off lands. She’d pick up a pouch (or before that, a can) and dream of a place where the culinary horizons had expanded beyond the simple sweet treat, a land that could produce such glories as Italian-style diced tomatoes in tomato juice or savory stroganoff or chili mac.
This belief held steady until she was nine. She was in her room, attempting for the fourth time to read her father’s favorite sci-fi novel, Dune. (Even then, her desire to connect with him knew no bounds; the book was a monumental chore, bordering on impossible to read.) Just as she was about to throw in the towel again, she heard the familiar sound of the slat in the front door sliding open. Quickly, she blew out the candle and crossed the bedroom. At her boarded-up window, she pressed one eye against a sliver of light between the planks, just in time to see a figure walking off into the woods.
Later that night, wide-awake, Nico stared into the darkness of her bedroom ceiling, replaying those few seconds over and over again. And she couldn’t help thinking that what she’d seen—a person wearing a shiny black-and-gray suit, with gloves, boots, a helmet—looked like something straight out of her dad’s favorite
mind-numbing novel.
Times
They sat on the attic deck, legs dangling through the railings, drinking hot tea from mugs.
“Have you ever tried to eat a clock?” asked her father.
She eyed him nervously.
“It’s a joke, Nic.”
“No,” she said. “I have never tried to eat a clock.”
“Probably for the best. It’s pretty time-consuming.”
A rare thing, this: a joke she hadn’t heard. “Good one, Dad.”
He took a sip of tea, smacked his lips: “Especially if you go back for seconds.”
The view was stunning and endless as ever, miles of treetops spread in all directions, large mountains made small by the size of the sky. Here was the place where Nico had spent the most time with her dad: the stories, the jokes, the way he raised one arm through the railing, reached out, as if simply seeing the view wasn’t enough—he wanted to touch it.
They liked it best at night, this view. They called it the Great Green and Navy Unknown.
“I don’t know how you drink this stuff.” She winced as she swallowed. “It’s like an old shoe, even with four Sweet’N Lows.”
He looked at the mug in his hands, and she wondered if it was a normal look, or if he seemed surprised to be holding a mug. “I never get it quite right,” he whispered, and then drank deeply. “No one brews it like you.”
The woods had yet to turn white, though it would happen soon enough. Winter could be brutal, but Nico liked it. Or rather, she liked winter in the Farmhouse library, by a fire with a book. Or like they were now, bundled up, a panoramic view of the world. It was a special warm, winter warm.
“We need to talk,” he said, and even though he continued l ooking out over the woods, there was a definite shift in the air.
“You can’t leave, Dad.”
He turned from the woods to her.
“You packed a bag and set it by the front door,” she said. “You’ve been mumbling about this trip for weeks, you didn’t think I’d notice?”
“Nico—”
“You can’t leave.”
“I’m not leaving.”
Looking at him now, she was reminded of when she was younger, how she would say to one of her parents, I hear your voice in your eyes. She couldn’t explain it, but throughout her life, there had been moments when she could hear what her parents were about to say in the split second before they said it.
You are.
“You are,” her dad said.
“I am what?”
Leaving.
“Leaving.”
He stood, walked over to the Bell, put a hand on its cold bronze, gently, as if attempting to tame some magnificent beast. The Bell was twice his height, at least three times as wide, and it had a featured role in all her father’s stories: The Misadventures of Hicklebee Swift, all dozen Tales from Faraway Frozen Places, and her favorite, Voyager in the Water.
“I saw you,” he said, staring at the Bell.
“What does that mean?”
“The angel . . .” And here it came, the thing she’d been dreading: the quiet, verbal spiral. “She was an angel, Nic. She appeared when and where we needed her, when and where we needed an angel,” and on and on, a frenetic, mumbled chant about some angel, until Nico stood, put a hand on his shoulder—
“It’s okay, Dad. It’s okay, I’m here. You’re safe.”
The sudden confusion, the sporadic hallucinations, it had been just like this with her mom. Soon he would turn in on himself like a perverse cocoon, not a withering so much as an un-blossoming. He’d be reading or eating or sitting by the fireplace, and all the while, the un-blossoming would do its work, and eventually the petals of her father would retract into the bud, the stems would retreat into soil, until there was nothing left of him but a seed in the ground, small and buried.
Only this time, there would be no one to help her dig the grave.
“You have to go to Manchester.” Still his eyes were fixed on the Bell. “You should leave soon. Tomorrow.”
“Come on, Dad. Let’s get you to bed.”
He shook his head and the mumbles returned, the appearance of the angel, and Nico wasn’t sure which was more exhausting: the anticipation of these spirals, or the spirals themselves.
“It’s okay. I’m here.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I’m your daughter and I love you.”
“You have to go.”
“Dad . . .” Her voice was gentle, as if waiting out a passing storm. “No one’s going anywhere.”
“I saw you, Nico.” He turned from the Bell, and she saw in his eyes that the storm had already passed. “I saw you before you were born.”
KIT
dinner theater
"Kit.”
Kit looked up from his dinner plate, untouched. “Hmm?”
“Honey,” said his Dakota.
Monty, mouth full: “You zoned again, bud.”
Monty and Lakie Mackenzie were fraternal twins, a full five years older than Kit. They were Black, with dark hair and brown eyes. Each wore a daily tribute to their parents: the red bandanna in Lakie’s hair had once tied back her mother’s; the yellow plaid shirts, which Monty wore every day, had come from a box his father had brought back on one of his final scavenges.
“Morning’s Events,” said Dakota, handing Kit the brass apple. “Your turn.”
He told them about today’s painting, his idea to mix in the glitter for a shimmery effect. “Over six hundred versions, and still, so many ways to make them new.” Even though the computers in the sky were probably weirder, he never told them about the shimmering key. Something about verbalizing its existence made his bones woozy.
He passed the apple to Lakie, who said nothing, handed it to Monty.
Dakota leaned over, pushed the apple back. “Doesn’t have to be much.”
A year ago Kit found a brass apple on a desk in one of the school classrooms, and at some point, it had become a conversational torch passed around the dinner table. None of them loved the practice of forced conversation, but Dakota insisted. “I’m now officially a better shot than the range I built,” said Lakie. “Outdistancing my current targets, and not by a little.”
In accordance with Dakota’s law about not killing what little life was left in the world, Lakie never hunted. But being proficient in weaponry seemed to go hand in hand with her self-reliance. It was also one of the main reasons Kit felt safe in Town.
“Spent most of today extending the range,” she continued. “Took out a fir that had been getting in the way. Or I think it was a fir.”
“Took it out?” said Dakota.
“Chopped it down.”
“You chopped down a tree.”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“The hatchet. Or whatever it is. That we found in Abe’s.”
Kit recalled a Town scavenge in which Monty had found a small ax below the cash register in Abe’s Sporting Goods.
“You stole my ax?” asked Monty.
“Borrowed it. Thanks, by the way.”
“You chopped down a tree,” said Dakota. “On your own.”
“Wait”—Monty side-eyed her—“haven’t we had this conversation before?”
“About my borrowing your ax?” asked Lakie.
“You stole my ax, but yes.”
“I did not,” she said. “And we have not.”
Dakota took a bite, chewed in that sort of crooked way she did whenever she was feeling big things. “Lake, please let me know the next time you decide to chop down a tree.”
“Why?”
“Does it need saying? How about because I don’t know how to sew a finger back on? You guys are it for me, and I’m not going to be here forever, and when that day comes, I need to know you’ll be ready
.”
Living with Monty and Lakie, the reality of a parent dying was very real. But hearing his own mother talk about it—this was new. “I’m sorry,” said Lakie. “I’ll be more careful.”
. . . not going to be here forever . . .
Some things you know are true, and you still can’t believe them.
Monty cleared his throat, set the brass apple beside his plate, stood from the table, and pulled his radio out from under his chair. “On the surface, this may seem like poor timing. But I think this is the perfect segue into what I’d like to share for Morning’s Events.”
“Monty,” said Dakota. “Please, not again.”
Monty set his radio on the table. Even though it was called a crystal radio, there didn’t seem to be any crystals on it. When Monty talked about it, he used words like diode and high impedance and resistor, but basically, it looked like this: a wooden plank at the bottom, with a spindle of copper-colored coils and a mess of wires running this way and that.
In the olden days, when humans roamed the earth, one of the reasons they wanted stacks of cash-bucks was so they could purchase “smartphones.” The way Dakota explained it, humans invented a phone to be smart so people wouldn’t have to be. Now dead “smartphones” were everywhere, the bane of scavenges.
In a world of “smartphones,” Monty’s radio was probably a heap of crap-junk.
But in a world where Flies ate humans, and the closest you got to communicating with What Lay Beyond was daydreaming about the origins of a breeze, Monty’s radio was nothing short of magic.
“Just hear me out.” He held the earphone to his ear, tinkering with the settings. “I found a recorded loop.”
“What else is new,” said Lakie.
“This one’s different. There’s a place. You guys have to hear this . . .”
Kit had heard snippets of loops Monty had found, tinny messages from strange voices. A woman reading the Bible. A man reading the same set of (seemingly) random numbers over and over again. A monotone dictation of someone’s grandmother’s cake recipes. Kit imagined some sad person hunched in front of their own crystal radio, desperate for human connection.