Stebbs shuffled into her room, gently taking Red Dog from her hands. He peered into the black button eyes, seeing something other than a stuffed animal there. He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you leave him with me? I’ll keep him safe for you.”
Lucy nodded dumbly, knowing it was a false promise meant to console a child. “Yeah, okay,” she said, swiping at the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
“C’mere, girl,” Stebbs said, and folded her into his arms.
She could only cry and inhale the strong smell of him, the woods and the water, the dirt and the air, one last time.
Lucy found Lynn pondering the racks of purified water they kept in the basement, a grim expression on her face. She glanced up when she heard Lucy’s step.
“You ready?”
“I’m packed, yeah.”
“That’s not the same thing as ready.” Lynn looked back at the bottles of water. “The thing about water,” she said, almost to herself, “is that it’s so damn heavy.”
Years of hauling water from the pond to the holding tanks in the barn had taught that lesson to both of them. “Yeah,” Lucy agreed. “It is.”
“We can’t carry enough to get us far. And we can’t trust water we find along the way to be clean. And that’s assuming we can even get to any that hasn’t already been claimed.” Lynn’s voice drifted off, their problem evident.
“Want me to bring my witching stick?”
With her forked ash stick Lucy had found water for many of the families in their community, always in private, and always attributing the find to Stebbs. The ability to witch water was a blessing and a curse—it could save lives, or ensure the bearer was marked for life as a person of high value in a world where money no longer mattered. Those who could find water worked in secret for fear their ability would earn them a pair of chains, with a stern master on the end.
“Bring it,” Lynn decided. “I haven’t lived this long to die of thirst on the road.”
“We’d be stupid not to,” Lucy said.
“It’d be stupid to use it. That’s a last resort, and you remember it.”
Lucy nodded and sat down on the steps to watch Lynn, who couldn’t tear herself away from the water. She ran her fingers over the bottles and heaved a sigh.
“Saying your good-byes?” Lucy teased.
“Beyond Stebbs and Vera, who else have I got to say it to?” Lynn asked, a self-deprecating smile on her face.
“There’s others that like you, if you’d let ’em.”
Lynn hefted her own backpack onto her shoulders. “Now’s a poor time to start liking people,” she said gruffly. “You say yours?”
“Yeah,” Lucy said, pushing the single syllable past the lump in her throat.
Lynn gave her a searching look. “If you didn’t do it good and thorough, you go do it again, understand?”
“You don’t think we’re ever coming back, do you?”
“Coming back or not, don’t matter. We’re leaving behind an old woman and a cripple in the wake of an epidemic. They’re stuck with a bunch of helpless children, and half the adults here got one arm or leg that don’t work. You say good-bye and you say it right, ’cause either we’re gonna die or they are.”
Lucy nodded, emotion choking off her voice when she tried to speak. The pond and her family had been her world for years, slowly sprinkled with new faces as more people found safety among them. Always her life had been planned—a man, a home, a well, and eventually children. Now it was all skewed, thrown off balance by an invisible enemy she couldn’t fight. “What if . . . what if it is me, Lynn? What if all those dead children and ruined people are my fault?”
Lynn was on her knees on the step below Lucy in a second, gripping her face so tightly Lucy could feel her skin stretching.
“You listen to me now—I know you, understand? I know you right past your skin, through your bones and down into your blood, and there is nothing inside of you that could hurt anyone. I know it for a fact, I know it the way I know the sun’s going to come up tomorrow the same place it did today. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” Lucy said. If Lynn, who was faithless, had faith in her, it was all the validation she needed.
Lynn let go of her cheeks, smoothed the short strands of blond hair from her forehead. “If you want to go and say a bit to Carter, he’s still over at Vera and Stebbs’ place.”
Lucy couldn’t control her surprise. “Really?”
“I shouldn’t let you,” Lynn said. “But I know what not getting to say good-bye feels like. Stay a good piece away from him while you’re talking, no matter how hard it is.”
“I will.” Lucy nodded emphatically, an odd mixture of elation and fear coursing through her body. She wanted to see Carter, needed to see him so badly the possibility had her stomach dipping to her knees and her heart jumping into her throat. But the excitement was tinged with sadness, the knowledge that no matter what they said to each other, it would be their last words.
“You go on now,” Lynn said, turning back to the bottles of water. “Be back in an hour. We’re leaving as soon as there’s morning light.”
Five