“Thanks,” I puff out. Sweat is dripping into my eyes, and I can’t believe I was ever cold. I don’t even bother to elbow or swat the stray branches out of my way. As Bram pushes through them ahead of me, they rebound and thwack me hard on my arms and legs, leaving tiny stinging lashes all over my skin. I’m too tired to care. I feel as though we’ve been walking for hours, but that’s impossible. Sarah said the river was a little over a mile away. Besides, the sun has only just risen.
A little bit farther and we hear it, over the twittering of the birds and the rush of the wind in the trees: the low, babbling sound of moving water. Then the trees break apart, and the ground turns rocky, and we’re standing at the edge of a wide, flat stream. Sunlight glints off the water, giving the impression of coins laid underneath its surface. Fifty feet to our left is a miniature waterfall, where the stream comes churning over a series of small, black, lichen-spotted rocks. All of a sudden I have to fight the desire to cry. This place has always existed: While cities were bombed and fell into ruins, while walls went up—the stream was here, running over the rocks, full of its own secret laughter.
We are such small, stupid things. For most of my life I thought of nature as the stupid thing: blind, animal, destructive. We, the humans, were clean and smart and in control; we had wrestled the rest of the world into submission, battered it down, pinned it to a glass slide and the pages of The Book of Shhh.
Raven and Bram are already wading into the stream, holding their buckets, crouching to fill them.
“Come on,” Raven says shortly. “The others will be waking up.”
They have both come barefoot; I crouch down to untie my shoes. My fingers are swollen from the cold, even though I can no longer feel it. Heat drums through my body. I have a hard time with the laces, and by the time I edge close to the water, Raven and Bram have their buckets full, lined up on the bank. Pieces of grass and dead insects swirl over their surface; we will pick them out later, and boil the water to sterilize it.
My first step into the stream nearly takes me off my feet. Even this close to the bank, the current is much stronger than it looks. I pinwheel my arms wildly, trying to stay upright, and drop one of the buckets. Bram, who is waiting on the bank, starts to laugh. His laugh is high and surprisingly sweet.
“All right.” Raven gives him a push. “That’s enough of a show. We’ll see you at the homestead.”
He touches two fingers obediently to his temple. “See you later, Lena,” he says, and I realize it’s the first time somebody other than Raven, Sarah, or Hunter has spoken to me in a week.
“See you,” I say.
The streambed is coated in tiny pebbles, slick and hard on the underside of my feet. I retrieve the fallen bucket and crouch low, as Raven and Bram did, letting it fill. Lugging it back to the bank is harder. My arms are weak, and the metal handles dig painfully into my palms.
“One more to go,” Raven says. She is watching me, arms crossed.
The next one is slightly larger than the first, and more difficult to maneuver once it’s full. I have to carry it with both hands, half bent over, letting the bucket bang against my shins. I wade out of the stream and set it down with a sigh of relief. I have no idea how I’ll make it back to the homestead carrying both buckets at once. It’s impossible. It will take me hours.
“Ready to go?” Raven asks.
“Just give me a second,” I say, resting my hands on my knees. My arms are already trembling a little. I want to stay here for as long as possible, with the sun breaking through the trees, and the stream speaking its own, old language, and the birds zipping back and forth, dark shadows. Alex would love it here, I think without meaning to. I’ve been trying so hard not to think his name, not to even breathe the idea of him.
On the far side of the bank there is a small bird with ink-blue feathers, preening at the edge of the water; and suddenly I have never wanted anything more than to strip down and swim, wash off all the layers of dirt and sweat and grime that I have not been able to scrub away at the homestead.
“Will you turn around?” I ask Raven. She rolls her eyes, looking amused, but she does.
I wiggle out of my pants and underwear, strip off my tank top and drop it on the grass. Wading back into the water is equal parts pain and pleasure—a cutting cold, a pure feeling that drives through my whole body. As I move toward the center of the stream, the stones underneath my feet get larger and flatter, and the current pushes at my legs more strongly. Even though the stream isn’t very wide, just beyond the miniature waterfall there’s a dark space where the streambed bottoms out, a natural swimming hole. I stand shivering with the water rushing around my knees, and at the last second can’t quite bring myself to do it. It’s so cold: The water looks so dark, and black, and deep.
“I won’t wait for you forever,” Raven calls out, with her back to me.