I walk around in a near daze. Despite everything, I took comfort in his presence, in seeing him, in knowing he was safe. Now that he has gone off on his own, who knows what will happen to him? He is no longer mine to lose, but the grief is there, a gnawing sense of disbelief.
Coral is pale, and silent, and wide-eyed. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t eat much, either.
Tack and Hunter talked about going after him, but Raven quickly made them see the foolishness of the idea. He no doubt had many hours’ head start, and a single person, moving rapidly on foot, is even harder to track than a group. They’d be wasting time, resources, and energy.
There’s nothing we can do, she said, careful to avoid looking at me, but let him go.
So we do. Suddenly there is no amount of lanterns that can chase away the shadows that often fall between us, the shades of other people and other lives lost to the Wilds, to this struggle, to the world split in two. I can’t help but think of the camp, and of Pippa, and the line of soldiers we saw threading through the woods.
Pippa said we could expect the contacts from Resistance within three days, but the third day winds slowly into evening with no sign of anyone.
Each day, we get a little more stir-crazy. It’s not anxiety, exactly. We have enough food and, now that Tack and Hunter have found a stream nearby, enough water. Spring is here: The animals are out, and we have begun trapping successfully.
But we are completely cut off—from news of what has happened in Waterbury and what is happening in the rest of the country. It’s far too easy to imagine, as another morning washes like a gentle wave over the old, towering oaks, that we are the only people left in the world.
I can no longer bear to be inside, underground. Each day, after whatever lunch we can scrounge up, I pick a direction and start walking, trying not to think about Alex and about his message to me, and usually finding that I can think of nothing else.
Today, I go east. It’s one of my favorite times of day: that perfect in-between moment when the light has a liquid feel, like a slow pour of syrup. Still, I can’t shake loose the knot of unhappiness in my chest. I can’t shake loose the idea that the rest of our lives might simply look like this: this running, and hiding, and losing the things we love, and burrowing underground, and scavenging for food and water.
There will be no turn in the tide. We will never march back into the cities, triumphant, crying out our victory in the streets. We will simply eke out a living here until there is no living to be eked.
The Story of Solomon. Strange that Alex picked that story, of all the stories in The Book of Shhh, when it was the one that so consumed me after I found out he was alive. Could he have known, somehow? Could he have known that I felt just like that poor, severed baby in the story?
Was he trying to tell me that he felt the same way?
No. He told me that our past together, and what we shared, was dead. He told me he never loved me.
I keep pushing through the woods, barely paying attention to where I’m going. The questions in my head are like a strong tide, dragging me back over and over to the same places.
The Story of Solomon. A king’s judgment. A baby cleaved in two and a stain of blood seeping into the floor…
At a certain point, I realize I have no idea how long I’ve been walking, or how far I’ve ended up from the safe house. I haven’t been paying attention to the landscape as I go, either—a rookie’s error. Grandpa, one of the oldest Invalids at the homestead near Rochester, used to tell stories of sprites that supposedly lived in the Wilds, switching the location of trees and rocks and rivers, just to confuse people. None of us actually believed in that stuff, but the message was true enough: The Wilds is a mess, a shifting maze, and will turn you around in circles.
I begin retracing my steps, looking for places my heel has left imprints in the mud, scanning for signs of trampled underbrush. I force all thoughts of Alex out of my head. It’s too easy to get lost in the wilderness; if you are not careful, you will be swallowed up in it forever.
I see a flash of sunlight between the trees: the stream. I drew water just yesterday, and should be able to navigate back from here. But first, a quick wash. By this point, I’m sweating.
I push through the last bit of undergrowth, onto a wide bank of sun-bleached grass and flat stone.
I stop.
Someone else is already here: a woman, crouching, forty feet down from me on the opposite bank, her hands submerged in the water. Her head is down, and all I can see is a tangle of gray hair, streaked with white. For a second I think she might be a regulator, or a soldier, but even from a distance I can tell her clothes are not standard-issue. The backpack next to her is patched and old; her tank top is stained with yellow rings of sweat.
A man hidden from view calls out something unintelligible, and she responds, without looking up, “Just another minute.”