“It’s fine,” Marisol said. “Whoever it was must have needed resources, and I’m glad to have given to someone in need. I can easily make three more bags. In fact, I’ll do that right now.”
“Three more?” Keegan said, gently grasping Marisol’s arm to stop her. “You only need to make two, darling.”
“Yes, and one for you as well,” Marisol replied with a smile. “Since you’re here with us now.”
“Of course.” Keegan loosened her grip and Marisol retreated to the kitchen. But Iris saw the sadness that flickered through the captain’s eyes as she glanced at the garden again. As if she sensed this might be the last time she would enjoy it.
* * *
Everything was changing.
Iris could taste it in the air, as if the season had crumbled like an ancient page, skipping summer and autumn to usher in the creeping chill of winter. Soldiers were stationed everywhere in their olive-green uniforms and helmets, preparing the town for the imminent battle. Barricades now sat in the streets, made of sandbags, mismatched furniture salvaged from residents’ homes, and anything else that could grant coverage.
The town no longer felt like a haven but like a snare, as if they were waiting to catch a monster.
As if Dacre himself might walk into the Bluff.
And what if he did? What did his face look like? Would Iris know him if their paths crossed?
She thought of Enva and her harp. The power of her music, deep in the earth.
Enva, where are you? Will you help us?
Iris made herself useful to Marisol, who was in the kitchen preparing meals for the platoons, and assisted with Keegan’s quest to create as many strategic barricades as possible in the streets, but there was a quiet moment when Iris remembered her mother and her ashes that were held in a jar upstairs on her desk.
If I die tomorrow, my mother’s ashes will never have found a resting place.
The words were serrated, making every passing minute feel dire. More than anything, Iris wanted to see her mother set free.
She took the jar and approached Keegan, because her soldiers had set up a watch around the town and no one could get in or out without special permission.
“How much longer do we have?” Iris asked the captain. “Before Dacre arrives?”
Keegan was quiet, staring into the west. “He’ll take the rest of today to fully sack Clover Hill. I predict he’ll march for the Bluff by tomorrow morning.”
Iris released a tremulous breath. One final day to do the things she wanted, she needed, she longed to accomplish. It was wild to imagine it—the remaining span of golden hours. She decided she would do everything she could, filling this last day to the brim.
Surprised by the lapse into silence, Keegan at last glanced at Iris, noticing the jar she held in her hands. “Why do you ask, Iris?”
“I would like to spread my mother’s ashes before then.”
“Then you should do so, now. But take your boy with you,” Keegan said.
Iris asked Roman and Attie to accompany her to the golden field.
A slight breeze stirred, blowing from the east.
Iris closed her eyes.
Not so long ago, she had arrived at this place, full of grief and guilt and fear. And while those things still dwelled in her, they were not as sharp as they had been.
I hope you see me, Mum. I hope you’re proud of me.
She opened the lid and overturned the jar.
She watched as her mother’s ashes were carried by the wind, into the golden dance of the grass.
* * *
“Do either of you know how to drive a lorry?” Keegan asked half an hour later.
Iris and Attie exchanged a dubious look. They had just finished carrying a table from Peter’s house out into the street.
“No,” Iris said, wiping sweat from her brow.
“All right, well, come on then. I’m going to teach you both.”
Iris glanced over her shoulder at the B and B, where Marisol was still cooking in the kitchen. Roman had been assigned to help her, and Iris was grateful, knowing Marisol had him peeling potatoes at the kitchen table.
He probably was stewing about it, but he needed to rest his leg.
Iris followed Attie and Keegan around the barricades to the eastern edge of the town, where lorry after lorry was parked. Keegan chose a truck that was situated at the front of the lot, with a clear path to the eastern road.
“Who wants to go first?” Keegan asked, opening the driver’s door.
“I will,” Attie said, before Iris could even draw a breath. She climbed up into the driver’s seat while Iris and Keegan crammed into the other side of the cab. A few soldiers stationed on this side of town had to open a makeshift gate, but then there was nothing but wide-open road before them.
“Turn on the ignition,” Keegan said.
Iris watched as Attie cranked the engine. The lorry roared to life.
“Now, do you know how a clutch operates?”
“Yes.” Attie sounded a bit hesitant, but her hands were on the steer ing wheel and her eyes were taking quick inventory of the dash and the levers.
“Good. Put your foot on that pedal. Push it in.”
Iris watched as Attie heeded Keegan’s instructions. Soon they were bouncing along the road, Avalon Bluff nothing more than a cloud of dust behind them. First, second, third gear. Attie was able to shift seamlessly between them, and when they were traveling so fast that Iris’s teeth were rattling, Attie let out a triumphant whoop.
“Very good. Now gear back down to neutral and park it,” Keegan said.
Attie did so, and then it was Iris’s turn.
Her palms were damp as she took the steering wheel. Her foot could barely reach the gas pedal, let alone the clutch she had to push to the floorboard.
It was … disastrous.
She nearly ran the lorry off the road twice, killed the engine at least four times, and was spouting off a stream of curses by the time Keegan took over.
“A little more practice, and you’ll be fine,” the captain said. “You get the general idea, and that’s all that matters.”
Iris slid into the passenger seat with Attie, and they were quiet as Keegan drove them back into town. The makeshift gate closed behind them, and soon the lorry was parked where it had been before, its nose pointing to the east.
Keegan turned off the engine, but she didn’t move. She stared out the dust-streaked windshield and said, “If things go badly here, I want to the two of you to take Marisol and that Kitt of yours and flee in this lorry. If you have to drive through this gate to get out, don’t hesitate to run over it. And you don’t stop for anything. You drive east until you’re safe.” She paused, setting her dark gaze on the girls. “Marisol has a sister who lives in a small town called River Down, about fifty kilometers west of Oath. Go there first. You stay together and you prepare for the worst. But you have to get Marisol out of here for me. Do you swear it?”
Iris’s mouth was suddenly dry. She stared at the captain—at the hard edges of her face and the scars on her hands—and she hated this war. She hated that it was dragging good people early to their graves, that it was tearing people’s lives and dreams apart.
But she nodded and spoke in unison with Attie.
“I swear it.”
* * *