June, confused, had said, “Honey, you don’t live with me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Violet hunched down to June’s level. She touched June’s knee, then drew her hand quickly away. “I have something to tell you. It’s the reason I’m leaving. But it’s also good news. Good news for you to take back to the village.”
June waited.
“I’m pregnant. Doc Owle can tell you more. He can explain the details. But it’s possible if you go off the Salt. That’s what I want you to know.”
Randall, seated with his back to June, laughed uproariously. “You’re—oh, Jesus. Oh, that’s definitely not what I expected to hear today.”
Violet’s face twisted.
“What?” June asked. It was as if Violet had told her she’d sprouted wings or traveled through time. It made no more sense than that. “What—but how, Violet?”
She shook her head in a disgusted way. “How do you think?”
Randall said, “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Oh, Violet,” said June. This was—but how could she ever explain this so that anyone, even Roz, would understand?—even worse than she had imagined. Violet was her daughter. Hers. She hadn’t given birth to her, but fate had put Violet in June’s path, and June had chosen her, had taken on the privilege and curse of loving her, and that was more profound than any biological bond. More profound than whatever Violet felt (or thought she felt) for this baby, this product of her victimization, and if this could happen to her in Ruby City, what did that mean about Ruby City? “Violet, who did this to you?”
“No one did this to me,” Violet said. “Why do you assume it was done to me?”
“That’s generally how it works,” Randall said.
“I just mean—” June began, her head filling up with unsayable things. I just mean that someone used you. And that matters, even if you didn’t know that’s what was happening. And I was supposed to protect you, but somehow I failed you. So this is the price I have to pay, and that’s OK. But what price are you going to pay? “I just mean it’s so sudden. You never even told me you were—with somebody. You never told me this is something you want.”
“I’m thirty-seven. Why would you assume it’s not something I want?”
June had only shaken her head.
“This is the way it has to be,” Violet said. “I’m sorry about that. I’m grateful to you. I hope you’ll tell Roz that I’m grateful to her. But I’m doing what I have to do to give my baby a chance.”
“Your baby would have a chance in Ruby City,” June said. “Just like every other baby there has had a chance. Better than a chance. We have a good thing.”
“Ruby City is a pipe dream,” Violet said.
“So are the zones. For people like us.”
“People like you,” Violet said. “You don’t know what’s possible for a person like me.” She stood again. “OK. I’m going.”
And in a few seconds, that’s what she had done.
—
At almost midnight, June estimated, she took the exit off I-40 onto the old Highway 74. It was dangerous being out like this—dangerous for June, whose headlights made her a target, and dangerous for Ruby City, because she could lead a stealthy pursuer right to the village if she wasn’t careful. She slowed to a crawl on a straight stretch and tried turning off her headlights. At first she could see nothing. Then, as her eyes adjusted, she was able to easily find the moon—a full moon, bright overhead—and she could differentiate enough between road and shoulder to keep the car going, so long as a deer didn’t cross her path. She went a few kilometers like this. Then she slowed more, rolled down her window, and listened hard, but it was impossible to tell if anything was happening beyond the radius of her own running engine, so she came to a full stop and stilled the motor.
The night was cool enough for the air to fog when she exhaled. June had left her jacket in the Lenoir house. On the back of a kitchen chair, she recalled. She hadn’t had time, when she left, to think ahead—or she hadn’t bothered to take the time. Her only thought had been getting out of the house and on the road. She would not spend the night in that house. Not with Joe’s and Randall’s cooling bodies. Not for anything. And so she’d fled without her jacket, without food (her stomach had started growling loudly after an hour on the road; lunch seemed a lifetime ago) or Salt tea, without much concern for what would happen the next time she needed to use this house. She’d left behind a mess, and the TI Dimension-Tech was blown, but there was still some valuable equipment that they couldn’t afford to chalk up as a loss, not to mention the house itself. She should have at least dragged the bodies down to the tree line. No use bellyaching over it now, though.
Crossing her arms tightly across her chest, she exited the car. The box cutter, wiped carefully of Randall’s blood, was stowed in her pocket.
Silence. Oh, there was the wind rustling a nearby copse of pine trees, a distant hooting owl. The chirp of some insect, though June had thought it too late in the season for crickets.
She looked up the road. Then down. Nothing.
She walked to the copse of trees, chose a spot between trunks, and unbuttoned her pants. She never did this—still—without thinking about the ticks, only to marvel again at the fact that she no longer had to think about the ticks if she really didn’t wish to. Crouching, she looked southeast, in the direction of home. Maybe another hour until she reached the old barn where they stored their vehicles. Then, a thirty-minute walk to her front doorstep. Roz would be startled, perhaps frightened. The group wasn’t due back before tomorrow.
Wait. What was that light?
It was very faint, just visible above the tree line. She had missed it at first because the clear sky was starlit, but there it was: a glow. Like the lights of one of the old cities. Once, when she was a little girl, June’s father and mother had led her up to the top of a hill to watch the sunset; then, when all of the light had gone out of the sky, they’d crossed to the other side of the hill, and her father had pointed to a yellow haze, and he’d said, “That’s Charlotte. That’s where I lived when I was your age.”
“I want to go there,” June had said.
“We can never go back there,” her father told her.
She knew. Immediately, she knew.