The children quieted and listened, rapt. They crept closer—they might not even have realized they were doing it. One of the mothers brought some seasoned dried beef to share. Enid accepted gratefully, knowing how much it likely cost her.
Dak was such a good sport. He got over some of his discomfort. He smiled at the kids, held the guitar out for them to touch, showed them how to strum the strings, to make the sounds that reverberated. Not so different from every Coast Road market he ever played at. The kids loved it, laughing. They all had to try it. Enid was glad because she had nearly convinced herself that the kids wouldn’t know how to laugh.
They were offered food, wild onions that had been roasted in the coals. They tasted smoky, juicy, and good. Enid offered some of their fish jerky, which was gratefully accepted, though she got the impression that they weren’t used to the idea of drying fish—one of them asked where the fish came from, how they prepared it, and Enid was glad she’d paid enough attention to be able to answer. One of the women broke pieces off the fish, distributing them among the children. The kids grabbed them and clamored for more. She hissed at them to be quiet.
This was what it looked like when folk didn’t have enough to feed all the mouths they had, when they couldn’t keep everybody safe. But they kept on anyway, just like this.
The conversation took a weird turn when one of the mothers, Bel, asked, “Kids yet?”
At first, Enid didn’t know what she was talking about. Only when Bel nodded knowingly at her, then Dak, did she figure it out: Did she and Dak have any kids? Was she expecting? Bel looked at her like she ought to at least be pregnant.
“What? No—” Enid thought better of trying to explain the implant or banners or any of it. Seemed like trying to explain fish to someone in a desert. “Just no,” she said softly.
“When a baby comes, you’ll need to find a place to shelter.”
When, not if. It’s supposed to happen the other way around, Enid thought. Shelter, then baby. She looked to Dak for his reaction, but his head was bent over his instrument, playing with focus.
At dusk, the women banked the fire and sent everyone to sleep. Enid and Dak found shelter in a sunken space where a building had once been. They didn’t make love but clung to each other, anxious and needing comfort.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
The sky grew light. The voices of folk just waking up moved around the camp. Enid shook Dak awake. She wasn’t sure she’d slept at all, but spent the night in a half-waking twilight dream, her muscles bunched up and waiting for thunder.
“What—what is it?” He wasn’t a morning person, and the late nights of music never helped.
“Nothing. Just wanted to let you know I’m taking a walk; I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She patted his shoulder and went to get her staff.
“Enid. Wait a minute. Just—” He rushed, throwing off the blanket, shoving his feet into boots. Hurriedly putting his things in the concrete cubbyhole they’d claimed as theirs while they stayed here—except for his guitar, which he slung over his shoulder. He’d never leave that behind.
She was already walking but paused when he called, waiting for him to catch up. Likely, he didn’t want to be left alone. She didn’t mind if he followed. But she was on her own trek.
Sheltered campfires were being nursed back to life and kids sent out for fuel to keep them going. Enid passed them by and picked what had been the widest road and followed it, weaving around broken slabs of concrete and fallen metal poles, tangled vines and brambles that had taken root and broken the asphalt to pieces. Even though the buildings had fallen and none of the artificial structures reached up more than twenty feet or so, she had the feeling of being in a forest or a maze. The old shape of the street offered space; she could look up to a gap showing sky.
She wanted to see how far the people lived. How wide the camp spread out, and if you could even call it all one camp. When she asked Star what the name of the place was, she answered, “The Winter Camp.” After the rains, they would travel back north to the Summer Camp. Still, Enid kept wanting to call this a town. She kept wanting to see the people here as unified in some way. Her own experience told her this must be a community like hers, but different. A town, maybe not one like Haven, but still a town. Somehow, someway.
Voices echoed. Made it hard to guess how many people really lived among the ruins. Glancing behind, she saw that a couple of the older kids had followed them, ducking onto side streets, behind trees, giggling when Enid and Dak pretended not to see them.
She ended up being glad for their presence when once, up ahead, a shadowy figure holding a bow—arrow notched—stepped back into the shadows of undergrowth. Enid didn’t get a good look at the hunter, and when she reached the place where she had seen him, he was gone. She had the impression he was a guard of some kind. Someone suspicious of strangers. The presence of the children must have made the newcomers seem safe. That was what she hoped.
Then they found the fire. A small, lone camp, an hour or so walk away from the rest of the settlement. Or the not-settlement, rather. Enid found herself constantly bumping up against expectations. She looked around but didn’t see anyone. Someone had to be nearby. The fire was small but still had some fresh flames—it had been fed within the last half-hour. A tripod was set up over it.
“Hello?” Enid called.
Dak held her arm. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“What? I don’t know if anyone’s even—”
A woman came out from around the corner of the next street. Her thick hair was pulled back from her nut-colored face; she wore leather and a felted cloak pulled tightly over her shoulders. A great bundle of branches and twigs—fuel for the fire—was slung on her back. The bundle was almost as big and thick as she was. She’d lashed it together with rough braided cord, and she seemed to just barely be managing, hefting it on her shoulder while precariously looking ahead. Two young children followed her, and they had their own, less bulky, bundles of fuel.
Enid noticed then that all the trees and shrubs in the immediate area had been cut and harvested. They must have had to walk quite a ways to find more to feed the fire.
“Mama, look!” the older child said, stopping to stare at Enid and Dak. The kids were both in tunics and leather slippers, their hair pulled back like the woman’s.
The woman’s eyes went round. She dropped the bundle and came forward. “What do you want? What do you want?” The demand was harsh, fearful.
“Nothing,” Enid said, wondering if they should back out of here the way they’d come. “We’re just passing through.”
When the woman put down the branches, she revealed the baby, maybe six months old, pressed close to her body in a leather sling. Arms around the baby now, she rushed forward.
“This is mine,” she said, standing between them and the fire.
Enid didn’t come any closer. “That’s fine.”
“Why’re you here?” She gestured; the kids dumped their bundles of wood with hers and came close. They’d taken on wary, suspicious looks to match hers.
Enid spoke calmly. “I saw the fire burning and wondered if anyone was around. We’re just passing through.”
The woman seemed to turn that over for a moment. They were tucked behind another fallen pile of concrete, and she glanced around—looking up the street, around the corner, as if searching for someone. So there were others who were part of this group, probably gone off looking for food.
She and the children all had hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. They looked tired, even the kids.
“I don’t have any to share. Sorry but I don’t,” she said finally, with marginally less suspicion. That was probably as close to an invitation as they were likely to get.
“That’s all right. Really. You mind if we rest here a moment?”
“Sure, go ahead. Daisy, get the kettle, yeah?” The older of the two children ran off. The other followed her a moment later, while the woman dra
gged bundles of sticks over and began feeding them into the fire. One arm always cradled the baby in the sling. The girl came back a moment later, hauling a beat-up pot that already had water in it.
The woman had a bag slung over her shoulder in addition to the baby; Enid couldn’t tell where her clothing ended and various bags and pouches began, like she was used to carrying the world with her wherever she went. She pulled ingredients out of this bag, wild onions, some small knobby potatoes, and sliced them up with a small knife.
Enid wanted to help. There had to be something constructive she could do. “Can I help?” she finally asked, a little desperately.
“No. I’m fine, I’m fine.”
Dak found a perch on a fallen slab overgrown with vines. She thought of asking him to play some music—everyone liked music. But he sat clenched and anxious, hands sitting on his knees in fists. Enid went to sit next to him, to watch the scene play out. The woman—was she the mother of all three of them?—told the kids to go off and leave her alone for now. The elder, Daisy, took the younger one’s hand and they ran, giving Enid and Dak shy glances over their shoulders. They disappeared around a corner; shouting and laughter could be heard a moment later. The noise sounded blissfully normal, and Enid sighed to hear it.
She whispered at Dak, “There’s got to be some way we can help. Yeah?”
“Help how? You want to rebuild Haven for them right here?”
Maybe that was what she wanted, to re-create Haven so these people would be safe—she assumed they weren’t safe, living like this. But they must have been—there must have been people living here, like this, since the Fall. Somehow, no matter how precarious it looked. Dak was right: she couldn’t exactly rebuild Haven wherever she went. Didn’t have the resources for it.
He said, “I don’t want to be here when whoever she’s looking around for gets back.”
Enid made sure to keep her staff close and wondered if she’d actually be able to use it if she needed to. Tomas could—investigators and enforcers were trained for it.
She was feeling small right now, in a world she didn’t understand.
The baby started crying in a thin, choked way that made it sound ill. Enid watched the ragged mother try to balance the baby in one arm while stirring the soup in the kettle. She kept leaning in, going off balance, and having to rearrange the baby again. The two children were running in and out from the ruins, screaming at each other—playing. The woman shouted at them to come help her. The older one, the girl, paused and looked out for a moment, caught sight of Enid and Dak again, and fled.
Three children for one mother. It seemed luxurious. And also awful.
“Quiet, you! Just for a second, please stop!” she hissed at the baby, jostling it in her arm.
“Here,” Enid said, because she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Let me hold him while you finish the soup.”
The woman glared, suspicious, but didn’t argue when Enid shifted the baby out of her arms and into her own. She laid the child against her shoulder and whispered soothingly, humming a tuneless song into its ear. The baby quieted. Enid studied it; even it had sunken cheeks and seemed small. Not that she had much experience with babies.
They were all starving, or close to it. The sky was overcast, the clouds turning darker. Storm season had arrived, and what would happen when the first typhoon came in? Would they find a cave of old metal and concrete to hide in?
They must have had a way to survive. They must have had a system, however strange and poor it looked to Enid. But she couldn’t imagine it, not when she knew they could all be safe, not even a couple weeks’ walk away.
The woman did what she needed with the stew and took the baby back from Enid.
Enid said in a rush, “You should come with us. You should all come to the Coast Road, ’bout a week or so of foot time northeast. There’s plenty of food; they’ll take you in—”
“No. No.” The woman shook her head. “I’d never go there. They’ll take my kids away if I go there. That’s what they do: they take your kids away,” she said, and spat. Held her baby close, cooing over its soft, bare head.
If Enid mentioned the Coast Road to Star and Rook and their people, would they say the same thing? They take children. It’s horrible. These people would never ask for help, even if help meant that crying baby would live. She stared at the woman, her endlessly mended scraps of clothing, her spitting fire and awful dinner, her children running around with limbs like rails. They were all starving, not enough to die of it, but enough that their every waking thought turned to food.
Enid pulled packages from her satchel. All she had—bread, cheese, sausage, apples—and dumped it on the ground in front of the woman.
“It’s food,” she said. “Have it. Have it all.”
The two older children had come out of hiding and crept toward the fire, as if they could smell what she’d offered. For a moment, she wasn’t sure the woman would take the gift. She stared at the paper-wrapped packages and loose apples like they might attack her. Like there might be some trick. But then she reached out. She would take it all.
Enid didn’t wait to see. She turned and marched away, tears stinging her eyes, frustrated and enraged and helpless.
Dak scampered after her. “Enid. You gave her all our food.”
“We can get more.”
“You said it yourself: Coast Road’s a week away.”
“We won’t starve,” she said, and choked back a laugh. They might get hungry, but they wouldn’t starve, not like that woman and her children.
In fact, it might be good for them to go a little bit hungry. Like it was some kind of penance. Like she had to pay a price for simply existing. Make some kind of trade. She never had before—she’d taken it all for granted.
She wanted to get out of here, get back to the Coast Road, back to the familiar. It might be a rough trip—but she was glad for it. That would earn her next meal.
“Enid!”
She didn’t slow down, even as she knew her anger was irrational. She did glance over her shoulder to check that Dak was following, and he was, scrambling over vines and branches and debris that had settled on the ghost road. He kept a hand on his guitar, steadying it.
Eventually, she had to stop for a drink of water from her canteen. Dak caught up, and they rested. He stared at her, studying her. Probably wondering if she’d gone crazy, and that annoyed her.
“I told you coming out this way was a bad idea.”
“No, you said it was dangerous. It wasn’t—no one even threatened us.” She didn’t think coming to the ruins was a bad idea. She wanted to see what the place was like, and now she knew. And the people there weren’t dangerous. They were wary, and they had every right to be.
“That’s not the point. If something had happened to us, no one would ever have known.”
They could have tripped and broken their necks anyplace on the road. They studied each other, now. She was sad, driven. He was scared, exhausted. Sweat dripped from his hair, dirt smudged his face, his shoulders slumped. And he was looking at her like it was her fault.
Dak wanted to be where he was safe. Where he was loved. He needed that. She wondered then if he really needed her, or just someone standing in the place she was, following him. He’d probably never followed anyone in his life, the way he’d followed her into the ruins. He didn’t seem to like it much.
She suddenly wondered why she had blithely scampered off with him to the ends of the world in the first place. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Weirdly, she couldn’t remember what that felt like.
She was such an idiot.
“Well,” she said. “We’re going home now. It’ll be okay.”
They went back to the main camp to collect their things, thank Star for the hospitality, and then they walked east, away from the ruins.
CHAPTER ELEVEN • PASADAN
/////////////////////////////////////////////
Waste and Excess
Philos wa
s the angriest. He was the one making bribes and threats. The issue of exceeding quotas might have nothing to do with Sero’s death, but once they discovered the truth of the one, Enid wondered if the other truth might also unfold. Did Sero learn something? Had he threatened to report it? Did someone—maybe Philos—have a talk with him that ended violently?
Enid asked Tomas, “Would someone like Sero contact investigators?”
“I’d have thought he wouldn’t want to be the snitch,” Tomas said. “Wouldn’t want to draw attention to himself.”
They’d never met Sero—she wanted to interview him anyway. Sit him down and ask questions, get to the heart of why he was the way he was and what he wanted. She thought she knew the answer: he wanted to be left alone. So he wouldn’t have asked for an investigation. Wouldn’t have even sent an anonymous message if he’d discovered the hidden crops.
“But,” Enid said, thinking, “Philos might not have thought that. So, what happens if we don’t find anything at Bounty?”
“There’s a half-dozen cellars in this town. More barns. Did the fields look mature? Had they been growing for more than one season?”
“Yeah. They should be getting ready to start this season’s harvest.”
“Then someplace around here will have a hoard of surplus grain. We’ll check to see if any looms are weaving burlap for bags. Don’t worry, we’ll find it.”
He drank from his mug of tea. Shadows marked his eyes, and he still looked as tired and drained as he had last night after the altercation with Kirk.
Enid asked, “Are you coming down with something? Do you need to rest?”
“Stop babying me. You’re the one needs looking after, remember?”
“I will always need looking after. Just when I think I’ve figured the world out . . .” Shaking her head, she let the thought go. “I will never have the world figured out.”
Bannerless Page 18
