by Wren, M. K.
Startled, Stephen asks, “Did you see such a cloud?”
“No, I never actually saw one. I saw pictures of them. Anyway, we decided we couldn’t go south or any direction that fall. We had the winter to think about.”
Stephen cups his chin in one hand. “Was the second winter as hard as the first?”
“No, or we wouldn’t have survived it.” I skim more pages in the diary. “But it wasn’t an easy winter, and we were on short rations. We both lost a lot of weight. In December Shadow gave birth to another litter of puppies. And every evening Rachel spent at least an hour sorting and reading the books she’d scavenged, and I . . . well, I was always too busy or too tired for that. I think I even resented it, really, although I never said anything to her. I closed my mind to the books.”
“You, Mary?” Stephen studies me dubiously. “But you love books so much. And you said—well, when you first saw Rachel’s books, that’s when you knew you’d found a kindred soul.”
“Yes.” I run my fingers over the cover of the Emily Dickinson. It was one of Rachel’s books. “I had always loved books, Stephen. I learned that from my parents. But after the End . . . I didn’t understand it till later, but it was as if the books didn’t exist for me, and I didn’t even wonder about that.” Then I turn again to the diary. “At any rate, we did have snow that second winter, but it melted by the middle of January, and it was almost a normal spring for the coast. There were more birds. More insects, too, and many more slugs. But the garden thrived in spite of them. So did the livestock, and in May Silver gave birth to a colt, a bay filly. We called her Epona. The rabbits and chickens did well, and the bees recovered enough so that by late summer we took a good harvest of honey and wax. That’s when we learned to make candles, although we still had some kerosene and whale oil.” I close the diary and look out through the rain curtains at the gray sea.
“The most encouraging thing was to see the ocean rejuvenated. The tide pools filled with life again, and barnacles and mussels began colonizing the rocks. We saw a few salmon in the Coho and even whales spouting on their way north. Every sign of recovery was a miracle to us. Some of our crops and animals died, others lived. Two of Shadow’s pups died, but two lived. And we lost another cat. That left only Mehitabel, a lone female.”
And I remember how I sympathized with her. I thought a great deal that year about being a female without a male. For all I knew, our species was near extinction, and I could do nothing to save it. I had no doubt I was capable of it; my menstrual cycles continued with frustrating regularity. Sometimes I saw Rachel and me as two Eves in a precarious Eden born of Armageddon.
I’m reminded that I’ve lapsed into silence when Stephen asks, “Did you and Rachel ever go to look for other people?”
“Yes, but not until late summer. By then we’d harvested the crops and put up the hay, and the animals born that year were old enough to fend for themselves. Still, we decided we couldn’t leave any of the animals for more than three weeks. We fortified the rabbit hutches and the chicken house and pigpen, and rigged water tanks and food bins that would hold enough to last that long.” I leaf through the diary, seeking the entry marking the beginning of our trek, but pause before I reach it, distracted by another entry.
“I made a note on August twentieth, Stephen. We saw an odd, brown cloud in the east over the mountains. Actually, we’d seen similar clouds earlier, and at first we thought they were smoke from forest fires, except the color was wrong. We learned the answer to that puzzle on our trek—one of the many hard lessons we learned. Anyway, on . . . here it is. On the last day of August we set off on our odyssey: two women, two dogs, and two horses loaded with food and camping gear. I remember worrying about the animals we left behind, but once we turned east on the Portland highway, all I could think about was what lay beyond the Coast Range. Or what I hoped . . .” My throat closes on the words. Stephen watches me; he seems to be holding his breath.
Finally I say, “First, you have to understand what that land was like Before. The Willamette Valley. A huge trough running north and south, a hundred miles wide, bracketed by the Coast Range on the west and the Cascades on the east. Oh, Stephen, it was so beautiful. Gentle hills and dark earth, wheat and hay fields bright green in the spring, and in the summer dotted with bachelor’s buttons, and at harvest time, they were like golden seas. Wild roses grew along the fences, and the orchards—some of them had thousands of fruit or filbert trees, and when they bloomed, they were glorious. You’d see hawks soaring over fields of strawberries and clover, and between the fields there were stands of firs and groves of oaks with their limbs frosted with moss. The rivers were wide and slow and deep green, and there’d be fishermen at almost any bend.”
Stephen is rapt, and I might as well be describing Oz. It is, in fact, a fantasy now.
“The biggest cities in the state were in the Willamette Valley, Stephen. Portland, which was a major seaport, even if it was so far inland. The ships came up the Columbia River. And Salem, which was the capital of the state. And they were targets for those reasons.”
He tilts his head, brows drawn. “Targets?”
“Targets for the bombs. I knew they would be, and I didn’t expect anyone to have survived in the cities themselves. But I thought somewhere in the Valley we’d find . . . some remnant of civilization.”
“But you didn’t.” It isn’t a question.
“No. I hadn’t counted on the firestorms from the bombs and the effects of the nuclear winter and the Blind Summer. What we found east of the divide of the Coast Range was a desert. A charred, dry wasteland. All the trees had burned. The river that flowed by the highway was brown. Every field was cracked and gouged with gullies. Only a few sprigs of grass and lupine tried to root there. It was a gray, silent place where no insects buzzed, and birds didn’t live to sing, and the only thing that moved was whirlwinds of dust.”
“What did you do?” he asks in a whisper.
I shrug. “We kept going east. I knew we wouldn’t find anything alive within thirty miles of Portland, but I convinced myself that the burns just east of the Coast Range were the result of forest fires that began in the mountains. And I convinced myself that between the forest-fire bum and the blast zones, there’d be a green corridor where people could survive. Rachel wasn’t convinced, but she knew I’d have to see for myself. So, we went on, following the highway, although at times it was buried under dunes. We passed small towns and farms, most of them burned out. On the fourth night we camped at a farm where the bam and house were still standing. We slept in the bam. The house was . . . occupied by the remains of the family that had lived there. That night we were wakened by the timbers of the bam groaning. The windmill outside was creaking madly, and when we opened the bam door, we ran into a wall of windblown dust. That’s when we understood the brown clouds we’d seen from Amarna, Stephen. They were dust storms. This one went on for two days, while we huddled in the barn with the wind battering at it, and the dust sifting through all the cracks until we could hardly breathe.”
Stephen laces his fingers tensely. “Weren’t you afraid?”
“Terrified. And I had to face the fact that there’d be no green corridor in a place where dust storms of such magnitude could be generated, that the wasteland was a product of firestorms fanning out from the bombs that hit Portland and Salem. Of course, there might’ve been green corridors in the Cascades or in the south end of the Willamette Valley, but we weren’t equipped for that long a trek—not through this new desert—and we couldn’t stay away from Amarna that long. So the coast seemed our only hope. But we knew if we headed south on the coast, we’d hit that big forest-fire burn from the year before, so we decided to head north.”
“That’s too bad,” he says, shaking his head. “If you’d gone south, you might’ve found the Ark.”
I stare at him, and I have to control the caustic reply that comes first t
o my lips. He speaks out of ignorance and innocence, and I bring out a smile for him, then turn my attention to the diary.
“Once we crossed back over the summit of the Coast Range, we were in living forest again, and we bathed in a cold mountain stream and feasted on trout. I realized then that we lived in the green corridor. The only question was how far it extended. The road we took over the mountains joins Highway 101 about fifty miles north of here. There was a small town at the junction, but it was deserted, all the buildings in ruins. Well, it wasn’t entirely deserted. We found a mother cat and her five half-grown kittens there. We managed to catch three of the kittens, and we were happy to discover that two were males. We made a cage of sticks and rope with a piece of plywood as a floor, and for the rest of the trip, the kittens rode in state on top of Silver’s packs.”
Stephen laughs at that picture, and I add, “I don’t think the kittens were impressed with this lofty perch. Anyway, that night we built a big signal fire. We thought if there were any survivors in the area, they’d see it. But there was no answer to our signal. The next morning, we continued north, then after a few miles, the forest suddenly ended, and we were in another bum. Forest fire, not firestorm. It went on for miles, for days. Dead, black trees as far as we could see. Sometimes we’d cross patches of green forest, but they were small. Most of the towns we went through along the way had been burned, too. Even when we found houses intact, no one was living in them. We saw a lot of little graveyards with wooden markers. None of the dates were later than four months after the End.”
I close my eyes, but open them again quickly. A montage of those poignant little graveyards waits in my mind’s eye. Stephen remains patiently silent until I’m ready to continue.
“We kept going north on the coast highway, lighting signal fires every night, but there were no answering signals. Finally, we came to a junction with Highway 26. We’d been away from Amarna for nearly two weeks, and we couldn’t stay much longer. Rachel got out her map and pointed to a cross mark just off Highway 26 about fifteen miles inland. Saddle Mountain. She’d been there Before—it was a state park—and she said there was a road to its base and a trail up to the summit. And Saddle Mountain is more than three thousand feet high. From the top we could see well over a hundred miles in every direction. We could see man-made smoke or fire, and our smoke or fire could be seen over all that distance. So we headed east, and when we got close to Saddle Mountain, we found it was in one of those islands the fires hadn’t touched. The trail to the summit was passable, and at the top the old fire lookout cabin was still standing. That gave us some shelter. The wind was sometimes fierce, and nothing grew on the summit but stunted grass and salal.”
“What did you see from up there?”
“The world, Stephen.” I give that a laugh. “A small piece of it that seemed very large to us. To the south and east, we saw the burn we’d been traveling through, and above the haze on the eastern horizon, a few tiny, white cones—the high peaks of the Cascades. To the west we saw the ocean, and to the north, green forest and the Columbia River where it meets the sea at Astoria. Beyond the river lay more forest, but on the horizon we saw a strip of gray. We looked at it through the binoculars, and it was another burn. Then I turned the binoculars on Astoria. Most of the town was in ruins, but not all of it. Yet there was no sign of smoke—the kind produced by cooking fires, the smoke of civilization. That didn’t discourage me. We planned to stay for a few days, and we’d have ample opportunity to look for smoke at every time of day and the lights of fires at every time of night. And sooner or later—so I told myself—someone would see our signal and answer it. From the beginning of our trek we were so desperate for a sign of human life, we’d put aside the old fear of strangers who might be killers. We were willing to take that chance, and I couldn’t imagine that anyone out there wouldn’t be willing to take that chance with us.” I pause then, and Stephen seems on the verge of a question, but he looks at me and says nothing.
And I go on. “So, we built a fire on top of Saddle Mountain and kept it burning day and night. We spent most of the daylight hours hauling wood up for the fire, but one of us always surveyed the countryside at least once every half hour. At night we went on shifts: two hours watching, two sleeping. The times weren’t exact, but nearly so; Rachel’s watch still worked. The first two days were clear, and the nights were dark—it was a new moon—but we didn’t see any smoke or lights. Still, I kept thinking, one more day, one more night. Someone would answer our signal. On the third day the wind shifted to the south, and we could see clouds on the horizon, but we kept the fire going all day and into the night. And watched. Watched and hoped. And saw . . . nothing.”
Stephen reaches for my hand where it lies on the open pages of the diary. “Oh, Mary, weren’t you sad when nobody answered your signal?”
My gentle Stephen. I remember that last night. . . .
“Yes, Stephen. Yes, I was sad.”
And this Star, that is toward the North, that we clepe the Lode Star, appeareth not to them. For which cause, men may well perceive, that the Land and the Sea be of round shape and form. . . . And if I had Company and Shipping, I trow well, in certain, that we should have seen the roundness of the Firmament all about.
—JEHAN DE MANDEVILLE (SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE),
THE TRAVELS OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE (c. 1371)
A shadow of cloud hid the stars on the western horizon, but the rest of the sky was icily clear. Mary Hope looked up at Polaris, the North Star, the Lode Star, and wondered how many miles of trackless wilderness, how many leagues of unmapped sea human beings had crossed over the millennia, all guided by that constant star. Yet only an accident of location placed it in line with Earth’s axis at this point in the planet’s history.
The wind blew chill out of the south, carrying the pungent scent of smoke from the fire behind her. It was too far away to provide any warmth, but she could hear the rush of flames. She sat on a ledge of rock with only a blanket to soften its cold hardness, sat cross-legged like a sadhu on a mountaintop, tranced in search of wisdom, and watched Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper swing around the fulcrum of Polaris. The Milky Way cast a veil of stars on the endless black of absence where silence echoed, and the accumulated light of all those distant suns served to make the sky lighter than the land only by the fine degree that was to her eyes discernible. She felt her eyes wide open, pupils large and dark, reaching into the dark of the land. The sky was full of suns, yet she denied them, sought one light, one small sun in the darkness below the myriad.
Where are you? You must be out there. Just one light, that’s all I ask.
Behind her, behind the fire, the horses were tethered to forage on the sparse grass; Rachel and the dogs and kittens were asleep in the lookout cabin. Mary could hear no sound as evidence of their existence, and she was possessed by the conviction that they did not exist, that she was the only thing living in this fathomless darkness.
No, it was a sensation more than a conviction, but it was pervading. And it was new. Through three days and three nights of maintaining the fire and scanning the land for an answer, she had never doubted that she would see that wisp of smoke, that small sun of light.
Now, finally, doubt whispered its chill in the wind, and she began shivering and couldn’t stop.
A sound behind her—loose rock displaced by light feet. Shadow came up beside her, nudged her elbow. Mary rubbed Shadow’s back, wondering if Rachel was awake. It seemed too early for her shift. But a few minutes later Mary heard Rachel’s footsteps on the stone along with the patter of Sparky’s paws.
When Rachel sat down next to her, Mary asked, “Is it time?”
“Past time, actually. It’s about twelve-thirty. Which makes it a new day.” She paused, then, “Do you realize what day this is?”
“No, I . . . I guess I’ve lost track of the days.”
“This is September fifteen
th,” Rachel said dully. “The second anniversary of the End.”
The second anniversary. Two years. Mary looked out at the black world where nothing provided her any frame of reference for dimension. Or time. She made no response to Rachel’s revelation.
At length, Rachel said, “Mary, we’ll have to leave tomorrow. At this elevation and this time of year, that storm might mean snow.”
Mary closed her eyes, breath stopped by a rush of panic. She blurted, “We can’t leave, Rachel! Just one more day—they’ll answer our signal by then.”
A sigh in the wind. “They? If anyone were out there to see our signal, they’d have answered it by now.”
“Maybe they’re afraid to answer. They don’t know who we are—”
“Mary, please. You know better.”
Sparky whined and put his front paws on Mary’s knees, and she stroked his head. Yes, she knew better. Her shoulders slumped with the release of unrecognized tension that left her muscles aching.
“Rachel, there are survivors out there.”
“Yes, there are survivors. Probably millions in the southern hemisphere managing to adapt to this new Stone Age. There must be survivors all over the world in isolated pockets like ours. But not here, Mary. Not here.”
Mary stared at Rachel but couldn’t see her face, only the shape of her body limned by the firelight against the darkness. Her voice was quiet, nearly toneless, when it should have been strained with pain.
And Mary realized she was listening for her own pain.
She gazed out into the dark wilderness, and held back a cry. Let me see a light. Just one tiny spark of light.
Not here. Somewhere in the world, lights were burning on this night. Not here. The word that gagged in her throat was loneliness.
