No one in the mainstream media could explain what had happened. There was no radiation. No traces of chemical explosion. No falling missiles. No mushroom clouds. There had been no associated earthquakes of any significance. The ground underneath had simply vanished, and whatever was above it had filled in the void. It didn’t make any sense. It was a mystery. But of course many people thought they knew exactly what had happened.
As she watched the news, Linda came to understand that, though she’d been there, even she didn’t really know. It was too big. And she was too tired to try to wrap her head around it now. She realized she’d been hoping for word of her mother. None had come. Part of her knew that she should be there, in the fray, acting like the President she’d been elected to be, overseeing and commanding and making decisions, encouraging and cajoling and empathizing and reassuring. But she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t.
It wasn’t just because she didn’t know whom to trust, or whether it was safe for her now. It was something far deeper than that. Something fundamental had shifted, as though the hand of God had reached inside her and flipped a switch at the base of her spine. The rules she thought she’d been playing by had been revealed as illusions. Progress, the future, the “American way,” even such primary notions as physical reality and life and death, every bit of solid ground she’d thought she was standing on had fallen away beneath her in the past week, threatening to swallow her up as surely as the sinkholes threatened the capitol city. President Linda Travis was no longer sure what mattered. She was no longer sure if anything mattered. And that realization pinned her to the sofa: sore, exhausted, and filled with frozen grief and paralyzing doubt. She did not know if she would ever get up again.
As the news droned on, Linda remained on the sofa, hugging Alice to her like a life preserver. The velvety nap of the President’s shaved head cushioned her scattered thoughts. The Vice-President would have to handle things, she thought as she drifted into sleep. That’s what he was for, wasn’t it? He would have to make do.
Finally she slipped into that further realm, to seek the answers she could not find in this one. She did not notice when Alice moved over to the recliner, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes as well.
19.5
“Grandpa!” said Emily happily, running toward his bed.
“Careful, Em,” cautioned Cole. He followed his daughter into the room, his hand on Iain’s shoulder. Emily stopped short and approached more slowly.
All three stood and looked down at Ben Thomas. His face was the color of dirty sheets, his hair was matted, his eyelids veined and pale and moist. Emily ran a finger along the IV line that ran into his arm.
Cole’s father opened his eyes. “Hi, kids,” he said, his voice a rasping whisper. He glanced up at Cole. “Grace okay?” he asked.
Cole nodded. “She’s one floor up, Dad. Still in a coma.”
Ben nodded, an almost imperceptible gesture. “I’m sorry,” he said. There were tears in the corners of his dull, drained eyes. He fumbled for Emily’s hand and grasped it firmly when he found it. “I’m glad… to see you guys,” he said, looking from Emily to Iain. Iain moved around to the other side of his bed and took his grandfather’s other hand. Ben sighed and closed his eyes.
“Nothing to be sorry for, Dad,” murmured Cole. He stayed a couple of steps back.
Ben smiled and spoke, with eyes still closed. “You never were much of a liar, Cole,” he said.
After a while, Cole excused himself to go sit with Grace, leaving Emily and Iain to stay with their grandfather, who’d fallen back to sleep. He nodded at the nurse he’d spoken to earlier as he walked past their station. His father would be fine, the man had said, though it would take a good, long while for him to get there. One bullet had destroyed a section of Ben Thomas’s colon, though no bullet had been found, and there was no exit wound. The other had grazed a kidney. And it had been well past “the golden hour” before he’d arrived at the hospital. But an unknown somebody had fashioned a field dressing even before Officer Fairly had arrived. That dressing had probably saved his life. Cole thought he knew who that somebody was, and prayed for Mary’s recovery.
Cole sighed as he walked down the hallway. His father would be “fine.” Cole wondered what that meant. Perhaps “I’m sorry” was the beginning of it. He’d wait and see. But he knew now that such things were possible. He knew now, in fact, that much more was possible than he’d ever imagined. Cole, himself, was no longer who he’d been. The whole world had shifted on its axis. That’s how it felt.
He caught the elevator just as the doors were closing and squeezed in with an apologetic smile. Stepping out onto the next floor, he made his way down the hallway. Grace was in the room at the end on the right, with two large corner windows looking out across the valley. Cole was thankful that there was nobody in the other bed.
A young nurse with short, straight, orange-red hair popped out as he reached for the door. “Are you the father?” she asked. The look in her dark green eyes almost destroyed his composure. It was as though she could see right into his heart and share his deepest feelings.
Cole nodded.
The nurse pulled Cole into the room and closed the door behind her, as though to speak in private. She gestured toward Grace with a nod of her head. “She’ll be back,” she said.
Cole frowned. “How do you know?” he said, his voice low and demanding.
“I’m not supposed to say things like this,” the nurse said, glancing back at the door. She looked Cole in the eyes. “You understand?”
Cole nodded. He gestured toward Grace. “Tell me.”
The nurse paused, regarding him with soft, sure eyes. “I just know. I always know. They … the patients … the one’s who’re, you know, gone… they tell me. Whether they’re finished here and are passing on. Or if they’re coming back.” She stepped toward the hospital bed, then turned back to Cole. “Grace told me. Last night. She’s coming back.” Her eyes welled up as she spoke. She reached out and put a hand squarely on Cole’s chest. “So you just hang on, Dad. Okay?” she said. “Just hang on. She’s coming back.”
Cole nodded. The nurse returned his nod and left without another word, closing the door. Cole walked to Grace’s bed and took the seat beside her and watched her as she slept. After a while he said the same thing his father had said. “I’m sorry.”
19.6
“Nothing to be sorry for, Daddy,” said Grace as she watched her father. She knew she would not be heard. Reaching out to her body, she tried again to feel her way back. Again, she failed. Her body was right there. She could reach out and touch it. But she could not get back inside. And she did not understand why that was.
19.7
Linda looked around the room. Alice sat cross-legged and silent in the recliner, her eyes closed, her breath faint. The afternoon sun had brought a warm glow to the room. Thankful for that, Linda closed her eyes and tried to recall her dream. Only … it hadn’t been a dream, had it? There, sleeping on Cole’s living room sofa, Linda had been given the gift of remembering.
It was the day of her escape. She was at Long Fall, Earl’s old family farm in West Virginia, what the press called “the Ranch.” The sun was setting behind the mountains and she’d headed off into the woods, to take a short, brisk walk before dinner. Mary was with her. And two Secret Service agents. Some of the trees were in their full autumn colors. Others were just beginning to turn.
Linda stomped down the trail, furious. They’d taken her again. In the night. Spud. A few others. But no other humans. Nobody from the People. They’d taken her right from her room, stolen her away from under the noses of her security detail, floated her right through the glass of her second-story bedroom window and up along a beam of blue stardust to their ship waiting overhead. It was huge and terrifying and glorious.
Inside the ship, it seemed, she’d found herself standing at the edge of a huge inland lake, surrounded by a vast desert plain. To the west were distant hills, brown and d
usty, rising up toward the sky. It reminded her of a scene from some Biblical movie. The sun burned hot and white directly overhead through a gauzy haze. She could feel the heat through the soles of her shoes, the flinty sand on her face. She could smell the sea, and smoke in the breeze.
People everywhere were running and screaming, streaming toward her and past and beyond, clinging to children and clothing and their treasured belongings. Their eyes were wide with terror. There was fire coming down from the sky. Fire like balls of lava. Like falling missiles. Fire like flaming arrows. Linda could see to the north that a city was burning.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” said Spud over her shoulder. Linda whirled to confront him, but there was no one there.
“What is this?” she’d shouted.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
Linda had picked up a rock and thrown it. “Come talk to me, you fuck!” she’d screamed. “If I need quotes I’ll look in my Bartlett’s!”
The fire rained down on the fleeing crowds. A woman with a child in her arms burst into flame right in front of her. “How can you do this?” she cried to the heavens.
This time there was no response. Around her the destruction continued.
Linda had looked up just in time to see the fireball that hit her. Her whole body turned to flames, burning away everything that she was and would be and ever had been. The sky turned black and then she was back in her bed. She’d fallen to sleep in an instant.
Linda had taken the path down to the river and headed toward the base of the falls. Mary followed close behind. The memory of her abduction rattled in the President’s skull as she stepped carefully over the rocks and roots. She looked up and smiled. The rhododendrons were beginning to crowd the path. Linda imagined them slapping the faces and arms of Mary and the Secret Service goons who followed her, two young men whom she’d never met before, both of whom she was certain were members of the People. She pushed through and hurried on.
The path curved away from the river and up over a small ridge. Linda increased her speed, noting the river as it flowed below her. It was beautiful this time of year. The autumn leaves played in the eddies and painted the rocks at the foot of the falls. This was where, on a weekend visit to his parents, Earl had told her of his desire to run for the state senate. Together, they had decided to give it a try, and that one decision had changed the course of their lives in ways they could never have imagined.
Mary was huffing behind her, trying to keep up. “You okay, Mrs. President?” she called out. The agents had fallen behind.
Linda ignored her and kept on. The path wound its way back down to the river and opened up before her. There were the falls, towering above, majestic and cold in the twilight. Linda plunged without hesitation into the pool of water at the fall’s base.
“Mrs. President!” called Mary.
Linda turned to see her warden, doubled over and struggling for breath at the river’s edge. The Secret Service agents crashed around the bend to join her.
“I’m just taking a swim, Mary!” Linda said with scorn. “You guys are such wimps!” She pushed at the pill container in her front pocket, hoping its presence would not be revealed by her wet clothing.
Mary frowned, hands on her hips. The agents puffed themselves up, as if to say this was no big deal.
Linda strode further into the pooling water. It was up to her waist now, deliciously cold, and she kept moving forward. The memory of fire from above had clung to her body all day long. She needed those falling waters, to wash the flames away.
“Please be careful!” shouted Mary from the shore. The agents had taken positions on either side of her, watching the woods and the ridge behind as if every tree were a potential assassin.
Linda just waved Mary off and plunged into the falls, almost dropping to her knees but catching herself and pushing against the water’s weight to regain her feet. She turned slowly as the water pounded her shoulders and head and face. She let her head fall back and screamed into the twilight, delighting in the sound of her voice as it echoed off the stone wall behind the falls. Spent and tired, she fell back against that cold, rocky face, smooth and wet and dark. She could barely make out Mary and the agents through the sheet of falling water.
And then the tiny gray hands had grabbed her from behind and pulled her into the rock and sent her on her way.
The President opened her eyes with a gasp. There stood Alice, her fingers on Linda’s forearm. “I require food now, Mrs. Linda,” she said. Linda rose to get Alice something to eat, smiling at the touch of the strange, tiny hands that pulled her into the kitchen.
19.8
“You give up?” asked Iain. There was victory in his eyes.
Linda looked out over the board. Iain now controlled the entire world, save for her little corner of South America, and the few armies he hadn’t even bothered with that sat, lonely and impotent, on Eastern Australia. He’d just taken the last of her armies on Brazil, attacking from North Africa, destroying the integrity of her only continent. He pushed his pile of pieces across the ocean and picked up the dice.
Linda scrunched her nose. Emily and Alice had long since given up and gone upstairs. It was down to the two of them. There was no way she could win. “You’re a little shit, you know that?” she said, smiling.
“Yes!” Iain pumped his fist and grinned broadly. He stood and raised both arms over his head. “I beat the President of the United States at Risk!” he crowed. He sat back down and started to pick up his pieces.
“No, no,” said Linda. “I play the game, you make the popcorn. That was the deal. I’ll clean up and you get started.”
Iain shrugged a “whatever” and headed toward the kitchen. Linda scooped the brightly colored armies back into their containers and put away the cards and dice and packed it all in the box.
Somewhere along the way it had turned to night. Linda peered into the darkness, remembering the spotlights in the trees and the glowing eyes. Was that really only a week ago? How could that be? The woods tonight were dark and still, the sky overcast and starless. The forces that had driven the week’s events had rebalanced, like a hurricane now spent, an avalanche now settled. Or maybe those forces had been appeased, as Sina had demanded. Whatever it was, this was a very different night. The urgency that had filled that evening was gone, displaced by a welcome sense of safety and calm. This was a day for a fire in the woodstove, an early dinner of frozen pizza, and a game at the dining-room table, with a movie and popcorn still to come. This was a day for the normal they had all once known. Linda doubted that normal would ever fully return.
None of it was normal for Alice, of course. The girl was an unknown. A riddle wrapped inside a mystery wrapped inside a flour tortilla, as Earl used to joke. Linda smiled to hear the girls upstairs, whispering. Emily was showing Alice her violin, from the sounds of it. Linda took a long, slow breath. Perhaps, to Emily, Alice was no mystery at all.
Cole had come back mid-afternoon, Emily and Iain right at his heels. He’d charged through the door, wrapped Linda in his arms and kissed her deeply, letting his two older children know exactly how things now were. Emily and Iain simply smiled and fell onto the sofa, exhausted and glad to be home. Cole and the kids spoke of their grandfather and Grace. Linda told them what she’d learned from the news, and they watched the television for a while together, to learn of anything new.
But Cole had been distracted. As much as he wanted to stay, he had to get back to Grace. He’d made a quick phone call to Cat and Jake, his closest neighbors, telling them that they’d returned and that he would explain it all as soon as was possible, and asking, in the meantime, that they pass the word to the rest of the community: for now they just needed to be left alone. Then he turned to his family, kissed them all, even Alice, and headed back to the hospital. Emily and Iain had both taken naps in their rooms. Alice and Linda had watched the news and dozed on the sofa.
“Popcor
n!” called Iain as he poured on the melted butter. The four of them sat side-by-side on the sofa in the family room and watched some action-comedy thing Iain had said was great. It was okay. Alice had never watched a movie before and said she felt “seriously assaulted” by the rush of images and noise. It was not long before she’d wandered back upstairs. Emily followed. Linda stayed until the end, mostly in support of Iain, who so clearly needed her to love it as much as he did. But she was glad when it was finished. Iain headed upstairs to chat with his Google-Land friends, with strict instructions not to mention that the U.S. President was staying at his house. Linda washed the dishes and stared out the window. She waited for Cole to call.
Eventually Linda strolled upstairs to check on the girls. She smiled to see them lying together on Emily’s bed. Emily was reading The Little Prince out loud and Alice was entranced. “I’ve never traveled with birds,” said Alice.
Emily looked up at Linda, her eyes wide with wonder at her new friend. “Any word from Dad?” she asked. Linda shook her head. Emily hesitated, then asked another question. “Will Grace be okay?”
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