The combination of the physical exertion and the beauty had a strange healing effect, and I realized Trent’s eyes no longer haunted me. Occasionally, I thought of him, but his memory no longer caused pain. The emotion associated with the memories was gone and so was the control. I understood now what Haz had meant when he’d said I seemed more alive.
I was free of Trent and I was no longer afraid of what Jonah’s past held. The fear that had once controlled me was fading and, in its place, I was becoming more alive.
Occasionally, we came across stone bridges. They were never overly large, designed only to cross a small river or stream or at times to connect land that dipped far beneath it into a narrow ravine. Each of these bridges was old, built long before the time of heavy equipment movers and concrete mixers. As my hand grazed the hand-hewn stones of a small bridge with arches reaching to the river below, I was hopeful. The people who had built it were no different than us and they were able to create so much, which still stood today—while we were barely able to build shelters that supported the weight of rain and wind. It was an odd but comforting thought. We had been here before, in this place without electricity, cars, and medicine. We had been here and we’d survived. We could do it again.
The difference? Those people understood that way of life, because they were born into that world. We could learn. As I watched my friends in front of me helping one another up the steep embankment of yet another mountain, I knew that in a lot of ways we already had learned.
We were alive in a world we never should have been able to survive. We would continue to learn and others would too. We would rebuild and, maybe this time, with people like Haz and East fighting for the cause, we wouldn’t mess it up as badly.
Now that my body and brain had healed, I no longer set the limits of the day. Juliette never said she was tired—she still rarely spoke—but we knew by the slowness of her pace when she had reached her limit.
We finished walking most days when the sun was halfway down the sky, around three or four. Juliette often collapsed, falling asleep almost instantly, while the rest of us made camp and cooked the greens or meat we’d gathered or hunted that day. The meat we ate was limited to small animals, mostly squirrels or snakes that could be killed with a spear or a knife. Josh had learned to throw knives with accuracy and provided most of our meat. Jonah still did well with his spears, but they couldn’t be used on animals that were so small.
Once and only once, Jonah had killed a possum. None of us knew they carried their young in a pouch and we were startled and then horrified when dozens of blind infants crawled from their mother’s dead body. We’d roasted them because we couldn’t waste their lives, but none of us said a word while we ate. My stomach had hurt for days after that—not from the quality of the meat, but the severity of the sin. Jonah and Sara said it wasn’t a sin to kill to sustain life; however, I was sure in this case they were wrong. I felt it deep within me.
None of us wanted to kill; it was an awful reality of our existence. Though I knew far more animals died for me before the light than would die after, in my old life I never saw them killed, and if the thought occurred to me—which it almost never did—I could pretend their deaths had been slated and my actions meant nothing. Now I knew that wasn’t true. Everything I did—good or bad—affected the world and those in it. Perhaps it was good to understand this, to know there was no such thing as a sin that only hurt the sinner or a crime where there was no victim. But it was depressing, and overwhelming too, knowing how much my actions, even my thoughts mattered.
“Your face looks weird,” Jonah said. “What are you thinking about?”
I blinked, thinking backwards.
“I don’t know … sin, I guess. Believing in God is sort of depressing.”
Jonah chuckled. We were far enough behind the others and they didn’t hear.
“Why is that funny?” I asked, annoyed.
His face shimmered with sweat as we made our way down a steep incline.
“It reminds me how different we are, and how much I love that about you.”
“You love that I find believing in God depressing?” I asked, scrunching my eyebrows.
“No,” he said. “I love that you bring such a different perspective to how I see things. Though in this case, I think you’re wrong.”
“How can I be wrong? It’s how I feel.”
“Oh, the feeling is fine. That’s obviously not wrong, but the thought that created the feeling, that’s the part I think you’re wrong about.”
“I never even told you what I was thinking, so how can you tell me my thoughts are wrong?”
“You said you were thinking about sin and that left you depressed, which tells me you were focusing too much on God’s justice and not enough on his mercy. That’s pretty common, but it’s wrong.”
“How do you know? Have you talked to God? Have you asked him, ‘Hey, God, should I focus on your mean side or your nice side?’ ” I wanted to be angry, but was unable to do so with Jonah’s hand in mine.
“No,” he replied. “I’ve prayed about it and studied it and read the writings of lots of saints and early fathers and mothers of the Church.”
“You studied it?” I asked, confusion taking the place of anger.
“It was important to me and my relationship with God, so I dug deeper,” he answered.
“I never knew you could do that,” I said.
“Never knew you could do what?” He looked as confused as I felt.
“Study about God. I mean, I know you can read the Bible and talk to people and pray about stuff, but it never occurred to me there was actual studying of things.”
“What did you think I was doing in seminary?” he asked, sounding hurt.
“I don’t know, praying? Learning how to do the Mass and stuff that Eli does.”
“You thought that took five years?”
“Five years! You were in school for five years to be a priest?”
“If I had finished, it would have taken closer to seven, because I didn’t start seminary with a college degree,” he answered.
“That’s like being a doctor,” I said.
“When you go to a physician, you want to make sure they are trained and will be able to help, not harm you. It’s the same in the spiritual world.”
“I never thought about studying and education going together with religion,” I admitted.
“That’s funny. I’ve never thought of them as being separate,” he said. “God gave us the ability to think and reason. He didn’t ask us to then turn that off when it came to him. If that’s what you believed, I understand why you were an atheist.”
“I guess I thought you had to blindly follow.”
“Never blindly follow, Bria. That’s a recipe for really awful stuff. Mass suicides come to mind. God gave you a brain and he wants you to use it,” he said.
I said nothing as his words repeated in my head.
“Can you believe in science and be religious?” I asked, realizing that when I was younger, that was one of the reasons I decided my father was right to be an atheist.
He pursed his lips. “Have you ever heard of Georges Lemaître?”
“No.”
“What about the Big Bang Theory?”
“Yes,” I said apprehensively. Religious people hated that theory, but it made sense to me—not that I fully understood it, but I could follow the concept and liked it.
“Georges Lemaître proposed it, or created it, and he was a Catholic priest. Similarly, the father of modern genetics was a Catholic monk.”
“And the Church kicked them out?” I asked.
He laughed. “No, they loved the Church and the Church loved them. You can love science and God. The two are not mutually exclusive, though lots of people believe that. I never understood why.”
I couldn’t remember why I thought they were separate. Though I’d always believed they were.
“Aww, young love,” Jonah said, squeezing my hand.
/> I blinked, seeing Sage and Hayden in front of us, their arms around each other as they walked.
“When did that happen?” I asked.
“Have you really not noticed?” he asked, tilting his body to me.
I shook my head.
“I thought women were supposed to pick up on that kind of stuff faster than men,” he said.
“Not me. I’ve always been oblivious.”
“That explains how it took us so long to get to this point,” he said, holding up my hand in his.
I laughed. “I guess that’s true, but I’m happy with where we are.” I liked going slow, and for the first time, no one was pressuring me to move faster.
“I’m happy with where we are too,” he said, rubbing his thumb against the outside of my hand.
“They are kind of all over each other,” I said, watching Hayden and Sage awkwardly try to walk and kiss at the same time.
“How can they walk like that?” Jonah whispered as we overtook them.
I shrugged. “I am definitely not that coordinated.”
We were now close to Sara and Juliette. Blaise and Josh were only a step or two ahead. The terrain was getting steeper and more difficult.
“We should stop here for the night,” Josh said, pointing to a shallow cave.
In a pleading tone, Blaise said, “Once we reach the top of this mountain, we should be able to see my town in the valley.”
“Sunset is less than an hour away,” Jonah said. “We won’t make it there tonight.”
Blaise’s hope faded. Jonah was right. We should not make camp in the dark. It wasn’t safe or practical.
“We’ll leave at first light,” Josh said, putting an arm around her.
Blaise said nothing and threw her pack onto the dirt surrounded by stone. Josh placed his pack beside hers. It was difficult for her; she could think only of wanting to see her parents and making sure they were okay. Since the moon was in its darkest cycle, we had no choice but to stop for the night.
I set my pack against the back of the small cave. Jonah and I were not on guard duty, and I wanted only to sleep. Juliette and Sara set up near Jonah and me. Astrea would undoubtedly spend her night with Sage and Hayden while they took turns being on guard.
***
In the darkness I heard the baying of wolves or wild dogs and felt Jonah rise beside me.
“They’re close,” he whispered.
“The night is so dark,” I said, like a child afraid of what I could not see.
“Astrea, come,” Juliette called.
Astrea whined and obeyed Juliette.
“It’s okay,” Sage said. “They aren’t coming closer.”
“We are ready for them if they do,” Hayden added.
I sat for a long while, listening and waiting, until finally, sleep overtook me.
Twenty-Three
The morning was bright and peaceful, all remnants of fear gone. The dogs or wolves, or combination of both, never came closer. And aside from dreams filled with Haz telling me I wasn’t good enough for Jonah, the night had been restful.
The trek down the ridge took us most of the day, traveling at a pace too quick to be comfortable, but Blaise set the pace and none of us wanted to delay her. We would be in the east part of town, which was where she lived, long before the sun set.
Jonah strode beside me, his hand in mine. Behind us, Sage and Hayden walked in sync and as close together as humanly possible. I found it irritating, though not sure why. By now she must know every detail of his life, but the rest of us knew almost nothing about him. Perhaps that was why I didn’t trust him. I didn’t know him.
Sara had asked him the morning we left the garage why he was coming with us when he knew we were going toward a town in the same direction as the harvesters. With a shrug of indifference, he’d said he had nowhere else to go.
Juliette and Sara walked in front of us, Astrea easily keeping pace. It was amazing how much of a difference a month made in the life of a puppy. I was grateful we had her. She saw and heard what we could not. She didn’t trust Hayden, either. She never growled at him, but she kept her distance.
Remote houses began to dot the landscape. We slowed our pace dodging the view from their windows as best as we could.
“It’s weird. I know it’s impossible, but I can’t help hoping that I’m going to walk into my house and smell mulberry pie and see my parents at the kitchen table, drinking coffee,” Blaise said.
My heart broke for her as I remembered how much her life was about to change. Perhaps her parents were alive, but odds were at least one of them wasn’t.
“I know what you mean,” Sara said. “I felt the same when we were going to my apartment. Like your brain has this sort of way it thinks about home and it doesn’t matter how much logic is telling you otherwise, you still think of it that way.”
Blaise sniffed. “I thought I was the only one,” she said. “Something about coming home makes all of this so much harder, like I can’t pretend it’s a dream.”
Josh lifted an arm to her shoulders.
“That’s how it is with death too,” Sage said, my body straightening as her voice rang forward. “I keep forgetting Mom is dead, and then a second later I remember all over again. Especially when I wake up. Every morning I hope this is a bad dream, that I’ll wake up and be in in our apartment. Warm and comfortable, everyone I know still alive. My mom cooking waffles, waiting for me to come into the kitchen.”
Hayden pulled her to him.
“I have that dream almost every night,” Sara said, staring into the blankness of empty houses. “And then I wake up and it’s all I can do to not fall apart.”
Juliette gave Sara a hug.
“It’s been almost nineteen years since my mom died,” I said, “and I still dream of her. And I hope I always do. It’s the one place I can see her, where she is alive and we are together.”
“You are very strong,” Jonah whispered.
I could only manage a sad smile for him. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes trying to deal with her loss.”
“Does it get easier?” Sage asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “The ache becomes duller, almost muted, I guess, by time. It never goes away, but it becomes tolerable. Now, when I dream of her, I don’t cry when I wake up. My heart hurts, but I don’t cry.”
“You’re lucky,” Hayden said.
“What?” I asked, appalled at the callousness of his words.
“You had a mom who loved you. You’re lucky.”
“Your mom didn’t love you?” Blaise asked.
“No,” he answered.
“What about your dad?” Josh asked.
Hayden scoffed, glancing at us. “No parent has ever disliked their child more than my father disliked me.”
“I’m sure you’re wrong,” Blaise said. “I’m sure they loved you.”
“Blaise, a person knows when they aren’t loved. Hayden left them for a reason,” Sage said, her tone defensive, her hand still in Hayden’s.
“I was born to them, but I never belonged to them. They didn’t care about me. They cared about the image of me. In front of others, the callous, selfish people I knew turned into doting parents. Then when we were alone, their true selves would return. I used to think I did something wrong every time we got into the house or the car, to make them stop loving me. When we were with others, I soaked in as much attention and pretend love as I could get. This made the act that much more believable. By the time I was eight or nine I realized it was a show, and I wouldn’t play along. That only made things worse,” he said, his jaw tight.
“Did they hit you?” Sara asked.
“No.” He said. “They were cruel and abusive, but not physically violent. They just pretended I wasn’t there. I spent my time at home in my room. I’d sneak out at night to eat.”
Blaise gasped and said, “They didn’t feed you?”
“They always made sure I had enough money for school lunch, though that had less to do with
feeding me and more to do with maintaining the image. At home they controlled what I ate. It was always enough to live on, but I never felt full. At night I would sneak out and eat little bits of several things so they wouldn’t notice what was missing.”
“Did they treat your sister that way too?” Josh asked.
He shook his head.
“Why did they treat her differently?” I asked.
“She’s just like them. She played their game and was always perfect around their friends. I acted up and embarrassed them. And when your life is about appearances, having a non-perfect kid only makes you hate that kid even more.”
There was another difference, which I would never verbalize. His sister was tall, with wavy auburn hair and perfect skin. Hayden was short, with dull, matted hair and pale, blotchy skin.
“What about your brother?” Josh asked.
“My brother?” Hayden appeared confused.
“The guy at the Taits’,” Jonah said.
“That was my sister’s boyfriend. They were spending Thanksgiving with my parents.”
“Why didn’t you run away?” Blaise asked.
“Where was I supposed to go?” His tone harsh.
Blaise didn’t answer.
His tone softened. “I turn eighteen the day after I was supposed to graduate from high school. I was going to move out then—or, really, be kicked out. I was doing what I could to save money so I wouldn’t be homeless, but I guess the real truth is I stayed because I wanted them to love me.” He kicked a piece of loose asphalt as we moved between buildings. “Then when the EMPs hit, I didn’t know what else to do. I had no weapon and I had no idea how to hunt, so I went with them, eating their leftovers. When we came to the farm I stayed to protect the Taits from them.”
“You were so brave,” Sage said, holding onto his arm.
Hayden shrugged, as if trying to make it seem like no big deal, but I could tell he was loving the attention.
“You were brave,” Sage said. “I told you that before, and I’ll tell you every time you tell me that story.”
From the Shadows Page 16
