Rowan made his way to the kitchen and took a seat at the edge of the dining table, far removed from everyone else. Lorena hadn’t even noticed him because she was hard at work with helping Hailee prepare dinner. Eventually, however, she was able to pour Rowan a bowl of soup, which she placed in front of him with a smile before limping back to the stove.
The room got full fast. While people waited for their food, they talked about their day at work as if anything was somehow different from the previous day, and though their conversations were new to Rowan, he wasn’t really interested in listening to or engaging with them at all. He didn’t even know why he came for dinner, as he didn’t have the appetite to eat very much. The pit in his stomach had returned, and it was much stronger than before. It was like someone was twisting a knife right inside of him.
He stood up. His bowl was half-finished, but he couldn’t eat anymore. Before he could leave, however, he was aggressively waved down by Wayne who called out to him from the other side of the room.
“Hey, you’ve gotta finish your food,” he said. “We ain’t the type to be wastin’ in this community.”
“Yeah,” said Anthony, who sat across from Wayne. “Get your ass back over here.”
“I’m not hungry,” muttered Rowan. He left before anyone else could say another word to him.
The next day, Lorena woke up extra early for her work shift. She had one of the most demanding hours out of any job in the community, as she had to be in the kitchen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She did, however, get breaks in between all of these occasions, so she and Rowan made plans to potentially meet up later in the day.
Rowan’s shift wasn’t until noon, but he got up early in order to help Lorena. As soon as she left, he tried to fall back asleep, though when he failed at that, he couldn’t even muster up the energy to force himself out of bed to get breakfast and find something to do. Instead, he remained lying down, trapped in an endless cycle of restless thoughts about home. He just couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He started crying. It wasn’t triggered by any particular thought, but even if it was, that wouldn’t have made anything better. This angered him—he wasn’t supposed to be this weak. How could he hope to make it back home if all he ever did was cry? He needed strength to help his family, and he lacked so much of it. It was his weakness that separated him from his family in the first place.
He sat up and hit himself in the face a couple of times. Again, he needed to clear his mind, so he took a shower and got dressed before heading outside. He still had a lot of time to kill before his work shift, but he wasn’t hungry, so he skipped the kitchen and headed over to the library. He hadn’t been there since the board game night. It seemed like a good idea to check it out, as he never got the chance to take a look at any of the books. Hopefully, he would be able to find something to read and get his mind off of everything. He needed a world to escape to.
Jamie greeted the boy as he slithered inside. He gave her a half-smile and looked around—the shelves were stocked full of novels of all kinds, and he wasn’t quite sure of where he should start. The next book he was supposed to read for his English class was The Catcher in the Rye, and while he was sure that this library had a copy, he wasn’t so sure that he wanted to be reminded of school.
He was going to ask Jamie for a recommendation, but he was interrupted by the loud, booming roar of Anthony’s voice. He was directing his nonsense to Lyra, who was lying down on one of the couches trying to read a book. She made no effort to respond to him.
“You should become a plague doctor, too,” said Anthony. “We could be partners.”
Rowan thought about talking to Anthony to get him off of Lyra’s back, but he decided against it. Why should he bother helping her out with how rude she had been yesterday? If anything, Anthony’s harassment was karma for who she was as a person.
The boy tuned him out and continued browsing the shelves. There was a multitude of stories he had never heard of before, and he was likely never going to get the chance to read many of them. He wanted to read a shorter novel, as he was expecting to leave Hearst Castle sometime soon anyway. He didn’t want to leave a book unfinished. If he wanted the most out of a novel, he wanted the time to digest it. Of course, he could always take one of the novels with him, but that felt wrong. What if someone else wanted to read it? A book was of better use to forty people than to one—and besides, it seemed like thievery. He was better than that.
To Rowan’s surprise, Lyra came looking for another book on the shelf next to him. Anthony had gone—most likely to grab breakfast. Rowan figured that Lyra probably hadn’t even been reading the book that was in her hands, and it was instead a tool she used to ignore Anthony’s persistent badgering. She returned the book and grabbed another one: East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It was thicker than any book Rowan had ever read before. Lyra seemed to be in it for the long haul, and it was even clearer to Rowan that this place really had become a permanent home to all of these people. He didn’t understand how it was so easy for them to adjust to such a change. How could a place like this ever be your home if you aren’t with those who you love? It wasn’t as if everyone had their family living here. Many had come here alone.
“Wipe that look off of your eyes,” said Lyra, tucking the book into the crook of her arm. “You’ve had it there since yesterday.”
Rowan ceased his search for a novel. “What the hell are you talking about? What’s wrong with you?”
“Your eyes are glassy—empty, sometimes. You always look like you’re on the verge of tears whenever I see you. You should keep that to yourself in your room.”
Before Lyra could walk back to her place on the couch, Rowan stopped her. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I don’t want any trouble with you. Are you trying to pick a fight with me or something?”
“No, actually,” she said. “I just want to let you know that people here will judge you based on your behavior, so you can take my advice or not.”
“Judge me like you’re doing right now?”
Lyra smirked, which was the only bit of somewhat positive emotion that Rowan had seen from her since yesterday. “You’re not wrong, I guess. But I’m not crucifying you for being who you are—which other people here might do. I’ve just been a little bit of an asshole lately, and I don’t mean to be.”
She pointed to the couch. “Come. There aren’t a lot of readers or people interested in reading around here, even though our library is huge. I could use someone to bounce some ideas off of.”
“You won’t get much from me,” said Rowan, sitting down. “I haven’t read most of the books here.”
“That’s fine. You’ve got all the time in the world now to read whatever you want.”
“Not really. I’ve got to go find my family soon, and maybe I don’t really have all the time in the world. There’s a lot I have to do for them, and I have no time for dicking around like this. I’m not even sure why I’m here in this library right now when I could just be planning my route back home.”
“You’re here because we still have fifteen minutes until our shift. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
Lyra got up and picked another book off of the shelf for Rowan. “Here.”
“The Divine Comedy?”
“Yeah. Just read the Inferno if you want.”
Rowan placed the book down on the table in front of him. “I don’t have the time. Why this book, anyway?”
“You remind me of a friend who used to be here.”
“Used to?”
“She got sick and had to leave.”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know. I wonder if she’s still out there, but I can’t even begin to try and find her. It’d be pointless.”
“It wouldn’t be pointless. Maybe she stayed around here. If you two were close, then wouldn’t she want to wait for you? Maybe she still is.”
“It’s not that. It’s just that I’m constantly lying to myself, even
now. The plague doctors brought her out there, and I’m sure you know how they’re like. If I leave this place, I don’t think I’ll get the answer I’m looking for. It’s best that I just stay here and keep to myself—that way, if anyone else gets sick, I don’t have to be worrying all the damn time.”
“Can’t you ask one of the plague doctors about what happened to her?”
Lyra laughed and placed her book on top of Rowan’s. “Are you serious? I won’t get an honest answer from any of them—some of them probably don’t even remember who the hell she was, and it’s only been a few weeks.”
“I don’t know. Some of them seem really bold and proud of what they do, so maybe they would tell you what happened.”
“I don’t want to know the answer. All I know is that she’s gone or she’s no longer the same person that I once knew.”
Rowan wondered what he would do if Caitlyn came here and it turned out that she was sick. The plague doctors would kick her out, but he would leave with her. It didn’t matter what this place had. If it didn’t have her or his family, then it wasn’t a great enough place at all.
Lyra returned the books to the shelves before coming back to the couch. “Come on—let’s go to work. I don’t want Anthony popping back in here and ruining the rest of my day.”
The boy followed Lyra outside. They checked in together for their shift before they went over to the wall that Rowan had been working on the previous day. Lyra examined Rowan’s handiwork and showed him a better way to improve the barriers along the wall, first starting by discouraging his use of nails to create a trap. She noted that nails were best used to rebuild and create rather than hurt and destroy. There were enough weapons and guards in this place anyway.
At the end of the day, Rowan declined Lyra’s invitation for dinner. He still didn’t have an appetite. Of course, he did want to check up on Lorena for a moment, but he also wanted to find a place to relax and filter through his thoughts. The kitchen was only going to be as chaotic as always. He thought about returning to the Neptune Pool to see what it looked like during the evening, except he knew that this wouldn’t be a good idea. Lyra’s perceptive comments about his visible agony made him heed her advice, so he headed back toward his room to clear his mind while he waited for Lorena. She was the only person here who wouldn’t pester him about his behavior. Still, he didn’t want her to catch him crying or anything, so he needed to exhaust his emotions before she came back from her work shift.
On his way back, Rowan spied Wayne waiting at the front gate. Henry had come up the hill with a family of three: an exasperated father, a frail mother, and a very young, ratty son. They stared up in awe at the peaks of the buildings inside while Henry called Darius over to permit them inside.
“No need,” said Wayne. “I can already tell that the boy is sick.”
Henry jumped back from the family and pulled out his rifle. “How do you know?”
“He’s clearly infected, Henry, can’t you tell?”
“He’s not sick,” said the father, latching onto the gate. “What makes you say that?”
“Wayne, what do we do with them?” asked Henry, now aiming his gun at the boy.
“Keep that pointed away from him!” shrieked the mother.
The young boy hid behind her and began crying. She held him back and pleaded with Henry to stop, but he approached her mercilessly while waiting for Wayne’s response.
“Wayne? What do we do?”
“The child has to go,” said Wayne, prying the father’s fingers away from the lock. “Mom and dad can go see Pete to see if they’re cleared to stay, but I’ll take the boy elsewhere.”
The mother lunged forward and shook the gate in an attempt to get it open. “You can’t do that! He stays with us—please! We need this. Please, you’ve got to let our son in. You’ve got to let our family in!”
“We’ve been through too much,” cried the father. “I promise you he’s not sick. None of us are. We can help you!”
Rowan, against his better judgment, came to the gate. “Wayne, what are you doing?”
“The boy is sick,” he responded. “That ain’t good for this community.”
“Let Pete see him.”
“This ain’t for you to decide. You ain’t even gonna live here—you don’t get a say in what we do. Besides, you’re only a kid.”
Wayne unlocked the gate and motioned Henry to keep the family back. “Let’s take ‘em out of here.”
“Don’t do anything to that family,” said Rowan.
Wayne and Henry left without paying any mind to Rowan. He thought about following them out the gate, but he didn’t even know what he would do. It wasn’t as if he could stop Wayne and Henry—they had guns. Instead, Rowan could only do what he had been doing for himself and his own family: hope—hope that in all of their struggles, they would be fine. But hope wasn’t enough. It was never enough.
15
Rowan was awake all night. In the morning, he pretended to sleep so as to not alert Lorena, and she fell quite easily for it. She was extra quiet when getting out of bed and she made sure to close the door before the bleak winds could tumble through the room. Once she was gone, Rowan sat up against the bed’s headboard and was again left alone to the ever-persistent image of his family being annihilated by the bombs dropped on San Jose.
He wondered how much longer he was going to have to sit through these terrible images in his mind, but he knew that they wouldn’t rest until he made it back home. He lied back down and tried to sleep again in an attempt to rest his spirit, if only for a couple of hours. It was excruciating. Despite how heavy his eyes were, his scattered thoughts kept him up. Counting sheep didn’t work, nor did telling himself a story. There was a plague inside of his brain that refused to let him rest no matter what he did.
The clock in the room later warned him that it was noon, which meant that it was time for his work shift at the barricades. Rowan couldn’t find it in himself to feel the pressure of caring about anything related to Hearst Castle right now, though. So what if they caught him skipping out on work? He was going to find a way to make it up to them, anyway. What he needed right now was a break—a break from everything.
He couldn’t get that break. The light that shined through the windows progressively got dimmer and dimmer while Rowan grew even more restless. He wanted to take a walk and get a breath of fresh air, but the chances of someone seeing him in such a disoriented state was high. He couldn’t let anyone see him like this at all.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Rowan wasn’t sure if he wanted to answer it, but the person on the other side wouldn’t stop banging as hard as they could. He ran to the bathroom to hurriedly wash away his despair before opening the door to Darius’ irritable mug.
“I was told that you missed your shift today,” he said. “I’m going to keep it as simple as possible. You’ve got to work overtime—either tonight or tomorrow. If you don’t, you’re out of this community.”
“I’ll work tonight,” said Rowan. He wasn’t getting any sleep, anyway. “What do I need to do? I’ve never seen anyone work on the walls at night.”
“Guard duty.”
“When do I start, then?”
“After dinner. You check in with me before you go.”
“Fine,” said Rowan, shutting the door.
After dinner. He wasn’t exactly sure at what time that was, as he wasn’t planning on going to the kitchen to eat. It had been almost two whole days now since he had anything in his stomach, and yet, he had no hunger. The thought of eating just made him want to vomit.
He realized that all he needed to do was just wait for Lorena to come back after her work shift—that way, he would know that dinner was over for sure. There was shortly another knock on the door, however, and Rowan knew that dinner couldn’t have been finished yet. He begrudgingly opened the door and half-expected it to be Darius being angry at him again, but instead, Lyra was there.
“I knew you’d be here,�
� she said.
“And?”
“Listen, I don’t care about you skipping work and all, but you need to eat. You said you needed to go find your family, didn’t you? You can’t do that if you’re malnourished.”
“Why do you care, anyway?”
She invited herself inside. “You know, I’m not really keen on making friends here anymore knowing how people can just leave or be banished or die, and I know that you’re leaving as well, but I still do think of you as somewhat of a friend. And a friend would make you eat—so I am.”
“I don’t feel like eating,” said Rowan, sitting down on the bed. “I appreciate the thought, but I haven’t had an appetite in a while.”
“Well, even if you don’t want to eat, you should show up to dinner anyway. People are going to notice that you’re gone, and I don’t think that’s a good look for you.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think—”
“Get up.” She pulled him toward the door. “Eat some damn food, all right? What the hell would your family think?”
What would they think? To be fair, if he was with them right now, he wouldn’t have this problem in the first place. But he wasn’t with them. Regardless, Lyra triggered a new thought in his mind that gave him enough energy to leave: his family would be disappointed and upset with him for acting this way. He needed to do better.
The eerie wailing of the wind sent a shiver down Rowan’s spine. It was rough and tumultuous, rustling all of the leaves around him and making him almost lose his balance. The cold air sat uncomfortably on his skin, and his joints stiffened with each step that he took. It almost discouraged him from making it to the kitchen, but soon, he was greeted by the warmth of the hot stove and Lorena’s affectionate exuberance.
“Rowan!” she exclaimed, immediately grabbing him an empty plate. “You weren’t here for breakfast or for lunch. I was worried about you getting hungry.”
He sat down at the far-most edge of the table, away from everyone again. “I wasn’t hungry. Don’t worry.”
Seasons After Fall Page 16
