2
THAIS
Many exhausting minutes of nonstop running seemed to fly by as we made our way deeper into the woods. Out of breath and my lungs burning, I refused to stop even though it felt like my heart might give out if I didn’t.
But Sosie could go no farther.
She snapped her arm from my grasp and let her weight drop, falling against the ground. She gasped for air, her hand pressed to her chest.
“We can’t stop here,” I said, standing over her. “Please, Sosie, just get up. We’re almost there. We’re almost to the hill.”
Sosie put her hand out and shook her head argumentatively. “I can’t breathe, Thais,” she snapped. “The cave won’t do me any good if…I’m dead before I get there. Just let me…catch my breath.”
I gave in, even if only for a moment.
I heard crickets and frogs and a breeze brushing through the trees, but nothing else, not even the call of the Whippoorwill. There were no more gunshots or people screaming. But I didn’t hear leaves rustling, or the bushes shaking, either. This gave me some comfort, hopeful we had not been followed.
Then I caught the distinct scent of smoke on the air—and it was getting thicker.
I peered through the darkness, expecting to see the moving light of torch fires any moment now, but all I saw was blackness fringed by moonlight.
“We have to keep moving, Sosie.” I reached down, hooked my hand underneath her arm and yanked her to her feet.
A few more minutes and we came to the rocky hill. As we ascended, Sosie expressed relief for having to leave the walking-stick behind: the rocks were precarious, and the hill steep, and we needed both hands to feel our way over them, and for grip.
“Careful right here,” I cautioned. “Put your foot here.”
I stayed behind my sister, practically on top of her, to make sure she didn’t fall backward and go tumbling down the incline.
When we made it to the top, the rocky ground leveled out, replaced by dirt. The mouth of the shallow rock cave was dark and empty. We fell against the ground and tried to catch our breath. We didn’t speak for a long time; still, only the sounds of nature made any sound, ever-singing, ever-bickering, as if the world went on all around us and nothing devastating had just happened to everyone I knew.
I stayed awake into the early morning hours, fueled by horrific images of what might have happened to the town. To my friends. To my father. I wept into my filthy bloodstained hands—I had cut the right one somewhere between the house and the cave.
Sosie did nothing, said nothing, she hardly moved.
I rolled onto my side and curled up next to Sosie’s back the way I always did when we slept. Sosie never stirred; only the rising of her shoulder as she breathed indicated that she was still alive.
I looked beyond her at the stars flickering in the clear, dark sky; I watched the tops of the trees sway in the wind, and the moon as it moved through the sky slowly, hour by hour it seemed, until my eyes got so heavy I couldn’t keep them open anymore and a restless sleep finally claimed me.
The smell of choking smoke woke me the next morning. I opened my eyes to a slate sky, not colored by clouds so much as the thick layer of smoke that hung in the air. Every bone and muscle in my body ached. Sleeping against the hard ground only added to the discomfort. I moaned, and reached around, kneading my lower back with my fingertips.
“Daddy’s dead,” I heard Sosie say from behind. Her voice was listless, deadpanned; her face, when I turned to see her sitting with her back pressed against the rock wall, was lifeless and broken.
“You don’t know that.” I resented her for such words. “Don’t say things like that. He’ll be here to get us.”
Sosie’s head, pressed against the rock, shook side to side. “No, he won’t be here to get us.” She stared emotionlessly out ahead, her knees drawn up toward her chest, her hands were hidden behind them, tucked between her belly and her thighs.
“He will,” I said sharply, and left it at that, as if there was no argument to be had on the matter.
I stepped out of the cave and to the edge of the rock slope. I could see the forest at a better vantage point being higher off the ground, and in the daylight. But I couldn’t see much aside from trees, and the rocks descending in a scattered, perilous pattern below me. I could faintly hear trickling water somewhere nearby. The air felt drier than usual, choked by smoke lingering in the air like a stubborn fog that had reluctantly lifted.
I thought of my father, wanted to believe that he was still alive and would come for us soon. But a part of me feared Sosie was right. A part of me feared that finally, after six years, the moment when I’d become an orphan, had come to pass.
Standing at the edge of the incline, I looked down at my filthy toes poking from my sandals. Absently I studied the dirt around them, the tiny rocks jutting from the ground. I watched a beetle scuttle past my foot and disappear under a leaf. But I was barely conscious to any of it; mostly I saw only my mother’s face, recalling the last moment I had with her, as if it had all been a sign of things to come.
One year after The Fall…
“You’re very special,” Momma began. “You’re my girls. And I want you to be safe in this new world. Always safe. But it’s only going to get harder. Do you understand?”
We didn’t understand, really, but we sat next to her, silent and attentive so we could at least try.
Momma placed her hands within her lap; her delicate fingers disappeared beneath the folds of her long skirt. Her porcelain face appeared downcast and nervous; her tired blue eyes, framed by soft, blonde hair, were wrinkled at the edges, not by age so much as by pain and suffering—the very sight of her like this put me on edge.
Momma looked up from her restlessly moving fingers wedged between her knees. “There are some important things you both need to understand before I’m not here anymore to teach you.”
I swallowed nervously.
“What is it, Momma?” I asked with reluctance. “And what do you mean when you’re not here anymore? You’re not old. You won’t be dying anytime soon.” I wanted to believe my own words, but in the deepest part of me, I felt a growing sadness. I knew there were other ways my momma could die, and that all of them were more likely to claim her before old age ever had a chance.
Momma motioned for me to scoot closer and I did with haste, not wanting to be anywhere else but next to my mother. And we sat together, the three of us, with Momma in the middle, so close I could smell the pear-scented shampoo she’d washed her hair with last.
Momma’s shoulders rose and fell under the long, thin sleeves of her button-up shirt as she sighed and prepared the words she was about to say.
“Don’t let them take your body,” she began. “Run as fast as you can to get away. And if you don’t get away, you fight them. And if you have to, you kill them. You hear me?” I felt my mother’s hand tighten around mine, nearly crushing the bones in my fingers. “And if all else fails…” She paused, looked out ahead, a vision or a memory passing over her eyes, momentarily stealing her awareness. Finally, she added with terrible grief: “We’re all better off dead if all that we have left is taken from us. We’re all better off dead…”
Momma committed suicide a week later.
“It’s happening,” I said under my breath, pushing my mother’s face out of my mind. “My God, it’s happening…”
I wiped a stream of tears from my cheeks and sniffled back the rest, resolved to rid my thoughts of the memory, and of the frightening images that always accompanied it. I swallowed hard and raised my chin high, trying to reel my strength back in.
“We’ll wait here like Daddy said,” I decided. “At least until tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll come before it gets dark. But we’ll give him until the morning.”
Sosie said nothing.
And we waited. Two hours. Four. By midday, dark clouds rolled in, but so far nothing came from them. We engaged in no conversation—it took more than one person talking to constitute a conversation and only I ever did any talking.
By late afternoon, I was starving. But thirst was a far greater concern, and the heat of the day was only making it worse.
“Come with me to the stream,” I said. “We need water. I would bring you some here but there’s nothing to carry it back in.”
“I’m not thirsty.” Sosie never looked up.
“You have to drink.”
“I’m not drinking the water, Thais.”
“Stop being stubborn.” I clenched my fists with frustration. “You have to drink. Now let’s go.” I bent over and reached for her arm.
Sosie’s head snapped around.
“You’re being stupid!” she barked, her blind eyes straying. “We have no way to sterilize the water, and I’m not drinking it, so leave me alone.”
I felt stupid because Sosie was right.
“Then I’ll make a fire,” I said smartly, trying to come back from my mistake.
I searched for sticks and a proper stone I could use to spark a flame.
“You never could make one like that before,” Sosie said, as if she could see what I was preparing to do. “It’s not that easy and you know it. Besides, if you have nothing to carry the water in, what do you plan to boil it in, genius?”
I lowered my head, felt the sting of shame.
“If you’re so sure Daddy will come for us,” Sosie went on, “then just wait. It hasn’t been long; you can live three days without water.”
Accepting defeat, I gave up and sat against the rock wall next to Sosie, drew my knees up, wrapped my arms loosely around them. I thought about what might happen next, if our father would come for us, what we would do if he didn’t.
Another night fell, but I had a much harder time falling asleep than the night before it. I could do little more than lay on the dirt floor and think of all the things that could go wrong—and those that already had—with just enough energy to swat the bugs off me.
The next morning, I got up and stood at the mouth of the cave again, and looked out over the forest below again, already despising the ritual.
Our father never came.
The only thing to do now was to go back to the town and find him. Maybe he’s wounded and can’t make it to the cave. Maybe he’s hiding somewhere and his only hope of rescue is me. I knew in my heart that if he wasn’t in some kind of trouble—or dead, but I didn’t want to think about that—that he would have found us by now.
“I’m going to the house,” I announced, standing with my back to my sister. “Stay here and wait for me.”
“You shouldn’t go back there.”
“I have to,” I said, turning to face her. “Daddy may need my help.”
“He’s dead, Thais!”—the sheer anger in my sister’s voice startled me—“You know he is, so stop pretending. Accept the truth and move on.”
“Move on to what?” I re-entered the cave; hurt and resentment twisted in my gut. “Even if he is dead, we have to know. We can’t just leave and not know.”
Sosie reached out and grabbed a hold of my knee as I crouched in front of her. “But if you go back there,” she said with determination, “and the raiders are still there, they’ll kill you too. Or worse, they’ll take you away.”
“I won’t let them take me,” I said. “I won’t even let them see me. I’ll be careful.”
“You can’t go, Thais!” Sosie’s fingers dug into my knee. “Don’t leave me here alone!” Her voice boomed and echoed off the cave walls.
I jumped to put my hand over her mouth. “Be quiet,” I whispered harshly.
Not until Sosie became still underneath my hand did I slowly move it away from her mouth.
“And what will I do if they catch you?” she asked with reproach.
I sat down in front of her, determined to make her understand. Reaching out, I touched her dirt-and-tear-streaked face. “You will always have me to help you,” I said. “I know you resent me for being your eyes, but you’re my sister, and if I can’t make myself useful by helping you, then I can’t find a reason to be here. You’re all I have, and I’ll die before I let anything happen to you.” My fingers fell away from her face. “So, if you think I could leave you here alone and let myself get captured knowing you had no one else, then you don’t know me very well at all.”
Sosie’s womanly chest rose and fell with a heavy breath. She took a moment, but she relented.
“Okay,” she said. “You go to the house. But listen to me closely.”
I squeezed Sosie’s hand and gave her my full attention.
“You need to go the other way,” Sosie began. “The way you’d always go when you were on your way back from fishing.”
“Why?”
“Because when you came from that way I could never hear you. The way we took last night, I always knew when you were home because I could hear your feet shuffling through the leaves.”
What Sosie didn’t know was that if there was any place I would be seen, it was her way through the grassy field. The grass wasn’t tall enough to conceal me and I would be out in the wide open. But I didn’t want to tell Sosie the truth. I wanted her to believe that her advice, her observations, were indispensable, needed.
“Okay, I’ll take the long way around,” I lied, leaned in and pressed my lips to her forehead. “But you have to promise me you’ll stay right here”—I pointed at the ground—“in this very spot where you can’t be seen.”
Sosie nodded. “I’ll stay here,” she agreed. “But before you go, please take me somewhere to pee.”
I helped Sosie down the rock incline to relieve herself, and then, reluctantly, I left her in the cave and headed back to the town to find our father. Dead or alive.