Year One (19 page)

Three scant handfuls of salt expanded and spread over the black in a white layer. Thunder shuddered from the sky, from under the earth. Then the circle filled with a white flash.

When it faded, the ground inside the stone lay bare, its scarred earth quiet. Overhead a single cardinal winged, and vanished scarlet, into the forest.

“It wasn't me, exactly,” Lana managed.

“It was you.” Max strode to her, pulling her close. “I felt you. I felt you in me, over me. Everywhere. Power awakened.”

She shook her head, but didn't know how to explain. Now that what had risen in her had ebbed, she couldn't see any answers.

“Ah, hey, guys?” Eddie sat on the snowy ground, gathering Joe to him. “Am I, like, you know, a witch?”

Lana found she had an answer after all. Easing away from Max, she crouched down, stroked Joe with one hand, cupped Eddie's face with another.

“No. What you are is a good man.”

“But, like, a regular dude?”

“I'd go with special, but yeah. You're a regular dude, Eddie.”

“Cool.” He heaved out a relieved breath. “That was way out of
the awesome, but I'd like to get the flock away from here if it's okay now.”

“What was done was done.” Max looked back at the dead earth. “But it won't be done here again. We'll head back. We've already been gone longer than we intended. We should grab some downed branches on the way.”

“For cover.” Eddie accepted Max's outstretched hand, pulled himself up. “Because maybe one of them…”

“No point taking that chance.”

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Arlys Reid's childhood home sat sturdily on just shy of an acre in a neighborhood southeast of Columbus. People owned their homes here—the brick ranches, the tidy and old-fashioned split-levels, the bungalows, and the Cape Cods.

It was a neighborhood of screened porches and chain-link fences.

While most of the homes had been built in the post–World War II boom, generations of owners made changes. A deck, a bonus room, a second story with dormers, man caves, and great rooms.

She'd grown up riding her bike on the frost-heaved sidewalks and playing in the grassy park with its fringe of trees.

Until she'd left for college, it had been the only home she'd known in the quiet middle-class neighborhood that edged toward dull.

As their convoy of two turned onto her old street, nostalgia and hope squeezed her heart in brutal, twisting hands.

“Never would've pegged you for Midwestern suburbia.”

She stared out the window, thinking of neighbors she'd known. The Minnows, the Clarkstons, the Andersons, the Malleys.

She remembered, clear as day, coming home from school to find her mother sitting with a tearful Mrs. Malley in the kitchen—and having herself shooed out.

Mr. Malley, father of three, manager of the local bank, and backyard barbecue king, had fallen in love with his dental hygienist, had moved out that very morning, and wanted a divorce.

Small matters now, she thought as they passed houses with darkened windows, with curtains drawn tight on a street where no snowplow had passed for weeks.

She turned to Chuck. “It was a good place to grow up.” Something she hadn't appreciated until she'd left it behind. “There, on the right. Brick house with the dormers and the covered front porch.”

“It's really pretty,” Fred said from the back. “A really big yard. I always wanted a really big yard.”

Inside Arlys, the low-grade stress that had lived in her through this last leg, with its detours, its inching progress, spiked. The really big yard Fred admired formed a white blanket, straight across the driveway, and piled at least a foot in front of the closed garage doors.

No one had shoveled the drive, the front steps, the walk.

The eyes of the front windows showed dark with tightly closed curtains. The azaleas her mother prized formed misshapen white lumps.

Chuck pushed up the drive in the Humvee so Jonah could follow in his tracks. Arlys shoved out, went nearly knee-deep in snow. Heart hammering, face burning hot, she waded through it.

“Hold on, Arlys.” Chuck pumped his long legs behind her. “Just slow down.”

“I have to see. My mother … I have to see.”

“Okay, okay, but not alone.” He had to wrap an arm around her shoulders to slow her down. “Remember, we all agreed? Nobody goes anywhere without a buddy. We're your buds.”

“They haven't shoveled the porch, the steps, the walk. Somebody always shovels the snow. Why haven't they cleaned off the bushes? She'd never let snow pile on her azaleas. I have to see.”

She pushed past one of the pink dogwoods her father had planted when a storm damaged the old red maple.

“Hold it right there!”

Arlys heard a hard slide and
click
. Chuck's arm released her as he tossed his hands in the air. “Take it easy, mister.”

“Just keep your hands up. All of you! Hands up.”

In a half daze, Arlys turned, stared at the man in boots and a flannel jacket who was holding a shotgun while his glasses slid down his nose.

“Mr. Anderson?”

Behind his silver-framed glasses, his eyes flicked from Chuck toward Arlys. Recognition sparked in them. “Arlys? Is that Arlys Reid?”

“Yes, sir.”

He lowered the gun, broke the stock open, then plowed through the snow to reach her. “Didn't recognize you.” His voice cracked as he wrapped one arm around her in a hug. “Didn't expect to see you.”

“I've been trying to get here, trying to … My parents.”

Because she knew, already knew, her throat narrowed on grief, then just closed.

Now his hand rubbed up and down her back, already comforting. “I'm sorry to have to tell you, honey. I'm sorry.”

She'd already known, and still it came as a blow to the heart. For a moment she just pressed her face to his shoulder. Caught the faint scent of tobacco.

Remembered how he'd liked to sit out on his front porch after dinner, smoking a cigar, sipping a whiskey. How she'd seen him out there from her bedroom window, cold or heat, rain or shine.

“When?”

“I guess it's been two weeks, or near to three for your dad. Your mom a few days after. Your mom had your brother bring your dad home from the hospital. He didn't want to go there. And she, well, she never went. So, and I hope it's some solace for you, they died at home like they wanted. I helped Theo bury them in the backyard, between those weeping cherries your mom loved so much.”

“Theo.”

“Honey, I … I buried him myself not a week later. I wish I could give you better news.”

She drew back, stared into eyes full of sorrow and sympathy. “I need to…”

“Sure you do. Listen, honey, the power's been out for a while now, so there's no heat or light, but I've got the keys right here if you want to go inside.”

“Yes, yes, but I need to go out back. I need to see.”

“You go ahead.”

“We're on the buddy system,” Chuck began as Arlys trudged away. “Should I—”

“She's all right,” Fred told him. “I'll go after her in a minute, but she needs to be alone first. I'm Fred. I worked with Arlys in New York. This is Chuck.”

“Bill Anderson. We lived across the street from Arlys and her family more than thirty years.”

“These are our friends,” Fred continued. “Rachel and Katie and Jonah, and the babies.”

“Babies?” Some light moved into his face as he adjusted his glasses. “I'll be damned, three of them? We ought to get them inside. We shouldn't stand out here in the open too long.”

He fished in his pocket, took out a huge ring with dozens of keys.

“Have you had any problems—violence?” Jonah amended.

“Had some trouble early on, and some spots here and there off and on. Nobody much left now,” he continued as he kicked his way up to the porch. “Van Thompson down the block, he's gone a little crazy. He shoots at shadows, inside the house and out. Set his own car on fire a couple nights ago, yelling how there were demons inside it.”

He picked through the keys, all labeled, pulled out the ones marked
Reid
, and unlocked the door.

“Feels colder in than out, but it's better to be inside.”

The house opened to a traditional living room, pin-neat.

Bill let out a little sigh. “I cleaned out most of the supplies. Didn't see the point in leaving them. If you're hungry, I've got food and my camp stove and whatnot over at the house. I can bring it over.”

“We're fine.” Rachel pulled off her cap.

“I'm going to go out now, to Arlys. Thanks for letting us come inside, Mr. Anderson.”

“Bill.” He smiled at Fred. “As hard as it is, it's good to have people around.”

Outside, under the skeletal branches of the weeping cherries, Arlys stood looking at three graves. Marked with crosses made from wood scraps. Had Mr. Anderson dug out Theo's old woodburning kit to write the names?

Robert Reid

Carolyn Reid

Theodore Reid

But … but … Her father had always been so strong, her mother so vibrant, her brother so young. How could they all be gone? How could their lives just be over?

How much had they suffered? How much had they feared while she'd been in New York telling lies and half-truths to a camera?

“I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm sorry I wasn't here.”

Arlys squeezed her eyes shut as Fred put an arm around her waist. “I know you're sad. I'm so sorry.”

“I should've come home. I should've been here.”

“Could you have saved them?”

“No, but I'd have been here. Helped take care of them, given them comfort. Said good-bye.”

“Arlys, you're saying good-bye now. And what you did in New York gave comfort to we don't know how many people. Being able to hear you and see you every day. And at the end? What you did? We don't know how many people you might have saved. You saved me,” Fred insisted when Arlys shook her head. “I wouldn't have left, and maybe they'd have taken me to some testing place, locked me up. Chuck, too. Katie and the babies, all of them. You saved some who could be saved. It matters.”

“My family—”

“Must have been proud of you. I bet they're proud of the way you figured out how to get out of New York, how you came all the way back here to stand over them now. It shows you loved them, and love matters.”

“I knew they were gone.” She had to take careful breaths to get the words out. “I knew in my head even before we left New York.”

“But you came because you loved them. Is it all right if I pray their souls find peace? I feel like they have, but I'd still like to.”

Undone, Arlys turned her face into Fred's hair. “They would've liked you.”

She wept a little, knew she'd weep more, but now she had to decide—they all did—what to do next. She hadn't thought beyond coming home.

They went inside. Pangs twisted and pulled as she walked through the kitchen, saw her mother's wooden spoons in the white pitcher, the fancy coffeemaker she'd given her father for Christmas, the holiday photo of the four of them Theo had taken with a selfie stick centered on the kitchen corkboard.

She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, then dropped them.

“There are things we can use. We'll need to make room.”

“You don't have to think about that right now.”

“Yes, we do, Fred.” She took the photo, slipped it into her coat pocket. “We all have to think.”

She walked to the living room. Katie sat on the couch with a baby at each breast. The third slept in Bill Anderson's arms. Chuck peeked through a chink in the curtains.

“Rachel and Jonah?”

He glanced back at Arlys. “Outside. We don't want anyone happening by and getting our supplies. Sorry, Arlys. I want to say we're all sorry.”

“I know. Mr. Anderson—”

“Make it Bill now.”

“Bill, I didn't ask about Mrs. Anderson, or Masie and Will.”

“Theo helped me bury Ava before he took sick. Masie, she … she's with her mom now, her husband and our two grandchildren with them.”

“Oh, Mr.… Oh, Bill.”

“It's been a hard winter. It's been … a horrible time. But Will was in Florida on business, and I have to believe, I have to hold on to hope he's all right. The last I heard from him he was okay, and trying to get home.”

Arlys sat on the edge of the chair next to his. “I'm so sorry.”

“A lot to be sorry about these days. Then you've got this.” He brushed a finger over the baby's cheek. “You've got to hold on to it.”

“How many people are still in the neighborhood?”

“Four last count, but Karyn Bickles took sick a couple days ago. I was going to check on her when you rolled up. Some died, some left.”

On a fresh sweep of cold air, Rachel came in. “We're going to take shifts watching our supplies. I'm sorry about your family, Arlys.”

“Thanks.” There would be time, plenty of time, for sorrow later. “Bill says there are four left in the neighborhood, one of them sick. Bill, Rachel is a doctor.”

“So she told me. The hard fact is a doctor won't help Karyn. She's got the virus. I've seen enough of it to know.”

“I might be able to make her more comfortable.”

“Well, I've got a key to her place. I can take you over.”

Practical matters, Arlys thought. Next steps. “The rest of us should go through the house, see what we can use. What we have room for. We can't stay here without heat or water.”

“Jonah and I were talking about that. We thought maybe south, maybe into Kentucky or toward Virginia,” Rachel said.

Arlys nodded. Direction didn't matter to her, but south made sense. Get out of the hardest grip of winter in the weeks it had left.

“We could plot out a route—and alternates. Bill, you should come with us.”

“My boy may be trying to get home. I have to be here when Will gets home.”

“You can't stay here alone.”

“You shouldn't.” Katie looked at Rachel, lifted a baby for Rachel to take, burp while she shouldered the other. “You should come with us.”

“We could leave the route for your son,” Fred said. “Leave a big note or sign telling him where we're going. And, if we have to go off route, we can leave signs there that he could follow. I bet he's really smart, isn't he?”

A smile ghosted around Bill's mouth. “He is. He's smart and strong.”

“He'll follow the signs,” Fred told him. “He'd want you to come with us, and he'll follow the signs.”

Bill shifted to look out the window, to his own house, his own porch and yard. “We bought the house when Ava was pregnant with Masie. It strapped us, but we knew what we wanted for our family. We had a good life here. A good life.”

“I know how hard it is,” Arlys consoled. “But we need to make a new place, and here we're too far from a water source, too exposed once the snow melts. I've seen things, Bill. It's not just the virus killing people.”

She stood. “I'll start upstairs—there'll be blankets and linens and…”

Understanding her sudden distress, Bill rose as well, passing the baby to Fred. “Theo and I, we cleaned up, and he helped me do the same. Your mom and my Ava would've wanted that.”

Tears rose up, spilled out before she could stop them. Bill simply hugged her. “It's all right, honey. Tears wash some of the worst away.”