Now, I kept my eyes on the pathway to avoid the potholes and broken chunks of pavement upheaved over the years by the weather and foot traffic. I kept one hand on the strap holding the stripers against my back while the other swung free. The nearly knee-high grass tickled the back of my free hand when I cut across it to the railroad tracks beyond. I followed the tracks for over a mile before slipping into the woods.
There were places to fish closer to home, but none of them yielded as large of fish as the ones caught from the canal. Besides, I liked to walk along the glistening ocean waters and pretend things were the way they used to be before the war.
The pathway beneath my feet was well worn by some of my neighbors and myself. Around me, birds chirped in the trees whose leaves had recently bloomed again. I watched the play of shadows over the ground before me as the branches swayed with the breeze. Over my head, a squirrel screeched and leapt from one branch to another. It chased after another squirrel, its tail raised as the other ran away from it.
A sense of peace stole through my body. Some of my first memories were of being soothed by nature, and I’d always felt a strong affinity to the earth and all of the living things on it. It was a balm to my soul, one that strangely energized and revitalized me. But then, I had some pretty strange ways.
Unable to resist, I rested my fingers against the trunk of a red maple with leaves the size of my hand. I sighed when I felt the pulse of life flowing through the tree and into the earth where its roots ran deep. My fingertips tingled, and a smile tugged at my mouth as I swore I felt the worms turning over within the dirt.
I didn’t know if others could feel this thrum of life or not; I had never asked. I had enough personal oddities that only those closest to me knew about. I didn’t need to add another one to the pile.
It may not be an oddity. This could be something everyone experiences.I tried to convince myself of this, and it could be true as I was sure I didn’t knoweverything about my friends and family, but for some reason, I doubted they felt this too.
Reluctantly, I tore my fingers away from the rough bark. A strange sense of loss filled me, but I continued onward. I couldn’t stand around touching trees all day. Even those who loved and accepted me might toss me into the nearest holding cell they could find if I never moved away from a tree again.
I wouldn’t blame them if they did either.
CHAPTER 2
River
The pathway opened up to reveal the backside of my neighborhood. Stepping onto the street, I made my way down the road toward the small, gray, Cape-style house at the end of the block. I was almost to the door when I heard footsteps behind me. Glancing over my shoulder, I smiled when I spotted Lisa running toward me.
Her oak-leaf-colored eyes were alight with happiness as she arrived at my side. “There you are!” she gushed. “I’ve been waiting for you forhours.”
I glanced at the early morning sun hovering over the trees. It had probably been more like minutes. Lisa wasn’t exactly known as an early riser and had a tendency to exaggerate;sheshould have been a fisherman. Her light-brown hair, pulled into a ponytail, bounced against the back of her neck when she fell into step beside me. She tugged up the sleeve of her faded red T-shirt when it slipped off one of her shoulders to reveal her collarbone. The knees of her pants had holes in them from the time she spent in the large community garden in the center of our neighborhood.
“You haven’t been up for an hour, much less waiting for me forhours,” I replied with a laugh.
She grinned at me and did an odd little half skip. “You’re right,” she admitted.
Walking by our neighbors’ homes, I noted the sagging porches, the faded shingled siding, and broken shutters on most of them. Vines encircled the porch railing of the house on my right. The vines had started taking over most of the porch last year and were slowly weighing it down. There was little time for anyone to do home repairs anymore, and many didn’t have a way of obtaining the things they would need for some of the repairs.
Money as currency was almost a thing of the past. I’d heard some still used gold and silver to obtain certain things, but paper and coin currency was gone, and I didn’t know anyone who would choose gold over a meal or clothing. All that mattered anymore was survival. Food was the main currency; it was exchanged and bartered for on a daily basis.
“Where’s Asante?” I inquired of Lisa.
Asante was a Guard in the community and Lisa’s boyfriend for the last year and a half. Two months ago, she’d moved out of her parents’ house and into one on the next street over to live with him.
“With everything going on today, he had to go into work early,” she replied. “You know how crazy and hectic things get on Volunteer Day.”
“I do,” I said and shifted the weight of the fish on my back. May fifteenth may have become the most looked forward to day of the year on the Cape since the war had devastated the nation.
“You are going today, right?” Lisa inquired.
I nodded and slid the fish off my back. “Wouldn’t miss it.” Few in town would, my mother most likely being one of them.
Walking by the fences surrounding the community garden, I glanced inside at the man and woman already weeding the plot set up on almost three acres of land. The houses that had once stood on the land had caught fire one night nine years ago. The owners who had survived the fire had moved into the empty homes of those who had died over the years or been killed during the turbulent times following the war. The small gardens everyone had been growing behind their homes had been moved here. They’d been combined and expanded on with the land left behind by the fires. Almost everyone in the neighborhood worked in the garden, but some spent more time in it than others.
The neighborhood I remembered from my early childhood was far larger and far different than the closed-in streets that had once existed. Due to the burned down houses, the neighborhood had grown to include homes I’d never been able to see from here before. I knew everyone on these roads and most of the people in town. Before, I’d barely known anyone beyond my street and school. The whole neighborhood working together over the years was what had kept us all alive.
At the next house, Lisa followed me up the steps and inside. When the screen door creaked shut behind us, the owner of the house, Mrs. Loud, glanced up from the paper she’d been reading and smiled at me. The town still put out a monthly paper of events that was passed around the residents, as there were never enough copies for everyone to have their own.
Pushing her glasses onto her head, Mrs. Loud folded the paper and pushed it aside. “Good catch, Ms. Dawson,” she said to me.
I unhooked the largest fish and placed it on the counter she’d built between the living room and kitchen of her home. “Lucky catch. Can I get some salve?” I inquired.
Mrs. Loud took the fish and placed it into the small cooler behind the counter. The rolling blackouts made it difficult to keep things well refrigerated, but the fish wouldn’t stay in there for long, and there was ice inside to help keep it cool when the next blackout occurred.
