Blackberries Should Beout of season by now, but I find a bramble still dotted with plump fruit, soaking up the autumn sun. Some are mouldering on the vine, but enough look edible that I take off my jacket and use it to cradle the berries, sling style. I should have brought a bucket, but I wasn’t expecting luck this late in the year. It’s a testament to the blackberry itself—a resilient plant, growing where it shouldn’t, when it shouldn’t. In the pre-Quake days, people spent a lot of time and money cutting back the canes, but I’m glad they never managed to get rid of them. Not all of humanity’s failures are for the worst.
My stomach rumbles as a berry bruises against my fingers. Juice runs down my thumb, but I don’t give into temptation. A hungry forager is a slow, selfish one. I’ll wait until I’m with April. She needs them more than I do, anyway.
Once my jacket is full, I retrace my path. The sun is noonday high. I’m expecting to find April re-reading our copy ofAnd Then There Were None, which is her favourite, for reasons I can’t fathom. Something about horrible people dying horrible deaths comforts her.
But when I push back the branches of the oak tree we hid our tarp behind, I spot my little sister crumpled over like a leaf, the book fallen from her hands.
“April?” I drop the jacket and rush to her side. She was awake when I left her. She doesn’t respond to my voice, so I roll her onto her back. “Hey! April! You okay?”
She takes a shuddering breath, and my pulse slows. Still alive, though her cheeks are stark white. She manages to shoot me a withering look as she blinks awake. “What?”
“Are you okay? Did you pass out again?” I press two fingers against her forehead, which is always too warm these days, but she swats me away, growing more pissed by the second.
“No.” She rubs one of her eyes. “Kayla, I took a nap. On purpose.”
“Oh.” The problem issleepingandfaintinganddeadall look an awful lot alike. I swear, one of these days, I’m going to come back and she won’t wake up. We’re so close to Crofton, but that only winds me tighter. Nothing would be worse than losing my sister now, when we’re within spitting distance of help. “Sorry.”
“Now thatthat’scleared up, I’m going back to sleep,” she says.
“No can do, actually.”
She turns her morning bitch face to me, clearly expecting orders to start hiking. It’s most of what we do these days. I nag her until she walks. She walks until she collapses. Repeat cycle. I hope it’s a welcome surprise when I grin and say, “I brought breakfast.”
“You… what?” She rubs her eyes. “I thought you were scouting for TNS.”
“Well, I found something much bet—” I stop, realizing the berries are scattered over the forest floor, thanks to my earlier panic. Whatever. It’s fine. Birds shit all over those bushes anyway. Dirt isn’t going to hurt anyone.
I hold a hand up to April. “One second.”
She groans and lies back down. “Kayla…”
I hastily stack them in the centre of my jacket. “You’re going to be excited for this. I want you preparing your excited voice.”
“Yaaaaay…” April feigns enthusiasm with all the conviction of a cat learning to swim.
“Ta-da!” I lay the jacket out between us.
She props herself on her elbows. “Oh!”
“See? What did I tell you?”
“I thought you just found mushrooms or something,” she says, taking a handful.
“No, the kitchen staff realized you always send the mushrooms back, your highness. Only the best for you.”
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t bother sassing me, too focused on the berries. April would have squealed at a treat like this a few years ago. I miss the little girl she used to be sometimes. But that tinyohwhen she saw what I brought her? From a fifteen-year-old, that’s a standing ovation.
After she’s taken a couple of handfuls, I treat myself to a few. I eat slowly, savouring every ripple of juice over my tongue. It’s been weeks since we had fresh fruit. I could wolf the whole pile down in an instant, but I pace myself so she can have the majority. Even eating twice the rations I do, she’s losing weight.
A whisper of dread curls around my lungs, but I shove it away. There’s no point in wondering exactly how close we are to Crofton. We should be within a few kilometres, but pre-Quake maps provide estimations at best. So many roads and landforms are a jumbled mess of their former selves. All we can do is hug the coast and head north.
“So you didn’t see any sign of TNS?” she asks, between mouthfuls. Anyone with half a brain fears True NorthStrong—TNS for short—the paramilitary group that runs our region. After the Quake, they gathered up most of the firearms from Victoria to Calgary.
“No, and I don’t expect to. Those berries were right on the main road.”
“So?”
“So, no one’s around. They would have picked them.” It’s a good and a bad sign. No people means no one to hurt us, but what if it also means no one to help? “I guess… I guess it isn’t worth it to the islanders to come over, just for blackberries.”
