“Those men will be slower in the rain, unable to follow our tracks. They’ve likely stopped for the night.” Noah prods the fire with his stick, keeping it alive, sparks peeling away up into the rafters of the barn. “We’ll leave just before sunup.”
His eyes flash to me, like I am not the girl he first thought I was. Or maybe I am exactly who he suspected, but now he’s unsure what to say to the girl whose secrets have been only half revealed.
“Why are you all here?” I ask quietly, not wanting to wake Cricket.
He sinks back onto the straw, leaning against the wall of the barn, arms crossed, like he has no intention of sleeping tonight; instead he’ll keep watch, keep the fire alive. And us. “We’ve all come from different places, different reasons why we don’t have a home.”He tilts his gaze out to the barrel fire, where August is still seated. “But August has helped us survive.”
I think about Pa, what he must have thought when he woke and found me no longer in the rented room next to his, and the quilt placed beside his door. I hate that I left him like I did, but if I hadn’t, I doubt I would be here now. Only steps away from the Architect.
Noah’s arms flex, an uneasy slope to his eyes, a hardness I don’t quite understand—like I make him uncomfortable—but he reaches out and retrieves a canteen hanging from the wall, suspended from a long, woven strap, and hands it over to me. “Water,” he says, nodding, as if knowing the dryness that still scratches at my throat.
I tip the canteen to my mouth, swallowing greedily, but he doesn’t tell me to stop, to save what’s left. He lets me drink until I’m full. “Thank you,” I say, wiping a stray drop from my mouth.
When he retrieves the canteen, his hand brushes over mine, his skin warm—a fire inside him—and he seems to stall there briefly, fingertips against my flesh, a heartbeat of time, before placing the canteen back on the hook, not drinking any himself. His eyes skip back to me—careful, as if he keeps his own secrets, his own untold stories—and my lungs get tight. A feeling I don’t like, and don’t understand.
He studies my face a moment, a stiffness in his jaw, something he wants to say masked in his eyes, but then he forces his gaze away—as if he’s holding something back. I let my eyes fall to my hands, rubbing them together, trying to keep out the cold. I can’t believe Cricket is able to sleep with rain streaming through the roof, forming puddles in the straw.
I sink back against the wall beside Noah, hands pulled up intothe sleeves of my coat. He is a boy who smells like pine trees and wind, who looks at me like he doesn’t knowwhatI am.
A girl or a riddle.
Rain streams through the sagging roof, the storm howls against the trees outside, and Noah tips his head back against the wall, turning something over in his palm—the round piece of metal he held when we walked from the water tower to the barn—it busies his hands, his mind, helping to keep him awake.
Hunger gnaws at me, a deep pain in my gut, but I force my eyes closed, trying to ignore the sounds of so many people—strangers—breathing inside the barn, the sound of Cricket fidgeting, a soft sputter from her lips, and the nerves bouncing along my thoughts—the jittery fear of what comes next. Time scratching at my mind like a beetle in soft wood.
I wish I could see the night sky, count the stars, name them until I fell asleep. I wish I could see Tova and Llitha—the stars that brought me here. But I will have to settle for the dark. Because I need the sleep…. I need to be ready.
Tomorrow we leave for the sea.
CASSIOPEIA, Alpha Cas+56° 32’ 14”
The oldest settlers began getting sick first. A crackle in the ears, a gasp for air.
The consumption came on quick, before the first crops had even bloomed. Before the first snow of a long winter had fallen over the newly built towns.
The first of the dead were buried in the ground well before the soil froze. Shovels in hard-packed dirt, the cold licking at fingertips, as if it were an omen of what was to come.
Death had found them, even here. Even after they fled the old world.
Disease came anyway.
Found its way into their homes. Into their small, scraped-out towns.
And it broke their bodies apart, bit by bit. Limb by limb. Blood at the surface, where it didn’t belong.
FIVE
Iwake to a loudcrack.
My eyes spring open, blood roaring in my ears, one side of my body damp from the rainwater that had been dripping onto my coat through the barn roof.
Bang, bang, bang.
I don’t even have time to blink, to focus, before Noah is on top of me, hoisting me up. His hands against my ribs, the air gusting from my lungs. “What’s happening?” My voice rattles into not-quite-awake pieces while my eyes snap to Cricket, who’s kicking ash onto the fire, sending smudgy smoke up into the rafters.
But Noah holds a finger to his lips, only a few inches from mine, his green eyes too wide. Too white.
Another loudbangreverberates through the barn, followed by a series of muffled shouts.
