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Arras has become a web of color written across the sky in lines of lace and luminescence. The sun breaks through the growing holes and for the first time in decades its heat touches the Earth. It’s hot on my face and I think of emerald leaves and possibilities lost. There will be no schoolgirl to tug my hand earnestly toward home. There will be no boy to take me in his arms for a moonlight dance. It’s the end of my world and the beginning of my life.
I’ve never felt more alone.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE CAMP IS A MASS OF FAMILIES CLUTCHING together and speaking in low voices. They sit on coats and bags. No one was prepared for this and as the new sun wanes over Earth—the day far too short for a history of darkness—the group I’ve stumbled on barely notices me as I shamble into their presence. A few cast suspicious eyes in my direction, but otherwise I feel invisible. And for the first time in a long time, I am no one. I can’t fix this world at the touch of a loom.
I am free. I am possibility.
Something crushes my heart as I take in the survivors. It grips me with thin, cold fingers and I can’t shake them loose.
“Do they have that radio system up and running yet?” a man shouts to another.
“Not yet, and who knows if anyone else will have one.”
“We still need to work on it,” he says as he stops to converse with a family. He’s tall and strong and he looks like my father. This is what Benn would be doing right now. Making plans, helping others.
It’s what I have to do. Be helpful. Be strong. I must move forward.
“Are you okay?” someone behind me asks, and I turn toward the voice, but I sway with the movement and collapse into her.
“Does anyone have any water?” she yells. There’s a clamor of activity around me and a few moments later a cup presses against my lips. I hadn’t realized I was thirsty, but I drink it and I let them lay me back against a bed of jackets.
“Do you know where you came from?” the woman asks me as a half dozen concerned faces peer over me.
I look at each one and try to decide what to tell them. In the end I settle on the simplest story. “I was in Cypress.”
“What’s your family’s name, honey?” she asks. “We’ll pass the word around. They must be worried sick about you.”
“Lewys,” I say. “But I was alone.”
No one recognizes the name—or me—without Cormac at my side. Without the beautiful clothes and pinned-up hair, without the cameras, I’m only another girl. I’m only another survivor. No one asks why a girl of my age was alone or what happened to my family, but I can’t be the only orphan here tonight.
They are remarkably calm, but as the woman strokes my forehead, someone asks in a low voice, “Have they figured out what happened yet?”
No one speaks, but finally a man shakes his head. “There are theories, of course,” he whispers, but as he begins to share them I slip into the darkness pressing heavily on my eyes.
I have no need of theories.
* * *
I wake to an old lullaby and for a moment my mother’s face swims into my vision, but when I blink she is young and fair-haired.
“Amie!” I gasp.
“You’re awake,” she says, relief flooding her voice. She waves to someone and Pryana hurries over and helps Amie sit me up.
“You won. You got out,” I say in a weak voice.
Pryana shrugs, even though she grins a little. “Did you have any doubt?”
“Thank you.” The words feel too simple slipping from my lips, but they weigh heavy in the air between us. It’s all I can offer to a girl who owes me nothing and to whom I owe everything.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Before she goes, Pryana bends down and wraps her arms around me, squeezing me in a tight, awkward hug.
I swallow and nod once, afraid I will cry. I can never repay my debt to her.
“How did you find me?” I ask Amie after she’s left.
