In a Handful of Dust (9 page)

The woman studied them back, in the moments they had to inspect one another as the fire flickered to life under Lynn’s ministrations. Lucy felt the woman’s eyes running over her. She dropped her own gaze and felt a flush spread over her cheeks at the close scrutiny. At home they had all known one another so well, no one was ever a particularly interesting sight.

“I’m Jossica,” the woman said abruptly, breaking the silence that had fallen. “But my people called me Joss.”

“Where’s your people?” Lynn asked in a tone that made it clear she was hoping Joss would return to them somewhat quickly.

“They were run off,” Joss said. “We made camp on the other shore, night before this. You probably saw the fire.”

“We saw two fires last night,” Lucy said. “We thought all the people had left.”

“All but one.”

“They leave you behind for a reason?” Lynn asked, and Joss glanced up at her.

“You can have a seat, and I wouldn’t mind if you put that knife down either. You look like you know how to use it.”

Lucy watched uneasily as Lynn lowered herself to the ground, still crouched, knife in hand. “What makes you say that?” Lynn asked.

“Just a way you have about you.” Joss shrugged. “Wouldn’t want to run into you in the woods alone at night.” The fire flared, filling the crevices of her face with light and revealing a stunning pair of penetrating green eyes.

“My people were booted when I was out hunting. Came back and found their fire all kicked to hell, everybody gone. World being what it is, I’d rather not be on the road alone trying to catch up to them, and I thought you two wouldn’t mind another pair of useful hands.”

“What can you do we can’t?” Lucy asked.

“I doubt there’s anything I can do that either one of you can’t,” Joss answered. “But a woman traveling alone is done for, and two is only one better.”

“And three only one better than two,” Lynn said.

“Maybe. But there’s safety in numbers, and three
is
bigger than two. I’ve been traveling awhile now, and I’ve seen some things.” Her gaze shifted away from Lucy and back to Lynn.

Lynn return the glare without a flinch, but she sheathed the knife. “Having you along couldn’t hurt, I suppose,” she said, to Lucy’s surprise. “Till you find your own people?”

Joss nodded. “Assuming, of course, we’re all headed the same direction?”

“We’re going to—” Lucy began, but Lynn cut her off.

“We’re headed west,” she said, silencing Lucy with a glare. “Trying to get away from a sickness.”

“Who says there isn’t sickness in the west?”

“Who says there is?”

“Life’s a gamble, isn’t it?”

Lynn shifted away from the fire to move over next to Lucy, dragging her blanket with her. “We’re going. And I’m sleeping for what’s left of the night.”

Lucy bundled her blanket around her and curled into a ball, her back pressed against Lynn’s for warmth, their sleeping forms fit well from years of huddling together for heat. The familiar feeling of Lynn’s breathing moving in time with her own pulled Lucy back to simpler days, when life was a string of sunrises and sunsets, with long afternoons in between spent with Maddy and Carter.

She snaked her arm out from under the blanket and curled a fist in Lynn’s long hair, a habit from childhood. Lynn’s hand covered her fingers and squeezed back in reassurance.

“Are we out of Ohio yet?” Lucy sat in the shade of a pin oak, grateful for the escape from the beating sun.

“Not yet,” Lynn said testily, the map spread over her knees once again.

Joss sat near Lucy in the shade, her water bottle resting nearby. She had filled her bottles at Lake Wellesley but had no food of her own. Joss had taken on all the duties she could to make up for her lack; she gathered kindling if Lynn felt safe enough for a fire, and always volunteered to take the first watch. She’d even ventured into the kitchen of an abandoned house and made a paste of vinegar and baking soda that had cured a nasty poison ivy rash on Lucy’s arm. But none of Joss’ good points seemed to have an effect on Lynn. She’d been quiet and guarded since the new addition.

“Let me know when we are,” Lucy said, trying to get Lynn’s attention.

“When we are what?”

“Out of Ohio.”

Lynn glanced up from the map. “I will.”

“Being out of Ohio will be interesting.”

Lynn ignored her, immersed in planning their route.

“I’ve been out of Ohio,” Joss offered.

“Really? Before or after the Shortage?”

“Before. I’m not from here, actually. I grew up in Florida.”

“Florida . . .” Lucy let the word slide off her tongue. Lynn had forced something of an education upon her, mostly revolving around a musty set of encyclopedias her own mother had stored in the basement. She knew Florida existed, and that it was south, but anything more was new information.

“What’s it like?”

“I can’t tell you what it’s like now, I haven’t been back. But I’m sure it’s still hot, and there were crocodiles thick as your coyotes.”

Lucy shivered, relishing the little chill of fear that ran up her spine. “That would rattle me.”

“No worse than packs of wild dogs, I guess,” Joss said, watching Lucy from the corner of her eye, with a playful smile. “Crocs are just scaly wild dogs that’ll drown you and eat you.”

“All right.” Lynn snapped the map shut. “Let’s go.”

“What now?” Lucy asked.

Lynn shouldered her pack and gave Lucy a blank look. “We walk.”

“Walking. I love walking.”

Lynn rolled her eyes as she shouldered her pack, but Lucy caught the smile spreading across her face before she turned away. Lucy allowed herself one glance around before they struck out onto the road, but there was no sign of Carter. Half of her breakfast lay wrapped in leaves beside a tree, regardless.

“So what did you do for a living, before the Shortage?” Lucy asked Joss, grateful for the distraction of a new person.

“I was a yoga instructor.”

“You were a what now?”

“A yoga instructor,” Joss said patiently. “Yoga is an ancient form of meditation that uses breathing exercises and holding certain postures to help you focus.”

“So you taught people how to breathe and stand still?”

In front of them, Lynn barely concealed a snort.

“There’s more to it than that. You could benefit from it,” she said to Lynn’s stiff back.

“I focus best on something when I’m actually doing it,” Lynn said without turning around. “Not standing and breathing and thinking about it.”

“I was thinking more of the relaxation it can offer,” Joss said, but Lynn didn’t respond.

“If you took the tension out of Lynn, she’d collapse from the shock,” Lucy said to Joss, who laughed easily.

Teasing Lynn was something Lucy and Stebbs had excelled at, picking at her serious exterior until they got a smile, or sometimes, an explosion.

“I had a studio in Florida, but I left and came to Ohio right before the trouble started.”

“Why’d you leave Florida?”

“Reasons.”

As usual, someone’s reluctance to share only made Lucy more curious. “Was it a man?”

“Lucy,” Lynn reprimanded her from ten feet ahead.

“She’s all right,” Joss said. “No harm in curiosity.”

“So what happened? How’d you make it this long?”

“At first, I was lucky enough to be in a city. When they turned water lines off in the outlying areas, we still had access. For a price.”

“I grew up in Entargo,” Lucy volunteered. “I didn’t know water came from anywhere other than the sink. So why did you leave the city?”

Joss shrugged. “Circumstances beyond my control, mostly. What about you? Why did you leave?”

“Well, my mom—my real mom, not Lynn—was pregnant. Again.” Lucy saw Lynn’s head shaking at the level of sharing, but Joss didn’t even blink.

“Ah, two kids?” she said. “Family regulations got you kicked out?”

“Yup. They made us leave, and my dad was killed.” Lucy found the words from her past flowing, offering a distraction to which she gladly succumbed. Sharing an old hurt, long scarred over, was easier than the pains of the present. “I was lucky though. I found Lynn, and she’s been with me ever since. So what about your people?” Lucy asked. “Family?”

“No . . .” Joss trailed off, watching her feet for a few seconds before answering. “Just a bunch of strangers trying to keep each other safe on the road. I’ve got no place to go. I’m waiting for it to find me. What about you two?”

“California,” Lynn said, as if daring Joss to talk her out of it.

“Good thing you love walking.”

They camped off the road behind a barn with a rotted-out roof, the bare slats home to hundreds of swallows. Joss and Lucy talked Lynn into allowing a fire, and Joss produced a can of soup. She also had a bottle of wine.

“No,” Lynn waved her off with a word, but Joss kept the proffered bottle pointing toward her.

“I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said you might need to relax some.”

“You two have some, and I’ll take first watch,” Lucy said, aware that Lynn hadn’t slept well the night before. Lynn reluctantly accepted the bottle and took quiet sips while Lucy pumped Joss for more information.

“So people seriously paid you to teach them yoga?”

“What you have to understand is people then had things you don’t.”

“Like more than two pairs of underwear?”

“Well, yes,” Joss said, “but I mean they had things like the promise of safety, the knowledge that food could be had cheaply and at any time, and water at the turn of a faucet. Having all that makes it possible to use your time in other pursuits. You could
want
things.”

Lucy’s heart skipped a beat at Joss’s words. Wanting something more sounded wonderful, but it seemed like a distant possibility in the ruggedness of their world. “And some people wanted to learn yoga back then?”

“Definitely. But you could do other things too: take piano lessons, read a book, play a sport. There’s a ton of things your generation knows nothing about.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Lynn said. “She’s too busy gathering water and wood to practice her breathing.”

“In some ways, it’s a shame,” Joss answered, and Lynn buried her response in the mouth of the wine bottle. “Most people these days, it takes all their time just to make sure they live. Before, we threw ourselves into actually
living
.”

“Like having fun?”

“More than that. Sometimes it almost made me stark crazy, the pressure of having all those choices. I could’ve been a lawyer, doctor, bus driver, violinist—hell, even an astronaut. When I was a kid, we talked all the time about what we wanted to be when we grew up.”

Lynn wiped her sleeve across her mouth. “I’m happy I grew up at all.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Joss countered. “Used to be we were raised on dreams. Now we tell the kids they’re lucky to be alive. In that way, I do miss the city. There were more options there. You were exposed to more things.”

“The city, huh?” Lynn said, glancing up from the bottle of wine. “It exposed a lot of people to cholera.”

“Sickness happens out in the country too. You’re running from it, after all.”

“Maybe,” Lynn granted. “But people weren’t meant to live that way, inside of boxes stacked on top of each other.”

“What were you expecting Entargo to be like?” Lucy asked, curious as to what Lynn’s vision had been.

Lynn shook her head, gaze lost in the dying embers of the fire. “I don’t know. But when I saw it, all I could think of was the lump your grandma cut out of old Mr. Adams, you remember?”

Lucy nodded. It was hard to forget the cancerous mass one of their neighbors had reluctantly revealed to Vera, a black tumor that had bulged from the back of his knee.

“It was like that, for me,” Lynn continued. “An unnatural growth cropping up somewhere it had no business, in the middle of fields and forest, with straight cement roots no amount of cutting will ever get out of the dirt.” Her eyes lingered unfocused on the flames. When she spoke again, it was with the tone of voice Lucy knew meant she was using words not her own, quoting a poet long dead from a book of her mother’s that lay mildewing miles behind them.

           
“And in these dark cells
,

           
packed street after street
,

           
souls live, hideous yet—

           
O disfigured, defaced
,

           
with no trace of the beauty

           
men once held so light.”

Lucy reached across the fire and plucked the bottle out of Lynn’s hands. “No more wine for you.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

T
he road was mesmerizing. Lucy put one foot in front of the other, kept her gaze on the horizon, and never stopped moving. The overgrown country roads slashed across the fields in unbending lines. The sky had been gray since morning, echoing back the colors of the road and just as endless. From rim to rim it was filled with clouds that gave no rain, only a teasing promise some might fall. Maybe.

Joss and Lynn were silent. The air was dense with humidity, stilling even the wildlife. For hours the only movement Lucy had seen was the swirl of gnats in front of her own face, drawn by the sweet smell of her sweat. She trudged on, picking a landmark in the distance and passing it, then picking a new one.

Her thoughts slid back to Carter and Lake Wellesley, wondering if he’d been ousted along with the other people squatting around its banks. There were plenty of empty houses nearby. If he could find a water supply and begin stockpiling wood for the winter, there was no reason why he wouldn’t make it. But the hopelessness in his face when he’d last spoken to her hadn’t given her much to hold on to. If he didn’t want to live, he wouldn’t.

The forked ash stick in her pack rubbed between her shoulder blades, reminding Lucy she could have found water for Carter, helped him in a priceless way no one else was capable of. If she’d had the presence of mind to share her secret as they stood saying good-bye in the moonlight, she might have been able to see if his trembling hands were capable of witching. At the least it would’ve bought her a few more hours with Carter, And possibly a source of life for him.