“Who?” Madelyn asked. “We’re the only people around, and they couldn’t have thought that a couple of branches would hide an entire truck from me.”
“Why not?” Jacob asked. “I’m pretty sure it was hidden perfectly well from you.”
“I wasn’t looking. I would have seen it.”
“Easy to say that now,” Jacob said as he turned away. When he started forward, she didn’t stop him. She followed behind, still trying to puzzle through the ramifications of the find.
Jacob had to move a branch to the side to open the driver’s door. Madelyn held her breath and clenched her teeth together as the hinges groaned. The truck represented danger to her—she almost expected it to explode when Jacob opened the door.
Nothing happened.
Jacob leaned in and then popped back out.
“I think the keys are in it,” he said. “Those are the keys, right?”
Madelyn rose up and looked over his shoulder. She nodded.
“So they must still be around, right?” He leaned back and looked up towards the sky, clearly not waiting for an answer. “I wonder if we should hike back to the lake and find out why they stayed. I wonder if we can find some sign of their tracks.”
“Jacob, there could be a million reasons they decided to leave the truck here. I’m sure it’s the most obvious explanation—they decided that stealth was the best course of action and they continued on foot.”
Jacob didn’t seem to be listening. He pushed away from the truck and began to move aside the underbrush, perhaps looking for footprints in the soft soil.
“We have a plan, Jacob. We’ll stick to it and maybe catch up with them in the city.” When Jacob didn’t look up from his hunting, Madelyn started to make a connection. The young man had agreed to the trip, but not for Madelyn’s reasons. He wasn’t seeking to join the community she described. He was chasing something he had seen with his own eyes.
Madelyn turned for the back of the truck and ran her hand along the bed as she walked. She leaned in to look at the tiny holes in the metal. The Roamers were invisible, magic killing machines, but they had still left a trace of themselves. These were the tracks that Jacob should have been studying.
Her eye began to itch as she remembered when the things had nearly taken her. She was foolish to consider going back down the mountain.
She looked back to Jacob. He was crouching, examining the dirt. At least she was being foolish for the right reasons. She turned back for the old hotel.
#
#
#
#
#
Madelyn woke up as dawn started to creep into the room. With the old windows broken with neglect, she might as well have been sleeping outside. The heavy air was still deep in her lungs. She held her breath until the urge to cough was gone.
Jacob was just waking up beside her. It wouldn’t have surprised her to find that he had already left. When she went to sleep he was still talking about hiking back to the lake.
“Good morning,” she said.
“I was thinking,” he said. “I guess I’ll go to the city after all.”
“Oh?”
“The tracks were inconclusive. I looked at them again. They’re old and they might have gone south.”
She nodded.
“But after what you said, is it safe for you to go?”
Madelyn didn’t answer. This was some new game that Jacob was playing, and Madelyn wanted to figure out the rules before she made her first move.
“I’m just thinking that the community might still be angry with you about what you did, you know? Technically, you should still be on trial, right?”
“I don’t intend to get that close.”
“Oh. Good,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking too,” Madelyn said. “We should take the truck down the mountain.”
His eyes grew wide. “Are you serious? Doesn’t that thing run on liquid petrol? Where would we even get that stuff? Won’t it be loud and obvious?” He exhaled a shuddering breath at the idea.
Madelyn began to roll up her bedding.
“All petrol is liquid, but we’ll be using synthetic fuel. It’s ten times as efficient and it doesn’t go bad,” she said. “And it’s nothing to be afraid of. At one point all trucks ran on the stuff.”
“It doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
“We could make the trip in one day instead of seven.”
That shut him up. He swallowed his remaining objections and followed Madelyn’s lead as she packed and found her way back to the truck. Together, they pulled the branches from the truck. One of the tires was low. Jacob found a compressor in the tool chest. The truck started and they were on their way. Madelyn attempted to explain how to operate the truck. Jacob wasn’t paying attention.
“This your first time in a vehicle?”
He turned to her. With pale lips and an ashen face, he nodded.
“If you’re going to vomit, please try to aim out the window.”
He nodded again and turned to the side.
As the kilometers passed beneath the truck’s bald tires, anxiety transferred from Jacob to Madelyn. He seemed to forget the noise and heat that the truck was expelling. Once he mastered his nausea, Jacob smiled and his color returned. The cold air called to him and he closed his eyes as the wind buffeted his skin.
Madelyn grew more and more nervous. It wasn’t just that she was returning to where she had nearly been taken by the Roamers, or where people probably waited to imprison her and put her on trial. Madelyn was also troubled by the mere existence of the truck. She couldn’t come up with a logical reason why Gabriel and Harper would have left it behind. They had started it and moved it to the lame hiding place. They had made a halfhearted attempt to cover it up. Why hadn’t they simply driven it down the mountain? What did they know that Madelyn didn’t?
She slowed for a turn.
“Why do you do that?” Jacob asked. He shouted as the engine swelled back to speed.
“Do what?”
“Why do you look carefully up the road before you turn?”
“I don’t know. Old habit, I guess. I don’t want to be blindsided.”
“By what?” he asked, laughing. After a second, he added another question. “Why doesn’t everyone travel this way?”
“It’s a good way to die,” she said, but she hadn’t spoken loud enough to be heard over the rushing wind. She thought about asking him to close the window, but he was enjoying himself too much. Besides, without the cool air, he would probably get sick again.
“How much longer?” he asked.
She laughed at his impatience. Apparently, even though he had just discovered the marvel of speed, it still wasn’t fast enough. Madelyn was encouraged when the truck rounded a corner and they saw the column of black smoke rising towards the clouds. The residents had restarted their bonfire.
“I’m going to get you as close as I can and then I have to turn back. They probably still have a beef with me, and you don’t want to get that association pinned on you.”
Jacob nodded. Despite his stated reservations, she could feel his excitement.
They drove on.
#
#
#
#
#
They were still a good distance from the city when Madelyn stomped on the brakes and cut the wheel. She pointed the nose of the truck back up the hill and waited.
Jacob reached for the door handle and she put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“Wait,” she said. “Let’s make sure they’re not lying in wait.”
She rolled her window down a few centimeters and listened closely to the wind. She gave the clicking plenty of time to start and then waited yet another couple of minutes. Jacob was getting antsy by the time she shut off the engine.
He was halfway out of the truck before he turned around.
“Wait—you’re not driving back?”
“I’ll leave the truck here. It has enough fuel to get you a decent distance if something goes terribly wrong. I’m hiking back.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I don’t even know how to drive and you could save a day or two of walking.”
“In an emergency, you’ll figure out the truck. If you listened to half of what I said, it will come back to you.”
She saw his eyes go to the ignition and then down to the pedals. He had been listening.
They stood on opposite sides of the truck, outfitting themselves with the packs they had stowed in the bed.
“Come with me,” he said. “Find out what their punishment is. Maybe they’ll just lock you up for a week and then you can join the community. Whatever else you did, you saved Harper’s life. And if they’re anything like Oslo, they need bodies to contribute. They won’t punish you for long.”
“That’s your path. This is mine,” she said, pointing north. “If you see Harper or Gabriel, don’t let on that you know them. If you’re associated with me, you might gather ill will before you get a chance to make your own impression.”
“I’ve never met Harper and I barely got a clear look at Gabriel. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Madelyn nodded. She thought about her fantasy that Jacob was just a metaphorical representation of herself. In that construction, what was she doing right now? Was she shedding her social form once and for all to become a true recluse? Was she committing herself to being alone forever? It didn’t matter—Jacob was real. He wasn’t simply a symbol that she had invented to survive.
“Aunt Mac?” Jacob asked.
She snapped back to reality. “Pardon?”
“I’ll be back to the cabin,” he repeated. “Once I establish myself with these folks, I’m going to come back and check in on you. Maybe I can get a sense for how they feel about you without revealing that we’re related.”
She could see that he was already scheming.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Come back in a few years and you’ll find me the same curmudgeon that you remember. Meanwhile, help these people survive.”
Jacob smiled. He came around the back of the truck and pulled her into a quick hug.
“Keep checking the ether. I’ll post something if I can. If you see my face, you’ll know I’m talking to you.”
Madelyn nodded. She didn’t want to speak the lie aloud.
He grasped her hands with his and then turned towards the column of smoke. Jacob set off at a trot.
“Don’t get too close to the fire,” she called.
Madelyn stood and watched him disappear around the bend.
A
FTER
A
HUNDRED
METERS
of cracked pavement, Madelyn couldn’t stand it. She veered off and climbed through the brush until she couldn’t see the road anymore. It felt safer to be surrounded by trees, but she couldn’t fool herself—she was exposed.
She marveled at the idea that her brother, Noah Two by Two, had spent years outside hiking around the globe. How had he found the courage? Without her cabin nearby, Madelyn was terrified.
Using her compass, she put the sun in the right part of the sky and began moving. As long as her feet churned beneath her, everything was going to be okay. The sky opened up ahead of her. Madelyn turned her face up towards the unfiltered light and then immediately tripped on a tangle of branches. She went down hard in a thicket of blackberry thorns.
Madelyn pushed herself slowly back upright. The thorns tugged at her skin and clothes. They seemed reluctant to see her go. A scratch on the back of her hand sprouted three drops of blood. They grew as she watched. As Madelyn understood it, the thorns were meant to be a defense against grazers. The plant wanted its blackberries taken away, so it could spread its seeds, but it didn’t want to do so at the expense of its branches. The thorns were to force a little politeness from animals who came for the berries.
But, in Madelyn’s case, the thorns had drawn her attention when she might have just walked right by the plant. It had no fruit to offer, and Madelyn wanted revenge for the spilled blood. She took care to stomp on the dry branches of the blackberry bush. It drew her blood, but Madelyn broke the plant’s back. She smiled at her own childish need for revenge and continued on.
She stepped over a charred log that had nearly finished its return to the soil. A fire must have swept through in the recent past. That was why there were no tall trees and the undergrowth was so thick. With her new deduction, Madelyn saw the field with new eyes.
The flames had taken a narrow path. Looking left and right, she realized that the path of the fire had been fairly straight as well. She wondered if maybe the fire had been a controlled burn. Perhaps someone had been practicing a little maintenance.
She crossed the open area and tucked back into the canopy of limbs again. At least she had the
illusion
of safety under there. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and tasted her own blood while she hiked. The pain flared whenever she exposed the scratches to the air. She wiped off her spit on her side and hiked.
The pain came from attachment—she understood that. It was a lesson that she had learned many years before. People got their hooks into her. Whether they intended to or not, they would brush up against her and their thorns would pull at her flesh until they drew blood.
Madelyn wasn’t shocked by the pain, but a little surprised that she was still able to feel it after all that time. When David had left her, he took away her ability to feel. She tried to remember if she had cried when her brother died. She had quickly become too busy with her nephew to really grieve her brother’s death. And, of course, she had mourned him years before.
Madelyn stopped.
She actually turned and looked over her shoulder, like she would think more clearly about the city if she was looking in that direction. Perhaps Jacob was right. She could take her punishment from the city folks and then find her place in their society. If Harper had returned and told of Madelyn saving her life, they might even be inclined to forgive her. The thought wasn’t completely preposterous.