“With skis I can—”
“You might need skis just to travel next summer. The volcanic winter might last a decade, nobody knows for sure.”
A decade of winter? That hit hard. How would anyone survive?
“Just wait, Alex. Maybe they’ll come back. If they haven’t shown up next summer, maybe conditions will be better so you can go look for them. Maybe by then FEMA will be in Iowa.”
“Huh. That’d hurt more than it’d help.”
“At least they clear the roads and maintain some order.”
“You haven’t done time in a FEMA camp.” My face was tense, scowling.
“No. But there’s another reason you shouldn’t take off after your folks. You’re needed here. I need your help. We could be looking at years without a reliable food source. We need to stockpile corn and wood, build more greenhouses, and figure out some way to keep feeding the goats and ducks. There’s an immense amount of work to be done.”
I nodded grudgingly. “Okay. I’ll think about it. But if Mom and Dad haven’t shown up by next spring, I’m going to go look for them. In the meantime, I’ll help—although Darla will be way more helpful than me. She was running a farm practically alone when we met.”
“Let’s not make any decisions today. It may be summer before the weather improves—if it does at all. But okay. If we can get things on a solid footing here, I’ll consider supplying you for an expedition back to Cedar Falls.”
“Where’s my clothing?”
“It was infested with lice. We hung it in a corner of the barn. I’m thinking the lice might die eventually if there’s no one for them to feed on. I’m not sure.”
“Yuck.” I felt itchy all over.
“I’ll get some of mine for you. Come down to the kitchen when you’re dressed; it’s dinnertime.”
Chapter 54
My cousins Max and Anna, my sister, and my uncle were sitting at the table in the kitchen. I saw Aunt Caroline and Darla through a window, cooking over a fire outside.
The table was already set. I sat down and drained the glass of water in front of me in a few gulps.
“Jugs on the counter are drinking water,” Uncle Paul said. “Help yourself if you want more.”
I got up and refilled my glass. While I was up, Darla came through the back door carrying a frying pan and a plate stacked high with omelets. Aunt Caroline followed, hefting a plate of cornbread.
It was an odd dinner, but by far the best meal I’d eaten in weeks. The cornbread was real—not corn pone. The omelet was delicious, but it didn’t taste quite like any omelet I’d ever eaten. The stuffing was some purplish leaf I couldn’t identify, and the eggs and cheese tasted weird—not bad, but different. I asked Aunt Caroline about it.
“It’s a duck-egg, goat-cheese, and kale omelet,” she replied.
“The ducks are mine,” Anna said, grinning proudly.
“I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep the ducks,” Uncle Paul said. Anna glared at him, but he continued, “Or the goats, for that matter. We’re going to run out of hay.”
“How’d you keep them alive through the ashfall?” Darla asked.
“We didn’t—not as well as I’d have liked, anyway. We lost four ducks and two goats to silicosis. But when we figured out what was going on, we started keeping them in the barn all the time and spreading wet straw to keep the dust down.”
“Where’d the kale come from?” I asked.
“We planted a fall garden in our greenhouses, before the eruption. But it got cold so fast that only the kale survived. We’ve been feeding the dead cucumber vines, tomato plants, and so on to the goats, but we’re out of those now. We’ve replanted—mostly kale, so I hope you like it.”
“Tastes fine to me,” I said.
“Your taste buds need tuning up,” Max said grumpily, although he was eating his kale omelet, too.
“Tell us about your trip,” Uncle Paul said. “From the little bit Darla’s told us, you had a rough time.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I said. That wasn’t exactly true. I didn’t even want to think about it, much less talk.
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah.”
I hoped he’d drop it, change the subject or something, but he kept asking questions. So I slowly released the breath I’d been holding in and relented. For the rest of the dinner and a couple of hours afterward, I told them my story. Darla pitched in some after I got to the part where I had met her. I paused before I told them about Darla’s mom being raped and murdered. I wasn’t sure how much I should say with Anna, Max, and my sister there. Anna and Max were ten and twelve, or maybe eleven and thirteen—I wasn’t sure. My sister would be fourteen next month. I asked Uncle Paul, “How much of this do you want me to talk about with your kids here? What happened when we got back from Worthington, it was . . . obscene. I’m not sure I even want my sister to hear this.”
Paul and Caroline glanced at each other. He said, “Go on. They need to know about the world they live in now.”
“Anna might get nightmares,” Caroline said.
Paul turned to Anna, “Do you want to stay? You don’t have to listen if you don’t want to.”
“I’ll stay,” she said.
So I told the whole story to everyone. Still, I tried to gloss over the worst parts of it. Darla certainly didn’t need to relive that day. I took her hand and squeezed it, offering whatever meager support I could.
When I finished talking, Rebecca was staring at me, her head tilted at a slight angle.
“What?” I asked.
“I can’t believe you did all that. I always knew that you were, like, tougher than you seemed, but—”
“I wouldn’t have survived without Darla.”
Rebecca turned her gaze on Darla. They looked at each other for a moment; then my sister nodded, and Darla smiled a little. I wasn’t sure what to make of the exchange. Somehow during the last eight weeks my exuberant, chatty sister had been replaced by this thoughtful alien who could communicate with a look what would have taken the old Rebecca an hour’s worth of words.
“We’d best get to bed,” Uncle Paul said. “There’s more corn to grind and wood to cut tomorrow.”
“Where do you want us to sleep?” I asked.
“You can bunk with Max. Darla and Rebecca will have to share the guest room—the room you were in when you woke up.”
Max and Anna erupted into simultaneous protests.
Max: “Why do I have to share my room? Why does Anna get her own?”
Anna: “How come I don’t get a roommate? Why does Max always get everything?”
Aunt Caroline overrode them both. “Anna, I want you to find the air mattress. I think it’s in the linen closet. Max, come with me. I’ll help you shovel out some space for Alex in that pigsty you sleep in.”
Darla grabbed my arm and whispered, “Alex, I’d rather if we slept—”
“I’ll talk to him.”
She nodded.
Uncle Paul got up from his chair. I looked at him. “Uh, can I talk to you?”
“Sure.” He sat back down.
My sister was still at the table. I made a get-out-of-here gesture with my head. She didn’t move. “In private?” I said. “Please?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Rebecca and Darla left the kitchen.
“Um . . .” I thought furiously. How should I start? “Darla and I have been together for six weeks now.”
“An eternity in the life cycle of the American teenager.” Uncle Paul smiled, not unkindly.
“Darla’s almost eighteen, and I don’t really think of myself as a teenager anymore.”
“You’ve been through stuff no teenager should ever have to face, that’s true. But you’re still a minor, Alex.”
“I know, but . . .” This wasn’t going the way I’d hoped. “Look, Darla and I have been sleeping together—”
“Exactly how should I take that? Is there a chance she’s pregnant? Do you have any idea how ri
sky that could be, how often women and their babies died in childbirth before we had modern medical care? Which we don’t have right now.”
My cheeks burned. I’d tried, unsuccessfully, to break in between each of those rapid-fire questions. Now he took a breath, and I said, “When I said sleeping together, that’s exactly what I meant. There’s no chance she’s pregnant. Even if it were perfectly safe, the last thing we want is to bring a baby into this mess.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I feel safe with Darla. She’s the reason I’m alive.”
“And we’re grateful—”
“Anna wants a roommate. Max doesn’t. Why don’t we move my sister in with Anna, and Darla and I will take the guest room?”
“What I was going to say was, we’re grateful to Darla for getting you here in one piece. And I’m sure she’ll be a big help. But you’re both minors. Until your parents return, you have to live by the rules Caroline and I set.”
“Which is why I’m asking—”
“You’ve only known each other six weeks. I know it seems intense to you now, and you’re sure you’ll love her forever, but things change when you’re young. You’re too young to be making permanent decisions—and too young to be sharing a room.”
“But—”
“Final answer, sorry. When your folks get back you can revisit it with them.”
A hot wave of anger washed through me. My muscles tensed. I sucked in a deep breath and fought down the anger. Several retorts occurred to me, but none of them would have helped my case. From his perspective, it made sense—maybe. He saw me as the quiet, angry kid who used to visit his farm under duress. The kid I’d left behind in Worthington—along with a couple quarts of my blood.
“Okay,” I said.
Paul stared—his lips parted, and he tilted his head to the side.
“I don’t like it, but you’re right about one thing. It’s your house and your rules. You see me as a kid—”
“I know you’ve changed.”
“We’ll live with it for now. But eighteen is only a number. The magic number could just as easily be—has been, for other societies and other times—thirteen or sixteen or twenty-one.”
“True enough.”
“You’re going to need all of us to act like adults to get through this.”
My uncle nodded. “It’s one of the things that bothers Caroline and me most. What kind of childhood can the kids have in the midst of this chaos? A few chores, the responsibility of caring for the animals—those things have always been good for them. But now we’re all working dusk to dawn, trying to prepare for the long winter.”
“Darla’s spent the last few years working every waking minute to keep her farm going. She turned out okay. The kids could do worse.”
“Yes. But I still feel guilty. I should be sending them to school every morning, not into the fields to dig for corn.”
I shrugged. “There’ll be time for school when things get better.”
“I hope so. I’m off to bed. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” I scowled at his back as he left. I’d done the best I could, stayed calm, and made a solid rational argument, but what good had it done me?
I walked to the guest room at one end of the first floor and knocked on the door. Darla opened it dressed in an oversized T-shirt—one of Caroline’s, I figured.
“How’d it go?” she asked, closing the bedroom door behind her.
“Not so good. We’re kids, we haven’t known each other long enough, we’ll fall out of love, we’re both minors, oh my God don’t get her pregnant, and it’s my house and my rules.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah. The problem with adults is that they always see you in the crib you slept in as a baby. The one with the bars on the sides. I was hoping Uncle Paul might see things differently.”
“He will.”
“I’ve got half a mind to go back to Iowa to look for my parents.”
“I’m not sure how we’d find them.”
“I’d go back to Cedar Falls. Maybe they’ve been to the house.” Then I thought about what she’d said. “We . . .?”
“You didn’t think I’d let you go back to Iowa alone, did you?”
“Uh—”
“I’m not sure I trust you to walk from here to the barn without hurting yourself, let alone all the way to Cedar Falls.”
It sounded mean, but Darla was smiling as she said it, so I forgave her. “You’re right—we might not be able to find them. And the weather is probably going to get worse. The smart thing to do is to wait here.”
“Doing nothing is tough, even when it’s the right choice.”
“It’s more than that. During the trip, I was free. In Cedar Falls or here, I’m just somebody’s kid. In between, I was Alex. I decided where I slept and when, who I talked to and who I avoided. Sure, the ash and psychotic killers weren’t fun, but I’ve only been here one day, and already I miss that feeling of freedom, of being my own man.”
“Your uncle will figure out that you’re not a kid. Give him some time to stop remembering the old Alex and start seeing who you are now.”
“I hope you’re right. And thanks.”
I wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her. We stood in the hall and made out until Aunt Caroline’s voice wafted down the stairs, telling me my bed was ready. Darla said goodnight, and I clomped up to Max’s room.
Chapter 55
The air mattress was comfortable, but still I slept poorly. I woke sometime in the wee hours of the morning, my mind roiling with images of people: Darla, Target, Mrs. Nance, Colonel Levitov, Darren and Joe, my mother.. . .
I thrashed around in the bed for a while before giving up on further sleep. The clothing I’d worn at dinner yesterday was next to the mattress; I pulled it on, moving quietly so as not to wake Max. I slipped downstairs in my socks, thinking I’d get a glass of water.
Darla was in the living room adding a log to the fire. “Want a glass of water?” I asked.
“Sure. You couldn’t sleep?”
“No.”
“Me, either.”
I fetched a glass of water from the kitchen to share. When we finished, I slouched into the corner of the couch, where the back met the arm. Darla leaned against me, and I wrapped an arm around her. We’d sat together comfortably for only a few minutes when I heard her breathing slow down and felt her body relax in my arms. Soon after, I followed her into sleep.
* * *
I woke to Darla shaking me. “I heard footsteps upstairs. You’d better get back to Max’s room.”
I stood up and stretched. “Okay, love you.”
“Love you, too.” She gave me a kiss. I kept my lips firmly sealed together; I was pretty sure I had vile morning breath. She didn’t seem to notice, or maybe she didn’t care.
I stole up the stairs to Max’s bedroom as quietly as I could. He was still asleep. I slid on my boots and left the room again, this time stomping all the way.
Breakfast was corn pone and kale fried in duck fat. When Darla finally got to the kitchen, she made a big show of rubbing sleep from her eyes and announcing “Good morning, Alex” as if we hadn’t just seen each other. I had to suppress the urge to laugh.
After breakfast, Aunt Caroline retrieved two crude mortars and pestles from the pantry. They were only slightly concave stones with a round rock for each to serve as the pestle. “Who’s going to grind corn this morning?”
“I will, I guess,” Rebecca said.
“Why do you grind it that way?” Darla asked.
Everyone looked at her a little funny, so I said, “Darla built a bicycle-powered grinder on her farm. It worked great.”
“I’ve been thinking about trying something like that,” Paul said. “But there hasn’t been time.”
“It didn’t really work all that well,” Darla said. “I made the grindstones out of concrete, so they threw a lot of dust and grit into the meal.”
“Bet it saved a lot of
time, though,” Rebecca said wistfully.
“I think I could make a better one. I’d like to try making grindstones out of granite—that wouldn’t throw grit the way concrete does. I’d need some decent-sized chunks of granite.”
“I know where you can get some,” Max said. “Most of the gravestones at the cemetery are granite.”
“Max!” Aunt Caroline exclaimed. “That’s terribly disrespectful.”
“It’s a good idea,” Uncle Paul said. “I don’t think the dead will mind. I know I wouldn’t if it were my gravestone.” Aunt Caroline glared at him, and he said, “We can make rubbings and replace the stones when things get better.”
“It’d be a lot easier to cut gravestones than river rocks,” Darla added. “All I’d have to do is cut the flour channels in the face, maybe rough it up a little, and chip it round. Oh, I’d have to drill a feed hole in the runner stone, too.”
“It’s disrespectful,” Aunt Caroline repeated. “What would the neighbors think if they saw us robbing gravestones?”
“They’d probably forgive us in return for grinding their corn,” Uncle Paul said. “If we could build a gristmill, maybe we could charge to use it. Ten or twenty percent of the grain we grind? What else would you need to build it?”
“Tools for working stone,” Darla replied. “Cold-forged chisels, that sort of thing. A couple of bicycles. Parts off an old truck or car. A welding rig would help, but I can probably manage without it.”
“Our closest neighbor, Bill Jacobs, used to moonlight as a mason. I’ll ask if we can borrow his tools. A welding setup would be tougher to come by—try to make do. As for parts, there are four bikes in the garage. Use whatever you need. Car parts can come from the minivan—”
“The minivan?” Aunt Caroline protested. “It’s almost brand new.”
“It’s not like we have any gas. And if we get some, we’ll probably want to use it in the truck for hauling stuff.”
“But the kids can’t all ride in the truck.”
“I don’t think we’ll be driving them anywhere soon, honey.”
Aunt Caroline didn’t look happy, but she quit objecting.