Not a Drop to Drink

Thirteen

A week later, snow fell. And continued to fall. Lynn sent Lucy indoors once visibility had reached zero. The girl could easily become disoriented in the blinding white snowfall and wander to a lonely death in the snow. Lynn climbed down from the roof moments after sending her inside. She could see nothing. If anyone were stupid enough to wander out in a snowstorm to attack her, she could shoot them just as easily coming down the basement stairs. Easier, even.

They spent two days indoors, with Lucy mocking the reading selection, and Lynn pumping her for more information about Entargo. Once the conversation steered in the direction of Neva’s mom though, Lynn became less enthusiastic. A lone woman wandering in the blizzard wouldn’t make it far, especially a city dweller. She kept the harsh thoughts to herself and tried to distract Lucy by pulling out a tin of cocoa, something that had been reserved for Christmas when Mother was alive.

On the third day, Lynn ventured back onto the roof, and spied the meandering black snake of a trail that Stebbs was making as he lurched toward the house. She hailed him, and Lucy ran out to meet him, her own progress hampered by the snow that nearly reached her thighs. She fell flat on her face twice before she reached Stebbs, but resolutely got up and pounded her way through the drifts. Even though Lynn knew it cost him, he swung Lucy up and onto his shoulders.

He warmed himself by the fire and gave Lucy a present he’d made during his own time indoors; a wooden flute that he’d whittled. She began tooting it immediately and stomping around the basement in a chaotic parody of a parade.

“Thanks for that,” Lynn said drily.

“At least now we don’t have to walk outside to have a conversation,” he said over the din.

Lynn’s eyes narrowed. “What’s up?”

“I want you to go over to check on Eli and Neva. My foot won’t hold up to the trip, so I thought I’d stay here and watch over things for you.”

Lynn tried to ignore the little skip in her heartbeat. “Something wrong?”

“I don’t think so, no. But it’s their first real blizzard so it wouldn’t hurt to check.”

Bleak winters could drive even the most seasoned country dwellers to the brink. Mother had told her of a married couple who’d survived the violence immediately following the Shortage, only to have the wife go after her husband with a hatchet during the winter that followed. Being shut indoors could do funny things to people, Mother had said.

“I can do that,” Lynn said carefully, certain there was more.

Stebbs unshouldered his backpack. “Take ’em this. It’s got vegetables enough to get them through for a little while. Bring the pack back, and we’ll stock ’em up again in a bit.”

“And what are they giving you in return?”

“They’ve got nothing to give.”

Lynn took the pack reluctantly. “I don’t like you just giving them things. When does it stop?”

“When they’re able to look after themselves.”

“And when will that be, with you always treating them like they’re babies fresh out of their mothers?”

Stebbs gave Lynn a hard look. “I know you’re just saying what you think your mother would’ve wanted. Seems to me you’re starting to grow a heart on your own, but every now and then you think of her and it kills it dead like the frost to a seedling. You weren’t taught any different, but it used to be that people helped each other.”

“Used to be a lot of things different.”

“But people are still the same,” Stebbs said, an edge on his voice that usually wasn’t there. “And all everyone is trying to do is survive.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“You’re not exactly in bad shape, kiddo. Those poor bastards your mom blew away over the years? They was just trying to get a drink, to get by one more day. Shit, one time the widow of this fella came back to my place, out of her head ’cause she saw one of your mom’s bullets peel off part of her husband’s skull. Died the next day, she did, and I’m not so sure it wasn’t the shock that killed her.”

Lynn fiddled with the strap on the bag he’d handed her. “When was this?”

“Seven years or so back.”

“That wasn’t necessarily Mother that shot him. That might have been me.”

“Jesus.” Stebbs put his head in his hands and left it there. “You woulda been just a kid.”

Lynn glanced over to where Lucy was playing the flute, happily plugging different holes to change the notes. “Killing people was easier when the only face I ever saw was Mother’s. Back then, anyone else was the enemy and shooting at an outline in a scope wasn’t any different than taking down a deer, just in a different shape.”

“And now?”

“Now I’ve seen other faces,” Lynn said, thinking of the traveler on the road, who Lucy had begged her not to shoot. “And I can’t help but wonder what the people I shot looked like.”

Stebbs patted her knee. “We’ll leave it there.”

“There was a man on the road the other day,” Lynn said. “I meant to tell you when we came to your place, but what with you falling and . . .” She trailed off, unable to say “water witch” even in the privacy of her basement. “. . . uh, all the excitement, I forgot to tell you.”

“This man, did he pass by?” Stebbs watched her carefully.

“He did, and Lucy talked me out of killing him.”

“She’s a good influence.”

Lynn shoved his shoulder. “He said—”

“He said?” Stebbs eyebrows flew up in surprise. “You talked to this guy?”

“I did, and I’ll be done talking with you if I can’t get a word in edgewise,” Lynn said, pointing her finger at him while she spoke. Stebbs threw his hands up in surrender and she went on. “He said that he was turned out of his place, that men had come and taken what was his, right down to his shoes.”

Stebbs digested that information for a minute, eyes on Lucy and her innocent play. “He say whereabouts this happened?”

“To the east, but the men were in trucks. They could’ve come from anywhere.”

“So they’re rifling for supplies but have enough gasoline to travel to find them . . . that doesn’t feel quite right.”

Lynn shrugged. “It doesn’t, but I’m not trying to wrap my brain around it. I’m just going to shoot them, they come this way.”

“In their case, fire away,” Stebbs said, gaze still on Lucy, mouth grim.

Lynn looked at the little girl happily piping on her flute, oblivious to the threats that seemed to surround them. Dread bloomed in Lynn’s stomach, along with a fierce streak of protective rage that usually only surfaced when she thought of the pond. She shoved it down with effort and opened the pack Stebbs had handed her. There were two cans of green beans, a Mason jar of dried sweet corn, and a can of peaches.

“Peaches,” she said awkwardly. “I bet Neva’ll like that.”

“She’s doing better, that girl. Talking about starting a garden in the spring. I gave Eli a bow of mine and he’s a better shot than you’d have guessed. We won’t be carrying their weight for long.”

“Lucy says Neva’s mom is coming to find them.”

“Eli said as much, last time I was over to the stream.”

“He tell you how she was going to find them?”

“You mean the satellite maps?” Stebbs shrugged. “I figured people were still using those, yeah.”

“Stalactite maps, you mean,” Lynn said, using the word Lucy had so carefully pronounced whenever they talked about it.

“Uh . . .” Stebbs struggled to keep a straight face. “No, Lynn. Those are called ‘satellites,’ not ‘stalactites.’ Trust me on that one, kiddo. The little one must’ve gotten her head a bit muddled.”

Lynn flushed at her mistake and her irritation seeped into her words. “So you never thought to tell me something was watching us from the sky?”

“Well, now you know. And what are you going to do about it?”

Lynn tossed the rest of her coffee on the fire, where it hissed in the flame. “Nothing.”

“That’s right. There’s nothing you can do except worry about it and get yourself all worked up.”

“Still would’ve liked to have known,” she said sullenly. “If people in the city can see my pond without me being able to see them, I don’t much like it.”

Stebbs rolled his eyes. “Use your head for something other than aiming a rifle, Lynn. I know it’s hard for you to grasp how many people are in Entargo, but it’s thousands. Your pond could help maybe a hundred of them for a week and then it’d be all over. You’re only the one person—two now, I guess—so to you it’s a lifeline. To them it’d be a swallow. Same with my little well, if they could see it. We’re small fish, kiddo, and I’m glad of it.”

“Then why are they even looking?”

“Eli said his brother Bradley was part of a special team that did a little work on the side for private citizens. Only very few people know that the satellites are still running, or what they’re looking at. I’m bettin’ those people were important enough to have money, and a backup plan in case things in the city went bad. ’Cept in Bradley’s case he took what he was paid to find out and used it for himself once they knew Neva had an illegal baby growing inside her.”

“Eli tell you Neva’s mom is a doctor?”

“Yup. I wouldn’t mind meeting her.” Stebbs winced as he raised his still-swollen ankle and rested it on Lucy’s cot. “It’s better,” he said, “but I probably shouldn’t have tried walking over here yet.”

“So I think . . .” Lynn’s voice trailed off as she searched for words. “I think maybe I know part of what’s wrong with Neva. With her hurting, like you talked about.”

Stebbs laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back, watching Lynn closely. “Uh-huh?”

“Lucy said that some of the soldiers came and got Neva out of their cell after they arrested them, and when they brought her back she wouldn’t talk.”

“Uh-huh?”

“So I think they hurt her.”

“I’m sure they did,” Stebbs said, still watching Lynn’s face.

“So . . . what’d they do?”

“Your mom never told you much about men, did she?”

“Not much that was nice.”

Stebbs leaned forward and put his face in his hands. “Oh, Lord, that I should be the one having this conversation. Thanks a lot, Lauren.”

Minutes later, a red-faced Lynn was fighting through snow on her way to the stream. “Thanks a lot, Mother,” she muttered to herself. “That wasn’t embarrassing or anything.”

Her anger fueled her progress, and Lynn reached the little house by the stream before she’d fully recovered from Stebbs’ revelations. Eli was outside, awkwardly attempting to hang a deer by himself. He heard her approach before she hailed him, and turned with the deer still slung over his shoulder, giving her an awkward wave.

He was wearing an old pair of coveralls from Stebbs that would have been much too big for him at their first meeting, weeks ago. Now he filled them out, and the color in his face was as much from healthy exertion as the frigid air. She felt a rush in her veins that had nothing to do with the walk, but she stamped on it, the memory of what Stebbs had just told her too fresh in her mind to even meet Eli’s gaze.

“You’re doing that wrong,” Lynn greeted him.

“Hello to you too.”

She walked past him to the tree, inspecting the rope that he had slung over one of the lower branches. “This isn’t high enough, your deer isn’t going to be off the ground. You can field dress it on the ground and hang it after.”

“Field dress?”

“Just put it down,” Lynn said, and Eli gratefully dropped the animal. They knelt beside the body together. Lynn pulled out the arrow carefully, to avoid breaking the tip. “Nice shot,” she said.

“Thanks.” Eli took her first kind word as encouragement. “Stebbs has been working with me. It’s my first deer.”

“She’s a decent size. With just the two of you eating off her, you’re set for the winter.” Lynn rolled the doe onto her back. “Got a good knife?”

“Stebbs gave me one, yeah.”

“Well, get it.”

When Eli returned, knife in hand, she motioned to the backpack she’d brought with her. “That’s from Stebbs too, he sent you along some vegetables.”

“Thank him for me.”

“I will.”

They regarded each other uneasily over the dead doe’s belly. Lynn held out her hand for the knife. “Here, I’ll show you.”

“Tell me how, let me try.”

Lynn shook her head. “Making the first cut is a tricky business. You’ve got to get through the pelt and the muscle but if you cut down into the intestines you’ve got a mess on your hands and hell of a smell. Trust me on that. Let me do the first bit, then I’ll hand it over.”

With a knife in her hand, Lynn relaxed. The methodical work of field dressing restored her spirits, and once she surrendered the knife to Eli the task of instructing him took all her concentration. His inexpert knife-handling skills would’ve cost him a finger if she hadn’t been there, and the look on his face when she instructed him to reach into the rib cavity and pull out the heart was enough to make her glad she was.

She removed her own gloves. “Here, I’ll show you,” she said, and stuck half her arm into the warm depths of the deer, emerging with the dripping organ.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, the color in his cheeks she’d noticed earlier suddenly gone.

“Beats eating grasshoppers,” she shot back, and Eli burst out laughing, catching her by surprise and causing an unguarded smile to spread across her own face. “What?”

“Just you, standing there with blood up to your armpit and a heart in your hand, happy as can be.” Eli stifled another laugh. “And my mom had a musician all picked out for me.”

“Fat lot of good that would do you out here,” Lynn said, turning her attention back to the carcass and trying to ignore the pleasant flush that had crept up her cheeks. “Boost me up into the tree and toss me the rope.”

The two of them had the deer hung in a few minutes. “It’s cold enough now, you can just let it hang for a bit to cure,” she said. “One of us will show you how to butcher.”

Eli wiped the sweat that had beaded on his brow despite the cold weather. “Thank you,” he said, catching her gaze. “For everything.”

Lynn kicked snow over the purple mound of organs and grunted. “You’re welcome. How about in exchange you tell me about these water maps?”

“Stebbs tell you about that, or Lucy?”

“Both,” Lynn said. “But Lucy let it slip first.”

Eli sighed and looked up at the carcass. “Neva’s got this idea in her head that if she treats her like an adult, Lucy will act like one. But I knew she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.”

“She needs to learn,” Lynn said. “I’m guessing you didn’t know she can douse?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Witch water,” Lynn tried again, but Eli’s face remained blank. “She can find water good as any of those satellite things. Better even, since the water she finds is underground.”

Eli swallowed once, hard. Lynn was glad to see that city or not, he was smart enough to know what kind of danger that put the little girl in. “It’s genetic,” Lynn explained. “Someone in your family is able to do it, though Stebbs says it can skip generations. I’m guessing whoever it was never even knew, living in Entargo like you do.”

“Did,” Eli corrected. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know about the water maps, but we’re going inside to talk. I can pretend to be tough for two more minutes, but I’m freezing, and I think we’ve got enough conversation to last the afternoon.”

Lynn glanced up at the sun. “I can stay a little,” she said hesitantly. “But I’m not sure how welcome I am inside.”

“Neva’s not in there,” Eli said. “She’s out at the grave.”

“By herself?”

“I couldn’t get her to come away,” he said. “Once the snow stopped, she went right to it and started clearing away the drifts. I’ve been watching the deer upstream, and I knew they came to the same spot every morning, so I needed to be there at the right time. But Neva wouldn’t budge, so I had to leave her behind.”

“She been there all day?”

“Mostly. I got the deer about right after sunrise, dragged it back here, and went to check on her. I took her something to eat, but she refused to move.”

“She dressed well?”

“Well enough,” Eli said, and Lynn didn’t miss the shiver that went through him. She guessed that Neva was dressed better than Eli, and that he’d given the better coat to her. The idea of being in the small shelter alone with Eli caused a different kind of heat to flush through her. She clamped down on it, the need to know more about the satellites outweighing her nerves.

The little house was warm. She put the pack from Stebbs down next to the stove and stripped off her coat, wet with snow and smeared with deer blood. She hung it over the back of one of the mismatched chairs to dry. “Stebbs got you set up nice,” she said as she sat at the little table that was pushed into the corner. She kept her gaze firmly on its top, not allowing her eyes to wander to the loft where Neva and Eli slept together. Not after what Stebbs had told her.

“I got that myself,” Eli said as he sat down across from her. “One afternoon when he was over I went out, found it along with the chairs. Of course, every piece came from a different house, so they don’t match.”

Lynn felt her lips flicker into a smile without meaning to. “You’re used to things like matching furniture?”

“Oh, yes, a coordinated dining room,” Eli said, fake wistfulness creeping into his tone as he ran his fingers over the tabletop. “I miss it more than tap water.”

“Shut it, you do not,” Lynn said, a real smile pushing through. “Now tell me about the satellites before I break one of these ugly chairs over your head. Lucy told me you were aiming for my house?”

“Yeah.” Eli nodded, all traces of teasing gone from his face. “Bradley said it was big enough for us to survive, not big enough for anyone from the city to bother with.”

“Unless the city went south?”

“What’s that?”

“Went south,” Lynn explained. “It’s a country way of saying when something goes bad.”

“That was the idea, yeah,” Eli agreed. “Basically, the people that my brother and some of the other soldiers hired themselves out to for information had the money to get it, and the foresight to know that the water in the city couldn’t last forever. Bradley took their money, then their plan for his own once they knew Neva was pregnant again.”

“It’d be a decent plan if you knew the first thing about surviving.”

“That was supposed to be on Bradley,” Eli said, his eyes not meeting hers anymore. “He knew all kinds of stuff from his training. Berries you could eat, roots even. To eat bugs if you got in a bad enough situation.”

Lynn thought of Lucy chasing grasshoppers, her tiny palms smacking against the dry bodies in desperation. “He taught you what he knew then?”

“He tried, back in the city. But I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have. He was supposed to be with us, you know? The whole way. I’m good with my hands, but I always learned better actually doing something, so I figured once we were outside I could learn from him as we went a lot easier than trying to remember everything he told me over a table. We couldn’t keep anything we wrote down, so I had to memorize it all. I focused on remembering the maps, thought there’d be more time for everything else later.”

His voice trailed off, and Lynn thought about how Eli had watched his brother bleed out in the city while people who were able to help had done nothing. Her own desperation beside Mother’s body shot through her memory and she had an unexpected rush of anger at the crowd that had let Eli’s brother die in front of them. She cleared her throat.

“In that case, remind me to show you what poison ivy looks like, come spring.”

Eli glanced up at her, a teasing smile back on his face. “That’s a date.”

Lynn’s brow furrowed. “It’s a season.”

“No, I mean . . .” Eli sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “We’re going to have to find a shared vocabulary before I can flirt.”

“Flirt?”

“Yeah, it’s how a boy shows a girl that he likes her. Or vice versa,” he said pointedly.

“Sounds like a waste of time,” Lynn said carefully, trying to keep the skip in her pulse out of her voice. “Seems like it’d be a lot easier to just say so.”

“Easier maybe,” Eli said, the smile that came so effortlessly to him spreading again. “But less fun.”

“Fun,” Lynn grunted.

“Yeah, it’s what—”

“I know what fun is,” she shot back.

Eli’s hands went up in the air. “I’m only teasing.”

“Is that part of flirting?”

“A very important part,” Eli said with mock seriousness. “Looks like maybe there’s a thing or two I can teach you after all.”

Lynn rolled her eyes. “Yes, flirting. A necessary part of survival.”

“Well, technically—”

“Shut it,” Lynn said, and Eli snapped his jaw shut. “Is this what you city kids do all day? Sit around and let each other know how much fun you were having?”

“Sometimes. We go to school, some of us played sports or took music lessons. Read in our spare time. Just normal life, you know?” Eli shook his head. “No, I guess you probably don’t know. What I used to do with my day probably seems silly to you.”

“No,” Lynn said slowly, thinking over every word as she spoke. “It seems like it’d be kind of nice not spending every minute living working against dying.”

Eli watched her for a second in the quiet that fell between them. “When we found your place, when I saw you and your mom living there, I didn’t even consider taking it from you. I’d lost everything I had. I didn’t have the heart to take from someone else.”

“Plus I would’ve sniped your ass.”

“That too.”

“I guess maybe I’m glad I didn’t,” Lynn admitted.

“I’ll take that as flirting, country girl.”

Lynn kicked him under the table before standing. “We’re done for today, I need time to get back to the house in the light.”

Eli got up quickly. “Could you talk to Neva, before you go?”

Lynn’s mouth fell into the flat line that made her resemble Mother. “I’ll talk to her, but I can’t promise anything.”

The little grave was around a bend in the stream, not far from their new house, but out of sight because of the meandering path of the water. Lynn could make out the hunched form of Neva, perched on the dead trunk of a tree, keeping her vigil. Lynn purposely stepped on a twig, which snapped under boot like a gunshot. Neva did not move.

“Hey,” Lynn called out, suddenly anxious. “You all right?”

There was a small shrug underneath the pile of blankets that Eli had bunched around her, but Neva did not turn her head. Lynn pushed her way through the snow to stand by her side. The ground around the small pile of rocks had been cleared of fresh snow, swept clean of branches and debris.

“That’ll be pointless in about two days.”

“Then I’ll clear it again.”

Lynn sighed and sat down uninvited. Neva had changed too, since Lynn had met her, but for the worse. Despite the many layers of blankets and clothing, it was easy to see there was little left of her but bone and skin. A flash of pale showed between her coat cuff and mittens, and Lynn could see that her wrists were tiny, almost as small as Lucy’s. Her dark eyes were sunken, the circles underneath them lending to the thought that they might recede entirely into her skull. Even so, she was still alarmingly beautiful.

“So what now? We sit here trying to stop the snow from hitting the ground?”

“You don’t have any children, do you?” Neva didn’t turn when she spoke to Lynn but kept her eyes riveted on the grave.

“No.”

“That man that comes here, the cripple. Is he your family?”

“No, just a friend.”

“Do you have any family?”

“No. Mother was killed this past fall.” Lynn answered evenly, trusting her voice to stay strong. “She was all I had. I was injured and it was too difficult to put her in the ground by myself. I had to burn her.”

Neva was silent for a while, eyes focused on the ground at her feet. “I’m sorry for that,” she eventually said. “And I never thanked you for helping bury my son.”

Lynn had no response. They stared at the pile of stones together in silence.

“You’ve still got family left,” Lynn ventured. “Your Lucy, she loves you. Eli wants to take care of you.”

“My Lucy,” Neva repeated, her hollow voice cracking with emotion. “My poor little Lucy. We never should have tried to leave.”

“She’s all right here. Doing fine, really. She’s gaining weight, likes to play in the snow, her feet healed up real nice.”

“Her feet?”

“She was a mess when I took . . . when Eli gave her to me to take back to the house for a bit. The shoes she was wearing were way too small.”

A bitter smile cracked Neva’s dry lips apart. “See? That’s what kind of mother I am. My little girl was hobbling around the countryside starving.”

“She’s all right now, though.”

“Because she’s with you.”

“I do the best I can—but I’m no mother.”

Neva didn’t answer. Lynn wanted to reach out and shake her, but she was afraid it might cause real damage to the frail body. “She’s worried about you.”

Neva grimaced. “We’re out in the wild and she’s the one worried about me. She’s all I have left and I am completely incapable of taking care of her out here.”

It was Lynn’s turn to be silent and stare at the ground.

“She’s much better off with you,” Neva added.

“A little while longer,” Lynn said. “I’ll keep her a little while longer, but I want you to try. She’s your daughter, not mine.”

Lynn got to her feet. “C’mon, that’s enough of this. Eli’s been making himself crazy thinking about you out here freezing by yourself.”

“I’m sure he has. He’s always been chivalrous.”

“I don’t know what that means. Now, am I going to have to move you, or are you going to move yourself?”

For the first time, Neva turned her head and looked at Lynn. “I’ll move myself, thank you,” she said. Her knees nearly buckled when she stood, but she waved Lynn away and steadied herself. They walked toward the little house together, Lynn pacing herself slowly so that Neva could keep up.

“I know about what those men did to you,” she said hesitantly. “It was wrong.”

“Yes, it was.”

“I brought you something, in case anyone tries that again.”

Lynn reached into her coat and brought out a small derringer that she had taken from the gun trunk, which fit neatly into the palm of her hand.

“It’s a single shot, but it would do the trick at a short distance. I figured my shotgun would knock you on your ass, and the rifle takes some skill to fire. Even most of the handguns I have got a kick to ’em. But this one will take a man down, if he’s close, or at least scare him off.”

Neva considered the little pearl-handled gun. “Thank you,” she said, reaching for it.

“I’ll show you how to fire it.”

“Thank you,” Neva said again.

“Mother always called that one the whorehouse gun.”

“Charming.”

Eli shot Lynn a grateful glance as Neva walked past him into their home and shut the door behind her.

“How’d you manage that?”

“I really don’t know,” Lynn admitted. “I tried to say what I thought was the right things to her, but it just seemed to make her more angry.”

Eli laughed a little and shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, welcome to life with Neva.”

“Well, when I finally said something on purpose to make her angry, that’s when she did what I wanted her to. So, now you know.”

“Guess I’ll have to try that.” Eli wasn’t wearing a coat. His shoulders were hunched reflexively against the chill breeze, his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans.

“I better go,” Lynn said. “Let you get inside.”

“No really, it’s okay,” Eli said, although his teeth chattered around the words.

“You have Stebbs’ pack? I’m supposed to take it back to him.”

“Yeah sure, hold on.” Eli disappeared inside the house. He came back wearing a coat and hat, carrying Stebbs’ empty backpack. “I’ll walk with you a bit.”

“Neva won’t care?”

“She doesn’t mind being alone. I almost think she prefers it. It’s being away from the water that scares her. She’s used to having water come out of a faucet.”

“Lucy said you have to pay for it?”

“It’s expensive, yeah. We are—we were well enough off that we could afford the clean water, a nicer apartment building. People that have less money, their water isn’t as purified—that means clean.”

“Oh, does it?”

“Sorry,” Eli said immediately. “I should know by now that you and Stebbs aren’t exactly stupid. Any girl who can quote Yeats probably knows what ‘purified’ means.”

They walked without talking a few moments more, while Lynn critically assessed Eli’s progress through the bracken. She was torn between wanting to keep him away from the snug sleeping quarters with Neva and wanting to keep herself from being shot in the dark.

“Could you make more of a racket?”

“Sorry,” he said again. “I’m just trying to make a path for you.”

“I’ve been walking in the dark a long time, city boy,” Lynn said. “You best head back home before full dark. Wouldn’t do anybody any good if you get lost out here.” She hated the words even as they slipped past her teeth, sending him back to Neva was much harder than she thought it would be.

“Right, okay.” Eli blew the air out of his cheeks and turned back the way they’d come. “I’ll do my city best to find the only structure out here.”

“Good luck with that,” she called out after him.

His crashing stopped for a moment, but she couldn’t pick out his form in the dying light. “Is that teasing?”

“I thought it was called flirting?”

“You’re a quick learner.” She could hear the smile on his face even if she couldn’t see it.

“Get out of here,” she called into the darkness. “Stop encouraging me to yell so much out in the middle of nowhere.”

A laugh was the only answer, leaving Lynn to wonder what she’d done that was so funny and reflecting on the fact that he was so noisy she could pick him off at a hundred yards on a moonless night.

She turned toward home and realized that she hadn’t missed it. For the first time in her life, she’d been away from the pond and not been rushing to get back. Worries had fallen away while she talked with Eli, and water hadn’t filled every waking moment.

And she didn’t regret it.