At the End of Everything, page 20
“Me neither.”
He licks his teeth, like he’s embarrassed. “You know, I started carving the days into the small nurse’s desk in the infirmary, to keep track of how long it’s been. It feels like every day is a week, and every week is at least a month.”
I nod. Time seems to pass differently here. I forgot about Christmas entirely until Isaiah reminded me, and even so, I didn’t celebrate beyond going into town to steal food. I lit a candle in one of the empty houses.
“If she recovers, there may be hope for the others too.” Jeremy slipped away, but Saoirse is still holding on, and so is Xavier. And Leah, of course. The first to fall ill, and somehow, she’s still here. Maybe she can’t leave Logan any more than Logan can leave her.
At least we have a term for it now. Plague meningitis. It explains why both Xavier and Leah kept having seizures.
Casey nods. “I’ll take care of them as best I can.”
I smile. “You will. It’s what you’ve been doing. It’s what you’ve always done for me.”
A shadow flits across his face. It’s there, then it’s gone. It may be exhaustion, like the circles under his eyes—and mine too.
“Let me know if anything changes, okay?”
He’s already turning back to the infirmary. “Always.”
Isaiah has nothing new for me. The internet is completely down, and the phone lines only offer white noise. This time, he’s quite sure they’re not outages. We’ve been disconnected. He’s in the warden’s office regardless. It’s his HQ now—and his safe space too. He’s collected folders from the guard station and the therapist’s office. Those official-looking manila folders and large stacks of paper. He keeps moving them back and forth. He’s restless.
Presumably, he’s given himself access to our personal files too. That possibility only fully occurs to me now, but I can’t seem to care. The people we were don’t matter that much anymore.
I lean against the doorframe. “What are you doing?”
“Making a file of all of us here. Of everything that happened. Of everyone we lost.” He has placed different stacks of paper across the desk. “I talked to Emerson about remembering. Nia may let me use some of her drawings. I have all the notes from all the days we’ve been here.”
He doesn’t look up to me, but his voice holds a determination I’ve rarely heard before. “It’s important. I don’t want someone to just remember the dead. I want them to remember us too.”
We all want to be remembered. I want to keep remembering.
“Can I help in some way?”
“No.” Isaiah isn’t rude, he’s clear. I appreciate that.
“If there’s anything I can do, let me know.” I leave him to his work, but I make a small note to myself to ask him about his progress later. And Emerson about their graves. And Nia about her drawings. While I knew all those things were happening, I never really cared about it until now.
Truth is, something has changed in Hope since Josie and Saoirse came here. Since Logan found her way to Sam’s Throne and we stole into the town the first time to get food. Between what she found and what Sofia and I have been scavenging, it’s given us the space to breathe. It’s a reminder that the world outside still exists.
And that may be terrifying—but it’s exhilarating too.
* * *
But at night, I can’t sleep. The smell of death clings to me. The lists of names bounce around in my head. I know that every time we go into town, we put ourselves at risk, and it’s worth it to be able to eat, but I worry. We still have water and power, but I worry we’ll lose those next now that internet is gone. I worry constantly.
In the end, I roll out of bed again and get dressed. I pull my hair into a messy braid. I reach for one of our makeshift masks out of habit. And I sneak out of my room.
Wandering through the empty hallways offers me a strong sense of déjà vu. It’s colder. It’s different. But it’s also exactly like I did that night we found out what’s going on.
So maybe it’s meant to be that when I wander out into the garden, desperate for fresh air, I’m not the only one there. Emerson is sitting on the ground between the graves, a blanket around their shoulders, their violin resting on their knees, and a distant look in their eyes.
I can’t help but smile. “Weird.”
Twenty-six
Emerson
I breathe in deeply. Grace is quiet enough when she walks up to me, but everyone else here is quieter. I’ve spent so many nights in the garden, I’ve learned to separate the ghosts from real life. I play for them, sometimes, as quietly as I can. Other nights I let the silence be its own tune.
I wonder if any of this was meant to be. Us being here. Or me being me.
“What is weird?” I don’t bother to turn around.
Grace steps closer. “I was curious if anyone here sleeps at night anymore.”
“Probably not.” I wander around enough to see lights on in the rooms, hear the scuffling of feet, feel the restlessness of all around me. It’s why I come here now. The dark of night is peaceful. The air smells cleaner. The distant calls of birds and wildlife remind me that the world keeps turning. I spent Christmas Eve here, on my own, and I tried hard to ignore every second of it.
Grace doesn’t come closer, but she doesn’t turn around either. I want to tell her to leave me be, but I’m aching for conversation too. We haven’t really talked since the first time she came back from Sam’s Throne, and I’ve had ample time to think about her words.
I reluctantly pat the ground next to me. “Join me? No one else here says much.”
She huffs. “I would imagine not.”
Grace crouches down next to me, and after a moment’s hesitation, she folds her legs under her and sits. She hisses.
“I hope you brought a warm coat. The ground gets cold in the middle of the night.”
“I didn’t,” she admits.
“Amateur.” With my good arm, I hold open the blanket and let her get closer.
She moves with the same hesitation, and I understand why. It’s uncomfortable, at first, to be this close to another person. I breathe out hard when her arm brushes mine, and she laughs.
“This is strange too, isn’t it?” She purposefully bumps her arm against mine a second time. “That isn’t the broken arm, right?”
Something bubbles up inside of me. I giggle.
“I don’t hate it,” I admit. “But it’s probably dangerous.”
“It probably is.” She doesn’t move away. “But so is freezing to death.”
“I’m not sure Arkansas nights are cold enough for that, even up here in the mountains.”
“Hush, let me have this. Besides, hypothermia is still a risk.”
Truth is, I don’t want her to move either. I want to reach out my hand and curl my fingers around hers and hold on for dear life. Two months ago, I didn’t even know who Grace was. In the first few weeks of being here, our paths barely crossed, and in our past few conversations, I wanted to strangle her on a number of occasions. But tonight, when she’s close enough that I can feel her breathe in and out, she’s my tether.
We sit in silence for a while, and then she asks, “Why did you do it?”
I frown. “Why did I do what?”
She opens the blanket enough to let the cold in, and she waves at the graves. “This. Dig graves. Spend time with them.” She pulls the blanket to her chest again and huddles closer. “I know you think it’s important to remember, and I agree. It’s also a whole lot healthier to bury them. But…why you?”
“Because it needed to happen.” I opt for the easiest answer first, but Grace’s question sets the cogs in my head turning. I’ve barely answered those questions for myself.
“Sure,” Grace says, “but we could have found an alternative.”
“Such as?”
She pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on them. She’s turned toward Aleesha’s grave, though I doubt she’s aware of that. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I guess we could have taken turns?”
“Someone had to do it, and we don’t know if it’s dangerous. Better if it’s just one of us.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
I lean into her. I don’t do it on purpose, but the warmth draws me in. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times someone has touched me this past month. Only by accident or for aid, and I’m starved for it.
“I’m terrified,” I admit. “I don’t have a simple answer for you. I do think it’s important. To have our todays, tomorrows, and our yesterdays. I want someone to remember me. I don’t want any of them to be alone.” I weigh my words. “But that wasn’t what convinced me.”
Grace waits, but when I stay silent, she asks, “What did?”
“I wasn’t meant to be here, you know? I got kicked out of my home, and my parents didn’t want me back when I got arrested. Those first few weeks, every morning when I woke up on my raggedy bed, I had the same words running through my mind. I don’t belong here. I thought it would get easier. I thought maybe working in the garden would change things, but the truth is, I still don’t think I belong here.” I never said any of that out loud, and the words weigh heavy, but speaking them makes me feel lighter. I pull my shoulders up to my ears, and a flicker of pain trails through my arm. “And I don’t know where I do belong. I don’t know who I am. I’m still figuring that out.”
For the first time in a long time, my hand goes up to my neck, to reach for a necklace I no longer wear. A small, jeweled cross on a golden chain that my parents gave me after my confirmation. I broke it after that botched conversation with Father Michael, and I never picked it up again. I miss the feeling of the sharp edges underneath my fingers. “Are you religious?”
Grace considers it. “Some of my foster families were. I don’t know that I am. I never really thought about it.”
I huff out a laugh. “It’s always been such a big part of my life that I feel lost without it.” I realize that’s the truth the moment the words leave me. “It’s not just that I don’t belong here or that I miss my parents or my home, though those things are true. But I’ve lost all my certainties. I loved the feeling of being part of something greater.”
Even though our parish was small, the voices echoed through the church and lifted me up.
“That’s why it’s so hard for me to trust anyone,” I say. “You were right about that.”
She nods silently.
“It made me feel like the world had a purpose to it, and a kindness too. It made me feel like there was nothing I could do that wouldn’t be forgiven.” My voice is hoarse, but my hands are steady. “I lost that. I lost…knowing what the world looks like. I lost love and community, and I lost God.”
I gesture at the carefully tended graves. It’s too dark for either of us to see, but Josie took over my work with care and determination. She’s gathered rocks from all across the garden—and the other side of the fence too—and she’s been using them to cover the earth. She’s been trying to find ways to make markers. Gravestones. I hate to admit it, but she’s made this place better.
“This is the closest I’ve come to finding that purpose again. Bits and pieces of me.”
“Bits and pieces of God, too?” Grace asks. She clears her throat, and her eyes are suspiciously bright.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully.
She tilts her head a little to look at me. “Would you like to find God again?”
“Yes.” To be angry. To hurt. To be accepted. To come home. God, yes.
Grace takes my hand and holds it.
* * *
When I wake, my body aches like we stayed up all night, though Grace and I both went to our rooms in the early morning.
But I feel lighter, despite the achiness.
“You look horrible,” Josie says, when she sees me in the garden after breakfast. Her hair has grown past her ears, and she’s tied it back in a small ponytail. She hasn’t mellowed. She’s still all angles and anger. But she’s gentle with the garden and with the graves. We understand each other quite well these days.
“Still better than when you choked me.”
We’re even working on something that resembles banter, though it’s harsh and sharp, and it cuts. It seems to make us both feel better.
And to her credit, though I hate to say it, Josie works hard to make amends for what she did.
“We could try to burn names into wooden markers,” she says, when she spreads new stones around after carefully cleaning them. “Crosses too, but I’m not sure everyone would be as comfortable with that.”
I would be. I would be okay without one too.
“Wouldn’t carving be easier?” I lean against the fence and watch her work. She tells me she hates how I watch, but the first few times when I tried to walk away, she halted me with a question. And a second. And a third.
“I don’t know if anyone knows woodwork. Luke did, but he left with Hunter.” She swallows. Awkward, like every time Hunter comes up in conversation. “And to that point, I don’t know if we have the tools for it.”
“Khalil may know.”
“I’ll ask him, but I think wood-burning is better.”
“I don’t think we have the tools for that.”
“Khalil may know.” She lobs the words back at me with ease, and I scowl.
She draws breath to speak when someone shouts her name. “Josie!”
We turn and find Grace walking up to us. I raise my hand in greeting. We haven’t really spoken since last night, but that tether is still present. Like with Josie, we’re connected, somehow. But this morning, she’s pale, and her eyes are distant. She acknowledges me with a slight nod before she turns to Josie.
And her shoulders drop.
We’ve been here before. I know what she’s come to tell us.
“I wanted you to hear from me,” she says. She clenches her hands at her side. “Saoirse died.”
Josie drops the rock she’s holding. She tenses all over. “No…”
“I know you were hoping she would pull through. We all were, but—”
“Were you?” Josie interrupts Grace, hard. Her voice has a razor-sharp edge to it. Anger. Grief. Hurt. “I’ve heard the others talk. The whispers that I’m a waste of resources, that I only made life harder for all of you.” Josie shakes her head. “Can you look at me and tell me that you spared us a moment of thought? Us, not what we did. Not the trouble we caused you. Can you tell me you ever saw us as part of your little community?”
Grace breathes out hard, like Josie punched her. “Of course…” she starts, but her voice trails off. Her mouth works, but no sound comes out.
And Josie does the worst thing she can do. She laughs. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
“I do.” The words leave my mouth before I really think about it, but Josie turns to me with a hunger born from starvation. So I push through. “See you as part of our community. I won’t lie to you and tell you it’s easy. I’m still furious with you for what you did to me. But I understand it too. When you’re here with me, to tend the grave and the garden, I can forget it. I can look at this place and see that you made it better. I can’t speak for anyone else, but you belong here. I will help you dig a grave for Saoirse so she belongs here too.”
With that, Josie drops to her knees, hides her face in her hands, and she sobs.
Hope for Better Futures
A Timeline
Day 33: Every time someone coughs, we all jump. Not literally, but it sometimes feels that way. It’s been two days since Saoirse died. We’re all keeping count.
Day 37: Khalil cut himself with a garden saw today. No one knows quite how it happened, but he was trimming the trees, and he must have slipped. It’s a bad wound, but it’s not life-threatening. Casey tried to patch him up as best as he could, but we don’t have a lot of medical equipment here, so it didn’t look very neat. Khalil jokes he’s going to have a cool scar along his arm, but until it heals, it’s going to keep hurting.
Casey keeps us all together with the handful of Band-Aids and painkillers he has left. I don’t know how he does it. He shouldn’t be responsible for us. He’s not a doctor. He’s sixteen. But we trust him.
Day 46: We’re hungry. Logan brings me the inventory lists to keep with all these files. I know we have beans left for days. And small portions of rice. We have whatever the hunters find us, including raccoon and possum. Oyster mushrooms we think are safe. We can eat three meager meals, but never enough.
I worry that we’ll become careless and make mistakes because we’re all tired and hungry, and I worry it will only get worse. We try to take care of ourselves, but it’s hard to think straight. It’s harder every day. Without any perspective, what are we holding on for?
Burial Rites for Saoirse Sullivan
Hey.
Emerson offered to help, but I need to do this on my own. I need to say goodbye to you by myself. We’ve spent all that time alone together, and I want to tell you—
I hate you. I’m so angry at you. I nearly died for you, I stole for you, I hurt for you, and now you leave me? You promised to stick with me, and I want to hold you to that promise, but I can’t do that now. I don’t know how to go on without you, because you took a piece of my heart, and my chest feels emptier.
I don’t know how to keep surviving when I keep losing, and you’re not here to tell me.
So I hate you. I hate the freckles on your nose. The sparkle in your eyes. All the trouble that found you and all the trouble you found.
I hate how you were the only one to make me feel like I mattered. Like I could be something and make something from my life. I hate that you promised me the world and then left me. I hate that I can’t hold your hand anymore or braid your hair or tell you ridiculous stories. I hate that you’ll never get to show me your grandparents’ farm or the treasures you hid there. I hate that I’ll never be able to bring you home.
