John was trying to make his dog, Patrick, remain in the stay position. He would walk away from the dog but when he turned around, he was always right behind him. His mother sat watching him, a cup of steaming black tea in her hands. She had just been thinking about possibly preparing John for bad news about his father and wondering how much she should say.
“What do you mean?”
“About what happened. He said it was mostly likely an EMP.”
“You’re right,” Sarah said. “He did say that.”
John pointed a finger at the dog. “I said, stay, Patrick! I read about electromagnetic pulses in my Science News,” he said. “It, basically, like, shoots out a wave of gamma radiation in all directions—kinda like the electrical storms we get in Jax during the summer, only it wipes out everything electrical.”
John released the puppy from the command and sat down next to Sarah in the dirt. “Dad called it.”
The dog collapsed into his lap, nipping and licking at the boy’s sleeve.
“Why didn’t you say something last night at the campfire?”
“Seriously? Mom.” Her son looked at her as if she were being deliberately dense. “Adults don’t like smart-alecky kids makin’ ‘em feel stupid.”
John used his finger to dig gunk out of his dog’s eyes before wiping it on his pant leg.
“People like Mr. Donovan don’t care about why something happened, only that it happened. Me, I like to know about why. Dad does, too.” He shrugged.
Sarah smiled at him. “How old are you again?”
John looked up from grooming his dog. “Mom, now that everybody’s here, we’re gonna go look for Dad, right?”
Sarah looked at him. “I’m just not sure where to start,” she said. “No one has even heard of this Julie person…”
“You’re giving up?” John stopped brushing his dog.
“No, of course not, John,” she said. “We’ll continue to look for him but…”
How to say this? How to say “prepare yourself for the worse?” Was there any point in even saying that until the worst was actually confirmed?
“But what?”
“No buts. Sorry, sweetie.” She reached over and drew him to her.
It was true what they said about the resiliency of children, Sarah thought. Like a lot of parents, she had worried about so many unimportant things in the past. When she thought of her concerns—concerns that actually kept her up at night!—about whether she should allow him to play football or if they should tell him his hamster died, she wanted to laugh outloud.
Her concerns now centered on his very survival. And as for staying awake at night with her worries, she was too exhausted at the end of the long days. One thing she had learned: the coming day would take care of the coming day. If nothing else, that was a lesson that was ground into her head, her heart, her very bones.
She watched as John jumped up and tossed a stick to the dog. She knew how much it hurt him to have lost the other dog, and how worried he was about his Dad. As Sarah watched him, she found herself marveling at how quickly he’d let go of the old ways and his old life. For him, that was then. This is now. And it was that simple.
She suddenly realized how, in just a few short months, her son had morphed from a pampered child dependent on his electronics for amusement to a self-reliant boy comfortably adapting to a new world order that involved hard physical labor as well as cunning to survive.
“We’ll never stop trying,” she said.
“Until we find him,” he said, turning in her arms until they both faced the blacked hulk of their former cottage.
“That’s right,” she said, her voice catching with emotion. “Until we find him.”
So badly did she want to believe it, her heart literally ached in her chest.
Dear God, had she really lost him forever? How was that possible? They had only gone on vacation.
Later that afternoon, Sarah sat in one of the wagons parked on the perimeter of the camp and wiped down the Glock with a rag. She didn’t really know what she was doing but it made her feel like she was preparing in some way for the fight ahead. Fiona approached with two tin cups of tea.
“May I join you?”
“Of course, please do.”
Sarah moved over to give her room.
“I just wanted to say, I’m sorry for all your troubles,” Fiona said, settling in on the wooden seat next to Sarah. “Mike told me you plan on staying here so’s you can fight the gypsies when they come back.”
“Sound pretty nuts when you put it like that.”
“He says you’re hoping we’ll stay and help you fight them.”
“I can’t do it alone. I mean, it would be good for all of us, Fiona. You can’t start a new community looking over your shoulder.” She pointed to the blackened hulk of the cottage. “They’ll just come do this to you eventually.”
“Possibly. But not straightaway.”
Sarah shrugged. “You’re here now. Why not end it now?”
“And then, afterward, you intend to come with us?”
“I… where is it you’re going? Mike wasn’t too specific.”
“We are creating a community, probably somewhere closer to the sea since most of the men are fishermen.”
“Why not stay where you were?”
“We’re from all over. There was no one place. Most of us didn’t own the land we lived on. And now the crisis has rewritten the rules of land ownership.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Sarah said, frowning at the woman. “I mean, you don’t expect the laws to return? Trust me, the McKinneys will collect on the insurance on this place before the year is out.”
“I hope you’re right, but I doubt it.”
“So you’re betting that this chaos is permanent?”
Fiona looked down at her hands and took her time answering. “We feel it’s better to accept the worst,” she said, “than to live our lives on hold, constantly waiting for something to happen that maybe never will.”
Was she referring to David?
“So if you were to come with us,” she continued eagerly, “and I hope you do, we’ll find a place where we can all live.”
“And watch each other’s backs.” Sarah nodded as if it made a lot of sense.
“Well, that, sure, but also to enjoy each other too.”
Sarah had already seen and admired how the group seemed to take pleasures from the simplest things. With Mike at the helm, it would definitely be a well-organized and judiciously run community.
“We’ll come, of course,” Sarah said. “And with thanks. I’m so grateful to have found family.”
“I’m glad,” Fiona said. “I was hoping you would.”
“Now that we’re sisters, can I ask you a question?”
Fiona grinned. “Shoot,” she said.
“What happened to Gavin’s mother?”
“That would be Mike’s Ellen,” Fiona said. “She died when the boy was five.”
“How?”
“A riding accident. She was brilliant, so she was. Nobody better with horses around these parts and that’s saying something.”
“She fell?”
Fiona nodded. “In a competition. The horse shied at something. She came off but got right back on and finished the course. Went to bed that night. Never woke up. Mike loved her something fierce. Probably still does. But there you are.”
Sarah watched Mike as he directed the men to tighten a canvas drape over one of the campfire cook stoves.
“Yeah,” she said, watching him work. “There we are.”
The little group kept well away from the burnt house, not least because wisps of ash and soot sprang up at every breeze from the blackened grave and clung to any nearby face or bit of clothing. A comforting and large cook fire had been constructed in the middle of the forecourt with bedding in the barn and a half circle of small tents in the adjacent paddock. While there were ten people in all, Sarah counted only five men. Estimates of the gypsies numbers ranged wildly between fifty to well over a hundred.