“You never said so on the road.”
“I didn’t feel this way on the road,” Lynn countered. “Then we were always moving. If I didn’t like something it didn’t matter, ’cause it’d be different the next day.”
“What are you saying to me?”
Lynn was quiet, and Lucy counted seven revolutions of the tide before she spoke.
“I’m going home.”
Even though she’d been expecting it, Lucy cried out, burying her head into her hands and sinking her fingers into her own hair as if covering her ears could force the words out of her mind. “Don’t do that to me, Lynn. I can’t do it—I’m not like you!”
“Not like me?” Lynn asked, her hands probing into the mess of Lucy’s hair and finding her fingertips, pulling the girl’s face up to look into her own. “Now who would want to be that, anyway?”
“Me,” Lucy said desperately through her tears, “me, me, me.”
Lynn pulled Lucy to her, wrapping her arms around the girl who refused to be a woman. “Don’t you see it, little one? You’re where you belong now, next to the biggest thing in the world and loving every second of it. The people here are hopeful, with a spark of life about them, just like you. It’s not like the city behind us, where they were living off the dead. These people are alive for the love of it.”
“And you don’t like that? How can you not, Lynn?”
“Oh, I envy them, through and through, don’t get me wrong on that point. But I learned hard lessons long ago, and they’re so ingrained in me I can’t drop ’em now. Like it or not, I’ve picked up the knack of feeling responsible for others, and you don’t need me anymore. There are those back home who still might. Last time I saw Stebbs, his finger was none too steady on the trigger.”
“I do need you, I do,” Lucy cried, clinging to her. She buried her face into Lynn’s neck and made her confession. “I’m like my mother. I need other people, and you most of all.”
Lynn pushed Lucy’s face back from her own and looked at her in the moonlight. “You’re not me, child. You’re not me and you’re not your mother either. You’re Lucy, my little one, and that is no small thing.”
And Lucy cried as the tide came in, her salty tears making the ocean bigger.
Epilogue
Lynn waited until spring to go. It was close to a year since they’d left Ohio when Lynn stood on the outskirts of town, holding the reins of a horse that had been given to her by a rancher in thanks for having shot the mountain lion depleting his sheep. Her rifle was strapped to her back, a heavily penciled map in her pack, and enough bottles of fresh water to keep her on the road for a while before she would have to refill.
Lucy stood beside her with clear eyes but dried tear tracks on her face.
“You sure about this?” Lucy asked, even though every line of Lynn’s body ached with her need to go home.
“You know I am,” Lynn answered, giving Lucy a hug. “And don’t be so sad-faced about it. Dan planned a route for me that goes south before east. He said it’ll keep me as low as possible, so no worries on the nosebleeds.” She swung up into the saddle and cleared her throat. “I don’t know what else to say. I’m ready to go, but leaving you is tearing a Lucy-shaped hole in my heart. Don’t think anybody else can ever fill it.”
“I know it,” Lucy said, her hand reaching up for Lynn’s. “But I’ll be all right here. Stebbs and Vera need to know we made it. You tell…” Lucy swallowed hard, having promised herself she was done crying. “You tell my grandma I love her, and that I’m happy.”
Lynn sighed. “This caring about people is for the birds. ’Specially when they gotta live so far apart from each other.”
Lucy swiped at her eyes. “What do you want me to tell Fletcher, should he show up?”
Lynn shrugged. “He knows where Ohio is.”
“The way he was making eyes at you on the road, I wouldn’t be surprised if he accidentally crosses your path before you get there.”
“My luck I’ll find his wife instead.”
Lucy smiled, shaking her head. “You’re a hell of a woman, Lynn.”
Lynn reached down to touch the crown of her bright-yellow head. “You’re a hell of woman too, Lucy.”
She kicked her horse and was gone, a trail of dust marking the beginning of a long path she was willing to travel again, if her pond lay at the end. And the sun rose higher, warming Lucy’s face and reflecting off the ocean into a million points of light.
Acknowledgments
It’s much easier to write a novel than acknowledgments because the latter is chiefly comprised of reality and that’s not an arena I excel in. However, I shall try.
First, thanks goes to my agent, Adriann Ranta, without whom my literary gunslingers would still live in the slush pile and not in the hearts and minds of readers. In the same vein I heartily thank my editor, Sarah Shumway, for allowing me to be an instinctive writer, as well as not minding when I respond to serious emails with Star Wars gifs.
Thank you also to the HarperCollins family at Katherine Tegen Books, true lovers of books, supporters of writers, and champions of literacy. I must thank my cover designer, Erin Fitzsimmons, whose artwork puts the book in readers’ hands, while hopefully my words keep it there. Also I would be remiss not to mention Margot Wood and Aubry Parks-Fried, the “Epic Reads Girls,” who tirelessly promote myself and my fellow HarperCollins authors, as well as Ali Lisnow, my publicist, who doesn’t mind when I make up fake new names for book fairs.
Also instrumental in the creation of any book I write, my crit partner, R. C. Lewis, who changes all my spelling mishaps from UK to US and constantly reminds me what time zone I live in, even though she’s half a country away and I should know by now. It’s a good thing I have a keeper.
Authors need other authors both as sounding boards and friends. My first tour experience was amazing and I can only hope I continue to be surrounded by such amazing women as Rae Carson, Michelle Gagnon, Madeleine Roux, Sherry Thomas, and Amelia Kahaney as my career continues. The Class of 2k13 remains a tight-knit group and I must especially mention my Midwestern cohorts Kelly Barson, Geoffrey Girard, Demitria Lunetta, Jennifer McGowan, and Kate Karyus Quinn for keeping it lively and making me feel like perhaps I’m not crazy, but if I am, I’m in good company.
You can’t swing a dead cat in Ohio without hitting a YA author. I especially want to thank Liz Coley for support, encouragement, and good road conversation.
I must thank my boyfriend, who accidentally supplied the catalyst for both Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust. Art is not created in a vacuum, and he has provided more inspiration than he’ll ever know.
There are also people in my everyday life who deal with my resistance to phone calls and occasionally answering with, “WHAT?!” Thank you to my family for the support, especially to my mother, who keeps hoping that someday I’ll write a happy book about cats. We’ll see.
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About the Author
MINDY McGINNIS is the author of Not a Drop to Drink and an assistant YA librarian who lives in Ohio. She cans her own food and graduated from Otterbein University magna cum laude with a BA in English literature and religion. Mindy has a pond in her backyard but has never shot anyone. You can visit her online at www.mindymcginnis.com.