“Saying your good-byes?” Lucy teased.
“Beyond Stebbs and Vera, who else have I got to say it to?” Lynn asked, a self-deprecating smile on her face.
“There’s others that like you, if you’d let ’em.”
Lynn hefted her own backpack onto her shoulders. “Now’s a poor time to start liking people,” she said gruffly. “You say yours?”
“Yeah,” Lucy said, pushing the single syllable past the lump in her throat.
Lynn gave her a searching look. “If you didn’t do it good and thorough, you go do it again, understand?”
“You don’t think we’re ever coming back, do you?”
“Coming back or not, don’t matter. We’re leaving behind an old woman and a cripple in the wake of an epidemic. They’re stuck with a bunch of helpless children, and half the adults here got one arm or leg that don’t work. You say good-bye and you say it right, ’cause either we’re gonna die or they are.”
Lucy nodded, emotion choking off her voice when she tried to speak. The pond and her family had been her world for years, slowly sprinkled with new faces as more people found safety among them. Always her life had been planned—a man, a home, a well, and eventually children. Now it was all skewed, thrown off-balance by an invisible enemy she couldn’t fight. “What if… what if it is me, Lynn? What if all those dead children and ruined people are my fault?”
Lynn was on her knees on the step below Lucy in a second, gripping her face so tightly Lucy could feel her skin stretching.
“You listen to me now—I know you, understand? I know you right past your skin, through your bones, and down into your blood, and there is nothing inside of you that could hurt anyone. I know it for a fact, I know it the way I know the sun’s going to come up tomorrow the same place it did today. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” Lucy said. If Lynn, who was faithless, had faith in her, it was all the validation she needed.
Lynn let go of her cheeks, smoothed the short strands of blond hair from her forehead. “If you want to go and say a bit to Carter, he’s still over at Vera and Stebbs’ place.”
Lucy couldn’t control her surprise. “Really?”
“I shouldn’t let you,” Lynn said. “But I know what not getting to say good-bye feels like. Stay a good piece away from him while you’re talking, no matter how hard it is.”
“I will.” Lucy nodded emphatically, an odd mixture of elation and fear coursing through her body. She wanted to see Carter, needed to see him so badly that the possibility had her stomach dipping to her knees and her heart jumping into her throat. But the excitement was tinged with sadness, the knowledge that no matter what they said to each other, it would be their last words.
“You go on now,” Lynn said, turning back to the bottles of water. “Be back in an hour. We’re leaving as soon as there’s morning light.”
Five
The long grass was wet with night dew, soaking Lucy’s jeans as she crept quietly to Vera’s house by the creek. The sick were still lined up in rows, their blankets tucked around their hunched shoulders as they slept under the trees along the bank; the healthy made similar lines on the other side of the cabin, at a safe distance from their stricken loved ones.
There was a candle burning inside the cabin, and she saw Vera’s shadow pass by a window. She tapped lightly on the glass, and Vera motioned her around to the door, smiling as she opened it.
“Are you packed, sweetheart?”
“More or less.”
“I think ‘less’ would probably be best,” Vera said.
“Lynn said I should say my good-byes.”
Vera stepped outside and took Lucy’s hand, leading her down to the creek bed. “I want to talk to you, before you go.”
Lucy nodded, felt the warm rush of tears returning to her eyes. She’d been so wrapped up in wondering what she would say to Carter, she hadn’t realized this would be the last time she saw her grandmother.
Vera pointed toward the bend in the creek, where a small break in the trees allowed them to see the cemetery crosses in the moonlight. “Do you remember your mother?”
“Not much,” Lucy admitted. “I remember how sad she was, and how—” She broke off, not wanting to say anything that could be misunderstood. “How different from Lynn,” she finished.
“I think ‘delicate’ is what you’re trying to say.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely it.”
“She was delicate, very much so. Your mother wasn’t made for this kind of life, and while I know that, it still kills me every day to think what she chose instead.”
Lucy felt her grandma’s hand shaking in her own, and she squeezed it. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I’m sorry you had to lose her like that.”
“And now I’m losing you.” Vera turned to her, eyes wet. “Don’t think for a second we didn’t try to find a way for you to stay.”
“I know it,” Lucy said, her own voice growing thick. “Could you come?”
Vera shook her head, and the little flame of hope that had sparked in Lucy’s chest died. “No, little one. I’m an old woman, and my man is a cripple. We’d slow you down, and more than likely die along the way.”
“Lynn thinks you’ll die if you stay,” Lucy said.
“We may. But you two won’t have to stop to bury us, and I can lie here with my daughter and her little son.” Vera wrapped her arms around Lucy, who sank into her like a child.
“I’m going to miss you,” Lucy said. “And I love you a whole lot.”
“I love you a whole lot too, little girl,” Vera said, then pulled back to give Lucy a stern look. “I’ll let you see Carter, but you don’t go past this line.” She made a mark in the dirt with her foot. “Promise me.”
“Why not?” Lucy asked, the tears she’d been shedding all day erupting again, along with her frustration. “If you think I’m infected too, what does it matter?”
“Sweetheart”—Vera’s hand rested on her arm, her touch as light as always—“I don’t think it’s you. But I can’t back that up in any way other than the feeling in my heart.”
“Lynn said the same thing.”
“She’s got a mother’s instincts without ever having borne a child, and for once she and I agree on something. You’re not the carrier, little one. But like Stebbs said, Monica isn’t stupid, she’s figured out it could be you just as well as Carter, and we can’t very well exile one of you and not the other.”
“Then I’ll leave with him,” Lucy said, the words tumbling out of her as the idea occurred. “Lynn won’t have to leave her pond and he won’t have to be alone.”
“And that leaves Lynn behind to deal with Abigail gunning for her with all the bitterness in her heart. And more than likely you’ll be dead from Carter’s love in less than a week,” Vera said sternly.
Lucy was about to say that was fine, but the words were stuck.
Vera watched her closely. “That’s not what you’re meant for. Life’s got more in store for you than dying to prove a point. This conversation is one I’ve been meaning to have with you, but I never thought it’d take the deaths of so many for me to talk to you about life.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean maybe this is your chance to break free, to get out and see the world beyond this little place. I know there’s good out there; I’ve seen it. It’s not all hardship and strangers the way Lynn thinks. There’s more to life than a water source, and I’ve prayed you’d get to see that before you settled here.”
“A water source is pretty damn important,” Lucy said.
“It is,” Vera conceded, “but it’s not the only thing there is. Take this chance for what it is, Lucy. Get out of here. Don’t live Lynn’s way, or Stebbs’ way, or even my way. Live, and go find something new.”