Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

Sage’s eyes welled with tears and she was leaning out of Old Mike’s grip, trying to use her body’s weight as leverage. But Old Mike-who wasn’t really all that old but still rather older than Fat Mike-was stronger than he looked. He used to be a mechanic at the airport, and his stance said he was determined to hold his ground.

Earl stepped out onto the porch and looked out at the crowd. Saying nothing, he put a hand on Phillip’s shoulder and pushed him back into the doorway. The boy went mutely, shuffling, and now Sammi could see that he was trembling. He didn’t look sick, though with that mask on she couldn’t see much. He just looked scared, scared as shit, and since his mom had died in the first round of fever and his older brother and his girlfriend had set out for Sacramento in December and not been heard from since, he didn’t have anyone to come to his aid.

Except for Sage. They’d been together since before Sammi got to New Eden, and it was as serious as any couple she knew about, even if they were young. They sat together during Red’s crazy homeschool sessions, and both worked part-time in the laundry so they could spend their work hours together, too. Phillip was always trying to make her laugh, and he gave her the best parts of his meals and took her plate to the washtub. They had been close enough that occasionally Sammi felt left out, and on those occasions she just hung out with Kyra and told herself it didn’t matter, not everyone had to be her best friend all the time, except some days were so lonely that she would have traded everything to have a best friend and on those days she would have picked Sage, if Sage wasn’t obsessed with Phillip and didn’t already have someone more important in her life than Sammi, just like everyone had something more important to them than her.

Like a certain parent who couldn’t even be bothered to be here now. If he was, he would know what to do, Sammi thought and then immediately felt angry. Well, her dad used to be in charge of a whole town or whatever, to hear the way Cass talked, and Cass said he was fair and brave and took care of things and even set up a whole system of commerce and laws and shit. Which, if she really admitted it to herself, Sammi had felt secretly proud of. But where was he now? When there was a real crisis, when Phillip needed him-when Sammi needed him-when someone had to step up and take care of things, and it was so stupid with New Eden having this whole collaborative-governing shit. No one was ever really in charge and whenever the least little thing went wrong it was like this with all the adults standing around staring at each other and no one doing anything that would actually make things better.

“Let him go!” Sage screamed, her voice wild and unfamiliar. “He’s not sick, just look at him, he didn’t do anything, you just want to throw someone in there to make it look like you’re doing something-”

But Sammi caught her breath, because Phillip was looking back at them, his hand on the doorjamb to steady himself, most of his face obscured by the white mask except for his eyes, which were frightened and beseeching-

– and his pupils had almost disappeared.

Tiny black specks in the sky-blue of his eyes. And his skin… Phillip was fair, so fair he wore a big straw hat to avoid getting sunburned during the day, and it looked like a woman’s gardening hat so that Shane and Kalyan sometimes called him Ladyhat… His skin was not so pale today. It had a burnished-gold tone, and there was a sheen to the skin above his eyes, that faint perspiration that made a person seem to glow.

A person with the fever glowed that way.

Sammi dug her fingers more tightly into Sage’s arm and yanked her back.

“Ow, Sammi, stop, you’re hurting me,” Sage wailed, as Earl spoke quietly to Phillip, and Phillip stepped back, disappearing into the house. Earl closed the door and Old Mike let go of Sage so abruptly that she fell against Sammi and they almost stumbled to the ground together.

And Dana took the key out of his pocket and locked the door.

Zihna did her best with Sage but in the end it was Red who finally got her to sleep, on the sofa in front of the fire. They almost never lit fires in the fireplace. The rule was that fires were only for the public space, both for conservation and safety. There was no way to put large fires out besides an old-fashioned bucket brigade, and everyone had seen city blocks consumed by fire during the worst times and remembered just how quickly it could reduce a building to nothing.

But one of them must have gone around quietly spreading the word to the neighbors, because an hour after dark Red laid the twigs and some crumpled comic books under the dry kindling and soon he had a roaring fire going, one that reminded Sammi of long-ago nights before her dad left, when they’d end a day of skiing by picking up ribs from Mountain Smokehouse, and her mom would open a good bottle of wine and they’d all curl up in front of the fire. That fireplace had been beautiful. The stone was faux, but Sammi’s mom had had it installed all the way up the two-story wall, with the oil painting that she’d paid a fortune for hung above it and iron candleholders arranged on the mantel. Sammi always grumbled about having to stay home with them instead of going out with her friends, but she secretly loved these evenings, cuddled under a quilt watching the fire while her parents drank wine and laughed about ridiculous stuff on the couch.

This fireplace was junk, a metal box with a brick hearth and a strip of molding for a mantel, on which Zihna had lined up pretty rocks she found while out walking. It didn’t draw well at all and the house quickly filled up with smoke, but Sage stared into the flames and drank the weak tea that Zihna gave her, the rest of them on the carpet, except for Red, who sat with his arm around Sage and she let him, soundless tears leaking slowly down her face while he mumbled words that only she could hear, dad words, and Sammi thought angrily that he was more of a father to Sage than her own father was to her.

She wasn’t moving back in with him. He and Nathan came straight to the quarantine house as soon as they heard that Phillip had been locked up. Valerie must have told him, and Sammi was pissed at her, too. All she wanted was to be here where Sage needed her, though if she was honest about it Sage hadn’t given her and Kyra a second look since they all came back.

Phillip was all alone in that dark little place. Sage knew he wasn’t sick but Sammi had seen his eyes. Sage said she would stay right outside the house so he could talk to her but maybe she forgot that, or maybe they made her leave, because not long after Sammi came back here, Old Mike and Earl brought her home. Later, when Red and Zihna went to bed, Sammi would ask Sage if she wanted to go back near Phillip, they could take sleeping bags, a tarp. It would be cold, though, unless they took the blankets from the beds.

After the fire had burned down to glowing embers, and Sage had fallen asleep in the corner of the couch, Red got up and tucked the blankets carefully around her. To Sammi he whispered, “Let’s let her sleep here for now. If she gets up, she can come upstairs, but this way she’ll be nice and warm.”

“I can sleep down here with her,” Sammi whispered back. “I don’t mind.”

Zihna got her a stack of blankets and a pillow and then the two old people went to their room, leaning into each other, Red moving slowly because of his bum hip that always seemed to be worse late at night and in the morning. Sammi made herself a pallet, but she didn’t get in. She sat with her arms around her knees and watched the fire for a while as the last of the logs burned low and the embers snapped and popped. The heat felt wonderful, reaching into her bones in a way like nothing had warmed her lately. She was both sleepy and oddly awake, stealing glances at Sage, who had bunched the blankets under her chin like a child.