Marc Zicree - Angelfire

I look up from the delicate act of constructing a facade and catch their eyes on me. Caught out, Colleen glances at her feet, Doc gazes out over Lake Michigan, and Cal looks straight up into the sky, shivers in the chill wind and says, “It looks like Chicago’s the Windy City again. It’s got to be at least twenty degrees colder than it was the day we got here. I wonder what else Primal was holding at bay. I don’t envy these people what they’re going to go through this winter.”

“How long will it go on?” Colleen asks. “Is this like a- a chain reaction? Will the world just mutate until…”

“Until it comes full circle?” Doc finishes. He continues to gaze out over the lake. “They say a fisherman’s children look to the sea. I wonder what our children will have to look to.”

Colleen sways toward him, the thick fabric of their jackets just brushing. A subtle movement. I wonder if they realize how bright are the cords that bind them together.

Cal glances at them and away. He shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other and says, “We need to get the horses saddled and packed. If you’d like to stay out here for a while longer, Goldie-”

I shake my head. “No. There’s nothing out here. And you’re right: we need to get going.”

“Where?” asks Colleen. “Have you settled on a route yet?”

Cal rakes a hand through his hair. “Settled, no. But I have an idea. I want to take another look at the map. See what it tells me.”

He says more, but I don’t hear him. The sparks are turning to ashes. The breeze lifts them out over the water, where eventually they will settle and melt away. I think, for a moment, of joining them in the great, sparkling lake. Beneath the great, sparkling lake. But I still have work to do.

The lake and the dying fire and the sky blur, looking like a glittering watercolor. I turn my back on the pyre and walk away. There are Voices calling me and I must listen.