Jo Treggiari - Ashes, Ashes

The dog was panting heavily, but still it paced and jumped and whined. Lucy’s presence was driving it crazy.

“It’s not going to stop hunting us,” Lucy said. She looked at the exhausted children huddled together in Del’s arms and at Sammy trying to smile. “It wants me.” She shrugged her arms out of her backpack, carrying it by the strap, and walked toward the fence. The rottweiler’s lips inched back from its incisors. Its ears flattened against the bony skull, and an awful snarling rumbled from the barrel chest. Muscles bunched in its back legs as it gathered itself to leap again.

“It can’t have you,” Aidan said, trying to haul her away. “Get away from the fence, Lucy!” She shook herself loose, jarring his arm. He winced with pain.

“It’s okay.”

Keeping her eyes on the dog, she opened her backpack and dug around in it, locating the tinderbox.

The dog kept up its continuous growl. “You want my blood?” Lucy shouted, pulling out the vial. She raised it above her head and threw it over the fence. The glass smashed against the concrete. Thick red blood spattered against the wall.

They ran. It wasn’t until they reached the parking lot that they paused, looking back at the dark hulk of the building. Lights blazed on the top floors. In an upper window behind heavy curtains, they could see human figures hurrying back and forth. Lucy might have imagined it, but she thought she could hear a single, shrieking note that seemed to go on and on.

“Think they’ll follow us?” Aidan asked.

Lucy shook her head, thinking of Mrs. Reynolds. “No. They have what they need.”

The sky opened and rain began to fall, a hard-driving shower that soaked them immediately but was as warm as a spring shower. Lucy looked up into the lightening sky and let the rain push her hair off her face. If more dogs did come, the rain would wash away most of their scent. The fog had dissipated and the air smelled fresh and clean. The dull pain in her head subsided to a thump. Sammy carried a kid on his back; Del had linked hands with the other one. Lucy heard her voice, low and soothing, as she urged them to move. It was weird to hear such kindness from the girl.

The empty parking lot glittered like an ice rink. They ran through the rain, slowing down again once they came to the bridge. Lucy looked back at the tower. The red light was dark.

Aidan slipped his arm around her waist. She leaned into him, careful of his wounded ribs and arm.

“Which way?” he said.

She looked ahead. Del and Sammy and the children were walking slowly. They’d reached the bridge. With the sleepy kids and the exhaustion that she was sure everyone was feeling, it would take them hours to get home. She scanned the horizon. The long bridge curved above the wind-whipped waves of Lake Harlem. Beyond that lay the Wilds, as familiar to her as the lines on her palm. Lucy could close her eyes and in her mind navigate over the flats, the grove, past the salt marsh and the blighted pines, the remains of her camp and the Great Hill. And then onward up the shifting terrain of the gorges and the escarpment and the suspension bridges swinging wildly with the slightest breath of wind. They’d have to carry the children, or haul them up the granite cliff face somehow. Aidan and Sammy were injured. Her own body hurt so much, everywhere, that it was almost funny.

Lucy turned away from the thicket of tall trees and the gleam of the restless sea she glimpsed between the black trunks, and toward the broad, solid road that snaked north for five miles before entering the Hell Gate. The road the Sweepers had taken. “That’s simple,” she said with a grin. “For once we’ll take the easy way.”

She held hands with Aidan as they crossed the bridge, walking into him when he suddenly stopped.

“What?” she said, startled. “Do you hear something?” He put his finger to her lips.

“Shh,” he said. “C’mere.” He pulled her to the side where the shadows concealed them. His voice sounded thick.

Del, Sammy, and the kids had almost reached the road.

Lucy moved closer.

Aidan traced his finger to her cheek and then to her chin. He tilted her face upward.

And then she was looking only at him, his bright eyes shadowed, the messy fall of his hair over his forehead, his wide mouth with that infuriating curl in the corner. His hand moved to the side of her face, he leaned forward, and, letting her breath leave her in a sigh, she rose onto her tiptoes to meet his lips. Her fingers tangled themselves in his hair and she pressed against him, feeling the warm solidity of his body, the crushing strength in his arm as he pulled her against him, and the doubt draining away from her, leaving nothing but happiness.

After a long minute, Aidan pulled back a little. Her lips felt bruised. She was flustered now, conscious of the tingling sensation left on her mouth, the need to keep touching him. Her mouth hardly felt as if it belonged to her anymore. He kissed the tip of her nose and, linking his hand with hers, drew her toward home.

“Do you think the rain will ever stop?” Lucy asked Aidan.

He shrugged and she gripped his arm more tightly. “Oww,” he said. “You think you could relax that death grip?”

“Did I hurt you?” she asked.

“No, I’m healed.”

“Well, you know I don’t like being up so high,” she said. Aidan shifted his back against the tree trunk.

“Come here, then,” he said, prying Lucy’s fingers from his arm and guiding her forward so that she was nestled against his shoulder. She still didn’t understand how he could be twenty-five feet off the ground and act like he was lounging on a couch, but she settled into the crook of his arm and crossed her feet on top of his legs. “So,” she said, “The rain?”

“It’s been, what? About two weeks?”

She thought back. “Ever since… you know… that night.” The night they’d escaped. The night they’d first kissed.

He yawned, stretching like a cat. Her hand tightened around his arm again. She pushed the drift of her hair away from her mouth. The canopy of this elm was so thick that the raindrops ran out of steam before they reached their branch.

“It’ll clear up any minute,” he said lazily. “Either that, or it’ll go on for months.”

She pressed her palm against his forehead. It was cool and smooth.

“I’m not sick.”

“I know, I just have to check.”

“Every day?”

“Just until I’m sure that Dr. Lessing didn’t do something to you.”

He exhaled deeply.

“Are you falling asleep?”

“Maybe. I was up at dawn hunting bunnies,” he said. “Ever since Del and Sammy left, I’ve been the guy. At least until you learn to handle a bow as well as you handle a spear.”

His lips hovered near her ear. She felt the soft shushing of his breath. A shudder went up her spine. She snuggled closer. She could hear the dull roar of the waves, the rustle of the wind. As long as she didn’t think about the ground, it was nice being up high, cradled and surrounded by thick, green leaves.

Aidan had picked his favorite tree, the elm, and his favorite place in it. At the very top. When he stood up, he said he could see fifty miles in every direction. Lucy had to take his word for it, because there was no way she was going to balance on a branch that dipped up and down under her weight, with nothing to hold on to but whiplike stems. He liked to be here at dusk, when the bullfrogs started their nightly warblings and the broken string of beacon fires along the northern route became visible.

Del had left a week ago. She’d taken the Geo Wash Bridge west, before heading due north to find the settlement up there. And surprisingly, Sammy had opted to go with her. Actually, Lucy amended, not so surprisingly. They had spent a lot of time together after they’d gotten back from the island, and Lucy had seen something in Sammy’s eyes. Del had kept herself apart from the jostle and bustle of the camp. She’d hunted, she’d helped shore up the dikes now that the canals were filled with roaring cascades of water, she’d harvested tomatoes and squash, she’d worked like she was possessed, but after the work was done, she’d disappeared to places only she knew about.