Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

“Am I not welcome?” Joanna asked.

“No,” Cole said. “It’s not that. I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m surprised. I never knew you came up here.”

“I never have,” Joanna said. She took a few more steps toward Cole, her hand brushing the wet railing as she went. The action sent a cascade of dewdrops plummeting and twinkling from the rail and down through the rays of new sunshine.

Cole swallowed and went to stand up, but then Joanna’s hand was on his shoulder, fixing him in place. His head swam with confusion and nubile hormones, his mouth about to leak shameful admissions—

And then Joanna simply sat down beside him, having used his shoulder to steady herself on the narrow walkway. She scooted side to side a little, then wiped at the back of her shorts, the same shade of blue as his.

“It’s wet.”

“The dew,” Cole pointed out like an idiot. He leaned away from her and felt his own wet shorts, as if confirming it, or maybe highlighting something they had in common. He wasn’t sure.

“It’s pretty up here.”

Cole watched as Joanna brushed more wetness from the lower railing ahead of them, sending another straight line of dewdrops raining down, some of them splashing wide against her bare thighs. She leaned forward and rested her arms on top of the cleared surface and gazed out over the barrio.

“You think this is pretty? ” Cole whispered. He had to fight from telling her what he thought was pretty. It sure wasn’t the barrio.

Joanna turned to him and smiled, and surely the sun crept higher over Angústia Hill, soaking the older girl in extra honeyed light and Cole in more heat. “Of course,” she said. “Just look at all the people starting a new day.” She swept a perfect arm out over the slums. “Smell all that fresh food and that crisp air.”

Cole begrudgingly tore his eyes off her arm and looked beyond it to the rolling hills soaked in shacks. He focused on the people this time, not remembering if they were even out and about before, though he was sure they must’ve been. He matched the rhythmic hissing sound of a straw broom with a shopkeeper sending horizontal wisps of dust into the street. The distant clatter of a screen door was followed by a barely audible call for some animal or child to come inside. The scent of fried plantains stirred weakly in a morning air that Cole had to admit was crisp and cool. As the light of the rising sun spilled down alleys he knew like the lines of his own knuckles, Cole saw how much activity there was up and down them. He looked out over the vista through Joanna’s eyes, or perhaps through the eyes of a young boy, newly smitten.

“I’ve always come up here to look down on this place,” Cole admitted shamefully.

“It is a nice spot,” Joanna said, obviously missing Cole’s point and taking the “down” as literal instead of figurative. “I’m glad Marco told me about it.”

Cole peeled his eyes away from two kids chasing each other through the streets, laughing and screaming, and turned to Joanna. “ Marco told you about this spot?”

Joanna nodded. “He said the sunrise up here was magical. Said I should come up today because it was gonna be a good one.” She turned her head to the side and rested her high cheeks on her smooth forearm. “He was right.”

Cole blushed. He ran his finger along the underside of the railing, knocking the hanging dew loose. He knew for a fact that Marco never got up early enough for a sunrise in his life, but he’d have to thank the old bastard for divulging Cole’s secret spot. Maybe his Group Leader wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

“Hey Cole?”

Cole saw that he was idly peeling paint from the railing. He stopped and looked to Joanna.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got something I want to ask you.”

Cole lost himself in Joanna’s eyes, which somehow looked so much younger than her fourteen years, and so much older as well. They were the eyes of a girl who had survived a bunch of days without seeing anything bad enough to scar them. They were a woman’s eyes untouched. In the back of Cole’s boy-brain, he knew she was waiting on a response from him, but he lost himself in the black and brown ridges around her pupils. He felt like he could dive straight into them, cleansing himself of the filth and muck of the barrio, escaping away to some more beautiful place—

And then a twinkle burst in Joanna’s eye.

It grew into a flash, a shattering of brightness, a yellow starburst spreading out through the brown. Her eyes twitched to the side and focused on something in the distance, and Cole realized he was seeing not some internal twinkle, but the reflection of some bright light. He turned just as a great rumble arrived, followed soon after by a too-warm breeze. Out in the center of the barrio, right in the middle of the new government district, a terrible ball of orange was dissipating in the sky.

Cole watched, stunned senseless, as the fire morphed into a cloud of black smoke. It churned up into the sky, flattening and growing dirty white as it did so.

The rumble grew, and soon the water tower was trembling in harmony. Cole felt Joanna’s hands settle on the back of his, squeezing. He in turn gripped the rail in raw terror as the empty tower swayed in an unnatural breeze.

“What in the Almighty’s name?” Joanna breathed.

The cloud slid through all the hues of gray to the color of ash, then rose up and blended with the natural puffs high in the sky. Sirens called out like startled birds, wailing in the far distance where wealthy people paid to be protected from whatever had just happened.

“Was that a bomb?” Joanna asked.

Her hands were still on Cole’s, even as the tower settled back to stillness.

“It didn’t sound like a bomb,” Cole sputtered.

Joanna finally pulled her hands away, creating a fathomless distance between herself and Cole measured in mere centimeters.

“Have you heard bombs before? ”

Cole shook his head slowly. He noted the odd way the shacks along the hillside all around the blast were pushed flat in concentric circles. Something about that was screaming at him to be understood. To be recognized as familiar.

“Just in a few movies,” Cole admitted, not taking his eyes off the scene. The crying and shouting of people added to the screaming din of the sirens.

“Are we safe up here?” Joanna asked. She gripped the rail and stuck her chin out over her knuckles, peering down. “Maybe we should go see if we can help. I bet the Miracle Makers need us right now. They’ll be worried and looking for volunteers—”

Cole nodded. He could see tiny silhouettes creeping up the alleys toward the blast, picking their way through rubble, hands on stunned heads with elbows sharp to either side, some of them doubtlessly adding to the cacophony of mad sounds screeching over the barrio.

“C’mon,” Joanna said. She scrambled to her feet and shook Cole’s shoulder. Her voice was full of fear and anxiety, and yet she seemed to have more wits about herself than Cole. “Let’s go find Marco,” she said. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Marco,” Cole repeated. He bit his lip, remembering vaguely some conversation he’d had with his fellow Miracle Maker a few months ago. “Yeah,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the horrific scene, the smoky aftermath of a blast that must’ve claimed so many. “Let’s go find Marco,” he said.

The lawyer smiled at Cole’s answer. “And wouldn’t you say that the water tower provided a most excellent vantage of the day’s events?” He continued to smile, but Cole saw the lawyer’s teeth as more for biting and gnashing and tearing out flesh than for evincing pleasure.