“We'll take her to Mom,” I said, having no other answer.
Matthew nodded. Tallow sniffed his fingers suspiciously. If any wolf scent remained, though, she forgot it as soon as Matthew scratched her behind the ears. His hand moved slowly, and he stared at his fingers, as if getting used to being human again.
I gave him my spare clothes. The sweater strained across his shoulders, and the pants ended well above his ankles. His feet remained bare, because I didn't have extra boots.
Allie and I walked barefoot, too, our boots and socks tied to the pack to dry in the sun. I gave Allie the rain-cloak, which trailed behind her. Our clothes remained damp in spite of the fire, but we had no others left to wear. At least the sun was high. Our clothes would dry as we walked.
Silently I scattered the fire and threw dirt on the coals. Matthew tied the pack closed and swung it onto his back. Allie put Tallow on her shoulders. I took Rebecca, the one thing no one else could carry. We walked swiftly away, agreeing without words to put as much distance between ourselves and the river as we could.
After a time Rebecca's sobs subsided and she seemed to sleep, with her cold cheek pressed against my shoulder. If not for that cold, I could almost have forgotten she wasn't alive. I ran a finger along the back of her head. Her soft shadow hair was cool as wool beneath frost.
We walked through the rest of the day and into dusk. When the sky grew too dim we camped in the road, away from the trees to either side. I piled dirt under my jacket before I laid Rebecca down. Her feet kicked the air as she slept on. Tallow batted at her ankles, drew back as if at cold water, and stalked off to follow Matthew as he scavenged wood from the roadside.
“Your hands.” Allie said sharply.
I looked down. The green river creature had left no mark, but my palms were torn and red where I'd dug my fingernails in. Allie took my hands in her own, running her fingers over the gashes. Silver light shimmered on my palms, then sank beneath the skin, taking the redness with it and leaving a faint chill behind.
“With all you can do,” the girl said, “you could at least take care of yourself.”
Rebecca slept through dinner that night, and through Matthew's watch as well. The moon was high and my own watch nearly through when she woke and started crying again. I took her in my arms and rocked her, ignoring the cold I felt. I sang songs Mom had sung to me when I was small.
Allie stirred, cast her blankets aside, and padded over to us. “She cries so much,” the girl said.
My singing trailed to silence. I couldn't remember all the words. Rebecca fidgeted in my arms. “That's what babies do.”
Allie knelt and tossed pieces of dead grass into the fire. I'd been planning to make rope from them. “She's crying because she doesn't want to be dead.”
Rebecca gripped my thumb and fell silent. Her hold was surprisingly strong. I saw my own finger through her fist.
“I'm a healer,” Allie said stiffly. Her eyes were on the flames, not me. “I've seen people die. Caleb says you have to know when to let go and when not to. He says it's harder than knowing when to break a fever or set a bone. The patient doesn't always know the right time, but neither does the healer. I don't know how Caleb decides. I don't know how I'll decide when I have to.”
I rocked Rebecca until she stopped fidgeting and her breath deepened into sleep. I wished I had an extra blanket. I wished a blanket or jacket were enough to keep her warm. “Your watch?” I asked Allie. She'd insisted on taking one again.
Allie looked to the sky. Scraps of cloud drifted over the moon. “I'm glad you called me back, Liza. But next time you might want to ask first. Because for someone else it might be different. And the healer can't decide alone.”
Our food was low with the loss of Matthew's and Allie's packs, so at dawn I went hunting. Samuel's bow served me well. I loosed my arrow with hardly a sound, bringing down a chubby woodchuck that would feed us for a couple days. When I returned to camp, Matthew and Allie were setting up a spit to cook the meat, as if they hadn't doubted my success.
Matthew grinned. “Figures you'd beat my rabbit. You always were the better hunter.” I remembered that rabbit dangling from Matthew's jaws, remembered the sound of his teeth tearing fur and crunching bone. If the thought made Matthew uneasy he gave no sign, just asked for my knife so he could skin the woodchuck. I left him and Allie to that job and checked on Rebecca. She slept wrapped in my jacket, her arms and legs curled inward as if for comfort. At my approach she smiled but kept sleeping.
I fashioned my raincloak into a sling so that I could carry her with me as I worked. She was only shadow, I told myself—but I'd felt strange leaving her behind when I hunted.
We spent the morning cooking the meat and then carving it. We stored it in the same plastic containers where Samuel had packed the jerky and cornmeal, yellowed containers that cracked if you handled them wrong but whose lids sealed well otherwise. The meat would only keep a day or two, but we'd likely finish by then, anyway.
We left a little after noon. Matthew took the pack again, Allie took Tallow, and I carried Rebecca. If Samuel's map was right, the Arch was less than two days away.
Glowing stones appeared in the road again, lit shades of orange and red, green and blue. Sometimes the road's black rock glowed as well. We slowed down, keeping watch for those lights as we walked. Rebecca slept, cried, slept again. A few stray strands of my hair fell into her face, and when I drew them away they were clear instead of black.
The road narrowed. Maples and sycamores stretched branches overhead, sun turning the edges of their leaves to gold. Had autumn been like this Before, green leaves turned to fire as if by the light? Bright maple seeds twirled to the ground, trailing sparks behind them. Saplings grew through cracks in the black stone, slowing us further as we walked around them, staying out of reach of their young branches.
The sparks faded as the afternoon progressed. We reached a wider stretch of river. The bridge was gone here, too, but rockfalls had dammed the water. The crossing was difficult, but we managed. Allie clung to my hand all the way.
On the river's far side we began a long, slow climb. Near the crest of a hill another road crossed ours. On the map there were more roads here, and they looped around each other in a complicated cloverleaf pattern, but there was no sign of that cloverleaf now. Light reflected off the dust in the air, making the place shimmer. The light brightened and I looked away. I didn't want more visions.
Yet as we reached the middle of the crossroads, light exploded behind my eyes. I fell to my knees, rubbing my temples, willing pain and light to go away. Rebecca wailed, but the sound faded as the light brightened. In that brightness I saw—
Black roads buckling like leather, tossing away the cars that rode their surface. Roots breaking through black stone, twisting metal until blood streaked the steel like a child's mud paintings—
People running alongside tall buildings, falling as roots broke through the earth at their feet. Dirt churning like flour in a sieve, and the people slipping from view one by one, their hands grasping air to the last, leaving behind only dirt and roots and jagged bone—
Men and women with pale hair and silver eyes, chanting commands that brought light to stone, that made trees bend and sway, giving them strength, making them reach high and dig deep—
Screaming, screaming everywhere, choked to silence, choked to dust—
I screamed as well. Someone shook me. I pushed through the visions like a swimmer through water. Allie looked anxiously down, her hands on my shoulders. Tallow trembled against her neck. In the sling, Rebecca cried on.