“Maybe she just needs some time alone,” Heather says.
“Well that’s too bad!”
Heather and all the people in the clinic stiffen in shock.
Annie flushes, shakes her head. “Come with me,” she mutters to Heather. She leads her into the back of the clinic, but then stops and uses the keys at her belt to let them into a small room, a tiny space with a window that faces west. When Heather follows her in, Annie closes the door behind them. The walls are stacked to the ceiling with shelves, which are full of boxes and bundles and who knows what else. Annie turns to face her.
“Why do you go to the greenhouse?” she says. “Why does Tasha?”
“I don’t know why Tasha goes,” Heather says. “But it reminds me of my dad—he’s the one who built it.”
“You know something,” Annie presses. “I see the way that Tasha looks at you.”
“Look, Annie—why don’t you ask her?”
“I do, but she doesn’t tell me.” Something in her flat tone reminds Heather of B. “She acts like we’re meant to be here when we could just as easily go anywhere else.” She reaches up, yanks a box down from a high shelf. “I was there for her,” she says. “The whole goddamned time after her parents died. She wouldn’t have gotten out of bed if it hadn’t been for me. I didn’t complain. I didn’t say anything. Because I love her.” She stares at the box in her hands. “I thought about leaving her. A hundred times. But that’s not what you do, is it—not when things get bad. And now the world actually falls apart and where is she? Playing the lone saviour and taking off whenever she can to a fucking greenhouse?” She swipes an angry fist across her forehead and fixes her gaze on Heather again. “Why do the people here talk about you?”
Heather clears her throat. “The batteries, Annie?”
“Is it the mountain? Everyone says that no one has been up there except for you. What’s the big fucking secret?”
“My father died on the mountain,” Heather says. “After he fell, the city made it a law that no one could climb the mountain.”
“You went up with him?” You, her face says. You, with your twisted feet?
Heather nods.
“Why?”
“I wanted him to believe that I was strong, that I could keep up with him. It was the only thing he wanted for me.”
“So what’s the big deal? What’s up there?”
“Nothing, Annie. Nothing is up there.”
“Then why do people keep talking about it? What did he do—jump?” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Annie freezes, a look of horror on her face. She won’t meet Heather’s eyes, and begins to fumble through the box, then grabs a small package of batteries and holds it out to Heather.
“He fell,” Heather says, not taking her eyes from Annie’s face. “He didn’t jump.”
Annie nods. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. When Heather takes the batteries, Annie moves past her, head down, and goes out the door.
Alone in the closet, Heather stares around her at all the boxes. She shoves the batteries in her pocket and reaches for another box on the shelves.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” a voice says. When Heather spins around, she sees Elyse, pale and thin in the doorway, breathing hard.
“Annie let me in.”
Elyse shrugs. “You shouldn’t be here now,” she says. “All of this is private.”
“Private?”
“We don’t know what the winter will bring,” Elyse says. “We all need to go without so that everyone can have a little. Annie and Tasha know what they’re doing.”
“No one knows what they’re doing,” Heather says. She brushes past Elyse, doesn’t wait for an answer.
The next day, after B leaves in the morning, she finds where he stashed the radio and plays it once more for the girls. The cello music bursts forth from the speaker as if by magic. Their smiles are bright, their laughter uncontrolled.
The town that had the sickness does not broadcast anymore.
When the last pair of batteries dies, she walks the girls in the forest more. They are five months old now, and she works to carry both of them. Their eyes are now bright and curious, ready to take in everything around them. Ravenous monsters. They reach out for the trees and brush their tiny hands across the bark; they reach forward to the deep-orange flowers that twine through and hang down from some of the trunks. She’s never seen these orange flowers before. She guides their hands away.
Everything in the forest now feels poisonous to her, even the plants that she knows. Still, she walks. She tamps down the tangled grass and roots and holds her hands out to brush the branches away. They reach the field with the sunflowers—husks now, disrobing for winter. They walk across the field and into the forest on the other side and eventually reach the greenhouse.
She opens the door and the smells spill out. The orchids, the lilies, the jacaranda tall and blue in the middle of it all. The air in the greenhouse still feels hot and heavy, waiting for what, she doesn’t know.
The amaryllis bob at her, fiery red and sweet. The girls reach out their hands.
She is twelve years old and she and her father are going up the mountain to celebrate her birthday. It is a secret—no one knows, not even her mother. Her mother thinks they are going into town to see the flowers Heather’s father has planted in the square, and then to a movie and dinner. A father-daughter date.
“Have fun!” her mother calls, and waves to them both from the door. They walk to the end of the street and turn left as though they are heading downtown. Then they double back along the street parallel to theirs and make their way to the base of the mountain.
Everyone has heard the stories, but Heather’s father isn’t afraid.
“Who died?” he has often said to his wife and daughter. “No one knows anyone who has actually been up here. I’m the only one who’s even been close to the mountain in years.”
“People have disappeared,” her mother always says. “You know they have.”
“But who?” The last time he asks that, they are in the kitchen after dinner, washing dishes. Heather is supposed to be taking a bath, but she has crept back along the hallway and stands listening by the kitchen door. Her father reaches for her mother’s hand and strokes it. “We’ll be fine. I found a path—it’s man-made, you can tell. I’ve been smoothing it out these past few months, making it ready for Heather. The incline isn’t that steep. It’ll be just like walking the hills in the park.”
“You can’t seriously be thinking of taking her up with you.”
“Of course I’m serious,” her father says. He catches sight of Heather, peeking around the kitchen door, and smiles. “Heather is stronger than you know. The climb will be good for her—it’s good for her to touch the world. You don’t want her to grow? To overcome her fears?”
“I want her to be who she is!” Her mother’s voice rings out in the small room and Heather flinches, shocked. More quietly, her mother says, “I don’t want her to climb the mountain just to prove something to you.” She notices where her husband is looking, and turns to see Heather now standing in the doorway.
Her father says, “Heather, do you want to go up?”
Of course she wants to go up. She nods. She expects her mother to object again, but she only sighs and goes back to her dishes.
The next day, she forbids them to go.
The day after that is Heather’s birthday.