“I’m not sure what we should do yet,” Eric answers calmly. “Maybe nothing. Maybe something. We shouldn’t make a decision based on fear. We should think about it.”
“Yeah, okay,” Matt agrees, but his eyes shine with a ferocity he’s not showing, or trying not to. He’s fairly new to us, but he’s angry. I can see he thinks he could do better. I can see him thinking that. Or maybe it was Pest that told him so. I glance again over to Pest. I’m upset to see him watching me again. He’s measuring me. I can see he doesn't know what to think. I’m uncomfortable and look away again. Pest gives me the chills. Matt shakes Eric’s hand and then walks away.
Finally people start leaving. Artemis comes over to me. Her face is swollen from crying and she still looks scared. I can tell she’s going to hug me, which I don’t like, but I know she needs it, so I relent. Her face is damp and hot against my neck. She squeezes my hand and tells me we’ll talk tomorrow. Randal the Vandal follows closely afterward, telling Eric they will talk again in the morning. He’s too exhausted to think anymore tonight. The Lodge slowly empties out.
It feels unfinished and not well done. I feel as frustrated as everyone else. I wish Eric would say something. I wish he was that kind of leader, someone to make us feel safe, or at least offer us some comfort. But at the same time, I don’t know what that would mean or what he could say that would be the truth. Eric has never been that way, as long as I remember. He just lets the world be what it is. He makes people see it. He lets people fear it. People don’t like him for it, not as much as they should.
At last, it’s just me and Eric in the Lodge. Eric sighs and sits down.
I sit down in the chair where Randal sat.
“Well, Birdie,” Eric says. “What do you think?” Eric always asks my opinion. He’s the only one.
I think about it. “I think Matt and the goon squad have it out for you,” I tell him.
Eric thinks about this and then sighs. “They’re just scared,” he says.
“I’m going to keep an eye on them,” I say. “Especially that Pest kid. He gives me the creeps.”
Eric smiles at me. “Be easy on him,” he tells me. “Pest has had a complicated life.”
Haven’t we all? I want to ask, but I don’t. I think Eric is too trusting of people, too willing to think of their point of view. I wish he was a little more careful, a little more selfish. I look over to him unhappily. “I think everything has changed.”
Eric looks at me and then scratches his beard. He releases a puff of air that is something like a sigh. Then he makes a sound, somewhere between humming and growling. “Well,” he says finally, “let’s sleep on it.”
Just like him, always waiting, always thinking. He doesn’t make decisions. I don’t know why I’m disappointed in him so much. I follow him out the door, wishing he was a little more something and a little less something else. I feel bad for wishing it, and the guilt follows me home all the way to our cabin. We eat some dry biscuits at the table and wash them down with mint tea. I keep waiting for Eric to say something, but he’s lost in himself, thinking. After we eat, we climb up into the loft and settle into our beds.
“Good night, squirrel,” I tell the darkness. His bedroom is right next to mine. We’re just separated by a few blankets hung from the ceiling.
“Good night, chipmunk,” he answers. It’s something Lucia started back on the island. It usually makes us laugh. Not tonight.
I listen to Eric breathe in the darkness. He’s not sleeping either.
It’s a long night.
7
Randy has been here for two days and all day, every day, the talk is war. I need a break. I need time to adjust. I need to think.
This is where I come to think.
On the eastern end of the lake, there’s a rusting old jeep. It’s being eaten away by water and wind and grass. The forest is creeping up through the floorboards and in through the windows. It’s an old Land Rover, a part of my past that I just barely remember. The man who owned it is gone now, dead. He was the first and only person I ever tried to kill. His name was Carl Doyle. I remember pointing the shotgun at him and pulling the trigger. I remember him floating face down in the lake. Eric tells me it wasn’t my fault, that the Worm had him, and I didn’t kill him. But I don’t think of it that way. I have some responsibility for his death. It was my finger that pulled the trigger. I still remember the shock of it and how Doyle staggered back. I don’t feel guilty exactly. I did it to save Eric, but the Land Rover always makes me feel a certain way. I look at the Land Rover and I feel something unpleasant. Something dark and brooding. A shadow falls on my heart, and I feel cold and vulnerable. I don’t know why this helps me think, but it does. I can think better. I feel freer somehow.
For the past two days, there hasn’t been any time for quiet thinking. It’s been arguments and anger and shouting and crying. Yesterday Eric agreed that both lookout towers should be manned toward the south. It’s been a long, long time since we used both. Right now, Patrick is standing up there, looking toward the south for signs of war, clouds of smoke, an approaching…what? An army? A band of soldiers? A diplomat with an entourage? None of us know what to expect. Fear is the only language we seem to be able to speak. All work has stopped, even though the fields need to be sowed. Our lives depend on planting those fields, but no one is doing it.
Randy tells us what happens when war comes. Burnt houses. Corpses in the street. Women screaming. Children crying. There doesn’t seem any reason for it. I mean, we haven’t done anything, but Randy says it won’t matter. He says that war is like a wildfire. It eats up everything it touches. Eric still likes to think that we can avoid it, but the more I listen to Randy, the more I see war as a kind of disease that’s spreading. Just like the Worm. And like the Worm, it doesn’t care what your opinion is. It will destroy you.
I sit down with my back to the tree. From here I sometimes imagine that I can hear the rust eat away at the Land Rover. In my imagination, it makes a sound like termites in wood. I will be glad when the truck is gone, when the earth takes it completely. Some things should pass away. Some things should be forgotten.
I breathe in deeply. The air coming over the lake is cold. There is no ice on the lake anymore, but it’s still frigid and dark. Through the pine trees, I can see the island, and I picture for a moment, without wanting to, the image of Lucia’s face: dark but smiling, and, for an instant, I can smell her again, feel her presence. The feeling is gone before I can remember her clearly. It’s just the beginning of her now, that’s all that’s left. I brush the thought away with my hand.
I should be thinking about this war. I know how to shoot, how to use my knife, how to bite and claw and punch and scratch. I won’t be taken prisoner and dragged from my home. I won’t let anything happen to Eric either. I feel in my heart that I’m ready to die. It’s a hard thought. Maybe it comes from the Land Rover. These are not just dark thoughts. I know it as I touch them. These things are necessary to prod and explore. If war really does come, I will be better at what I need to do if I give these thoughts time to bloom. If I don’t try to crush them out of fear.
I am ready to die. I don’t want to die. Who does? But I imagine if they come and there is fighting and they threaten Eric, I will have to fight. If I must fight, then I must be prepared to die. I can’t let the thought panic me. I can’t let it have that power. If war comes, then these are things to know. Like the rust on the Land Rover. Like the smell of the dead you can’t remember. Like the cold wind coming off the lake.
These are the things that will save me.