The closer she gets to this place that no longer exists as it once did, the less she breathes. Every drop that falls from her paddle makes her cringe; every ripple that follows her movements is a siren. She is as close to invisible as a person could be, but if someone were waiting—still, quiet, sharp-eyed—she’d be seen. There’s no way around it. It doesn’t matter. She’s come this far. She keeps going.
Sliding through the new growth that has flourished around the place where she sat so many years ago, she slows her craft and finds a place to wait among the rushes. Maybe she has miscalculated. Maybe the little whisper in the base of her skull has led her astray. But no, just as she’s beginning to think that this is the wrong place, she hears Bird Dog’s voice. The breath leaves her lungs. There’s another voice. And another.
In the dim light of a waxing moon, Wanda sees Bird Dog’s raft congregating with another vessel on the open water. A little rowboat, it looks like, riding low in the waves with two people in it. She hears a man and a woman.
“You catch anything?” the woman asks.
“Nope,” Bird Dog replies.
“That’s all right, we got two big guys,” the man says. Wanda can hear the slap of a live fish trying to return itself to the sea. “Whoa there.”
“That’s real nice work, Freddy. Enough for everyone?”
“Enough for everyone.”
The two boats begin to move away, in unison. Wanda dares to edge her way out of the rushes, and when there is enough distance between them, she follows. They keep to the open water, which she would never do. Such an unnecessary risk, being exposed like that. Wanda can’t understand it. But then, maybe because there are three of them they don’t worry about such things. Maybe they have guns with bullets in them. She keeps to the snarled growth of the swamp, but she can’t move as quickly here. There are roots to navigate, weeds to slow her, branches that reach out and grab at her hair. The bottom of the canoe skims across the nose of what she guesses is a sleeping alligator. She can feel him buck, surprised, and then sink, leaving her to this pursuit.
In the end, it isn’t far to go. Bird Dog and her companions cut inland, weaving in and out of the old bungalow ruins on Beachside. Wanda rode these water-filled streets on her bicycle once. Now they are unrecognizable. She follows the others easily, navigating by their low chatter about where to fish and what sort of bait they’ve had luck with. She’s amazed by how much noise they’re making, as if they don’t even care who might hear them. They sound so relaxed. Almost—happy? Wanda isn’t sure she knows what that means anymore. Or what it sounds like. She watches from the shadows as they stop at a two-story ruin, the ground floor completely underwater by now. They lash their boats to the building and climb inside the darkened second-story windows, and soft cries of welcome ring out. More voices. Delight over the fish.
Wanda waits in the nearby ruins, listening. She can’t hear what they’re saying anymore, just a low murmur, a word here and there. Inside the house, a spark. The glow of a small fire, the smell of cooking. She doesn’t quite understand what she’s seeing, what she’s hearing—she has not dared light a fire in years. Her brain rushes to fill in the uncertainty, telling her this hive of remnants is bigger and therefore more dangerous than she could have imagined, but another voice is whispering to her, too.
It says, Help them. It says, Let them help you back.
Chapter 57
The intruders came at night. Back then, nights were still for sleeping. Phyllis was dreaming of her old job as a college professor. She was in the building where she used to work, teaching a class full of bedraggled climate refugees. From her place at the front, she could see rows and rows of shaggy heads and dirt-smudged faces receding into a misty distance. Kudzu vines uncurled across the walls, and delicate orchids threaded their way up the legs of the desks, propagating before her eyes. She noticed that her students were rapt, and Phyllis realized she’d already begun the lesson. She looked to the right and saw the two versions of Wanda she was presenting to the class: the little girl she’d taken in and the woman she’d grown into, as if they were specimens to be displayed. “Evolution,” Phyllis said, “is always occurring.” And on cue, both Wandas burst into light, a glow evident even beneath the fluorescent bulbs.
Phyllis opened her eyes and heard a scuffling sound coming from downstairs. The reason she was awake. Then a thump. It took her a few seconds to understand, and by then her instincts had already pried her aging body away from the sink of her mattress and propelled her to the handgun she kept in her bedside table. She opened the drawer, silent, and retrieved the weapon. Moving swiftly, quietly, she went to Wanda’s room, pressed the gun into her hands, whispered, “Safety is on,” and then went to fetch the rifle from the hallway closet.
She could hear the sound of the invaders moving past the front rooms of the house, which she and Wanda had made to look as dilapidated and worthless as they could, a facade to hide the pricelessness of what lay beyond: the food, the resources, the tools. There was a dull thud, the scraping of the furniture that barred the door leading to the rest of the house, then a murmur of delight. This had always been the weakest part of her preparations. She’d understood so much of what was to come before it arrived, but human beings—human beings she understood the least.
She stood at the top of the stairs and listened to a low, excited murmur of voices: two men, she thought, maybe more. They knew exactly what they’d found. Phyllis and Wanda’s luck of staying hidden this long had run out. Was it chance that the intruders had chosen this house, a simple hunch that propelled them past the disguise of those front rooms? Or—she tried to think back, to pinpoint a mistake she or Wanda had made, some beacon of their thriving lifestyle. It didn’t matter. They were here now. She heard the sound of them discovering the pantry: a whoop of joy, quickly shushed.
Well, it had been a good run, she thought. Whatever happened, their time in this haven had come to an end. They would never be safe here again. She could feel Wanda arriving on the top step behind her. Phyllis looked back and saw that she was dressed, the gun pointed at the floor, her arms taut, spring-loaded. Good girl, she thought. By now, Wanda was taller than her, stronger than her, quicker than her. Phyllis knew if it were just she alone, there would be little chance she’d last the night. These intruders would ransack her stores and either kill her quickly or kill her slowly. But with Wanda by her side, grown and fierce, there was still some hope they could defend what was theirs. At the very least, they would make it difficult for these scavengers. Or—they could run. Now. They could slip out the back door and melt away into the night. But what if the intruders gave chase? She could tell Wanda to go while she stayed and held them off…Possibilities flashed through her mind, none of them good. Each one with its own fatal flaw. If they ran, they left with nothing. And having nothing in a place like this was just a slower death sentence.
“Ready?” Wanda mouthed. Phyllis reluctantly nodded. It was too late to make a different plan. Every second they spent hesitating was wasted. They descended the stairs in tandem.
“Pantry,” Phyllis whispered. She went first. Inching down the hall, she tightened her grip on the rifle, the butt nestled up against her shoulder, her trigger finger ready. There was the rumble of a man’s voice, low, quiet, and then nothing. She took a deep breath, stepped into the doorway of the pantry, and loaded the rifle in one fluid motion.