Maybe we don’t live on a timeline. Maybe it’s a time-ring. Kit’s body was tired but his mind was wired. He’d been restless last night, missing the genesis bedtime story, feeling embarrassed about missing a bedtime story, then feeling ashamed about feeling embarrassed about missing one. He hadn’t tried to overhear Lennon and Nico. Their conversation had simply presented itself to his ears.
Maybe we don’t live on a timeline. Maybe it’s a time-ring.
Something about it reminded him of Spacedog & Computer, which took his spiraling insomnia in new directions: Did any of my paintings survive the fire? Is Town still burning? I wonder if I’ll ever paint again . . .
It had been a long night. And night was when he missed his Dakota most.
Plus, when he finally had fallen asleep, he’d had the dream again. The bright-as-sun room where he sat with another person, speaking only in thoughts, followed by the all-consuming swarm. And because he’d only ever told Lakie about these dreams, the mornings after were when he missed her most.
He was tired of missing the people he loved. Missing people that much was like falling into a deep hole. It was like watching a breeze turn to dust, and if he thought any more about it, he was going to cry, and so he lagged near the back of the group and tried to stop thinking altogether.
They were all a little sluggish this morning, Loretta especially. Her cough seemed to have progressed overnight. He knew from A Beginner’s Guide to Infectious Diseases that it could be a symptom of mononucleosis or whooping cough or pneumonia. It was freezing out here. Constant walking, gulping breaths of cold, thin air. Maybe it was just a cold, nothing more. A few times he’d looked into Loretta’s eyes to see if he could find it: the thing that took his Dakota.
He couldn’t tell.
“Hey.” Nico slowed down until Kit caught up. “You good?”
“Yes.” He reached down to pet Harry and, not for the first time, thought, This looks like Spacedog. He felt exhausted all over again. “Just need some time to think.”
“I get that.”
Cut from the same cloth was a phrase Kit knew, which meant the essence of one person was a lot like the essence of another. He’d suspected as much yesterday, but now felt certain: he and Nico were cut from the same cloth.
Harry too.
In his most secret heart, he’d daydreamed of running off with the dog. They could live together in the mountains, maybe, just a couple of lavish breezes, nothing to see here. Nico could join if she wanted. Same cloth and all.
“Sorry we basically pressured you into joining us,” he said.
“No one pressured me to do anything. I have a soft spot for Harry is all. Anyway, I’m glad it worked out like this.”
“You are?”
“Sure. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have met you.”
There were six ways to make people like you. Kit knew this, having found Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People tucked in the bottom of a Taft librarian’s desk drawer. In addition to the promising title, the book’s cover boasted sixteen million copies sold. As Kit understood it, there was a direct correlation between the inherent value of a thing and the number of people who bought it. And so he’d gone into the book with high hopes. In the end, he did learn a lesson, though it had less to do with winning and influencing, and more to do with herd behavior, which was a fancy term for when millions of people buy a book because millions of people bought the book.
Now, however, was the perfect opportunity to put Dale Carnegie and those sixteen million brains to the test. He could only remember a few of the methods. But it was better than nothing.
Kit looked up at her, put on the biggest smile his face could handle, and said, “Thank you, Nico. That means a lot to me. I’m glad to have met you too, Nico. I think you are very important. And I would like to hear more about your interests.” He made eye contact for as long as he could—so long that he ended up tripping over a rock, falling face-first into snow.
Nico helped him up, a big smile on her face. “Would you like to be friends, Kit?”
Kit grabbed his necklace, careful to keep his eyes on the ground as they walked, lest his feet betray him again. “Okay,” he said, glad to know Dale Carnegie hadn’t duped sixteen million brains. “I would like that.”
Sixteen million and one, he thought.
They spotted the cabin that afternoon. From their position, maybe a hundred feet away, crouched behind a thicket, it looked small. Hard to imagine more than a single room inside.
To the left of the cabin, a firepit. Behind that, an animal carcass—deer, from the looks of it—had been cleaned, gutted, skinned, and hung from a tree. Lennon pointed out the pulley system, which kept the meat out of critters’ reach. “We had one like it in Pin Oak. Doesn’t need to freeze to keep. Just cold enough to slow down the bacterial microbes. Someone clearly lives here. We shouldn’t linger.”
Loretta put a finger to her lips. “You guys hear that?”
Moving water.
“Over there.” She pointed beyond the cabin. “Guess we made it to the river.”
Only now, here, on the cusp of saying goodbye to Lennon and Loretta and Nico and Harry did Kit really consider what it would feel like to finish the journey to the Isles of Shoals alone with Monty. Just the two of them.
“We’ll go around it,” said Lennon, pointing south. “Pick up the river down—” He stopped midsentence, eyeing Monty, who had dropped his backpack on the ground and was tucking his ax under his coat, eyes on the cabin. “Monty?”
“I’m going to knock on the door.”
“The hell you are,” said Loretta, immediately slipping into a fit of coughing.
“Dude.” Lennon put a hand on his shoulder. “Not a good idea. There might be a whole group of people in there.”
Monty pulled Loretta close, kissed her on the forehead, and whatever annoyance Kit had felt toward them, he officially took back. They lit up when they were together, like two lamps from the olden days.
Another reason why the impending split concerned him. He’d seen plenty of unplugged lamps during scavenges, sad and dusty and broken.
“You’re not well.” Monty spoke to Loretta in gentle tones, as if the rest of them weren’t there. “And now we have a chance to get you inside, out of the cold. I’m not passing that up.”
It was late afternoon, but it felt like evening, the sky an early winter gray. And even though this cabin in the woods gave Kit the creeps, and even though he could hardly feel his toes or tongue, his heart, strangely, was warm.
Maybe love seeped out of their hearts, through the air, and into my own!
Probably that wasn’t how love worked.
“I’ll go with you.” Nico took off her backpack.
“What?” said Lennon. “Why?”
She pointed to Monty, who looked as determined as ever. “He’s clearly not getting talked out of this. If there are people inside, I’d rather make nice now than have them hunt me down later.”
She’s lying, thought Kit. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but whatever Nico’s real motivations were, she didn’t want them to know. “Fine.” Lennon stood, started taking off his own backpack. “You stay here with them. I’ll go.”
“Oh, okay, sure,” said Nico. “Helpless women and children that we are . . .”
The air, which moments ago had been alive with love, now felt electric with something else.
“That’s not what I meant,” said Lennon.
Nico pulled a knife from her backpack, relocated it to her coat pocket.
“I just meant . . .” Lennon ran a hand through his hair; it was the first time Kit had seen him unsure of himself. “I could go. Instead.”
She tossed her backpack to Lennon, kept her eyes right on him as she tied her hair back in a ponytail.
“If you’d rather not go, I mean.” If a face could shrug, Lennon’s just did.
Done getting ready, Nico stood still for a moment, calmly looking at him. Even in the cold, Lennon looked likely to melt.
And so it was that Kit learned of the powerful efficiency of silence.
When Nico finally did talk, it wasn’t to Lennon. She bent down, whispered something in Harry’s ear. And then, to Monty: “You ready?”
As Monty and Nico stepped out of the thicket and slowly approached the cabin, Kit put an arm around Harry. He felt big things: love and silence and impending goodbyes. He pulled the dog closer, tried to keep his psyche from leaking all over the place, and just then Kit wished more than anything for art supplies.
“You’re a good old boy, Harry,” he whispered. “I’d paint you right for sure now.”