They weren’t back. Still.
Era gnawed her lower lip, tired of trying to sleep. The supply runs always kept to a strict schedule. How were they supposed to make their way through what used to be the city of Cleveland when they could barely see ten feet in front of them?
The shimmering snowflakes were doubling up now, fat and wet when they struck the windows at the front of the gathering house.
For just a moment, lightning cracked through the pitch-black clouds, and Era could see just how many bodies were pressed into this room, the darkness peeling back from the half of the hall used for sleeping. Other than their dwindling supply of candles, that bolt was the only light they’d had since running out of fuel two weeks prior.
They won't be able to find their way.
The old avenues and crumbling buildings formed an almost grid of sorts. But when snow fell heavily like this, all sense of direction disappeared. Era knew this firsthand; the day she'd come to the Habitats, she and her father had barely made it.
If the supply team was going to make it back to the old zoo-turned-settlement, somebody needed to help them.
Tonight, that somebody was going to be Era.
She collected her walking stick from where it rested beside her mat, using the soft light of the lanterns at the front of the large, open room to pick her way between sleeping mats, both occupied and not.
The trouble was, Era wasn't as nimble as she used to be. As her tired legs shuffled forward, she caught her toe on an empty mat.
The crinkle of woven plastic bags gave her away at once. Mar—that busybody—peeled open a lid.
Mar’s single, open eye fixed on Era immediately. “Where do you think you're going? You should be resting, Era Grande.”
Era hitched up a shoulder. “I can't sleep.”
“You certainly won't, wandering like that. You need to keep your body warm.”
Mar was actually right. The gathering house was getting colder by the hour, leaving Era's nose red and a little numb. She rubbed at it. “I'll stay warmer moving. I need to go to the outhouse anyway.”
Ignoring Mar's protests, Era picked her way through the sleepers, nodding at the adults still up and talking in low voices at the gathering house's front entrance. “Her runs are never this late…must’ve hit snow further out,” a member of the leadership team said in a low voice.
“Maybe they’re bedded down somewhere for the night. Who would raid a supply team in this weather?”
“Desperate people,” came a ground-out reply. “Hungry, cold ones.”
Though the leadership dropped their voices to a whisper as Era neared, the worry in their voices was unmistakable.
Slowly, she made her way out the side door that led to the outhouses, nodding at the huddled form of the watcher waiting by the boarded glass door.
The moment Era left the safety of the gathering house, she grasped at the guide ropes strewn across the entire compound for nights such as this, full of dizzying snowflakes and whipping, wicked winds. When the juncture came before the outhouses, Era checked to see if the watcher was paying attention. A haze of white hung between her and the darkened building.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, Era turned right and began to ascend the slope, the ropeway tight in one hand and her walking stick held firmly in the other. Her jaw was set to the point of aching as she faced the blizzard head-on.
The only sound in the abandoned zoo was the wind's howl. This was the stupidest thing she'd ever done, being out in this storm. Still, she trudged on, taking the path around the lake and cutting through the old giraffe habitat.
She was traveling downhill now; the hard part was done. Well, almost done. Era stamped the blood back into her feet and headed for the staff shed in the Outback.
The moment she pried off the lock, the gemmy yellow eyes of a dusty dragon lantern stared back at her. Perfect.
Era shimmied the head on over her body so her hands would remain free, then waddled up the snowy path to the Wilderness Trek by following her own footprints. When she reached the ridge, she lit a misshapen candle from her pocket with an equally precious match, then carefully lowered the dragon's head over it.
Suddenly, the black and blinding white night was filled with warm color. The orange and red hues of the dragon lantern somehow made the little candle seem brighter.
She hoped the supply team would see it—just a touch of luminance through the driving snow that said the settlement was here. To say that everyone was waiting for them.
If anything was worth breaking the Habitats' rules, it was that.
Era crossed her numb fingers and began the trek back to the gathering house, her footprints already filling in.