I shrug my shoulders out of my backpack, and Kevin takes it and sets it down. We have been hiking the last leg of the journey to Ward, Colorado—to the settlement— since four thirty a.m. All of us—Fo and Bowen, Jonah, Vince, Dean, Zeke, Kevin, and me. And now, we are on the side of a mountain, gathered on a boulder the size of a small building, which overlooks a deep, shadowed valley.
I sit down and press my frigid hands on the boulder. “The ground is warm,” I whisper. “Is it from the fire?” A mile ago, we crossed the line from the dead world to the burned world. All the tree skeletons, brittle shrubs, and dead weeds are gone, leaving the ground an eerie, boulder-marked black beneath the light of the moon.
“The ground can hold heat for a long time after a fire,” Jonah whispers, sitting down beside me. The closer we’ve come to Ward, the quieter he’s gotten. He puts the backpack with the cure in front of his feet and rests his arms on his bent knees. I reach a tentative hand out and pat his back. I know why he’s not talking. He is scared to be reunited with his mom.
“Are you hungry, Jack?” Dean asks. I hear the rattle of calorie tablets.
“No, I’m fine,” I say, just as my stomach growls. Dean laughs and puts the calorie tablets away.
Kevin sits beside me, and I press the side of my body against his and shiver. The morning mountain air is freezing.
Fo unzips her backpack and pulls out a water bottle, taking a long drink before passing it to Bowen. “Why are we stopping?” she asks. “Aren’t we almost there?” She sounds eager to the point of breathlessness.
“We’re very close,” Kevin says, his voice full of energy. “But we’re going to wait until sunrise to go in. That way no one will get shot.”
“Shot by whom?” Bowen asks, handing the water bottle back to Fo. From the corner of my eye, I see him lift his rifle to his shoulder.
“There are guards posted around the perimeter, but as long as they see us coming, they won’t shoot you because you’re with me.”
“So, if we’re almost at your colony, why is the ground burned to a crisp?” Bowen asks.
“If you burn the earth where the pesticide has been sprayed, it removes the toxins so new things can grow again,” Kevin explains.
“Yeah … if there are bees to pollinate it,” Bowen says, voice skeptical. He and Fo sit side by side, right beside Jonah. Fo puts her arm over her brother’s shoulders, and I can’t help but wonder if she knows that he’s scared to see their mom.
We sit until the eastern horizon grows fuzzy with the coming dawn. “Listen,” Kevin whispers, and everyone holds still. There is no sound. Confused, I look at him.
“I don’t hear anything,” Fo says, her voice disappointed.
“Listen harder.” There is a smile in Kevin’s voice. He kisses my cheek, and then puts his arm around my shoulders.
I close my eyes and hold my breath. At first I hear only the quiet swish of Kevin’s breathing, the nearly inaudible sound of my heartbeat, and the small sounds of the people around me. But after a minute I hear something else. A tiny ringing. “Wind chimes?” I ask.
“Listen harder,” Kevin says, his voice no louder than an exhaled breath.
I turn my head to the side, and my heart starts hammering. “Birds?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“Yes!” he says. Fo giggles.
I close my eyes again and sit perfectly still, just listening to the sound of birds. When the newly risen sun shines bright against my eyelids, Bowen starts to laugh. “Fiona, look,” he says. She gasps.
I open my eyes and peer down, and my heart doubles in size. Tears fill my eyes, and the world nestled in the valley below blurs to every shade of green imaginable, with patches of warm gold in between.
“Come on. Let’s go down,” Zeke says.
We stand and put our backpacks on, and then start the walk down the steep slope of a mountain. After a few minutes of walking, the burned ground is replaced by wildflowers as tall as my waist and aspen trees with gleaming white trunks and leaves so bright a shade of gold, they look like fire. I stop dead as another sound reaches my ears—the quiet, deep drone of bees. They’re everywhere, just like they used to be, poking their heads into the bright blossoms. I start running, careening down the hill. Kevin runs with me. I trail my fingers through the flowers and laugh as tears stream down my cheeks. Bowen whoops and grabs Fo’s hand, and they run with us.
Nestled in a pine and aspen valley below is a large group of wooden buildings. Cabins. A creek runs through the middle of the settlement, with a wooden bridge built across it. When we get to the bottom of the mountain, where the ground levels off, armed men wearing camouflage step out of the bushes and glare at me as they point their guns at my heart. I screech to a stop, my feet skidding on loose gravel. The men see Kevin and lower their guns. Smiles jump to their faces. One of the men, a blond teenager, starts laughing and runs over to me. I shrink away when he throws his arms around my shoulders. “Jack!” He lifts me off my feet and twirls me around. When he sets me down, I look at his face and gasp.
“Gabe?” I look at Kevin and back at Gabe. Kevin was there the night Gabe kissed me. The night Gabe announced that his family was leaving to find the Wyoming settlement. I look at Kevin again. “You brought Gabe’s family here, didn’t you.”
He grins and nods. Dean comes down then and shakes Gabe’s hand.
Others start coming out of the colony—men, women, and children approach us with slow steps and wary eyes. A woman with braided gray hair shrieks and presses her hands to her heart. Tears start washing down her cheeks and she smiles. I follow her gaze and find Zeke walking into the valley with Vince on his shoulders.
“Woman,” Zeke says, lifting Vince from his shoulders and setting him down. He stops in front of the woman and kisses her cheek. “Your old man’s home for the winter.” He leans down and whispers something into her ear. She nods, wipes the tears from her face, and hustles back toward the town.
Another woman makes her way to the front of the crowd and freezes. Her eyes grow wide in her narrow face. She looks hardly older than me and is holding a baby wrapped in a faded blue blanket. Dean gasps and rushes past me and throws his arms around her and the baby. When he lets her go, he cups her face in his hands and gently kisses her lips. He takes the baby from her and peers into the blanket, then brings the baby to me, pressing her into my arms.
My arms can do many things. I am strong and capable. But when that tiny life is placed into them, they suddenly turn awkward and uncertain. I freeze and peer down at the tiny face, at a pair of blinking blue eyes framed by perfect, tiny eyebrows.
“Jacqui,” Dean says, “meet my daughter, Jacqui.” The baby’s mother steps up beside me. She studies me for a moment, as if she wants to say something, but instead of talking she throws her arms around my shoulders.
“Jacqui, this is Brenna,” Dean says.
“I feel like I already know you.” She smiles and wipes tears from her eyes. I return the smile and carefully—and a little awkwardly—hold baby Jacqui out to her.
That is when I realize Fo is standing beside me, fervently scanning the faces of the people coming out to greet us. Jonah is not here. I turn and look at the mountain we just came down and see him slowly making his way toward the valley. His hood is up, his head is bowed, and his hands are in his pockets.
In a trembling voice, Fo asks, “Is there a woman named Tarsis here?” The crowd parts and everyone turns toward the town. Zeke’s wife is walking toward us with another woman. I squint against the bright morning sun, and my stomach drops into my hips. It is her—Jonah and Fiona’s mom. When she gets to the outskirts of the gathered group, her eyes slowly scan over us newcomers. And then, when her eyes rest on Fo, she stops walking. Her gaze travels over every inch of Fo, and her eyebrows draw together in a frown, as if she can’t believe what she is seeing.
“Mom?” Fo says. Mrs. Tarsis gasps and covers her mouth with her hand. Fo slowly walks toward her, and then throws her arms around her mother. Mrs. Tarsis wraps her arms around Fo and starts crying and laughing all at once.
“Fiona! My baby girl!” She pushes Fo to arm’s length and studies her. “You’re cured.”
Fo nods. “They found a cure for the beasts.”
Everyone breaks out in excited whispers. It is then that Jonah finally reaches us. He stops beside me and stares at his mom. It is as if Mrs. Tarsis can feel his eyes on her. She looks away from Fo and focuses on Jonah, her gaze traveling up from his feet, over his tall body, and resting on his shadowed face. He sighs and pulls the hood from his head. Mrs. Tarsis stands frozen, staring at his face. She takes two unsteady steps toward him and then falls to her knees. Jonah is beside her in the blink of an eye, lifting her from the ground. Mrs. Tarsis lifts a trembling hand and touches Jonah’s scarred face.
“Jonah?” she whispers.
“Yes. It’s me.” He hangs his head. “I’m sorry, Mom. For everything. For Dad.”
“Oh, Jonah.” She sniffles. “I forgive you. I forgave you four years ago.” She throws her arms around him and squeezes. He buries his face in her shoulder and his body shakes with sobs. “I love you, son.”