“If it comes to that,” she whispered, “don’t stop her.”
My pulse thundered in my ears. She was voicing my desire to destroy what they’d built, no matter what kind of violence it unlocked in me. My radiancesangin response to her quiet conviction.
But what if killing ripped me apart? Or worse—what if I liked it?
Ezra and Julian watched me, both frowning, but neither would argue with this woman’s dying wish. I wasn’t sure if she’d freed me or shackled me.
“Please.” Julian looked up at us, lost. “Help her.”
Heat and smoke washed over us in waves. Ezra released me and crouched beside them. Sheltering Maggie’s body with his own, he stroked her hairline, his hand trembling. “Julian, I cannot,” he said, voice thick with regret. “No healer could.”
Maggie smiled up at Julian. “Oh, dear boy,” she said, wavering. The tight furrow of pain between her brows released as her lips parted ina silent sigh. We held vigil, smoke whipping around us, as she took rattling, shallow breaths—and then took no more.
The fire raged on.
A dozen people from the town arrived soon after Maggie passed, and together, we built a firebreak to keep the wind from driving the flames toward the town. Leaving Julian with Maggie in the shade of a lone apple tree, Ezra and I took up tools and worked alongside the townspeople to dig a wide furrow. A group carrying pails drew water from the farm’s well and doused the freshly turned dirt.
“I’ve never seen the ground give way so easily,” an old man with pale skin and freckles remarked, stopping to wipe the sweat from his brow and rearrange his hat. “Thank the stars for that.”
My hands were already blistered, torn palms stinging as I stepped on a shovel to turn the soft soil. He was right—it was as if the roots snaked away from my shovel and sank back into the ground. With a start, I looked around for Ezra and saw him raking steadily, his brow creased with far more concentration than it required.
I made my way closer to him, lowering my voice. “You’re doing this?”
“If I don’t, the fire will spread to Cascade,” he said tightly. “I’m only coaxing the roots away.”
“Oh,onlythat.” I wanted to say more, to tell him to stop. But his efforts had likely saved the little hilltop town overlooking Maggie’s farmland.
It was a bittersweet victory. Every structure on the farm had been destroyed. The Transistors who had set this fire had done so ruthlessly, with a clear intention to maximize damage. And death.
Once the firebreak was complete, the townspeople began to pick through the smoking rubble. I hurried toward the sound of shouting and found Ezra standing at the skeletal edge of one of the burned-upstructures. He had his bandana pulled over his nose and mouth. When he saw me, he gestured for me to stay back.
“It’s the rest of the family,” someone said. Following their gaze, I made out misshapen forms in the ruins. Without having it pointed out to me, I would have mistaken it for rubble. But now it was clear there was something organic about the forms.
The bodies.
The people.
I turned away, eyes stinging with more than the smoke.
“It’s not safe to get closer,” Ezra was saying to the group searching for remains. “We’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
Stumbling away, I found a patch of soft dirt and let my knees buckle. A tired sob caught in my throat, but I couldn’t cry. Not now, not yet.
In the distance, I saw a small group of women carefully pulling Maggie from Julian’s arms to prepare her for burial. One of the townswomen had ridden away to fetch an old sheet embroidered with white carnations, and it hung from a bough of the apple tree, waiting for its final purpose.
A kind-eyed woman crouched in front of me and pushed a tin cup full of cold well water into my hands. She had deep-brown skin and wore her hair shorter than mine, a close crop of tight curls. “I’m Francis.”
“Josephine,” I gasped out between gulps.
“Did you know the Taylors?” she asked.
“I didn’t. My—friend.” I tripped over the word I’d rarely spoken. “He did. We traveled here to work on the farm.”
“The Taylors were good people. Odd people, but good people. Before she left town, Nikola was always coming into my general store, picking up packages or posting letters. They were inventors of sorts, making wonderous machines. Nikola gave me a fantastic lamp that lights up with no flames when I turn a crank.” Her eyes grew bright, but she blinked her tears away as she took the cup back. “To think how long it will be before she learns of the fire.”
“Perhaps we can bring word to her,” I said, recalling what Maggie had said—that Nikola was in Sterling City now. That we needed to protect her.
I wanted to protect her. But first, we had to make it through this horrific day.
