Dawn nods. Cal watches them with an unreadable expression.
Midnight says, fretful, ‘I don’t like leaving Una.’
‘I’ll take care of her,’ Dawn says. ‘I promise.’
Midnight nods. Her necklace is kind of goth, strung with shining silver lug nuts and chicken bones. She puts it in the Tupperware. Cal does the same. His necklace looks like finger bones – maybe raccoon. Dawn closes the box reverently.
Riley looks away, embarrassed. She feels like she’s been caught looking at someone undressing or something. She lingers behind as the others go towards the fly. ‘Why do they do that? Leave those behind.’
‘It’s like a promise,’ Dawn says. ‘You’re saying that you’ll come back. Plus,’ she adds, ‘Cal loses literally everything. If you haven’t crawled around on a forest floor in the dark helping him look for his pen, you haven’t lived.’ She smiles. ‘See you later.’
Riley follows the others towards the fly. The long grass kissesher knees. The golden line of light lies along the valley – the sunlight road. The others walk ahead, leaving trails behind them in the green-gold meadow. Midnight says something to Cal and touches his shoulder. He shrugs, not looking at her. He doesn’t look anyone in the eye these days.
Riley turns back and runs after Dawn. ‘Wait!’
Dawn pauses, startled. Riley closes the distance and quickly takes her mother’s locket from around her neck. She presses it into Dawn’s palm. ‘Keep this for me.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a picture of my father, I think,’ Riley says. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never been able to open it. It’s my promise to come back.’
Dawn nods. Then she flings her arms around Riley and hugs her, hard. Riley hugs her back, throat closing. ‘You won’t tell? It’s personal. It’s my most precious thing.’
‘I won’t tell,’ Dawn says, holding Riley tightly. ‘I swear.’ After a moment Dawn steps back. ‘You better catch up with the others,’ she says. ‘They get so crazy when they’re raiding. Don’t get left behind.’
Riley runs through the low afternoon light.
They go south through the woods. White gnats move in clouds over tall nettles, honey-scented mountain alyssum. The scent of lilac lies on the dawn air sweet like death. A fly crawls up Riley’s nostril and she snorts.
‘Quiet,’ Noon says softly. ‘We’re near the main trail.’
They tread light and soft down the mountain, through the woods. If they pass close to a campground or a trail they drop to all fours and crawl in single file. Riley smells the meat on grills, hears children playing ball. But she is a ghost, travelling by unseen. She’s not here. She is nowhere.
The town of Ault comes into view, low buildings scattered across the valley floor. The sunlight has gone and thick clouds are massing to the west. They walk down through scrub, seeing occasional rusty bedsprings or an abandoned washing machine.
‘Once,’ Midnight says in Riley’s ear, ‘we saw a dead girl up here. There was rope around her neck. Her face was like bad fruit.’
‘What did you do?’ Riley’s skin is crawling up and down her back.
‘What were we supposed to do? Next time we came by she was gone, no bones or anything. So someone probably found her.’
They emerge behind a Denny’s. It’s all so weird – the feel of asphalt under Riley’s sneakers. It seems like years since she lived in a place like this. It is impossible that it has only been two months. They pull their ski masks down over their faces.
Above the mountain lightning flickers through the cloud.
Behind the supermarket they fill their backpacks with out-of-date baby formula, cans, dried pasta, flour. They find vitamins, disinfectant.
Riley points up to the corner of the building where a camera sits winking like a shiny black eye.
Noon shrugs and pats Riley’s shoulder. They go. To her surprise they don’t head back towards the Denny’s and the narrow trail back up the mountain. Instead Noon beckons them along another street. They are heading into town.
Noon whispers to Midnight, who nods and jogs away in a different direction.
‘Where is she going?’ Riley asks.
‘To the veterinarian,’ Noon says.
‘Great,’ Cal says. ‘Let’s go home, she’ll catch us up.’ There’s a tightness in his body, a waiting.
