Sunrise

I breezed into Warren a little before lunch. There were still no sentries, no wall, not even so much as a barbed-wire fence. I skied right up to the back door of the house where Mom and Rebecca were living.

When I peeked in the window, I was greeted by a scream from Mom—she and Rebecca were sitting at a table right under the window, sewing by the light it let in. There was a huge pile of cloth scraps and old clothing on the table, which they were laboriously patching by hand.

I waved through the glass, and Mom sat back down heavily. Rebecca smiled and waved back before popping up to open the door. I knelt and started slowly untying the straps that held my boots to the skis—we had far more pairs of downhill skis than cross-country skis, so someone working under Darla’s direction had converted a bunch of downhill skis so they could be attached to the toes of modified hiking boots. They worked fine, but they were a real pain to put on and take off.

Before I had even the first ski detached, Rebecca was outside. “Oh. My. God. That hook is wicked, bro.” She reached out as if to touch it, and I moved my hook away. “Careful. The edge is razor sharp.”

She drew back her hand. “I’d heard about it from Dr. McCarthy, but whoa.”

“It wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had on a Thursday night,” I said.

“I always pictured you more as a Peter Pan type than Captain Hook.”

I wondered how long the Captain Hook comments would follow me. The rest of my life, probably. “Yeah, me too.”

“I kept meaning to come visit,” she said, “but it got crazy busy.”

“Same here.” I gave her the short version of recent events while I wrestled off the skis. Then we were inside. Mom stood in front of the door, hands wrapped around herself as if she were cold. Well, she probably was—it was freezing in there. I had gotten used to the longhouse, which was usually above fifty. Mom’s house was cold enough that I could see my breath in the air.

“Alex, your hand . . .” Mom said, still clutching herself. Go on the offensive, I reminded myself. “It’s fine, Mom.” I held my arms wide for a hug. “Good to see you.” She opened her own arms, wrapping herself around me, and for a moment it felt like everything was all right. “How’ve you been?” she asked. “I mean, other than . . .” “The hook’s not bad once you get used to it,” I said. “And everything else is going well. We’ve got enough food, finally. . . . you should come visit. Bring your mending. We’ve got an electric sewing machine hooked up you can use. Or we can get you new clothes pretty easily.” The Wallers had more clothing than both our settlements could use in a lifetime.

“You’ve got electricity?”

I kicked myself mentally. We could handle a few more refugees, but not the floods that might show up if word got around about how well-off we were. But I couldn’t rewind the conversation. “We only use it for sewing when the wind is blowing and the batteries are fully charged. Heating the greenhouses is the top priority. But yeah, nobody sews by hand in Speranta anymore.”

“Well, I’d love to see that and to use your sewing machine, but I’ve got new duties here as First Lady. And I’ll be principal of the new school when it opens next month. Maybe I can come see your little settlement in a few months when the school’s ru

First Lady? What did she mean by that? And little settlement? And how was it that Warren could mow down kids in the road a few months ago and now be opening a school? Focus, Alex, that’s not what you’re here for. “Could you make a short trip this weekend? It’s not far, only a couple hours on skis.”

“I really don’t have the time, honey.”

“I know! We could pick you up on a Bikezilla. You could sit in it and just ride there and back—make it a one-day trip.” It would be a hard day for whoever was pedaling the Bikezilla, but whatever.

Mom sat back down and picked up the jeans she was patching. “What’s so important about this weekend anyway?” I hesitated. There was no easy way to say it. “Darla and I are getting married on Sunday.”

“Absolutely not!” Mom snapped.

Chapter 58

“You could consider it, at least!” I said.

“No. You are not marrying that girl.” Mom held the needle as if she was going to stab it into the jeans. “I wasn’t asking for permission!”

“Good, because I forbid it.”

“Mom!” Rebecca said.

“Don’t ‘Mom’ me. That girl is bad for him.” “After all the time I spent trying to convince you to invite Alex, to let me go tell him?” Rebecca said. “You’re just going to shoot him down when he reaches out to you?”

Huh? “Tell me what?”

“Alex, I swear to God,” Rebecca said, “I’ve had bowel movements more observant than you are.”

I wasn’t sure whether to scream or cry—I felt like doing both. “What am I supposed to be observing?”

Mom was stitching away furiously, ignoring us both. “Her hands,” Rebecca said. “You’re supposed to notice her hands.”

I looked. They were the same hands Mom had always had—long fingers with angles a little too sharp to be elegant. “Her rings,” I whispered. They had been gold— yellow. Now they were platinum. And the diamond on her engagement ring was, like, twenty times the size of the one Dad had given her. “Why’s she got new rings?”

“She remarried, dumbass.” Rebecca whirled toward Mom. “I can’t believe your hypocrisy. You’re going to forbid Alex from marrying Darla, you’re not going to his wedding, and you didn’t even invite him to your own?”

“It was only a small thing,” Mom said.

“Yeah,” Rebecca replied, “like fifty of the mayor’s cronies and me.”

“She married Mayor Petty,” I said flatly, still not believing it, but at the same time understanding that it was true.

Mom kept her attention on her sewing. I spun, opened the door, and rushed outside, slamming the door with a satisfying crash.

I knelt to tie my boots back into my skis but couldn’t do it; my hand was shaking too badly. This was a stupid idea. Reaching out to Mom. One thing I knew: Speranta was going to have a law allowing children to divorce their parents. I didn’t know if she could forbid me to marry—in the old world, maybe, although I was eighteen now. In this new world, not a chance.

“Alex, wait.”

I was so freaked out that I hadn’t even noticed my sister following me outside. “Why? Nothing’s going to change her mind.”

“I know. But I’m coming with you. I want to see my big brother get married. It would have been such a delicious scandal in the old world, huh? Eighteen-year-old high school senior marries college-age girl?” Rebecca smiled sadly.

“Hurry then, okay?”

Rebecca went back inside. By the time I had calmed down enough to start strapping on my skis, I started hearing shouting from inside the house. Then crashing noises. I wondered if I should go back inside to make sure Rebecca was okay. But my presence might make it even worse.

Finally Rebecca emerged, looking flushed, wearing a heavy coat, backpack, and ski boots. She was carrying a really nice set of Saloman XADV cross-country skis in her arms. She snapped into them in less than a tenth of the time it’d taken me to get into my jury-rigged setup. “We’d better get out of here before Mom calls the sheriff—or our new stepfather.”

“You think she will?” I asked.

Rebecca shrugged.

We left Warren in silence. I took a different route back to the homestead, weaving in and out of old ski and snowmobile tracks as much as possible to confuse our trail. We had traversed almost half the distance back to Speranta before either of us spoke again.

“You have extra clothing at the new farm?” Rebecca asked. We were single file with me in the lead, so she had to yell.

“Yeah. Plenty.” Clothing was easy to come by now. I tried not to think too much about its provenance, though— some of it came from the closets of the dead. “Why?”