Elijah spread a blanket over Harper’s legs and handed her a mug of hot tea. Madelyn looked at the rising steam. She thought about the clouds.
The sensors on her control panel didn’t rival that of the fancy lakeside camp. She had only rudimentary weather capability. Still, her sensors showed the equivalent of the blue mass hanging over the landscape. Whatever was above those clouds, it showed up on Madelyn’s radar as well.
Madelyn set an alarm on the door. If anything opened that door before morning, they would know. It wouldn’t do them much good—there was only one way out of the cabin—but at least they would be able to face their opponent.
She closed the panel and returned upstairs.
#
#
#
#
#
“Are we going to be safe here?” Elijah asked.
He met Madelyn in the kitchen for a little conference.
“Not remotely,” she said. “Whatever is out there has no problem getting in here. This mountain has become haunted.”
Elijah’s eyes went to Harper.
“How is she?” Madelyn asked.
“Still shook up. I don’t think there’s anything we can do for her here. Once we get back down to Fairbanks, she might be more comfortable.”
Madelyn folded her arms.
“What?” Elijah asked.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “What if that thing follows us?”
“What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t here before. I’ve lived up here for years, and that cloud didn’t show up until recently. Maybe it followed someone here. Maybe it followed the truck here the last time it came up. What if we go back and it follows us to Fairbanks?”
“What are you basing this concern on?”
Madelyn shrugged. “If someone was sick with something contagious, wouldn’t you expect them to stay away from a settled area?”
“I suppose.”
“How is this different? We have an unknown threat looming out there. It came here from somewhere, which means that it can travel. Why would you want to lead it back to your community?”
“We don’t know anything about it. We don’t know how much of a threat it is. We don’t know where it came from or how it travels. You can’t say for sure that it even wants to follow us. Maybe it just migrates randomly.”
“And you can’t say for sure that it won’t trail us down the mountain and then blind everyone it finds. Each person will experience their own personal monster and then they’ll be left for dead,” Madelyn said.
Elijah looked at her.
He shook his head.
“If you want to use this thing as an excuse to turn back into a recluse, go ahead. You can stay up here in your cabin, alone until you die. But don’t try to make me feel guilty for returning that sick girl to her community. You don’t have a shred of evidence to support your wild ideas. I think it’s perfectly clear that you want an excuse to stay.”
Madelyn thought about it. The cabin did have an undeniable magnetism. Now that she was back, it was going to be difficult to leave. In fact it might have been difficult even without the idea that she was going to enable the cloud to follow.
“What are you guys talking about?” Harper asked. While they talked, she had come to the doorway. She stood there with a blanket draped over her shoulders and the mug still warming her hands.
“She thinks that the thing out there will follow us back to Fairbanks,” Elijah said.
Harper nodded and looked between them. “It will. But we still have to go back. It’s going to find them eventually, and they have to know that it’s coming.”
“You can’t know that,” Elijah said.
“No,” Harper said. She stepped forward and seemed to grow several centimeters with her determination. “I
do
know it. It has been inside me. It knows where we’re from, and it’s already moving that direction. It’s slow, but it will come. We have to warn them.”
“Warn them to do what? You think bonfires are going to trap that thing?” Madelyn asked. “We don’t even know what it is.”
“Somebody will think of something. Everyone has to know so they can figure out how to fight it. We have to go back and tell everyone exactly what we’ve seen. It’s our duty to them.”
“Yes,” Elijah agreed.
“Well, we’re not doing anything tonight. Get some rest and we can talk about it in the morning,” Madelyn said.
#
#
#
#
#
By the time she crawled back up into her loft, the cabin was starting to feel like home again. Their presence had chased away the damp, cold air, and the locked door once again felt like a barrier to the things out in the night. Madelyn had lubricated and fastened the mechanical bolt on the door. Back in her grandmother’s day, it had been enough to keep them safe. And, unlike the electronic lock, there was no way to trick or override the heavy bolt from the outside. Someone inside would have to release it.
She pulled her blankets up over her head and waited. Elijah was below her on the couch. Harper was in her grandmother’s room. The sheets probably still held the lingering scent of Jacob. Madelyn hoped that the girl would get a decent rest under those blankets. Maybe a good night’s sleep would bring her clarity and chase away some of the nervous superstition that Harper had picked up.
Madelyn waited for Elijah’s breathing to slow and his gentle snoring. He didn’t have the deep-throated snore of a predator, like David. When Elijah slept, he sounded like he was pausing between breaths to listen for danger. He was never more than a heartbeat away from jumping up to run or fight. The sound of it put Madelyn on edge, but it was still better than sleeping in silence.
That night, it took forever for Elijah to fall asleep. Madelyn rolled over and shed her blankets. She flipped her pillow and pulled the blankets back up. She was starting to doubt that sleep would come.
When it did, it brought dreams of David.
She remembered how it had all gone downhill. She remembered how it had ended.
She wished that she had simply stayed awake. It would have been more restful.
Y
EARS
BEFORE
.
D
RIPPING
AND
freezing cold, Madelyn had crawled from the stream. The last time she had seen David, he had begged for her help and then limped off towards the cabin. She had no reason to believe that he had made it there. Even though she had hoped to lead the Roamers away, there was every chance that some of them had locked onto his heat and followed him through the woods. They would have caught up with him by now. They would have dismantled his cells and left his hair to the birds.
Madelyn moved slowly and tried to keep herself from shivering. Body heat was the enemy. If she could stay wet and cold, she might have a chance. When she heard the clicks, she stopped until they receded. Madelyn continued again at her slow pace and held her breath as long as she could.
When she saw the cabin in the moonlight, she broke into a run.
The door was locked.
She fumbled it open with numb fingers as the clicking sounds began to intensify. She slipped through the door and closed it quietly, holding it shut until the locks took over and sealed her in. The door to the bathroom was open and the shower was running.
Madelyn walked on numb feet, trailing dirt and leaves in her wake.
A picture formed in her head—with his dying breath, David would have made it to the bathroom and collapsed. His hand would have knocked the water controls, turning on the shower. There was no other good explanation. A man like David didn’t bathe indoors.
She slipped through the steamy air and saw movement behind the frosted glass. When she slid it aside, David was there, naked, letting the hot water cascade over his thick body.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He looked up at her, surprised. From his red eyes she guessed that some of the water streaming down the drain was coming from him. He wiped at clumsy hand across his nose and then reached for her.
She let him pull her into the hot water. He hugged her close to himself and wept into her ear.
“I thought I was dead,” he said. “Then I thought I had sent you to your death. I was sure I would never see you again.”
Madelyn looked down and saw the mud washing off of her clothes and running down the drain. She thought about the composting unit that would use the energy of her Q-bat to pull the solids from the water and send them down to the bacterial pile. From his pruned skin, she guessed that David had been in the shower since he returned. She wondered how much energy that hot water had stolen.
Finally, she looked down at his ankles. Perhaps one was a little swollen, but she saw no breaks or cuts.
She pushed him away.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“I fell. I couldn’t walk. I thought I was going to die.”
“So?”
He knew what she was asking. She could see it in his eyes. He felt the shame. He was sorry. It wasn’t enough. David pulled her close again, squeezing her to his giant body.
“I saw things, Mac. I saw things that made me question everything.”
He wanted to make her a part of himself—to fuse their two bodies together in the hot water.
“I’m soaked,” she said. “Get off.”
He didn’t release her. He held her captive in his embrace for another minute. When he finally let go, she retreated with her head down. Water pooled around her as she shed her clothes. David turned off the shower. Madelyn fled the bathroom, leaving a sloppy wet trail of water behind her. She went to her grandmother’s room and closed the door.
David caught it before it could shut completely. He pushed through and handed her a towel. Madelyn pulled it to her chest.
He stood there, naked, waiting for her to either accuse or forgive.
Madelyn didn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She shook her head slowly.
David closed his eyes and let out a breath. “Good,” he said.
Madelyn realized why he looked so funny—she had never seen him naked indoors before. Outside, she had caught glimpses of him when he jumped in the stream or scratched his back against a tree. His heavy muscles were padded with a layer of insulating fat. His body was strong and healthy. She appreciated his form the same way she would admire a wild horse thundering across a field. Here, naked in the doorway under the artificial lights, he looked too human. He had lost his mystique.
“You saved my life,” he said.
“You endangered mine. Twice,” she said.
He held up two fingers and raised his eyebrows.
“First I had to go looking for you. Then I had to lead them away from you.”
“I never asked you to come looking,” he said.
“Even so, it was your carelessness that made me go out.”
He frowned and shook his head. He leaned against the doorframe. He seemed to like that she was looking at him, as if her stare were complimentary.
“You can’t do that,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
“You can’t try to help me when I didn’t ask for help and then get mad at me for it.”
“Who said I was mad at you?” she asked. She clearly was, but she didn’t like being accused of it. Madelyn realized something. Before she let herself consider it, she said it out loud. “You know what? I’m
not
actually mad at you. I’m mad at myself. I’m angry that I let myself care about someone who isn’t cautious with their own survival. I’ve staked my happiness on having you around, and you don’t seem to care if you make it tomorrow.”
“I care,” he said. He pointed behind himself towards the front door of the cabin. “I was out there
struggling
to live. I
fought
. Besides, this isn’t a world where you can depend on people to stay living. If you want a guarantee, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“I guess I wanted you to choose staying here and staying alive over the chance to have one more deer steak.”
He expelled a breathy bark and rolled his eyes. His low voice came out like a growl. “You like me because I’m impulsive and wild. You can’t have it both ways.”
“I don’t think I can have it at all,” she said. She looked around her grandmother’s room. She didn’t belong in there. Her space was up in the loft—the garret—where she could view the world below from a safe distance. She felt cornered in her grandmother’s room, with a wild animal blocking the door.
#
#
#
#
#
He held his ground. Madelyn wasn’t going to ask him to leave. She wasn’t going to give him the power to deny her request.
Instead, she ignored him.
Madelyn dried herself off, walked to her grandmother’s bureau, and started to pull clothes that she thought would fit. She found a denim shirt. After years of washing by hand, it was as soft as a cloud. She refused to wear her grandmother’s underwear, but pulled on a pair of the old woman’s jeans. They were loose around Madelyn’s waist and tight on her hips, but they would do. When she turned back towards the door, Madelyn caught sight of herself in the little mirror.
It was amazing—she had nearly become her own grandmother.
David looked smaller. Madelyn walked towards him with confidence. He turned to the side and let her pass.
She went to the kitchen. She didn’t turn when she heard the bathroom door close.
Madelyn busied her hands with cleaning. None of the counters were dirty, but she cleaned them anyway. Every few seconds, she rolled her shoulders and tried to get them to stay down and loose. A few seconds later, she realized that they had tensed up again. Finally, after what felt like forever, the bathroom door opened.
She turned to see David.
He was fully dressed. He looked like himself—confident, in charge, and half wild.