The Burn (21 page)

When the crops had fully matured on Field #3, we just
used the harvester, then lowered the feed belt to transport the
crops through the maze of tubes to land in Food Storage. I really
don’t even know what path the belt followed or where Food Storage
even is. I have never been there. I was supposed to have seen it at
one point or another—you see just about everything in the colony so
you know about where you live. But I think that was during one of
my vocation stints that went south—cooking—and I avoided learning
anything more than I had to. All I know is that we ended up eating
what we had grown. Someone down there prepared it, though I hadn’t
personally enjoyed talking to any of the food preps. I wasn’t the
most social person.

So what? How did I expect a huge hunk of meat to make
it from the hunting grounds thirty miles away back to the
settlement? We all carried, and we were all weighed down. I can’t
believe I didn’t think of it. I’ll get it, though. I’ll figure it
out.

I hitch up my pack with an awkward and
grimace-inducing bounce. The change of balance sends daggers
through my feet. The sweat on my back makes my pack slide around.
As I carefully tiptoe over a crude log bridge, Jack tells me it
will take us an extra day to get back with the weight. That’s fine
with me, screaming feet and all. It’s an extra day to figure out
the weirdness that suddenly wedged itself between me and Dave. An
extra day to avoid Mary’s wary glances.

The thought of Mary brings anxiety slamming full
force into my gut. She’d seen me read the letter from Jessa, and
she’d seen me put it away. Can I trust the sense of honor that most
people in the settlement have? Can I trust her not to search my
things? My instincts tell me no. Not Mary who has been scarred so
deeply and is so fiercely protective. I should have never left it
alone. But it’s too late now. A sudden crow call makes me jump. I
am stretched so tight I feel like my bones might break through my
skin.

The next day the gray sky opens and misty rain floats
down in wet veils. I wear a poncho, but I am too warm and sticky
inside of it. I finally run out of painkillers, and my wet socks
rub against my raw feet. It’s all I can do to keep from crying.
That night instead of eating dinner with everyone, I retreat to my
tent. After dinner, Dave stands outside. He breaks the uneasy
silence between us.

“Missed you at dinner, Terra. You okay?”

I make some muffled, gurgling sound that I hope
sounds like a yes. But Dave unzips the door and steps in.

“Whatever, you’re not okay. You were too hellbent on
the trail today, nothing but staring straight at the ground. And
then you don’t eat dinner. Come on, what’s up?”

I’ve hidden it for too long, and the pain in my feet
screeches at me to come clean. Traitor feet. I point to my
boots.

“Something wrong with your boots?”

I nod.

He takes one boot and unlaces it, then unlaces the
other. I squeeze my eyes closed and my breathing comes in shallow
rasps. Even unlacing my boots is agony. He eases them off and I
stifle a scream. I must sound like a dying animal. Then Dave takes
a quick breath.

“Oh, Terra.”

His bleak tone makes me open my eyes. I look at his
stricken face and then down to my feet. My socks are worn through
in several spots and are bright red with blood.

“How long have your feet been hurting?” he whispers.
He’s unable to move, to take his right hand from my boot and his
left hand from my heel. Now that my boots are off, my feet feel
much better. I look at them with detached interest. I’ve seen so
much blood the past few days, surely all this can’t be mine.

“Terra? Do your boots not fit right?”

My feet do slide in them. But I assumed that is the
way boots are. They look too big on everyone else, with their thick
soles and chunky laces. They’re nothing like the slippers I wore in
the colony. Doesn’t everyone have boot problems? But no, they
don’t. It’s just my boots that don’t fit right.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

Because I’m an idiot that comes from the colonies, I
want to tell him. But I shrug. He rolls his eyes at me. Frustration
and anger side-step around the edges of his calm.

“I’ll have to admit, Terra. That was pretty dumb to
go for thirty miles with boots that don’t fit.”

I nod. Dumb. Exactly how I feel.

“We’ll have to peel these off so Jack can treat your
feet. I’ll go get him.”

I slump a little. Why does anyone else have to know
about me and how stupid I am for hiking in boots that don’t fit?
Dave notices the movement.

“You’re seriously worried about your pride right now?
You should be more worried about being able to make it home.”

Of course. What would they do for a survivor that
can’t even walk? I could never allow them to carry me the whole
way. I nod him out the door.

When they return, Jack sits down by my feet while
Dave settles near my side. Jack opens his pack and pulls out a few
knitted bandages and a small jar of brown salve. He glances at my
feet now and then.

“So Dave tells me you like to wear boots that are too
big.”

His conversational tone makes me laugh despite the
pain. He has a good bedside manner. He would have made a good
doctor in the colony. His thin lips grin impishly at me.

“Okay, Terra. I’m going to peel off your socks. The
rain soaking through loosened everything up, otherwise your socks’d
probably be crusted to your feet. This will hurt. Just hold Dave’s
hand or something. Try not to scream. We don’t want to scare the
whole camp.”

I can’t tell if he’s joking about the scaring the
camp thing. Dave offers his hand and I squeeze it. He pats my
shoulder.

“Okay, here we go.” And Jack peels off my socks.

I don’t scream. I’m proud of myself for that. But I
can’t sit stoically through it. I clench both hands and arch my
back. Dave is a rock, though. He sits and lets me crush his hand. I
look down at my feet while Jack gently washes them off.

“Not too bad, really. Just a bunch of blisters you
didn’t take very good care of. I’ll put some of this on them.” He
holds up the jar. “Nell mixes this up for me. Then I’ll bandage
them. We’ll stuff your boots so your feet don’t slide around.”

“Will she be okay to walk?” Dave asks. I can see the
concern for me, but now that he knows I’m okay, the silence creeps
back between us. He’s more concerned about dealing with me as extra
weight when everyone else is already loaded down with meat.

“That’s up to Terra.” Jack dabs the thick salve on my
feet. “It’ll really hurt, but it’s fine to walk on.”

The silence Dave gives burns me, and I nod briskly
and turn away.

“You sure you’re okay with it?” Dave says. “We can’t
slow down.”

I’ve come this far, haven’t I? And now my feet will
be tended to and not slide around in my too-big boots. I can do
it—I have to do it.

Dave looks unsure for a moment, but then the leader
side of him nods. “Good.”

Jack rolls up the leftover bandages and nestles
everything neatly back in his pack. “It shouldn’t be a full day
tomorrow anyway. We made good time today, despite the rain. And the
trail eases up a bit once we’re out of the trees. No more rocks and
roots jutting up.”

Jack comes in my tent before everyone’s up and gently
removes the bandages, his long slender fingers working deftly over
my feet. He applies more of the thick goop, and then he wraps my
feet in clean bandages and meticulously stuffs my shoes so my feet
fit snuggly inside. My feet ache, but the pain doesn’t shoot up my
legs like it had last night.

Dave leads us out of the last of the trees and into
the wide swathes of grass that mark the last few miles until we
reach the settlement. Home. Jack offers a hand when I look
unsteady.

Something has niggled at the back of my mind since I
arrived. The way Jack hovered near Dave and Mary that first day at
the beach. I grab his hand.

How do you fit in all of this?

He looks at me quizzically.

With Dave and Mary?

He nods. “I wondered if you’d ask. Well, Dave’s been
a good friend for a while. If you haven’t noticed, Dave’s a good
friend to a lot of us.”

I have noticed that. After the silence was broken
between us after our kiss, I also wonder if he is just that—a good
friend. Nothing more. I let my hand down to trace along the wisps
of grass growing waist high. Jack watches the the ripples spread
out around us.

“He asked me for advice when things first started up
with him and Mary. She was different then—softer, if you know what
I mean.”

He looks overhead. Sunbeams shine in translucent rays
through a slit in the clouds. “Kind of a balmy day, isn’t it?”

I look at the sky, at the way the sun shines down in
ribbons. I strain my eyes to see if I can see the settlement yet.
We’re still too far off. Jack clears his throat.

“Anyway, I told him he should follow his heart. And
he did. They were going to get married.”

I nod once.

“But Mary said she needed to go to Seattle first. See
if she was needed there more than here. She invited Dave along, but
I think he took it wrong. He thought she needed to see if Seattle
was more important than he was. Or something like that. I think
they were both confused. I don’t know why Mary took off the way she
did. And then she was gone for so long and things were really
different when she got back. I was there for Dave while she was
gone, when he was so messed up thinking she wanted Seattle more
than she wanted him.”

I nod. It made sense, I guess, and I stumbled into
the middle of it. To someone like Nell it probably sounds
ridiculous. You’re either together or you’re not. I like Nell’s way
of thinking better. And if I like that thinking better, where does
that leave Dave and me?

As we eat lunch, Dave sits by me, gnawing on a strip
of salted meat, not really allowing himself to look at me.

“Your feet alright?” he asks. I nod. He’s strangely
distracted. I tap his hand, but he ignores it.

“I think we’re about three miles from home. We should
make it in about an hour or a little more.”

Then the dread nags at me. I’ll see Mary; Dave will
see Mary. That thought makes me either a little grumpy or a little
brash. Whichever one, I grab Dave’s hand.

Are you excited to see Mary?

His eyes shift to me then.

“Why do you ask that?” He looks confused and slightly
angry. But I don’t think he’s angry with me. I can’t read the
reasons for any of it. I take in other details—the peeling skin on
the center of his bottom lip, the splash of freckles across his
nose. His eyes bore into mine. I shrug. I just wanted to see what
his response would be.

“Look, I know you’ve been open with me, Terra.”

How can he start any speech like that? The guilt
fingers through me. I’ve been anything but open.

“I know you have, and I’m sorry I can’t quite return
it. Mary and I are...complicated. I’m trying to sort it out. Really
I am. But it’s not easy for me.”

I don’t want some fuzzy middle ground. I want all or
nothing. So I do something completely stupid and I grab his face
with both my hands and pull his lips to mine.

He kisses me back hard, like he’s testing something
out, finding an answer. The kiss is empty. He pulls back only when
Jack walks up beside us.

“You, um, almost ready to move out?” Jack says with a
chuckle. But the laugh leaves me cold. He doesn’t approve of
this.

Dave rubs his hands on his knees and stands up.
“Yes.”

Jack stares long at me. I watch them walk away, and
the burning in my heart tells me it won’t be the last time I’ll
watch Dave walk away. It unsettles me, but I can’t do anything
about it. We are either together or we aren’t. I keep reminding
myself all the way to the settlement.

When the school comes into sight, Dave straggles back
to me. We walk past the fields blooming with white flowers. They
look magical in the hazy sunlight, but I can’t bring myself to
admire them.

“A wonderful sight, isn’t it?” A broad smile spreads
across his whiskery face.

Then I look up and my heart freezes. Mary waits for
us at the back of the school. I’m approaching the executioner. She
stands with her arms folded, her rifle slung on her back. Her dark
hair is pulled back in a tight braid, and her hostile posture
screams at me. It softens when she greets Dave, and he gives her a
warm hug, but as soon as he passes her, the mask is back again. She
lowers her voice.

“When you get a moment, Terra, I need to talk to you.
In my room, if you don’t mind.”

I nod. The unsettled feeling returns, stronger than
before, and the dread mounts with each tender footstep.

Even Nell’s sweet greeting can’t erase the weight in
my gut. My eyes dart nervously to find Mary. But she talks to Jack,
or Dave, or Red, or any of the returned hunters with a belying ease
about her that does nothing but mock me.

After our kills are hung in the smoke houses and the
fragrant smoke rises in tendrils through the cracks, we all go
through the school and close the drapes. I pull thick, itchy drapes
over a window, and the beam of light that slashes across my skin
dies.

We gather in the cafeteria and eat. We celebrate our
return. They weren’t as worried as when we were gone for the supply
drop, but any separation puts a dim light on the group. No one
likes to be the one left behind.

I mechanically put the fork of oca greens and fish in
my mouth, hardly tasting it. Jack sits by me and I don’t turn to
him. It’s not until he says, “Terra!” in the voice of someone who’s
been trying to get my attention for a while that I finally look at
him.

I can’t focus on his face. I look past him to where
Mary sits by Dave, and Dave looks at me. My heart hammers, but the
look on his face disappoints me. It is all cheerful friendship. I
wonder if any of our kisses over the past days meant anything.
Tears burn in my eyes. But I blink them quickly away. I hope Jack
doesn’t notice.