Shadows Have Gone (17 page)

Sam lay beside her in the shade, gnawing on an empty corn cob that he trapped between his paws. Carly watched to make sure he wasn’t actually eating it, because she had nightmare visions of him getting it stuck in his digestive tract and them having to figure out stomach surgery on the fly, but he spit out the chunks he chewed off. She noticed he watched closely when any of the kids approached the horses, because he considered Shadowfax and Storm to be part of his “pack” but hadn’t quite gotten to the point where he saw the children as members. As soon as he was sure the horses were enjoying the attention, he’d look away and go back to chewing.

Sam had accepted his pack was comprised of one wolf, four humans, and two horses, and in Carly’s mind it sort of symbolized the families that had emerged after the Infection. Carly looked around and saw families of all kinds, traditional and nontraditional, bound together by love and common experiences. It gave her hope.

Carly rolled her head on her neck to stretch her shoulders and found herself smiling. Despite the hard work, the soreness, the sting in her burning hands, she was happy. Her community was thriving, and it had a future she could see in all these people working together, the laughing children, and Mindy’s growing belly. It was what she’d hoped for when they had settled here, and it was even better than she had dreamed.

“I’m thinking of going back to Clayton tomorrow,” Justin said, and the bubble of Carly’s warm happiness popped.

Carly’s hands stilled. After a moment, she tossed the empty corncob she’d just finished into a pile to be collected for use as firewood. “Justin . . .”

“Why do you want me to avoid it?” he said.

“I . . . I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.” Justin tossed aside another cob. “It’s pretty obvious.”

Carly wiped her forehead with the back of her glove. “Everything is peaceful and quiet right now. Can’t we just . . . leave it that way? You haven’t seen any sign there’s been spies lurking around, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Then maybe they decided to move on.”

Justin gave a short laugh. “Your first impulse when you saw them was to run to them, and now you want to hide.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Do you want to have contact with them?”

“Only if they’re staying in this area. If they are, I want to know about them and make sure they’re not a threat. The first step would be to see if anything has been left near Clayton. I’ve stayed away. Longer than I said I would, actually. So if they did leave a message, it’s been there for a while, and they haven’t followed up on it by making any encroachments on our territory.”

“Okay.” Carly ripped off the husk around another ear of corn.

“Okay what?”

“
Okay
okay.”

Justin leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I love it when you get all verbose. Nothing hotter than an articulate woman.”

Carly bonked him with the ear of corn.

“Miss Carly?”

Carly turned her head toward the voice and saw Justin stiffen out of the corner of her eye. It was Michael, the silent young boy adopted by Stacy, who had experienced some kind of panic attack while Carly was sick with malaria.

“Hi, Michael, how are you?” Carly smiled at him and kept her voice as gentle as she could. She wanted to show him she didn’t bear him any ill-will for what had happened, though Justin obviously still did. He wouldn’t even look in Michael’s direction. His fists were clenched, and the ear of corn he’d been shucking lay across his legs, forgotten.

“I’m okay. Better, I mean.” The boy licked his lips and glanced around, his dark eyes darting. He shuffled his feet and licked his lips again.

“Are you still staying with Mark?” Carly asked. She didn’t want to call his living arrangements “house arrest,” but this was the first time she’d seen him out in public since he attacked her.

Michael nodded. “Yeah, he’s . . . he’s been taking care of me, and we’ve been talking and stuff. I need to say, that is, there’s something I gotta tell you.”

“What’s that?”

Michael took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you. I wasn’t really . . . I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t really thinking clearly. I’d never want to hurt you.”

“I know that,” Carly said. She reached over and ruffled his silky black hair. The boy froze when she touched him but then smiled as though it had released some sort of valve inside him. His eyes were shiny, and Carly saw him blink rapidly a few times.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better now,” she said, “and I’m glad you can talk to us now about what’s bothering you.”

Michael had been silent for so long that they’d wondered if he was unable to speak, but when he thought Carly had the Infection, it had seemed to jar loose the words he’d been holding back. They all dealt with trauma in different ways, Carly reminded herself. Maybe Michael was finally on the path to recovery. It gave her hope for all of them. Maybe their trauma wouldn’t come out in such dramatic fashion, but they could begin to deal with it in their own ways.

He nodded. “For a long time, it was like I couldn’t find the words. I could hear them in my mind, but they wouldn’t come out of my mouth. I don’t know why. And then after a while, it was like I didn’t have anything to say. Now Mark says I can’t be quiet anymore because that’s what . . . well, that’s what caused me to hurt you. Because I kept everything locked up inside. And I’m really sorry.”

“I know,” Carly said. “I know. I forgive you. We’re friends again, okay?”

Michael glanced at Sam, who was watching him with mild curiosity, obviously not seeing the boy as any kind of threat. He hadn’t even gotten to his feet. He returned to gnawing on the corncob propped between his paws.

“I know it sounds stupid, but I’ve been talking to Buttercup, too.” He flushed a little as he said it. “Veronica brings him over to play with me.”

“Animals are good for conversation,” Carly said. “Sometimes better than people. I still talk to Sam about things I feel like I can’t say to other people. And I think he understands. He doesn’t judge.”

“Thank you.” From the way he said it, Michael wasn’t just referring to her understanding about his talks with Buttercup. “Veronica said she’s going to bring the puppy by your house tonight so she can play with Sam.”

“That’s great!” Carly tried to sound enthused, but she was going to be exhausted having an energetic eleven-year-old demanding her attention. Worse, Veronica’s visit would get Dagny riled up in the evening instead of settled down. But Sam needed some playtime. The wolf had his own trauma. Since the death of Tigger, his playfulness had all but vanished. The first inkling of it Carly had seen was when he had first met Buttercup, then too young to play.

Where was Veronica, anyway? Carly looked around for her, but she didn’t see her with the corn shuckers and hadn’t seen her outside with the other kids watching the drying corn, either.

“I don’t want him in my house,” Justin muttered when Michael had departed to go back to where Mark was helping Grady gather up piles of the discarded husks.

“He’s getting better.”

“I know. But the kid’s unstable.”

“We’re all unstable.” Carly began working on another ear.

“You’re not to be alone with him,” Justin said firmly.

Carly refrained from rolling her eyes. “Justin, I really don’t think he’s going to try to harm me, and besides, when I’m not weak with illness, I can take care of myself pretty well.”

“Still . . . for my peace of mind.”

Carly took a deep breath. Compromise, she reminded herself. A successful marriage was dependent on compromise. And not smothering your husband in a pile of corn husks. “All right.”

As promised, Veronica stopped by that evening, her arms full of a wriggling puppy. She plunked Buttercup down on the floor, and the puppy darted over to sniff at Sam and then at everything else in the room. Carly remembered Sam at that stage, curious about everything and full of enthusiasm about the world he saw as one big toy just waiting to be played with. It was a stark reminder of how much he had changed. She was heartened to see him get to his feet and wag his tail, hopping a little when the puppy darted at his ankles.

“She’s adorable,” Carly said as the puppy bounced around in an approximation of a play bow. She let out a high-pitched squeak that was supposed to be a bark, and Sam responded by lowering his muzzle down to her level and giving a loud huff. Buttercup was not intimidated in the slightest and pounced on his head but fell off and rolled onto her back.

“She’s super smart,” Veronica said. She scooped up the puppy and stood her on her feet. “She already knows some of her commands.”

She held her hand over the top of Buttercup’s head. “Sit!”

Buttercup did, though Carly wasn’t sure if it was because she knew the word, or if it was because she lost her balance trying to tilt her head back to watch where Veronica’s hand was going.

Veronica beamed with pride. “See?”

“Wow, that’s amazing!” Carly said. “You’re doing such an awesome job with her.”

“You won’t believe what I saw today,” Veronica said as she sat down on the sofa, watching the two canines pounce at one another, their back ends sticking up in the air and tails waving.

“What’s that?” Carly asked without much interest. She began to brush Dagny’s hair while the baby was distracted by watching Sam and Buttercup play. It kept her from squirming and yelping as Carly worked out the tangles from the fine light brown strands.

“There was a family in a wagon on the road, and they said—”

Carly sat up. “A family? On what road? Where were you?”

Veronica squirmed. “Where I shouldn’t have been, I guess. It was while you guys were loading up the corn into the wagon. I . . . um . . . I went exploring.”

Carly suppressed a sigh. “Where did you go?”

“I was on Route 9.”

Carly’s eyes widened. “Good grief.”

Veronica shrugged. “I knew I
could get back fast if I took a shortcut through the back woods.”

“All right. We’ll leave that for a minute. What did you see?”

“It was two people. Two women. I stopped to say hi to them and find out where they were going. They were scared. They were traveling through this area because they said most people avoid it these days, and they were hoping if they slipped through, they wouldn’t see anyone else. Any other travelers, I mean. It can be dangerous for two women, so they came this way when other travelers don’t.”

“People are avoiding this area now?”

Veronica nodded. “I guess Justin’s signs got the news out. And they’d heard . . . they’d heard some people don’t come back if they travel this way.”

“I’m surprised they talked to you, then.”

Veronica shrugged. “I’m a girl. You’d be surprised how many people make assumptions about you based on whether you’re a boy or girl.”

Carly smothered a smile. “I guess so. What did you tell them?”

“That we killed the bad guys and we’re normal people here in Colby. They’re nice ladies, so I think they’d be okay to trade with. I’m not sure I convinced them. They may have thought I was doing what Marcus used to do and lure people in, but they may get up the courage. I wanted to tell you that in case Justin is scouting so he doesn’t scare them.”

“He wouldn’t,” Carly said. She thought of how long Justin had watched her before he began cautious forays to try to approach her.

Something occurred to her and Carly frowned. “Veronica, what were they wearing?”

Veronica’s forehead wrinkled, and she gave a slight shake of her head. “I don’t know. Normal clothes I guess.”

“Not uniforms?”

“No, I would have remembered that.”

“Did they have the usual stuff in their wagon, like clothes and food and keepsakes? Not real . . . organized?” She couldn’t think of how to word it, but she imagined army supplies would be in uniformly-shaped cases, not the hodgepodge collection of most travelers.

“I don’t know. Everything looked normal to me.”

“Okay.”

Carly resumed brushing Dagny’s hair. Sam and Buttercup had moved on to playful tussling. Buttercup was attacking Sam as he lay on the ground, and he was swiping at her with his open mouth, though not closing his teeth around her when he caught her, surprisingly gentle for such a large creature. His soft rumbles punctuated Buttercup’s high-pitched play growls.

“You know Stacy is probably going to hit the ceiling when you tell her about you wandering off again and talking to a couple of strangers.”

Veronica bit her lip. “Maybe . . . maybe this is something we don’t have to tell her?”

“Nope, sorry. I think this qualifies as one of those things you can’t conceal. What if they come to town and ask about you? How’s Stacy gonna feel then, knowing you hid it from her?”

Veronica’s eyes widened. “I never thought about that.”

“See? Tell the truth and you never have to worry about covering all the possibilities for getting caught.”

Veronica looked over at the playing dogs. “Guess I’d better have fun now, because I’ll probably be grounded for the rest of my life.”