Year One (33 page)

Max smiled at her. “The longest day. A time for celebrating.”

“Yes, and some of us will. I think it may be too soon—only a few days away—for a full community celebration. We need more time to plan that, and I think that's just what we need.”

“Fourth of July was always my favorite holiday growing up.”

Arlys turned, smiled at Will. “I remember. Barbecue, marching bands, hot dogs, and fireworks.”

“My mom's cherry pie.”

“I fondly remember your mom's cherry pie.”

“A New Hope–style Independence Day. We've got like three
weeks to set it up,” Will pointed out. “And the setting up will get people juiced up, right?”

“The all-American holiday.” Arlys cocked her head. “Food, games, crafts, music, dancing. I like it. I really like it.”

“We could start the day with a memorial for those we've lost.” Lana reached for Max's hand. “To honor friends and family who aren't with us. And end the day in celebration.”

“Now I like it even more. I'm going to work on a
Bulletin
,” Arlys decided. “I'll get it out today.”

“I've got a couple of ideas on that,” Will told Arlys. “I'll walk down with you. This is a good thing, Lana. It's a good thing.”

“I'll go give Jonah the heads-up. Will's right.” Rachel tapped Lana's arm. “This is a good thing.”

Alone on the porch with Lana, Max sat looking out on the town. “You're happy here? It's just us,” he said before she could answer.

“It's not the life I ever imagined for us. And there are still times I wake up expecting to be in the loft. There's a lot I miss. Just walking home in the noise and the crowds. I remember how we'd just started to talk about taking a couple of weeks and going to Italy or France. I remember, and I miss. But yes, I'm happy here. I'm with you, and in a few months, we'll have a daughter. We're alive, Max. You got us out of a nightmare and brought us here.

“Are you? Happy here?”

“It's not the life I imagined, either, and there's a lot I miss. But I'm with you. We're having a child. We're both able to do work that satisfies us, and have powers we're both still learning to understand. There's a purpose. We're alive, and there's a purpose. We'll celebrate that.”

*   *   *

The day of the festival dawned soft and pink.

Lana spent the beginning of it, as she had the day before, in food prep with her kitchen team. She focused in on her area, leaving the decorations—with Fred leading that charge—to others.

She'd made countless patties of venison and wild turkey while listening to musicians practicing and hammers striking nails. In the hall outside the kitchen, Bryar and others worked with groups of children to make Chinese lanterns—red, white, and blue—and paper stars that bore the names of loved ones lost.

As the blue washed away the pink, Lana stepped outside, moved to see so many gathered while a newly formed choir sang “Amazing Grace.”

She watched Bill and Will Anderson hang their stars on the old oak at the edge of the green. How they stood with Arlys when she hung hers.

And so many others who stepped forward with those symbols until they crowded the lower branches.

It touched her to see Starr step forward to hang her own.

The lanterns the faeries would light as dusk circled the park. Garlands of flowers decked lampposts and newly constructed arbors. Grills formed a line in a designated cooking area.

By noon, musicians played in a gazebo volunteers had finished painting only the night before. Those grills smoked.

Crafts lined tables—all up for barter. Kids got their faces painted or took pony rides. Others played boccie or horseshoes.

The gardens offered a banquet—tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, summer corn (Rachel said the baby was as long as a healthy ear of corn now).

The weather, bright and hot, had many sprawled in the shade, drinking cups of the gallons and gallons of sun tea the community kitchen provided.

She heard talk of putting together a softball team, one for adults,
one for kids, and using the Little League field half a mile outside the town proper.

More talk of expanding the farm, moving it to one of the farms a mile out.

Good talk, she thought, hopeful talk.

She danced with Max over the green grass in a summer dress that billowed over her belly. Basking in the sunlight, she gossiped with Arlys while Eddie jammed on his harmonica. On the swings, Fred and Katie swayed back and forth with babies on their laps.

Was she happy? Max had asked her a few weeks before. On this day, at this moment, she could give him an unqualified yes.

She lifted a hand to wave at Kim and Poe, and sighed. “We'll do this every year, won't we?”

“I think that's a definite yes. And,” Arlys added, “we'll put something together for the holidays—Christmas, Hanukkah.”

“Yes! Winter solstice.” Lana rubbed circles over her belly. “It'll be her first.”

Arlys lifted her face, shook back her hair—a sassy swing with highlights again thanks to Clarice. “You still haven't come up with a name for the baby?”

“We're playing around but nothing's sticking yet. Last summer, I was just moving in with Max. It seemed so huge, so amazing. Now, here we are, expecting a child. Max is playing horseshoes. I'd bet my entire supply of baking powder he's never played that before in his life.”

She let out a laugh when he threw one, had it pause and revolve in midair, backtrack, then drop neatly onto the post.

“And he cheats!”

The maneuver had Carla—his partner—cheering, and Manning—one of his opponents—erupting in mock outrage. Max lifted his hands in an innocent gesture, then glanced at Lana. Grinned, winked.

“He was also so serious about the Craft. He'd lighten up with me, but he would never have played like that before. It's good to see him relax. I'm going to go pick more corn—and give the other team a little boost on the way.”

“I'll give you a hand.”

Lana pushed herself up, wandered toward the horseshoe pitch. More corn, definitely, she thought as she scanned tables. And tomatoes. She'd check on the supply of wild turkey and venison burgers.

But first she guided Manning's flung horseshoe to the post, had it execute a trio of flips before hitting with a clanging ring. Gave Max a grin and a wink.

Manning let out a laughing hoot, did a little dance, then blew her a kiss.

Yes, she thought, it was good, so good, to just play.

“Hey.” Will ran up, tugged Arlys's arm. “We need another for boccie.”

“I was just going to—”

“Oh, go ahead. I'm an expert corn picker now.”

“I don't know anything about boccie.”

“Good, neither do I.” Will grabbed her hand, glanced at the stars swaying on the branches. “It's a good day.” On impulse he leaned over, kissed Lana's cheek. Then turned Arlys to him, kissed her, slow and easy, on the mouth. “A really good day.”

Lana smiled all the way into the corn.

It smelled green and earthy, and the music, the voices, the ring of metal on metal followed her as she twisted ears of corn from the stalks. She heard children laughing, a magical sound to her ear, carried on the gentle sigh of the summer breeze.

Everything felt so peaceful, the blue sweep of sky, the tall green stalks, the brush of them against her skin.

She stood a moment, her arms filled with corn, giving thanks for what she had.

The baby kicked—a fast flurry of kicks—that nearly had her bobbling the ears. She heard one of Katie's babies cry out, long and shrill over the music and voices. As she turned to start back, something fluttered to the ground in front of her.

She glanced down. Froze.

It was scorched, its edges curled and blackened, but she recognized the photo of her and Max together, the photo she'd packed before they'd left New York. The photo that had been in the house in the mountains when …

Overhead, in a sky going thick, going gray, black crows circled.

“Max!” Corn thudded to the ground as she ran, as she shoved through the verdant stalks. As she heard the first cracks of gunfire.

Screams echoed as she fought her way clear.

People ran, scattered, dived for cover, returned fire.

She saw Carla sprawled on the ground, eyes wide and staring. And Manning, oh God, Manning bleeding on the soft dirt of the horseshoe pitch.

Her own scream clogged in her throat as Kurt Rove smashed the butt of his rifle into Chuck's face.

All around her men fired guns and arrows indiscriminately as men and women she knew grabbed children to shield them or to rush them to safety.

Rainbow, who taught yoga every morning, threw a shimmering shield over a woman with a toddler. Then her body pitched forward from a bullet in the back.

Lana saw a man—tall, lean, his golden mane of hair rippling— lift a rifle, aiming it up as Fred rose, wings furiously batting, one of the babies wrapped in her arms.

In seconds, only seconds, the world changed.

Lana had no weapon but her power, and threw it out, all instinct. The rifle aimed at Fred and the child flew out of the man's hands. And he turned his crazed blue gaze on her.

“There.” He pointed. The man beside him, dark and muscular, the purity tattoo bold on his biceps, lifted his hands. He held a gun in each. “Kill the witch!” he shouted.

Even as Lana lifted her hands to fight, to protect her child, thunder blasted. The ground shook with it.

“Ours!”

Rising behind the building, wings scorched, faces scarred, Eric and Allegra loomed.

Everything seemed to stop. An illusion as she heard the screams, the gunfire, even the slicing
swish
of the stalks as some ran to hide there.

They'd survived. They lived. And she saw death in their eyes.

She gathered all she had to fight.

Max sprinted to her, shoved her back. “Run!”

“Where?” Spewing black bolts toward the sky, Eric let out a laugh. “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Step aside, brother. We don't want you this time.”

“We want what's inside her.” With a flash of wings, Allegra swooped lower. Max thrust out, pushed Lana back.

“Run. Save our daughter.”

“Together. We're stronger. We have more.” Lana gripped Max's hand.

“There's no need for this, Eric, for any of it,” Max shouted. “You're aligning yourself with a madman who hunts our kind. He'll turn on you. They'll all turn on you.”

“Wow, I never thought of that.” He shot Allegra a surprised look. “Maybe we should think about this. Except … Yeah, I forgot one thing. You tried to
kill
me. I was wrong, Max. We do want you. Dead.”

“Both of them. The three of them!” Pale hair flying, Allegra shouted. “We call the dark. We rule the dark! And with it cut off the light.”

As Lana did with Max, Allegra gripped Eric's hand. Snarling thunder, black lightning. With Max, Lana blocked the blows, shoved them back.

And felt the power quake the ground under her feet.

Blood bloomed on Max's arm where a bolt slipped through. Across the field, others ran toward them. Flynn and Lupa, Jonah, Aaron.

For a moment, her hope leaped. Together, all of them, they'd push back the dark.

“They're coming to help. We just have to—”

Lana saw the wave of black, felt the first biting edge of it before Max spun her around. His eyes met hers, held hers as he cloaked her, cloaked their child with his body.

He took the full force of the hate, of the dark. The shock jolted through him into her as they flew together, fell together into the stalks. Blood ran from the gash where that keen edge caught her arm.

Breath gone, head spinning, she crawled free, rolled, tried to drag Max to safety.

He lay covered with blood from countless wounds, his skin scored from burns.

“No. No. Max.” She knew, even as she dragged his body into her arms, even as she pressed her face to his, she knew he was gone.

Gone. Taken. Murdered.

The rage, the grief, the roaring fury spewed up in her. Covered in his blood, spilling her own, she released it on a scream that cleaved the air like a blade.

It gushed out wild and red against the oily black.

She heard her scream answered with howls of pain.

Run. He'd told her to run, but she hadn't listened. He'd told her to save their child, but he'd given his life to save them both.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Choking on sobs, she dragged Max's gun belt free. Tenderly, she drew the ring from his finger, pushed it onto her thumb. She kissed his face, his lips, his hands.

Save the child, whatever the cost.

She heard his voice in her head, in her heart and, sobbing, pushed through the stalks toward the forest. She began to run.

A movement to her right had her whirling, hand thrown up to fight, to defend. Starr flowed out of the tree.

“You're hurt.”

Lana could only shake her head.

“You hurt them more.”

As Starr gestured back, Lana looked toward the park. Whatever had exploded out of her, that mad, red, raging grief, had leveled some of the attackers. She saw no sign of Eric or Allegra other than a thin haze of smoke smearing the sky.

It twisted the raw edges of her already shattered heart to see Arlys limping toward Carla's body, Rachel kneeling beside an unconscious and bloodied Chuck. Others she knew, cared for, rushing to help, or racing toward the street, guns in hand.

“Katie, the babies?”

“Jonah got them inside. They killed Rainbow. She was good. They came for you. For her,” Starr said, reaching out and for the first time in weeks touching anyone, touched a hand to Lana's child.

“I can't stay. They'll come back. I can't … They killed Max.”

“I'm sorry. He was good.” Starr bowed her head. “They want us dead, all of us, but the Savior most.”