If Mother had known exactly how deep the pond was, she had never told Lynn. The bucket handle was the only frame of reference she had.
Her boot stuck in the fresh mire near the pond’s edge as she struggled up the bank. It came free with a sucking sound and sent her reeling forward, dumping half a bucket of freezing water down her leg. “Son of a bitch!” She screamed the worst thing she’d ever heard Mother say, then kicked the bucket in anger, which only resulted in splashing her with more cold water.
Miserable and wet, she filled two more buckets and struggled toward the house with them. The basement air was warm and welcoming after the biting cold of the fall morning. Lynn peeled her wet clothes off and hung them from the rafters, put on fresh clothes and filled the stove pot with cold water. More wood went into the stove, and she checked her indoor supply. Low. Nearly out. She’d have to haul more before the end of the day if she was going to get the girl clean, her sheets sanitized, and a large enough fire to keep them warm through the night.
She considered waking the girl up and making her help, but the tiny little wrist hanging over the edge of her cot stopped her. It wasn’t much thicker than the kindling she used to start fires. If she asked her to haul wood, it might snap. Once she started throwing wood in through the window it would wake her. Lynn decided to give her a few more moments’ rest.
It was cold enough for her to slide mittens on to shield her fingers from the frigid metal of the antennae as she climbed to the roof. There was nothing to the south. Lynn rested her binoculars on her chest. She hadn’t heard gunshots lately; the men were not hunting, though three weeks ago they’d been desperate enough to steal a few cans of food from a young girl and a pregnant woman.
There was nothing from the Streamers’ camp. They were the Streamers again, nicely impersonal. Lynn chose not to think of them as Eli and Neva. Especially with no smoke rising after such a cold night.
She raised the binoculars again and searched for Stebbs, not finding him. If he was off gathering water at his mysterious source, she might be able to spot him on the return trip. Half an hour passed with no movement. Disappointed, she laid the binoculars on the shingles beside her. Twenty minutes later, a thread of worry had traced its way through her heart. Was he injured? Had she been too forceful with him last night when she threw him off balance? Had she hurt his leg?
A flash of red caught her attention and she snapped the binoculars back up. Stebbs emerged from inside, yawning and stretching. He patted his midsection a few times before sitting down on a large stump near his door. Lynn checked the sun. It was nearly ten in the morning. “Lazy asshole,” she muttered.
A rustling sound and the flight of several disturbed grasshoppers caught her attention and Lynn dropped the binoculars, snapping the rifle up to her shoulder. Below, Lucy burst out of a clump of grass, empty palms desperately smacking at the grasshoppers. A lump formed in Lynn’s throat.
“Hey,” she yelled toward the ground. “You don’t have to do that anymore.”
Lucy looked around, trying to find her.
“Up here,” Lynn called. “I’m on the roof.”
The little girl shaded her eyes and waved when she saw Lynn. “I don’t have to do what?”
“Eat grasshoppers,” Lynn explained as she climbed down the antennae. “I’ve got real food here.”
The girl made a face. “I wasn’t going to eat them. Who eats grasshoppers?”
“Uh, nobody I guess,” Lynn fumbled, forgetting that the boy had never fessed up to Lucy about what he was feeding her.
“I was catching them for you,” Lucy continued. “Eli always was saying that they made Mama happy, so I should catch as many as I could. I thought maybe they’d make you happy too.”
“It would make me happy if you didn’t come busting out of the grass like that,” Lynn said. “Don’t surprise me when I’ve got a gun. I don’t want to—”
She broke off, unable to speak around the lump that had gotten bigger.
“You don’t wanna what?”
“I don’t want to shoot you by accident.”
It began to rain. A lovely blessing for many reasons. Years ago, Mother had the insight to run a drainpipe from the roof down into the bathroom. The jagged edge of the rusty pipe was jammed with a piece of flannel that Lynn jerked free. A tide of rusted water and leaf debris came first, spilling into the bucket she’d brought. Once the rainwater ran clear she let it fall down into the tub to supplement the hot water she’d dragged up from the basement.
“Wuzzat?” Lucy’s nose wrinkled at the smell of the rotted leaves in the bucket.
“Just rotting stuff,” Lynn said, swirling her hand through the water to test the temperature. “This’ll even out in a second, and I’ll plug the pipe so it’s not dripping rainwater on your head.”
The girl shrugged her indifference and continued to pick at a scab on her knee. “Why don’t you turn on the faucet?”
Lynn sighed and rested her head on the side of the tub. “I told you, I don’t have running water. That’s why I was dragging buckets up from the basement.”
The mundane task of boiling water had brought quizzical Lucy to the edge of the cookstove, climbing onto a chair to pinpoint the exact moment the bubbles started forming on the surface. “How do I know when it’s boiling?”
The question had brought Lynn to an abrupt halt. “I don’t know, ’cause it’s . . . boiling.” The answer hadn’t satisfied Lucy, so Lynn had explained the concept of bubbles and steam. “Haven’t you ever boiled water?”
“No,” Lucy had said defensively. “Why would I?”
That response combined with the request to turn on the faucets caused Lynn’s own curiosity to flutter. “Where are you from anyway? What were you doing out in the woods?”
“Entargo,” the girl answered, testing the water with her fingertips.
Lynn stopped stirring the water. “Entargo,” she repeated. “The big city?”
“Yeah,” Lucy said, blissfully unaware of the effect her answer had. “We lived there my whole life, ’til we had to leave.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Don’t know. We just did.”
Lynn hadn’t known many people in her life, but the flat line of the girl’s mouth was familiar enough to her. There would be no more conversation along that line.
Lynn stuffed the flannel rag back into the end of the drainpipe, ignoring the spray that spattered her as she fought against the flow. She dug into the linen cupboard for a thin washcloth and a bar of flat white soap, handing them to the girl.
Lucy looked at the bar in her hand. “What’s this for?”
“It’s soap. To wash with.”
The girl looked dubiously at the bar, then sniffed it. “It doesn’t smell like the soap from home.”
“It smells like clean,” Lynn said brusquely. “Mother and I made that ourselves. That’s hard work, so don’t you be wasting it.”
Lucy closed her grip around the soap. “Where’s your mama?”
“Dead.”
The little girl nodded and stopped asking questions. Young as she was, she understood that the conversation ended there.
Lynn cleared her throat. “All right then. You clean up good. Wash your hair with this.” She handed Lucy a bottle filled with a green gel. “Let it sit for a bit before your rinse off.”
The girl bit down an objection when she saw the picture of a dog on the bottle, but took it meekly enough.
“Toss your clothes out in the hall,” Lynn continued. “I’ll be burning them.” There was no response so she slid out the door.
“Wait!” The anxious call brought her back.
“What is it?”
“I can’t do these,” the girl said, pointing to her shoelaces.
Lynn sighed and plopped onto the floor next to the girl. “It’s not so hard,” she said. “You just pull on the
