After the Flood. Kassandra montag

you’re still not coming with us?” I asked.

      A pained expression crossed his face. “I shouldn’t.”

      He looked down at his hands on the table and I could feel him resisting us. As though there were two magnets in him—one pulling him away and another pulling him closer.

      BEFORE SETTLING ON our boat for the night we searched the coast for firewood. The rule in most villages was anything small or damaged, like driftwood, could be claimed by anyone. Anything larger was considered property of the village and needed to be bought. If you were caught taking good wood that could be used for building you could be thrown in prison or even hanged.

      The three of us drifted apart across the beach, scanning the sand for driftwood or kindling. I picked up a piece of dirty cloth and pulled up a clump of dried grass and stuffed them in my pockets. Daniel walked toward me, carrying a few sticks and an old paper bag.

      “I was thinking, you might want to reconsider your trip,” he said.

      “Why’s that?” I asked.

      “Atlantic crossings are rough. Your boat is suited to the Pacific coast. It’ll be expensive to build another one.” Daniel kicked sand off a rock. “News in the saloon earlier was about how the Lily Black has a new captain, who is using biological warfare now. Rabid dogs, smallpox blankets. They start an epidemic, cut a population in half, and then take it over and make it a colony. They’re looking at northern villages.”

      “Yeah, I’ve heard that,” I muttered and bent to pick up a discarded shoe. I took the shoelace out, stuffed it in my pocket, and tossed the shoe aside.

      “I know this Valley place sounds nice, but … is it worth the risk?” Daniel asked.

      I looked at him. When he met my eyes I saw he knew I had another reason for going. His question set me on edge. I realized I couldn’t see Pearl anywhere on the beach. “Where’s Pearl?”

      Daniel turned and looked over his shoulder. “I thought she was just over thataways.”

      I scanned the beach. No sign of anyone, except a couple of people farther down the beach, behind a cluster of rocks. Pins and needles spread down my spine. I had heard of children just disappearing. Parents turning around and them being gone. Kidnapping was a new form of pickpocketing, and seemingly, for those good at it, just as easy.

      “Pearl!” I called, trying to stay calm.

      “Maybe she went back to the boat?” Daniel asked, in a carefree tone that enraged me.

      “Of course she didn’t,” I said, glaring at him. “Pearl!” I screamed.

      “Calm down—”

      “Don’t tell me to calm down!” I shouted at Daniel. “What do you know about losing a child?”

      I took off running, calling Pearl’s name, sand flying off my heels. To my left the mountain rose in a steep rock face and to my right the ocean stretched past the horizon. I leapt over a pile of seaweed and kept running and calling for her. It was eerily quiet on the beach, everything gone still. Even a small boat a mile from the coast seemed anchored, stuck in place as though painted into the landscape.

      I stopped running and quickly turned in a circle. There was nowhere she could have gone; it felt like she’d been lifted up into the sky. Panic rose up in my chest. I could hear Daniel’s footsteps behind me, and farther behind him the cries of seagulls.

      Pearl crawled out from a crevice in the mountain, a crack at the base only three feet wide, and she held a bundle of driftwood.

      “All the wood is in the cave,” she called out to us.

      I inhaled sharply. Her small body silhouetted by the darkness behind her, both familiar and strange, someone made from me and separate from me.

      I ran to her and pulled her into a hug before pulling her back from me and tilting her chin up to face me.

      “You need to stay in sight,” I said.

      “I found the wood.”

      “Pearl, I’m serious.”

      Daniel caught up to us.

      “She always overreacts,” Pearl told Daniel as I stepped into the crevice to pick up an armful of wood.

      He reached forward and tousled her hair. “No,” he said. “She doesn’t.”

       CHAPTER 10

      WE LIT A small fire on deck inside the metal lid of a trash can. We grilled half the chicken from our earlier trade and I started making a small loaf of bread. Pearl got two small pans from beneath the deck cover, along with a cup of water from the cistern.

      The sun set as the chicken grilled, and I swore I could smell lilacs drifting toward us from land. Daniel and Pearl laughed at me when I told them this. They teased me about wishful thinking. But it was just land—being close to land stirring my memories. Smelling fresh-cut grass or in-season flowers. Expecting the mail at noon. All these memories like a phantom limb. Maybe that was the real reason Pearl and I stayed on the water.

      Pearl danced a little jig for Daniel and showed him her two favorite snakes, their thin heads sliding above the rim of her clay jar when she lifted the lid. She pleaded with him to tell her a story. He told her about how he grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and spent hours hiking through the woods as a child and once stumbled upon a moose.

      “What is a moose?” Pearl interrupted him.

      Daniel looked at me. “Well, they are big …” he started.

      “Like a whale?” Pearl asked.

      “Uh, maybe a small whale. But they have fur and antlers.”

      Pearl frowned in confusion and I could tell she was trying to imagine it but had no reference.

      “Think of a really big goat, with really big horns,” I told her before Daniel started his story again.

      “Then the moose pulled its ears back and dipped its head low and charged at me,” Daniel made a quick gesture with his hands and Pearl jumped. “It was only twenty feet away and I knew I couldn’t outrun it. So I raised my arms and yelled at it.”

      Pearl giggled. “What did you yell?”

      “Get away from me, you beast! Be off! Go away!” Daniel mimed waving his arms and yelling. “It was pretty ridiculous, but it worked. I pretended to be bigger.”

      The firelight flickered across their faces, sending a warm glow over every surface. I kneaded the flour and water on the back of the pan, listening to them. It was good for Pearl, being around another person, I thought.

      “Are there any moose now?” Pearl asked.

      I shook my head. “They’re all gone.”

      “Maybe there are a few somewhere,” Pearl said.

      “Maybe,” Daniel said.

      We ate the chicken and I baked the bread in two pans, one pan on top of the other to make a small oven. After it got dark, Pearl curled under the deck cover and Daniel and I sat in the moonlight, the fire dying to embers, our voices flickering on the wind.

      “The reason you won’t travel with anyone anymore,” I said. “Is it that woman you told me about?”

      “A little. And because it gets too complicated when other people get involved.”

      I tilted my head and he sighed.

      “My mom and I lived alone during the Six Year Flood. She was diabetic. When the water started coming I loaded up on insulin, traveling to the local hospitals that weren’t already ransacked or flooded. Got quite a bit. But most of it got stolen before we took to the water. We headed west and did okay for a while, but she died two years