Light (Gone 6)

“I’ve done an inventory on food,” Albert announced without preamble. “It’s not good. I don’t suppose you have any idea how long we have to hold out?”

Edilio blinked. “No, the gaiaphage has not given me the schedule either for how long until the barrier comes down or how long until she attacks again. Sorry.”

Albert sniffed. “You’ve learned sarcasm, Edilio.”

“I’ve learned a lot of things, Albert.”

Albert nodded at a pair of kids wandering past the long-destroyed fountain. “See that kid? Hair’s falling out. We already have pretty severe malnutrition.”

“Why do you think I brought you back?” Edilio snapped.

Albert held his hands out in a See what I mean? gesture. “You’ve drafted everyone to play soldier. I know business isn’t your thing, Edilio, but I need labor. I need people picking the crops. If they’re holding guns, they’re not picking crops. If they’re not picking crops, they’re not producing food, and if they’re not producing food, they’re not eating. And not eating is what causes malnutrition.”

Despite the pedantic and obnoxious way he said it, Albert was not wrong, so Edilio bit his tongue and took the lecture.

He nodded. “Yep.”

“The point is, don’t blame me,” Albert said. “I did my part.”

“They’re not playing soldier, Albert. They’re scared to death. They’ve gone down to the barrier to be with their families when they die.”

“Well, that’s stupid, isn’t it?”

“Is it? We had a busload of field-workers not come back, remember? Anyway, the fire’s coming.”

Albert shook his head impatiently. “Actually, if you send them into the fields, they’re probably safer than here. Concentrating them here in town, or worse yet down at the barrier, just makes it easier for the gaiaphage. Plus everyone starves. Including me. I’m already sick of Parmesan cheese. It smells a little like vomit, if you think about it.”

The thing was, Albert was right. Starvation was a sure thing. “You’re right,” Edilio conceded. “Get anyone you can to the fields. Tell them I said so. Bribe them. Threaten them. Do your thing, Albert.”

It was bizarre, but the truth was that the most useful thing people could do was go to work. Even with the beast stalking Perdido Beach, someone had to pick the cabbage.

Sinder could put her finger on the moment when she broke.

She had come to help Lana with Taylor. And she’d been feeling honored, somehow, by the request, and by the opportunity to work alongside the Healer.

Once upon a time, a million years ago, Sinder had been a Goth girl, very into dark fantasies, very into the clothes, the makeup, the look, and most of all the I don’t care about the rest of you people; I’m living my life feeling.

Yeah, I’m weird: deal with it.

Then: the FAYZ. And black fingernail polish was no longer available. Neither was food. Or water. Or safety.

She had seen terrible things. She had lost friends.

Eventually she had found a place at the lake, and discovered that she had a power, maybe the best of all powers. What she touched grew. So, of all the strange, impossible-to-imagine outcomes, the FAYZ had given Sinder a whole new life. As a gardener.

Even now it almost made her smile.

Carrots, cabbages, radishes, anything they could find seeds for, she could grow. Not like pop! overnight. Not like some special effect. Just like she had a really amazing green thumb, and when she spent time in her vegetable patch with Jezzie, she could grow some serious veggie. Some unusually big, fast-growing veg.

She had left the patch in Jezzie’s care. They had been farmers together, hoeing, weeding, watering. Talking about life.

Then had come the burned, wounded, terrified survivors of the lake. And Jezzie was not with them. None of Sinder?

?s friends were with them. Everyone she was close to had been slaughtered.

And that was when Sinder broke.

She had crept away in the night—no one cared. She had walked toward the bright lights of out there. They were magic, those lights. The FAYZ was so dark. Like being in some ancient village, back in the Middle Ages, or maybe in some forgotten jungle. It was always so dark.