Page 10 of The Midnight Hour
Plus, we’ll have to leave this truck behind, which is something else I don’t like. Without a vehicle, we are as vulnerable as if we were naked. How will we travel the last ninety or so miles to this semi-mythical base? Byfoot?
More than any of that, though, is the fear I have at facing the outside world. Every time I’ve done it before, to investigate or get supplies, it’s ended in disaster. What might await us as we travel south to Buffalo? And barring any attacks, will we even have enough food? What if someone gets hurts or sick? Kyle’s bullet wound might get infected; Phoebe could catch pneumonia.Anythingcould happen. Disaster feels like it is a mere second away.
I hear a sound behind me, and this time I don’t whirlaround, rifle drawn. I make myself turn around slowly, and smile at the sight of my tangle-haired daughter picking her way through the weeds.
“Hey, Rubes.”
She smiles faintly but doesn’t speak as she joins me at the stream’s edge. I watch her, noticing how much she’s grown; her long legs are slender and coltish and the clothes we brought back in November don’t fit her anymore. I cut off an old pair of jeans for shorts, and she’s been living in those and a couple of t-shirts that I can see pull across her shoulders and barely brush her navel. Never mind food, where will we get clothes for her? Mattie can give her some of hers, but after seven months everything we own is already worn and shabby.
There were a few of my parents’ clothes in the cottage that we took with us, packed in the car in case of an attack, like what actually happened, but it’s not enough. And what about Phoebe? She’ll grow and grow, and we only have a handful of toddler clothes Justine had brought that she’s already growing out of.
Ruby crouches at the stream’s edge and then glances over her shoulder at me, motioning with a hand.
“Did you find something?” I ask as I stir myself to join her. Clothes, I think again, are only one small part of the complicated problem. There are so many other things we’ll run out of, and that’s if we even have them in the first place—gas, medicine,food. You can only pretend-play pioneers for so long, especially when your meals are mainly leaves and roots with a few potatoes, and you’re on the run.
Ruby is holding a cattail, its brown, fuzzy head pinched under her thumb. “Is it edible?” I ask, and she nods, smiling. In the last few months, since the start of spring, she’s been studying a book on useful plants that she found in the bookcase at the cottage, collecting a few specimens, trying out recipes for food and medicine, along with household basics. She’s madedish soap from soapwort, antiseptic from chamomile, and tea from spicebush. Admittedly, I’d much rather buy it all from Costco, but I’m grateful for her interest and willingness, mashing and boiling and steeping various weed-like plants to make something we’re all willing to try, even if none of it is very filling.
“So what do you do with cattail?” I ask. “Bake it, grind it into flour, or eat it raw with ranch dressing?” I’m only half-teasing; all three of those suggestions were in the book, for various plants.
“Boil it, I think,” Ruby replies, her voice little more than a whisper that the breeze tugs away. I try to think of the last time she spoke, and I can’t remember. It’s been a few days and so I’m heartened that she answered me at all. “We can make porridge with it.”
“Cattail porridge!” I rub my stomach theatrically. “Yum. Shall we pick some? How much do we need?”
“Four or five stalks each,” she decides, and we spend a companionable twenty minutes gathering cattails, pulling them up from the muddy bank of the stream with a soft sucking sound as the roots come free. The edges of the leaves are sharp, though, and I give myself several papercuts. Some part of me perversely welcomes the pain.
When we both have arms full of the plants, we head up the bank, back through the woods, to the campsite. Mattie is sitting by the fire, carefully combing Phoebe’s dark hair; the little girl is perched in her lap, utterly still. Kyle is still asleep in the truck, his clothes stiff with dried sweat, but he’s broken his fever, at least. Daniel and Sam are organizing our supplies in the back of the truck; yesterday we just threw everything in there, but today we need order. We need a plan.
“So show me how to do it,” I instruct Ruby, and she glances at me shyly, clearly pleased to be in charge. Wordlessly she sets about her work—stripping the cattails of their outer bark toreveal creamy white stalks that do look fairly edible, if not quite delicious or filling.
She sets a pot of water over the campfire and stirs up the coals, every inch the competent pioneer woman who knows what she’s doing. More than I do, anyway.
“Are we eating those?” Mattie asks, making a face, as Ruby starts chopping the stalks.
“We have to use our natural food sources when we can,” I tell her, trying to ignore the worry that needles through me as I consider what will happen when there is no food. If we don’t make it to the base in Buffalo, or it doesn’t exist, or something,anything, happens. I keep my voice light as I continue, “I hear they taste just like chicken.”
Mattie rolls her eyes. “Mom, they’re plants.”
“Okay, like potatoes, then. Or actually,” I amend, remembering what Ruby said, “like porridge.”
She raises her eyebrows. “You have no idea, do you?”
I give her a grin. “Nope.”
A smile flickers about Mattie’s mouth, and my grin widens; despite all the anxieties that continue to dog me, I feel heartened. Yesterday my children seemed alienated from me, stubbornly spinning in their own orbits, but today I feel as if we’re gaining back old ground. I glance toward Sam, but he’s focused on the task at hand, stacking plastic crates of supplies by the truck.
I breathe out and turn back to Ruby. “So boiled cattails for breakfast? Maybe I can find some berries to go with them.” I glance at Mattie. “Mattie? Why don’t you come pick with me?”
Mattie frowns, her arm wrapped around Phoebe’s waist as she strokes the little girl’s silky hair. “I can’t leave Phoebe.”
Can’t? I glance at the little girl with her straight, dark hair and deep brown eyes; the look on her face is completely expressionless, unfocused, as if she’s not entirely here. It worries me.
“Let’s bring Phoebe with us, then,” I tell Mattie. I crouch infront of the little girl, feeling ashamed that I don’t know her better. And even worse, that part of me is viewing her as a potential burden rather than a human being worthy of love, care, and attention.
“Hey, Phoebe, sweetheart,” I say gently. “Do you want to pick strawberries with Mattie and me?”
Phoebe gazes at me with her big, dark eyes and beyond that unnerving blankness I see a flicker of wariness, even suspicion. She doesn’t trust me, and I’m not sure I blame her. You can’t fool a child.
“Well?” I ask, raising my eyebrows, doing my best to sound playful. “What about it? Shall we go find some yummy berries for breakfast?”
