Astrid laughed. “You’re one of those people, I think. You go along in your life just sort of living. And then something goes wrong and there you are. You step up and do what you have to do. Like today, the fire.”
“Yeah, well, to tell you the truth, I kind of prefer the other part. The part where I just live my life.”
Astrid nodded like she understood, but then she said, “That’s not going to happen this time.”
Sam hung his head and looked down at the lawn below. A lizard scampered across a stone walkway. Quick, slow, quick, then it disappeared. “Look, don’t expect too much from me, okay?”
“Okay, Sam.” She said it, but not like she meant it. “Tomorrow we’re going to figure this all out.”
“And find your brother.”
“And find my brother.”
She turned away. Sam stayed on the balcony. He couldn’t hear the surf. There was very little breeze. But he could smell flowers from the grounds below. And the salt smell of the Pacific hadn’t changed.
He had told Astrid he was scared, and he was. But there were other feelings, too. The emptiness of the too-quiet night seeped into him. He was alone. Even with Astrid and Quinn, he was alone. He knew what they did not.
The change was so big that he couldn’t get his mind to take it all in.
It was all connected, he was sure of that. What he had done to his stepfather, what he had done in his room, what had happened with the little pigtailed flamethrower, the disappearance of everyone over the age of fourteen, and this impermeable, impossible barrier—all were pieces of the same puzzle.
And his mother’s diary, that too.
He was scared, overwhelmed, lonely. But less lonely in one way than he had been these last months. The little firestarter proved that he was not the only one with power.
He was not the only freak.
He held up his hands and looked at his palms. Pink skin, calluses from waxing his surfboard, a life line, a fate line. Just a palm.
How? How did it happen?
What did it mean?
And if he was not the only freak, did that mean he was not responsible for this catastrophe?
He extended his hands, palms out, toward the barrier as if to touch it.
In a panic he could make light.
In a panic he could burn a man’s hand off.
But surely he could not have done this.
That brought him a sense of relief. No, he had not done this.
And yet someone or something had.
EIGHT
287 HOURS, 27 MINUTES
“SIT STILL, I’M trying to change your diaper,” Mary Terrafino said to the toddler.
“It’s not a diaper,” the little girl said. “Diapers are for babies. It’s my trainee pants.”
“Oh, sorry,” Mary said. “I didn’t know.”
She finished pulling the training pants up and smiled, but the little girl collapsed in tears.
“My mommy always puts my trainee pants on.”
“I know, sweetie,” Mary said. “But tonight I’m doing it, okay?”
Mary wanted to cry herself. She had never wanted to cry more. Night had fallen. She and her nine-year-old brother, John, had handed out the last of the cheddar-flavored Goldfish. They had handed out all the juice boxes. They were almost out of diapers. Barbara’s Day Care wasn’t set up for overnight care. They only had a limited supply of diapers on hand.
There were twenty-eight kids in the larger of the two rooms. Watching over them were Mary and John and a ten-year-old girl named Eloise, like in the books, who mostly kept an eye on her four-year-old brother. Eloise was one of the fairly responsible ones. A couple of other kids, overwhelmed, not knowing how to cope, had just dropped off siblings and made no attempt to stay and help.
Mary and John had prepared formula and filled bottles. They’d made “meals” of whatever was in the day care and whatever John managed to scrounge up. They had read picture books aloud. They had played the Raffi CDs over and over again.
Mary had said the words “Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right” a million times. She had hugged every kid again and again, so that it seemed like she was on a factory assembly line handing out hugs.
Still, the kids cried for their mothers. Still, they asked, “When is my mommy coming? Why isn’t she here? Where is she?” They demanded in petulant, scared voices, “I want my mom. I want to go home. Now.”
Mary was shaking with exhaustion.
She fell into the rocking chair and just stared at the room. Cribs. Mats on the floor. Tiny bodies curled this way and that. Most asleep. Except for the two-year-old girl who would not stop crying. And the baby who wandered in and out of wailing fits.
Her brother, John, was fighting sleep, his curls bouncing as he jerked his head up only to have it drift lower…lower. He was slumped in a chair across the room, rocking a makeshift bassinet that was really just a long plastic planter liberated from the hardware store. She caught his eye and said, “I am so proud of you, John.”
He smiled his sweet smile, and Mary almost fell apart. Her lip quivered. Tears welled in her eyes. There was a lump in her throat and a pain in her chest.
“I have to go pee,” a voice called.
Mary located the source. “Come on, Cassie, let’s go,” she said. The bathroom was just outside the main room. She led the way, then she waited, leaning against the wall. Afterward, she wiped the little girl’s bottom.
“My mommy always does that,” Cassie said.
“I know, sweetheart.”