![]() Her father looked up at the sky as if remembering something. She’d wake up in the middle of the night and stare into the dark beyond their camp and know they were there. She’d heard whispering like this before, sometimes, when they slept in the woods. Since they had arrived on the island, the wind was different. Nikki hugged herself and buried her mouth into her scarf to warm her lips. This was the closest he had gotten to confessing. And she would know there were worst things than a lie. She’d remember her father’s quiet sobbing at night when he thought she was asleep in her sleeping bag. The way her father kept her close, watching everyone as if they were a potential threat. The look of warning on his face as they passed. And her neighbor Cecil, standing in front of his house, bare-chested, wild-eyed and teeth-bared, gripping a sharpened cutlass in his hand. She would remember the look on his face as they stuffed food and clothes into backpacks when they fled St. But then she’d remember the long gashes on her father’s chest and back, twin scars of smooth, raised flesh, pink on his light brown skin. ![]() You lied didn’t you, she wanted to say, but didn’t. “What is it?” she asked, though she had a feeling what it was. Night had snuck up on them as they talked. His face was completely obscured by shadow. She didn’t mind the algae or the slick stones under her feet.” He paused. Her father rubbed his gloves in the snow. He tossed her the water pouch and she had to be quick to catch it. Her father slid down his tree to the ground. I mean it still cloudy and rainy, but it warm and everything green.” “Well,” her father said, “you not going to think so now, but in the summer it gets real nice. She had no idea what he was talking about. The sky had been that way since they arrived at the abandoned cabin on the other shore of the lake. Up past the trees, the sky was dark and gray. Her father’s backpack was already covered in snow. Nikki bit out a larger piece of johnny cake. “The water never gon’ be as warm as back home, but it’s clean.” Didn’t like how the algae felt under my toes.” “When I was a kid,” he said, “I spent summers up here, and I would come out to this spot and play on the lake shore. Her father leaned against a tree, watching her. Nikki ineptly grabbed chunks of jerky and shoved them in her mouth. There were close calls with grisly men and people that had succumbed to madness, their mouths frothing, their eyes full of rage. They hunted and scavenged and stole what they could. And through snow: slick with cold rain, or knee high, or hard and crunchy under their feet. Then winding back roads overgrown with weeds. Then it was highways stretching up the east coast, spotted with migrants. Thomas on a small rusting dinghy with a bad motor they had barely survived the trip to Florida. ![]() They hadn’t had luck with islands in the past. Hadn’t they gone on this long-ass journey to be safe? Though she couldn’t imagine how an island in the middle of a lake was going to be their salvation. He looked a little panicked, though he was trying to hide the fact. “Not far now,” her father said, breathing heavily. She cleared a bit of the johnny cake and bit into it. She snatched the johnny cake from his hand and awkwardly fumbled with the foil wrapper, not daring to take off her gloves. He offered it to her as he drank water he kept in a pouch under his coat. He reached in and pulled out a johnny cake wrapped in foil and a plastic bag of moose jerky. Her stomach throbbed with menstrual pain. Then she slid down to the base in a heap. Nikki pushed her way to the tree line and then fell against a tree, sucking cold air into her hot lungs. They walked that entire day as Nikki groaned through wave after wave of pain. Two days ago, when Nikki was sick with her first bout of menstrual cramps, he didn’t even care enough to stop and let her rest. ![]() He had been like this a lot lately: pushy, over-eager, uncompromising. She clenched her teeth to stop them from clattering. She was on the verge of collapse, her knees buckling under her. She hugged herself, pressing the thick fabrics to her body, attempting to trap heat. They greased their lips with petroleum jelly. They had spiked snow boots and thermal leggings and ear muffs. They had found coats, gloves, scarves, and knitted caps in an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory. The lake stretched behind them in every direction, on the horizon a thin line of green where the surrounding snow-covered forest met the gray sky. Ahead of them was an island of snow-capped pine trees.Īfter hours of walking, the island-once just a small patch of green and white in the middle of the frozen lake-now loomed as an expanse of dense wilderness. He was a few feet in front of her, walking steadily against the wind. “When we reach the trees,” her father said. “Can we stop?” asked Nikki, panting, her face tingling from the assault of the cold.
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