By morning, the main floor was dry and the kitchen almost up to speed again. I was grateful to whoever’d stayed up late to schlepp all the equipment and supplies downstairs again. I drifted around a bit, still coasting on Jenn’s downer. Kind of like wearing body armor on your brain. Made the day a whole lot easier. The scouts brought in the bad news from outside, and the job clerks posted updates on the duty board. Like what we’d been through with lesser storms, only a whole lot worse.

“East side, teens to forties, deep water to Third Ave. Scattered flooding to Park. Extensive walkway damage.”

And people were still missing.

We checked the board regularly while we worked on cleanup. After four shifts, round the clock, we had Unca Joe pretty much back in order. But not like it was before. More stuff was left upstairs on Three, where moving about was already claustrophobic, or taken up to Four, out of the way of easy daily use. I began to see Rubio’s point about the den needing more above-surge living space.

“West side, teens, under water. Twenties to forties, deep water to Seventh.”

A lot of my old picking venues could no longer be reached dry-foot.

Rousseau’s insistent focus on food production paid off, though. Even with the pickers on cleanup and repair and the roof garden ravaged, the den survived off our stores, for the time being, at least.

“Stuy Square Marina, extensive damage to boats and infrastructure.”

I was humming away, swabbing stinky mud out of the swap cabinets, when glad shouts broke out in the mudroom. One of the scouts bounded into the Hall with Zane and Mikka, our two lost youngsters. Good news at last. The kids ran about hugging everyone in sight. “Not too much the worse for wear,” commented the guy working next to me.

“Where’d you find them?” someone else called.

The scout—stringy, crag-faced Magda—took up a storytelling posture. “Revelations took ’em in, thanks be. An’ then couldn’t wait to get rid of ’em. Those cranky monks welcomed me with open arms!”

“Awesome strict over there.” Zane’s preteen rasp seemed to have dropped an octave.

“Sure is!” Mikka was already struggling to release her long brown hair from its too-tight plait. “Men and women can’t even eat together.”

“And the food was really gross.”

“Be glad they fed you at all,” Magda scolded. “But good thinking to seek shelter at the nearest den.”

Mikka plucked at the coarse fabric of her oversized robe. “They took my tee and jeans. Said they weren’t nice—like I should be ’shamed. Made me wear this old rag!”

I crossed Revelations off my list of other dens to consider when I was upset with Unca Joe. It didn’t happen often. Not like with Rubio.