I saw white shapes in the shadows that might have been the other church vans. The van where the children played had not been moved in a long time.

“This is as far as we made it,” Lisbeth said. “The vans started to break down. All of them. One after the other. It seemed like a sign.”

“You don’t believe in signs.”

“Then we found this place. We’re fixing it up, making it a real town again. My parents are happy.” She was doing that thing when she chattered on, filling the space, when what I wanted, all I really wanted, was for her to stand there. Just to be. “A few other people have joined us. Like you.”

I couldn’t think of what to say. I couldn’t make my mouth say it. She looked wind-burned, raw, and underfed.

“My parents!” She grabbed my arm. “You have to see my folks! They’ll be so happy you made it.” She wasn’t looking me in the eye.

I squeezed Lisbeth’s hand and dropped it. “I have to go back to the truck and get the others.”

14

I don’t know what I expected. That we would drive across the country together, ride through the cold dark, and arrive side by side, alive and safe, in sunny California. Grayson, healed. Starla, healthy. Jamey, happy. And me. Maybe Lisbeth.

But then came the news that The Church hadn’t made it anywhere warm, hadn’t made it out of Appalachia even, had just given up where they’d broken down.

Dance had said, long before he left, that one thing collapsing meant everything would. Ice froze power cables, crashed tree limbs into lines. Ice stalled water in the pipes, brought trains on the rails and trucks on the highways to a halt. Fuel couldn’t get to the gas stations, food to the stores. People stopped showing up for work. I imagined paychecks stopped arriving. Banks were drained. No farmers could grow more food, except for those with greenhouses and grow lights. Generators for the power. Diesel, solar, wind.

And seeds.

I didn’t show Lisbeth the pouch of seeds around my neck, or the heaviness in my pocket. I didn’t tell her about the Pumpkin King. Or Dance, who was gone. She might have asked me if I had liked him, if he was handsome, what he had meant to me, which were the wrong questions.