Out of the Dark (Light & Dark #1) Page 19

  “Vegetables,” I say to her, “lots of vegetables.”

  “Can we eat them?”

  “Yes, Lilly,” I say. And I find it silly, because children are supposed to hate vegetables, but here is Lilly eager to eat them all. It’s funny, but it’s not. Yet I still smile.

  I take a long look around us, squinting against each window on each building and listening carefully for any sound that is out of place. Making sure that we are truly alone. I can’t see anyone or anything, and my stomach aches with hunger, so after a long moment in the hot sun, I take Lilly’s hand and lead her to the door. I push down on the silver handle and pull the door open. The heat explodes from within and I choke on the warmth, the dampness following next. Small flies buzz out, and I swat them away distractedly.

  There are pots and pots filled with plants. Greens, purples, oranges, reds—all things that we can eat. Some I know need cooking, but most can be eaten just as they are: raw, dug out from the earth, and I tell this to Lilly. We step inside and walk around slowly, my fingers grazing the tips of crisp leaves and my hand cupping a ripe tomato. I pull it, plucking it from its green stem, and then I sniff it, taking a deep lungful of the smell that only a tomato can make. I had forgotten this smell, but now the memory of it is back, flooding my head with a thousand images of things long forgotten. My mother used to make tomato soup, and it was delicious with basil. I would slurp it from a spoon, feeling it burning a hot path down my throat, feeling the sensation of it filling my stomach and nourishing me. She taught me the recipe too, and I would make it for my family to eat. I had basil growing on my kitchen windowsill, the smell used to fill my kitchen on hot days. I look down at Lilly, seeing her staring up at me expectantly, and I hand the tomato to her.

  “What is it?” she asks curiously, her eyes flitting from the tomato to me and back again.

  “A tomato.”

  She holds it in her hand, closing her eyes and sniffing it the way I had only a moment ago, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Can I eat it?” she asks, opening her eyes. “I’m really hungry now.”

  I nod and smile. “Yes, Lilly, you can eat it.”

  And I feel proud as she bites down on her first ever tomato, and the juices explode over her chin and lips, the little tomato seeds finding their way onto her stained T-shirt. She is caught by surprise by the sudden explosion, but then she hums her appreciation and takes another bite of it, sucking at the juices inside it. I feel proud, and happy—because I fed her, and I kept her alive for another day. It’s just one day, but when every day is your last, one day is everything. So today, I have given her everything.

  “What else can we eat?” she asks when she is finished, and I smile wider.

  I pluck another tomato and hand it to her, and then I pluck one for me, and together we eat them. I feel euphoric as the food both feeds me and quenches my thirst. I have barely finished it before I am pulling Lilly along with me to some other food. I grab the green leaves sticking out of the earth and I pull. It comes easily, at first the hint of orange and then the rest: long, crunchy, covered in earth but the color still vivid.

  “This is a carrot,” I say to her. I wipe some of the earth off the skin and hand it to Lilly and she looks at it hesitantly.

  “I can eat it?”

  “Yes,” I say, and pull one out for me.

  We bite down on the carrots, and both groan at the same time as the flavor hits our taste buds and then we look at each other and laugh. The taste of dirt and carrots is in my mouth, and it’s amazing.

  “I like carrots,” Lilly says, her mouth around the end of the carrot as she takes another bite.

  “Me too,” I say. “I think they used to be my favorite.”

  “I wish we could have carrots and tomatoes every day,” she says, chewing loudly. The sound echoes around the little greenhouse, and a chill inexplicably runs down my spine.

  Hunger makes us careless. But desperation is the real killer. When you’re desperate you don’t think things through. You take too many risks and you don’t think about things properly. All you can think about is filling the hole in your stomach, making the thirst go away, finding somewhere safe to sleep. Making the child at your side smile again.

  You don’t think about who might have planted the food, or when they might be back. Not until it’s too late.

  Chapter Twenty-Five.

  #25. Who are you anymore?

  “I think we need to go,” I say, my heart beginning to beat furiously.

  Lilly looks up at me, carrot and tomato across her lips and chin. She doesn’t whine or cry or argue, like children should. She nods, stuffing the half-eaten carrot into her pocket, and takes my hand.

  I guide us back along the rows toward the door, sweat glistening off both of our foreheads. The days are always hot, but inside here it is hotter still—stiflingly so. I push the door open, stepping out, and I take a great lungful of clean air, and I hear Lilly do the same.

  “Are we safe?” Lilly asks me.

  “I don’t know,” I reply. Because I don’t.

  Bad people don’t generally grow vegetables and fruit. They don’t have the capacity to care for something and make it grow healthy and strong. They take life, not give it. The sound of a truck startles me, voices coming from the front of the building, and I panic. I turn in circles looking for somewhere to hide, somewhere to go, but there is nowhere within distance. Nowhere to hide before whoever it is comes around the side of the building.

  I can hear the feet crunching across the gravel, the voices carrying in the wind to us. Lilly is squeezing my hand tightly but she doesn’t cry, and I am amazed at her bravery in the face of all this world has to offer. I start to turn, pulling Lilly with me, when they see us and call out.

  “Hey! Hey you!” A male voice, thick with an accent, older-sounding.

  I decide all of this in a split second, but I don’t turn to look. Instead I run, tugging Lilly along with me.

  “A child!”

  I hear the gasp of a woman as fear bursts out of me. I reach down and scoop up Lilly, pulling her into my arms as I run, trampling over the polystyrene tunnels and mud, destroying flowers with my heavy footedness, until I reach the small fence. I drop Lilly onto the other side of the fence, and I am halfway over when something hits the back of my head.

  Lights brighter than the sun blind me, and I feel my grip loosening on the fence, my footing being lost as I tumble backwards, and I stare up at the brilliant blue sky and the yellow glow of the sun.

  Why didn’t you save us today, sun? I wonder, right before the world goes black.

  *

  I remember watching my mother cook tomato soup in our kitchen as a child. The way she would take me to the market with her and we would choose the ripest and biggest tomatoes together. We put crosses on the bottom of each tomato and then dunked them in hot water and then into cold to help remove their skins, and then we would blend them all up with the noisy handheld blender. My mother used to grow herbs in her garden, and she would send me out to pick some basil leaves for the soup. It was always my favorite meal, because I had helped make it. Me and my mom. I always wanted to nurture when I was younger. I would grow plants and help sick animals, and I remember wanting to be a vet or a farmer.

  The smell of tomatoes are strong—strong enough to bring me back from the edge of blackness. I lick my lips, feeling them dry and cracked under my tongue. My mouth is filled with water and the rich copper taste of blood. I swallow it all down, my stomach giving a grumble of protest. I open my eyes but everything is a blur, so I rub my eyes and try again.

  I’m in a kitchen, of sorts. It’s dark, the flickering of shadows and lights are all around me, and when I try to sit up, the world spins and makes me feel sick. I’m on a table. The wood hurts my back, and I think that I am going to be cut up for food. Cannibalism is common these days and I am not quite infected yet. There is plenty of uninfected meat on my bones. I flex my fingers, swallowing back nausea.

  “Lilly?” I cr
y, my words coming out thick and broken. “Lilly!” I scream, panic building and exploding out of me.

  “She’s sleeping.”

  I turn to the soft voice of a woman. She’s sitting in a chair by my side, knitting, of all things. She’s not old, though she’s older than I am. I see her knitting and I expect her to be old, like a grandmother. Funny how I think of knitting as an older person’s pastime. I frown at the woman with the soft smile and the knitting needles in her hands. The woman who is older than me and yet not old at all, and my lips pull back in a snarl. She eyes me warily before gesturing to the other side of me. I look across and see Lilly sleeping on a small, lumpy sofa bed, her breaths coming out relaxed and even. I sit up properly and swing my legs over the side of the table, my feet touching the ground but my legs not feeling strong enough to hold my weight—though I can weigh no more than ninety pounds anymore.

  I stumble to my knees, and my breaths are coming so short and shallow I don’t even hear the woman come over to me, nor the man she is with. They each take an arm and pull me to my feet, and I fight them, struggling to free myself from their iron grip.

  “Calm down or you’ll wake the child,” the woman hisses in my ear.

  Something in her voice makes me stop fighting, but it also zaps me of everything and I turn to a leaden weight in their arms. I hear the man groan and the woman huff, but I can’t seem to make my body respond. They let me go, gently releasing my arms until I am kneeling by Lilly’s side. I stroke the hair away from her face, seeing the spoils of food all over her.

  I turn to look at the people—properly look at them this time. They are watching me as I am watching them. There is a moment of hesitation—of anger, of worry, of defeat—and I start to cry. The woman comes to my side and tries to hold me, but I push her away and she stumbles backwards. The man takes a step forward, his eyes alight with anger and menace, and he is everything that I have been protecting Lilly from, he is whom I fear.

  “It’s okay,” she says to him, holding a hand up to pause him. “It’s okay,” she says again, this time to me. “We’re not going to hurt you,” she says. “Or the child. And we’re not sick.” She glances at her husband and then back to me. “But you are?” She voices her statement as a question, but she knows the answer already. “What about the child?”

  And then I laugh, wretched sobs coming out between my laughs. The woman looks up at the man with concern. I can almost hear their unspoken words. They think I have gone quite mad, and perhaps I have.

  “She is sick,” the man says, his voice hard and rough.

  “We fed her,” the woman says, dismissing the man. She has silver hair, which is strange because she doesn’t seem old enough to have gray hair, yet her hair is long and silver, the light from the candles reflecting off the strands as she moves. “Your little girl. We fed her,” she says, her eyes staying on mine.

  I look away, breaking her stare, and I look at Lilly. She seems content, food on her chin and shirt, her chest rising and falling steadily. Her head is on a pillow, and a blanket is over her shoulders. Both things seem clean.

  “We didn’t mean to hurt you,” the woman says.

  The man grumbles something and my gaze travels to him. He’s older, but he’s broad and strong, wide-set eyes and short hair. His hand is on a gun at his hip, and I realize that he thinks I’m dangerous.

  “But you did,” I say, my voice hoarse.

  “Some water, Peter. Fetch some water,” she says dismissively to the man, who I presume to be Peter.

  He scowls down at me and storms off, his footsteps resounding around the space.

  “He doesn’t think sometimes, he just does. We have to be careful.” She looks away, shame written across her pale face. “You understand that, don’t you?”

  Peter comes back and hands the woman a glass of water, and she, in turn, hands it to me. I take it, drinking it eagerly because my throat is bone dry and feels almost sticky, and I can’t actually remember the last time I had a drink. I also think I bit my tongue at some point, and it feels swollen and sore.

  “Was she frightened?” I finally ask when I’ve finished the water.

  “A little,” the woman says. “She, she tried to hurt herself,” she adds on.

  And I understand, because that is what I told her she must do if she were ever caught again and I couldn’t help her. Because it would be better for her to die at her own hand than to endure the tortures that would inevitably follow her capture.

  “We had to prove to her that you weren’t dead before she put down the knife.” She looks severely concerned, and I want to laugh in her face. If she understands that you have to be careful because people can be bad, then surely she should understand why I told Lilly to…

  “She was very worried about you. Wouldn’t leave your side.” The woman keeps on talking. “How…how is she still alive?” she asks, and I hear the familiar pang in her voice that I had heard from Sarah so many nights ago. Sarah—who left me for dead, who tried to take Lilly from me and then abandoned her also.

  “She is mine,” I say fiercely, and the woman holds up her hands defensively. “I won’t let you take her.”

  “No, no, I wouldn’t—”

  “I am hers. I’ll kill you if you try and separate us,” I spit out.

  The man—Peter—huffs out his annoyance and glares at me.

  “You don’t frighten me,” I say to him.

  “I should,” he says back.

  “Well you don’t. Nothing frightens me.” And I know I am lying, and they know I am lying, but I say it anyway.

  “Mama?”

  I turn abruptly and see Lilly waking up. She’s smiling at the sight of me, and we both reach for each other at the same time, wrapping our arms around the other until somehow I am on the small sofa with her little body wrapped around mine. The woman is watching us, a soft smile on her face, and I see how truly pretty she is, even with her silver hair that glistens. The man is rough and hard, but even his features soften when they see us hugging.

  He scratches his chin, and I can hear his nails grating over coarse hairs. “I’m going to lock up,” he says, deciding I’m not a threat. He storms off, his footsteps ascending up stairs.

  The woman’s eyes follow him before looking back at me and Lilly. “Don’t mind Peter. He saw your lines.” She points to my hands and I look down, seeing that the lines have darkened across the backs of my hands. “He’s just worried.”

  “Rightfully so,” I reply dryly. “But I’m okay.”

  She nods and her chin pinches in as she bites the inside of it. “I’m Mary.”

  “I like her,” Lilly whispers into my ear. “She’s nice. She smells like tomatoes.”

  “Some people are nice but they try to trick you, Lilly,” I say back, and I don’t bother to whisper it. I want Mary to know that I don’t trust her, or Peter.

  Mary’s cheeks flame pink. But I’m not sure if it’s anger or embarrassment. “I wouldn’t hurt a child,” she says defiantly, but I only arch an eyebrow at her.

  “That’s what they all used to say.”

  “Well I wouldn’t.”

  “Then let us go,” I say.

  “It’s almost nightfall,” she replies, biting down on her lip. “We can’t let you go tonight, but tomorrow you can go. I promise.”

  I don’t say anything to that. Because it makes sense. And I don’t want to leave at night—we’d be dead in minutes—but I also don’t like not knowing where we are hiding, not knowing where the exits and entrances are. I fumble for the weapon at my waist and find it gone, and my eyes dart to Mary.

  “The little girl took it from you,” she says in a hurry, “that’s what she was going to hurt herself with…” Her words trail off, sounding broken.

  “Did I do good, Mama?” Lilly whispers against my neck.

  “You did great,” I say and I kiss her hair. She doesn’t smell like Lilly. She smells like another person—another woman. She smells like tomatoes and bread, and another wom
an’s arms. It’s strange and I don’t like it.

  “You can have it back now,” Mary says, and she stands up and turns to where she was knitting earlier. She brings my small knife over and hands it to me, her eyes wary and cautious. I want to snatch it from her grasp. My nerves are on edge, waiting to tumble over into the abyss. But I don’t snatch it, I take it carefully and nod a thanks, and Mary seems pleased with that. And so does Lilly.

  “Do you want something to eat? Some tea maybe?” she says, her hands wringing in front of her.

  I nod a yes, too afraid of what will come out of my mouth if I try to speak. Mary wanders over to a small cabinet that has been laid out like a kitchen: a small bowl for the sink, a single gas burner for the cooker, cups and saucers, plates and silverware. All so very normal. She scoops up some food with a large ladle, pouring it into deep round bowls that have a blue pattern down the side. I see her every once in a while looking at the stairs to where Peter had gone out of earlier. She’s nervous, but I’m not sure if it because of me, or for him.

  She comes back and hands me a bowl of food. It’s broth with potatoes and carrots and onions in it. I stare at the bowl in wonder, the heat rising from it, the smells making me feel dizzy with hunger and wanting, all of it enticing me, luring me in. I see dark meat in it, and I am so shocked to see meat, because I thought I would never get to taste meat ever again, and yet here it is, floating in a small bowl of broth.

  Mary watches me blankly, and then after a moment she takes the silver spoon that sits in the bowl, and she eats a mouthful before handing the spoon back to me. This time I take it with a grunt of ‘thanks.’ Lilly clambers from my knee but stays at my side, hugging her teddy bear tightly and sucking her thumb. It’s something she hasn’t done since we left our streetlight at the top of the cliff—suck her thumb. Between greedy mouthfuls, I notice that her teddy now has two eyes, though they are odd. One is a large green button and the other is the black bead that was there previously.

  I eat the broth, and then Mary hands me a steaming cup of tea. There’s no milk, of course, but it tastes delicious all the same. It’s not normal tea, and Mary tells me that it is made from nettles. Lilly has a cup too and she slurps it noisily and then gives a little burp. A small smile quirks the side of my mouth. I feel the pull of it inside of me before it even happens externally. I look at Lilly, and then at Mary, and we are all sitting around drinking nettle tea, like it isn’t the end of the world and this is all perfectly normal. And it’s nice, I realize. It’s nice to share this burden with someone. I can tell that Mary is nice, not like Sarah, and I am about to tell Mary about the safe place I have heard about, and say thank you for stopping Lilly from killing herself, and for helping us, and feeding us, and all the wonderful things that she has done that she didn’t need to do. I feel so much better after eating, my head so much calmer, so much clearer.