Autumn in the Dark Meadows (The Autumn Series) (5 page)

My dress suddenly felt tight around my chest. I wished I’d stayed home.

“I can’t, Ben.  I just can’t trust her,” I began.

“Autumn!”

I turned to find a woman bearing down on me with the two women Sam arrived with.  No Sam, I noticed, relieved.  I’d met this woman once before, but couldn’t recall her name.  She obviously remembered mine, though, and I had a feeling I knew what she wanted.

“Later!” Ben whispered, disappearing back inside.  I turned to call after him, but he was already gone.  I tried to hide a scowl as the woman descended on me.

“Autumn, how
are
you!?” she exclaimed and wrapped me in a hug as if we did this all the time.  She stepped back and held me at arm’s length to study my dress.  “You are absolutely gorgeous in that dress, the spitting image of your mother,” she gushed.

I nodded a thank you and wished I could escape, but she charged onward.  “I wanted to introduce you to two of our newest community members: Laura and Izza,” she pointed to each of them in turn.  “This is Autumn Winters.  Izza heard your radio message right before she left LA to travel to Tucson to find her sister, and she told everyone about Hoover when she arrived there.”

Izza gasped as we shook hands and only glanced up from the floor every few seconds.

“Welcome to Hoover,” I said, picking this from my repertoire of appropriate statements in this situation.  Then I waited for it.

“I am so thrilled to meet you.  Really, I am,” Izza said, her hands still clamped around mine.  “When I heard you were here and had made it out of LA safely, I was so grateful.  I just had to meet you.  And then when I heard who you were, well... then I really had to meet you!  I’m such a fan of your mom’s.”

“Thank you.  I really miss her and my dad,” I said.  “Did you find your sister in Tucson?”

Izza was ecstatic that I recalled something I’d heard about her thirty seconds ago and said, “I did!  She’s pregnant, so I couldn’t bring her with me, but I’m going back for her due date.  Then we’ll bring her here.  The father was killed in a raid a month ago.”

I couldn’t help but notice the absence of the baby in the plans for her sister after her due date.  “Your sister is pregnant?” I repeated.

She nodded slowly and said, “My sister will be okay, that’s the important thing.”  I detected a slight waver in her voice.  Pregnancy was a tender subject these days.  Because immunity to the Crimson Fever seemed to be random, most babies weren’t expected to live long after birth.  Grey and Lydia were working on the problem with the few doctors here, but, as far as I knew, they hadn’t made any progress yet.

“Have you recovered from your gunshot wound?  Did it hurt really bad?” Laura asked.

“Uh, no... that wasn’t me,” I began, but Izza cut me off.

“No... her boyfriend, Grey, was shot,” Izza corrected her.  “Is he around?”  She craned her neck to look through the windows.  “I would love to meet him, too.  We were all so scared when we heard the gunshots over the radio.  No one knew if you’d made it out.”

“No one knew what was going on when they showed up here,” the nameless woman cut in.  “They were covered in blood.  Autumn’s arm was dislocated; Grey could barely walk, but they were conscious enough not to let go of each other.  It was quite romantic –”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I cut in.  How on earth did she know so many details?

Laura and Izza gave each other knowing looks.

“I’m not sure where he is right now, but I’m sure he’s around,” I finished.

“I still can’t believe you’re Adara O’Neal’s daughter,” Laura said, “You
knew
her...”

“You’re so lucky you got to, you know, really know her,” Izza added.

I nodded.  “I’m sorry, I think I see a friend of mine who needs help.  It was nice to meet you, Izza and Laura.”  I nodded to the woman whose name still eluded me and made my escape.

There wasn’t an exit from the veranda so I ducked back inside and skirted around the edge of the dancers.  I had the door in sight when Shad closed in on me.

“Seriously?” I groaned, as he swooped me out to the middle of the dance floor.

“We’re not still mad at each other, are we?” he asked.

“Mad at each other?  When were we mad?” I asked, confused.

“This morning at Brothers’ General.  Ben said you were mad about the sombrero thing.  He said I should apologize for embarrassing you, but I’m not really good at apologizing.”

“Obviously,” I said.  “So you said ‘mad at each other.’  Why were you mad at me?”

“Defense mechanism.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed away from him.  “I’m going home.”

“You gotta learn how to unwind a little, Miss Winters,” Shad said and pulled us into a line of people doing the Electric Slide.  It was one of those dances I learned in ninth grade and never forgot.  I remembered learning it with Sarah in gym class the first day of high school and being embarrassed when a group of senior boys clustered in the door to watch us.

With Shad, though, it wasn’t embarrassing.  It was fun.  He added his own flare to the dance, with spins and hand gestures, and he did it all with a very serious face while mouthing the numbers he counted to keep time.  I laughed at him and tried to keep up.  When the song ended, I looked around in surprise at the ring of people that formed to watch.  I blushed as they began to clap.  I looked at Shad, and saw him bowing deeply.  I managed a small curtsy before a slower song started and the circle of people paired off into dancing partners.

“One more?”  Shad bowed deeply to me.

“Last one,” I replied.  “And then I’m leaving.”

“You’re not going to turn into a pumpkin, are you?”

He planted his hands on my shoulders and started to stiffly rock back and forth.

“Stop it,” I said, swatting at his arm.  “We’re not in junior high.”

“But then people might think I like you or something,” he teased, but conceded and began dancing normally, turning me in a slow circle.

“You should ask Tess to dance,” I said.

I saw his eyes find her.  It was easy to spot her in the crowd, with her red dress and avalanche of brown curly hair.  She was dancing with Grey.  I looked away quickly.

“You think so?” Shad asked, watching her.

“Definitely.”

“Never dated an older lady before,” he murmured, scoping her out between the dancers.

“She’s not an older lady; she’s only a few years older,” I corrected him.

“Interesting...” he said.  “No time like the present.”  He began leading us toward them.

“You don’t have to ask her
now
, you know,” I mumbled, stumbling over my feet.

“Nah, this is a great time to ask.  This song is special.  I can feel it.”

“Shad,” I protested, as we swung closer.

He paused.  “Deep breath, Miss Winters,” he said, smiling.  “This was
your
suggestion, remember?”  Then he winked.

I glared at him as he tapped Grey on the shoulder.  “Excuse me, good sir,” he said in a terrible British accent.  “Would you mind loaning me your dance partner, as I have fatigued my own?  I would be greatly indebted to you.”

Tess raised an eyebrow at me, and I shook my head slightly, trying to get across the message that I didn’t want to dance with Grey.

“I’d
love
to, dah’ling,” Tess squawked in an equally horrible British accent, catching everyone by surprise.  She gently shoved Grey toward me and took Shad’s hand.  Before I let go of Shad’s other hand, I made sure to dig my nails into his palm as hard as I could and was rewarded with an unusually loud bark of laughter from him.

I turned to Grey.  It would be incredibly rude if I left him in the middle of the dance floor.  I swallowed and placed a shaking hand on his shoulder, then took the hand he offered me.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said, softly.

I looked up at him, surprised.  “It’s fine,” I said.

He took my waist and stepped closer to me.  I tried to breathe normally and not allow visions of my nightmare to fill my mind.  I focused on Sarah instead.

I found myself wanting to tell Grey about Sarah’s text message.  It felt natural to share this with him.  He was the one who brought my cell phone to me, though it might have been unintentional since it was in the jewelry box he picked up.  I wondered if I could trust him.  I wanted to trust him.  But maybe that was only because I needed him to take me to find Sarah.

“You look like you’re arguing with someone,” Grey said.

I looked up at him, thinking how right he was.  “I need to talk to you, but... not here.”

“Oh?”  He seemed genuinely surprised.  His eyes caught mine, and I felt myself falling headfirst into the glowing pool of blue.  I was reminded of the cove in my dream from this morning.  The warm, still pressure of the deep water all around us.

I shook off the dream and glanced around to see if anyone was dancing close enough to hear.  Sure enough, there were at least two couples close enough to eavesdrop, and one of them included Izza, who was pretending not to watch us.

“We can’t talk about it here.”  I indicated those around us with my eyes.  He nodded.

The song ended, and a louder, faster song began.  Before he could pull away, I rose to my tiptoes and whispered in his ear, “Meet me at the Winged Figures in half an hour.”

His face held a hint of what I’d seen right after kissing him the very first time in the basement of Hollywood High School.  As if I’d scared him by getting too close.  But the look was gone so fast, I thought I might have imagined it.

He tilted his head down in a slight bow and turned away.  Alone in the dancing mass of people, I suddenly felt set adrift in an ocean.  Shaking off the feeling, I went out the back door and rounded the building until I found Snicket in the darkness.

I untied her harness from the hitching post and was about to pull myself up when a soft voice startled me.  I whirled around and found myself face to face with Sam.

Her once heart-shaped face was now narrow and hollow.  Even in the low glow from the lights inside the Rec Hall, her skin was pallid, unhealthy, and translucent.   Her eyes, once blue and merry, now appeared lifeless and small.

We stared at each other, her eyes taking in my green dress, clean hair and impractical shoes, my eyes taking in her shrunken frame and dirty t-shirt.

“I didn’t know you were seeing that boy,” she said, her quiet voice so different from the bubbly girl I’d first met.

“I’m not,” I said, simply.

 “He used to steal from us.  He was really brave to defy Karl like that.  You all were.”

I waited, too curious to leave quite yet.

“I wish I had sooner,” she added.

As much as I hated her, I pitied this sad, skin-and-bones girl.  But the terror I’d felt because of her was all too fresh in my mind, and I blocked the flow of sympathy.

“I’m sorry, Autumn,” she said, her voice flat.  “I know it doesn’t sound like much after everything that happened, but I swear I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

“It’s really not necessary.”  I didn’t want to have anything at all to do with her, let alone whatever she had in mind to “make it up” to me.  I mentally shivered when I realized this might include an attempt at friendship.

“I have to go.”  I pulled myself up onto Snicket and perched sideways, trying to act as if I rode “sidesaddle” to dances quite often.  I bumped Snicket’s side with one heel and didn’t look back as I guided my horse to the dirt-packed Lake Mead Avenue running along the lakeshore.  As I headed toward the short cut through the hills to the dam, I forced Sam from my mind and focused on how I would persuade Grey to help me when he arrived.

I’d asked Grey to meet me at the Winged Figures of the Republic because there was little chance anyone would be there this time of night, and we’d have the privacy to talk openly.  The pair of magnificently tall statues sat on the Nevada side of Hoover Dam on a star map that, if you were intelligent enough to figure it out, marked the date of the dam’s dedication on September 30, 1935.  The East Guard Tower looked out over the dam and the highway bypass bridge, but any guards on duty would be too far away to hear us.

I stopped Snicket at what I guessed was the highest point of the trail and pulled my phone out.  Still no service.  I opened the text message chain with Sarah and saw the words “pending” under my last message to her.  Finding a signal might be harder than I thought.

I quickly tapped out another message, telling Sarah how much I missed her.  I hoped I could find a signal soon so my messages would be sent, and maybe I’d get another from her.  Though it had been two months since she last tried to communicate with me.  She might not have her phone anymore, and if she did, it might not be turned on, or the battery might be dead.

Sarah would keep trying.  I knew it.  She knew I was alive, and she wouldn’t give up trying to reach me.  And I wouldn’t give up trying to find her.

I arrived at the dam and tied Snicket to the chest-high guardrail overlooking the massive, white slope of the dam’s wall down into Black Canyon.  I crossed the road to the Winged Figures and stood at the base of the eastern statue, looking up the strong length of it.  The figure’s bronze wings reached thirty feet up the cliff face behind it, as if he were stretching to touch the stars.  The moon cast a shadow underneath his sharp jaw line and the edge of his proud chest.  His knees made a perfect ninety-degree angle against the marble block he sat on.  My eyes grazed down his weathered bronze shins to where they ended with pointed toes.

I unconsciously reached up to touch his toes, which were level with my nose.  They looked gold from where millions of tourists rubbed them for good luck.  I wondered if any of them had found that luck.  Unlikely, since most of them were probably dead now.

I heard a snap of fabric and a metallic clang and craned my neck to look at the flagpole towering high over the wingtips of the statues.  The wind was picking up.  I hoped Grey would hurry.  I didn’t like being this far from town in such unstable weather.

I listened for Snicket.  She usually gave me a sign if she was uneasy, but she was quiet and still, so I slid down the marble wall until I was sitting and leaned my head back.  I felt the slight vibration of the water moving through the penstock below me, a mammoth metal tunnel that collected water from the intake towers in the reservoir behind the dam and ran through the dam’s walls to the turbines to generate electricity.