Awakenings

            The sun was just starting to peek up over the trees and the ruined dorms as she padded quietly toward the edge of the camp, beyond the tent with the animals and the building supplies.  It was the first dry morning after a dry night, no hint of an oncoming storm.  The chalk lines on the small pile of rocks were clear, coiling, slashing symbols that fairly pulsed with a power she didn’t quite understand.  A few leaves were caught between the piled rocks.  Herbs of some kind, though she couldn’t quite grasp what they were.  The cross-shaped pile of rocks was caught inside of a small circle traced in the dirt around it, deep enough that the rain hadn’t washed it all away.
            She knew that Kellin came out every day, just before dusk, to check these and etch the lines deeper if she had to.  She wasn’t sure what they were, but they were important to Kellin, and important to something else.  That something else, though, there was the rub.  The something else told her they were dangerous, unnatural.  That they shouldn’t be there, that Kellin was doing wrong.  While she found it hard to believe that Kellin would ever do something to hurt other living things, she’d watched the pain one of the something else suffered when it tried to touch one of these.
            There were seven of them, ringing the camp, most of them facing the ravine sides.  They had to go away, but quietly.  Kicking them over wouldn’t do.  Kicking them over would just make Kellin put them back together again.  That just wouldn’t do, not at all.
            No, she had to do little things.  Things that wouldn’t be noticed right away.
            She crouched over the first of the tiny cairns, reaching into her pocket and taking out a few small leaves.  Carefully removing the original leaves from the cairn, she tucked these into its place, staring blankly at the stones.  She licked her thumb and carefully erased a line on one of the lower stones.  Straightening, she scuffed a toe lightly against the circle, just barely breaking it, small enough to maybe escape notice.
            The herb leaves looked the same as the ones she’d replaced.  The chalk lines, to quick, casual inspection, looked the same as they had before.  The circle appeared unbroken.  She nodded slightly to herself.
            It would do.
            Indeed, child.  That will do.
            She looked up in the dawn light to see the shadow standing a few feet away, among the dark trunks of the ravine’s trees.  She tilted her head slightly, staring at it—the figure didn’t seem to have a gender.  She wet her lips, then asked quietly, “What will do?”
            Just that.  It was smiling at her, and the smile sent shivers down her spine.  You’ve done well today.  Now keep doing it.
            “Of course,” she murmured.
            And forget.
            Forget.
            Forget.
            Forget.
            She jerked and nodded, almost in a daze.  The words echoed through her skull, shot more shivers down her spine, make her skin and scalp prickle with cold and power.  It was unlike anything she’d ever felt before, and she didn’t feel like it was entirely unpleasant.  She just nodded in response, then turned to go, promptly forgetting why she’d come out here in the first place.
            Then she looked down at the bucket sitting near her foot and remembered.  Water.  She’d come out for water.  But why had she come this way?
            She sighed softly and picked up her bucket.  Morning autopilot, probably, wandering half-asleep.  It was still early, after all.  She was silently grateful she hadn’t been on the watch today.  That would have been awful.  Walking around in a daze while she was supposed to be making sure nothing threatened them?  That would certainly have been a complete disaster.
            Stasia waved to her on her way to tend to the horses.  She smiled and waved back.
            “Getting water?”  Stasia called.
            She nodded.  “Yeah.  Couldn’t sleep, but I can’t wake up, either.”
            Stasia laughed.  “Matt’s awake and making some of the coffee.  You should snag some when you get back.  It should help.”  She paused by the tent’s flap.  “We’re riding down to that sheep farm that Tala and Kellin talked about a couple nights back.  Still have a few extra saddles if you want to come.”
            She shook her head.  “No, I’ll pass.  I don’t think I can handle more corpses.”  That first day had been bad enough.
            “Well, we’re not going until a little later, if you change your mind.”
            “Thanks Stas.”
            “You’re welcome!”  The other woman disappeared into the tent, where the horses were stirring awake.  She watched her go for a moment, then shook herself.
            Water.  She needed to get the water, and then get back.  There were things to do this morning.
            She started for the other end of camp.

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            I sucked in a breath as I came awake, warmer and with my cheek pressed against Thom’s bare shoulder.  The rain had settled into a soft rhythm, much quieter and less violent than before.  It was almost soothing.  My watch, laying near the corner of the mattress, said it was midafternoon.  I exhaled and pressed my face into Thom’s shoulder, running my hand across his bare chest.  I felt tape.
            Oh, Thom.  I exhaled and smiled against his shoulder.  I lay there for another few minutes, listening to his breathing before I pushed myself up on an elbow and looked around.  Things were quiet.  It looked like a few had headed out from the shelter into the rain.  There were fewer lumps underneath the collapsed tent, some of the furniture trapped beneath possibly moved.  The sky was lighter.  Maybe the worst had passed.
            I got dressed again and wandered toward the fire.  Tala glanced up from gleaning some of the ash away from the edges.  “Warmer?”
            “Yeah.”  My wet clothes were still hanging near the fire, along with J.T.’s.  I sank down next to Tala, wrapping my arms around my knees.  “Ashes?”
            She nodded.  “For soap, since we’ll eventually have to make it.  Figured I should start perfecting the technique before we actually need to use it.”
            “Experimental archaeology finally paying off, huh?”
            “More like the reconstruction stuff, but yeah.”  She grinned and resumed scraping the ashes up into a jar.  “Your brother was making noises about an anvil.”
            “For what?”
            “I dunno.  To have, maybe?  Ask him when he gets back.”  Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.  “It’s not a bad idea to find one if we can.  We’re going to eventually need to make our own tools and crap.”
            I have no idea how we’re going to accomplish that.  At the same time, I’m not going to start worrying about that yet, either.  Plenty of time to worry about that later.  If we live long enough to worry about that.  “Where’d everyone go?”
            “Some of them loaded up onto the flatbed to go to the home improvement store and see what they could bring back.  Plants, pots, nails.  Shit like that, I think.  And siphon diesel.”  She shrugged with one shoulder, glancing at me.  “Whatever we can get, right?”
            “Right,” I murmured, then sighed.
            “What’s wrong?”
            I shook my head.  “Everything and nothing.”
            She snorted.  “That’s terribly descriptive, Mar.  Thanks.”
            Something growled and rumbled in the distance.  I frowned, looking westward.  The clouds were lighter there.  “You hear that?”
            “Probably just thunder echoing funny,” Tala said.  “Either that or parts of another building coming down.  Two of the living centers collapsed while you were asleep.  I was kind of surprised you didn’t wake up, but I guess whatever Leah mixed up was pretty potent.”
            “Do you know what it was?”
            “Nah.  Some old folk remedy or something, I think.”  Tala put the lid on the jar, sitting back on her heels.  “Did you know her great aunt was some kind of crazy hedge witch type?”
            That might explain a thing or three.  I shook my head.  “No.  She knows herbs, then, huh?”
            “And plants and home remedies and stuff.  She and I talked about it a couple hundred times.”
            Good to know.  “Who’s still here?”
            “You, me, Thom, a couple staffers.  Rory went for firewood withBrandon.  Stasia’s checking the horses and the chickens.”
            “That’s it?”
            Another shrug.  “If we’re going to get attacked by someone today, I think we’d know they were coming by now.  Either way, not much we can do to stop them right now.”
            I grimaced.  She was right.  Something else to remedy quickly.  “You need help with anything?”
            “I was going to check the smoker if you wanted to help with that.  Dr. Doyle went to the store with the others to help out with the picking, so I could use an extra hand.”
            “I think I have one of those.”  I got up and dusted grass and ashes off the seat of my pants.
            The sound of rolling thunder stopped me in mid-motion.  Then the ground bucked beneath my feet.
            Metal screamed somewhere nearby as one of the dormitories nearest to us began to fold in on itself, then tottered and toppled backward, toward the steep slopes of the ravines behind them.  I spun, almost unbalanced, my heart pounding.
            Take a breath take a breath take a breath—
            No!
            It was what I’d seen in my vision, one of the ones that had knocked me flat, the one that had me waking up screaming, barely remembering what I’d seen.  It all flooded back and sent a lance of ice down my spine.
            Oh god.  What just happened?  And where?
            Furniture creaked, but only the most precarious, unoccupied stacks toppled.  Tala grabbed my arm, and that was when I realized I was shaking.  I could hear the horses in the other shelter over the rumbling, which was already beginning to taper off, and winced.
            “I’m fine!  Go help Stasia with those horses before someone or something gets hurt.”
            Tala was off like a shot.  The shaking stopped completely a few seconds later and I took a few deep breaths, counting to ten and trying to calm down.
            Where did the ground just explode?  How far away?  How did we feel it here?  Why?
            “What the hell was that?”  Rory was shouting from somewhere to my left.
            “Another earthquake,” I snapped at him.  “What did you think it was?”
            His hair was plastered to his head, shoulders and arms wet as he tramped toward the fire, glaring at me.  “The hell is wrong with you?”
            I just glared at him as he dumped his armload of wood near the pile.  He glared right back.
            “Just because you’re fighting with Thom again doesn’t mean you can take your shit out on me.”
            “We’re not fighting,” Thom said from behind me, sounding like he’d just woken up.
            I love how everyone just assumes that’s why I’d snap at anyone.  Asking stupid questions doesn’t even rate on anyone’s list.
            Rory barely glanced at Thom before he went back to glaring at me.  “Then what the hell is your problem, Marin?”
            “You, asking stupid questions, Rory!  It was a fucking earthquake.”  Thom found my hand and squeezed.  I swallowed a few choice words and tried to tamp down my ire.
            “Oh, so it didn’t ring familiar?  Like something you woke up screaming about?”
            Fuck you, Rory.  I took a breath and countered to ten, squeezing Thom’s hand so hard my knuckles turned white.  He admitted to me later that it’d hurt.  “If I thought that it was important to mention something like that, Rory, I would.”
            “Then it did?”
            Why do I even bother keeping things to myself if I’m such a goddamn open book?  I sighed, nodding.  “Not as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Not as bad as it looked.”
            Rory was quiet for a moment.  “Then that’s important.”
            I stared at him.  He shrugged.
            “That means nothing’s set in stone.  Just because you see it doesn’t mean it always happens that way.”
            It was Kellin’s little speech coming out of Rory’s mouth.  I sighed and turned toward Thom.
            He was white as a sheet, jaw slack.  My stomach twisted.
            My fingers tightened around his hand.  “Thom?  Are you all right?”
            He blinked, then smiled weakly at me.  “Yeah.  I’m fine.”  He squeezed my fingers back and lied.
            “Everything’s fine.”

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            “His—what?  Whose?”  Shit, what the hell is she—one of the fairies?  From the Shakespeare garden?  “Carolyn?”
            Her brow furrowed and she closed her mouth, glancing between the glimmer at her shoulder and me.  “Can’t you see him?”
            I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again, shaking my head.  “Only as little glimmers of light.”  I dropped my voice low.  “Care, don’t tell anyone.”
            “They’ll think I’m crazy, right?”
            “More crazy than I’m sure some of them already think Kellin and I are, yes.”  I motioned her closer and she edged nearer, settling so she was almost knee-to-knee with me.  “Maybe a little, maybe a lot.  I don’t know.  Rory and Drew will believe you if you tell them.  Kellin definitely will.  Don’t tell Thom.  J.T. might be okay.  My brother’ll think you’re a little crazy, but he’ll shrug it off like he shrugs off my stuff.  Jury’s out on the rest.”  Jacqueline, Brandon, Leah, Davon…probably can’t handle it.  Maybe later, but not yet.  Give it time.  Tala might, or might not.  Jury’s definitely out there.
            “Why shouldn’t I tell Thom?”
            I shook my head.  “It’s just better not to.”  Because I don’t know how he’ll handle it, other than maybe badly.  I don’t need him to talk you into not believing, or thinking you’re as crazy as the rest of us.  He’ll get upset.  He says he believes me, but I know he’ll get upset.
            Carolyn frowned at me, then nodded.  “All right.  I guess I have to trust your judgment, right?”  She paused, brow furrowing.  “Are you guys okay?”
            “Yeah, we’re fine.”  I probably said it too fast, but she believed me anyway—and if she didn’t, she had the grace not to say anything.  “Just been scaring the crap out of each other the past few days.”
            “I’m glad you guys are back together,” Carolyn said quietly.  “He’s kind of impossible without you.”
            He’s impossible with me, too.  I smiled wryly.  “Who told you that?”
            “It’s kind of obvious.”  She grinned at me and squeezed my fingers.  “Now he’s just being stubborn.  And a perfectionist.”
            “You’re talking about the shelter situation.”
            “I know he’s working on it, Mar, but if what just happened should tell us anything, it’s that this tent thing isn’t going to work for long.”
            I sighed.  “I know.  I’ll talk to him.”
            “You don’t have to,” Thom said quietly, limping into our range of vision.  “I know it’s a problem.”  He smiled weakly at Carolyn and handed her the giant mug of something steaming that he’d been carrying.  “This morning made that pretty abundantly clear.”  He winced as he sat down next to me, brushing some hair out of my face as he reclaimed the mug from Carolyn once he was settled.  Whatever was in it didn’t smell that great.
            “Here,” he said as he pressed the mug into my hands.  I must have made a face, because he glared at me.  “Mar, just drink it.  It should help.”
            “Help what?”
            “Leah just said that it should help, okay?  Drink it.”  Pain flickered in his eyes.
            Worry.  He’s worried again.  I stopped arguing and drank.
            It tasted about as bad as it smelled, which was a little bit like old socks.  I shuddered.  Carolyn gave me a sympathetic smile.
            “I’ll let you two be,” she said.  I just nodded.  Thom wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
            “J.T. was looking for you, Care.”
            She nodded.  “I’ll go find him.  Thanks, Thom.”  She waved a little to me and wandered off.  I looked at Thom.
            “What’re you going to do?  Or should I not ask.”
            After a moment’s hesitation, he just shook his head and wrapped both arms around me.  “Probably better not to ask.  Anything I say right now’s going to come out half-baked anyhow.”  He went quiet and I took another swallow of the foul brew, trying not to taste it.  I was starting to get a little drowsy.  “You scared me a little today,” Thom finally said in a whisper, breath warm against my ear.  “Don’t do it again.  Please?”
            “I’ll try not to,” I whispered back, then smiled up at him.  He smiled back and brushed my hair away from my face again.
            “Love you,” he murmured.
            “I love you, too,” I answered, then smiled wryly.  “Even if you are making me drink this crap.”
            He choked on a laugh and squeezed me.  I swallowed the last of what was in the cup, shuddered, then set it aside.  My eyelids were heavy.
            “What was that supposed to help with?”
            “Go to sleep, Mar,” he murmured.  “You’ll be warmer when you wake up.”
            “Mmm.”  I closed my eyes.  Maybe he was right.  If he wasn’t, I’d have plenty of time to be angry later.

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            They’d piled three blankets over me by the time I was finally coherent enough to get undressed and bedded down.  The rain continued to pound us, though the worst of the thunder and lightning passed within a few hours of sunrise—or when sunrise should have been.  I hadn’t been the only one trapped under the tent when it collapsed, but I was the only one who hadn’t been in a position to crawl out on my own.  The untenable nature of our situation in these tents as a long-term solution had suddenly become abundantly clear.  There had been more than a couple murmurs I’d overheard, as I’d been practically force-fed a hot drink by the fire, about moving into one of the less-damaged seeming buildings.  The sounds of something collapsing not far away stopped those murmurings dead in their tracks.
            Part of me felt like the blankets were suffocating me, the other half just wanted to burrow even deeper underneath them to get warm again.  I was still shivering, even buried beneath them.  My panic had mostly worn away, leaving only the cold in its wake.  I wasn’t sure which was more unpleasant.
            I finally decided being cold was worse, and burrowed deeper under the covers.
            “Marin?”
            I peeked out from between the folds of blankets toward the sound of Carolyn’s voice.  She had a blanket around her own shoulders as she sank down to sit on the corner of the pair of mattresses I shared with Thom.  I caught a fleeting glimpse of Kellin and J.T. behind her somewhere, though they both vanished after a moment.  I clawed some of the blankets away from my face and slowly sat up, holding the three heavy blankets tightly around myself as I did.  “What’s wrong, Care?”
            “Marin…what did I do?”  She bit her lip, staring at me.  Her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed in red.
            Has she been crying?  My mouth dried up and my tongue tried to shrivel.  “I’m not sure, Care,” I said quietly.  “Kel might know better than I.”
            “She said to talk to you,” Carolyn said quietly.
            Of course she said to talk to me.  I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth and shook my head a little.  “What did it feel like?”
            “I just…I knew I couldn’t let that come down on your head, that’s all.  That you had to get out of the way.  And I was waving my hand like this.”  She made a get out of the way! motion with her hand.  “And then all of a sudden I felt something and you got knocked sideways and the tent came down on top of you.”  She caught her lip between her teeth.  “I’m scared, Marin.  I know it was me, I just don’t know how I did it.”
            I laughed weakly.  You’re not the only one who has that happen, Care.  Trust me.  “Don’t be scared,” I said.  “You and Kellin talked, right?  About…about things?”
            She nodded slowly.  “Yeah.  She said that it could be a long time before any of us could figure out what I could do or if I could do anything.  Something about air spirits and connections…and practice.  But how can I practice anything if I don’t know what I did in the first place?”
            Good question.  I frowned a little, drawing my knees up to my chest under the blankets.  “I’m not sure what you did either, Carolyn,” I said after a long silence.  “I felt something solid catch me in the side and knock me sideways.  Maybe you…maybe you pushed me.”
            “But I was fifteen feet away.”
            “I know.”  I watched her, waiting for the words to sink in.  Her eyes widened as they did.
            “That was me.”  Her lips thinned.  “But how did I do it, Mar?”  She seemed shaken, but less shaken than I honestly might have expected.  “How can I figure out what this is, what I can do, if I’m not even consciously doing anything?”
            I wet my lips and stared at her.  “How did I figure that out when it comes to my visions, Care?”
            She deflated, slumping.  “…sorry, Mar.”
            I shook my head.  “It’s okay.  I understand the feeling.”  Better than you realize, in fact.  “If I were to venture a guess—and I’m just guessing here, really—it was your need that sparked it.  Your desperation.”  It may be a long time before you’ve got any kind of control, Care.  I’m sorry.
            “Which is why I don’t remember how I did it.”  She frowned, hunching a little.  “This isn’t nearly as straightforward as I hoped it would be.”
            “Nothing ever is, is it?”
            “I don’t know,” she said.  “JAVA wasn’t that bad.”
            We laughed.  I caught a faint glimmer over her shoulder in the midst of our laughter, a glimmer I thought solidified into something more for a bare second, then was gone again.  Must be my imagination.  “No, the compiling software just took custody of everyone’s souls, that’s all.”
            Carolyn shook her head, grinning, then paused, reaching around toward the back of her neck.
            “What’s wrong?”
            “Just something tickling, that’s all.”
            I saw the glimmer again, and frowned.  Just a tickling, or something more?
            Carolyn froze, looking stiffly toward her shoulder, eyes widening.  I saw the glimmer reflected in her eyes and frowned.  “Care?”
            She stared, as if transfixed by something I couldn’t see.  Her jaw fell open and she looked quickly at me.  “He wants to know if I’m his human godmother.”

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            I spent the next hour with Matt, making and serving breakfast, hoping against hope that the storm didn’t blow our tents right over and trying not to think about whatever Greg and Thom might have been talking about other than designing the greenhouse.  If I was lucky, that was the only thing they were discussing.
            The only warning we had was a gust of wind before we heard he loud crack of wood snapping.  Someone screamed, and the second of the two tents we were living in started to fold in on itself.
            “Shit, shit, shit.”  I grabbed the bucket of soapy water we’d been using to rinse dishes and dashed into the collapsing tent to douse the fire at the far end.
            “Marin, what are you doing?”  Kellin shouted after me.
            “The fire!”  I reached it as the wall on that side was folding inward, upending the bucket onto the flickering flames just in time to look up and see one of the tent’s posts coming down toward my head.
            I froze.
            Something knocked me sideways.  I landed near the edge of the fire pit and the heavy, wet tarp of the tent’s walls buried me.  I lay there for a moment, listening to the pounding rain, the howling wind, and the others yelling at each other, catching my breath.  I lay still for a few long moments before I started trying to claw my way out from beneath the suffocating weight of the tarps, heart starting to beat a little faster as I realized what a small space I was trapped in and that the tarps were too heavy for me to easily force up and off of myself.
            God, don’t panic.  Don’t panic, don’t panic.
            The mantra wasn’t working.  My heart hammered against my ribs and I was having a hard time breathing.  The rain was still pounding down onto the plastic above me.  I tried to scramble, uncertain of where the light would be, where the air would be.  Thunder rumbled, so loud and so close the ground quivered under me.  I couldn’t breathe.
            Something ripped to one side of me.  My senses tunneled down to that sound, the sound of ripping, plastic-coated canvas splitting.  It screamed in my ears, echoed through my skull.  I could see light, dim though it was, to my left.  A thick, meaty hand thrust into the gap in the tent and hauled me out and into the rain.
            God, was it cold.  The rain was like ice, but it shocked me out of my panic and I clung to J.T. who’d hauled me out.  I was shaking, but not from the cold, heart still racing.  Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, too close for comfort, but I couldn’t move.  I was rooted to that spot, panic still gripping me.
            “Marin, walk.  Move.”
            I jerked, looking up at J.T.  He tugged on me again, toward the safety of the other tent, which was still up, still intact, though a few were scrambling to get walls up along the side that was suddenly exposed.  Carolyn was standing in the gap that remained, eyes wide, face white.  Was she afraid?  Kellin stood next to her, though it wasn’t me she was looking at.
            J.T. tugged a third time and I moved, stumbling over the slick canvas and tripping a little over some of the debris beneath the collapsed tent.  We were both soaked to the skin and then some by the time we made it to the safety of the still-standing tent.  J.T. didn’t let go until we’d made it that far.  My heart was still hammering against my ribs as I collapsed.
            “I saw it coming down,” Carolyn said in a broken voice.  “It was going to hit you, Mar.”
            I blinked up at her, trying to process what she was saying.  The mark on my arm was warm, tingling, not cold like it had been for the past few days.  “Huh?”
            Very nice Marin.  How articulate of you.  I shook my head to clear it.  “What are you talking about, Care?”
            “She did it, Marin,” Kellin said in a low voice, crouching next to me.  “Knocked you sideways so you wouldn’t fall into the fire or get hit by that pole.”
            It took another minute for me to process what she was saying.  About the same time my brain caught up, the cold caught up with me and I started to shiver violently.  My clothes clung to me, soaking wet, and might as well have been coated in ice.  Goosebumps raced up and down my limbs.  I looked up at Carolyn and tried to speak through my chattering teeth.  “Are you okay?”
            She ulped, then nodded.  “I—I think so.”
            I nodded, almost convulsively.  The only spot on me that was warm was my arm, where I’d been hit by the Grays.  “Good,” I managed to say.  “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”
            She nodded mutely, looking from me to the spot where I’d been standing before, before the other tent came down.  Then Davon appeared, hauling a wall up and clipping it into place, closing us off from the wind and rain.
            J.T. was already stripping out of his wet clothes, ignoring any sense of propriety.  Drew and Matt appeared with towels.  I just sat on the ground, shivering, mud-spattered and freezing.  My brother wrapped one of the towels around me and started pulling me up to my feet.
            “You need to get out of those clothes, Mar,” he said quietly.  I leaned against him, all the strength gone from my legs.  I couldn’t feel my fingers or my toes.  I was just so cold.
            Thom and Greg appeared, Thom leaning against Greg, both looking concerned—Thom more than Professor Doyle.  I fixated on them for a moment.
            Put them together and they maybe make a whole, functioning human being.
            I started to laugh.  I couldn’t help it.  As my laugh edged toward hysterical, Thom was suddenly just there, taking me in his arms and away from my brother.  I leaned against him, letting his warmth penetrate me to my half-frozen core.  My laughter turned into sobs and I buried my face in his neck.
            I don’t know how long he held me, or how long we stood there.  All I remember is that he did and the panic and fear finally went away, and I was warm again.  Maybe not dry, but warm, and safe.
            It was a feeling I never, ever wanted to go away.

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            The storm swept in within ten minutes of the first peal of thunder, rain falling in impenetrable sheets as lightning flashed and thunder rolled, shaking everything from the tent’s roof to the ground beneath our feet.  Our meeting broke up after my unfortunate bout with a visionary’s gift rearing its fair head and Thom and I retreated together back into our cubby.  One of J.T.’s kittens followed us, ensconcing herself in my lap and playing with the corner of my blanket.  Near the fire, Matt was sorting out how to make toast without the proper camping tools for doing so, some of the others still with him.  Most, though, had followed our lead and retreated back to their beds to try to get a little more rest as long as we weren’t trying to keep anything from blowing away—yet.  The wind tugged at the tent’s walls, whistled up and under the eaves in the few spots were we hadn’t clipped the walls to the top, to keep fresh air flowing in and the smoke from the fires flowing out.
            The sooner we have houses with fireplaces or stoves and chimneys, I decided, the better.
            “You’re sure you’re okay?”  Thom murmured in my ear after a long period of silence.
            I nodded, ruffling the kitten’s ears.  She was purring, butting her head against my palm.  “Yeah,” I said softly.  “I just…mostly it was just seeing what I saw a couple days ago, just faster, more in bits and snatches.”
            “The explosion?”
            I nodded again.  “I don’t know when it’s coming or if it’s coming.  Maybe it’s just my subconscious making shit up.”  I don’t think it is, but at this point, I’m not sure.  Lying to him hurt.  I wanted to tell him the rest, what I’d seen about the walls, about the houses and everything he must have built—that he would build—but I held it back.  “Hard to tell the difference anymore.”
            “If it made you black out like that…Mar, you never black out like that.  You look like you’re a thousand miles away sometimes, but you’ve never blacked out.”  There it was, that undercurrent of worry in his voice.  I suppose I couldn’t blame him for it.  “I don’t like it, Marin.”
            It scares me, too, Thom.  I nodded a little.  “I know.”  I turned my face toward his neck and he exhaled quietly.  Rain lashed against the roof of the tent, heavy, sounding more like pellets of ice than rain.  I peeked toward the opening in the tent, though it wars hard to tell whether it was rain or hail through the smoke.
            Greg Doyle eclipsed my view a moment later, easing into the dim light cast by the single lantern Thom and I had lit.  He smiled weakly at us and gestured to the ground nearby.  “Mind if I join you two?”
            “No, of course not.  Have a seat.”  I curled my legs underneath me to give him a little more room to sit down.  The kitten in my lap mewed at me, upset to have her perch move, then crawled around until she found a new position and curled back up again.  I shook my head a little.  Greg chuckled as he sat down.
            “I think she likes you.”
            “Well, we’ll know for sure when she starts bringing me dead rodents in the middle of the night.”  I glanced toward the fire, where Greg had been sitting with my brother up until a few minutes ago.  “Get tired of him swearing over burning his fingers?”
            “Eh, I was underfoot and I can’t help with the toast when I’ve only got one arm to use.”  He glanced toward Thom, then at me.  “What happened before,” he said slowly, voice low, “that was what you talked about those couple times you talked about precognition and clairvoyance at the meetings, wasn’t it?”
            I wasn’t sure he would remember.  Those meetings were a long time ago.  “Yes and no.  It’s never happened quite like that before.”  I glanced at Thom. He shook his head slightly, then shrugged.
            I guess he’s okay with the discussion, then.
            Greg just nodded slightly, settling down cross-legged, scratching the back of his neck with his good hand as he glanced around, making sure no one else was listening.  “And a couple days ago?  When you’d gone down in the ravine?”
            I shivered, trying not to think about it.  I’d rather just forget that happened, thanks.  Wasn’t one of my finer moments.  I exhaled through my teeth.  “What about it?”  I didn’t look at Thom, even though he shifted a little uncomfortably.  He knew as well as I did whose fault that situation had been.
            “No one else is talking, but you didn’t slip and get bruised up down there, did you?”
            “No,” I said flatly.  Does he know?  Has he figured something out?
            “Everything’s out of true,” he said quietly, shaking his head.  His expression was maybe a little sad as he glanced away from Thom and I, toward the weeping sky.  “The balance is broken and isn’t going to come back.”
            My stomach flopped, crawling back on itself, trying to gnaw a hole out my spine.  “How do you know?”
            He just shook his head.  “Everything that I spent ten, fifteen years looking for, the sense of the planet, of nature, of all of it…it finally came, except it came too late.”  Greg gave me a wry smile.  “I was walking my path without being able to feel, but you knew that when you met me—you and Kellin both.”
            I just nodded a little.  When Kellin and I had met Dr. Gregory Doyle, Ph.D at one of the early meetings of the campus earth-based religions organization—what a mouthful that had been, one I’d railed against, since it was an alternative religions group, but it was a fight I’d lost—we’d both mistaken him for a student like Drew, who’d come late to school after spending time working and doing other things before education became top priority.  After talking to him for a little while, we’d learned that he taught biology and had been struggling with his own religious beliefs and identity since his late teens.  Despite being completely blind to the metaphysical ebb and flow of nature, he’d found himself studying a more shamanistic path after graduate school.  He’d been an exercise in contradiction—someone dedicated to a religion that believed everything had a spirit, but unable to feel the presence of those spirits.  Kellin and I had known that pretty quickly after a walk around campus one night after a meeting.
            “Something got you down there,” he said.
            I didn’t deny it, just leaned into Thom, who tensed slightly.  I felt him swallow.
            “What was it?”
            I shook my head.  “Something that we thought was pretty benign but apparently turned angry when we started getting rained on by rocks.”  I grimaced, rubbing my arm.  The cold patch was still there and still achy, even if the coloration had mostly returned to normal.  “Drew had more experience with them before everything.”
            “Do you think there was a reason they hit you specifically?”
            I shook my head even as my stomach flopped over.  Had they targeted me specifically?  “No,” I said, swallowing my doubt.  “I was just a target of opportunity, I think.  I was there, and so were they.  I was alone and vulnerable.  So they struck.”
            Thom’s arms tightened around my waist.  I tried to relax.
            Greg nodded slowly.  “That’s why Kellin put her foot down.”
            “About people going down into the ravine alone?  Yes.  We’d always had the rule, it’s just…we didn’t always follow it.”
            “Well, now we’ve got an object lesson as to why.”  Greg hesitated for a moment, then said, “Not everyone quite understands why, though.”
            I shrugged.  “They don’t have to understand.”  Not yet.  “They just have to listen.”
            “And when they start asking why?”
            I really don’t have to have to be the one explaining that.  I sighed.  “I don’t know, Professor.  I really don’t.”  I paused a moment, thinking about what he’d said.  “You can see things now, too?”
            He shook his head.  “No.  But I can feel and sense now in the ways I’d always hoped to.  In hindsight, maybe I’d have been happier blind.”  He gave me another weak smile, then looked at Thom, then back at me.
            I started to get up.  “You two need to talk about the plans for the greenhouse.  I’ll go give Matt a hand.”
            “You don’t have to—”
            I smiled at Thom and kissed his jaw gently.  “You, sir, need to focus.  I’ll bring back breakfast.”
            After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded.  “Don’t set anything on fire.”
            I laughed and left them, trying not to think about what Greg Doyle had said and how quickly things would unravel the moment we had to explain the things that most of our thirty-some companions couldn’t see and exactly how much of an impact that had on our odds of survival.

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            Smoke curled above the knot of small houses sheltering behind the wall that had grown since I’d last seen it.  My heart swelled so much I thought it might burst.  How long had it been since I’d seen this place?  Years; I’d lost count of how many.  I took a deep breath and just stared at it for a few long moments.  I’d never seen anything look so wonderful in my whole life.
            Thom took my hand and squeezed.  “Welcome home,” he murmured in my ear.
            “Do you think he’s here?”  I whispered, fingers tightening around his.
            The smile he gave me was a weak one.  “We’ve been too lucky so far.  I don’t think we’re going to get quite that lucky.  They’ll know where he’s gone, though, right?  Just think about that.”
            I nodded, staring the walls looming above us.  Someone was pointing and shouting from on top of one.  The sun was just rising; we’d walked all night.
            “How much do you think it’s changed?”  He murmured.
            “It’s been a long time.  Probably everything.”
            He laughed.  “Hopefully not everything.”
            The gates opened.

            The ground heaved, bucked like it was strapped to a wild animal’s back.  All I could hear was screaming and the sound of my heart.  Then I heard the horns.  Someone was here, someone was here to hurt us.  I cursed, stepping away from the wall and pressing a blanket-wrapped toddler into Jacqueline’s arms.
            “Who are they?”  She asked, taking the dark-haired boy I’d thrust at her.
            “I don’t know,” I said.  “Just take Lin and the other kids and go down into the cellars.”
            “But Mar—”
            “Damn it, Jac!  We’ll need you to patch us back together, now go!”  My heart hammered against my ribs.  I could hear Thom yelling.  At least he wasn’t out with a hunting party.  At least he’s here to get them all organized.  Damnation.  She hesitated a moment longer and I winced.  “Stop, Jac.  Just make the kids safe and don’t come up until someone comes and gets you, okay?”
            “All right,” she said, grimacing as she looked toward the wall again.  “Be careful.”
            As careful as I can afford to be.  I just nodded.  “We will be.”
            Archers and people with our few remaining guns mounted the walls on our side.  I took a deep breath and muttered a prayer that we’d be able to turn the tide of whatever had blown those horns out there, marching toward our walls.

            A shadow crossed over the moon and I stopped dead in my tracks, squinting up at the star-laden sky.  I felt cold and the old mark on my arm burned.  I took a deep breath, turning back to look toward the rest of the settlement.  The tents the new arrivals were living in were quiet, only one or two lit by lamplight this late in the evening.  J.T. and Rory were both walking the night patrol with me, but neither of them were anywhere to be seen.
            I took a deep breath.  Maybe it was just my imagination.
            Something hissed behind me, perched on the wall above.  Waves of malice beat against me and I took an involuntary step back.
            This doesn’t make any sense.  It shouldn’t be able to get this close.  The wards…how did it penetrate the wards?  But the wards were old, now.  They needed attention they hadn’t gotten in the past few years, since we’d gotten down to the business of taking in new folks, most of whom didn’t quite understand, weren’t Awake.  They were people who had never seen what I was seeing, were still blind to the newer dangers in the world reborn.
            “Begone,” I told the creature, willing strength and power into my voice.  Rory and J.T. had to sense the thing if I had; they were probably on their way right now.  I’d be all right.  “This place belongs to us, not you.  Begone and trouble us no more.”
            It shrieked and dove at me.

             I was standing on a deck somewhere, feeling the ground tremble beneath my feet.  Then came the explosion and the red light, the ground ripping open beneath me, glowing bright.  The hot wind came and seared the flesh from my bones…
           …and then I was back on campus, head ringing from the sound of an explosion that sounded like a cannon shot only a few feet away.  The ground started to shake under my feet as the strange light faded in the west…

            “Marin?”
            I came to with a startled gasp, starting to lurch upright.  I was shaking all over, from fingertips to toes.  Thom’s arms wrapped around me and I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself and sort out the rush of images I’d seen while unconscious.
            “Is she okay?”  Tala asked.
            “She’s fine,” Carolyn said quickly.
            “How long was I out?”  I whispered to Thom.
            “Three minutes, maybe less,” he murmured, arms tightening.  “Are you okay?”
            “I think so,” I whispered.
            Thunder rolled outside the tents.  I tried to regulate my breathing and to not listen to the speculation about what had happened to me just now.  Kellin, Matt, and Carolyn were all trying to assure the others I was fine.  J.T. was starting to make a show of checking my eyes and I was having to struggle not to push him away.  He knew I was fine.  I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, tasting the coming rain on the wind.
            Instinctively, I knew I’d seen more than the three visions that were clear.  They were part of a tangled mass lurking just beyond the reach of my conscious brain, images that would be plucked up and out as my subconscious saw fit at inopportune times in the future.  My gaze flicked up toward Thom, who was grim-faced as he held onto me tightly.  I wanted to tell him.  I wanted him to know what I’d seen, to warn him that he had a lot of work to do.
            What few words came got stuck in my throat and died there.  I couldn’t.  Not yet.  He wasn’t ready.
            None of them were ready.  Not even me.  Some visions I’d just have to live with until the right time came to talk about them, or they happened—whichever came first.

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            “Speaking of plans and figuring, what’ve you got, Thom?”  J.T. had finally settled down again, a mug of coffee sitting on the ground next to his knee.  He’d claimed Thom’s stick for poking the fire and was keeping an eye on the flames, though he was looking at Thom now.
            “Defenses first,” Thom said, taking out his sketchpad.  “We at least need a wall of some kind before we start building more than one or two semi-permanent shelters.  The tents for the moment keep the weather out and keep us pretty warm.  It’s only a matter of time before we start seeing people marauding and trying to take whatever the hell anyone else has managed to scrape together.  I was thinking we could use the chain link fences that’re coming apart all over the place and maybe some of the rebar from that construction site on south campus as a skeleton, then lay either the broken cinderblocks or pour some concrete to make our walls.”  He frowned at his sketchpad as he flipped through the pages.  “Maybe both.”
            “You’re saying defenses should come before shelter, Thom?”  Jacqueline frowned a little.  “We can’t live in these tents all winter.  What happens if it comes faster than we anticipate?”
            “There were tribes that managed that for centuries,” Tala said quietly.  I winced, uncertain whether that was an argument for or against Thom’s suggestion.
            Thom grimaced.  “I guess I have to hope that it doesn’t.  I just…I’ve got a few more things I want to think about before we start putting up any…well.  Any houses.”
            “Like digging a well?”
            He smiled weakly at Matt.  “That’s one of the things on the list, yeah.  I’m guessing you figured out how deep we need to go?”
            My brother’s gesture suggested that he had only sort of figured out the answer to that question.  “Could be anywhere as deep as maybe fifteen or twenty feet.  It’ll be a bitch to dig, especially after we hit clay, but it’s possible.”  He hesitated a moment, then said, “Before we start building anything, you and Davon and I need to set the grid.”  He glanced toward Tala.  “You can help with that, right?  And what’s her name?”
            “Deirdre, and yes, we can help with that,” Tala said.  She looked at Thom.  “What were you working on for the shelters that you don’t have ready yet?”
            I didn’t often see Thom uncomfortable, but in the face of Tala’s question, he looked down at his sketchbook, open to a page with a maze of what looked like pipes or ductwork, surrounded by notes scribbled in his characteristic scrawl.  He stared at it for a few long moments, then cleared his throat quietly.  “I’d rather—”  I wrapped my hand around his and squeezed.  He took another breath.  “I’d rather us all have a centrally heated floor when we start putting these things up, that’s all,” he said, sounding unsteady at first.  “I just have to figure out how to make it work, that’s all.”  He stared at the sketch.  “I think I might be close, but it’s not ready yet.”
            Not ready yet because you’re not sure it’s going to work, or not ready yet because it’s not perfect?  I wondered.  I squeezed his hand again.
            “That makes sense,” Davon said.  “I don’t envy you sorting out that one, Thom, but good call.”
            Thom nodded.  “Right now I’m not envying me, either, but it seemed like the right thing to try to do.”
            Rory fed another stick into the fire as thunder began to growl in the distance.  “Sounds like something we’d need more supplies for.”
            “Probably,” Thom agreed.  “Almost definitely.  But that’s not something we can do until whatever weather’s coming has passed and I have to sort out a list of what we’ll need anyway.”  He rubbed his hand over his eyes.
            “About that,” I said.  “I don’t think it’s a good idea that we have so many people away from here during the day.  We should probably limit that number, keep a set number of people here at any given time.  Maybe keep a dozen or ten people here at all times, not counting Thom or Dr. Doyle.”
            “We don’t count why?”  Greg asked.
            Thom laughed.  “Because if you put you and I together, you might get a whole, functioning human being.”
            At least he can laugh about that.
            The others laughed, too.  Thom squeezed my hand and smiled at me.  I smiled back.
            “Oh,” Greg said.  “Well, when you put it that way, I guess it’ll make sense.”
            “See?”  I smiled and leaned toward the fire a little.  “It’s about us being prepared for—”
            Lightning lit the world and thunder shook everything, right down to the marrow of our bones.  The strike had been close, too close.  Someone screamed.
            My world suddenly went dark.

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            I sank down next to Thom fifteen minutes later, near the cheerfully crackling fire that he was still poking every so often with a stick.  I stretched my hands out toward the flames, letting warmth bleed into them from the ambient heat of the fire.  My fingers were cold and stiff from rigging up the tent walls we’d taken down the day before, when the weather had been more pleasant.  We’d thought to get some fresh air into the tent while we could, while the weather permitted.  I was already shuddering to think what winter would be like.  Of course, hopefully we’d have something other than a tent to huddle in before that came, but no one was placing any bets on that being possible yet.
            “Matt’s waking the others?”  Thom asked, setting aside the stick and rocking up on one knee to check the kettle.
            I nodded, flexing my fingers as the feeling returned to them, an uncomfortable pins-and-needles sensation.  “Yeah.  After they’re up and over here, we can get started.  Stasia went down to the other tent?”
            “And took Brandon with her.  Did you tell Jack to grab some sleep?”
            “Yeah.”  Thom sat back again, watching me for a minute.  “Cold?”
            I snorted.  “Y’think?”  He took one of my hands and closed my fingers between both of his hands, the heat from his flesh bleeding into mine.  I sighed and leaned against his shoulder.
            “At least the walls are up,” he said.  “Don’t have to worry about that when the weather hits.”
            I nodded.
            Somewhere in the distance, thunder growled.  I tried not to shiver, tasting rain on the wind.  Thom squeezed my fingers, then took my other hand and repeated the warming process.  J.T. joined us as he was in the midst of that, yawning and rubbing at his eyes, shadows deep beneath them.
            “Early morning,” he mumbled as he checked the kettle and then grabbed the coffee press.  “What’s wrong now?”
            “Storm rolling in,” I said.  “Bright red sky.  Something told both of us that was probably bad and probably worth waking up some of you a little earlier than anticipated.”
            “Probably right.”  J.T. rubbed his eyes again and started loading the coffee press.  The rest slowly filtered toward the fire as he got the coffee going—Kellin, my brother, Rory, Drew, Davon, Carolyn, Jacqueline, and Tala.  Greg Doyle was the last to join us, shuffling over and yawning mightily.
            “Pressure’s shifting,” he said quietly as he slowly sat down near the fire, adjusting the blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders.  “I can feel it in the break.”
            If Thom had a similar feeling, he kept it to himself.  He accepted a mug of coffee from J.T., then passed it to me.  I took a sip from the mug and nodded at Greg.  “There’s some nasty rolling in, we think.  That’s why we’re battening down the hatches, though that’s not the whole reason Matt woke all of you.”
            Kellin joined J.T. in handing out the hot drinks.  “You want to get the logistics powwow started early.”
            I nodded.  “Seemed like a good idea at the time.  Especially if the storm starts waking people.”  I still wasn’t sure how I felt about excluding so many people from the planning, but as Kellin had pointed out—and Greg agreed—any community needed some sort of leadership, and we’d all kind of risen to the top of the heap in the past few days.  There wasn’t really any grumbling yet, but that was probably because everyone was dry and fed at the end of the day.  With any luck, that trend would continue.
            “Could I start, then?”  Greg asked, taking the mug of coffee that Kellin offered him.  When no one spoke up, he edged a little closer to the fire and started.  “A couple of us have talked about needing greenhouses to grow food, but we can’t really expect to hike out to the big one when the weather’s bad, assuming the way stays stable enough to get there in the winter.  We can probably put together a few up here with some wood framing and the broken glass here on campus.  We got all that silicon seal from the hardware store.  If we do it right, we can use that with the glass to make the panes we’ll need for the greenhouses.”
            “You think it’s possible?”  Davon asked after a few moments of silence.
            “Won’t know until we try it.  I think it should work.  Probably do it in pots and raised beds to protect the plants from the ground freezing.  Might even be able to get enough large sections of glass that we won’t have to silicon many of the pieces together.”
            “How much time do you think we’ve got before the ground freezes?”  I asked quietly.
            “Too early to know,” he said, glancing over his shoulder toward one of the gaps in the tent’s walls we left so the fire’s smoke could escape.  “Could be months.  Could be weeks.  We can hope to get lucky.”
            Lucky would mean months instead of weeks.  I nodded a little.  Carolyn was taking notes in a tattered notebook that she balanced against her knee.  Thom looked at Greg.
            “Have you done any plans or figuring?  If you haven’t we should probably talk.”
            Greg nodded.  “We should probably do that.”

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            I lay awake with Thom’s arms around my waist, watching as the sky went from a flat slab of sullen blue-black to a twisting mass of navy and slate gray as the sun struggling to rise on the eastern horizon.  There had been no rain last night, for the first time in days, but I held out no hope that the day would be more of the same.  The constantly moving clouds above promised some sort of precipitation.  It was only going to get worse for a while before it got better.
            At least, that’s what Matt had told me quietly at dinner.  My instincts said he was probably right.
            There were only thirty-five of us now, with three more slipped away the day after I’d woken up screaming.  I already knew we’d never see them again.  Our numbers were growing smaller day by day.  How were we going to survive?
            I knew we would, though.  Somehow, we would.
            Thom pressed a kiss to the back of my neck through my hair, mumbling, “Is it time for that logistics meeting yet?”
            “I don’t think it’s time yet,” I whispered back, running my hands along his arms before twining my fingers with his.  “Why are you awake?”
            “Just am.”  He kissed my neck again, gave me a squeeze, then started sitting up.  It was still an ordeal; his ribs still bothered him more than he’d admitted to me and his torso was a mass of purple-black bruises.  He tried to hide how much pain he was in and he succeeded in large part with everyone except for J.T. and I.  We both knew him a little too well for that.
            I sat up, too, blankets slipping away from both of us.  I shivered a little in the chill of the morning, feeling more like it was October than August.  My arm was still sore from where the grays had clipped me, but the mark they’d left was slowly fading.  We hadn’t fought since that day.  It was almost a relief—almost, because I knew the respite wouldn’t last, but for the moment, I’d take it because it was all I was going to get.  At least he believed me about what I could see.  That was a victory, at least.
            “Who’s on the watch?”  Thom asked as he grasped my shoulder for extra leverage.  He got himself fully into a sitting position with a wince, one hand unconsciously going to his ribcage.
            I tried not to shake my head at him.  “Do you want Jay or Jac or Leah to tape those later?”
            He glared at me sidelong and shook his head slightly.  “It’s not that bad.”  I glared back at him and he sagged.  “Okay, fine.  They hurt, but taping them isn’t going to help.”  He squeezed my shoulder and let go.  I stared at him for a long moment, trying to decide whether or not I should believe him, then nodded.
            “Jac gave you some pills, though, right?  Do me a favor and take a couple.”
            Thom made a face, watching me as I got up, lit our small camping lantern, and started getting dressed.  “Toss me a clean shirt, please.”
            I found one and tossed it to him, watching him as he shrugged out of the shirt he’d slept in and into the fresh one.  He balled the sleeping shirt up and shoved it beneath our pillows.  I took a deep breath.  “Are you going to take something?”
            He paused.  “I really don’t want to, Mar.”
            “Thom.”  Gods of heaven and earth, don’t be stubborn.  Please.
            He shook his head.  “I know what you’re going to say, but just listen, will you?  There’s going to come a time when we won’t have the luxury of pills.  Better get used to dealing with pain now rather than later.”
            I gave him a long look, trying to choose my words carefully.  Calling him galactically stupid came to mind.  “Thom, we need you focused on something other than how much you’re hurting for this.  Just take the pills.  Please?”  The look on his face told me he was going to be stubborn.  I came back over to the mattress and knelt down next to him, taking his hands.  “It’s not a headache or sprain we’re talking about here, Thom, and you know it.  Your ankle is broken.  I don’t know if your ribs are, but I know they hurt a lot.”  He opened his mouth to argue and I shook my head.  “Please don’t.  I know you well enough to know that they hurt like a bitch and you didn’t want to tell me.”  I’m not sure why you didn’t want to tell me, but it’s either good or really stupid, so it’s probably good I don’t know why.  “I won’t tell anyone.  Just take the pills and feel a little better for a little while, okay?”
            His nostrils flared, expression going hard for a moment, then went slack.  He looked away from me, taking a deep breath with a wince.  “All right,” he whispered.  “Just this once.”
            Thank the powers that be for small favors.  I squeezed his hands and got up to finish getting dressed.  He got up a few moments later, hobbling around with his crutch under one arm and keeping his weight off his ankle.  The swelling had begun to subside again, though it hardly looked normal.
            “Who had the watch this morning?”  He asked quietly, tapping two pain pills out into his palm and swallowing them in one go.  He grasped my arm as he started to pull on a pair of jeans.
            We’d started setting watches almost from day one, three shifts a night, two volunteers a shift.  The first shift was always the easiest, since most of us still lingered around the campfires until at least halfway through it.  J.T. and Rory had taken most of the graveyard shifts during the darkest parts of the night, though they couldn’t keep doing that forever. Stasia Lane had been taking the early morning shifts since we’d found the livestock, since she went to tend them in the other tent as soon as someone else got up in the morning.
            “Stasia and Jack,” I said, holding still until he was finished getting dressed.  “I’ll wake the fires and get some hot water going.”  I watched him as he reclaimed his crutch and hobbled over to where he’d stashed his drafting supplies.  “It’s too dark, still, for you to be drawing, Thom.”
            “I know, but when you get the fire going and we get those lamps up for the meeting, it’ll be bright enough to see and not everyone’s seen these plans yet.”
            I nodded a little, turning down the lamp before I picked it up.  The sky wasn’t much lighter than it was fifteen minutes ago, but as we headed toward the nearest fire, I could see red starting to tinge the clouds in the east, a warning of piss-poor weather to come.
            Red sky at morning means bad things coming on within the next couple hours.  I tried not to wince.  Thom followed my gaze and grimaced.
            “Looks like we’ll be battening down the hatches before this pow-wow, huh?”
            “Looks like,” I agreed with a frown.  I caught his free hand with mine and squeezed it.  “Go sit by the fire.  I’m going to wake my brother.  Jack and I can’t get those walls up alone, and Stasia’s going to need to see to the animals before the storm hits.”
            “Wake Brandon, too,” Thom suggested, fingers tightening around mine before letting go.
            I blinked at him.  “Why Brandon?”
            “He can help with the animals.”  I must have been giving him a very strange look because he just shook his head.  “Call it a hunch, Mar.  Wake him.  He’ll be happy to feel useful, anyway.”
            A hunch, huh, Thom?  I nodded.  “All right.  Try not to fall into the fire while you’re poking it back to life, huh?”
            Thom grinned.  “Am I that predictable?”
            “Only with me.”  I smiled at him and we parted ways, he to wake the fire and get some water going, me to start rousing some of the camp.  Something was telling me this storm was going to be unpleasant, and we’d need quite a few hands on deck to be up to its challenge.

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