13

Stella

It had been five days since we left the lakehouse when we ran into our first real town. Other than the mines yesterday, we'd only found an isolated house here or there, nothing too notable.

I still had my walking stick, and for the most part, I had been handling it well enough with that. I stumbled a few times when I felt weak or my vision blurred, but I stayed on my feet.

Until yesterday afternoon, when a seizure had taken me down while I was walking, and I sustained a bump on my head. I was fine, just tired and upset to be cutting our day short without arriving anywhere interesting. Since then, Max had taken to holding my free hand, but I didn't really mind because I liked holding his hand.

I had been looking forward to seeing a town from B.Z., because I didn't really remember them anymore. The only vague images I had in my mind were of people everywhere and cars that zoomed by and buildings so tall they touched the sky.

Cities and towns used to be alive, and it had been so long since I had even seen their skeletons. I practically cried out in delight when I saw the sign proclaiming Priest's Mill – "A Place Where History Lives." It was a big billboard, painted like a postcard with an old mill, steamboats, and a historic fur trading post .

"Finally, a town to explore," I said and squeezed Max's hand.

"Or at least a place to rest for the night," Remy said with her eyes on the sun lowering in the sky.

"Or maybe a little of both," Max suggested when he saw my disappointment.

Remy insisted I sit and rest every moment I had the chance. Sometimes it was necessary. Sometimes I was so exhausted, I was about to pass out on my feet. But this was my first time out in the world since I was a little kid, and if I could handle exploring, I was going out to explore, no matter what Remy thought.

"Looks like there might be steamboats here." Garrison motioned to the river that ran alongside us. "I would like to have a peek out at the docks if you all don't mind."

Samara rolled her eyes at her father. "You always do anyway. Docks and train stations every time we pass one, even though there's never anything there."

"Well, you don't have to go with me if you don't want to," Garrison said.

"I want to see the houses. There might be some good stuff left," I said. "I've been hoping to find a few things for the baby."

"We can look for you," Remy offered.

"I'd like to look for myself," I persisted. "I'll rest when we find somewhere comfortable, and then I'll have Max and Ripley with me."

"I've seen zombies take over the world, and that lion following you around everywhere is one of the stranger things I've seen," Polly commented.

"Lions live in prides with their families in the wild," I said. "They like being with family and take care of each other. They're pack animals, like humans."

"I never really think of humans as pack animals," Remy said .

"That's because you think that you're a lone wolf," Serg replied, and we all laughed at that. Remy even smirked, but Boden seemed to laugh a little too loud.

We strolled down the road that rolled right into a quaint main street. The houses and buildings that lined it – a cutesy log cabin, a gas station, a thrift store next to a market, a tiny post office with a totem pole carved into a bear out front – had their windows broken out with vines and plants overgrowing and overtaking everything they could. I was surprised that the totem pole had held up, but it was carved from a very sturdy log.

"How about the old mill?" Lillian asked, peering in one of the windows of a historic looking structure. It was a rustic three story building made of brick situated directly on the river.

"‘This gristmill was constructed by Father Constantine in 1821. It played a crucial role in the development along the Staulo River. Preserved by the Staulo River Historical Society,'" Samara read off the bronze plaque by the front door of the mill.

"What the heck is a gristmill?" Castor asked.

"It ground grain into flour using wind or water back before we had electricity," Lillian explained. "This one uses the water from the river."

Garrison peered into the window. "It held up after all these years, and the Lord only knows what else it has endured in the past decade. It'd be a great place to rest up for the night."

Remy opened the door and went inside, and Boden followed behind her, armed with his machete in case zombies had gotten trapped in. I sat down on the curb outside, waiting for them to let us know it was safe, and my feet were throbbing. Every day we walked, my boots grew tighter and tighter, no matter how much I loosened the laces.

I shrugged off my knapsack with a wince. My shoulders burned and my back was screaming from the strain of carrying all my possessions on my back and my baby in my belly. None of it was easy, but I knew that this journey was the only way to find help for me and the baby. So I gritted my teeth and did my best to grin and bear it the way that Remy had always taught me.

"How are you doing?" Max asked me softly. He must've noticed the pain on my face. He noticed everything. He had always been so perceptive and considerate, especially with me.

"My back hurts, but it's manageable." I downplayed my discomfort.

"Here." He sat down directly behind me, with his back gently touching mine. "Lean back against me. See if that helps."

I did as he said, and instantly felt some relief in the sharpest pain of my lower back. "Thank you. That is better."

"No problem." His hand was at his side, and I reached back and took it in mine. "I'll carry you all the way to Emberwood, if you let me."

"I would let you if I didn't think we'd both end up with a broken leg," I replied honestly. He was tall, wiry, and strong, but carrying me that far would be way too dangerous and exhausting, if not impossible.

"Do you think I have enough time to head to the docks?" Garrison asked, and he glanced down at the mechanical watch he wore on his wrist.

By then, we'd mostly been resting while the others were getting the mill ready. Cleaning out garbage and animal debris so we'd have a safe space to lay our bedrolls.

"Darkness is coming soon, and we're in a strange area," Remy said. "Why don't you wait until morning, and we all can explore the town together?"

"Yeah. Sure. Right," Garrison agreed, but he sounded a tad disappointed. He had to be thirty years older than Remy, and he'd only recently joined up with us, and yet he already deferred to her.

At home, Remy had this way of taking command of everything, but I had wondered if that was just the way she behaved inside our family. It was interesting to see her have the same effect on other people, although I doubted that Samara or Lillian would have folded as easily as Garrison.

By the stony exterior of the mill, I had assumed the interior would be more of the same, but everything was covered in natural wood. There were circular grinding stones on the main floor, and giant funnels on the second. Above that was another floor that Remy and Boden cleared of zombies or danger, but there was more than enough floor space for all of us to camp out on the second level, so that's what we did.

After we all ate, Remy and Lillian went down for the first watch, while Boden, Serg, and Garrison laid down for the night.

Despite the long day, I felt restless and unable to relax. When I whispered as much to Max, Polly and Castor overheard and agreed that they felt the same.

"Let's go up to the third floor, so we don't bother the others," Max suggested and motioned to the wooden staircase.

Samara had been sitting on her bedroll next to her father, but when she saw us going upstairs, she hurried after us. As did Ripley, but she followed me everywhere I went.

Max brought a candle, and a little of the fading sunlight made it through the third story window. The attic was empty, aside from a few old boxes, cobwebs, and rat droppings.

I went over to the window and looked out at the waterwheel in the river at the back of the mill. To the north was a cemetery. Before we'd gone inside the mill, I had mistakenly thought it to be a park, but now I could clearly see the headstones all over. In the very center, among broken gravestones, there were the burnt remnants of a pile of bodies. Human skeletons blackened and stacked on top of one another.

"Make a wish," Polly said behind me, and I nearly jumped.

"What?" I asked.

"The first star is out." She pointed to the bright light in the bruise-colored sky. "If you make a wish on it, it will come true."

I shook my head. "I hadn't heard that before."

"Star light, star bright/First star I see tonight/I wish I may, I wish I might/Have this wish I wish tonight," Polly said.

I repeated her words, and I put my hands on my belly as I wished silently in my head. I wish that the baby is born happy and healthy .

"Come sit down," Max said, patting a spot next to him on the floor. "You should still rest."

My body ached, and I eagerly sat down beside him. Samara and Castor were already sitting across from us, their knees brushed up against each other, and Polly sat between her brother and me.

"So…" Samara said, eyeing us. "You two really aren't brother and sister?"

" No !" Max and I both shouted in unison, appalled.

"Remy is my only sibling," Max elaborated.

"Are you Boden's sister then?" Polly asked me.

I shook my head. "No, the rest of us aren't related by blood. But we're still family."

"So it isn't weird for you two to be hooking up with someone in your ‘family?'" Samara asked with airquotes around family .

Max bristled. "No. I mean, Remy and Boden are each other's family, and they're in love. "

"Are they?" Polly asked dubiously.

"Yes," Max insisted. He was always quick to defend his sister against perceived criticisms, sometimes too quick. "Family has many different forms, and this is ours."

"I guess I can understand that," Samara finally conceded. "My sister died first, and then my mom died a couple years ago, but it hasn't really been just me and my dad since then. We' ve always found other people." She smiled over at Castor when she said that, and Max squeezed my hand.