After some deliberation, Rust locked her basket over her arm, left a note on the kitchen table, and started out for the City. She had left some beans in the stove and a second note for the mystery child.
She had been asleep in the chair when Rust looked in, backpack clutched in her arms like a teddy.
Rust hoped she could read. It was a funny thought, that those hastily written scribbles were the closest thing they had to literature.
Hadn't there been a bookcase in the store? She really ought to check that out.
Poor kid, though, who knew what she'd been through. Waking up alone in a strange city was bad enough, waking up in one with your memories missing and about the End, she couldn't imagine what that would be like. It made her heart ache and her eyes tear up to even think about it.
-
The rain was still coming down, but it was a fine mist now rather than the monsoon it had been only hours before, and her boots squelched in the mud.
It felt like the city got further and further away each time she visited, but she'd never bothered to check. Maybe she could mention it to Shim. Knowing him, he'd go out and count their steps or something, measuring it daily.
He was a practical kid, more than she'd ever been as a youngster. Most of her practicality was born of necessity rather than any real enjoyment. Shim though, he seemed to genuinely enjoy making and fixing things, and watching him tackle jobs with abandon brightened her days no end.
Rust looked up as she walked, marvelling at the sheer life within the forest. Before the storm, the woods had felt like a placeholder, something to fill space between other patches of world, but now it was a space in its own right.
She could hear a myriad of birds and animals, all shouting and crying for attention. She could see movement in the branches above her, and the trees themselves were brimming with spring growth. Everywhere there were small green shoots, tiny leaves, tiny white flowers, and the joy of spring.
The smell in the air was different, too, earthy and correct. This wasn't the sleepy forest she had known her whole life, but it also wasn't the dead thing it had been a month earlier.
An orange cat flashed across the path as she walked, in pursuit of some kind of small rodent, and she smiled, happy.
-
The FEUD MARKET- as the sign proclaimed- was still where she'd left it, which was a relief, but the city around it was changing. There were big cracks running through the buildings, and small signs of decay, as well as little bits of greenery taking root in every split and crack. She only recognised a few of the plants, and had names for none of them, but they were thriving in the post-storm world.
The roads were filled with deep potholes as if they'd undergone years of wear, and each of those was filled with water, plants, and small wildlife. She had slowed her walk and knelt by one. It was filled with tadpoles and frogs and little drips of algae, and she remembered how her children would bring such things home in buckets.
The store was the same as ever, except for more cracks in the facade. The sign had also taken a beating, the paint having run in the rain until all that was left was bare, twisted wood, and streaks of colour down the side of the building.
Inside, it was more humid than she remembered, but nothing seemed damaged, and no animals had made their home here yet. The odd lighting the place had always had was still there, coming from no source she could discern, and the ceiling had lowered some, but those were the only differences.
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She headed towards BOATS, patting the cashier's desk as she passed. She would pick up something for the chickens and something for dinner, that was a good plan.
-
She considered taking the whole trolley home with her, but eventually stowed the impulse. If others were waking up now, then they might need it, and it was only the one that she could find. Plus it would be more of a hindrance than a help, what with the state of the roads now.
She would come back with the other two, or three, tomorrow to restock properly, but for now, she had chicken feed and dinner, and that was enough.
She had inspected the bookcase and found it as she remembered it. Crudely painted wood with one extremely obvious lever to open the "secret door".
Behind the door had been candles. Advertised at a 50% discount, yesterday only!
It was a useless sign, but she had put some into her basket anyway, you could never have too many candles.
Now she stood outside the market and stared down the road, thinking. The hints of green and the mist gave it a wild look, unlike the sterility of before, and she knew it would get only more so from now on. Trees and bushes taking root, animals moving in.
The child had been out there on her own. What if there were others, wandering lost and alone in this huge place? Slowly being subsumed by the jungle. What if they hadn't been lucky enough to be left in the city at all, and were lost in the endless stretches of forest?
She pursed her lips, placed her basket gently on the step, and then walked back into the store.
-
"What've you been up to?" Shim raised an eyebrow at her paint-splotched appearance, and Rust grinned, handing him the basket.
"I thought about what you were saying before and decided to get a start on it. Started painting main street. How's the wild-child doing?"
Shim shrugged warily. "She was still asleep last I checked, so I let the chicken out, but she might've worked out how to open the back door by now."
He made a gesture towards the living room, "might be a good time to check on her, see if she's hungry. Maybe now it's daytime she'll be less… Aggressive?"
Rust shrugged and headed towards the parlour.
"We can only hope,"
-
Well, she wasn't hiding under the sofa, and she hadn't fled yet, so both were good signs, but Rust was a little at a loss about what to do next. She had tried talking to the girl but got no response, and talking in the other way, which got harder to do every day, didn't seem to work either.
She wouldn't even make eye contact, and after a few minutes, Rust gave up and headed back towards the kitchen. Maybe she was approaching this the wrong way.
Rust had tamed cats in the past, when she was very young and her parents had had their smallholding. The trick was to not look at them, to place the food nearby and pretend you hadn't noticed they were there. If I can't see you, you can't see me.
A child was generally smarter than a cat, but you never knew what trauma could do to people. Hopefully, she would learn to trust them, in time. She should have a decent enough life to fall back on, it would just take time for those memories to reassert themselves.
Rust carefully set down the food on the coffee table, glancing towards the stove. The room was starting to chill with the windows exposed, but was it worth firing it back up right now? It was almost midday, and the weather did seem to be improving.
She stopped to look around. This was the first time she'd seen the room in full daylight, and she barely recognised it. Warm woods and cosy blanket-covered chairs, all clean and fresh. The pink of the walls offset the creams and pastels of the covers, and might even be worth keeping.
Why hadn't she done the room up years ago? She had clung on for so long. Her kids had even suggested it on several occasions, offering to pay for new decor and furnishings, but she had resisted every time.
"You were such a stubborn old woman," she muttered to herself, looking around.
With a grimace, she shook off the self-deprecating thoughts, and instead pulled back the curtain to the back door. A minute later she was outside.
The sheets were still there, piled up on the grass, and she rolled her shoulders in resignation. She would probably have to revive the big copper pot in the basement for this one, God help her.
She hadn't used the thing in donkey's years, but it was too much of an effort to get rid of, some custom job, built into the house two hundred before and barely used since. She had only ever fired it up under dire circumstances, and always with a little apprehension.
The day she got a washing machine had been one of the best days of her life.
It should have still been in the utility room, but investigation had proved it was not, a conspicuous gap where it had once stood. Another one of the strange, missing things. She was noticing them more lately.
There was an outside door to the cellar, but she was going to have to cut the greenery away so she could access it. It had been wild even before she died.
She hadn't been doing as much maintenance as she should, in the last couple of years, and she bit her lip, trying not to think back on that. Oh well, there was time now to make up for it, and she knew where the secateurs were stored.
Grumbling, she marched off to fetch Shim, leaving the back door open behind her.