The memory of that night caused cold pricks of pain to stab Pima’s heart. Turning to take

another step, her mind was consumed with one thought: The story. The story.

The urge compelled her up, up, up. The next door opened just as she reached it, and

she peered around it to find a very different scene than what she had expected.

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Akish was in the middle of telling one of his “true” stories. Not the story that Pima had wanted to

hear but just as worn. She didn’t know how he had been able to keep all the details straight. He had been

only five when the Tower was completed and the world in his stories had disappeared.

How could he remember? Why did all he cared for involve the past? How could he hold such

optimism for the future when that life was gone?

These questions, this suspicion, belonged to the older Pima.

The younger Pima stood - round-faced and smiling - looking up at him with eager, wide eyes.

Everything else was forgotten in that moment. She shut her eyes and leaned her head back against a

scraggly tree, imagining the images that Akish invoked with his words.

“A whole store filled with candy! All they sell is candy! Chocolate, taffy, lollipops. We’d go there

every Friday after Dad got off work, and he’d let me fill this little bag with anything I wanted. My favorites

were the chocolate caramels - sweet and gooey - and the grape bubble gum balls - the ones all twisted up

in pink paper. But they were on the top shelf---”

“So Dad had to help you reach them. He sneaked behind you and picked you up---”

“---and placed me on his shoulders.”

Older Pima felt tears prick her eyes as she saw Akish’s wistful expression.

“Every Friday. Chocolate caramels and bubblegum balls.”

“Grape,” Pima reminded him as if he’d forgotten the most important detail of all. It sounded like a

wonderful dream. A Friday afternoon with nothing better to do than hang out with your dad in a shop full

of candy. If she had---

“Pima!” Akish’s tone brought an immediate stab of panic to Pima’s heart. She whirled around to

search for what caused the shift in Akish’s voice.

A blanket of fog had risen over the ground, ankle deep. They hadn’t been paying attention. They’d

stayed out too long, allowed their wandering feet to take them too far from their shelter, and now they

were going to be caught out in the strangling fog.

The fog was rising as it drifted towards them. Soon, it would be at Pima’s waist, and then it would

be too late. The fumes carried on those vapors would be strong enough to fill her lungs with noxious gas.

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Pima had never been caught out in it, but she’d had nightmares for weeks after her mother described the

effects of “fog poison.”

A shape fell out of the eerier darkness that was descending. Pima screamed, and Akish grabbed

her shoulders, spinning her around.

“Run! Go!” He turned her in the direction of the house they had moved into three days ago and

pointed.

“The...the sacks…” Her lips trembled, but she refused to return empty handed. Akish’s fingers dug

into her shoulder, but she stubbornly dug in her heels.

“There’s no time. Ahh!” he exhaled in frustration. He took the pack and upended it, spilling half

its foraged contents on the ground. “There. Now go!” He shoved it into her arms and pushed her forward

as he turned back toward the groaning figure.

Pima’s heart pounded in her ears, drowning out the sound of her feet as she splashed through

muddy puddles and dodged the thin trees that stood in her way. She tucked the pack into her stomach and

sprinted for the house. Please, Akish. Please, Mom. Please. She didn’t stop to look at how far back Akish

was, if he was following her. She had to focus on where she was headed. She twisted her head this way and

that, searching for their one-room shelter in the rapidly fading light.

“Pima! Akish! Children!"

Tears burst from Pima’s eyes when she heard her mother yelling her name off to her right. She

turned toward the voice and ran headfirst into her mother’s chest. Her mother ignored the pack, which

fell to the ground, and gathered Pima into her arms.

“Pima, oh, Pima! Where’s your brother?”

“He...He…”

“Akish!”

Akish ran past them, carrying a limp form in his arms.

“Get inside!” he shouted. He ran to the shelter and kicked the door in. Their mother stumbled as

she hurried to carry Pima inside. Pima was getting too big to carry, but she refused to set her down. Even

as she barred the door and pulled out the candle box and gathered blankets to stuff in the chinks in the

door and walls.

Pima clung to her, breath rattling in her mother’s ear, as she and Akish made sure that every hole

was secured. Then she curled up on her sleeping pallet and watched them tend to the injured stranger.

They tried to shield the stranger from her view, but in the glow of the lit tallow candle, Pima stared at the

woman’s face.

She thought it was a woman. Red tracks lined her face, scratch marks or tears marks burned into

her skin. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her chest rose and fell in spasms, shallower and shallower, until its

chest barely moved at all. A mask bag hung limp around her neck; no one thought to remove it. It was the

same simple linen mask that Pima’s mom had fashioned for all of them, and it had done nothing for her.

Pima’s mother hovered over her, applying cool compresses to her face and checking her pulse

regularly. Akish mimicked her movements in the stillness. His face was twisted with sorrow and pain for

this unknown woman. Every so often, Mother sighed. Pima heard the inevitable in the sound, but still,

they kept working to provide whatever comfort they could for the stranger.

Mother only spoke twice that long night. Once to Pima: “Are you hungry?”

Pima shook her head, heat filling her cheeks as she remembered the food she’d left behind and

the way she had been salivating over imaginary candy earlier that day.

And then once to Akish: “We have to move again in the morning. We can’t stay here anymore.”

This statement shook Pima into action. She shuffled on her knees to her mother’s bags and pulled

out her bag of sewing supplies. They’d need new packs, and she would need to finish cutting the patterns

for the coats that her mother had marked on scratchy fabric.

And no more stories.

It was time for her and Akish to stop dreaming about the past. This was their present, their future.

Mom needed them here.

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To be continued...