Flicker by Anya Monroe Read Free Book Online Page A

me. I take another bite, knowing I’ll do this next part for her.
    We finish three apples apiece and then go inside to pack. Once the door is shut I peel off my gloves and toss my suit to the ground. I’m ready to be rid of it, realizing how useless the whole charade has always been. Mom says to pack only the essentials. A change of clothes, soap, water purification tablets. There’s no food, but we fill our big stainless steel water bottles, putting them in our never-been-used hiking packs. Mom grabs matches and a first aid kit.
    I ask Mom if we should take a few guns from the hatch with us. The men never went outside without them, but she shakes her head.
    “No guns, Lucy. You’ve never shot one, and I never wanted them in the first place. If we take them they will only be used against us.”
    I don’t argue, but it scares me to be alone in the wild without protection of any kind.
    “Is there anything else we should take? All the stuff in the study was important to Dad.”
    “Lucy, if I never look at that room again in my entire life I’ll be okay. I’d just as soon torch the place.” She has on her boots and a rain-resistant coat. I look down at myself, in my matching gear, although a few sizes too big. That’s what you get for wearing someone else’s wardrobe your entire life.
    Pulling her pack onto her shoulders, she heads towards the door. I start to follow, then turn into the study first. I take my embroidery hoop from the bag next to my favorite chair and look at the bright sun stitched in the center, thinking how now I’ll be outside, able to look at the sun just like the cowboys do. I put the hoop in its bag and stuff it into my backpack.
    I push open the front door and step through. Mom locks the door behind us with a key, and then leans to a stone near the door. She lifts the rock to place the key underneath.
    “You plan on returning?” I ask.
    “You never know in this life.” She looks over to the tree where her husband lies, but she isn’t soft around the edges, or weak like last night. She is strong, like the Mom I’ve always known. She shrugs and says, “To new beginnings!”
    I cringe, not understanding her word choice. It’s not clear if she’s being callous on purpose or not, either way my heart aches for what we’ve lost.
    Before we head into the great unknown I pause at the edge of the yard to put several apples in my pack. I look at the sun, squinting in a futile attempt to wipe the past twenty-four hours from my memory.
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
    chapter eight
     
    A s the walk begins I’m in-step with Mom. She keeps looking over, as though she wants to make sure I’m still here. Pine trees tower above; bright green needles cover their branches where red faced Western Tanagers perch watching us. We hike through the woods, etching ourselves farther and farther from the compound, into the unknown canvas of our future.
    I brush tears away as the loss of everything I’ve ever known begins to set in. The pine scent invigorates me as we pass through the thick trees; but it isn’t the same as the desk where I spent years studying botany. It is not the same as the greenhouse where I would stand next to Mom, watching as she attempted to coax cabbage into living. I can’t voice to Mom that only two miles from our past-life I already miss the things I knew, especially when the things I miss are such poor imitations of what I can now see and smell and hear.
    We make our way to a paved street with a faded yellow line in the center. There are overgrown roadside plants, I point out the green-leaved salal shrubs dripping with dark berries and flowering lupine, remembering them from the books on Northwest plants back at the compound, where glossy photos were my closest encounter with the native growth.  In one spot we have to duck down low to pass through the tangled mess of tree branches. Mom tells me construction crews used to come through the roads and cut down trees and overhanging