Dearly, Beloved Part 5

"If it's worth anything, I need you." Bram wrapped me up again, and tangled his fingers in my hair. "You guys aren't the only ones feeling the pressure. I lost it, for a few seconds. Beat up some guys spouting conspiracy theories that sounded an awful lot like Averne's. They said your name, like they had any right to, and I went off. That's what Coalhouse was talking about."

This statement didn't offer me any comfort. It caused me to hook my chin worriedly over his shoulder and loop my arms around him, eyes on the carriage window. He'd told me he had maybe three years left before he gave into his illness, lost his self-control, and so three had become a mantra of mine, my lucky number.

I didn't want to think about the fact that he'd quoted that figure four months ago. So two and two-thirds left. Or less than that?

"You're the only thing around here that makes sense sometimes," he whispered against my temple. "You remind me of what's important. What I have to lose. I feel safest when I'm protecting you, caring for you-I feel at peace. So whatever you need me to do, tell me. I'd put a bullet in my own head for you."

I clutched him with renewed intensity, another tear escaping my eye. This was never going to end. Even if we did leave New London.

Behind Bram the window of the carriage exploded with a suddenness that threatened to stop my heart. A pistol-though to my panicked mind it resembled a cannon-was thrust through it, and for a moment I thought I'd been shot, my cheek stinging. As Bram turned, roaring, I saw the air glittering and realized I'd been hit by broken gla.s.s. The gun hadn't been fired.

"Bram!" I screamed.

Behind the gun-seemingly miles behind it-stood a figure wearing a mask crafted of some sleek black material. It looked as if it'd been modeled after a crow or raven, with an enormous downward-curving beak and eyeholes filled with smoked gla.s.s. It would have been comical if whoever wore it hadn't had a weapon trained on me.

"Careful, Brother!" I heard someone else shout, the voice electronic and ghostly. "They're insane!"

Terrified, caught off guard, it took my brain a moment to make sense out of what the gunman yelled. His voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, warped, distorted like Chas's. "Get out of the carriage, necros.l.u.t! Do it now! Take your dead man and get out of the G.o.dd.a.m.n carriage!"

4.

PAMELA.

Watching the Delgados from my bedroom window had become something of a bad habit of mine.

Emanuel Delgado was no longer a fishmonger. No living person would willingly buy food from a zombie-truthfully, you couldn't blame them. I don't think even Mr. Delgado blamed them. But to make ends meet his wife had been forced to resume her job as a charwoman, and he had to take whatever work he could get, at whatever hour it happened to come. My brother, Isambard, helped his fellow zombies deal with their unpredictable schedules by looking after their dead five-year-old daughter, Jenny.

He was picking her up now. I watched him speaking with her father in the shadowy courtyard between our buildings, the little girl clinging to his pants leg, ecstatic to be reunited with her babysitter. As I worked on braiding half of my straight brown hair into a bun, I wondered what they were saying. Someone in a nearby building was listening to the wireless, and I couldn't hear over the sound of it.

"Come to me, or my dream of love is o'vr!

I love you, as I lov'd you when you were sweet, When you were sweet sixteen."

Now that my little brother was undead, I treasured him in a way I hadn't been fully capable of before. I wanted to know what he was up to every moment of the day-and when I didn't know, I started to imagine the worst. I longed to protect him, to shield him.

Until the bitter end. Until he finally- Stop it. I told myself. You can't change anything. Stop it. You're safe. You're safe.

Hurriedly, I turned back to my schoolwork. St. Cyprian's was still closed, but our teachers had been doing their best to keep after us via e-mail and Aethernet conferences. To hear them gripe, I was one of the few students who routinely responded. A lot of the girls were apparently blowing their studies off, but I was a scholarship student; I couldn't afford to slack, even in the face of the Apocalypse. So I'd spent the afternoon studying geography, doing my best to distract myself from news of the emergent Laz strain. I willed myself not to worry about it too deeply, especially after talking with Nora.

Worry was something I needed to avoid.

After the Siege was over and my family had returned home, I'd been fine. For weeks I'd existed in a calm, capable state of superheroineishness-a help to my parents, a guardian for Isambard, a shoulder for Nora to cry on via telephone. Every time I tried to reflect on what I'd been through, it was like I couldn't even remember it.

Then the nightmares started.

It all came back to me in dreams-the flight through the city, the monsters hunting us, being unable to save my brother. The horrible things I'd had to do to survive-killing people, chopping up body parts. The nightmares always woke me, surges of irrational terror putting my body and senses on high alert, even though there was nothing around to be afraid of. Sometimes it felt as if I was having a heart attack at only sixteen years of age-my chest on fire, my breath short, my limbs tingling.

I knew it was anxiety. I'd been anxious and p.r.o.ne to worry my entire life-about Nora's math homework, about my mother's plans for me, all things great and small. And so I hid it. I told no one. Because my brother was dead, and my parents were traumatized enough, and Nora had been through the wringer too. There were a thousand reasons. But now all it seemed I did was remember. The memories and the fear were constantly with me, constantly intruding, turning my every thought into a heart-twisting regret or a terrible prophecy. I found that the only way to stop the worry, the only way to pop the bubble of building, nameless anxiety, was to force myself to pay attention to something else. Like schoolwork.

Now, I was on chapter thirty of this semester's text; Nora was still on chapter two.

Turning the pages of the digital book somewhat frantically, I started perusing a section detailing the science behind the new ice age, the many cataclysmic events that had led humanity to crowd around the Equator and form new tribes. Just holding a book, learning mundane facts, seemed oddly distant from my new reality. To think it had formed such an enormous part of my world before. Now, for all the time I put into my studies, they seemed so ... pointless.

Issy's punctilious knock sounded on the door. I jerked in my seat before realizing what it was. "Come in."

My brother opened the door just wide enough to step inside, and bowed. I bobbed my head. Even now he insisted we genuflect to one another-though since dying he'd loosened up quite a bit. "You can't come in unless you can curtsy like a big girl, Jenny," he said, ducking his head around the door again. He was now frozen at fourteen, his brown hair forever short. His skin had taken on a purplish hue that almost hid the mole on his cheek. We were both of Indian descent, mostly through our mother's side.

"I can curtsy!" she insisted.

"May she come in, Pam?"

"Of course."

And thus in toddled the littlest zombie I'd yet met. Jenny Delgado had lost some grace and some words since the night I found her wandering the streets, but still had quite the personality. After making sure Isambard was watching her, she carefully spread out the skirt of her pink pinafore and curtsied. I couldn't help but smile, and stood up to return the gesture, which made her wiggle with glee. She came running for me, and hugged me around the legs.

"Very good! What's up, Issy?" I carefully combed my fingers through Jenny's baby-fine, dirty blond hair. She'd shed some of it already; I didn't want to pull any more out. It wouldn't grow back.

"Mom's starting dinner. She asked me to come get you."

"Great." So much for avoiding worry. I plucked a ribbon out of the display of them on my vanity and waggled it at Jenny to get her attention. It drew her white-speckled eyes like a lodestone, and her chapped lips parted. "Look after Issy-monster for me, okay, Jenny-bear?"

She let go of me and captured the ribbon, placing it over her head, as if it might stay there of its own volition. "Jenny-bear!" She turned on Issy and flexed her fingers like claws, laughing giddily. I left Issy to deal with her and made my way downstairs to the kitchen.

Mom was busy shaping sc.r.a.ps of leftover dough from my father's bakery into dinner rolls. The sleeves of her cotton dress were pushed up, revealing her plump arms. She spotted my distorted reflection in the copper pans hanging from the ceiling as I entered, and glanced at me over her shoulder. "Ah, there you are! I could use your help."

"Of course." Without interrupting her, I slowly removed my ap.r.o.n from its hook by the door and took a look around.

Inwardly, I sighed at what I found.

She'd taken three chickens from the freezer and laid them out on the counter like headstones, one after another. She was doing it again.

"The potatoes are in the basket," she said as she opened the oven door. "Lately it seems like pickings are growing slim at the market. Perhaps people are afraid to bring their wares to town? It worries me."

I took a breath. "You know what worries me, Mother?"

She slid the rolls in. "What, pumpkin?"

There was no good way to put it. "Mom, you're not going to cook all of these chickens, are you? There're only three of us eating."

Mom shut the oven door and turned to look at me, her eyes wounded. "Four. There are four of us eating. Five, if you count Jenny."

"Mom ..." I decided to just come out with it. "You have to stop cooking for Issy. He can't eat it. His stomach doesn't work anymore." A few months ago when she'd done this, it was understandable-almost cute. Motherly overachievement. But now it was getting scary. She wouldn't stop.

My mother stood up straight, marshaling her bulk around her. It was a posture I knew well from childhood, and it instinctively made me shrink down a bit. "Pamela Roe, Isambard is your brother. It would be heartless not to include him at the table."

"He is included, Mom. Dad makes him his tofu every day-"

"That stuff?" Mom tossed her head. "No. I won't hear of that being the only thing he's given. They feed prisoners better."

During the Siege, I'd been incredible. I rescued Vespertine Mink, got my parents to safety, and slew the evil dead. I even hit Michael Allister when it came out that he wasn't interested in me, that he'd been using me, even after I put myself in danger to help him. I'd lashed out at someone out of anger. And I never wanted to have to do any of those things ever again. I just wanted everything to return to normal.

An even more selfish part of my brain wanted my mother to return to a place where she could take care of me, not the other way around.

"Mom ..." I didn't know what to do, but I was willing to try anything. "Why don't you let me cook dinner tonight?"

Her eyes widened. "For all of us?"

"Yes." My mind raced, hitching its wagon to this idea. Maybe I could just put one bird in, carve it up so it looked like more, and hide the others in the back of the freezer. "I mean, I should have more practice cooking, shouldn't I? For whenever I ... if I ... do get married?" I iced the cake. "You can spend the time with Isambard."

That got her. Mom immediately started picking at the knot in her ap.r.o.n strings. "Yes! That will be ..." She shook her fingers free, apparently willing to forget about her ap.r.o.n, and moved to hug me. "What a good girl you are, Pamela. Always helping others."

"My pleasure."

Mom released me and almost flew to the door. She stopped in the hall, though, and turned back. "Oh, I meant to ask you-did you finish your studies?"

I turned my back to her, put on my ap.r.o.n, and began selecting potatoes from the basket on the counter. "Almost."

"No problems?"

I lied. "No, Mom."

"Really?" She started wiping her floury hands off against one another. As usual I couldn't tell if she was relieved, unconvinced, or somewhat disappointed. "That's good to hear."

I had no real reply for this, so I found the peeler in the drawer and started removing the potato skins in long, thick strips. Anything to stay busy. My mother observed me for a few more pensive moments, taking her daily parental inventory, before moving down the hall. As I heard her call for Isambard, I berated myself for feeling any resentment toward her. I wondered what she was thinking, what she expected of me.

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Despite my efforts and my good intentions, the chicken came out of the oven half burnt and half raw. Apparently, cooking ability was not genetic. I chopped the edible part of the chicken up and threw the pieces over a thick bed of vegetables in the biggest dish I could find. It would have to do.

When everything was finished and on the table, I sat with Isambard and Jenny in the parlor while we waited for Dad to close up the bakery. I was drained. The screen on the wall was tuned to a children's show where a puppet was being made to sing a song about treating others as one wished to be treated, but an unending ticker ran across the bottom: We would like to remind our loyal viewers that the source of the new strain of infection IS STILL ISOLATED. If you are vaccinated, there is no need to fear any particular zombie. NORMAL PRECAUTIONS APPLY.

I messaged Nora on my cell phone but got no response. I wondered if she was busy with Mr. Griswold, and did my best to ignore the feeling of jealousy this idea stirred up. In theory, I liked Mr. Griswold-he'd saved our lives, and appeared to be quite honorable-but my last brush with romance hadn't gone well, and I still wasn't over it. Neither was I used to sharing my best friend.

A few minutes later my father came up from the bakery to join us, bearing with him two servings of jiggly, enzyme-laden tofu within the thinnest of braided crusts, a recipe he'd perfected for his undead son and now sold in the shop. My mother bustled through with a plate of b.u.t.ter. "Dinner, children! Turn off the screen!"

Once everyone was seated, my father led us in a prayer of thanks. Upon its conclusion Mom said, "Everyone should know that Pamela cooked dinner tonight."

My father looked at my mother in bewilderment, before peering at the dish before him. "Really? Well, thank you, dear."

"You're welcome," I said. I looked into his eyes, trying to telepathically tell him-if such a thing was even possible-why I had. I couldn't tell if he understood. His face seemed almost devoid of emotion. He looked tired all the time now, his dusky, freckled skin rough.

"Did you get the mixer working again?" Mom said. "Oh, Isambard, mind your shirt."

"Yes, dear. It was just the cord." Dad took a bite of his meal and chewed it slowly. "This is actually very ... good," he offered, a cough mangling the final word. His eyes darted to mine and away again guiltily.

Review accepted. Glancing at my own food, I wondered if I even wanted to try it.

"Yet another reason to be proud of her. Here, Isambard, try a bite."

"Mom, you know the rules," Issy said, his nose wrinkling. "No meat."

"Well, I honestly think those are more like guidelines, dear."

My mind wandered as everyone engaged in the usual chatter, my fork twirling in my food.

It was only the sudden explosion outside that recalled my attention.

All conversation ceased. Even Jenny went silent and turned her face up to the ceiling. I wasn't sure what we'd just heard-it sounded like muted cannon fire. My heart started picking up, and I laid my hand over it, as if it were a distressed baby animal I could comfort with my touch.

"What was that?" Issy asked.

"Nothing," Dad said. He helped himself to the tiniest second helping of ca.s.serole. "Had quite a few party orders this week. Likely some fair a.s.sembly is enjoying fireworks. I can't believe people are trying to carry on with the Season as if nothing's happened."

Yes. Yes, I could accept that. I'd make myself accept that.

"I want to see fireworks!" Jenny demanded.

Recovering, I rose and placed my napkin beside my plate. "May I take her?"

My father nodded. "Of course. You should be able to see from the front window. Don't go outside."

I released Jenny from her chair and picked her up. She weighed so close to nothing, it was heartbreaking. Isambard accompanied me as I carried her to the parlor and opened the window. "They'll be up in the sky, Jenny-bear. Like stars come to visit us."

We watched the sky expectantly. I didn't see any fireworks, though, nor did I hear any further explosions. "Maybe they just sent up one," Isambard said. I could hear the disappointment in his voice. "That'd be weird, though."

"Noooo, want to see fireworks!" Jenny started pounding her fist on my shoulder, and I captured her hand in mine to prevent her from continuing.

My phone started to ring in my pocket, and I curved my hip out slightly. "Isambard, can you get that?"

He reached into the deep pocket of my dress as I struggled with Jenny, drawing out my pink cat-shaped cell phone and opening it. "It's Nora. h.e.l.lo, Miss Dearly," he said as he lifted the phone to his ear. He suddenly pulled it back and made a face, and I could hear her shouting on the other end.

Letting go of Jenny, who curled her freed hand into my hair, I took the phone. "Nora?"

"Pamma! Did you hear that explosion?" She was out of breath.

"Yes, just now. What was it?"

"I have no idea! But someone just stole our b.l.o.o.d.y carriage! From us. As in, we were in it!"

I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it. Isambard gave me an inquisitive look.