The Flame Alphabet - Ben Marcus [128]
If it worked, if Esther sat up and passed the various little tests I could subject her to, to affirm her immunity—the shortest, smallest words I could say, offered in a sequence deliberately free of meaning so as not to disturb her—I would hand her the letter her mother wrote to her.
I’ve kept the letter safe since the day we left home. It is crushed and filthy, that is true, but I have not opened it. It is not for me. There were many times, under the protection of the serum, that I could have read it, but I didn’t. It is for Esther, her mother’s words of departure. I would let her read it alone. She could take all day with it in the hut. I would walk out to the clearing to give her time. I would wait as long as she needed me to.
When Esther finished reading the letter she could join me outside, if she wanted to, and I would not ask her what was said. I would never ask her.
But this was not to be. The day ended without a sighting, and my asset supply would have to remain low.
This morning the daylight finally soaked through the woods, forest sounds hissing up as I slept in the mud. Certain creaking reported in the trees, a whisper blew from the sturdier insects, roared over my wet resting place.
I slept well in the soupy muck. I was ready to return to Esther, and not make such a mistake again.
I wished only that I could better see the world in front of me.
A point of light appeared, then throbbed, stretching into a dime-size window, through which I could see just enough to fight my way back to my woodpile, then up the slope north and along that last crumbling ledge to the clearing where my hut stands and everything, from what I could tell, seemed to be exactly as I had left it.
Except that when I went inside the hut Esther was not behind the cloth. Her cot was neatly arranged, the blankets folded as if another houseguest might be coming. She’d made the bed, stacked her dishes on the doorstep, even swept the daily soot from our sill.
At the hammered vent in the wall a fresh blast of heat rushed in, suggesting a newly fed fire outside.
I pictured Esther taking advantage of my absence to tidy the hut, arrange everything neatly, then gather her things and leave. What a hurry she must have been in, thinking that at any minute I’d be home.
She must have stopped to look from the glassless window, hoping I’d not come groping up the path. How relieved she must have been when she could finally leave with no sign of me and night coming on so strong.
I went outside. My field of vision was still limited. Around me hung a brownness, so cloudy I felt I should be able to rub it away. I pitched my head through every contortion to be sure I wasn’t overlooking Esther somewhere, slid my vision over the property and yard, because maybe she was bundled under a blanket on a log, enjoying the late morning hum, waiting for me to return so I could brew us some tea.
It was time for her to have healed, bounced out of bed, taking to the air so she could see where she’d been recuperating these last few weeks.
I told myself there was no reason to be concerned, but since when did I believe my own reassurances?
She must have only gone off on a short errand, perhaps a walk to stretch her legs. She would need to return soon, because she was not well, and she was not familiar with these woods. It was unwise for her to hike alone in an area where whole patches of ground can suddenly give way to a lava of salt. She would know that. She would be the first to be aware of how risky it was for her to travel abroad from me when she was so weak like this.
I sat down, held my breath, listened. This silence was for the best. If Esther was nearby, if she could hear me, such a sound, even the pretty sound of her name in the air, would not have been well received. Her name yelled out by me would have hurt her, stopped her progress through the woods. I withheld it from the air.
I heard nobody crawling, walking, running. I heard no one hiding behind a tree, breathing. When I