Fermata: The Spring: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series (The Fermata Series: Four Post-Apocalyptic Novellas Book 2) (6 page)

“Yes, Victoria?”

“Are you alive?”

The question hung in the air as the woman carefully aligned the spines of books along the edge of the shelf in front of her. Finally she said, quite pleasantly, “Alive is a relative term.”

Vick had to admit that was a difficult point to argue, so she tried another way. “Are you like those creatures?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” Hettie said cheerfully. “I got over that a long time ago.”

Taking a deep breath, Vick asked, “Is Beth alive?”

“Yes,” Hettie said confidently. “She went through the gateway.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Vick said. “Will you explain it to me?”

Hettie turned and looked at her, a serene smile on her face. “Beth drowned in their backyard pool. Didn’t she tell you?”

“No,” Vick said, “she didn’t. What did she tell you about what happened to her?”

“Beth has been to the safe place and brought part of it back with her,” Hettie said, “so she’s quite alright now, as am I.”

Vick’s heart was pounding in her throat. “And are there others like you?”

“I don’t know,” Hettie said. “I’ve been working so hard on the special collections, I have no idea.”

“The creatures in the street,” Vick said, “what about them?”

“They are looking for the safe place, I think,” Hettie said thoughtfully, as she turned back to the books. “They seem to be improving, but they aren’t there yet. And my heavens, they do have the worst manners, don’t you think?”

Trying not to upset the older woman, Vick asked carefully, “Did Arthur make it to the safe place, Hettie?”

The woman turned back around with a crestfallen expression. “No, Victoria,” she said, “I don’t think he did. Although I do hope he’s just away on business. When I saw him last, he’d been sitting there against the hedge for two weeks without moving. I thought, perhaps, if I went back to work, he could get on with his plans and let me know. He was always quite good about calling, my Arthur.”

“What happened when you went back to the library, Hettie?” Vick asked gently.

Hettie frowned, and appeared to be trying to remember. “I think I had an accident,” she said. “I must have hit my head, because things seem quite confused in my mind about my first days back at work. It must have been because of that little cold I had. The damp night air sitting with Arthur in the garden waiting for him to awaken. I think that was it.”

So she’d had the illness -- and lived through it. “When did you start to get better, Hettie?” Vick asked.

“When I went into the water, dear,” she said. “Good hydration is so necessary for our health. Do you drink your eight glasses each day?”

“No,” Vick said seriously, “but I think I’m getting ready to start.”

“Well, that’s good, Victoria. We must not neglect our health.”

There was still one question Vick had to ask. “Hettie, you’re not going to hurt us, are you?”

“What a thing to ask, Victoria,” she said, making a clicking noise with her tongue. “That quite wounds me. Of course, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Out of the woman’s sight, Vick gently eased the hammer of the automatic back in place. “Are you going to help us, Hettie?”

“Victoria, it takes time to arrange a proper library,” she scolded. “A little patience on your part would not be out of order.” The look on Hettie’s face was so reproving, Vick couldn’t help but laugh.

“Victoria! Hush! You’ll awaken Beth.”

Still smiling, Vick said, “I don’t mean help with the library. I want you to help me understand about the water and the gateway, the maidens and the cup.”

“Oh!” Hettie smiled. “You want me to do story hour like I used to do at the library? Oh! I would quite enjoy that. May we do it by the fire and have hot chocolate?”

Chapter Six

"The Holy Grail?" Lucy said, her jaw hanging open. "Okay. I have a great idea. How about we just pop on over to the Temple of Doom with Indiana Jones while we’re at it? Or, hey! Maybe we just stick with the religious theme and make holy water hot fudge sundaes. Everything’s better when you pour chocolate over it.”

The corner of Vick's mouth quirked as she attempted not to grin. "You," she said, pointing accusingly at Lucy, "are going to be struck by lightning. And I agree with you about the chocolate."

They were sitting in the basement late at night with the door to the kitchen closed so there was no chance that they would be overheard. Lucy blew out her breath and said sardonically, "Getting struck by lightning would be just my luck." Then she sat there for a minute, and almost as an afterthought, crossed herself superstitiously.

The gesture was enough to make Vick actually laugh. “Once a Catholic always a Catholic?” she asked.

Lucy gave her an annoyed frown. "At least I didn't drop to my knees and pray the rosary in the middle of an attack the way Bruce did," she said. "Seriously, though, please tell me that you don’t actually think the things Hettie told you are references to the actual Holy Grail. You don’t think that, do you?"

“Of course not," Vick assured her. "I do think that Hettie is using the literary language she knows to explain what she sees because she doesn’t have any other way to frame those events. It’s actually a pretty creative way to survive. She’s obviously traumatized. She’s been alone for a long time. What's coming out of her mouth is a reflection of a lot of jumbled up Judeo-Christian imagery in her head. She found a way to reconcile terrifying events with a comforting belief structure. It’s probably the only thing that’s kept her from going stark raving mad.”

“Okay. That was a ‘no’ on the Holy Grail, right?” Lucy asked.

Vick chuckled, “Yes, that’s a no.”

Lucy leaned her chair back on two legs and stared up at the rafters. “I can't believe I'm getting ready to ask you this,” she said, “but you do believe she came back from the dead, don't you?"

“Yes and no," Vick said. "I think it’s possible she recovered from the initial infection and has some kind of immunity. She managed to stay out of the crowds and not be attacked. Then she was isolated up there in the library for three years.”

Lucy mulled that over. "Would that mean that the people who turned into monsters because they were attacked are different from the ones who came back because they died of natural causes?"

"I honestly don't know," Vick said, "but it’s an excellent question. If you piece together Hettie's story, it does sound like she contracted the illness and survived."

“And Dead Sam in the park?" Lucky asked. "Do you have an explanation for him or for the fact that his body managed to expel a 9 millimeter slug?”

Vick shook her head. “None whatsoever.”

“How about the Corps of Undead Engineers?”

"No," Vick said. “No explanation for them either, but their behavior intrigues me. They're organized into a coordinated effort to prevent saltwater from pouring into the city."

Lucy brought the legs of her chair back down on the floor and looked at Vick. "Unless you're worried about their blood pressure,” she said, “I don’t get what saltwater has to do with anything."

"Okay,” Vick said, “you already think I'm crazier than Hettie, so here goes. Salt is used in a lot of magic rituals."

"You're right," Lucy agreed. "I do think you're crazier than Hettie, but go on."

"Do you know what a curandera is?" Vick asked.

Lucy shook her head. "Unless it's a spice, no."

Vick laughed again. "The spice would be coriander," she said. "A curandera is a Mexican woman who practices healing techniques believed to have been passed down from the ancient cultures, including the Mayan.”

Lucy arched an eyebrow. "May I just point out that the Mayans totally blew the call on the whole 2012 thing?"

“Says the woman sitting in the cellar of a fortified beach cottage in the aftermath of an unknown plague . . . with a crazy librarian in the study cataloging books and talking to her dead husband on a disconnected phone . . . and a child sleeping upstairs who may have drowned and come back to life after a trip to the 'safe place,'” Vick deadpanned.

It was Lucy's turn to laugh. "Well, okay,” she said. “When you spin it that way, I’ll give the Mayans a pass. So, how did we get a Mexican witch doctor lady in this mix."

"I traveled a great deal for my work," Vick said. "In between rehearsals there was often free time to explore. I met a curandera in Texas when I played with the San Antonio symphony. We became friends and she told me a great deal about her beliefs and their origin. I've always had an interest in that kind of thing. I attended college on a full music scholarship, but for a while I really considered majoring in history and anthropology."

Lucy shook her head. "You have any other major revelations about yourself that I haven’t heard about yet?" she asked.

Vick thought for a minute, and then said, "I used to knit?"

"Well, at least we'll have socks and scarves," Lucy said. "Now, if I'm following your train of thought here, you think the dead are trying to prevent saltwater from flooding the city because it's a threat to them? And they know this how?"

"Again,” Vick said, "I don't have an explanation for that, but their reaction to water and what I witnessed from the top floor of the library makes it as good a theory as any."

Lucy held up her hand. "Okay. Let me see if I have all the major puzzle pieces here," she said, ticking off the next words one finger at a time. "Water. Cup. Gateway. Salt."

"Or," Vick said, holding up her own hand, "how about these words? Purification. Vessel. Transformation. Agent."

They shared a silent moment, and then Lucy said, "Resurrection."

"Resurrection," Vick agreed.

Spring 2016: The Cabin

Outside the cabin, the warming winds of spring blew through the trees. It was late, well past midnight, when Lucy and Vick finished the story. Abbott had listened to the second half of their long narration in silence, moving only to refill his pipe and light the tobacco with a sliver of wood.

When he did speak, he said gently, with a touch of affection coloring his words, "Hettie seems much better now than what you’ve described.”

"She is," Vick said. "Taking care of Beth gave her a purpose beyond her books. The two of them bonded instantly."

He puffed at his pipe, creating a little cloud of fragrant smoke. "You believe that is because they both survived the illness that caused this plague?" he asked. "Because they have both been resurrected?"

Neither Vick nor Lucy answered him immediately. Finally Vick broke the lengthening silence. "That's what Lucy and I believed that night when we were talking in the basement," she said.

Abbott looked at her appraisingly. "That was what you believed then,” he said. “But that’s only the beginning of the next part of your story, isn’t it?"

Vick nodded. "The barest of beginnings," she said. "What we didn't realize then was that the resurrection was being controlled; that the entire plague had been orchestrated."

"And I am assuming that it was as a consequence of that knowledge that you were ultimately driven from your home in Maine and forced to go on the run,” he said.

"Yes," Vick said, “it was."

"Because you discovered the source of this plague?" he asked.

"We discovered its conductor," she said. "My husband. Maurice Eidson."

To be continued . . .
 

About The Fermata Post-Apocalyptic

Survival Series

The Fermata Series is a collection of novellas

by Juliette Harper, the author

of
The Lockwood Legacy
novels,

the
Selby Jensen Paranormal Mysteries
,

the
Study Club Mysteries
,

and the
Before Series
short-story romances.

Want to know more about author Juliette Harper

and all of her projects?

Visit Juliette Harper’s home on the web

at
www.julietteharper.com

Other books by Juliette Harper:

The Fermata Series

Fermata: The Winter

The Lockwood Legacy

Langston’s Daughters

Baxter’s Draw

Alice’s Portrait

Selby Jensen Paranormal Mysteries

Descendants of the Rose

The Study Club Mysteries

You Can’t Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet

The Before Series

Before Marriage

Fermata: The Spring

A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series

By Juliette Harper

Copyright © 2015, Juliette Harper.

Skye House Publishing

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