Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Never skip Tom's Diner. If you skip it, I’ll know." - Note from Dr. Eli Sharpe

The tape cracked once —
— and then a second time, more softly, as though clearing its throat. Meryl stood at the stove, one hand on the spatula, tapping it against the counter in rhythm. The smell of crispy batter and browned butter filled the room like sunlight: warm, familiar, and fleeting.
“Suddenly I see... This is what I wanna be...”
She sang along, not too loudly — just loud enough to remind the house that someone in it was awake. Alive. The radio, ancient and slightly warped, sat between a tin of cheap salt and a coffee can half-filled with sewing needles. The antenna was bent. Someone (of course, her) had patched it with binding wire. The cassette wheezed onward and bravely kept going.
This was Side A of the good cassette. The one that played every morning. The one with the coffee songs.
Meryl flipped the pancake with practiced ease, caught the spatula in midair, and spun it like a microphone. She grinned at no one in particular.
Behind her, silence. As always.
She called out without turning around: “Eriks! If you want pancakes before they turn into fossils, now’s your chance!”
No answer.
She sighed, then raised her voice over the crackling of the tape. “The last of the butter—remember? No market until Saturday. If it melts, you’ll be out of luck.”
Then came the familiar shuffle — slow, deliberate, a little sluggish — followed by the squeak of the metal floor that always groaned at that spot. She smiled to herself and set out two plates on the table. One plated perfectly, the other a bit uneven.
By the time he walked into the kitchen, barefoot and with hastily tied-back hair, the second batch of pancakes was already sizzling in the pan. He looked at her with sleepy eyes, one eyebrow slightly raised.
“Morning,” she said without looking up.
“Morning.” His voice was deep and calm, as though hesitant to interrupt her and the music.
She handed him his mug without fuss. “The coffee’s strong. The pancakes aren’t. Pick your poison.”
He sat down and set the mug aside, not drinking yet. She moved behind him, reached forward unasked, and gathered his hair in both hands.
“You’re lopsided again,” she said.
“I’m always lopsided.”
“Not on my watch.”
She tied his hair into a low, quick knot — tighter than usual — and patted him on the shoulder when she was done. “There. Now you almost look presentable.”
He didn’t thank her. She hadn’t expected him to.
Before sitting, she turned the radio down. Mealtime wasn’t the best time for it to blare. Besides, she needed to keep half an ear on the rest of the pancakes so she wouldn’t forget them sizzling in the hot pan.
Meryl sat on the chair with her back to the stove, facing Eriks. They had no syrup for the pancakes. There were no trees on this planet, thus no sap. Their substitute was the nutritional paste on the table — like everything else, stirred from a powder and thinned with water. It tasted about as artificial as it looked unappetizing, but if you’d never known anything else, there was no point in complaining.
They ate in silence. Not from coldness, but from habit. They had only seen each other the previous evening. Nothing but the night lay between then and now. She knew his shift at the store wouldn’t begin until nine. Still, she would have liked to ask him about it, would have liked to talk with him about their days. Just because.
Her day began an hour earlier than his. She’d give him Mrs. Carmody’s medication, the ointment for Theodore’s rash, the cough syrup for little Ellie. Different patients every day—sometimes the same ones. Eriks brought the supplies to them, no matter how often or how far. Even if it wasn’t on his way to Selma’s general store.
In the background, the tape sputtered, and suddenly a sharp, acrid smell spread through the kitchen. Meryl cursed and sprang up. The pancake had baked through on one side without being flipped and was black underneath. The syrup tasted like plastic. The pancakes usually that tasted decent — thanks to real butter, real milk, and real eggs.
But this one probably tasted more like coal. Meryl frowned. Even though her mornings were almost always the same, by now a second batch of burnt pancakes was practically part of the routine. She really ought to know better. Or do better.
She carried the pan over to the table and slid the pancake onto her own plate. It had been meant for Eriks, but it was too burnt for him to eat. She scraped off the charred spots for him. By now, with his one arm, she just took care of such tasks for him. Again, he said nothing, and again, she didn’t wait for him to.
Stabbing the remaining bit of breakfast with her fork, she set it on his plate, then carefully scraped the last crumb of butter from the tin between them and spread it on the cleaned side of the pancake. She herself ate nothing more. She was smaller than he was, needed less. Anything else would have been wasted on her.
Eriks looked a bit more awake by now. He had drunk some coffee. She hadn’t seen him grimace at the strength of it this morning, though — a little quirk of his that she loved. Sharpe had taught her to make coffee this strong. He had liked it that way, and she had grown used to it. She wouldn’t have it any other way now.
They did the dishes together. Meryl washed; Eriks dried. Then they left the plates on the counter, covered with a dishcloth. Without that, the sand would have made its way onto them. The wind whipped the fine grains all over. Even sweeping daily, the dust found its way into every crack and gap. Leaving food out uncovered was simply not an option unless you wanted to crunch on grit afterward.
As on every morning, Meryl stopped the cassette at exactly the same song. Only whichever line happened to be cut off changed, depending on how rushed they were. Rewinding the tape gave her a stomach ache each day — fearful that today might be the day it would finally give out. That it would tear. Replacements would be hard to come by, but it still hung on, sputtering along like a trooper. As always, she put off rewinding it until evening.
Afterwards, she carried the radio into the treatment room, switched on the receiver, and searched for a station. Because its position changed slightly each day, the repaired antenna had to be bent to a slightly different angle, and the reception varied. On good days, when the solar storms weren’t too bad and the sky was clear, you could sometimes catch signals from nearly a hundred miles away in September. Today, however, was none of those days. Nothing but static on 7.03 FM. Neither the sandpapery voice of the perpetually laid-back host Rika Sol nor the ads from Septima Inc: “Septima-Syn —the fever syrup of the future. Septima — the life that remains.” came through.
By tinkering with the frequency dial for a while, she finally found a signal out in the ether, and old country music trickled into the treatment room like a meandering stream. But a faint crackle stayed. If Eriks had asked her why she didn’t simply keep playing her cassette, she might not have been able to give him a clear answer. Perhaps only that it would have felt wrong. The songs on that tape deserved to remain something special, even though they’d become so much a part of their everyday life that she could hardly imagine doing without them. Playing them casually while she worked felt off. The simpler explanation was that the tape was on its last legs anyway and shouldn’t be worn down needlessly. But he didn’t ask, and she didn’t have to answer.1
Eriks left when the first patient arrived at the tiny practice. He still gave old Conrad Harnell a friendly greeting. Then he was gone, leaving Meryl alone. Apart from Mr. Harnell.
The old man had been coming around for years. Ever since his wife Irene had died two years ago, he had been lonely — after all, they had lost their only son years back in an accident aboard the sand cruiser he worked on. Meryl had never known him, but she had known Irene. She had been a delightful lady. Blind and ancient, maybe, but warm-hearted—the kind of warmth you couldn’t get enough of, even in desert temperatures.
As often since her passing, Mr. Harnell didn’t have any real ailment. He said his eye was watering, but on closer inspection it was probably just the dry desert wind. Meryl gave him drops anyway. The last remnants of a Septima solution, heavily diluted and probably expired. Medication was hard to obtain — especially for an unlicensed doctor who accepted payment in kind. The money she used to make — until nearly two years ago — came only from the occasional gift or tip, and now Eriks brought some in. But the small amount he earned had to cover everything: groceries, repair materials, clothes, and the supplies Meryl needed for the practice. There was nothing left over for luxury or new purchases. But Conrad Harnell hadn’t really come for medical reasons. He accepted the little bottle so as not to waste the Miss Doctor-Lady’s time, as he affectionately called her, yet in truth he wanted to talk about Irene. The Irene she’d been once, back when Marlo was still alive, and she could still see — and paint. “She used to make paint out of dust and machine grease,” he said, “anything she could get her hands on. She painted flowers, y’know. She never actually saw any, my Irene, but if you ask me, the way she painted them — that has to be just how they look.”
Meryl listened and smiled. She had seen the pictures in Harnell’s home. She knew they hardly resembled flowers, but she said nothing, letting him reminisce — at least until the next patient arrived and Harnell left as he had come. Quietly and with a crooked back.
Doreen and Ellie were next to show up. Doreen clutched her daughter tightly and held onto the bag of medicine Eriks had delivered barely three hours earlier. Her husband wasn’t there, she couldn’t read the labels, and the little girl — a baby with chubby cheeks and blond curls — was coughing and crying miserably. Meryl apologized for forgetting, that it was the week Harry had to work at Plant. She explained the dosage to Doreen, gave Ellie her morning dose, and still drew a few symbols on the package as a reminder, just to be safe. Then, just to reassure Doreen, she took the time to listen to little Ellie’s lungs again. They sounded better than they had on the weekend, but the coughing was still plenty unpleasant for the child. In thanks, Doreen dug a salt stone out of her pocket as she left. You could grate it finely and cook with it, she said. Then she went on her way. Ellie had fallen asleep shortly after Meryl slipped the stethoscope back around her neck.
Silence returned to the practice. It was only about an hour until midday. On other days, Eriks would come home then. He often brought something to eat — maybe leftovers Selma gave him (“Oh, go on, Eriks, I cooked way too much yesterday”), or a little something from the bakery. But today was Tuesday. That was when the store always got its deliveries — usually not what Selma had actually requested in September, but she’d still accept the unwanted items, while protesting verbally to the supplier. Eriks helped her put them away. So Meryl spent her midday break alone.
Between noon and two p.m., the suns stood highest over No Man’s Land. By late morning the heat was already making the air shimmer, but midday was unbearable. Anyone who could stayed indoors. Even the Worms, the original inhabitants of this scorched planet, burrowed into holes, nooks, and crannies to escape the solar rays. Meryl spent those hours in the shade of her porch. She didn’t eat—Eriks wasn’t there and she didn’t have much appetite anyway — but she drank another cup of her devilishly strong coffee, which had gone cold in the meantime.
When she stepped back into the practice in the afternoon — practice was hardly the right word, it was rather a small room in the shabby house she used to treat her patients in — someone was preaching nonsense on the radio.
“…and those born of light will rise again.
Not in towers of flame, but in the quiet places.
Among us. With us.
The false ones will cling to the dust, to names, to fear.
But the seed remembers the sky…”
She had 13-year-old Cass and his father with her, and she hurried to change the station. Meryl didn’t actually mind sermons on the radio—she’d even let church music play quietly in the background sometimes — but lately the sermons you could pick up were getting gloomier, more apocalyptic, and that end-of-the-world stuff was exactly what she couldn’t stand. In her rush, though, Meryl couldn’t find another station. All she got was mostly static, with a few snatches of words and off-key notes as she disinfected Cass’s knee with iodine, picked out some metal splinters, and then bandaged it. The boy worked afternoons in his father’s machine shop. He’d hurt himself running in the cramped garage despite repeated warnings and then tripping. Cass tried to stay stoic and unflinching, but he winced when Meryl dabbed the iodine onto the wound and again when she pulled out a particularly large splinter. His father looked on in stern silence. His payment consisted of telling Meryl she had a favor with him now. She had no idea what she might use that for.
Meena Tress was the last patient that day — a 19-year-old accompanied by her younger sister. Everyone in Rustwich knew Meena wasn’t quite right in the head. People gossiped behind her back; her family had even sought help in other, bigger towns nearby, but no doctor could do anything. Nor could Meryl. She suspected schizophrenia, or at least a form of psychosis, but she had no way to obtain the kind of antipsychotics that even a big company like Septima seldom manufactured — if at all.
“It’s the voices. The voices from the radio,” Cecily explained as she comforted her clearly distraught sister, who eyed Meryl’s own radio with fear and mistrust until Meryl turned it off. Only then did Meena calm down a little. “They come at night, when she’s trying to sleep. I turned the radio off, and Father even put it away, but she says it’s still talking.”
“It’s whispering,” Meena sobbed, covering her ears. “Every night. He’s going to come. Everyone’s going to die.” She cried bitterly, and Meryl felt sorry that she couldn’t do more than give her something for sleeping.
“You have to go to September,” she told them as Cecily led Meena out. Meryl had already given her a dose of the sedative, but that was no long-term solution. “You need to see a psychiatrist. A head doctor.”
“With what money?” Cecily asked, bitter, but nodded, nonetheless. “Thanks, Miss.”
Eriks came home at dusk. He was sweaty, dust clinging to his damp skin, but that was nothing unusual. The radio was still silent. Meryl hadn’t dared turn it back on since the sisters’ visit—as though she might be summoning some bad omen by doing so. As though Meena could hear it from here on the far side of town.
Eriks washed his hands and joined Meryl in the treatment room. He disinfected the tools, something he’d been doing ever since he’d once asked how and she’d shown him. He was good at it, even with just one hand — in Meryl’s eyes, better than she was with two. She left him to it so she could start on dinner. Since money was especially tight this month, dinner was wormmeal powder — something that many people ate but no one liked to admit to. “If it’s gritty, it wasn’t ground properly,” the market vendor had told her once, and he was right. But it was cheap and filling, and with a little of the salt stone she had been given and the cheese Eriks brought home, it made a not-so-bad-tasting mush. As long as you didn’t think about what you were eating, it was fine.
Unlike breakfast, this time they talked. Eriks told her about his day at the store, the new goods they’d received (shoe brushes) and what they had actually asked for (soap); about Selma’s brother Derek, who had written from January; and about little Troy, who had lost a baby tooth in the store and immediately swallowed it. Meryl loved listening to him. She could have listened to him forever, to that voice which, to her, sounded like sunsets and a night sky full of sand steemers. But of course, she said nothing of the sort. She didn’t tell him much about her patients, because of confidentiality. She only told him about Harnell — how lonely he was, and how maybe Eriks could check on him tomorrow, see if the drops were helping. Both of them knew it was just to make sure the old man was doing all right, but neither said it outright. It was their unspoken little secret.
They stayed in the kitchen — which was also their dining room, living room, the heart of the house — until late into the night. Meryl threw a few coal pellets into the stove; as hot as it got in daytime, it turned just as cold at night. They played a board game — Ludo, or Parcheesi — one that at best could only accommodate three players now, because the pieces for a fourth were missing. Eriks won two out of three rounds. He went to bed before Meryl. She returned the radio to its place in the kitchen and finally rewound the cassette to the start, her stomach full of nerves, silently praying to every power she could think of, that it would survive one more time. That it wouldn’t snap. Whether her prayers were heard by anyone was up for debate, but the tape held on. And so, Meryl could go to bed knowing she’d wake the next day to the song she simply couldn’t skip: “Tom’s Diner.”

Chapter Text

“The suns will rise, but no one promised we would.”
— Line from “Five Moons and a Road,” an ancient traveling song

Just like every other morning before, Meryl awoke alone, before her alarm could ring. The attic air was still cold from the night, and in the dim light of the new day she could see her first breath. On the horizon, the first of the twin suns was just creeping lazily over the edge of the sky. In a few hours, it would once again be as hot as an oven.
Silently, Meryl slipped out of bed and immediately shook out the blanket. The cold air prickled unpleasantly against her bare legs, yet it made her feel alive. Under the roof, the temperature swings were more extreme than in the rest of the house. That was because the roof itself was little more than a covering made of metal sheets, with clay in between to seal the gaps. It was the room in which Meryl had grown up, her old childhood bedroom. The room Eriks now occupied had once belonged to Doctor Sharpe. When she returned five years ago, Meryl had first moved into his former domain — what she usually referred to as her “father’s” space. She lived there comfortably for three years. Every corner and every crack of the house brimmed with old memories in her eyes, but enough time had passed that the pain had lost some of its sting.
Then Eriks had come into her life. She had thought about banishing him to the attic, but given that he was so much taller than she, he would never have been able to stand upright up there—he would have had to walk around stooped all the time. She hadn’t wanted to do that to him. He was already carrying a heavy enough burden; he didn’t need a cramped bedroom forcing him to duck his head eternally.
And so she vacated her quarters without a word, moved back upstairs — so to speak, returning to her roots — and simply told him that the guest room was free. That was all he needed to know, and after everything that had happened, he didn’t ask any specific questions. Meryl was grateful for that.
She readied herself for the day, rummaging through her dresser for a clean blouse and a fresh skirt. “Clothes make the man,” Sharpe had always said, and so she dressed the way one might expect of a doctor: always tidy, maybe a bit conservative. She’d had plenty of opportunities to try the modern trends in the different cities they had visited back when they used to travel. Nowadays she placed more value on the quality and durability of her clothes. Her blouses were all somewhat faded but in clear, cool colors that stood out from the dust and sand of No Man’s Land — and, handily, they could be easily bleached or disinfected.
In the broken mirror on her dresser, Meryl inspected her appearance. She would wash up downstairs in the bathroom, but she never left her room without a quick once-over. What she saw were blue eyes that still looked tired and sleepy without her beloved coffee, and then…she pushed her hair aside to look at her roots, which were pale and almost white in contrast to the rest of her black bob. She would have to color it again sooner rather than later. But first, breakfast called.
She moved to the door, running her fingertips over the notches in the metal — markings Sharpe had etched into the frame to track her growth. There weren’t many. She had stopped growing only three years after arriving in his care. But those slender scars on the doorframe meant the world to her. Touching them with her fingers was like playing her “coffee-tape”: more than a memory. An echo. A silent cry proclaiming that he had been there, that he had existed — or rather that they had existed, their small family: “Look at us, world, we’re here and we’re alive.”
Then, as her fingers had done, she glided down the stairs, taking a large step to avoid the third step from the bottom. It was prone to squeaking in the most pitiful way. She didn’t want to wake Eriks so early, since she knew he didn’t sleep well. His tired eyes told her so every single morning. Besides, she often heard him tossing and turning at night, groaning softly in his sleep. He never spoke about his dreams, but it was obvious they plagued him. When he first became her patient, she had offered him sleeping pills once, but he refused vehemently. Meryl respected that. She trusted that he knew he could ask her if it ever became too much, but he never did.
She checked the radio to make sure the cassette was firmly in place — almost as though she were afraid a Worm had snuck in overnight and tampered with her music — then pressed play and hummed along as she started making coffee.
Today she made omelets for breakfast. More a stopgap than a culinary choice. Yesterday, Wednesday, she’d already served scrambled eggs, and since Tomas were not only large running birds but also laid equally large eggs, she and Eriks often spent several days eating egg-based dishes.
Since a single egg alone wouldn’t be enough to fill them, Meryl once again fetched the wormmeal powder, stirred some of the egg mixture into it in a cup, and began using her hands to shape little strips and rounds—almost like she was baking cookies. Her goal was a dish that at least looked a bit like eggs with bacon at first glance—how it would taste was another matter entirely. Real bacon—her mouth watered at the mere thought—was almost impossible to find unless you wanted to spend a fortune. The few livestock animals kept in town were far too valuable to slaughter, as they provided milk, eggs, and wool. Worm meat was relatively cheap, but people looked down on it, and Meryl had to admit she could hardly force it down unless it was finely ground and unrecognizable for what it actually was.
She fried the eggs and the “bacon pieces” and arranged them on the plates to form smiling faces. As always, she made sure Eriks’s portion was not only bigger but also more nicely arranged. Her own egg-smiley turned out to be a cyclops: she’d run out of “bacon-dough” near the end.
She called out to him. He shuffled in — half awake, hair askew. She set the plates on the table; he sat, and she fixed his hair before they started to eat.
Eriks looked as tired this morning as he did every other day — so much for hoping he’d slept well. Even the grinning omelet only coaxed out a small smirk, and he looked so sad doing it that Meryl’s heart felt heavy. Eriks often smiled but never laughed. It never reached his eyes when his mouth curved upward. It was almost as if he were a ghost in his own life, doing certain things out of habit just because they were expected of him. Meryl would have loved to comfort him, to help him, but she didn’t. He would have let her, and that would have been worse than if he’d rebuffed her.
She forced the thought away — but too late. Its teeth had already sunk into her mind.
Though she could feel the venom enter her, soaking into her skin, it didn’t yet reach her deepest self. She’d have to tend to it later, but not right now. Rather than letting her own fears swallow her, she said, “The water tank’s nearly empty again.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Eriks replied and nodded, glancing up from his breakfast.
“You don’t have to do it alone. If you come straight home after work, we can just go together, all right? Otherwise, I’ll have to set up the dew-catcher, you know?” She teased him. He hated how the device’s slats squeaked when you adjusted them, while she loved the pitter-patter of droplets in the morning — something he usually slept through.
He feigned a horrified grimace and grinned so lightheartedly that, for a moment, she almost believed it. But his eyes remained untouched by that smile.

––––

The day was even quieter than the day before. Even then, Meryl hadn’t known whether to be thankful that nothing was happening or to complain about the boredom. A strong wind was blowing sand relentlessly in everyone’s face, so she stayed in the treatment room, seated on her “doctor’s stool,” as Sharpe had always called the rolling stool the physician used during examinations. Like everything else in the practice, the stool was old. Unlike most of the rest of the equipment, though, it wasn’t part of the original furnishings: Meryl had only had this squeaky, worn-out rolling stool for four years, ever since a patient had given it to her. It had already been well-used back then, but still functional. It had squeaked with every shift of weight and that wouldn’t be improving anytime soon. For a year now, she could feel a spring starting to press through the seat on the right side, so it wouldn’t be long before her green-cushioned friend gave out completely. Then she’d either need a replacement or — more likely — would just be standing again from then on.
With nothing else to do, she looked out the window, watching the streaky clouds drift by — rare visitors, and even rarer sources of rain. Since Meryl had moved back to Rustwich, it had only rained twice, and one of those times was hardly “rain,” since the moisture evaporated before hitting the ground. She thought of Mr. Harnell and his eye, of how Eriks had visited him again the day before and how happy the old man had been about that. Each time he came to see her, she sensed a little less life in him, as though his time was drawing to a close. But he was still stubborn and alive. She hoped she’d be gone by the time he died.
Her only real patient that day was six-year-old Theodore, brought in by his mother, Iola. The rash he’d had since Monday — and which Meryl had already examined then — hadn’t improved despite the ointment she’d mixed. On the contrary, it had grown worse. He’d even developed a slight fever.
But now, at least, the symptom that had been missing on Monday was showing up. A quick look inside Theo’s mouth, at his almost pink tongue, and Meryl declared in a sober tone, “The ointment couldn’t have worked. This is scarlet fever.”
Iola clapped a hand over her mouth, and Theo — who had heard the words before but didn’t really know what they meant — looked fearfully from his mother to his doctor. Meryl, meanwhile, wore a serious expression. She barely had any Septima antibiotics left, and getting more in time would be tricky. She dug the last three pills from her cupboard and handed them to Iola — who looked on the verge of tears. “Here, they’ll get you through tomorrow evening. By Saturday at the latest, Eriks will bring something else. It’ll be okay.”
Just how she intended to keep that promise depended on getting up to the attic — or more precisely, to the top of her wardrobe up there.
Time crawled onward. The clock in the hall ticked and made a pronounced cracking noise at the passing of each hour. Meryl hadn’t been able to afford a proper clock mechanism back then, so she’d been stuck with a simple model that only showed the time. She’d mostly relied on the radio announcers for the time — until Eriks somehow managed to make the small device “click” every hour. How he’d done it, she still hadn’t figured out. He only gave her a knowing grin whenever she asked. A small secret of his, so feather-light and harmless. Her own secrets felt more like shards of metal in her stomach.
She waited for him as evening approached. But he didn’t come — neither early nor at his usual time. So much for the water tank plan, she thought, worrying about him more than she was angry. Eriks was dependable; if he failed to keep his word, he had a reason — a good one.
When she closed the practice a bit earlier than usual and saw him standing in the yard through the kitchen window, she nearly jumped out of her skin — she’d thought, for a split second, that he was a thief. In either case, she would have gone outside. If he had been an intruder, she would have met him with a battered old shotgun that no longer caught anything but dust. For him, she went out with her arms folded, ready to demand to know what in the world he was doing — but the question became unnecessary as soon as she rounded the corner of the house. Eriks had two of the three water canisters beside him and was just lifting the third to the tank behind the house. He looked more sweaty than usual, his hair matted with sand against his skin. He wore no protection for his bare hands or his face. In just a few minutes outside the safety of the house, Meryl had felt as though the wind were sanding off her face.
“Eriks!”
He raised his head, and a hollow smile spread across his lips.
“I thought we’d do that together?!” She stepped closer, eyeing the empty canisters, checking the water level in the tank. It was almost full. He must have gone back and forth countless times to manage that. No wonder he’d vanished all afternoon. He only gave a barely perceptible shrug.
“Selma didn’t have much to do today, so I had time. You had patients. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
That was pure nonsense, and it was on the tip of her tongue to say so, but she held back. She was sure at least the part about Selma being idle was a lie, but he’d meant to do her a favor. Could she really scold him for that? She opened her mouth to say something, sighed, and let it go. Resigned, she exhaled, grabbed two of the empty canisters, and marched off with them. “Close the tank and come into the practice. You’re going to get a sunburn.”
A few minutes later, he followed her, sitting down on the cot he had spent so many months in nearly two years ago, when she cared for him. Even sitting, they weren’t eye to eye — Meryl was just too short at 150 centimeters.
He unfastened the top button of his shirt. She took his face in her hands, feeling both the fine dust and sand there, as well as the beginnings of stubble prickling her palms. She takes his glasses off his face, tried to keep a stern look, but he seemed so pleased with himself that it almost eclipsed his usual sorrow. And by now, she couldn’t stay mad at him.
“You’ve really got a sunburn,” she observed plainly, though her gaze softened with every word. She went over to a bowl of water she’d prepared while he was still outside, gently dabbed his face, hairline, and neck. If she had rubbed, she’d just be sanding him down more. She studied him, and he looked right back at her — just a second too long, a fraction too intently. Then she turned away as though embarrassed, like a child caught doing something forbidden. She retrieved a jar of cream she’d also prepared, gently applying it to the reddened areas on his face, neck, and the nape of his neck. The first of his scars showed above the collar of his shirt. She knew every one of them — the worst ones by heart. They couldn’t all have come from the July incident, because some had healed too well. But she’d never asked, and he’d never brought them up. Wherever they came from, it must have been terrible.
When she was finished, she looked at him again, meeting his eyes to show she meant what she was about to say.
“Don’t do that again. I mean going for water alone. We can manage that together.” He nodded.
“Promise.”
And she knew he was lying.

––––

The evening passed the same way it always did: harmoniously, very quietly. Eriks went to bed early. Meryl knew he’d pushed himself too hard hauling water. She was secretly glad she had some extra time to herself before she, too, would call it a night.
She retreated to her attic, armed with the last cup of coffee of the day and a glass of water. The caffeine no longer had any effect on her; she’d likely get withdrawal symptoms if she ever tried going without it.
Along with the cup, she carried the coffee filter from that morning, placing it for now on her desk—a panel once part of a 150-year-old rescue capsule door. She set the mug beside it, went to her dresser, and opened the middle drawer just enough to take it out. At first glance, it held only her underwear and socks, but if you dug around a bit in the back, your hand would bump against an old metal case — and that was what she was after.
She lifted it out, unlocked it by deftly spinning a combination dial — 0321, her „birthday“ — and slid the lid open with a click. Inside was a trove of memories: Sharpe’s bandana, an empty Snickers wrapper, Poppy — her doll — a photo album (are three photos, enough to call it that?), and more. At the moment, though, Meryl’s eyes were only for a little plastic container in the front right corner. It had once held screws, nuts, and nails, which were long gone. Instead, it contained an assortment of seeds in various sizes, shapes, and colors. They were all dead. Burned by the crash on the planet 150 years ago.
She picked out three sets of three seeds, then closed the container and the case again, tucking them back in the drawer, which she slid back into the dresser. Nothing else betrayed her secret, and Meryl moved on to step two.
From another drawer beneath her desk, she pulled out three half-broken mugs and cups. They already contained crumbled eggshells, smuggled upstairs after breakfast, small and crushed. Meryl emptied the used coffee grounds onto them, mixed everything with her fingers, and finally added the seeds. Three identical seeds per mug, followed by the tiniest sip from her water glass. She wiped her hands on her skirt. It needed washing anyway. Besides, tasks like these always made her too nervous to fuss over her clothes.
She stared tensely down into the mugs, while also listening to the silent house — only the sand grains outside whispered and scratched against windows, doors, and walls.
She took a deep breath. Her heart hammered in her chest; she almost thought she could hear Sharpe’s voice, warning her to be careful, not to overdo it. But it had to be done.
Meryl picked up the first cup. Her breathing was short and irregular at first; only after she forced herself to inhale and exhale consciously did it calm down. Still, it took a few minutes. Her face, so tense a moment ago, relaxed; her hands stopped trembling. She closed her eyes, feeling the hard surface of the cup — and what lay beneath: the damp coffee grounds, the echo of beans once roasted, ground, and brewed. The microorganisms that lived in it. And them. The three seeds. Dry and seemingly dead, unmoving, silent. But Meryl heard them call. She heard every living thing. Some screamed, some sang, some stuttered, some babbled, some sobbed. Life poured out of every pore around her. Out of every person, every animal, every Worm, every single-cell organism, every Plant. As a child, she had sometimes been unable to bear it, this cacophony of existence. She hadn’t been able to filter it out or escape it — until Sharpe had come up with the idea of the cassette tapes. And even now, when the world got too loud, she simply turned up the volume.
At this moment, though, she heard only the seeds. Their whispers turned into soft voices. If she had opened her eyes, she would have seen those seemingly dead seeds begin to sprout, the first tender shoots pushing upward through the coffee grounds, straining toward her, toward the light.
And if those shoots had had eyes, they would have seen her, standing there in her bedroom, her skin giving off a cold glow in patterns — symmetrical, yet following no design the human eye would recognize.
No one in Rustwich saw that glow, not even her nearest neighbors, had they looked out of their windows. Sand Steemers clung to Meryl’s attic skylight, soaking up the unearthly, life-giving light, which vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Then they, too, scattered again.
She carried her new seedlings over to her wardrobe, which was so much more than just a place for clothes. Opening the double doors, she ducked under the hanging bundles of herbs waiting to dry so she could grind them into powder. Small dishes of sand and charcoal absorbed the little moisture that the plants released, the ones Meryl was growing on a ledge inside. Mint, lady’s mantle, arnica, and chamomile were just a few of the seedlings in little coffee cups. Now the three new cups — aloe, valerian, and poppy — joined them. Meryl closed the wardrobe again and turned her attention to the separate drawer beneath it. She opened it, glanced at the jars inside, and read her handwritten labels. Mold was growing in these jars. She only kept the good mold — green and white; anything else was thrown out. She took a fresh jar and one with a flourishing green-white bloom, opened both, and scraped a small amount of mold off with the now-empty, still-damp coffee filter. Then she placed the filter in its own jar and repeated the process that she had just done with the coffee cups: water droplets, light, life. Afterward, she put the freshly moldy filter back in the drawer, hoping it would hold steady in quality. The jar she’d taken mold from would be used tomorrow to make a tonic for Theo. That was for tomorrow, though. Tonight, she had another job.
Stored in another small compartment of the wardrobe were Briarberries, a variety grown in the lab not long after the crash. While the plant’s sap was meant for making sunscreen, the berries of this thorny plant had another use. They were inedible because of the tannins they contained — even Worms and Tomas steered clear, and they weren’t exactly picky — but these small black spheres, reminiscent of marbles, were excellent for dyeing. Meryl scooped a handful of them into a mortar she kept in her room specifically for that purpose. As she crushed them, a pungent sour smell rose into her nose and made her eyes water, but she pressed on, unmoved. She added small pieces of charcoal and some leftover egg from breakfast, stirring until the mixture formed a kind of gooey paste. Then she applied this paste to her hair with a brush, especially thick at the roots. Immediately, her scalp began tingling, as though it were electric — or simply fed up with being slathered in stinky mush once a month. Meryl never took pity on it.
When she was done, she found a roll of aluminum foil and wrapped it around her head in front of the broken mirror. The color needed to process overnight, and she didn’t want to ruin her pillow. Sharpe had once called this “conspiracy chic” and then laughed. She had never quite understood the joke but thought of it by the same name in her head.
One last time that day, she went downstairs to rinse the mortar in the kitchen sink. In the next room, she could hear Eriks tossing on his mattress again. She wanted so badly to wake him, to take his hand, to show him the plants in the wardrobe. To finally come clean. He would probably have liked the blossoms. But that wasn’t possible. She couldn’t, mustn’t. Her heart seized up at the thought. How much time did she have left? How long before someone noticed she always looked the same? When she’d arrived, people had looked at her full of doubt if she claimed she was only eighteen. Not until she reached her “mid-twenties” did her appearance match the age she claimed.
Originally, she’d planned to stay in Rustwich only until she turned “thirty.” But Eriks, by appearing in her life, had inadvertently torn up that plan. How much longer could she stay? Until “thirty-three”? “Thirty-five,” tops? How many more years was that, really? Ten years at the absolute max. Leaving him as a “good friend” would already hurt; leaving him as her “beloved” would destroy her. No. Better to keep her distance. She and Eriks had been dancing around each other for a year now. He was at least as broken as she was, in his own way, but he would let her into his heart if she made the effort. She hoped he’d find someone else. Soon, if possible. If he moved out, she’d be alone again — more alone than ever — but in ten years, it wouldn’t hurt so badly.
A tear silently rolled down her cheek. Meryl didn’t sniffle. She wiped it away soundlessly and swallowed hard. The clamor of life in the village suddenly seemed so loud she could barely stand it, and she turned on the radio to hear a voice in all that noise — something to focus on.
“The seed remembers the sky.
The rest of us will burn.”
Those crazies and their apocalypse again. Suddenly furious, she switched the radio off. Anger dampened the clamor in her head. She rubbed her cheeks once more, more roughly than the first time.
She went back upstairs and felt like slamming doors, like screaming. Instead, she silently put the mortar away and lay down in her bed. Beyond her window, the Sand Steemers were once again — or still — drifting about. Meryl usually liked them. They were pretty in their weightless hovering and their glow. Now, though, she felt like they were watching her. Exposed. She turned away from the window, closed her eyes, and pretended she needed sleep — that it was anything more than a hobby, a habit. It worked. Meryl fell asleep, and she did not dream.

Chapter Text

“They stayed long in that good house, fourteen days at least, and they found it hard to leave.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

When Meryl called Eriks to breakfast on Friday, he did not come. She looked for him—not truly worried, but still perplexed. People don’t just disappear. Usually, they leave something behind—whether voluntarily or not.
But there was nothing. Just like the evening before, Eriks was nowhere to be found; only when her gaze drifted outside again, as it had yesterday, and she saw the laundry flapping on the line, did she realize she had simply been looking in the wrong place the whole time.
She found him in the washroom, a small space added to the back of the house. With its hastily attached corrugated metal walls, it looked like a foreign body that didn’t really belong to the rest of the structure.
In it, Eriks was squatting next to the washing machine—or rather what had once been the washing machine. He had taken it completely apart. Screws and other components lay scattered around him as though he were a thieving Toma and these were his treasures.
“The heating coil is shot,” he explained, without Meryl even having to ask. Slowly, she bent down next to him so she could see what he saw, but she didn’t recognize much. She wasn’t good with technology. Her thumb was green, and her knowledge was of a botanical or medical nature. And that in a world where anything green was immediately devoured, burned, or otherwise used up. In another life, Eriks would have been an outstanding mechanic, probably even employed at one of the major Plant-station; but with only one arm, not even Cass’s father, who ran the local workshop, had been willing to give him the chance to pick up a wrench. Meryl felt sorry about that. She knew Eriks’s job with Selma was little more than a temporary fix for him. He didn’t belong in a general store, but Rustwich offered him few alternatives. And since he’d never intended to end up here in the first place, it must have felt all the more like a makeshift solution. Yet Meryl was glad he was here. She cherished every moment with him like a precious gift—despite the danger it posed for her. She knew that if he so much as offered her his little finger, she would seize it like a lifeline in her own sea of sand. And once that happened, once they took that step, there would be no happy ending for either of them.
“Can you fix it?”
“Not sure,” he said, holding up the coil to show her. A defect she didn’t see, didn’t understand. “The thing overheated. Basically cooked the laundry and then burned out.” He shrugged. “If we keep it in, at best it’ll cook the laundry every time, and everything will shrink. At worst, it’ll decide to do even more and burn the house down.” Meryl pulled a face at that bit of bad news. “Wonderful.” She set down the cup of coffee she had brought him on the rough sandstone floor. The entire addition had this kind of flooring, because on a normal metal floor, the washing machine’s vibrations would have rattled through the entire house when it spun—a lesson she and Sharpe had learned firsthand years ago.
With a promise to be right back, Meryl briefly withdrew into the yard—if one could even call a big heap of sand a yard. She wanted to see the problem for herself; from inside, it had looked perfectly normal, perfectly harmless. She grabbed the laundry basket, which leaned carelessly against the house wall like a forgotten toy. It was full of sand. Everything that stood outside for even a moment was full of sand. Anyone who disliked sand was in the wrong place in this inhospitable world. She beat the sand out, covered her mouth with her hand for a moment, and coughed. Things she did almost every day. A life whose edges were worn smooth by routine. She looked over at the laundry that flapped in the warm wind as though it were dancing in the morning. The items hanging out there were quite a wild assortment: towels that had become rough, a repeatedly mended skirt, a shirt with a frayed collar. She knew all of them by heart. Old friends. She would have to throw out the skirt once it got the next hole—or maybe it would disintegrate into dust on its own first.
Meryl took each item off the line. She wanted to go back inside. Breakfast was waiting, and the sand was stinging her face and eyes. But just as she reached for the next piece, her hand stopped in midair. She stared, incredulous and confused, at the garment before her.
The only stranger on the line was a shirt. Blue. His shirt. Now too small for him.
She frowned, removed the pins, ran her fingers over the fabric. It was stiff, like freshly starched cloth. Maybe because of the dust, maybe because of the lime in the water. They didn’t have any product for it.
Almost tenderly, her fingers glided over the fibers, which felt denser than usual. She held the shirt up in front of her, undecided. And then, almost on their own, her arms lifted, and she slipped it on.
The fabric was warm from the morning sun, and despite the sand, it didn’t feel too bad on her skin. Normally, she would smooth laundry out again before ironing it. But this was different. Wearing Eriks’s clothes was something she wasn’t supposed to do.
Meryl stood there for a moment, wrestling with herself, hands on the seams that clung tightly to her arms. The collar fit loosely. The sleeves ended a bit above her wrists. She knew she should take it off. She ought to put it back in the basket, throw it aside, and forget about it. But she didn’t.
It smelled of soap. It still smelled of him.
Eriks said nothing when they returned to the house together. He carried the heating coil; she carried the laundry basket and wore his shirt. Even though he didn’t mention it aloud, his gaze — softer than usual — rested on her a moment too long.
They ate breakfast. Today it was porridge—or more accurately wormmeal porridge—sweetened with the same paste they’d used for the pancakes. The porridge had gone cold while they were outside, intensifying that stale taste of ground insect bodies, milk, and chemicals.
The idea that Eriks might just repair the washing machine had been dismissed outside; he had already explained that they would need at least one spare part—a new heating coil, preferably with a zinc core. Whether they got one depended on the market the next day and whether any merchant had such a piece on offer. That it wouldn’t be cheap was not in doubt; machine parts were always expensive because there were hardly any means left to produce new ones. The old SEEDS ships had been stripped down or so ravaged by the elements that you’d have to be suicidal to explore them willingly. No matter where Meryl had gone in her life, the general consensus was that no matter what treasures they might contain, they weren’t worth it. Not least because no one knew how to use them anymore.
Since the food tasted so bland, they were finished eating in no time. Neither of them seemed particularly hungry that day. It wasn’t unusual for Meryl, but for Eriks it certainly was. Their financial worries hovered above them like the Sword of Damocles—ready to fall. They’d have to dip into their savings. Money that was originally meant for the practice, but also secretly for Eriks himself, including a new pair of glasses for him. Like the radio, one of the earpieces on his glasses was held together with wire. Meryl had hoped they could finally save up enough for a new frame within half a year. She could now forget about that.
She pulled a chair over to the kitchen counter and stood on it. The chair wobbled dangerously on the unevenly welded metal floorboards, but Eriks was already next to her, prepared to catch her if she lost her balance.
They stored their stash of money in a jar on top of the kitchen cabinet. It was an impractical spot, but it also served as a symbol. You weren’t supposed to take anything out of it easily. The harder it was to reach, the less tempting it was.
Standing on tiptoe, Meryl stretched out for the jar. She felt Eriks’s hand on her back and felt safe. All it would have taken was a half-turn, and she could have looked deep into his eyes—and, for once, she’d be taller than him. But she didn’t turn. She didn’t want to face how physically close they were and how vast the gulf between them remained. So she grabbed the jar with one hand, reached for Eriks’s hand with the other one, and hopped off the chair, back to being small while he was tall next to her.
A moment later, she emptied the coins onto the table with a clatter. There were more than she’d expected, but relatively few bills. They sat down to count, with Meryl stacking the coins into piles of one Double-Dollar each while Eriks kept track on a sheet of paper. There was already a note with the previous balance in the jar, but the amount was out of date because more had been added since then. Meryl let Eriks handle it. Not only was he better with technology than she was, but he was also better with numbers. Ultimatly they ended up at 70$$ plus some pennies, which weren’t very useful for anything.
“The coil costs at least 30$$,” Eriks said. “Probably a bit more if demand is high.” Meryl sighed. That meant she’d have to be extra frugal with medications again this month. Her attic lab was a small safety net, but the quantities were too small to be much help. Valerian eased nerves. Chamomile and mint helped reduce inflammation. The mold killed bacteria. And poppy took away pain. But if something serious happened, she’d be in trouble—let alone any big household expenses. Which meant another month of wormmeal in just about everything, a fact that neither of them ever complained about but one that disgusted her somewhat and frustrated her even more.
After lunch, Meryl and Eriks left the house together. He had an afternoon shift at the store, and she had house calls to make. Nothing particularly momentous: Gina Wilkins had broken her ankle and, at 72, wasn’t steady enough on her feet to come to the practice.
By now, the heat was like lead. Everything seemed slower; even the sand seemed thicker, heavier, clinging to their boots like warm mush. The wind had died down, which Meryl knew was never a good sign. If the wind died, it was either the calm before a storm—or before a thought one had been shoving aside for too long. She hoped it was the former. At least with a sandstorm, you could close your doors and windows.
Like Meryl, Gina lived in a small house on the outskirts of Rustwich, though in a different section of the outer rim. Far enough out to not really belong, but not far enough to be forgotten by the community. Meryl liked Gina. Her tongue was sharper than any scalpel, but her heart was as big as a water tank. When Meryl knocked, she immediately heard the thud of a cane, then the labored opening of the door.
“Took you long enough,” the old woman growled by way of greeting, then shuffled wordlessly back into the living room.
Meryl smiled. That was Gina. As long as she was in a foul mood, she was doing fine.
“I can come back another time if it’s inconvenient right now,” she retorted jokingly, stepping inside and closing the door behind her.
Gina was settled on a sagging sofa. Her foot lay on a stool, properly splinted, not as swollen as last time. Meryl asked about the pain, her circulation, her appetite — and got grumpy but honest answers in return.
“That tea there,” Gina said finally, pointing to a small round container on the side table, “my neighbor made it. Tastes like cat pee, but it works.”
Meryl laughed quietly. It was the first time she had truly laughed all day. Probably even the first time in two days. Not that practiced smile she was so adept at, but real, small, warm relief.
“I certainly hope she didn’t put anything like that in it.”
“She’d better not have,” Gina grumbled.
They sat together for a while longer. Meryl took out her small notebook—worn, with yellowed pages — and wrote down a few notes. The distraction did her good. The normality of it. She was reminded that life wasn’t all about money worries and heartache. There was also this: sand, old age, grouchy patients recommending cat-pee-tasting medication.
As she was about to leave, Gina unexpectedly laid a dark, bony hand on Meryl’s arm.
“You should be careful, child,” she said suddenly, without looking at her. Meryl held her breath for a moment. “There’s a storm coming. I feel it in my bones.”
Meryl only nodded. She said nothing more, and neither did Gina.
Three more patients later, and the day was drawing to a close. Meryl wouldn’t have had far to go to get home, but she decided to pick Eriks up from Selma’s store—something she felt happened far too rarely.
With her doctor’s bag in hand, she strolled through the narrow streets. The oppressive heat had vanished, and dark, heavy clouds now covered the sky. It looked a lot like rain, but it most certainly wouldn’t yield any, probably just a full-blown storm.
Meryl liked storms, not because she had a death wish, but because storms held memories for her. When the air smelled of ozone and thunder rumbled in the sky, it was best to find a safe spot. By tomorrow, the weather would be cooler; and though the heavens wouldn’t grant them life-giving water, she always felt after a storm as though the air were cleaned, fresh, ready for a new beginning.
She still had that thought in her head when she entered Selma’s store — a general shop so cramped and cluttered that you were afraid of knocking something off the shelves with every movement. At least here, Meryl’s short stature was an advantage. She might need help reaching the top shelves, but she didn’t stomp around like a bull in a china shop.
Selma stood behind the counter, hunched over the register. She didn’t like numbers, Eriks had once told her, and usually let him do the evening accounts. But apparently not today. Maybe he was off handling something else she couldn’t be bothered with.
“We’re about to close,” Selma informed Meryl without looking up. “No more cash sales today. Only store credit.” Then she finally lifted her head and merely raised an eyebrow. “Oh, it’s you.” The plump woman with the reddish-brown hair and countless freckles looked Meryl up and down a moment too long, before a wide grin spread across her round face. The gap in Selma’s teeth always lent her a certain cheeky air, as though she was about to play a prank. Right now, her brown eyes gleamed with a similar mischief.
Selma set aside her pen and braced her hands on the counter.
“That shirt... looks mighty familiar.”
Meryl instinctively lowered her gaze, ran her hand lightly over the fabric.
“It was on the line, and… well. It fits.”
Selma let out her throaty laugh, that unmistakable Selma sound that was half coughing, half a gleeful neigh.
“It suits you. Way too well. But let me know if you plan on pinching his pants, too — I need to prepare myself mentally.”
Meryl opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her face was bright red.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Selma winked, “if I earned a Double-Dollar for every flustered face I see in this shop, I’d be rich by now.”
Then she turned halfway away and called over her shoulder:
“Hopefully the good fellow knows what a catch he’s got. And if he doesn’t, just give him a good kick, yeah? Right where it hurts the most.”
“Selma!” Outrage. “We’re not — ” But she got no further, because the store owner was already hollering into the back room. “Eriks!!!” She sounded like a general on a battlefield. It wasn’t necessary, because Eriks stepped out of the storeroom a moment later anyway.
“There he is.” Selma leaned sideways against the counter, arms crossed, grinning. She now had both of them in view and could give a casual nod in Meryl’s direction. “Go on, your sweetheart’s waiting.”
Eriks raised an eyebrow, then glanced down at Meryl, who gave him only the briefest look — and then made it abundantly clear yet again that they were just friends. Selma rolled her eyes. “You two are killing me… but fine. Now, off with you. If you linger here any longer, you’ll put down roots between my shelves and I’ll have to clean up after.” A joke. Selma had no time for cleaning. Also, there probably wasn’t space left among the shelves to put down roots in the first place.
That evening, they didn’t play any games; there was household work to be done. Meryl was ironing while Eriks sat on the piece of furniture that most resembled a sofa. He held a well-worn copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and read it aloud to Meryl so she wouldn’t get bored. Eriks had actually suggested they take turns with the ironing, but with only one arm, he struggled so badly with folding clothes that Meryl couldn’t bear to watch. She didn’t want to patronize him, but she also didn’t want him to suffer. So she’d assigned him to reading — and besides, he did such a brilliant job voicing each character. Bilbo and the narrator had his normal speaking voice; Gandalf sounded slightly nasal and spoke a bit more slowly. He tried to read the dwarves in the deepest pitch possible. But it was the elves that impressed her the most. Eriks read them as though he were on stage: sharp, clear consonants, with an almost Shakespearean emphasis. She could have listened to him forever.
They hadn’t invented this “reading-while-ironing” tradition just this evening. For almost a year now, they had been reading every book they could get their hands on. None came from Meryl’s personal stash — “The Little Prince” was too sad, “Matilda” too personal, and “Flowers for Algernon” more of a memorial of Sharpe’s than a normal book. And so the volumes they read on ironing nights were all borrowed, and the genre or condition didn’t matter. They’d simply declined any nonfiction. They’d been on “The Hobbit” for two nights now.
They had just reached the fifth chapter, and Gollum had made his physical appearance, when Eriks, hissing and growling at the same time, read the line: “Bless us and splash us, my precioussss!” He spoke with a sibilant lisp, and by the time he continued, “I guess it’s a choice feast; at least a tasty morsel it’d make us, gollum!” in the exact same tone, Meryl let out a laugh she’d been trying to suppress. She had to bite her lip so she wouldn’t interrupt his flow. Still, Eriks paused, lifted his head, and gave her a lopsided grin. Meryl returned it with a little chuckle. “What on earth was that?”
“Gollum!” he said, eyes wide like the character, making her laugh even more, which made him laugh, too. Meryl managed to rein herself in with some effort, went back to ironing, and Eriks resumed. But by the time he got to “Praps ye sits here and chats with it a bitsy, my preciousss. It likes riddles, praps it does, does it?” — and he started gesturing, out of the corner of her eye she could see it — she lost control again. It felt so good to laugh. So free, so unburdened. Eriks seemed to feel the same. He drew his legs up onto the couch, hunching over, and now it was more of a performance than simply reading a story to her.
He presented the first riddle, but instead of reading on, he stared at Meryl expectantly. “What is it preciousss?
What has roots as nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?”
“You have to keep reading!”
“No, ye mussst tell ussss.”
She threw a sock at him, hitting only the book. His reflexes were quick, the movement just a bit too sharp to be entirely human, but in her laughter, Meryl didn’t notice.
“Stop it, Gollum,” she teased, smiling, and switched off the iron.
“No! A mountain it wassss.
It creeps and crawls but leaves no track,
it hugs the skin but won’t come back.
It fades with day, it’s gone by light —
What haunts the warm and dies with night?”
“Uh… a shadow… no… the night…”
Eriks shook his head.
“A nightmare!”
“Yesss, dreamses, preciousss, soft little lies…”
She stepped over, looked over his shoulder to skim the text for the answer to that riddle — it seemed unfamiliar to her — but didn’t find it.
“Hang on… that’s not even in there!”
Eriks just grinned innocently: “We readses what we likes, preciousss.”
She playfully tapped the sock on his head, but sat down beside him anyway.
“As I can’t trust you, I’ll do Gollum now, and you be Bilbo and the narrator, okay?”
He took his feet off the couch; she scooted closer to him, holding the book for both of them. The laughter still hung in the air, but it was fading, giving way to a sense of responsibility. One of the rules of their ironing-and-reading sessions was always to finish the chapter before calling it a night, so you could pick up in a new spot next time. So Eriks read his parts dutifully, at least until Meryl slipped into the role of Gollum. She changed her voice for it. When they’d read “Winnie-the-Pooh,” Meryl had often taken Piglet’s lines.
“Voiceless it cries, Wingless flutters, Toothless bites, Mouthless mutters.” All those S-sounds made her trip over her tongue, and in her already high-pitched, exaggerated voice, it sounded anything but appropriate. Now Eriks was the one who broke out laughing. “You sound like a rubber duck with a speech impediment.”
“I do not!” she replied in feigned outrage. But she had to admit he was right.
“All right then, I’m Bilbo now, and you’re Gollum and the narrator. Deal?”
“Deal.”
He cleared his throat, and just as he began again, Meryl’s mood shifted, and she became painfully aware of how beautiful, how perfect this moment was. And then the number forced its way back into her thoughts: at most eight more years.

Chapter Text

“I thought it was faith.
But it was only fear with better words.”
— Andrew Rook – or what remained of him

That night Meryl could not sleep. She lay in bed, her eyes shut, yet her thoughts kept circling. The eight years echoed inside her like the pounding heartbeat in Poe’s old tale, a sound that grew louder the harder one tried to ignore it.
Had it not been so painful, it would almost have seemed ridiculous.
What did she really know about tomorrow? About a year from now? And how could she presume to hope that Eriks would still be living with her in eight years — let alone that he would still be in Rustwich? To hope he would stay was not only selfish and foolish but, above all, stupid. They had no shared future. If they did, they would never — and over chickens who haven’t hatched, as the saying goes, one should not worry.
When she could no longer bear the turmoil in her head, she got up. It was late at night—or early morning, if you will. The attic air had cooled, and Meryl shivered in her nightgown when her bare soles touched the cold metal floor. The chill felt too good to fetch a blanket or dress more warmly. Every bit of goose‑flesh was better than another gloomy thought sticking to her mind like tar to a shoe sole.
She went downstairs, as quietly as she could, tiptoed into the bathroom, and filled a bucket with water. The tank was still pretty full she knew that — knew, too, that the water was too precious for cleaning.
But she did it anyway. If she couldn’t sleep, she at least wanted to do something that felt useful — something that promised control, if not over the future, then at least over dust. The dust never slept; so neither did she.

She cleaned until about five o’clock; then her hands hurt. Her palms were red and wrinkled. The water in the bucket was a gray‑brown soup that probably only spread the dust around instead of wiping it up. Meryl decided it was enough. She would have liked to reuse the water for something else, but because of its condition she poured it into the toilet.
The shower that followed was as thorough as five minutes allowed; more simply wasn’t possible. Dark water rinsed from her hair — leftover dye, as always. It would take a while until the color stopped bleeding, but she was used to that.
She got dressed for the day. Her everyday clothes differed little from what she wore in her free time. There was simply no money for new clothing. While she had lived alone, she could cut corners on food and scrimp a little, but with Eriks in the house she didn’t dare. He worried at least as much about her as she did about him — though concern for her was entirely wasted.
With hair still damp, she went into the kitchen to prepare a quick breakfast. The short, heavy cut of her hair was a blessing. Meryl knew many women — not only in Rustwich — who had to set their hair in rollers or blow‑dry it with expensive hot‑air hoods just to look presentable. Her stubborn, thick hair made things easier. As a child, she remembered, she had often wished for long hair, braids, or curls. But long hair needed more dye, and Eli had had trouble styling it, so elaborate hairstyles had soon been taken off the table.
Off the table now, however, was also the plan of setting breakfast on it. They were tapped out — there was no other way to put it. The wormmeal would have stretched to one more portion of porridge, but the milk would not. You could hardly swallow the stuff mixed with water; just as well one might eat sand or clay.
And so it remained coffee and the cassette that went with it. No more breakfast would fit into this morning.
She sat at the table, her mug steaming as always, when at six Eriks’s alarm rang—and, as almost every day, it was still she who called him. Rituals do not always have a purpose, but they make things real.
He came at half past six, still half asleep, with that tired look that lived in his face like dust in a window frame. He took a sip, pulled a face. She smiled scarcely noticeably.
At seven they set out: Eriks armed with a basket, Meryl with the shopping list. Even though it was the weekend, it would have been foolish to leave later. The suns spared neither weekends nor holidays. And while in the outskirts the wind could make the midday heat somewhat bearable, in the town center air and life came to a standstill.
Besides, the selection was best in the morning — though they hardly had great choice. It had to be cheap: cheap and filling, and even for that the morning offered the best odds. Whoever came late to market paid not only with sun‑burned skin but also literally.
They walked side by side. Meryl studied the list so often, so intensely, that one might think she wanted to coax a secret from it. In truth she wanted to forget nothing. The market was weekly, but a week without a particular ingredient could be damned long, and she didn’t want to rely on the lucky chance that she might be paid for a treatment with exactly what they lacked. Not feeling entirely fit herself did not improve matters.
To claim it was due to lack of sleep would have been silly. Meryl had got used to sleeping because of Eli — not for him, as with eating and drinking, but because he had advised it. She had been small then, barely nine months old, which in her time amounted to nearly nine years. The world — even though it consisted only of a laboratory — had already overwhelmed her, sometimes frightened her, sometimes almost suffocated her. Then Eli had always told her to close her eyes, to think of something pleasant. “Your brain has to grow, just like your body,” he had said. “Give it that chance. Give it the opportunity to process, to forget. Tomorrow the world will look quite different.”
And he had been right. When life overwhelmed her, there was music; and when it was the world — the whole rest — there was sleep. Except last night.
The market was fuller than expected — full of people, empty of options.
An archipelago of hastily erected stalls, waving blankets, crates, and rusty carts in a sea of sand and shimmering air. Meryl and Eriks pushed through the crowd together. The ground beneath their shoes was hard‑tamped, porous sandstone, matching some buildings in the town’s center. A babel of voices hung over everything, broken only by the clatter of empty bottles, the barking of a dog from some side alley, and the soft whine of a Toma that had broken loose.
“Stella first?” Eriks asked.
Meryl nodded. “If there’s still milk. Butter from her too. And if we’re lucky, an egg.”
They worked through their list: a sack of dry wormmeal; aspirin from Septima Inc, also high‑dose ibuprofen and some penicillin from the same company; two small jars of fermented, boiled‑down broth — sour, salty, full of umami, as people said. A bit too salty, to be honest, but perfect for adding some taste to otherwise monotonous fare. Butter came only in a tiny portion. Given the prices they reluctantly passed on the egg. The money would not stretch if they still hoped to find a heating coil somewhere.
At the stall of the scrap‑collecting Delbridge couple from Stonepeak, they were greeted as kindly as always — today, though, also regretfully: no heating coil. “Maybe next week,” muttered Mr. Delbridge, sorting a bag with soot‑blackened fingers; faced with their crestfallen expressions, he shrugged apologetically.
They had no luck with a stranger from the more distant Sheb either. The coil he offered would “never in this life” fit the machine, said Eriks, and anyway the prices were so high that Meryl felt dizzy just reading the tags. They did not give up, searched on — and still found nothing. It was plain to see that Eriks felt sorry.
Not about the washing machine. Not about the missing spare parts. About her.
And yet neither of them said anything. What was there to say?
Hope for next week was all that remained. So they queued up — at a food truck. Something hot. Something that should taste like comfort — even if it wasn’t. Meryl didn’t feel like cooking, and from the look of him, Eriks didn’t either.
The soup was affordable — but only if they were frugal. No extras. No canned vegetables, no egg. Just broth and noodles, allegedly real. They sat at a small table with a crooked sunshade. The table was plastic, the chairs too. Meryl suspected even the spoon was made of recycled nothing. Only the food truck itself was metal — genuinely solid, but surely as recycled as everything else in this world.
The soup was too salty; the day already too long this morning. After a few spoonfuls Meryl pushed her bowl over to Eriks. He looked up briefly, said nothing. Neither did she.
“I’m going to the notice board,” she muttered. “Maybe there’s something pinned up. Maybe just the usual.” Eriks nodded, his gaze lingering briefly on her half‑full bowl.
She pretended not to notice, then stood. In less than five meters the crowd swallowed her.
In a swarm of Worms, an individual is unnoticed; on a throbbing marketplace, a single person too.
The market seemed quieter now.
Not empty — but exhausted. The best bargains had long been sold. The rest was merely waiting for noon, when everyone would hide away, whether in houses, in cars, or just a patch of shade — anything to get out of the sun.
She had almost reached the notice board when she saw it: a knot of people, small and tight, six or seven at most. A man stood on an old crate, speaking loudly — almost shouting.
Meryl stopped.
She didn’t hear what he said. Not at first. She heard his life. And something about it sounded… wrong. Torn. Almost like the coffee tape — only more worn out, more wounded, as if someone had roughly, violently ripped it apart several times and then stitched it back together — wrong.
A song that no longer sang, only screamed.
His clothes were tattered, his hair wild, his face so sunburned it was peeling.
His eyes shone like fever — or like something else, something without a name.
“They came like whispers in the night… and you didn’t hear!” he shouted.
“The angels were only the beginning! You don’t see it — but they’re coming!
They bring no comfort. They bring hunger. They bring light. It burns!”
Meryl shivered — not because she understood what he meant, but because she felt his life didn’t sound right. People sounded different. Not so brittle, not so shrill, not so empty. Her fingers tingled. Part of her wanted to intervene, to help. But she knew better. This was no fracture to splint, no illness to cure.
Two men moved through the crowd. Meryl guessed it was Sheriff Harlem and his deputy — or perhaps a trader with too much courage. She stood too far away to recognize them, but they pulled the man down from the crate. He let himself be dragged only reluctantly, still muttering words no one wanted to hear.
A man beside her shook his head. “Another one of those…”
Then a slip of paper fell. It fluttered through the dust and landed right at Meryl’s feet. No one bent to pick it up; so she did. Scrawled handwriting, crooked lines — words like fragments. Madness on A5:
“Ash‑thorn. His eye. Feather‑mouth.”
And over and over: They come. They come. They come.
She wanted to throw it away, but there was no bin, and the crowd was pressing on. So she pocketed it — a reflex, nothing more. Yet her fingers felt strange for a long time afterward.
When she returned to Eriks, he had eaten and taken the bowls back. She had been gone longer than planned, but he wasn’t angry — he never was. Just as with him, there were reasons when she was late. She didn’t want to talk about it; he didn’t ask.
Together they walked home, just in time before the heat descended on them like a lead curtain. Since both were home, Meryl switched on the ceiling fan in the kitchen‑living room. It started with a sputter, then hummed quietly and rhythmically. In the cities, she knew, there were far better ways to keep the heat out — air‑conditioning: cold and expensive. In Rustwich no one could afford such luxury; people managed differently here.
While Eriks lay melted on the sofa, she mixed what was supposed to be iced tea: water, some tea from secretly self‑grown attic herbs, and — as always — artificial sweetness from a jar. She served it with a crooked smile in glass straws, plus vitamin tablets — one for her and one for him. Against scurvy — which she could not get and he must not get.
“To our health,” she coaxed him to clink glasses, but he did so only half‑heartedly, for her sake. The washing‑machine matter still weighed on him. They had a washboard; they would manage. But it likely irked him that she would scrub while he could not. Maybe he could read to her tonight while she did.
They said nothing. Meryl sipped her tea while Eriks leaned back, removed his glasses, and closed his eyes for a moment. Seeing him like that was beautiful and painful at once. He looked so calm, so peaceful. With his eyes closed, the sorrow wasn’t there, yet when he opened them, he had the saddest eyes in the world. Meryl would have loved to know what was going on inside him. But that boundary was taboo for both of them. Each had wounds — his plainly visible on the skin, hers better hidden yet revealed in her behavior. Neither dared open the other’s, for once that happened there would be no turning back, and each feared that one’s own burden might crush the other. Ironically, neither feared the other’s burden.
A knock startled her so badly she almost dropped her glass. She was jumpy — in private more than in practice. In her treatment room she skillfully hid her true nature behind stethoscope and clipboard. As Doctor she could function better than she ever could as “Meryl.” Meryl was a ghost in her own life, the Doctor only the sheet over it.
“I’ll get it,” Meryl said quickly before Eriks could make a move toward the door. He had already begun, though, and by the time she left the room he was sitting upright — the glasses back on, his gaze serious, ears pricked. Of young people it is said that nothing good happens after midnight; in No Man’s Land the warning applies to midday.
On the way to the door, Meryl ran through her odds. Who disturbed them on a Saturday noon? Surely only an emergency. On supposedly free days she had already pulled teeth, stitched wounds, even removed an appendix. What remained on her free‑day list was delivering a baby and performing the Heimlich maneuver. She opened the door, bracing inwardly for the worst — and saw only Cass, the thirteen‑year‑old whose knee she had treated on Tuesday. Unhurt but sweaty, still sporting a large bandage on his knee. Somewhat sheepishly he pressed something into her hand. “My pa says to bring you this.”
“Now? At noon?”
She hadn’t yet looked at what he’d given her. When she did, her face almost froze: a heating coil, the right size for their washing machine.
“Yep.” Cass turned to go. “He says you and he are square now.”
“Don’t you want to come in for an iced tea?”
But the boy was already gone, running through the heat as if he did not feel it. Meryl was speechless. She closed the door slowly, gazing incredulously at the part in her hand. Cass’s father had said she could call in a favor with him; she hadn’t thought he would do it so soon — least of all because she and he were hardly on friendly terms. Francis Bouchard was hot‑tempered, misogynistic, and usually an outright swine. Still, he had saved more than just their day — and suddenly Eriks’s new pair of frames moved back within reach.
The joy over the coil was immense. Meryl paraded into the living room with it as if it were a precious trophy. Their moods soared at once, and although Meryl could scarcely believe it, she had to slow Eriks down so he wouldn’t set about installing it in this heat.
She bribed him with one of their board games. At checkers they were nearly evenly matched, but at Chinese checkers Meryl beat him every time. By half past three she finally let him get to work, but not without reminding him that they had to attend church that evening. Everyone in Rustwich attended services, which, owing to Father Nathaniel’s age and health, took place only irregularly. A notice at the town hall informed the faithful from Saturday morning on whether a service would be held and when. Because of the sheer mass of ever‑changing wanted posters the notice was not always easy to spot. This week the service was on Saturday evening. The wanted criminals did not interest Meryl.
While Eriks was outside, she laid out their fine clothes: for her a blue dress — the best she had — paired with dress shoes, that always filled with sand – and a hat: in Rustwich women wore hats to church. For Eriks the whitest shirt he owned and trousers finer than his usual. Money had not run to a jacket and vest yet — besides, it seemed daft to Meryl to wear so many layers in the desert. Despite sand in the shoes, women clearly had it easier in matters of clothing.
After she had changed and tidied herself, she hung Eriks’s clothes in the bathroom; he would want a shower when he came in. The more she prepared, the less she would have to hurry him.
Though neither Eriks nor she was devout, the services had become fixed points in their routine. It wasn’t faith that drove them — more a silent consent, a part of everyday life one didn’t need but would miss if absent. To outsiders they might look like two people who tended their devotions quietly but faithfully, and for most that was enough. Even if it weren’t — they offered no explanations, neither to strangers nor to each other.
They knew the absurdity, each in their own way. Meryl found it hard to believe in a god after she, barely out of the test tube, had fallen from the sky. Eriks’s scars — mental and physical — had likely had the same sobering effect on him.
That they of all people sat in church was almost cynical; yet perhaps it was this very irony that made it bearable.
One need not believe to understand devotion; one need not pray to cherish the peace that lay in the old wooden pews when the sun slanted through the windows and bathed everything in a light so gentle it almost felt like hope.
And then there was Father Nathaniel.
Meryl liked him — dearly. The old man was quirky, sometimes forgetful, sometimes wise — and always kind. His hands were like parchment, his voice like an old coffee grinder, but when he spoke you listened — not out of awe but out of affection.
Eriks liked him too; she could feel it. Sometimes, when Nathaniel told a story from his youth, Eriks blinked into the air as though he wanted to see the past, to lay it over his own and see if they still matched anywhere.
Nathaniel asked no questions. He believed — not necessarily in God, but in the good in people. And that was more than enough.

Toward evening it cooled a little — enough that a light wrap or jacket sufficed. Meryl had chosen a scarf, not for practicality but because it matched her dress, a vanity she seldom allowed herself but somehow needed today. Eriks had put on the shirt she had laid out; though far from new, he looked almost like a stranger — a stranger she knew, one who in another life might have been a banker, or a plant engineer, or something else entirely unconnected with deserts and wormmeal.
They walked side by side to the church — not arm in arm, not holding hands, but close enough that their shadows touched on the path.
The church was small, old — one of Rustwich’s first buildings, made of pale stone that had darkened over the years, almost like the stories woven around the town. Inside it smelled of old metal, sand dust, and wax. A third of the pews were already filled, the windows open to let in at least some air. Meryl sat, as always, in the second row from the back. She liked the overview and disliked being watched when she herself was too busy watching. Eriks sat beside her. The white shirt lay taut over his shoulders; he ran a hand over the creases as if to reassure himself that he was really there, in the moment, with her.
The organ started — or what was left of it: an electronic keyboard that hummed more than it sang. Meryl looked up the hymn numbers written at the front: three hymns, nothing unusual, but nothing particularly comforting either. The first was “Great Day of Light,” the second “Children of the Everlasting Flame,” the third “March of the Folded Hands.”
She frowned. Something about it rubbed her wrong. It wasn’t the songs themselves — they were all in the standard book — but placed together they created a feeling. Not logical, not nameable, but uneasy.
Eriks frowned as well. She shot him a sidelong glance. He said nothing—he rarely did in such matters — but the tiny line between his brows told her he felt it too: the something, the not‑right. Then the service began.
Only it was not Nathaniel who led it.
The man who stepped forward was young — perhaps mid‑thirties, perhaps a little older. Clean‑shaven, fair hair, neat cassock. A smile too perfect to be real. Meryl felt something clench inside her.
“Good evening, brothers and sisters,” he said in a voice that sounded steeped in oil: gentle, warm — and somehow… cold.
“My name is Father Abel Crane. I have been sent from the diocese in September to accompany you today — and in the future. Father Nathaniel… is very ill. He has been taken to September to be cared for there. He asks for your prayers.”
A murmur swept through the pews — no loud outrage, no disbelief, just a silent collective intake of breath. Meryl, though, felt everything inside her tighten. She had seen Nathaniel only the day before yesterday: weak, yes, but not transportable, certainly not so suddenly. For as long as she had known him, he had always said he wanted to stay in Rustwich to the last — and beyond, in the cemetery behind the church. Why had no one fetched her?
Abel Crane was preaching when her thoughts returned to the here and now. He spoke of light, of hope, of order in times of chaos, of rebirth, of duties, of trust, of fire that tests — and purifies, of truth that could be hard. Everything he said was correct, and yet… it felt wrong.
Meryl did not know why. Perhaps it was the way he smiled when he said “fire”; perhaps the way he spoke of “sin” without using the word; perhaps the way the others nodded, murmuring assent. Perhaps because she herself did not believe — and yet believed that this was something one should not believe.
“From now on, services will be held regularly again,” Abel Crane said toward the end.
“Tomorrow morning we begin with a morning devotion at six. After that the rosary will follow. Confession will be reintroduced, as will baptism classes. I look forward to walking this path with you. May His watchful eye ever keep its protective gaze upon you.”
Meryl swallowed.
The eye.
Whose eye?
The congregation was enthusiastic. Some even applauded. Others stood up, wanting to speak with him, to thank him. Meryl remained seated. Her hands lay folded in her lap; only her fingers moved slightly, restlessly — like an instrument being tuned to wrong notes.
Eriks did not move. His eyes were open, his gaze fixed ahead. Meryl did not know whether he was still listening — or already hearing what lay behind the words. Outside it had grown darker; night was settling over Rustwich like a blanket pulled over one’s eyes.
And at home, in Meryl’s trouser pocket — almost forgotten — rustled a sheet of scribbled paper she had not thrown away. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never.

Chapter Text

For the kingdom, the power and the glory
are yours now and for ever.
- Pater Noster / Lord's Prayer

She waited until the last churchgoer had disappeared between the pews before she stood up. She always did that — but today it felt less like habit and more like escape.
Meryl was dazed — not by the service itself, but by the aftertaste it had left behind, much like the feeling one gets after taking the first drag of a cigarette in one’s life.
She stood there for a moment, fingers already raised for the sign of the cross, yet not completing it. It wasn’t God she missed. It was the man.
Father Nathaniel.
Old, slow, yet so kind. A bit hard of hearing, but with a surprisingly clear gaze. He had always looked at her as if he could see more than just her eyes. And whenever he was ill, they had fetched her. Always. She had never considered that anything special — until it failed to happen. This time no one knocked. No one asked. No one needed her.
“He is no longer here.” That was how Father Abel had put it, with a smile far too smooth and a voice in which compassion was missing — or perhaps present, but from the wrong direction.
Meryl lowered her hand, crossed herself after all, mechanically, because she knew people would notice if she didn’t. She wanted no fuss — just to leave. Eriks stepped behind her. His movements were as automatic as hers — two wind-up dolls that moved in their prescribed tracks only for lack of an alternative.
They walked down the aisle. Few people behind them, yet a whole cluster ahead. First, she couldn’t make sense of why it wasn’t moving forward, until she, too, shook Father Abel’s hand. Cold hands, firm grip, cold eyes. Meryl felt tiny before him — not because of her stature, but because of the way he looked at her, as if dissecting her with his gaze. Almost instantly her palms turned clammy, and her heart began racing; she could feel her pulse all the way to her fingertips. There she was again: a child, helpless, several electrodes taped to her body — good girls get a cookie, bad ones a shock.
Had he also been wearing PROTOCOL Nine as his cologne, she would probably have lost it. But Father Abel smelled only of soap and dust, and Meryl calmed enough to answer, with a strained smile, the question of who she was.
“Meryl Stryfe,” her throat felt filled with quicksand, as though it wished to swallow her tongue and suffocate her in the same breath.
“Ah, the doctor. I have heard much about you.”
“Really?” She wanted to ask from whom, but had no chance: he had already released her hand and turned to Eriks. Meryl meanwhile looked at her hand as if it were a foreign object; she still felt where his fingers had touched her skin, felt the urge to wipe it off—but suppressed it.
Yet Abel’s dissecting gaze now met Eriks’s, and to her surprise Meryl saw that his look was not the usual indifferent, tired one but firm, almost drilling — a stare under which even Abel seemed uncomfortable.
“Thank you for attending the service. You are…?” Harsh as it was, something in Meryl took satisfaction in how Abel now appeared to squirm under Eriks’s stare. The cleric might still be smiling, but the twitch of his mouth already cracked his unshakable façade.
“Eriks Saverem,” said he, letting go of the new priest’s hand. The brief duel of gazes was over, Eriks had won. His hand, calloused from hard work, landed on Meryl’s shoulder, gently indicating she should move on. He rarely touched her of his own accord — almost never. In that moment she was grateful. His hand was warm, the touch comforting. She glanced up at him; his expression was again the gentle yet exhausted one he always gave her.
Abel’s gaze she did not see, but she felt it — and the feeling was anything but pleasant.
Barely inside the front door, Meryl was kicking off her shoes and dumping a contemptuous look onto the veranda boards — a half sandpit poured out, or at least enough to annoy anyone walking on it.
“Whoever thought these shoes were a good choice on a desert planet should be sued.” She giggled invitingly. He didn’t join in, and she fell silent.
“I don’t like him,” he said instead, after he had taken off his shoes too and placed them in the shoe cupboard—far too big, far too empty. Meryl wanted to answer something about prejudice and that they should probably give him a chance. Then she remembered standing opposite Father Abel, felt her right hand tingling, and said instead, “Neither do I.”
As usual they sat in the kitchen-living room, only this time Eriks made the tea. He had never openly asked where Meryl’s tea reserves came from, but she knew he wondered why they never seemed to run out.
Eriks served green tea with a dash of artificial lemon juice. The hot drink felt good after all the cold the service had radiated. They were silent again — or so Meryl thought until Eriks said, “He didn’t say a single word about how he’s doing.”
“Hmm?” With a mouth full of tea she wasn’t very eloquent.
“Father Abel — about Father Nathaniel. He’s sick, had to go to September, and Abel is the substitute. But how is his predecessor?”
He was right. She thought of replying, then looked at him: there he was again, the Eriks behind the veil of sorrow and resignation. His eyes shone, alert and resolute — the same Eriks who had silently stood his ground against Father Abel, yet for her, his gaze held a certain tenderness and warmth. All she managed was to lay her hand briefly on his and squeeze it. She hoped he understood what she meant to say — what her words could not. He did not pull away, but answered the pressure of her hand, and she knew further words were unnecessary.
Still, they conferred awhile longer, sitting before the stove fire in the dim light of old bulbs and talking about the coming day — the morning devotion neither of them wanted to attend, yet which Meryl felt obliged to. “It would be unwise not to go,” she said — a point he had to concede, like it or not. Though not everyone, many of the faithful yesterday had practically clung to Father Abel’s lips. He would become popular, of that Meryl had no doubt, perhaps as much as Father Nathaniel had been, but in a different way. Abel preached more clearly, directly, where Nathaniel had used parables. The simple townsfolk would surely like that, and children would find an easier access. Yet what he had said left that nasty cigarette taste in the mouth, the feeling of stale sweat on the skin — too much “sin,” too much “guilt,” too much “atonement,” too much “must.” During the service she hadn’t been able to name it; after Eriks’s remark about the missing details of Nathaniel’s condition, her picture had become clearer — sharper and uglier.
So, on Sunday both dragged themselves out of bed again just before five — Eriks more heavily than Meryl, for she still had not slept. She had done something Eli had once shown — no, modeled — for her: she wrote down her thoughts. The notebook she used was actually a spare intended for the practice, but she needed it now to sort her mind, to clarify her feelings. Paper was expensive, and she felt slightly sinful squandering it on such nonsense. In a few weeks, though, she would be glad of these glimpses into her head — and later still she would curse them.
Eriks was not truly grumpy that morning, just sleepier than usual. He generally used Sundays to recover — from the shop work and from the week’s nights. Knowing no alarm would wake him at a set hour meant he slept better — something he had to forfeit today.
In the first light they returned to the church, which, to their surprise, was as full as the evening before. Either everyone had thought the same, or they were truly eager for God’s word — from Abel’s mouth. Meryl wanted to believe the former, but her reason said otherwise. Again, she wore her dress and impractical shoes; she had brought yesterday’s scarf as well, yet it offered little warmth. When Eriks could no longer stand seeing her shiver, he laid his jacket over her shoulders. It didn’t fit the rest of his attire. She hadn’t even noticed he was carrying it.
The short devotion was better than the previous service, yet the blessing was once again as bizarre as before:
“May the eye of the Lord see you where you do not see yourselves.
May the angel with the sword call you back when you stray.
And may your guilt lie before you like a shadow in the noon-day sun —
so that you learn not to walk away from the light.
Go in peace. Under watchers.”
Meryl shuddered — unsure whether at the words or simply from cold. Eriks’s eyes bored again.
They did not stay for the rosary, and fortunately they were not alone. Many had only limited time for faith even on Sunday: worldly matters needed attending — among them Sunday dinner, which traditionally should be a bit more ample than during the week. Meryl intended the same, at least this Sunday. The mood between them was so low only good food — and perhaps some music — could lift it. She flipped the coffee cassette — something she never did — and thereby invited Elvis into the kitchen-living room, whom she tried to imitate but whose voice she could not match. Just wielding the cooking spoon as a microphone coaxed a smile from Eriks, and before she knew it, they were side by side: he turning the meat — stashed at the back of the freezer for a day like this — she baking cornbread with her last bit of real cornmeal. It wasn’t much, but enough for both.
Thus, Sunday turned out quite nice after all, and with Monday everyday life returned like a comforting friend, and Meryl had almost forgotten the strange — unnerving — priest. One last check-up on Ellie, no more coughing; a look into Theo’s throat, no longer raspberry-colored and fever-free. And of course Mr. Harnell, who came with imaginary back pain and raved about Irene’s delicious cake the family could once afford because Marlo sent money home from his work on the sand cruiser.
A few more patients — nothing serious, just life’s little things — and Meryl strapped her bag. The sun already hung slanted over Rustwich’s alleys, dust casting tired shadows. It was one of those afternoons when you either closed the shutters or let yourself drift in the day’s lethargy. She chose the latter.
Gina’s place was not far, but it led her a bit out of town, past cracked house walls, the abandoned general store with its faded Septima sign, past places where unchanging things breathed their own melancholy.
Gina sat, as so often, in her old rocking chair on the porch, ankle propped on a stool, a self-knitted blanket of Siltie-sheep and acrylic wool over her legs — though it was warm.
“Well, look who’s here,” she grumbled as Meryl pushed through the creaking gate. “Thought I’d have to conjure you up.”
“I wanted to see how your leg’s doing.” Meryl tried a neutral smile.
“You want to talk,” Gina returned, without reproach.
She stood — wobbly. Meryl moved to help her, but Gina waved her off, took her crutches herself, and hobbled — slowly but determinedly — inside.
“Come on in. I’ve got tea. And today I’m only griping at half strength.”
The living room was a patchwork of decades, like Gina herself. And though it smelled a bit of strong salve and wet dog, it felt warmer than anything Meryl had experienced in the past two days.
“You were in church,” Gina said as soon as they sat — no question, that same “I know everything anyhow” timing.
“Twice, even,” Meryl pushed a strand from her face. “And both times I found it… odd.”
Gina nodded slowly, then slid an old tin of crumbly biscuits toward Meryl, who dutifully took one but did not yet eat.
“Enoch’s all thrilled with him—with Abel,” Gina said. “Calls him a man of progress.”
Meryl lifted an eyebrow. Gina shook her head.
“I gave the boy a talking-to, I did. I didn’t feed and raise him all these years, so he’d fall for the first word-twister that comes along.”
“Did you visit the mass-”
“No, but I’ve heard enough. Did you notice he has a different Bible? One of those really old things from before — you know, with locusts and camels. How am I supposed to know what a locust is, for heaven’s sake?”
Meryl blinked. No, she hadn’t noticed. Silence followed.
Gina took a small sip of tea, her voice lower when she went on:
“I was always very fond of Father Nathaniel. Knew him my whole life. He was my friend.” Meryl disliked that she spoke of him in the past tense.
“I may be old, but I’m not stupid… And the fact they didn’t call you, Meryl…”
She looked at her directly, seriously.
“That was deliberate.”
Thinking something and stating it are two different things. Meryl may have entertained the possibility; she had not yet dared take it seriously.
“Are you —”
“Yes, of course. Father Nathaniel thought highly of you, child. Trusted you and your diagnoses. Said you were a lifesaver when he had that lumbago last year. He would have wanted to talk to you before going to September. Your judgment would have counted for him.”
“And why do you think it didn’t happen?”
“Well, to give Abel a congregation, plain as day!” She set her cup down so loudly it clinked. Meryl visibly flinched.
“That one’s a reformer, I’m telling you. The youngsters are all turning away from God, looking for new constants in the world, seeking their salvation in science — or what’s left of it. Abel’s here to round ’em up again, the straying lambs. Think of my Enoch — he laps it right up.”
Meryl nodded. That sounded plausible. Though she couldn’t stomach all that sin-and-atonement stuff. Original sin was, in her eyes, a revolting concept. And though she didn’t really believe in God, she had no interest in attending church out of mere necessity to such a lord. The God Nathaniel had always preached was kind and gentle. In her long life Meryl had read the Bible; Nathaniel’s sermons had always sounded to her like what Jesus said: love and kindness, forgiveness and tolerance.
What Abel preached, by contrast, sounded like the Old-Testament God — the one who turned Lot’s wife to salt and let Egyptian babies die for their parents’ sins.
“You think they’ll let Father Nathaniel come back someday?”
Gina snorted. “Hardly — as priest, anyway. I suppose he’ll return as a civilian soon enough. After all, this is home. He can enjoy his retirement then — the man’s almost ninety.
And Abel? We’re stuck with him for now, but maybe not for long. I can’t be the only old dragon left with some common sense. In a few weeks folks will be sick of him, you’ll see. Such a people-catcher shifts tactics fast when he isn’t succeeding. I see it this way, child: either he fails and changes strategy, or he fails, and we simply get rid of him when he has to report that fewer and fewer come to church.” She smiled at Meryl reassuringly. “Don’t wrack your head, child.”
With that the gentle Gina was forgotten and, in her usual bluster, she added, “And since you’re here for my ankle, you might as well have a look at it.”
Meryl obliged at once; she did feel somewhat better. Gina’s words were what she needed. She just worried too much — constantly.
But they were both wrong — the truth was already sitting in the rectory, waiting for them.