Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

Darla. That she might be—I didn’t even want to think the word. I wanted to curl up in the icy road and cry until my tears froze me to the pavement. But that wouldn’t help Darla. And she was alive. She had to be alive.
    “Are you all right?” Rita Mae asked. “You look like you just heard your best friend died.”
    “Darla,” I choked on her name.
    “Oh. Of course. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Forgive me.”
    I put down the gas cans and adjusted my grip.
    “You don’t have to talk about it.”
    “No, it’s okay.” And for some reason, it was. I told her about our trip. About how Darla had saved my life, first in the icy stream and again at the FEMA camp. I told Rita Mae about our life at Uncle Paul’s farm: how we’d managed to survive so far, about our plans to build more greenhouses to raise wheat and outlast the volcanic winter.
    By the time I finished, we were at the library. Rita Mae unlocked the door and showed me where to stow the cans of lamp oil. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why you came back. Why didn’t you stay in Warren? Sounds like you had a decent chance of surviving.”
    “We were looking for my parents. A bandit gang attacked my uncle’s farm. We beat them off, killed two. One of them was carrying my dad’s shotgun. Darla and I tracked down another member of the gang and found out that the shotgun probably came from the Maquoketa FEMA camp.” I lapsed into silence for a moment. The enormity of what I’d done—dragging Darla back into this mess—fell over me like smoke, choking me.
    Rita Mae broke the silence, “I can—”
    “I’m too stupid to live. I should never have dragged Darla back out here, not for anything.”
    “Bad things are happening everywhere. You weren’t safe on your uncle’s farm, either—you just said a bandit gang attacked it. Darla could have gotten hurt anywhere, anytime.”
    “Yes, but—”
    “But what I was trying to say was that maybe I can help, at least where your parents are concerned.”
    “How? What do you mean, help?”
    “Just because a supervolcano erupts, it doesn’t mean the library’s business stops. I’m still developing ‘my collection,’ like those modern librarians say.”
    “What does that have to do with my parents?”
    “I’m getting to that, keep your horses reined. Ever since FEMA opened the camp in Maquoketa, Kenda and I have been trying to get a copy of their roster. Folks want to know if their missing friends and relatives are locked up in there.”
    “You got one? A roster?”
    “Yep.” Rita Mae pulled a huge stack of worn and dogeared copy paper off the bookcase behind her desk. “We bought it off a gleaner, Grant Clark, two months ago.”
    “A gleaner?”
    “Yep. Gleaners are groups of people who roam around scavenging and trading. At least they used to be—we haven’t seen any of them in five or six weeks. Gangs might have gotten them all.”
    “How do you know it’s real?”
    “We don’t. Not for certain. But Grant said he got it from a guard at the Maquoketa camp. And he’s always been reliable before.”
    My hands shook. A memory flashed through my head: Mom scolding me for leaving my bike in the middle of the garage; Dad’s distracted half-smile as he listened. I’d mostly tuned Mom out then, but now I desperately wanted to hear her again, regardless of how much we had fought. My brain was alight with hope—I felt dizzy and realized I’d forgotten to breathe. After ten months of searching for them, news of my mother and father might be only an arm’s length away.

Chapter 32
    Rita Mae was already flipping through the papers. “Goodwin . . . Hailey . . . Halprin . . . Doug?”
    “Dad,” I whispered.
    “Janice?”
    “Mom.” I planted my hands on the table, holding myself up. I had to remind myself to breathe again—they were alive!
    “They were alive two months ago, anyway.”
    “And they’re in Maquoketa.”
    “They were when this list was printed—that’s all we can say for certain.”
    I collapsed onto a bench. My backpack jammed against the wall behind me. I scooted forward and put my head between my knees, trying to think.
    My parents might be alive . . . and close by. Darla might be . . . dead. Dad. Darla. Mom. Darla. I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. I had to try to rescue my parents; I had to go after Darla. And I had no idea how to accomplish either of those things. A shiver passed down my spine, making me sway involuntarily.
    I felt