Children of the Storm

hurried on.

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    TWENTY-FIVE
        
        In a short while, the land began to fall away again, into a slippery incline, as the second hill in the island's chain rounded off and fed into another small glen. Here, as in the first depression which they had crossed, the water swirled between the boles of the trees, up to Sonya's waist, ugly and choked with what appeared to be seaweed.
        She could hardly believe that the slimy stuff was what it seemed to be and, after she had carried the kids across, one at a time, making four trips through the water, she scooped up a trailing mass of this floating vegetation, and she saw, when she looked at it more closely, that it was indeed seaweed and that this must not merely be rainwater that had run off from the hills on both sides.
        They climbed the hundred foot slope of the third hill, keeping to their hands and knees so that they could make better time, their faces down so that they saw little more than grass filmed by water, their hands digging into the grass for support, inching toward the top and level land where they could get up and walk again.
        Sonya was over halfway up the slope when she realized that Tina had fallen behind, rather far behind. Letting Alex to go ahead alone, she returned for the little girl and half-dragged her along.
        At the top, Tina gave her a weary but big smile, and Sonya repaid that with a strong hug, hugged Alex too, and sat down with them to rest, before going on.
        She had no idea how far they'd come.
        And she had even less of an idea of how much farther they had to go before they'd reach Hawk House.
        However, she would not let herself think of failure. She had to make the most of her famed optimism which Daryl Pattersen and Lynda Spaulding, at the university, had first made her aware of. Her back ached from the base of her spine up and across both shoulders, as if she had been squeezed into a brace meant to torture. Her neck was afire once again, and had driven spikes of pain into her head, right through the top of her skull, so that the rainwater seemed to be seeping into her brain and scorching trails across the top of her cerebellum. This did not worry her, because she knew that over-exertion and the pains of exhaustion could be cured. Her legs, however, were another matter altogether… They were all quivery with the strain they'd taken, and had she been even willing to consider the slim possibility of failure-which she was not-she might have doubted their ability to get her up when the rest period was over and to carry her on however long was necessary; she might have expected them to turn rubbery, to bend, wriggle and finally buckle under her. She might have expected to drop on them, soon. But since she was permitting no thought of failure, she was only worried that, once they reached Hawk House, her legs might give out on her for good, forever.
        She worried a good deal about the kids, for if she were this exhausted, what must they feel like? Of course, she had helped them along most of the way, and she alone had fought the resistant waters in those two flooded gullies which they had had to cross. Still, she knew that they must be very tired indeed.
        She hoped they weren't close to surrender.
        She looked at Tina, who was huddled miserably against her side, the small head slick with water, and she knew she'd soon have to begin carrying the child the whole way, not just up the sides of the slippery hills, but on the level ground as well.
        That was okay.
        She could manage that.
        She couldn't, however, carry both of them.
        She looked at Alex, afraid that she would see him on the verge of surrender, too. For a moment, she thought that he had already given in, and her heart sank. He was leaning against the bole of the tree, his legs splayed out before him, leaning far forward, as if he had collapsed and were unconscious.
        If he were, they were finished. They could try to wait the storm out, here in the woods, hoping Peterson would not find them. But that was a small hope. The storm would rage for at least another day, and they would all be dead of exposure by then.
        Abruptly, Alex moved, and she saw that he was not, after all, unconscious.
        She looked closer.
        His legs shielded an ant hill which the storm had partly eroded, and he was watching a few of the brave little worker ants trying to repair,