Foreverland Is Dead

us?”
    “Look, oranges and apples don’t grow here, someone brought them. Someone built these cabins.”
    Roc laughs. “Maybe the dead lady did.”
    “That’s not funny!” Miranda stands up. Her chair falls over.
    Her chest heaves, fists clenched at her sides. Her lip starts trembling and she crosses her arms, turns her back.
    The wind hurls another gust of sand.
    “Look,” Cyn says , “there’s a lot we don’t know. We don’t know anything, really. We have to play it safe. We need to conserve food. We have to eat to survive, and that means staying hungry, eating little. We need to make it last.”
    “Maybe the world ended, is that what you’re saying?” Roc says.
    “First, we need to survive. So would you put the lid back on that jar and put it away?”
    Roc wipes her chin, stares at Cyn. They’re all watching.
    “How about this?” She lifts the jar as if to make a toast. “We go ahead and divvy t his up since it’s already open. After that, we tighten the screws. I promise.”
    Roc doesn’t wait. She walks around the table, giving everyone a portion. The pieces plop onto the plates, cinnamon syrup spilling over the plump slices. Cyn watches the keycard dangle from her neck.
    The girls pause , but their appetites take over. They clear their plates and slurp up the syrup. They don’t look at Cyn. She doesn’t eat the fat chunks mellowing in a puddle of sugar water, even though her stomach fights her. Roc drops her boots on the table while running her finger inside the jar.
    “I found this.” Cyn pulls the paper from her back pocket. “It’s a chore list. I think we need to start doing it.”
    She spread s it on the table.
    “It makes sense, seems l ike things we should be doing.” No one objects. “Someone needs to be in charge of the garden, like weeding and harvesting. Who knows how much longer that stuff will grow; we need to get as much food out of the garden as we can. We’ve got at least one empty jar to fill.”
    Roc licks the rim.
    Jen raises her hand. “I’ll do it.”
    “Then there’s the barn , and feeding the horses and chickens—”
    “I ’ll do that.” Kat stands up.
    “Okay, good. I saw tools in there, so you and Jen can get that figured out. Someone also needs to manage the kitchen, clean stuff, and plan the meals, do all the cooking—that sort of thing. Mad?”
    She nods.
    “That leaves chopping wood.” Cyn drops her finger on the chore list. “There’s a stack on the other side of the barn. I think we need to stock up all the wood we can. If we’re here all winter, we’ll need to keep the stoves burning. I don’t think the bunkhouse will stay warm enough without a fire. We have to plan for the worst, start searching for dead wood or fallen trees. There are axes and wheelbarrows in the shed.”
    Cyn looks at them.
    “Stay off the path in back. We’ll just leave the body alone for now.”
    It gets quiet. Time slows.
    They’re all wishing Cyn didn’t remind them.
    “What do you think happened?” Jen asks.
    “I don’t know.” Cyn shrugs. “We just have to su rvive. We have to hope.”
    “What about her?” Roc slides the empty jar in Miranda’s direction. “What’s she going to do?
    Miranda remains distant. She grabs a lock of hair from behind her ear, puts it in her mouth. She hasn’t touched her preserved apples.
    “She ’ll have to do what none of us can.”
    The others don’t say anything, either.
    Cyn takes her plate to the kitchen and eats the apples. She rinses her plate. Roc drops her plate in the sink, still chewing. Miranda is already on the front porch, her plate still on the table.
    The apples gone.

6

    “I don’t want to do this,” Miranda says.
    “ Who the hell wants to do any of this?” Roc snaps.
    Miranda looks at the meadow and the faraway trees, the mountains beyond. She thinks about running, not turning back, just going and going and getting as far away from this place as she can. The wolves are out there. Bears, too.
    Maybe that’s safer.
    “Look.” Cyn touches her shoulder. “We’ve got to know what’s in the brick house. We need to know if there’s a phone or a computer. And if there’s not, we need food.”
    She gen tly squeezes.
    “You’re the only one that can do it.”
    Miranda looks at the wooden planks. She nods and starts for the brick house without them. She doesn’t like to be touched, even if Cyn is the nice one.
    The lamp in the window is still on. Miranda’s legs begin to lock up as