Chapter 31
AFTERMATH
Everything was so odd. As if she were watching the world through glass, or trying to feel things with numbed hands. She knew she should be exhausted. She was exhausted. She just couldn’t sleep. Jade was beside her, and she was asleep. But then, Jade hadn’t seen what she had.
Every bed in the house was full, and a couple of them were double-full.
Everybody had a bed, though, except Zane, who was sleeping on the couch.
Which wasn’t fair, was it? It was his house.
But his parents were in his bed, and there was no way he’d be making them sleep on the couch.
That wasn’t the kind of son he was. That wasn’t the kind of man he was.
They’d walked back to the house in the cold, in the dark, in the wreckage and the strangeness.
“My dad says they have water up there, if no electric,” Zane had said.
“We can do without electric. We can’t do without water.
I’d like to get the kids more comfortable, and you, too.
We won’t find that in some overcrowded evac center.
And in case there’s another quake … I’d rather be higher, that’s all.
” Spoken softly, because they’d stepped away, the two of them, to make a plan.
“Landslides.” She said it quietly, too. The kids didn’t need to worry about anything else.
“Built on rock up there,” he said. “Like where I was. Where we climbed to after the bus. Nowhere’s going to be completely safe. We just need to find the safest place we can.”
She wanted to ask him about where he’d been, what he’d done, but it was going to have to wait. “Can you find it?” she asked instead. “It’s so many turns.”
“I reckon so. I’m pretty good at following my nose.
” Well, he would be, wouldn’t he? Spatial awareness would have to be in his skill set.
“If I can’t,” he said, “we’ll stop walking and start knocking at doors.
How’re the kids? It’ll be about two kilometers.
Thirty minutes, if you and I were walking it, but it’s a bit steep. ”
“They’re strong,” she said. “Yours are, and mine too, though I don’t know about Forrest. Once they’re not scared, I think they’ll be strong enough to walk it, and they’re so much less scared now you’re here.” And so am I, she didn’t say.
“Forest? What forest?”
Oh. He didn’t know. There were so many kids, and it was so dark. “We have an extra one. About George’s age. He went to Te Papa with his sister. I think she left him there, probably sneaking off to meet somebody, because after the quake, he was alone.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Yeh. He doesn’t know mobile numbers for his parents, but he knows his address.
I tried the police, but the call wouldn’t go through.
I thought—keep him with ours tonight, then try to get him home in the morning.
And pray that the sister made it. Their poor parents, tonight.
” She shifted her little backpack onto both shoulders and wished she’d brought snacks.
She always brought snacks, but they’d been going to the museum, and—
Stop. Focus. “Ready?” she asked.
“Wait.” She did, and he stepped closer, put a hand on her arm, and said, “You must’ve been bloody terrified.”
Just like that, there the tears were again. She forced them back with an effort and said, “So must you.”
“Not the same,” he said. “And in case I don’t say it later, in all the chaos— Well done, Skylar. Bloody well done.”
After that, they’d walked. And walked. Holding kids’ hands, and when the way got too dark to be sure they were staying together, forming a crocodile, every person holding onto the one ahead.
Zane at the front, and Skylar at the back, making sure they were all still together.
Zane shining his torch up at street signs, stopping at every corner, muttering aloud.
Calling out, “Careful here,” where the bricks of the pedestrian mall on Cuba Street had been heaved up and scattered.
Crossing the streets carefully, his torch sweeping around the same way hers had done, trying to say, We’re here.
Look out for us. Turning, and turning again, until the hill became steeper.
Willis Street, she thought, though she wasn’t sure. Straight up through the city.
A change up ahead now. Zane had stopped, had lifted somebody. Georgia, that would be, who’d been behind him. He carried her, and they walked on as the road got steeper still.
A stumble ahead of her. Forrest, who’d had his hand on George’s shoulder. Skylar asked, “OK, Forrest?” in her calmest, most cheerful tone.
“Y-yeh,” he said, but meters later, he stumbled again.
She said, “Here. I’ve got you,” and lifted him onto her hip.
She knew he must be seven, because he had a front tooth missing, but he was a little shorter than George, and a bit lighter, too.
She hurried to catch up so she was walking right behind George again, could make sure the group was still together.
She could do this.
Up, and up, and up. Her breath coming in gasps, her legs like lead. Knew there was a reason I’d done all that Body Pump, she thought, and kept going. And we must be nearly there.
Zane stopping again, his torch playing over something on a wall. Colors, that was. Oh. A mural. They were nearly there, because she remembered that mural.
They were going to make it.
The torch swinging around now, stopping. Zane saying something to Duncan, behind him, and taking the few steps back to Skylar. His voice behind the light, out of the darkness. “How long have you been carrying him?”
“A … ways.” Her breath was still coming hard, and she was grateful for the stop.
“Give him to me.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I’ve got him,” he said.
“But … the torch.” She felt stupid. Slow. Still running on adrenaline, but it had been so long now.
“Scarlett,” Zane called out, and the girl was right there.
“Why are we stopping?” George asked. “Are we nearly home?”
“Very nearly,” Zane said. “You’re doing awesome, bro.” He handed the phone to Scarlett. “I’ll be carrying two, so I’ll need you to walk just ahead of me with the torch for this last bit.”
“I can—” Skylar began to say.
“I know you can,” Zane said. “But I can do it more easily.” The phone passed to Scarlett, and Zane was taking Forrest. With a kid in each arm, he told Scarlett, “Lead the way. Duncan, you walk behind me. Hold onto the hem of my jacket. Soon be there. Just a bit more.” And led them on.
The relief when he turned up the walk to the big white house, looming up out of the dark. When the door opened and a man said, “You’re here, then. Good,” as if they’d popped over for a cup of tea, exactly as expected. That had to be Zane’s dad.
Then there were people crowding around. Candles held up, and faces behind them.
Laughter, possibly some tears, and cuddles.
A striking middle-aged woman, her face looking carved in the flickering yellow light.
The man, his face broad and tough. Jade, full of relief.
Maureen, giving Georgia yet another cuddle.
And Granddad. Granddad, with tears in his eyes, saying, “Thank God. Thank God.”
Scarlett, then, cutting through all of that. The questions. The excitement. The relief. “Is there anything to eat? The kids are all really hungry. And I think most of them need the loo.”
Which was all good. So why couldn’t she sleep?
She knew why.
Zane shifted position on the couch again.
It wasn’t that it was so uncomfortable—it was a pretty nice couch—but that there was too much running through his head.
Too many “what-ifs.” Too much delayed reaction after the very earth had shifted beneath your feet like it wasn’t meant to do, and you’d known you could lose everything that mattered most.
Everybody that mattered most.
It had taken a while to get it all sorted tonight. Food—bread and jam, satsumas and apples and pears, sliced ham and cheese, glasses of milk, eaten by candlelight as the kids all tried to tell the story at once.
All except Forrest, who’d been silent.
At last, Skylar had said, “Can you tell me your address again, Forrest? Maybe somebody can go out to the car and use the GPS to see where it is.”
“I’ll do that,” Zane’s dad volunteered, and did, then came back in and said, “Less than ten kilometers from here. Good as gold. We’ll take you there in the morning, mate, when it’s light enough to see how to get around any blocked streets.
We’ll have you back with your mum and dad in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, no worries.
” Which could have sounded too hearty, but didn’t, because Dad’s voice was the same as always: slow, calm, and deliberate.
“Oh,” Forrest said. “OK.” And swallowed.
“You’re wondering where your sister is,” Skylar said.
Zane wouldn’t have mentioned it, personally; wouldn’t that just get the kid more worried?
But Skylar was the child expert, not him.
She’d kept seven kids calm and together through all of that.
He wouldn’t be questioning her anytime soon.
“We’ll find out tomorrow,” she told the kid.
“It’s worrisome not knowing, and being in a strange place, too, but it’s normal for people to get separated in a disaster like this and to take a while to find each other again.
For tonight, you’re going to stay with us and sleep in a nice clean bed. ”
“You can sleep in the top bunk with me,” George said. “Georgia’s on the bottom bunk, but the top bunk is funner, and it’ll be cozier with two.”
“I don’t have my toothbrush, though,” Forrest said. “Or my PJs.”
“You can borrow mine,” George said. “Both things. You can have the first bath, too. Mum says you always feel better after a bath.” George was a good wee man.
Had his mum’s kindness, maybe, and her surprising toughness, too, because he’d walked uphill all that way in the dark without faltering or complaint.