Chapter 58
The door closed, and Rachel drifted. Time moved without her, marked by Sophie pumping water, scraping a cup against the floorboards, and tearing gauze into clean strips.
Medication came at intervals she couldn’t track.
Sophie lifted her head, put pills on her tongue, and held water to her lips until she swallowed.
The antibiotics tasted bitter even through the fever.
Rachel took them because Sophie was there, and refusing would have taken more strength than she had.
Evening deepened into night. Rachel woke from a confused sleep to find Sophie beside her with a damp cloth.
The girl wiped her forehead with steady, careful strokes.
The classroom was dark except for one candle near the wall, and its small flame held steady in the still air.
Sophie looked exhausted. Her hair had dried into tangled waves, and dirt streaked her cheeks where rain had carried it down her skin.
“Why haven’t you gone to find your aunt?” Rachel asked.
The question came out before Rachel fully understood that she was asking it.
The words were clear and sudden, cutting through the fever enough to startle them both.
Sophie went still. Water dripped from the cloth onto the blanket.
In the candlelight, Sophie’s face was close enough for Rachel to see the faint freckles across her nose and the gray-green of her eyes. She didn’t look away.
“You could’ve gone weeks ago. The highway. The church. Any of the towns. Someone would’ve helped you find the route. Your aunt is closer than my children. You know that. You’ve always known that,” Rachel said.
“I’m not done here yet,” Sophie said.
Sophie gave Rachel the water cup and returned to the bandages.
The conversation ended as quickly as it had begun.
Rachel lay still with the question she’d asked and the uneasy sense that Sophie’s answer held more than either of them was ready to say.
The fever worsened before it began to break.
She knew it through sensations that arrived without warning and faded before she could name them.
Awareness came in fragments, then slipped away again.
Sometimes she woke to Sophie pumping water into the plastic bucket.
The girl’s thin arms worked the handle with stubborn force.
Other times, Rachel woke to the bitter taste of antibiotics crushed between her teeth because she couldn’t swallow the pill whole.
Once, she opened her eyes to darkness and rain against the roof and felt sure she was home.
The bedroom walls were wrong, and the ceiling was wrong.
Hannah’s voice called from somewhere downstairs.
Rachel answered with her daughter’s name before the fever pulled her under again.
Whenever Rachel surfaced, Sophie was there.
The girl had taken over everything Rachel once controlled.
Water appeared within reach. Food came in small portions.
Sophie left the revolver where Rachel had stowed it.
She touched the weapon only when she moved the pack, handling it through layers of fabric with cautious respect.
The strangers arrived on a night when rain hammered the roof hard enough to wake Rachel from the deepest sleep she’d managed in days.
The front door opened with a long creak that carried through the empty building.
Men spoke near the entrance, their voices low and tired as they talked about shelter and dry floors.
Boots crossed the hardwood, and packs thumped to the ground.
Rachel tried to sit up, but the classroom tilted, and she gripped the blanket with both hands.
Sophie was already moving, her steps soft and quick.
Sophie dragged Rachel’s pack into the deeper shadows behind the stage, then returned for her own. By the time the footsteps reached the classroom doorway, both packs were hidden. Sophie stood between her and the door with her posture calm and her hands at her sides.
“Don’t come in here. There’s a sick woman back here. Fever, infection. Could be contagious. The front rooms are dry. You can sleep there, but stay out of this section,” Sophie said.
Silence followed. Rachel heard several people breathing just beyond the doorway while they weighed the risk against the rain pounding on the roof.
“How sick?” a weary man asked.
“Sick enough that I wouldn’t get near her if I didn’t have to. Your choice,” Sophie said.
The boots retreated across the hardwood.
Bodies settled onto dry floors in the front rooms. Damp clothing rustled, and low conversation faded as exhaustion took over.
Nobody entered the classroom. By morning, the strangers were gone.
Sophie checked the front rooms at first light, found them empty, and returned to pumping water without mentioning the night again.
Another morning, she woke to find Sophie standing in the doorway, hair wet and a rigid stillness that meant trouble.
The girl stared toward the yard, beyond anything Rachel could see from the floor.
“Someone found the food. The spot behind the shed was disturbed. Branches were moved, and the dirt was scraped up. They didn’t take everything. Just some corn and a potato,” Sophie said.
“Who?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know. Could’ve been the same people from the front. Could’ve been someone else passing through. It doesn’t matter. I moved everything. They won’t find the new spot.”
Sophie left again. Rachel heard her moving through the wet grass behind the building.
Her footsteps faded toward the tree line.
When she returned, mud covered her boots, and her face had settled into the careful blankness she used when she didn’t want Rachel to see how frightened she was.
Nothing kept Sophie there except her own choice.
Rachel understood that even through the fever.
The girl could’ve shouldered both packs, or only her own, and continued west with the better share of their supplies.