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Chapter Two

She was exhausted by the time she got to her bedroom. First there had been the debacle with the wrong accordion. After that, she'd had to spend several long minutes pulling back up the entire electrical grid of Soderborg, Minnesota. And just when she'd thought it was safe to go home, her darling daughter had somehow rerouted an electrical charge from a taken-apart Tesla through the stem of a Phillips head screwdriver, crashing the electrical system that controlled the Umbilicus doors, necessitating another long series of minutes – half to fix the problem, the other half to yell at River even though she knew that the second she left, River would be back at it again with her fiddly little tools. Claudia would find the girl sprawled out on the office's Oriental rug in the morning, tiny screwdriver in her hand and electrical burns on her fingers as she grumbled in her sleep. It was River's preferred method of investigating – try stuff until she passed out from exhaustion.

Speaking of exhaustion

Claudia closed the door behind her, pleased with the firm clackof the lock. Her bed was calling to her, lavish with plump pillows and comfortable blankets. She kicked off her boots, didn't bother to undress (sure there would be one crisis or another sooner or later), and crawled into bed.

By the light of the bedside lamp, she stared at his picture. His smile. Her daughter's smile.
Theirdaughter's smile.

"If you were here right now, I'd hug you," she whispered. "And then I'd break your kneecaps for missing so damn much."

He didn't say anything. He wasn't there. He hadn't been there for so long.

She put the picture back on the table and switched off the light.

Darkness reached up with long, spidery fingers and yanked her downwards.


"Claudia, get back in the car." Pete's voice was the first thing she heard.

"What? What is it?" Words spilled out of her mouth. She was asking the same inane questions; she hadn't been in this space, in thisplace for more than eighteen years, and yet every time she showed up here in her dreams, she asked the same questions.

"Get back in the car."

And then she was sliding, running, climbing, screaming, crying.

Over and over again.

There he was, before her eyes, dead.

I remember this.

Dead.

Blue-gray dead. All the life gone from his eyes. And yet he was still reaching out, as though he'd been trying to grab his life back from the person who'd stolen it away.

But when she touched his hand, scarcely daring to believe her eyes, he grabbed on, fiercely, as though he was trying to comfort her.

"Claudia, it's all right! We're okay! Myka's got everything under control!"

And then someone was screaming, somewhere – she registered far too late that it was her. They were somewhere else, another place she recognized as full of pain and noise and beginnings and endings.

In the driver's seat of the SUV, Myka was swearing and slamming her hand against the steering wheel. Outside, the too-white façade of a South Dakota winter was spinning as the large vehicle lost traction, fishtailing across the two-lane back road.

"It's okay, it's okay," Steve was saying. He was right in her face and she it was hard for her to bear – she was so close to him. "You're okay. Just squeeze my hand."

Pain jolted through her body again, a searing, soaring wave that grabbed her around the waist, tightened like a noose around her swollen belly, and shoved itself up her spine. She howled and grabbed Steve's hands, tighter, tighter.

"I remember this," she whispered as the pain receded, but Steve wasn't paying attention to her.

"Good, good," Steve said. "Artie, what was that one?"

"They're still five minutes apart, but I think they're getting stronger," Artie said from the front seat. He was gripping his seatbelt in one hand and a stopwatch in the other hand. "Myka, I know you're not used to driving in the snow, but could you maybe just…"

"Shut up!" Myka said as the SUV continued its tricky slide across the road. "Just be glad there aren't any tractors or slow-moving snowplows for me to ram this car into."

Steve leaned in and smoothed her hair back from her sweaty face. "You're doing great."

"Lie," Claudia croaked. She felt like she was being twirled in a blender.

"That's my line," Steve said, and smiled at her.

That smile.

"We'll be at the hospital in no time," Steve said. "On the next contraction, just remember to breathe."

And the SUV went sliding again.

Myka swore.

The pain reared up and grabbed her again. Claudia gripped Steve's hands tightly and tried to breathe.

"Just… please…"

And there he was again, fallen away from her, his head tilted at that appalling angle.

Myka coming up behind her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

But she wouldn't let go of his hand.

"It's okay, just hang on," he said.

The SUV was doing another one of its circular spins as Myka tried desperately to pull it out of the slide. "I thought this thing had all-wheel drive," she muttered to Artie.

The pain was just too big. Her vision was getting spotty at the edges and her chest felt like a bear was sitting on it. "Help," Claudia managed to say. "Help."

"Claudia," Steve said, leaning over her. His eyes were worried. "Claudia?"

There was a series of bangs, each one louder and more threatening than the last.

Bang.

"Claudia?"

Bang.

"Claudia! We need your help!"

Bang.


Her eyes flew open and she registered a few things: One, it was just past two in the morning. Two, the bangs were courtesy of Myka and HG, who were on the other side of her locked bedroom door, knocking as though their lives depended on it. Three, it was Steve's birthday. Happy Birthday.

She groggily got out of bed and unlocked the door. As she pulled it open, she grabbed for her boots. "What is it?"

"The usual," HG said as Claudia slid her boots on.

"Again?"

"At least this time she waited until after midnight."

"Yeah, the Univille Volunteer Fire Department's not really going to see that as a plus," Claudia said,
yawning.

"Look at the bright side – maybe we'll finally run out of things for her to light on fire," Myka said.

"Either that or she'll move onto something we don't own," Claudia said.

"Do you worry about her?" HG asked quietly.

"More than you can ever know," Claudia said. "Just get me some water, all right?"

Still yawning, she clomped down the stairs. Sure enough, through the back doors she could see her little pyromaniac, standing in front of what had once been a lovely crabapple tree.

Claudia stepped out onto the back patio and watched her daughter. There was something new and odd in the rigid way River held her body. In the odd light from the burning tree, she didn't look like Claudia's daughter. She looked like a stranger.

It was an illusion that was quickly squashed when Claudia walked up next to the girl. River's braids had been messily caught up behind her head with a chunky clip – the better to pour lighter fluid on a tree without burning one's hair – and there were tears streaming down her face.

"You know," Claudia said, trying to sound conversational, "there are better and more traditional ways to celebrate birthdays. Some would say… cake… is an acceptable medium."

River reached up and smeared the tears off her face, and for a moment Claudia saw the lost girl of her youth, the one who had kidnapped a government agent and held him prisoner in a laboratory for all the right reasons. "Can't light cake on fire."

"Not with that attitude," Claudia said, only somewhat sarcastically.

For a moment they stared at the tree as it burned, shooting off little flares and tongues of flame into the night.

"What are you going to do when we run out of trees?" Claudia asked, putting her arm around her daughter.

River flinched as her mother's arm settled on her shoulder, but then she leaned into the embrace. "I was thinking I'd build a tool shed…"