ball of tears and nerves as the sound grew louder, rising above the dying flames and the trickling breeze. For a few odd hanging seconds it seemed it could grow no louder, then metamorphosed into a rumble that shook out showers of ash from the wall. The earth throbbed to the marching beat.
It can’t be. It can’t. There aren’t that many people in all the world.
In defiance of her, the rumble grew louder still. The house seemed ready to crumble to so much sand.
Bud trembled against her skin. Even a minute ago she would have given anything to have him against her like this. Now she only hoped he didn’t wet his pants.
“Look!” Pepper squeaked. She pointed a shaking finger out through the denuded window frame beside them, past the barn and across the valley.
The grey morning, dark and lifeless under lacklustre clouds, had been stained by a dark cap upon the hilltops. Evian watched the wilted grass become smothered by the first lapping waves of some dark encroaching ocean, thrusting its fingers over the horizon. Spilling down into the valley to the rhythm of the marching beat underfoot, the smudge resolved into something that took Evian’s thundering heart and stopped it entirely.
A carpet of people marching south. All armed with blades, with guns, with long poles trailing a symbol she had hoped never to see again: a white bird painted with four aggressive slashes; round body, two wings, and a bulbous head. The sigil of a pigeon.
Something clicked in Evian’s head; a primal will to survive that overcame the numbness steeling through her conscious mind.
She crawled from the huddle, dragging the others in her wake. Bud and Pepper hissed and yelped, but she sent a blazing glare over her shoulder, and they fell silent, yielding to her. She yanked them until the three of them pressed against the legs of the dining table. She nodded to the chimney stack where a small hollow lay exposed, where the fire had partially eaten through to the wall space.
The dark stain upon the land grew closer, stretching from horizon to horizon.
Oh my God. So many people. So many!
They had to get to the crawlspace. If they were found, three little piggies in their house all fallen down…
A shiver ran through her, and her skin crawled with a foreign chill.
Evian counted down on her fingers, mouthing: Three, two, one, now!
Grimacing, the three of them half crawled, half tumbled over the smouldering floorboards. A breeze had picked up from nothing, rustling Evian’s hair, tugging at her as though a vanguard of the coming leagues. How could so light a touch of air upon her skin bring such a strong urge to throw back her head and scream?
Pepper reached the crawlspace and scurried inside, hissing and cursing, and Bud followed close behind. Pepper, so small and lithe, managed to squeeze herself into a cranny only inches wide. But Bud’s body, thick with freshly-blossomed muscle, took up almost all the remaining space. On any other occasion, Evian would have said she would never fit.
Not today. I’m getting in there.
She vaulted in after them, ignoring gasps of pain and the crushing embrace of the walls around cramped ankles and bent limbs.
A strange, distant part of her mind flashed up a memory of an Old World book she had seen once: an encyclopaedia of animals out there in the world. She had loved the water animals the best. And her favourite of all had been the strangest: the octopus, eight-legged and boneless and so wonderfully weird . They could squeeze their entire bodies into milk bottles to get at their food.
They probably looked like that now. Three human beings, bottled inside a chimney.
And yet, even in here, the wind persisted—there was no space between them for air to flow, yet the wind blew.
Despite the growing rumble, amplified by the hollowness of the chimneys above their heads, Evian frowned.
It wasn’t a wind. Not really. It was something else: a caress, so gentle and cold that she thought her arm might become
It can’t be. It can’t. There aren’t that many people in all the world.
In defiance of her, the rumble grew louder still. The house seemed ready to crumble to so much sand.
Bud trembled against her skin. Even a minute ago she would have given anything to have him against her like this. Now she only hoped he didn’t wet his pants.
“Look!” Pepper squeaked. She pointed a shaking finger out through the denuded window frame beside them, past the barn and across the valley.
The grey morning, dark and lifeless under lacklustre clouds, had been stained by a dark cap upon the hilltops. Evian watched the wilted grass become smothered by the first lapping waves of some dark encroaching ocean, thrusting its fingers over the horizon. Spilling down into the valley to the rhythm of the marching beat underfoot, the smudge resolved into something that took Evian’s thundering heart and stopped it entirely.
A carpet of people marching south. All armed with blades, with guns, with long poles trailing a symbol she had hoped never to see again: a white bird painted with four aggressive slashes; round body, two wings, and a bulbous head. The sigil of a pigeon.
Something clicked in Evian’s head; a primal will to survive that overcame the numbness steeling through her conscious mind.
She crawled from the huddle, dragging the others in her wake. Bud and Pepper hissed and yelped, but she sent a blazing glare over her shoulder, and they fell silent, yielding to her. She yanked them until the three of them pressed against the legs of the dining table. She nodded to the chimney stack where a small hollow lay exposed, where the fire had partially eaten through to the wall space.
The dark stain upon the land grew closer, stretching from horizon to horizon.
Oh my God. So many people. So many!
They had to get to the crawlspace. If they were found, three little piggies in their house all fallen down…
A shiver ran through her, and her skin crawled with a foreign chill.
Evian counted down on her fingers, mouthing: Three, two, one, now!
Grimacing, the three of them half crawled, half tumbled over the smouldering floorboards. A breeze had picked up from nothing, rustling Evian’s hair, tugging at her as though a vanguard of the coming leagues. How could so light a touch of air upon her skin bring such a strong urge to throw back her head and scream?
Pepper reached the crawlspace and scurried inside, hissing and cursing, and Bud followed close behind. Pepper, so small and lithe, managed to squeeze herself into a cranny only inches wide. But Bud’s body, thick with freshly-blossomed muscle, took up almost all the remaining space. On any other occasion, Evian would have said she would never fit.
Not today. I’m getting in there.
She vaulted in after them, ignoring gasps of pain and the crushing embrace of the walls around cramped ankles and bent limbs.
A strange, distant part of her mind flashed up a memory of an Old World book she had seen once: an encyclopaedia of animals out there in the world. She had loved the water animals the best. And her favourite of all had been the strangest: the octopus, eight-legged and boneless and so wonderfully weird . They could squeeze their entire bodies into milk bottles to get at their food.
They probably looked like that now. Three human beings, bottled inside a chimney.
And yet, even in here, the wind persisted—there was no space between them for air to flow, yet the wind blew.
Despite the growing rumble, amplified by the hollowness of the chimneys above their heads, Evian frowned.
It wasn’t a wind. Not really. It was something else: a caress, so gentle and cold that she thought her arm might become
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