Page 40 of Into the Mist (Into the Mist 1)

CHAPTER

11

NONE OF THE five spoke of it. They continued as they had begun—finished making sandwiches, fries, and salad for dinner. They helped Stella put everything together for tomorrow’s stew, then served the food to the wounded along with Dr. Hilary, Gemma, Sadie, Ken, Tyler, and three of the lodge’s housekeepers, who made up the only Timberline staff who were still alive. By that time it was only a little after six o’clock in the evening, but outside it was fully dark.

Inside the lodge the enormous hearth was burning brightly. Pots of candles merged with the flicking firelight and perfumed the big foyer-turned-infirmary with a cheerful, piney scent. Tyler and Ken had taken a page out of Stella’s book of experience and used plastic cling wrap and aluminum foil to cover broken windows—and then they’d nailed blankets and strips of whatever flat wood they could scavenge over them. One of the wounded guests had produced a pretty good-sized stash of marijuana-infused edibles—all Indica—which Dr. Hilary, an open-minded naturopath, had happily administered to her patients. Now that everyone was post-dinner and post-pot, the lodge felt warm and surprisingly safe.

Mercury and Stella had pulled a coffee table over to a corner of the room, which is where they, plus Imani, Jenny and Karen, sat on the floor and used the squat piece of rustic furniture as a dinner table.

They shared looks. All five women were mulling in their minds what they had just discovered about Mercury—but no one said anything about it. Not yet. Not in public. Mercury had just stood to begin gathering the dinner dishes when Dr. Hilary and Gemma joined them.

“Dinner was delicious. Thank you for that,” said Hilary.

“These fries are freaking fantastic!” Gemma sounded like a teenager, even though she’d worked beside Dr. Hilary with a maturity well beyond her years.

“I do love me a good thick-cut fry,” said Stella. “Wait until tomorrow. Imani’s making biscuits to go with the stew.”

“Yum!” said Gemma.

Imani’s lips tilted up slightly. “I hope you like them. They’re my great auntie’s recipe. No one for generations has been able to resist them.”

“Well, I’m not gonna even try.” Gemma grinned at her.

The doctor cleared her throat. “Ladies, Gemma tells me you saw the explosions.”

Stella nodded. “Bombs. Yeah, we saw them.”

“It was quite horrible.” Karen shook her head sadly. “And all the dead people.” She shuddered. “I will remember it as long as I draw breath.”

“Me too,” said Jenny softly.

Hilary lowered her voice so that it didn’t carry to the patients or the staff who were sitting together talking quietly across the room. “Bombs. I can hardly think the word. Saying it sounds like something out of a horror movie.”

Mercury snorted. “That’s what we’ve been saying too.”

“The truth—is Portland gone?” Hilary asked.

“We can’t know for certain, but from what we saw… completely,” said Stella. “Is that where you’re from?”

Hilary brushed a thick strand of long hair from her face with a shaky hand. “Yes. I have a practice in the city. I only come up here and work during busy weekends, like this one.” She looked down at her hands, which she’d folded together in front of her. My wife, she—” Emotion closed her throat.

Mercury reached out and touched her shoulder. “She was in Portland?”

Hilary looked up and through unshed tears met Mercury’s gaze. “No. She joined me this weekend. It was our fifth anniversary. She didn’t make it through the initial blast.”

“Ah, damn. I’m so sorry,” said Stella.

“She was waiting for me in the hot tub by the pool. It was the pool area that fell into the crevasse before the avalanche covered it and that half of the lodge. I should have been with her. I…” Hilary wiped her eyes, drew a deep breath, and straightened her bowed shoulders. “She’s at peace, beyond whatever the rest of us will still have to live with here. What I want to know is how bad is it? How many bombs? Gemma said a lot. What did you see?”

There was a thoughtful stretch of silence, and then Stella took the healer’s hands in hers. “There were bombs everywhere. The world as we knew it is over.”

Hilary paled but nodded. “I thought as much. I wonder—my parents are in Manzanita. It’s on the coast. Could anything there have survived?”

“It’s impossible to say,” Mercury spoke slowly. “The sky was filled with smoke trails from the bombs—all over. All around us as far as we could see, and what we could see became fire and rubble. I wouldn’t try to get to the coast, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No. I won’t leave my patients. My mother and father wouldn’t expect me to. I just needed to know. Almost all of the wounded were guests from out of state, but the staff is either from Portland, Government Camp, or somewhere in between. They’re staying right now because they’re terrified or too kind to leave before we get the wounded tended to and settled. After what you said, I’ll encourage them to stay indefinitely.”

Karen picked at her cardigan. “Don’t let them leave. It is terrible out there.”