As I drove down the old state highway with the dawn slowly lighting the sky, an unexpected feeling of freedom came over me. It hit me that this was the first time I’d been alone, really alone, in…god, years.

The heartache over what had happened would always be with me. But at the same time, to be driving alone on an empty road, watching pink fingers of dawn reach slowly across the desert – to not have to answer to anyone for anything; to know that all my choices were mine, and mine alone…

It felt as if I could breathe again.

Kara’s pistol was still tucked in the back of my jeans. As I drove, I reached behind me and rested it on the passenger seat. Once I’d been so leery of guns, I could barely touch one. I still didn’t like them, but they were useful sometimes. Remembering what I’d promised Kara, I glanced down, briefly noting the pistol’s hard metal casing, the safety switch that was flicked on.

And as I thought about what I’d have to do if I were captured, I felt no fear at all – only an iron resolve.

21

THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE a white blur. Snow flurries had followed me from Nevada into Utah, and I crossed the Rockies with trepidation, tapping the brakes and eyeing the poles, some seven feet tall, that would measure the drifts when the time came. It was almost December; the first big snowfall was already late. If it came now, I’d be stuck here until spring.

I was so tired that my head felt weighted, but I kept on through the mountains. When at last the Rockies loomed up in the mirror behind me, I felt as if I could relax a little.

As I pressed on, I stopped only for quick naps under the pink parka, grateful for it despite its lurid colour. Before I drifted off, I always reached out to my mother, just like I had so many times this last year – needing to sense her presence even if she never responded.

Mom, I don’t know what’s happening in Pawntucket, but I promise I’ll stop it, I thought, staring up at the car’s ceiling. There was no answer, but her warm energy seemed to wrap around me – and I sent a silent thank you to whoever was keeping her safe.

I had veered north around Salt Lake City Eden and headed up into Wyoming, rather than risk Colorado, my father’s state. The sky soared around me. Out here, there’d been little earthquake damage, plus I had some idea where I was going now – on the second day, I’d found a road atlas in an abandoned car.

I was managing several hundred miles a day, which I prayed would be enough. The cattlemen out here were all in Raziel’s pocket; they’d turn me in to the angels in a second. So I stayed on little-used roads where I saw no other people at all. Sometimes, though, I’d pass rough signs – Green River Eden 36 mi., turn L on Hwy 191. The angels love you! – and my skin would prickle.

Once I passed one of the old posters of myself – and realized, startled, that even if I cut my hair short and dyed it red again, I wouldn’t look anything like that smiling girl. The Willow in the visor mirror had a thinner face – eyes that had known great sorrow. In fact, I didn’t really look like a girl at all any more. I looked like a woman.

The idea was a little unsettling…then it shifted, became part of me.

With no radio stations, the time passed in silence. Sometimes I sang as I drove, belting out all my old favourite songs; sometimes I just listened to the sound of the wheels trundling over snow.

Food wasn’t too difficult. Every abandoned store I came to had at least a few canned goods left – though always things like kidney beans or stewed prunes. Never any junk food; the Cheetos and Funyuns had probably been the first things to go.

Gasoline wasn’t really a problem either; it was just time-consuming. Crouching on frozen, abandoned forecourts to fiddle with a home-made pump should probably have been my least favourite thing to do as the days passed – but, actually, it gave me a feeling of satisfaction every time I did it.

After replacing a filler tank lid one morning in central Wyoming, I straightened up and gazed over snow-dusted plains. A flock of geese were flying south in a V-shape, and I watched for a moment, wondering why they’d waited so long to migrate.

And somehow, despite everything that had happened, and everything that might still be to come, I realized that I felt…peaceful.

Sun gleamed on the snowy plains. The geese grew smaller against the clear sky, and my body felt lighter suddenly, as if I could take off and fly through the air after them.

“I’ll always love you, Alex,” I murmured. “But I think I’m going to be all right without you. And I can’t tell you how glad I am.”

“Okay, this was not a good idea,” I muttered as the tyres jolted over snow-covered ruts.

It was the third day. I’d been eyeing the smooth grey sky and getting more and more worried about a serious snowstorm – and then some intuition had made me turn off the rural highway I was on, onto this unmarked dirt road.

God, I was going to break an axle out here. But for some reason I kept on going – and after about five minutes, I saw the house. It was set well back, with a paved drive that ended abruptly where it touched the road.

I stopped the car and took in a sprawling brick ranch house with a three-car garage; a twiggy tree in the front yard looked as if it hadn’t had a chance to grow yet. I did a quick scan. No one.

Making up my mind, I got out of the Toyota and checked my pistol, then stuck it in the pocket of my parka. As I shut the car door, it sounded like a bomb going off. I walked up the drive, my footsteps the only noise. Why am I here? I thought.

I studied the grassless front yard: the tangled, untamed lot across the road. And then I stopped, frowning.

For a second, it had felt as if the earth’s energy was reaching towards me – as if everything in the whole world was straining towards me, without even realizing. It was a bizarre sensation; then it was gone.

I stood very still, waiting – almost holding my breath – but nothing else happened. Finally I shook my head and turned back to the house. Right. Obviously I was lonelier than I’d thought.

Though I could have just sent my angel in to open up the place from the inside, I didn’t – it felt like an intrusion somehow. Instead I tried the front door, and when that was predictably locked, walked around the side of the house, testing windows. Finally one slid open.

I don’t know why climbing in through a window seemed less like breaking in, but it did – as if the house itself had granted me entry. I ducked past gold-coloured curtains and stepped down onto a hardwood floor. Then I stood staring as I tapped the snow from my shoes.

I was in a study, with a computer on a desk and a soft-looking leather sofa in one corner. I gazed at a pair of reading glasses. It felt as if I’d entered Tutankhamen’s tomb. Dust lay thickly on all surfaces, and everything was undisturbed, as if whoever had lived here had just stepped out and not come back.

What had happened to them? Had soldiers taken them to an Eden?

I shivered and made my way down the shadowy, carpeted hallway until I found the kitchen: a room with a bay window looking out to a large backyard. On the counter was a coffee machine, half-full and green with mould – there was even a mug with a red lipstick print. I didn’t go near it; instead I found the pantry and swung open the door.

Food. Suddenly I was ravenous – I’d only eaten odds and ends for days. Cans of soup faced me; spaghetti, stew, peanut butter, crackers. I found some plastic bags in a drawer and helped myself, plucking everything still edible off the shelves. There were whole shrink-wrapped cartons of bottled water. And Cokes – I could chill them in snow.

As I placed my “groceries” by what I assumed was the garage door, my heart skipped: there was a set of car keys hanging from a wooden pegboard.