The Best of Connie Willis Read Online Free Page B

she was afraid of catching something.
    “It’s a burn,” I shouted, snatching my hand back and cramming David’s stupid logs into the stove. “It isn’t radiation sickness. It’s just a
burn
!”
    “Do you know where your father is, Lynn?” she said as if she hadn’t even heard me.
    “He’s out on the back porch,” I said, “building his stupid greenhouse.”
    “He’s gone,” she said. “He took Stitch with him.”
    “He can’t have taken Stitch,” I said. “He’s afraid of the dark.” She didn’t say anything. “Do you
know
how dark it is out there?”
    “Yes,” she said, and went and looked out the window. “I know how dark it is.”
    I got my parka off the hook by the fireplace and started out the door.
    David grabbed my arm. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
    I wrenched away from him. “To find Stitch. He’s afraid of the dark.”
    “It’s too dark,” he said. “You’ll get lost.”
    “So what? It’s safer than hanging around this place,” I said and slammed the door shut on his hand.
    I made it halfway to the woodpile before he grabbed me again, this time with his other hand. I should have gotten them both with the door.
    “Let me go,” I said. “I’m leaving. I’m going to go find some other people to live with.”
    “There aren’t any other people! For Christ’s sake, we went all the way to South Park last winter. There wasn’t anybody. We didn’t even see those looters. And what if you run into them, the looters that shot Mr. Talbot?”
    “What if I do? The worst they could do is shoot me. I’ve been shot at before.”
    “You’re acting crazy, you know that, don’t you?” he said. “Coming in here out of the clear blue, taking potshots at everybody with that crazy letter!”
    “Potshots!” I said, so mad I was afraid I was going to start crying. “Potshots! What about last summer? Who was taking potshots then?”
    “You didn’t have any business taking the shortcut,” David said. “Dad told you never to come that way.”
    “Was that any reason to try and shoot me? Was that any reason to
kill
Rusty?”
    David was squeezing my arm so hard I thought he was going to snap it right in two. “The looters had a dog with them. We found its tracks all around Mr. Talbot. When you took the shortcut and we heard Rusty barking, we thought you were the looters.” He looked at me. “Mom’s right. Paranoia’s the number-one killer. We were all a little crazy last summer. We’re all a little crazy all the time, I guess, and then you pull a stunt like bringing that letter home, reminding everybody of everything that’s happened, of everybody we’ve lost …” He let go of my arm and looked down at his hand like he didn’t even know he’d practically broken my arm.
    “I told you,” I said. “I found it while I was looking for a magazine. I thought you’d all be glad I found it.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll bet.”
    He went inside and I stayed out a long time, waiting for Dad and Stitch. When I came in, nobody even looked up. Mom was still standing at the window. I could see a star over her head. Mrs. Talbot had stopped crying and was setting the table. Mom dished up the soup and we all sat down. While we were eating, Dad came in.
    He had Stitch with him. And all the magazines. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Talbot,” he said. “If you’d like, I’ll put them under the house and you can send Lynn for them one at a time.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I don’t feel like reading them anymore.”
    Dad put the magazines on the couch and sat down at the card table. Mom dished him up a bowl of soup. “I got the seeds,” he said. “The tomato seeds had gotten soaked, but the corn and squash were okay.”
    He looked at me. “I had to board up the post office, Lynn,” he said. “You understand that, don’t you, that I can’t let you go there anymore? It’s just too dangerous.”
    “I told you,” I said. “I found it. While I was