To the Well-Organized Mind

Chapter Eight

[Fen]

We must understand our past in order to face our future. To that end, I have gathered and pieced together everything I could find and learn about what happened. What follows is my account of the Cataclysm and resulting pandemic.

-From Ridge's scattered papers

I knew I couldn't follow Nia into the forest no matter how much I wanted to. If I chased her, she'd despise me more and more: the leech constantly sucking away her life and energy at worst; the duckling constantly underfoot at best. But the moment I choose to stand on my own seems like the worst moment to pick.

And, as we find out the next morning, it is.

There are five other people adamant we are doing the right thing. Or at least one of us. After Nia marches into the forest without a backward glance, Sarah says the words on all our minds.

"Are you sure we should wait? She didn't seem worried at all as she went into the woods..."

The mutiny is already changing targets to Furie, but you wouldn't know by looking at her. She's almost glowing with determination and exhilaration. You'd almost think she was anticipating entering these woods and encountering the ferals.

The others begin murmuring as well, things like "How could Nia abandon us?" and "What was she thinking?" and even, amazingly, "I'm sure she'll be back in a minute. This must be a joke."

Furie finally snaps back to present awareness. "We don't need her," she says firmly. "We'll settle in for the night, get some rest, and enter the forest early in the morning when the sun begins to rise. Just think: tomorrow night we'll be sleeping in beds."

Smiles break out on faces whose muscles I thought were atrophied.

That night, Furie tells tales of Asis. We fall back into the pattern we had when we first found ourselves alive together in the Barrens. Furie was our leader then, tugging us forward with a hand on our hopes. Even I, who came here to die, found new life in the descriptions she gave us. How can you give up when someone shows up at random in the Barrens, claiming she has a map to Asis and can lead you to it?

She said her parents had been to Asis several times, regularly even. That they created the map and that they had had a relationship with the people of Asis. But when someone asked if Furie herself had ever been, she had to admit she had not. So when someone else asked when the last time her parents had been to Asis had been, she had faltered and couldn't immediately answer.

Hale put a stop to the questions.

"She has a map, and she's going to Asis. If you want to come along, come along. If you don't, just go your own separate ways."

But no one left. Especially not when Furie doled out supplies without hesitating, as if she could just trot back to her cellar and retrieve more, never worry. Hale looked apoplectic with bitten-back rage at her actions, but if the two of them exchanged words, we were all too busy devouring and singing her praises to notice.

And the supplies were amazing: freeze-dried soups and vegetables, powdered milk, rice, salt, sugar, dried lentils and beans, popcorn, and even maple syrup. Things some of us had never even seen—never even heard of.

Of course, her map was not exactly current, so we blew through the supplies as we stumbled around trying to figure out where various landmarks were that were labeled on the map and didn't seem to exist anymore.

That her map led us to one oasis, albeit one nearly dried up, kept our hopes alive even once the supplies were gone. But when we fractured and Tommy set off to explore ahead on his own, Furie's miracles had changed to ash. We were all too ready to follow the next miracle who stumbled into our midst: Nia.